Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You seem to be espousing a lore-based argument for removing gameplay mechanics. That's the first mistake here.

The lore explains the mechanics it does not inform them. The only time the reverse works is in very tightly controlled systems like tabletop RPGs where someone can literally line-item veto things if they get out of hand in their particular area of the game (like how my GM will never let us have several barrels of gunpowder at one time ever again...)

Second, you're not even particularly knowledgeable about the lore you're arguing from.

Go read through the chronicles. They go into a fair amount of detail on the setting and discuss things like the role of capsuleers, why the empires are so willing to sell them ships and other things, and why none of the empires can keep tech a secret or even particularly try to.

The brief version here is that no one can keep anything a secret well enough to bother keeping it out of Capsuleer hands. The approximate time tech gets released to Capsuleers is the time anyone else with a half decent spy network already has a beta version running in a lab somewhere.

Why aren't the other empires worried about another empire taking their tech and using it against them? For the same reason captured ordinance was a massive logistical pain in WW2 for all involved, you can't get ammo. If you're the Gallente then even if you capture an entire fleet of Caldari Ravens you won't have any missiles on hand to use them. You've dealt your enemy a blow but only because you've deprived him of war material, not because you've gained anything you can reasonably and easily use. They'd probably still get used, assuming the capturing side is at all short on material and ammo would be produced, but probably in a third line role where the logistics chain is shorter and supply problems are going to be less of an issue.

In short sir, you want Eve to be something it's not. Stop trying to impose your views on what the game should be on everyone else who is playing it and enjoying it as and for what it currently is.

This isn't a feature, or a balance tweak, it's a fundamental change to how the game operates that would be *massively* disruptive to everyone who plays it. This is not your MUSH, stop treating it like it is.

If you're curious about the fiction of Eve that forum is over here.

The role playing forum is over here.

Dawkins isn't even a transhumanist.

Get off the reefer, take a deep breath, and go outside.

Skills help you win. They don't make you win. Look up Suitonia's EvE is Easy guides.

Then, if we have a petition, as it were, to stamp ALPHA on alpha killmails, you'd vote 'yes?'

Hi Amojin,

Your argument at this point appears to be a continuation of your 'armor-barge' thread, spliced with grudges about Alpha differences and with an objective to ham-handedly enforce your version of morality through excessive role-play amongst a community under a veneer of 'balance'. I'll address 3 concerns.

1) Factional restrictions: Crunch-wise, this renders pirate ships unusable, and stifles creativity in range of actions (switching from shield Ishtar in missioning to armor for roaming). In addition you further distort the balance as over-simplifying the different races. Gal for example will be the most capable while retaining top-end mission and non-combat capabilities because of their indy lineup.

Lore-wise you're fired off on the wrong foot immediately. Capsuleers are beholden to no empire and no loyalty but to themselves and their own whims. Even the empires have little recourse against the will of the capsuleers, simply because they are too fragmented and reliant on corporations to take a cohesive stance. EVE has always been about four dying empires crumbling in the face of immortals being each able to take on a regular fleet by themselves, and even more so about the rise of the Capsuleer empires and the tales they weave.


2) Government Authority: EVE governments are different from reality, but if you scale up the power of modern corporations by a double-digit factor and add in one-man armies, you can glimpse the picture. Heck, traditionally opposing empires will gladly sell you their ships because you're so much more effective than an entire military fleet of theirs.

In EVE, YOU are the dominant power. YOU are a terrifying harbinger of a cold, uncaring anarchic future ruled only by the fickle whims of the virtually-immortal, a monster they created but are helpless to stop.


3) Alpha: Here's your three primary assumptions, one that a lot of people make, but an incorrect one.

You assume a fair fight.
You assume the Omega sees it coming.
You assume the Omega is the hunter.

What you don't know is that in a fight between three Alphas in Vexors with ewar support landing on a tackled Omega in a mission battleship, or in an Alpha Caracal dual-webbing me in my Jaguar (I've like 5 points in autocannons), I'd gladly put all my isk on the side about to deliver a roflstomp of T1 hulled proportions. Make friends, and hit them where they're weakest. Only a fool matches his weakest offense against an enemy's strongest defence.

