CSM Campaigns

I like Vic.

I joined his alliance on my very first safari. He gave me money and good advice and I didn't steal from them because they were so nice.

He's a good guy, and very knowledgable. Unfortunately this niceness forced me to create another alt and steal from someone else, but hey that's EvE, right?

I fly with Vic and he knows and loves this game.

+1

PvE shouldn’t be this DED – Power back to the players.

When I started playing, the pirate hulls and deadspace loot which came from DEDs was big business. Living in Syndicate, the sites were more than static rats waiting to be farmed – they were contested and fought over by the lean, starving residents of NPC null as some of their only income. Some of my best memories that got me hooked were of fighting over these sites – a fundamental departure from the skinner-box raids of the other MMOs I played; the NPCs were not the main course, they were merely a pretext to player interaction. The DEDs of old are, in every way possible, a great model of how EvE PvE should work; scarcity and competition should bottleneck some classes of PvE to spur content and shape certain economies.

Let’s talk about scarcity. If you are in sov, there’s no reason to defend your anomaly, as there are an unlimited supply, and you can just dock up until the danger goes away. If you are doing FW, likewise, as a farmer, you can just find another system, and there will be many more plexes than there needs to be. DEDs used to be different – there was such a limited supply that they became worth fighting over, and the loot valuable. Now, the idea is laughable – loot is so devalued that even a max payout drop isn’t worth a ship loss. EvE at it’s core is about getting people to interact, and the former value of these sites promoted that, as attackers and defenders both had something worth interacting over – big money.

Now let’s talk about competition. After the great escalation changes accompanying AegisSov, Sov null was producing so many DEDs, and producing them so deep in guarded space, that the prices of all loot tanked. One could say the opportunity cost of running them in NPC null became nonviable given how easily and safely one could factory farm them deep in sov. Soon there was no reason to run them out of sov, and both content seeds and income was plucked from NPC null. I mean you could ostensibly say that there are moons in NPC null, yes, of course there are, but these generally end up in control of larger, stronger, neighboring sov style alliances, wrestled from the smaller, scrappier NPC null residents. Smaller entities would like more active income they can actually struggle for, like DEDs, rather than the game of sov come to NPC null in the form of Pos-timer content.

The current sov model does well to support larger entities – they can feed their members by developing the systems and moons just fine. High-sec has incursions and industry which are both madly lucrative given the relative lack of risk. Low-sec has faction warfare and L5 missions. NPC null has...well nothing that can be used to empower smaller groups. To let small groups build up, to give entities other than the few large, monolithic entities a foot hold in a very dog-eat-dog world, they need bottom up, accessible income. What do I mean by that? The income source needs to be something that does not require large build up or investment from preexisting entities, infrastructures, or NPC standings – something that cannot be essentially used as ransom or payment by the people that already ‘have’. It needs to be accessible, i.e anyone can do it. The perfect fit for both of these, while encouraging smaller group content, is DEDs. The DEDs 7-10 should be moved to NPC nullsec exclusively. If larger entities wanted to control these resources, it would take considerable, active effort, rather than the sterile, timer based flexing of large coalition musculature. The intended result is to give some of the keys of content and group building back to smaller entities, and give them unique resources which are impractical for larger entities to try and control, given their scale and focus. If escalations are to remain, they should only escalate into NPC space, and the escalation should become scannable after a set time.

Likewise, this would reign in some of the absurdity with the current pirate battleship supply issues. They would slowly return to being rare, to being special. It would shift a little bit of the income to other stewards of content, to the small entities. Some people do not find their EvE-self in a massive coalition; who they are and what they do in New Eden is requires them to live a dangerous life on the edge with a few of their friends. There has been a lot of development on content ratchets for larger, big ticket entities; it’s about time they give a resource that can be contested on a smaller scale, while simultaneously fixing part of a large scale over-supply problem. Every space, every playstyle, should have the appropriate tools and income opportunity to support itself – NPC null is a place so many people want to be able to live, yet has less actual support than lowsec, in my appraisal.

TL:DR Move DED 7 through 10 to NPC nullsec exclusive sites, simultaneously address the supply issues with pirate battleship hulls while adding a niche economy for an underdeveloped part of space.

Hello,

First of all I agree there's a few game mechanics that definitely need to be revised including the one pertaining to Faction standings.

However I disagree with your viewpoint. This game was based on having a balance in 'Risk vs Reward' and 'Actions vs Consequences' which makes this game great. Currently the only way to repair negative Faction standings is to grind missions. It takes time for players to ruin Faction standings and it should take some time to repair those standings. In the past Characters use to be accountable for their actions in-game, now most everything has been dumbed down and turned into easy mode for the instant gratification crowd. That's something I don't want to see happen to Faction standings.

Currently the in-game aspects of Faction standings :
Positive Faction standings are the only way to access Cosmos Agents (one time access).
Positive Faction and Corporation standings are needed to access Research Agents.
All other Agents only require minimal amount of Faction standing for access (-2.00 or higher standing).
High Faction standings reduce Market Broker fees and Reprocessing fees in NPC stations.
At -5.00 or lower Faction standing, Empire NPC's will attack when in their space.

In my opinion CCP made a big mistake when they removed the need to have Faction standings to anchor POS in high sec space. I'd like to see more content pertaining to Faction standings be added to the game but at this time my inquiry is based more on the effects of negative Faction standings.

