EVE Alliance Tournament Discussion

The hype is real.

This is going to be great, I'm super pumped.

I do have one concern for the AT and that is that it is becoming clear that it favors wealthy teams. If it was just one angle in which this was the case, then it wouldn't be an issue as other teams would still have a reasonable chance. However, the big teams currently just have too many advantages - namely, the following.

(I) The entrance costs are of little or no consequence to them.

We know that the cut off for the NEO's silent auction was 13 PLEX which I suppose is reasonable considering the NEO is a cash prize tournament and has less teams. However, that number is probably also bit lower than it should be as the NEO takes place in March, where people are lot less likely to have free time to compete than in summer or winter.

Assuming the cutoff is similar for ATXII, that's at least 10 billion isk just to get in and this number will rise every year as Eve grows and the number of alliances competing in the tournament stays the same.

(II) Fleet costs

Sure you can fly cheap ships, but nobody is going to get very far in the AT with tech 1 ships. Teams can and should be able to field their very best possible setup that they can come up with and have practiced, no matter the cost. Having to pour the 10+ Billion in entrance fees is a pretty big hit for average non-sov block alliances and cuts into how much they can afford to invest in ships. If they have to compromise on their setups because of cost and end up losing as a result, I think that's really bad for the tournament.

(III) Tournament Ships

Only a handful of teams can afford to field Malices, Etanas and the like. These ships are made to be explicity overpowered by the devs and basically only a handful of alliances can afford to put down the 70+ Billion to acquire just one of them.

(IV) Flagship

Lastly, very few teams can afford to put in 20-80B into the flagship. And you know the wealthier teams are going to take full advantage.

(V) Gravitation of pilots (indirectly)
We know the success of the top teams also has led to top pilots leaving their alliances and moving to those teams, which has reinforced the effect. Of course, this is perfectly normal and expected. But it is a symptom of a non-competitive system as pilots see that their only way to success is to switch teams instead of fostering a competitive team themselves in their alliance.

Overall, participation in the AT is awfully expensive if you're not a large sov block alliance or a previous winner with prize ships to fund your tournament. This wouldn't be so bad if the expected value of competing in the tournament wasn't approximately zero for 95% of teams. It's also interesting that the farther a team goes in the tournament, the more it costs to compete effectively. And so you have a rubber band effect where the farther a team goes the more they are burdened, especially when they inevitably drop down to the losers bracket.

It's not obvious what can be done about these issues. There's not much that could change about problem (II), as CCP probably wants to keep the AT on TQ for business reasons. There's not much that can be done about (III) either as we all like to see tournament ships get blown up, let's be honest . The flagship is probably not consequential enough to change either, although I personally find it a bit of a gimmicky mechanic, especially since by nature it steers teams only toward Battleship flagships. If this somehow wasn't the case, you could have more interesting gameplay if teams could viably field more unusual ships like, oh idk, Faction Web Huginns.

Perhaps the easiest way to help things be a little more equitable for smaller alliances, would be to address (I). The system used last year, whereby half of teams are randomly drawn in makes little sense as you end up getting some rather poor teams competing and likely leaving some competent (non-sov) teams out simply because they, ironically, try to spend their time in Eve doing pvp instead of grinding for isk.

If we hope to have Eve be well represented and grow as an esport, then it needs to be as competitive and fair as possible. We all know how eve the sandbox is rarely ever fair and competitive as it is a game characterized by asymmetric war. The AT is much better in this regard which is one the things that make it so great and refreshing, but it could be better still.


P.S. Thanks for reading my wall of text. And forgive me for posting from an NPC alt but these are my own opinions, and I didn't want to allow folks here to project this on my alliance who may or may not agree with this.

so one cant join an allaiance and compete ? or that month "April " is a tiny typo there ? .. or im just missing something ?

"PLACE AND TACTICS:"

"The arena contains nine Mobile Micro Jump Unit structures, one placed in the center and eight placed 87km away from the center in the direction of each of the eight team beacons. These outer structures form a cube around the center of the arena with sides approximately 100km in length. These Mobile Micro Jump Units are indestructible and usable by all."


CCP Wants to watch the universe burn. This aught to be interesting.

Either the first quote is missing the t3 in a logi configuration, or the 2nd quote should not mention it. Unless, of course, you want to allow an unlimited number of logi t3's.

You might also want to change the wording to mention that it's not just any strategic cruiser, but a strategic cruiser with the logi subsystem.

I see. I guess my understanding of "one of" is not what was intended by the author.

Firstly, this is very disappointing. You go to such lengths to level the playing field (only 3% implants), balance the point costs (different costs for Domis and Ishtars) and then do this. I guess your desire to see expensive ships explode is stronger than your desire to have a fair tournament.

Secondly, I think we're going to need a clarification of that. What's meant by "T2 and Faction" status?

Does the Moracha count as a HAC or as a Recon, for example?

Marauder points nerf seems very misplaced as they weren't even very effective in the NEO where the smaller format benefits them.

BTW, only formal CEO of alliance (CEO of holder corporation) can send participation request? Or it could be anyone interesting in partisipation from this alliance?

Can some CCP dev shed some light on what will the line up will look like next week? Specifically the loser bracket. Specifically the upcoming CODE match?

Just curious.