Assembly Hall

I am gravely concerned by the latest design direction confirmed by Rubicon, and subtly included in previous patches. This is very bad.

Core issues as I see them currently:

1. Drone assist. When drone damage, range, and speed modules and rigs were added, no changes were made to how many drones could be assigned to one player. The consequence is that fleet fights are essentially warp to broadcast hardners on, approach, launch and assign drones as ordered, go make a coffee. That is boring, but the state of null pvp atm. When you are going to get hit by 65+ enemy archons' drones simultaneously there is no point waiting to maybe click the 'need shield' broadcast button if you are in anything less than your own space slug.


2. Degraded stability. A fleet battle of 3,000+ players could crash the server due to the drone mechanic. Now you need less, 1200 or so can do it, if you can bring carriers and supers that can deploy more than 5 drones each. Verdict: it seems highly likely that due to the 'assist' mechanic the server is trying to simultaneously calculate the hit/miss on thousands of drones on one target, then update the damage back to every drone and its owner, not to mention the spatial 3d and collision detection of all those drone objects. When every player has to target their own weapons, they never do so with mechanical precision, same as when they press their F1 buttons, so damage calculations without drone assist for a fleet are sequential and thus less likely to crash the server. We have collectively learned how to crash the server at will in huge fleet fights, so now what should be the pinnacle of nullsec warfare, which will be the defining point of difference between this game and Star Citizen, is a horrible slideshow with 20% time dilation in 1,000 person drone/fighterbomber/fighter fights on a reinforced node which simply become a debacle because if your caps are at risk of dying you can just crash the server. That's not good enough. Drone assist should be limited to double the bandwidth of the ship assigned to.


3. Degraded audio performance. Why? I think the warp to / mwd / ab additional sounds are contributing to server instability in fleet battles. There is no sound in space, but when you have large numbers of ships maneuvering together, the server is paying for those grating annoying inappropriate sounds. They took out the duke box, then put the music for sale as a physical item in the collectors edition. It's a lovely score by the way, very nicely played. However audio wise, I don't get why the sounds of metal scraping on metal (listen carefully, you may hear the train on a bend sound) is simply all wrong in a starship. Unless you fly minmantar.


4. Welcome to WoWified ships. The removal of things like being able to put missles on pilgrims and Maelstroms has led to tic tac toe hyper specialization of core and t2 ships. The result is just like in WoW - you know what a warlock in pvp can do, he has extremely limited choices how to use his abilities, and the counters are all similarly known. And yes, PvP in world of warcraft is actually now more complicated than in EVE Online. That makes me really sad.


5. AFK camping in nullsec. This is anti-play, and as such anti player. Valid tactic? Sure, but let's get real here - subscribers quit over this mechanic, and have been for years. Difference is they are not going to come back to such an expensive (real world cost /year) game when other games have better pvp. Star Citizen is adding mining ships, not because it enhances pvp or anything - but because they will attract more players. Guess where those players are leaving from? You got it, camped nullsec. People *like* mining, and *like* making things. A game that gives them that will thrive all other things being equal: but perma camping is just driving people out of the game. Either a player who is inactive for 15 minutes should be disconnected from the server (to improve performace), or cloaks should take fuel perhaps 5 heavy water per minute, so people have to manage their cloak use.


6. Rigs. The idea was cute. But the gameplay consequences combined with the latest changes are lethal. Combined with mods and ship changes, a lot of pvp is now instant. Instant lock one click *boom*, or instant warping interceptors and cranes, etc. Instant is a bad word in pvp game design, because it means there is no time for players to make choices, right or wrong, that affect the outcome. If you think of pvp as a spectrum between shooting someone with a .50 cal, pistol duel, fencing (lots of parry and riposte), chequers, and chess, then you can see the pace of combat is critical. EVE used to be set at about the fencing level. You made your move, and the opponent often had a countermove that you needed to decide what to do about. It was still fast, but you had to think and react, or die. Now 'pvp' is really mostly just ganking, the 0.50 - or WoW rogue.