In EVE, as in life, you are a victim ONLY when you choose to be.

First off, no I don't. I do however, have a degree in Game Design and very nearly an order of magnitude more time with this game than you have. I've also read quite a bit of the various blogs, posts, chronicles, and other things put out by CCP over the last 10 years or so.

As to that, if you've read what CCP have said about introducing Alpha Clones they're really not sure *what* effect it would have on the game world. There were some very real concerns that it would just be abused and actually cause damage to the experience of older players, and there's certainly been some of that as these forums can attest to.

They're certainly hoping to get more exposure to more people, but CCP is well aware that no one is going to stay playing if they just feel like a "free kill" to other players. Also given the restrictions on Alphas it's become pretty obvious to any experienced player what is a new or Alpha player and what isn't, so your argument about the prestige loss if alphas were labeled doesn't hold up well.



As to the rest of this, your argument is faulty at the most basic level. You are assuming that the restrictions on Alphas mean Omegas need to be 'reigned in' to be competitive. This is not the case, at all and you completely fail to make a compelling case for this here.

Just for a start here, CCP did not say "Cruisers and lower" they said:



they then listed all the skills Alphas can use on top of the above sentence and subsequent explanation.

On top of that their rationale for reigning in Alphas is quite solid. If Alphas were unrestricted it would open up a host of potentially toxic abuse cases.

None of this, at all, means that Omegas need to suddenly be restricted from flying ships they've been able to fly for over 10 years now, a practice that has no negative game repercussions as it is one of the most basic assumptions in the design of the game.

If you don't want to play that's up to you, same for not subbing, subbing, or whatever else you decide to do with your time and money.

Absolutely against this idea, what a stupid way to restrict your available arsenal, skills, fits, and content for no reason.

Hello Amojin,

You do have a very valid point here that not all Alphas are new players, but have you also considered the fact that EVE is primarily a paid service? It runs off a different system in that subscriptions (and PLEX) are its primary revenue. The Play-For-Free experience is, like many others are mentioning, simply an extended trial, no more.

The default state of EVE is the paid state, but you have the free state as a fallback. You only need to search up the last six months of threads to realize why what you've just mentioned is an incredibly dangerous suggestion for anyone, and has the propensity to outright kill the game and their revenue.

You are confusing the purpose of the F2P move with your own motives and past experiences with other 'free-to-play' moves, when this one has a marketing angle to it.

Finally, In flying a Navy Vexor, you are not an easier victim any more than I am in flying a Jaguar with meta mods. You can simply only engage a smaller range of targets. There's a very big difference here in mindset, whether you want to make the most of your power, be elusive and strike at targets you know you can take, or blindly take on any fight assuming you're both equals- which you're not.

If I in an arty Machariel see you in a Navy Vexor on Dscan landing on me, I'm sure as heck am not going to engage you. It doesn't make me a weaker victim- It makes me a person fighting out of my engagement envelope. In that case it'll be wise for me to retreat and not fight.

But we're getting way off topic here, and this looks like something for another thread. Shall we return to your issue on faction restrictions?

Hello again, Breg. You're right, I can make the most of a bad situation. That seems to be par for the course, lately, in EVE, though.

I have Warcraft, and ESO. I could argue you, further, but I won't. I think your heart is in the right place, and I'm not willing to hit you like I do Cade. Your points are valid. As for returning to my initial point? My initial point was a troll-like ruse, to draw people into the real point. They're there.

Actually, no, you can condense all of that psycho-babble bs down to about just what you said, a dozen pages.

Despite the new DSM-V, people have idiosyncrasies. Just because they are not behaving in a manner that the new paradigm desires, does not make them mentally ill. Psychology is a laughable joke of a pseudo-science. A very few things are true, I'll give them that. But building on a flimsy base, made worse and worse diagnoses, and to the chagrin of many, it didn't stop.

Because you are 'weird,' or 'original,' or because you are 'anti-social' does not make you mentally ill. It makes you human. There are a very few cases where you are actually mentally ill. Schizophrenia, for example. Yes, you have a problem. Autism Spectrum Disorders, most of those diagnoses are fine. But the Personality Disorder spectrum?

Whatever. Just an excuse to prescribe drugs.