Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As far as time zone mechanics I think a binary window is contrary to the spirit of eve, as many have voiced. Eve is a place where you can get your **** handed to you 23/7 and I don't ever want that to change. If my enemy wants to alarm clock all 1,000 members of their alliance to catch me at my weakest time, more power to em, that's the stuff that makes eve great.

That said, with how it easy it seems to be to reinforce a structure, I do think it should be more difficult (read not impossible) to do so outside of the set prime time. Off the top off i my head i can think of a few options to (potentially) improve on the system.


1) Alliance chooses a Prime Time as in the suggested model but outside of the time zone is a flat multiplier that increases capture time instead of disabling it completely.


2) Alliance chooses a Prime Time. The further away from that time you are the longer it takes to capture.

One issue with this is that fighting after the Prime Time would be fighting an uphill battle as capture time increases. The opposite would be true in the hours leading up to it.


3) Alliance chooses a Prime Time and an "Off Time", these could be any length. During Prime Time the defense would be a challenge and during Off Time it would be easy. The time in between the two would be a medium.

There's lots of room for tweaking in this option. Prime Time could be a super vulnerable 1 hour period during which structures could be reinforced super easy and you need max dudes every day on that hour, or it could be a 4 hour period much like the plan laid out by CCP.

I think there's potential in this if executed correctly. During Prime Time you would be forced to have high numbers online and to be ready to respond quickly to invading fleets. During the shoulder hours you could mange it with with moderate numbers and pings to people who are actually awake, and during Off Time a system with high occupancy could be defended with a skeleton crew.

The complexity of this option would probably warrant an increase in the cooldown before alliance timezone changes take effect. Also a minimum number of hours between Off and Prime times would probably be needed among many other things i would never think of.


TL;DR timezones = possibly a good mechanic binary attack window = the worst idea I've ever seen.

Any way you look at a large enough alliance will face roll a small one right out of their space. All they have to do is match the defending fleet and then every additional fleet gets to cap another system.

Say for instance its normaly a 2.5 minute vs a 40 minute timer. During the middle times it would be 2.5m vs 3 hours and during off period it would be completely off. TiDi also stacks heavily in favor of the defenders in this system.

Also that "max dudes" time frame would be the exact same as the already proposed window. The only changes here are the other times.

Good idea. Let Russians roll everyone while you're asleep. You wake up in Soviet Russia.

the point is to make it possible for the attackers to get multiple structures out of RF at the same time to force defenders to spread fleets and make it harder to hold large areas

white? and yes i do believe that was the idea behind it stated in the dev blog

Keep it the way it is now, having a "prime time" ruins part of the sandbox aspect of eve.

We already do, technically. They're called unused buffer zones.

In real life, if someone is becoming completely dominant because of a specific tactic or piece of equipment, you invent a new weapon to counter with. In a video game we're stuck with the technology in game, and the developers HAVE to play the role of the inventors otherwise they just end up with a broken game.

This is the same argument I had over the Technetium Alchemy situation. In real life if OPEC monopolizes the oil in the world you invent electric cars etc. In eve, you cant invent your way around technetium, so CCP had to come in and make a change.


Whine more, then leave... you wont be missed.

There's really no way around the mechanic if you want to make sov accessible to small groups. It's also required to promote fights, by ensuring that opposing sides have to be there at the same time.

Shadowbane used to use a similar system for mine fights. It sucked, but it did it's job of promoting good fights. As long as there are enough windows, spread widely enough, it will be ok. Speaking of which, make sure that a large alliance has different assets vulnerable in different windows. Let no two constellations be identical. Holding vast swaths of space should not be easy.