Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This is a re-post (minus profanity and a bit of cleanup) of the post I made on reddit, because some people wanted to see it here too. It honestly feels like reddit gets more CCP attention than these forums do, but regardless, here it is...

All this whining about blue donuts, about winning strategies being boring, about how fozziesov is boring because there's no motivation to actually want to defend your space, about how every runs industry and incursions in highsec for profit, etc., all highlight one simple problem.

The problem with EVE conflict drivers isn't that they don't exist, it's that they are STABLE. They never run out. They never move. And other than moons, they are pretty uniformly spread throughout the various regions of space (speaking large scale).

The reason FW works at all is because it's at least a LITTLE BIT dynamic. Changing/losing systems changes FW mission hubs which upsets the farmers which provides conflict drivers. In FW, system ownership is not "like sov", it IS THE RESOURCE. The fact that the resource is dynamic is what keeps FW at least mildly interesting.

What needs to happen in EVE is simple. Resources need to be depleted and then moved.

Asteroid belts need to deplete on a UNIVERSAL scale. If people mine too much veldspar in highsec then within a few months there should be NO VELDSPAR IN HIGHSEC. If people rat anomalies in a system then no matter how awesome their IHUB, after a few months there should be no more anomalies in that system for a long time. They should be popping up elsewhere in quiet systems instead. Moongoo should be depleted after a few months and new moongoo deposits should spawn on other moons at random to replace them. After a few months of an L4 mission hub like Osmon being run to death, the agent should CLOSE SHOP and another L4 agent should open up business somewhere else. Incursions should stop happening in high sec after they've been farmed extensively. Perhaps Sansha could take a lesson from Bob's Tactical School of Thought and try something new once in a while.

CCP wants conflict to be local, which is great, but space is too big and resources too static at this point to provide any reason for anyone to ever want (need) to move or change locality. There is no TENSION. This means everything is stable, and the winning strategy in stability is to make peace with your neighbors. The only reason people went ANYWHERE pre-Phoebe was for "gudfites", because force projection made it trivial to do so.

What we are basically seeing right now is people saying moving to get gudfites is now too hard, but there is literally NO OTHER REASON to ever want to move anywhere. There is no tension, no reason, that anyone should ever want to leave their stable and safely blue home system. Everything they need can be bought at the local (infinite) Wal-Mart.

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That was the original post. Some important comments/clarifications from reddit:

... in response to a complaint that this might burn newbs in hisec:

Some non-optimal things could be left out. L1 to L3 missions could probably stand to be left out of this system and remain static. That is plenty of reasonable income for truly new players. (Might have to nerf L3 LP a tad, since blitzing them in fast ships can be a bit too competitive, but that's a minor tweak).

But more interestingly, several of the best newb income streams; wormhole daytripping in C1/C2 holes, exploration in empire (hi and low), and FW stuff, is ALREADY based on somewhat dynamic resources. This isn't a coincidence; the fact that these are dynamic activities that reward active play and are difficult to bot/automate/multibox/minmax by established vets is exactly WHY they are good newb income streams.

... in response to ""Making certain areas more valuable than others will drive conflict" where have I heard this before?"

The key difference is I'm talking about a system that doesn't maintain a static shape. The problem with the previous iteration on making certain areas more valuable than others was that of course Goon/PL/whoever just took those areas and then, that's it, game over. No change. Blue up everyone.

Making some areas more valuable than other TEMPORARILY means people have to move. Goons and PL and whoever have to relocate if they want to remain dominant. Moving is hard. The bigger you are, the harder it is to move. It also exposes you. It's a natural tension against absolute size.

... in response to many posts along the lines of "this won't stop Goons from winning EVE"

I have no illusions that this will somehow stop stable organizations like CFC from winning EVE. But that's fine, because I don't have a problem with them winning EVE.

My only issue is that the WAY they win EVE right now is incredibly boring for EVERYone. Goons winning EVE SHOULD take the form of them steam rolling around null wherever they need to go as resources shift, with everyone else responding in some fashion or other, whether it's to put up a fight or get the hell out of the way. This dynamicism is what causes pew pew.

