Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We have perhaps two thousand deployed not 53k and that number is spread out over several timezones.

I am completely dispassionate about it, certainly comparatively to your outburst. I am however simply providing context to your "educated feedback on mechanics" in terms of the perspective it is coming from. Provi is a teachable moment, it is important to understand the relative strengths of the parties involved, as embarrassing as it may be for either. What I don't understand is why it bothers you so much, or by what logic you use such that numbers aren't relevant to said mechanics and quality of play. Big coalitions are living monuments to old Dominion Sov mechanics, the teachable moment isn't whether a bigger group can beat a smaller group, but instead how big is too big to be sustained, and part of sustaining is having a reason for being. You said it yourself, whatever is designed to will be an alliance level mechanic, coalitions are external player created entities never supported by actual in-game mechanics, which speaks to design intent. Aegus Sov is apparently just re-emphasizing play geared towards alliances and corporations.

Problem is, many alliances would not survive without coalition support so band together to try and keep what little (or overly much) they have.

Take the Provi deployment as an example.
The Imperium says they have "only" 2,000 deployed - So there are still in theory 39,000 left to defend their combined space - The 2,000 that are deployed aren't risking anything (except the odd ship loss). Risk vs Reward favours the attacker.

Where if there was no coalitions, deploying becomes a whole new ballgame - You need to commit to the deployment and fight to win because there is a big chance another alliance is going to notice, you are deployed and your sov is lightly defended.

Eve has evolved to where that type of risk vs reward = join a coalition.

Not GRRR Goons but - Goons have space that other alliances would like to take, without coalitions it is possible someone could in fact take, at least part, of Goon space but while ever coalitions exist there will be no "sov wars" (replace Goon space with any other sov alliance that is part of a coalition - the same applies).
Just the odd fight here and there because he said, she said, he did it and I have a point to prove - Does not add up to enjoyable, engaging content for all players involved.

To be fair with a couple of exceptions AF were invalid even before the confessor appeared :P

And I'e already covered this. Hush now. Your posts are no longer relevant as you've made it clear they are simply "grr goons". Big groups will always exist, get used to it.

After having a deployment revolving heavily around fozziesov, I can say conclusively that it's the most boring mechanics in the game. There were several people begging for tidi to be brought back instead. The problem is that it ends up with both sides babysitting nodes while people rush around trying to oneshot or ECM the entosis guy off their respective node. For most of the people involved it's simply sitting around wishing someone would actually fight watching their miner mine a structure.

Seriously, I thought it was just boring back when it was just being defensive and thought "a deployment, hell yeah, those are fun". Boy was I wrong.

I'm vocal thus my opinions are invalid? This is twice as funny considering your next point.

Th guy keeps posting up the coalition graph as if the number of players my alliances chooses to befriend is relevant to providing feedback on a game mechanic I use every day. I was in a fleet outnumbered 2:1 yesterday, yet supposedly my opinion dooesn't count because I'm a blobber.

Even the smaller groups are starting to get bored now they've realised our empire isn't going to crumble. Even if that were the case and the little guys really were havign fun minig structures, you do have to ask yourself this: Why is it a good thing that CCP are making the game less fun for the biggest single collection of players just to make it more fun for small minorities?

There were lots of problems with domionion, but when it worked it worked really well. Fozziesov has just as many problems, the difference being that when it works it's still boring for all involved.

How long will the fun really last. The little guy is having "fun" right nwo because he thinks that it's causing a massive disruption. It's not, it's a minor nuisance and only encourages us to gather more people into our big group of blues. As more of the smaller guys start realising that the effect of this is minimal, you'll see them complaining even more.

I take it you've not used the new sov system then? I say this because it is in fact easier for the larger groups now. Defending is significantly easier than attacking and preventing timers can be done without having to have a proper form up in a time window chosen by the defender. The reason groups hold less space is they don't need to hold as much now. Each system supports significantly more players, so you only need a fraction of the space compared to dominion.

No, the big guy is saying "firing a mining laser at a structure is bad gameplay". The only reason the little guys "like it" is because they feel they have the edge over the big guys right now. If that feeling wasn't there, they'd hate the mechanics as much as anyone else, since it's waiting, that's all it is. Even your post here shows that, you've not said a single thing about the actual mechanics themselves being good, only that you like how it's made the little guys feel.

And no, change is not always good. There are countless examples of games throwing in big changes and killing themselves off because they failed to maintain their core playerbase. By supporting boring mechanics simply because you feel they benefit you, you are supporting the death of EVE.

I've not seen any other points, but then I'll only read a paragraph or two of "grr" before I simply skip over the rest of the post.

See, here we go again. What you are saying is "it's only boring because of numbers". No, it's boring because it's mining a structure for 30 minutes at a time. It doesn't matter how many (or few) people you have, the mechanic comes down to one person firing a mining laser at a structure for an extended period of time until either he gets stopped or the switch flips.

This is the problem with people like yourself. No matter what we say or what points we make, you keep just going "well it's cos you're in a big group" even though we're repeatedly stated why that's not the case. The fact that several small groups are also pointing out how boring whack-a-mole sov is seems to go right past you too. You're too caught up in your own prejudice to have a reasonable discussion about this, which is why simply ignoring you becomes the best course of action.

What you are doing is called wishful thinking, or the soon(tm) principle. "The next patch will be the one that stops it being boring", right? Even though the mechanics for taking space will still be "mine a structure for 15-60 minutes". We'll all just enjoy sitting and ship spinning in space at that point, I'm sure.

Yet you hold out hope that the newly broken sov system is just a stepping stone to greatness? I've been playing over 10 years myself and honestly it wouldn't surprise me if the next big expansion rolled round and it was focused on something random like highsec salvaging, and a year from now we're still sitting with half a system going "uhh, where'd the rest go?".

I liked it. I get that some people don't like the colossal fights, but I loved them. The thing is, there's load of room in the game for both, yet people seem to want to have the playstyle I loved stripped out and replace with what is effectively faction warfare. Why reduce the options for gameplay? If people don't like big fights, then don't go to big fights. I don't like exploration mechanics, but I wouldn't go to CCP demanding that exploration mechanics be removed and replaced with mining.

It's not that it hurts, it's simply boring. It's a structure and you mine it. While one person mines it, other players just sit there and watch.

I'm not asking to go back to dominion, but if my gameplay style is going to be stripped out and replaced they could at least replace it with something entertaining. I have made suggestions to make the mechanic mildly tolerable, though I've come to realise that the biggest issue is the core mechanic itself, which makes it a bigger problem.

+1

This whole 'discussion' is a replay of Dominion, people were RABID in their support of Dominion in the beginning, like some (like Harry) are about Aegis. i think this is mainly due to 2 factors, utter dislike of the ills of the old system (notice Harry says he 'came to dislike dominion', means he liked it at 1st) coupled with a deep level of support for the GOALs of Aegis.

The second part is important, because when people believe in a goal, the are more likely to support the process that promises to deliver the goal, even when that process is fatally flawed. Harry isn't alone, it took YEARS for the die hard Dominion lovers to come to their senses and see what we really happening, and by then the bad effects of Dominion were well entrenched in the cluture of the null sec population (ie the Coalitions had been formed, and matured).

History shows that you can't been unrealistic enthusiasm with arguments (that just makes it worse. Those of us who are fathers of now adult women know what I'm about to say: you can tell her how bad the guy is,how there is no future with him, how he's just using her, but doing so just pushes her closer to him. She's going to have to learn on her own and only time can do that....

...Like Dominion did to Harry