EVE Information Portal

This new system is not intended to bust up the Huge coalitions, its to provide entertainment to the Blue Blocks. If you want to inject Real Conflict into null you must take away the incentives these Candyland Coalitions exist in the first place. Hold your breath.

Trying to maintain 4 very different games (Empire, Lowsec, Nulsec and Dust) on 1 server is going to become a task even CCP can't manage, "balancing" certain aspects of game play to suit a minority, leaves the majority with less than ideal balance. Right now it is Nulsec that is being changed, not improved or fixed, just changed.

Goal #1: As much as possible, ensure that the process of fighting over a star system is enjoyable and fascinating for all the players involved
Failed, unless the goal was directed only at large groups

Goal #2: Clarify the process of taking, holding and fighting over star systems
Missed the mark because Goal 1 is not met for other than a few select groups.

Goal #3: Minimize the systemic pressure to bring more people or larger ships than would be required to simply defeat your enemies on the field of battle.
As long as armies of allies can be used to take sov, this is not going to happen.

Goal #4: Drastically reduce the time and effort required to conquer undefended space.
Pointless really as the only undefended space will be that which is not worth owning or defending.

Goal #5: Provide significant strategic benefits from living in your space.
Only if you belong to one of the major groups in viable space. The systems the large coalitions don't want will never be viable to live in as you will never get defensive indexes high enough to be of benefit. Yeah 4 or 5 years from now when CCP get around to balancing systems that may change but the upcoming release will see large tracts of unclaimed space because under the new system it will not be defensible.

Goal #6: Spread the largest Sovereignty battles over multiple star systems to take advantage of New Eden’s varied geography and to better manage server load.
Don't know about New Edens varied geography, a system with a node in it is the same as the one next door, no matter what geography it has but if having 400 to 500 players in each of 6 or 7 adjoining systems playing the "capture the node" mini game will reduce server load, this goal may actually be met.

Goal #7: Any new Sovereignty system should be adaptable enough to be rapidly updated and to incorporate future changes to EVE.
Don't know if this will be possible without 1st fixing the overriding flaws with sov. This proposal overall does not address the fundamental issues surrounding sov, so any future changes will likely only add to the current bias.

Remove prime time or incorporate all aspects of sov into it. Removing stations from prime time breaks the prime time mechanic.

Honestly CCP... What are you thinking?

Yes, structure grinding is boring. Yes, you need large ships to do so easily. But why this focus on smaller skirmish style warfare? I left the game for quite some time, and when I come back, the dreamland sandbox game I once knew has started to be boxed up like every other game on the market. You are interjecting quite harshly into what was once a free land, and not for the better.

As was stated in the post goals, "This also creates an artificial floor on the size of alliances or coalitions that can be successful in Sovereignty." There SHOULD be a floor size on the alliance or coalitions that can claim sov. It takes a lot of people working together to create and build the alliances capable of supporting such infrastructure, a lot of hours, and a lot of isk. There should be some renown with holding sov, it should not be something any 5 pilots can go do alone.

Even with this goal in mind, the entire system seems structured in a way that will ONLY allow large alliances to flourish. 5 guys for example cannot claim 10 nodes in 7 systems against 10 guys, they just don't have the numbers. That undermines your entire 'you gotta fight for it to get it' idea. Again, all of these goals so far have contradicted each other.

"Goal #6: Spread the largest Sovereignty battles over multiple star systems to take advantage of New Eden’s varied geography and to better manage server load."

Take advantage of New Eden's varied geography.... this sounds like a very thin excuse for the second part, which if your PR people were smart, wouldn't have brought our attention to in the first place. We are players, most of us do not care about your business practices or if your servers can handle it. We pay (300,000 active players x$20 a month) $6,000,000 a month to you to play your game, if after 12 years you still don't have the server capacity to support 30,000 active players at once, I'm super curious where our money is going (DUST514 *cough cough*).

As you also mentioned in the blog, "Huge clashes between empires have become one of the most iconic symbols of EVE’s uniqueness and a source of well-deserved renown both for the game itself and for the fleet commanders who lead these battles." Now you're making sense! This is one of the reasons I came back to Eve Online. After more than 3 years of being away, nothing compared to the experience I had playing this game, being in a system with 2200 people, hundreds of super caps, titans, battleships galore on the fields, fights everywhere, it was exhilarating. No other game can come close to matching the possibilities of what you guys have created here.

And now I return, and Eve seems a tired old shell of what it once was. Not entirely mind you, but it seems this little thing called Jump Fatigue seems to have killed any chance of me ever experiencing what made me fall in love with your game again. From what I hear from other players, I'm not alone on this, and its probably a subject that's been beaten to death by now. However, between the changes to jump fatigue, the changes to how sov is claimed, and to the type of fights you seem to be gearing this game towards, (that was supposed to be a open ended sandbox mind you) it seems to be moving entirely away from capital fights at all. Add in the upcoming changes to assigning fighters, and the above mentioned (and mentioned in several other places) complaints by you to us about the server lag issues, which I'm sure capitals play a large role in, it all starts to come together.

Now I don't know if this was intentional plotting against the people who pay you (because mind you, super cap pilots dont grow on trees, they grow slowly and pay you a lot of money to have their accounts long enough to fly one) or if this is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right one is doing, but it all adds up to this. You are eliminating the need for capitals entirely from the game.

If I wanted to shoot something small, I'd bring a small gun. If I want to take over a country, I bring my big guns. With these changes to sov, you will make it possible for quite some nasty things to happen. One, it seems people in high sec could easily just go reinforce systems, all the time, anywhere they felt like. These people typically play little role in nullsec sov in my very limited experience, however you are giving them a huge opportunity to start expanding. That may be good, of course it will lead to more fights for space potentially, however quite the headache for us players who have to now trek to 30 systems every day to wait for stuff to come out of reinforce, because anyone with 10 min to spare can swing by and screw something up.