I created and shared the 'Faction Standing Repair Plan' with the playerbase back in 2010. In my opinion players need more options available to repair negative Faction standings then what I've listed in 'The Plan'. Most of those Event Agents can only be accessed once in the characters life. A lot of players in-game don't even read the forums so they don't know that guide is available. In fact repairing negative Faction standings is a big task for experienced players. New players who haven't even learned the game yet can easily mess up their Faction standings right from the start without even knowing it, resulting in no access to half of Empire space.

Anyway these are some options I think would help players in-game.

Faction standing repair process be implemented in-game to be very intuitive, not obscure (tutorial perhaps).
Changes to Faction standings notify players with on screen pop up message (option to deactivate).
Actions that would cause negative Faction standing trigger on screen pop up warning (option to deactivate).
All Anti-Empire mission briefings have a warning to inform players those missions will incur negative Faction standings.
Implement Tags for Standings in-game based on similar game mechanics as Tags for Security.
Add NPC Agents to in-game Agent Finder for Faction standing repair (similar to proposal in my forum signature).

Once again good luck with the upcoming election.


DMC

07 Candidate!

First, thank you for your time and effort (both present and future) in representing the capsuleers of New Eden! They’re much appreciated.

I’m preparing to cast my vote in the CSM12 elections. After reading the information you submitted, though, I still have a question.

By way of background, I started in Eve as a hauler, moving freight in T1 industrials and gradually working my way up in both ships and cargo. However, I repeatedly found my progress impeded by gankers who would destroy my ship and steal my cargo. In low- and null-sec space, that’s to be expected. You place your bet and take your chances. In high-sec space, however, this is very frustrating. Why have high-sec space at all then? This frustration drove me into anti-ganking, and I’ve been a proud member of Thomas en Chasteaux's High-Sec Militia for several months now.

So, my question. Where do you stand on high-sec ganking? I’ll concede that ganking is a legitimate style of game play, as CCP has ruled. But I also feel that it should be difficult and dangerous (for the ganker) in the 30% of New Eden designated as high-sec space. In particular, I’d like to see CCP tweak the game mechanics so that the criminal flag generated by looting a ganked freighter in high-sec space follows all players who handle that loot, and otherwise make looting more realistic. (Thomas en Chasteaux's ideas, not mine.)

As a member of the CSM, would you present such an idea to CCP? Would you push for its adoption? What other game changes might you consider to make high-sec ganking more difficult and less profitable?

Regards,
Cochise Chiricahua.

Interesting ideas for adding something unique about NPC null. Lowsec got a nice buff with the introduction of clone soldiers "tags for sec," and the mordus legion commanders. NPC null needs some unique flavor.

Hi Cade.

So it's great you mention data. I love data! Data has to be one of my favorite things! One thing I have learned over the course of my professional career is that it opposing the data itself is often futile and just results in butting heads, but how it is analyzed or interpreted makes all the difference, and discussing that can lead to rather productive dialogue. Data collected in-silico is generally very reliable and repeatable, so there's basically no contesting it - I think CCP is going to the sole source of reliable data pertaining to New Eden. The monthly economic reports are a good presentation of data, but they do not actually include much analysis on the data. Basically, if they showed me data on something and I disagreed with their interpretation or analysis, I would ask for the data itself and, if possible, conduct and independent analysis of it, but as stated the data itself is not contestable. Yes we can all draw our own conclusions and make our own stories based on charts they release, but how statistically valid are they? How are they modeling things? I am also very used to my hypotheses being proven very wrong by evidence, where it is all too easy to fall into a mode of thinking when there is no actual data to guide the construction of models. Things invariably look different from outside the system looking in, as opposed to the other way around.

Not everything is a question of data or math. Many of the bigger problems in the game are philosophical in nature and excessive data and math may only serves as distracting anecdotes. However, I believe my professional training is an asset, I am quite able to take even deep criticism of ideas.

On the corollary, they are in charge. I would only exist as a sounding board. It is my duty to be a voice for players, it's up to CCP to hear/listen.

Hi JoJo,

I don't think those are as contradictory as they seem. The mechanics are sound, they haven't really touched those in quite some time. The actual numbers on the ships involved have changed. I do think the T1 industrials were over-buffed to the point where fitting is no longer a compromise as it should be - you can get a tank and haul quite a lot. I think if people had to learn to fit ships properly at the sub-cap level, then they would make better choices with freighters, and lots of the noise about how unfair ganks are would not exist - they would potentially be more likely to have learned to use the existing tools and mechanics to keep themselves safe long before they become a freighter-owner. Smoother inclines allow for easier learning.

I think there is another very important mechanic which makes wardecs so lame - it's the so-called 'undock-fapping' gameplay. It's pretty common for wardeccers to just sit at trade hub stations and wait for easy prey. It's more like fishing than pvp.
The undock mechanics of citadels should extend to stations for everybody who has security status above criminal level. This would achieve 2 things: 1) less deaths on undock due to lags; 2) no station-camping by wardeccers. Gate-camping is not the best gameplay either, but it is significantly less safe for the participants than station-camping.

To make risk/reward scheme work in wardecs we also need a proper risk source. We should rather have mercenary mechanics (which was a great idea, just not working) useful. This can be achieved by these steps:
1) eliminating undock-camping to move wardeccers further from safety;
2) introducing highsec covertcynos (see this topic: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=296129) to make highsec pvp more dynamic: best pvp events in Eve start like sparks and based on surprise;
3) making pilot locations of both sides of a conflict always availabe to each other, real-time or nearly real-time -- so that the two sides could always meet (especially wardeccers vs mercenaries), and be on equal terms.
With these 3 steps combined wardecs would become less biased, making attackers more vulnerable and mercenaries able to actually do something meaningful.