Wormholes

There is no TL;DR. This post will be long, and it should be long, because this is a complicated issue. Words and ideas written here are completely my own, and include a copy/paste from a post elsewhere (not already on the forums). They are representative of my experiences and insights combined with feedback from friends who enjoy this style of gameplay. I do not speak for a corporation or alliance.

This is not about butthurt, and it is not about ISK printing. It is about a set of changes intended to severely dampen the ease of generating safety through rolling high class wormholes (as these were and still are the easiest holes to roll) that instead left them untouched while stagnating small low class corporation life to the point of no return. I am already seeing my friends spread across smaller low class wormhole corporations packing their things, a quick and unfortunate end to something once enjoyed by the vast majority of wormhole residents.

I have already posted in Hyperion feedback threads, but I felt that this needed to be said in a new thread. Unfortunately, this is not about a single change: this is about how all of the changes mesh together, and how the mixture they create will soon destroy a way of life inside of our spaceship sandbox. This issue extends beyond our enjoyment of this play style; small group wormhole content fills a very important role within Eve, as wormholes were really the last place that small group content could be found and experienced naturally.

I am responsible for approximately 65-70% of the mobile depots lined up in front of the station, because the small and now rapidly-perishing community that is small group, low class wormhole residents are in desperate need of some understanding from CCP as well as players that lack the experience of living in wormholes.

To users that have not lived in a low class (C1-C4) wormhole in a very small to medium-sized corp (between 1 and 10 or so active members), the changes pushed through in Hyperion may seem like the correct way to deal with the perceived "safety" of wormholes, where any possible PvP is simply rolled out of the chain via capital ship/Orca/battleship spam and we can continue running our sites and making absurd stacks of money. Having lived and operated in both small group (C2 and C4) and medium/large group (C5) corporations, as well as a C3 on my own, I can reliably tell you that this is not the case for those small groups living in low class wormholes.

Rolling your static hole is not simply a tool for the sole purpose of avoiding PvP content; more often than not, rolling is used much more frequently to find PvP content. As the majority of low class residents will tell you, rolling holes to "do sites safely" is almost not worth the effort. Spending 12 to 20 minutes rolling my static just to do a site or two for half an hour? Almost an hour spent to make money that, when split between my corp mates, comes out to less than if I had leisurely done L4 security missions in the pristine safety of highsec? No, we aren't here for that nor do we pretend to be. We are living in these low class holes to find PvP content unlike fights that we could find in lowsec or nullsec, and you'll have a very hard time finding a low class corporation that would turn down good PvP just to make 100 mil split between 3 to 4 people.

With the new changes (jump distance increase based on mass, additional C4 W-Space static, more random connections, new frigate-sized connections) that should have been the ones to cripple the behavior perpetrated by larger WH entities in high class holes (rolling static safely and almost instantly to be risk-free while they ran their cap escalations for absurd amounts of money) have instead obliterated the chances of small group wormhole residents to find PvP content. With the new mass-dependent jump distance changes, rolling your static with an Orca or capital ship went from a dangerous chore to an extremely risky edge-of-your-seat activity. And yes, even before these changes it was very possible to catch a large ship rolling a hole. You had to be willing to commit despite the possibility of being rolled out of the chain when the larger ship collapses the hole, which not a lot of smaller wormhole entities are prepared to do on a regular basis. This change decimates the feasibility of rolling your static or unwanted wormholes for smaller corporations when combined with the other changes. Increased random connectivity, new frigate-only connects, and the new C4 superhighway serve to drastically increase the length of the common wormhole chain, turning what was once a spotty at best map into something that looks more like a region in highsec once properly mapped. A handful of people I know spread across small wormhole corporations (that are now in the process of disbanding, if not already finished with doing so) have been sending me images since Hyperion went through of 4-5 connections to their hole with a lone static, one or two of them being the regenerating mass frigate holes.

With all of this connectivity and new massive chains... why are the people who claim to be lusting for PvP content complaining? The reason is that changes like this, which are meant for the large high class entities that roll their static out with a dreadnought and then make a couple billion isk in 20-30 minutes, are at most experiencing a 30-40 second delay to them while low class residents are essentially frozen in place.

[Continued in second post]

I live in c4 and I love Hyperion!

TL;DR Newly increased wh connectivity creates unknown system status for small corps with few scouts paralyzing them in fear. Also, massive chains that are usually mostly empty force low class scouts with non-perfect skills to dedicate much of their game time to scanning for content.


