Player Features and Ideas Discussion

IHope this helps set your expectations correctly. Have fun.

[quote=Viktor Corgo]But, according to Gen Eve,

[quote="Gen Eve"]"The attackers now have all the advantage as opposed the defenders. This game has been so long in favour of the defenders. This is a MONUMENTAL CHANGE. Empires will fall, coalitions will crumble, alliances will go bancropt, some will make it, some not. We will RF as many sov systems as we can. CFC WILL lose sov, will lose systems etc etc"

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If there are no timers in the north, and it bothers you, why not go make some?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but CCP's intentions with the most recent update to null sec is to shake null sec up. By shake up, I mean destabilize large aliances that hold vast amounts of sov, and give opportunities to small alliances to take sov. That's the whole idea behind FozzieSov and the entosis mechanic. From my observations thus far, large alliances will still hold as much sov today and tomorrow as they did a year ago. Why and how? Because the alliances that hold regions of sov have many many pilots in their aliance. Any smaller alliances that try to come in and take sov will get crushed and blocked out entirely. Small alliances will not be able to take sov with their 500 members because the 8,000 member alliance will stop all attempts made by the small alliance.

I understand that not all of null sec is held by large aliances, but if CCP really wants to shake up null sec, I propose the following changes:

Entosis Capture Times:
I propose that the number of pilots that an alliance has affects how fast a sov structure belonging to that alliance is captured. The more members an alliance has, the faster it will be to capture or entosis structures belonging to that alliance. The fewer members an alliance has, the slower it will be to capture or entosis structures.

Think about this: an alliance with 5k+ members can respond much faster and with much greater force than an alliance with 500 members. So it makes sense that the large alliance's structures should take less time to reinforce than a structure belonging to a smaller alliance.

The Median:
So what defines an alliance as being large or small? There needs to be a way to find the average size of a player owned alliance in EVE. With this, you can make a sort of graph to determine the speed of time it takes to capture a structure or put it into reinforcement.

Basically, CCP would have to make some sort of calculator that takes all the alliances in EVE online, adds the number of all members belonging to all those alliances, then divides the sum by the total number of alliance in EVE, and that number is your average, or the median. That is the number that determines how fast a structure is entosised.

For example, let's say that the average number of members in an eve alliance is 1k. This means that structures belonging to an alliance with 1k members takes 0% less time to capture. Now, let's say an alliance of 3k members holds a sov structure. Since that alliance has 2k more members than the average eve alliance, structures belonging to that alliance will take 20% less time to capture. For every 1k members over the average, a structure takes 10% less time to capture. For every 100 members over the average, a structure takes 1% less time to capture. The same applies to alliances that have a total pilot count that is under the average. So, for an alliance with 500 members, structures belonging to that alliance take 5% longer to capture.

I know this raises some concerns such as "an alliance with 11,000 members get their structures entosised 100% faster than normal." Perhaps, instead of a linear model used for these calculations, an exponential model could be used. With an exponential model, the alliance with 11k members get their structures entosised 80% or 85% faster than normal. This would eliminate the ability to instantly reinforce structures belonging to massive alliances. It would still take some time.

Exploitation of this system:
No matter what new mechanic or system you implement into EVE, the EVE players will find a way to exploit it. So, I've taken the liberty to figure out how I would exploit my own system.

The first method:
If massive alliances want the benefits of having longer capture times on their structures, basically, what they would have to do is break the alliance down into several dozen smaller alliances. Only one of these smaller alliances would need to hold all the sov that the previous large alliance held, and ta-da: you have the same group of players holding the same amount of space with the benefit of longer capture times on their structures. But oh, wait, if the large alliance split up into dozens of smaller alliances, that would affect the average number of players in an EVE alliance. This means the capture times of their structures won't be any longer than before. So this first method of exploitation is out.

The second method:
This second method is similar to the first. Instead of breaking the entire alliance into smaller alliances, the alliance makes another alliance. This other alliance would have as few members needed and would hold ALL of the sov for the large alliance that it's supporting. This would work around the calculations and would work in favor of the large alliance. Essentially, the alliances holds the same number of systems with the added benefit of much slower capture times for all their structures.

Working around the second method of exploitation:
So, how can the second method of exploitation be prevented?

First method of prevention:
To prevent minuscule alliances from holding sov for massive alliances, there could be a member cap needed to hold sov. (Not sure if there is one already). This would help mitigate the second method of exploitation but would not prevent it entirely.

[quote=davet517]
If it didn't bother you, why mention it?

you are still just butthurt you have no meaningful impact on the game