Player Features and Ideas Discussion

p.s.
Super-gates, any new SOV v2.0 needs to include Super-gates. (No, not just gates for 'supers', but super-duper-big-to-new-places gates as envisioned by CCP...)

F

I'll try to make this short and to the point. I will probably leave some points out for simplicity's sake. There are a ton of ideas in this thread that I didn't read, so sorry if some of this is repeating.

Current Sov System - My Perspective
Before suggesting a bunch of new changes, you need to look at the Idea of Sov space and the current problems preventing that idea from being a reality.

Sov Space Should:

• Generate more rewards than high/low sec
• Have higher risks, such as no CONCORD security
• Be a goal for players and groups to claim "their own space"
• Promote destruction (consumption) by rewarding attacking and defending
• Enable alliances to build footholds in space where they have an established presence.

Current Sov Space:

• Provides income via r64 moons, even if an alliance has no sov in that system
• Allows alliances to control vast regions of space with little or no daily presence (see: PL). This space is then rented for a fee.
• Provides nearly no incentive to go to war.
• Does not allow for newer groups to successfully establish themselves in 0.0 (aside from renting- not a function of the game)
• Serves as a deterrent for newer players- a few powerful groups effectively control all of 0.0 space.

There are some major problems with the current sov system. r64 moons providing huge amounts of income for very little investment allows for large entities to easily snipe those moons without actually having a presence in that space. Once an existing coalition controls an r64 moon, it is extremely to take it away from them in the current state of the game.

Renting is also a major issue- entities are able to control huge amounts of space and rent that space without having any sov rights or presence in those systems. Aside from the gigantic income earned from renting, the lack of presence by the controlling alliance means that there are less points of conflict in those systems. Forcing alliances to have presence in systems to reap the advantages leads to more destruction and consumption, which benefits everyone. If you don't believe me, check out the Deklein killboards lately (free carrier kills in JU- apparently!).

Mittani has made this point several times- we have no reason to go to war to try to take more space, because the incentive just isn't there. Grinding timers to take sov is incredibly boring and takes hundreds or thousands of man hours. It is not fun, and no one wants to do it. All the current coalitions control renting territory, and a war to take sov would cost significantly more than it would benefit either side.

How do you expect to advertise Eve as "Endless Opportunities*" in the current state of Sov? Endless Opportunities.... unless you want to live in 0.0, because then you're stuck in Provi (which has sub par space) or forced to pay an existing coalition rent in a system that you have nearly no control over. The current sov system provides no feeling of "ownership" or investment- players want to be able to invest their resources and energy to provide meaningful benefits in space that they own.

Proposed Changes:

• Edited: Remove all moons as alliance income sources. Add more moon sources to make moon income an individual/small corp level of income. This will lead to more action related to moons.
• Require a presence in systems to control sov. Otherwise, make sov more expensive with a reducing cost based on how much activity is there.
• Provide more incentives for working in and upgrading your sov space. Look at FW for an example of tiers, combat possibilities, mission running, etc. (These incentives should provide more value to corps/alliances than existing rental income, or make the rental mechanic more costly to provide less income).
• Create a Sov based LP system that allows corps/alliances to purchase upgrades for their territory or to purchase specialized ships or equipment (or permanent teams?). I hate to even say this name, but look at how WoW implemented guild upgrades- I'm positive that CCP can do better than that.
• Alliances should function like a faction when they have 0.0 sov. Make war decs meaningful in 0.0. Perhaps you can only take sov space while at war, and perhaps being at war is more meaningful than the current state?

These are just some ideas. There are a lot of other good ones that I've quickly browsed through in this thread.

The end goal of these changes is not just to fix the situation for the major coalitions. We need more new players in Eve. More players leads to more consumption, which benefits everyone- even if they want to spend their entire eve careers shooting rocks. We need people to "grow" from high-sec to 0.0 because there are real, meaningful, incentives there. We need more wars. Things blowing up drives the economy - even if you're not part of a war, you are affected by it. Also, wars are great publicity.

If Fozzie wants to respond- is CCP actively working on something for Sov, or are there just ideas on a white board? This is a major issue, and I hope that CCP realizes that these issues are some of the most impactful in the game and for CCP as a company.

So much for this being a short post!

Edit:
How do you expect new groups to get into the existing sov system when any of the large coalitions can drop the hammer like this- on a tower? It doesn't matter if it were the CFC or N3PL, the response would have been the same.
Also, modified r64 suggestion.

