Test Server Feedback

Our vulnernability window seems to be broken... it isnt switching back to invulnerable... it was late last night but its about 45 mins later than it should be tonight

**EDIT: So I just checked our vulnerability set time on the alliance home window and its reset itself... bug maybe... i'll reset it now but it means we will be out of kilter for the new couple of days till it follows through

**EDIT: Even with the change of vul time we are still running way over the scheduled time

Here's a thought. I understand that the DEVs are still sorting things with the displayed info in system windows and such and that there's mass confusion about what is vulnerable when and what-not. Would it be possible to make it so that an Entosis-linkable item (node, TCU, iHub etc.) delivers a message like "Invalid target. X item is invulnerable until Y-time"....or something along those lines. Even if it just tells you that it's an "invalid target" currently would be massively helpful.

If there is progress made on a structure when vulnerability period ends, it should still be able to be captured, or reset.

we tried yesterday but when window closed we got all our entosis stopped and basically we wasted half an hour

I could be wrong here but i tried installing strategic upgrades. we have only had the ihub, sov etc in the system contested and never lost but not we havent held long enough to install the upgrades. i believe it was set so that we could or did i miss something?

CCP Fozzie and Team five 0- "This goal would be broken if certain types of forces could somehow just ignore enemies (for instance, through overwhelming remote repair or through evasion) or if mechanics pushed fights towards indefinite deathless stalemates. This goal is the reason for most of the special restrictions and limitations on the Entosis Link, such as the “no remote reps” rule."

How are we supposed to be testing this when quite literally it is an endless stalemate if, when both sides have equal numbers and when one side has superior numbers the can just field AT ships and infinite Capitals and Sub-Capitals and pretty much use the same Dominion bully tactics. Play testing the mechanic is nice but when you made it a competition and didn't take into consideration the actual dynamics of the competition you pretty much said "hey, IDGAF if you guys use blobs to hellcamp like the Dominion SOV system just have the numbers to do that and spread out and capture everything and you get to win"

Furthermore, The Evasion statement is 0% true when the Entosis Link II can basically be used out to 250km on a ship that can speed tank at range... Guess what beats that...NOTHING.
You can't accurately scan down a ship going as fast as what some people have seen on the test server and even if you do by the time you land on grid they are already too far away to do anything. Add this to the absurd fleet warp changes and you basically have an invincible ship that can entosis freely or prevent counter entosising.

As expected a few things happened

1. Brave had their usual drama and pretty much gave up because they stopped caring which in turn screwed over their "blues" because from a tactical standpoint, aligning with your next door neighbor is smart, but from an execution based standpoint, Brave is cancer and anything it touches goes to ****.

2. PL flexed it's Supercarrier and Titan muscle due to the practically zero risk involved(other than it being gone on the test server). You don't have you enemy plus 2k-3k other people trying to whore on KMs. So, you can freely use things like this with no repercussions nor did they have to worry about a larger alliance countering them with their own Super and Titan Blob. Giving PL far too much freedom to maneuver things that they would not use so excessively in a scenario where the loss would be real.

3. The excessive use of unrealistic doctrines lead to mass disinterest due to the fact that the people who were testing got what they needed to know out of it with a base understanding of how to attack and defends SOV and after that didn't care because through unrealistic doctrines the testing value ceased to be anything outside of who has more people willing to participate.

4. Most alliances who didn't show up early on had a few people figuring out how the SOV system works and will likely be coming into the competition near the end when capping SOV actually means you can keep it cause the competition is at its end and it will be impossible to capture it back when zero day hits.

The FozzieSov mechanic is new and interesting and will likely add some interesting changes to the Nullsec dynamic but this "competition" is absolute cancer and at this point is the Spectre and PL show. Everyone else has basically lost interest;
between the incomprehensive UI, the inability to know how much, by % or by time, you have completed of you "attack or defense", and the absolutely ridiculous doctrines that are being used; nobody really seems to care anymore.

the main thing that killed this competition is lack of dedication from most of the alliances that registered.

This, exactly this.
The problem is that everyone is complaining about the exact things I mentioned previously and refuse to participate because of it, the frustration lies, not only in the lack of participation but, in the complaints that are becoming the scapegoats everyone eludes to. It is frustrating being one of the few people that is trying ATM within the alliance and about all I can do is have conversations about random philosophical stuff and make horrible typo mistakes in the chat channels that are highly embarrassing for me regardless of how much nobody gives a crap.

I can hardly actually participate in the testing environment since it is rather hard to do anything with a maximum of 5-10 people other than be annoying and that really doesn't add anything of value to the testing environment.

The reality is if you want max participation these are the things that need to change because the value of learning the new mechanic is lost when you don't have the proper participation. The UI is buggy and there are a lot of thing that were mentioned that would make this FozzieSov mechanic better. I know it is still in the testing stage and will continue to be buggy for a while. If you combine the buggy mechanic and UI with the aforementioned complaints it makes for an unwillingness to participate. Not only do people want to learn the new FozzieSov but they would like to experiment with realistic doctrines and fight a war on a footing that would be realistic in a competitive environment. If the devaluation of in game assets allows for market hubs that have been free-ported to become ship pinatas where is the value in testing anything within the context of competition. I have no actual issue with the current way things are and I will continue to try to urge people to participate in order to learn this new mechanic and get some experience with it but I can only relay the complaints that are discouraging people.

I, myself, do enjoy being able to use things I never would be able to use on TQ because it's fun and interesting. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way and a lot of people saw that PL was involved and knew for a fact they would abuse their sheer number of supers and titans. This caused them to shy away at first. Then after that the excessive use of unrealistic doctrines based on the sheer isk inefficiency that those doctrines would produce if they were defeated on TQ caused a lot of people to stop participating because this was supposed to be a competition and now it has become a game of who can reship the fastest into the hard counters to doctrines that are not efficient or likely at all due to the general misering of the actual AT ships.

The sentiment is if I wouldn't see in on TQ why should it be in play on Duality during a wargame exercise. When participating in a wargame IRL I never was given equipment that I wouldn't use during actual combat, or that was either experimental or not part of the unit's MTOE (Modifications of Table of Equipment) and if the equipment was down for maintenance or was called out of play due to a catastrophic kill it was out of play. You turn a playtest into a wargame run it like one, if you don't have the knowledge of what a wargame is than do not call it that. There is a strong military community within EVE and all you have to do is ask about these kinds of things.

I understand. I like the idea of there always being a soft spot to start on and at the same time, I like the idea of a reward for controlling the whole constellation. I'm torn.

@Fozzi... um... we seem to have had all our sov indexes kinda messed up... mistake?


EDIT***Also.. it means we have no idea what our vulnerability window is as we didnt see the numbers before they came out...