So are you trying to shrink peoples holdings? Well, you may not achieve that goal. Remember, the largest alliances still do have a TON of players. On a given day, heck even in a 4 hour period during prime time, some of the largest alliances could very easily send out dozens of 5 man squads to go on a 2-3 hour rampage through space, laying waste to exposed systems, and generally causing havoc. There may end up being hundreds of systems being reinforced daily, but it may end up being done by one or two or three groups primarily. This may end up being that instead of increasing the amount of skirmish warfare you are so fond of, you instead stomp out any chance of legitimate small players holding space on their own, and forcing them to absorb into the borg.

In the end, it doesnt matter what the intentions were, or which way the cookie crumbles. It appears no matter what, its a system full of flaws, that I seriously hope you address before it is released. I hope if someone from CCP reads this, they keep just one thing in mind the rest of their career: This game is sandbox, and should be managed as hands off as possible. Let the players run free, see what happens. That was the original idea.

Anyone who thinks this will improve null sec industry needs to have his head examined.

No it removes the ability for small alliances to "hold" space. They may be able to take a system here and there the bloks don't want but as for their ability to hold it; that is down to the mega alliances allowing them to stay. No small group is going to be able to build industry levels up in low level sov, under current system settings it just can't be done.

Pvp wise as a solo roamer, I don't see much opportunity. What players will come up with? Multiple large fleets defending valuable space, small gangs from alliances roaming round reinforcing everything they can, for no other reason than, "they can". They won't wont the space for themselves and there is no need for them to turn up for "primetime" to destroy anything. Just keep reinforcing stations 24/7 and the small alliance who lives there will eventually just give up and leave.

Making sov a constellation/ region wide thing also removes much of the ability for a smaller unaligned alliance to hold space. So again this plays right into the hands of the bloks.
Such a smart idea to create conflict - Gear sov holding toward only the largest groups. Of course three or even 4 large groups are going to risk it all and fight each other; No there not, the leders of these bloks are smart enough to know you don't risk it by fighting someone who might beat you, so you make pacts and NAPS with them. Pretty much what happens now.

Many will not continue to play this game, especially as there are games in development who decided to copy what eve had done and create giant space sandboxes. Difference is, they are building games that will become giant sandboxes at the same time CCP is removing the sandbox element from Eve.
Sadly, I know of quite a few long time Eve players who are now playing LOL, WOT and other such things because Eve got boring!!!

Destructible stations under the currently proposed sov system, while it sounds good would kill sov nul quicker than any other change that has been proposed. 2nd only to removing local.

While your proposal is sort of interesting, it does not address the fundamental flaws in the current or proposed systems.

Moving any sov taking or holding activity outside the proposed "prime time" invalidates it completely.
Funny thing is, the only other game i play that uses a prime time mechanic, is trying to phase it out. Turns out it is easily abused by larger groups and no matter what sort of changes the devs made, large groups found ways to exploit them. Only large well funded and organized groups hold battle stations (like sov) and the systems they are attached to.




If an alliance RF's a structure whether it is defended or not, only that alliance should be allowed to contest for sov or just screw with the sov holders. Allowing any man and his dog to turn up and get involved removes the ability of smaller unaligned alliances to hold space. It also forces the members of coalitions to be responsible for their space.
If another alliance wants that space or to just screw with the owners, they can wait 48 hours until the current conflict is completed.


Current sov system requires large fleets to take sov due to structure grinding and extensive timers.
Proposed sov system will require large fleets to play and win mini games with all but set timers..

Both systems = He with most blues WINS.

As CCP is capping much of the sandbox with rules, why not cap alliance size and make each alliance responsible for its own space. Coalitions could still exist for trade and industry and even safe travel routes but when it comes to holding space, it should be the sov holder who is responsible not the coalition they belong to.

- - - - - - - - - - -
CCP isn't interested in what players think about the new sov system, they clearly have their own agenda. Right or wrong the proposed sov system will be the one going live and i imagine CCP already have the excuses for when it doesn't meet their proposed goals. All of which would be achievable with a little tweaking and a couple of hard decisions on CCP's part.

Im not trying to be a negative Nancy here and I understand that this is a work in progress.

However, I fear that with what I have read so far, the dynamics may lead to creating bigger alliances.

If you get 5 capture nodes in a system in the defenders timezone, the easiest way to beat them is to get more friends to be in that constellation to catch all 5 nodes at the same time while blobbing the gages preventing movement etc for the defenders.

This obviously goes hand in hand with the known things in war - easier to defend than attack etc etc.

In addition, to get past the timezone issue, you are going to force alliances to get multiple corps (Get bigger) to cover multiple timezones.

So I have this fear that what the objective is wont be accomplished. Im not saying ti will, just that I can see this happening.

You guys at CCP are crafty - please be sure to account for this.

Thanks!
Myrr

Yes, I am proposing another aspect to it. Under the current proposal, the structure is automatically destroyed if the attacker wins the mini-game. In my proposal, winning the mini-game does not automatically destroy the structure - rather, it renders the structure vulnerable to being captured (via one last Entosis cycle), scooped (like any other loot floating in space), or destroyed (through the application of firepower).

The advantage I see in this versus the current proposal is that does not allow burning a system without committing real effort. You can still take someone's sovereignty flag away, destroy their indices, and loot their stuff, but actually blowing something up requires a commitment of some real firepower.

Maybe I am the only person in Eve who likes structure shoots? Always found besieging someone's stuff to be quite fun.

be nice if you add Delayed nullsec local, be nice to see how that will play out in eve

The effective counter is to not dock up. Being active and ready/willing to fight is the counter. If nothing happens you win and if a fight happens it is content.