Player Features and Ideas Discussion

you're giving people and CCP too much credit. People will always find the best way to do things and everyone with duplicate that, it's simple. CCP won't change something unless there is something seriously wrong with it. It's not to say CCP won't balance/nerf/buff/etc. it's whether if it's worth the money they pay to the devs to do it.

Let's look at the basic issues.

You produce your own ships in your own station: there is no reason for costs to increase just because volume of use for a given hull increases.

The games resource model is completely ******** and will never ever allow for a true economic production model until it is changed. Allow me to qualify: highsecs resources should by 11 years in to the game be practically nonexistent. I don't mean mined out by some isboxer before you get there I mean literally nonexistent. Those resources were consumed a long time ago. Similarly to how real life works where you must go further and further abroad for materials eve could run a "regional resource monitor" where there is a static amount of resources available for mining per week and that systems/constellations which see heavy mining will quickly deplete utterly and all the resources eventually consolidate towards less used systems (predictably leading all resources to concentrate in lowsec) over time.

This has the same effect of increasing cost for a given region on manufactured items. Observe: regions where all the resources have pooled in lowsec now face dynamic danger to mining ships such as frequent pirate attacks with no concord, extortion, mining protection fleets and inevitability prices for goods spiralling out of control as gankers starve the market for minerals. A starvation so severe big groups might decide to put the cheap ganks down. This is how you encourage people to take risks - by starving them.

In nullsec the lack of easy minerals (in addition to new sov indices) encourages mining locally. Over time resources get further and further away from central systems (caveat - indices for industry get modified to be based on industry not just mining) and this promotes risks for mining fleets as they by necessity get closer to the front lines. In all ways do prices for things go up especially mineral inefficient tech2 ships but also incomes go up too since mining itself becomes a more valuable task and the trade of B.N.I. (bearer negotiable instruments) can become a second market.

I've been involved in real life mining/markets/logistics for years. My understanding might not be as complete as guys like Ejyog but to me this would promote a healthier market climate, healthier gameplay and give more reasons to concentrate your empires power near its edges not its centres.

What.. the hell are you talking about? One of the first pieces of feedback on the new sov system was to make the industry indices account for performed construction jobs (and presumably a lot more than just mining which is bullshit).

And why does everyone assume that all systems must be taken and MUST have sov structures up? Most of nullsec is empty just leave those POS systems to rot with no structure in them it doesn't matter, and sure send your mining fleet in there hell we had a team of prospects raiding some mining anomalies in my region of space. We don't care, we might as well not even own those systems since noone lives in them.

It's kind of like the argument of sending an army to conquer a swamp, a swamp that stretches for miles and miles and is full of discarded large-web fishing net and bear traps. Only someone with a fetish for preserved cadavers and a high casualty rate would bother.

I like OP's suggestion. It makes longtime investment in the market even more interesting. Also i like to fly cheap :) (and i had the same idea 2 weeks ago, but did not write it)
Let me think about it:
i agree with this argument, but it does not apply here, because OP prefers balance patches over his suggestion.


No such assumption has been made. I say: Anyone who cant calculate or guess risk/benefit ratio should immediately learn it or accept to be bad in this game.


Where is that rage coming from? noone would force anyone. but the more efficient ones will get less efficient by costing more. then it might be more efficient to bring other ships and different numbers at some point.


Well, the odds are against the second party, but IF they win (and i assume you know that this is unlikely but still very possible) then they safed some isk. note: the 30% should be some number that expresses these odds.
hint: If you just want to win, bring lame overkill without proper escalation, but you get less kills in result.
phil: Isnt every fight similar to a bet, where you want to manipulate the odds to your favor, but one brings stakes as he likes? if yes, there should at least be a healthy risk measurement possible.
credo: we need more ewartypes that also penetrate caps and drones, obviously.


interesting. why even use ishtar in solo/smallscale then? more diversity is my common goal here. deimos will be sooo much cheaper with nearly same effectiveness and much higher efficiency.