Here's another:

Ships jumping/bridging to cyno have a 1min sensor recalibration timer.

Is there something we should know?

Oops I meant to say relevant....my bad

So yeah, do you have an actual vision for null sec and sovereignty?

Because if not, get one pretty quick, tia.

My issue with sov (and eve in general) is that there is no reliance whatsoever on local industry. Goonswarm doesn't really need any indy corps. Sure, they need someone, somewhere to manufacture crap, but it doesn't matter who it is or where they are. Why? Because they have enough money to buy them, and moving things in eve is as easy as... well, pick your favorite cliche.

The kronos release made some changes that move in the right direction as far as local industry, but the issue is not the industry, it's the hauling. I think the addition of the jump freighter was the worst thing ever to happen in eve. (yes, I know, before JFs there were the carrier jumping exploits). The jump freighter is basically: "Pay the cost of jump fuel, and Press F1 to import things."

I think the simplest, most beneficial change would be the removal of the ability to cyno into docking range. JFs might need a tweak, so it's not a crap shoot, of course. But suddenly, you have to actually protect the caravan moving your crap; it doesn't just arrive at your doorstep (thus also giving incentive to local production - prevention of the risk entailed in moving things around). Suddenly, your carrier fleet moving across the universe to reinforce friendlies can be intercepted at midpoints.

It would change the game significantly, but when the rage dies down, I think it would make for a much more dynamic environment.

I would love to see the standings been removed.

no more blue, light blue and all those colors.

You can set 5 standings for free
and you can buy some daily standings for some billions.

so there will be no more those big standing lists and if you want someone to be your ally then both of you need to pay to a third party (CCP) some isk

you have 5 standing tickets that you can spend among your best allies / enemies.

after that it is based on the operation you go out there and wand the alliance "A" to be blue set "A" blue and pop up a window to pay 2b for that, also inform mordus that someone wants to make you blue so they pay the tax from their side also.
if you want a corp that will scale down if you wand a second alliance to be blue scale up.

with this one you can have a battlefield with no standings a fu$%ed up overview you have to pay attention not to shoot your allies (without standing).

generally I believe a short blue list and only temporary standings (daily only) will be a good think and an isk sink for CCP

Most forum threads from CCP in F&I seem to be 'seed for discussion then harvest for ideas' without any sort of curating or guidance in any particular direction. I can think of some good reasons for doing so- not wanting to show undue favouritism, not wanting to suppress wilder, more creative ideas and giving alternative suggestions a chance to flourish, or just the ideas all being crap and being tactful in not coming out and calling everyone a bunch of idiots.

On the whole, most ideas in F&I seem to fall on deaf ears. It's not that CCP aren't reading it, it's that they already have their own idea of what they need to do overall and when they need to measure how well a feature they've done work on resonates with the community and look for minor tweaks or gotchas they might have glossed over, they come to us with that. Adopting a suggested feature from scratch is never as simple as 'that sounds good let's do that'- as CCP Greyscale once noted, all ideas have to be fully considered from as many angles as possible and worked out in detail with real numbers and figures, which is rarely done in a sufficient manner by even the more invested players. Also, CCP will have a their own sense of priority too- many ideas disappear into the depths of the forum just because they're suggested at the wrong time (I don't know how good CCP's designers are at keeping notes of ideas about features they may not touch for years).

One final consideration- there's a vested interest in not being overly open or involving in their process as doing so would compete with their job... if they turn around to their boss and go 'I just read the forums and all their ideas were better than mine' I'm not sure how long they'd last, so even if you have a good idea you'd need to wait on it being 'stolen' (and I mean that in the nicest way- Holly Lisle wrote a lovely article on (legally and ethically) stealing ideas- http://hollylisle.com/how-to-legally-and-ethically-steal-ideas/).

I just read 6 pages, I'll try to read it all as it has a good lore of the eve back then :)

what about all jump capable ships can jump in the region but you have to take the big regional gates to move to the other, add some more connection to those regions and you will have some spots that you can hunt the capital fleet or make the capital fleet vulnerable.

I don't know if it works but as the one jump bridge per system is the "same way" you jump everywhere in the region to defend/attack but if you want to go next door you have to jump through the gate.

you have to watch your regional gates all the time if you don't want to get invaded and with this way you make some bottlenecks to hunt down jump capable fleets.

what do you think of it?