Anyone in wh space should max out their scanning skills. With lvl 5s you can scan out any wh regardless of sig count in about 5 mins. Personally I love huge chains so I'm enjoying all the changes so far except mass based spawn. I'm still fairly neutral on it. Generally large chains lead to pew of some sort but sometimes you get a massive dead chain. Nothing is happening in the 10-20 wh/ls/null you mapped out. Also I'd like to note that Blue-Fire generally scans these chains with 1-2 people. If we're lucky we got 3 scouts out lookin for stuffs.

my 2cents (theres no point so don't try to find it )

I don't see what this has to do with scanning skills. Yes, it takes me five minutes to scan the average wormhole but that doesn't change the fact that absolutely no one in lower class holes is dumb enough to run sites in the middle of the highway.

Smaller groups can no longer sustain themselves in lower class environments, leaving behind further dead space which no matter how fast you scan it, will still be dead.

I think everyone already 'branches out' - is that a logical solution or reason to destroy lower class holes even more rather than finding a solution to increase their population?

Could you please explain what you are loving?

Looking at your killboard, it appears your corp enjoys shooting abandoned POS's. As for your blog, it seems that you are new to your C4. (You moved in after Hyperion) BTW, I'm gonna add it to my read list. It is nice to see someone excited about playing in wormholes.

I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm just trying to hear your opinions as it relates to what you and your corp are doing. It appears you are enjoying the experience of mastering the unknown.

Unfortunately, some wormhole dwellers have already done that, and don't wish to start over.

Pretty much

Same here, I'm loving it. Chains are never ending right now, we tend to stop scanning as they're so long things get confusing. We got our 1000th kill last night, so happy :D

People need to spend less time writing big whine posts and more time hunting.

Also I hope I can pew you again sometime :P

Yeah, you are right. Chains are never-ending. Never-ending with not a damn active person in them. Tons more to scan with no added benefit. So now, the people that actually like scanning and are good at it are already seeing burnout on the horizon. A fail on every level...

Like my sig indicates I am a solo player.

I have been living in WH on and off for the past three years, with some interruption to give a try again to null sec life. I decided to leave null sec and return to WH earlier this year...

I have been supporting Hyperion changes and still am after their deployment.

My WH is a C3 and I have been living there for now more than 6 months, and I am staying, and not taking anything down. If I am kicked out, I will evacuate using my exit strategy, with minimal losses on my part, and maximal time loss from the attacker for really no gains, outside of the awesome bragging rights of having kicked out a solo,player from a system (surely an immensely ego boosting feat!)

I never really collapsed any WH as I always found content from whatever connection was made to my space, and making the most of them. In six months, I have used my orca may be three times to collapse, but that was mainly because I neded a logistics path to refuel my pos.

Being the smallest unit possible in the game forces me to be really cautious, but I am fundamentally a pvper. My killboard does not matter, and i post as a forum alt as I do know first hand that opinions expressed publicly can trigger retaliation in game. This is part of how I participate to the game I love, while using what I can for my assets protection.

As a solo, I lose ships often because of being the smallest entity possible.
Still I chose this play style and keep to it because I grew tired of the tyranny of the killboards in the NS alliances I played for, and paying taxes for the right to follow the orders from above.

I make around 1 billion per week in my C3 from my various activities, and I am not using all its resources fully. This is plenty to cover my own SRP and steadily improve my fleet. I play with three alts which I mostly use for scouting and support. I can farm anomalies even when I have opened WH in my system, I simply keep a cloaky eye on the open WH and warp out of anomalies at the first sound of intrusion, and then I investigate the potential for a kill from there.

The best change for me in Hyperion is the mass distance, because I have multiple times before met neighbors collapsing their WH to be safe from me (lol) and had no real chance to engage them. As they now have to slow boat a bit, this opens up new engagements options for me and I do like it a lot, even if I have yet to take advantage of it.
Having already collapsed WH on visitors to cut them off their base and kill them, I am perfectly aware of the risks of getting stuck on the other side and the pain it is to travel back home, pain which is even more significant when playing as a solo as each of my alts as a role to play in my income stream.

These past days, I had two or three WH but nothing unusual once the flurry of frig size WH ended.

I have reworked my pve fleet composition to take in account the new change and have started farming again. I watch d-scan more often, and am becoming an even more cautious WH mouse to avoid the fat cats out there eager to get an easy gang up, and I continue killing the occasional visitor that does not know that WH mice are still a dangerous specie.

Overall, farming my WH in the past six months have been way too easy, and I welcome the new challenges, and opportunities, that Hyperion is bringing.

I disagree with the OP that the changes are going to affect the smaller groups more, but I do understand we may not have the same play style either. To each their own opinion, I just want to show that i do not recognize myself in the doom and gloom of the op.