Winning SHOULD NOT take the form of Goons (or PL or rusrus) sitting in one region with no motivation to go anywhere or bug anyone except for "gudfites" because they have all the resources and ISK generation they could ever want, forever, infinitely, within their current borders.

Look... if people REALLY want more conflict then resources and greed are not the way to go about it. Strong economies and moneymaking requires stability and people would rather take a "bad deal" to make a low amount of money indefinitely than risk everything on making... say... ~20+% more money somewhere else (see: why many people stay in high-sec).


If you want to increase conflict... you have to remove the tools people use to keep themselves safe. Remove anchorable bubbles (but not DICs or HICs) and docking restrictions on all stations in the game.
With such changes, no corporation/alliance will be able to keep hostiles "out" without putting in serious effort and have to massively change tactics and standard operating procedures.

I'd also say put Local chat on a delay too... but that might be going too far.

I have the ultimate conflict driver for low and nullsec - polarize people on undock fir five minutes to remove station humping.

Fine, I'll stop.

This guy makes sense. The proposed changes would cause fireworks.

Still...
With resources moving around, that would mean casuals would have even less reason to set up in not-hisec, and actually storing anything out there would go from slightly crazy to ridiculously insane. Their buildings are going to get wrecked for whatever's in them eventually as it is, but when the universe's harvestable resources pile up in their sectors, the big scary goons are just going to wreck and steal everything. The risk-reward equation will favor staying in hisec even more for these types, unless they are very careful about keeping the resources in their sectors down so blobbing the place isn't worth it. Or just leaving.

The same thing applies to just running around in lowsec at all and trying to run sites-the people there have gotten very efficient at blobbing anyone who might be a "spai" or "thief." They have the people, they have the gear, they have the skill stats, they have the coordination to just roflstomp anyone they find. It would become either go big or go home.

I like this but I'm concerned that so much isk and resources have already accumulated that this would take years to have an effect.

I wonder very much about the player built star gates, where they will lead, and what we will (and, more importantly, will NOT) be able to transport there.

This idea is being proposed on the constant basis, although this is, perhaps, the best presentation I've seen.

Anyone else notice that OP want resources to change places, but then say that incursions that weekly require people to move 10-40 jumps is bad?

Yes null/low resources should not be static as it is today, but you will never get large alliances to move and take a new region every few months without increasing the income they have ALOT. Most wars cost insane amounts of isk (from a single player perspective atleast), its not unheard of to see battlereports with 100+ billion lost and thats 1 battle.

If it cost 100b to take a new set of systems with better resources, those systems have to pay ATLEAST 100b more than the systems you already have before its depleted and you have to move. We are easily talking 100b per system, few month to deplete and the income needed to justify a war starts to become insane

Actually that cost of war is not paid in isk but labor and when you have enough people (nope, not your alts and bots) the cost goes down not up.
Bake outpost with a bakery, make your own stuff, give you alliance buddies. It may also be convenient to farm DED plexes for blue mods to put on.
The value of lost stuff in highly inaccurate since only an average in market prices are estimated.

And here are some estimates:

A carrier costs 500 million isk - the book itself for each one
~ 30 million tritanium
~ 20 million pyerite
~18 million mexallon and so on.

The values here are examples, not the actual values of course but you should get the point of how this works.

Start with the biggest offender - High Sec. You can barely get people interested in moving to null as it is, and part of that is HS is so profitable and secure, and as you show, not subject to depletion. Basically you don't want to make null worse than it already is, and expect people to want to fight over it.

If Incursions or L4s were actually exhaustible, null space would stand to be more desirable than it is right now; the problem isn't that null regions are beginning to support the needs of those who live there, it's that HS does this better and with less hassle than null. Null has such a low population density compared to high that resources out there should effectively be limitless compared to HS. However, L4s and Incursions have long been 'sacred cows'; as much as they need to be curtailed, and for as many reasons, it probably won't happen.