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Still pretty disappointed about the removal of teams (not the least of the factors behind this disappointment being that I had a killer webdev project regarding teams that I had to mothball,) but I understand.

If teams had been a destroyable system upgrade/deployable where you could pick and choose to some extent instead of dependent on an awkward auction system with an erratic supply, they might've been a bit more popular and interesting.

Props for doing this now, though, rather than waiting until a bad feature got entrenched.



So 95% of everything would be built in Jita/Amarr/Rens/Dodixie?

Can't say I'll miss them TBH, never made much use of them...

Teams were an interesting idea, but they just weren't worth the effort and risk.

The consideration of Teams interested me, but the auction mechanic meant I was unlikely to ever be able to utilize them. I had put in a few bids on them, but the auctions (on most, if not all teams, not just the ones I bid on) all ended during times that I was unable to be online. No sense in wasting effort on something when last-minute-bids are the only real way to achieve it.

While the option to move to a system with a number of teams was indeed present, many teams would be either in nulsec, or they would be in a system whose industry index was so high that it negated a lot of the savings of the Team. Combined with the need to move everything to the new system, putting several billion to several tens-of-billions of ISK-value assets at risk in the move, and Teams just weren't worth the effort.

Moving to a quiet system and putting up a tower was not only more reliable in terms of long-term savings, but it allowed you to actually be able to set up long-term plans without having to potentially move your entire base of operations just because a set of Teams was lost / moved while a middle step was still being completed. As well, managing ISK, risk, and assets was simply easier by not moving.

While multiple industrialists could have banded together to try for a team, you run right back into the issue of the industry index. You might get a team that saves you 5% on materials cost, but with more industrialists in the same system, your industry index is going to be higher. On many items, the real savings may end up being closer to 1-2% after you factor in all of the other increased industry index costs that the Team is not affecting. Of course, that is only so long as you have that team. Just as soon as your system is unable to win that team, you'll be losing on that item due to the industry index.

I can absolutely see the value in teams for the production of larger things (battleships and capitals, for example), but smaller things? Rigs and many (most?) mods seemed to me to have better (and more stable) savings available to moving to a backwater system with a low industry index.

Anyway, that's why I never got into Teams.

I suspect teams are really being removed because some people have become too efficient in cornering the very good ones, and as a result, also cornering some high end (low volume, high margin or high volume, decent margin) markets, such as JF, marauders, freighters, some HACs etc.

I don't doubt that the use of teams overall is in the single digits, percentage-wise, and you know that's because most of the teams are not worth the trouble investing in. But that also tells you that a lot of teams are useful..

It is also disappointing to see that you made no attempt to improve the two biggest issues people have been griping about since teams were introduced: a) the less than user-friendly UI, and b) the murderously inconvenient auction system.

This move is like throwing away the baby with the entire pool, where all you had to do was maybe get a bath for it.

Not having teams will democratize the markets a bit more, so I don't entirely dislike it. But it reduces some of the complexity in industry and this game has been dumbed down enough already...

They would, of course, need to replace the system cost index with a different mechanic to prevent that.
I understand the intention behind it, to spread out people all over the map and all that, but this is just poor gameplay design, in my opinion.

It prevents people from getting and working together, because too many people producing in one system would raise the index and reduce margins for all of them.

I could name more arguments against it, but this thread is not about the system cost index, so enough of that...



Regards,

Damjan

My problems with teams as they currently are;
-stupid bidding process
-i am not going to move my manufacturing base just for 1 team, forget it. 100k+ items and thousands of freighter loads is not worth it.
-in terms of invention i much more preferred meta items.
-not a chance at all for proper long term planning due to new production, which makes teams that might be worth bidding billion for not worth considering.

despite that, I would still not remove them. They do nothing negative to the game play experience for anyone not using them.

A few other things I forgot to mention:

7) My corp had actually stopped building when Crius hit. Stopped. Why? Because it was poorly implemented and needed refinement, some of which it got, so we almost got back into it but had realized our costs were now nearly double what they were before, so we mostly stopped again, save for new items from patches like Bowheads.

8) There was no way to tag a team auction you wanted to keep an eye on or to see what teams your system had already bid on. Your concept was that systems full of industrialists would work together to bid on teams for their system, except you gave them no means to do so. Even if your system had already bid on a team, you had no way to know who it was to coordinate more bids.

9) There was no notifications when you were out bid on an auction, not that it mattered anyways as whoever out bid you would usually get sniped at the end by someone else entirely.

Personally, I haven't used teams at all in what little industry I actually do, so this change wouldn't have an effect on me. I'm confident you guys will do what's best for the game though.

Why I do not use team.

- You cannot move them.
- Really uninsteresting the way its done at the moment.


Now what to do instead of scraping the idea.


Industrials should be able to trade team and use those team where they want.
They could be retired after a certain number of task, not related to time.


I like the idea to make a real industry of it and not only train and use.
So there's team university run by capsuleer.
Then where to train the team ?
- In low sec only few station have a university habitat (about 10% of all the low sec NPC station), equally distributed in low sec
- In null sec an habitat have to be added to a station.
Skills
- University campus allow to train a certain number of team per skill
- University training allow to train certain type of training related to the level (related to what the team is able to improve)

Then using team for an insdustrialist, could be done with two skills
- Team efficiency allow the team to work better with each level (lower production price)
- Team longevity or experience, allow more work per team (lower team cost efficiency and production cost).

A Team could be kill or not during transport in cargo bay, in case of attack.
And if captured, well they are back onto the market.


So team become a usefull workforce and way to make isk as well.


Edit : for the team in order to train them, I was looking at a container full of stuff that I never use, but we have them through mission.
A team need to eat so par of the product need to form a team could be "livetock", "dairy product", "frozen food" and maybe few other items like some teaching holoreeds.
They are seeded in all mission randomly in wreck and some structure.