Reina Xyaer---"The big alliances will still loose less of them, buy/replace them for their line members, etc."
Big alliances loose less, that might be true. but big organisations still need to calculate risk/benefit. if its worth to bring one dread or more recons instead of 6 ishtars they might do it. --> more versatitily
Suggestive Addition: Let ships that have gotten damage loose Resistance efficiency. (Exploit: repackage->assemble.) -> (higher rig/salvage consumption. <-- i'd like that). To encourage usage even more one might even apply resistance mali to ships that do not fight at all. Rust all the things!

Reina Xyaer---"CCP just needs to balance things more actively. How about instead of adding stupid crap like T3s every few patches, they do balance updates ever 2 weeks? Anyone?"
I agree. I would like that. I just wonder, how expensive is that devtime?

---
However, i still like adjusting resistance profiles to usage patterns most of all the self balance mechanix. make the "OP" ships more like glasscannons automatically without any devtime involved. -> easier release of rage against the overpowery.
It would cover the following issue being made here:
Anhenka---"If a ship is expensive but makes you have lower losses than you would otherwise, it's still the best ship the job because between requiring fewer people for the same punch and lower actual losses due to increased combat effectiveness leading to faster victory, it's still better to fly the more effective ship."

Yes, I agree and am not proposing a system whereby ship stats are progressively nerfed. Just cost. When imbalance is left too long then you get stale metas. Think Drake, Hurricane, Tengu, Ishtar. These are examples of ‘players discovering strengths and weaknesses and relying on them’ to the extreme.


I see no problem with the fifth objection. This sounds like emergent game play to me. The free market argument could just as well be applied to every ship rebalance pass. We are operating under the assumption that balance passes will occur.

Thanks for a constructive post. It was interesting and useful to read.


This is a proposal to balance within classes, not between them. Or are you suggesting that the concept is flawed within the supers class?


I agree there is little lore justification for this. I think diversity is more important than lore. I’m sure a way could be found – just look at the Entosis link.

Settle down. If it costs more to produce, you sell it for more. If you can't sell it for more, you build something else. This is how the market works - this is no different.

This could be balanced so that relatively minor biases (such as may be observed as a result of a ship being 'good at solo') do not trigger a cost increase. If something is 'good for fleets' to the extent that the ship is used to the exclusion of everything else then it is a diversity problem. Maybe you should search for the term, "Ishtars online".

Please remember that the proposal is to balance within a class. The fact that noobs flock to, let's say, exploration frigates, would not make any difference as long as the distribution within the exploration frigate class is not imbalanced.

The additional cost is in materials. There is no isk sink or faucet here.

Finally, I'd like to comment on the recurring theme of 'taking control away from the players' and 'markets should control'. When dealing with ship balance, or more properly imbalance, we are talking about something which already threatens the sandbox. In the real world the competition would do something to make their product better, or perhaps in an EVE-like world sabotage the dominant ship. Such approaches are not open to us - we are already artificially prevented from dealing with imbalance.

The existence of ship stockpiles makes this meaningless.

What about pre-existing BPC? Say, I have a nice stock of Ishtar, Zealot, Muninn, Deimos, Rook, Curse, Jaguar etc. BPCs: would they be adjusted every time the system detects overusage of a ship?

NO

don't you dare sass me on ishtars

I have done nothing but strive to see the game brought to balance and that meaningful choices be opened up to players based on ship performance not cost

I will not be dragged down to this lower level of anti-intellectual dialog through the insinuation that I am ignorant to the workings of the current meta and of the future meta - I'm already doing it. I've been doing it for years. I am currently in the CFC, one of the biggest abusers of rail-tengu and shield ishtar fleets if not the biggest in the whole game.

Your solution to the problem I do NOT agree with. At all. Period.

The solution to better balance is through modifying the resources in the game. Lowering them enough so that having gigantic fleets of supers is simply unsustainable and that titans stop being some laughable "end game goal" peddled to the newbies.