7. Interceptors invalidating nullsec gameplay options. An interceptor can enter a system warp and point you faster than you can even see that they have entered system if you have high latency. Not even kidding. While we have rejoiced in the juicy kills we have gathered, the simple reality is that interceptors are not only fast, they are just too fast to warp when rigged right. Either other ships such as covert cruisers and such need their time to warp decreased, or intys need to be toned back. A lot. And if they are immune to bubbles, bring back mines in nullsec. We already have people like Nulli anchoring hundreds of secure cargo containers to reveal cloaked ships, if interceptors want to go fast into the unknown, let people have a weapon to counter interceptors, i.e. mines. And maybe the ability in sov null to anchor up to 4 guns on a gate, just to say hello.

Why has the CSM allowed WOWify?

It's funny how to local makes nullsec much safier than a HS, and nullbears crying about it.... (when someone/devs make a nerf to safety of nullsec).

It's funny how "highbears" who claim that null is so safe never seem to want to live there, but there you go. It's a funny old world.

Oh btw, cynos are coming to W-space. Welcome to 0.0!

[quote=Malcanis]1) The CSM has raised this topic with the Five-0 devs on several occasions.

And they have made things worse by making the Apocalypse another drone ship, and adding new SOE drone ships. Gee look, let's use a drone ship!

I don't want excuses and BUT BUT BUT from the CSM. I want you demanding they fix the game.


2) It's possible that drone assist has this effect, but you don't know for sure. Also see above.

CCP will know. And guess what, the design concept of drones being equal to other weapons simply isn't holding water - they made drones superior to all others when they added modules and assist, guard, and kept ECM of the owner not stopping drones from delivering full damage. If you don't use drones you are simply stupid, currently. And guess what, the servers can't handle it in large battles. I know, been there, seen the slideshow, got the "we crashed the server ... again" T shirt. Not good enough for a 10 year old game that should at least know how to host a fleet battle by now.


3) Pretty sure the server doesn't render any sounds whatsoever. That's purely a client-side operation.

Server has to tell the client to render sounds from other ships. I sat still at a gate in highsec and tested it - my audio was playing sounds from other ships passing with MWD on. That means a whole heap of range calculations and instructions to play sounds that are quite simply utterly pointless in a pvp battle where the server can't handle the basics, like not crashing.


4) T2 ships are meant to be specialised. I don't know how this comes as a surprise to you. "Hyper specialistion"? What merely ordinary "specialisations" were lost with the removal of missile slots from the Mael? This smacks of mere nostalgia for irrelevent fluff.

Missle launchers on pilgrim were not 'fluff'. They meant you could fit fire and foreget missles to kill a falcon. Now Falcon beats Pilgrim, 100% of the time, if the pilgrim was fighing someone else when the falcon lands. Tic, tac toe, game over. No unpredictability, less fun. Making mono-use fits diminishes the game, which jar from the whole point of rigs being added in the first place to increase customization and variation. CCP need to decide - are they making ships mono templates (like the Mael is now), with one possible use (e.g. zealot not having the power grid to fit sniper beams, so it is only a close range brawler, ever, no missile options) - or do they want to promote uncertainty in pvp by allowing large variation in fittings. They need to choose - sandbox, or wow. It's their call, but I see them going down a WoW path, and I hate that.


5) PvP happens in 0.0. Sorry you can't farm anoms with the same blithe safety as a mission farmer in a 0.7. Maybe consider organising and leveraging your power as a group, the same way the "AFK" cloakers are doing.

PvP rarely happens in 0.0. Most of 0.0 is flat out empty, nothing, nada, nix. AFK camping isn't pvp. PvP is pvp, you know, ship A attacks ship B. When you stop people playing EVE, guess what, they play something else. And they are - even the Mittani seems to spend more time talking about Star Citizen now than EVE Online. Think about it.


6) Instant warping is bad but instant locking is OK?

No, nothing should be instant in a pvp game. It's meant to be a game, not an execution of fun. I am not ok with the game concept of "always works, always wins" - that is WoW pvp in a nutshell. The correct combination of keys, or one macro, means rogue A will defeat class B, no matter what the second player does. That isn't fun, isn't engaging and ultimately isn't satisfying for anyone over the age of 8. Why? You won because of bad design, not skill. So I am not ok with instant warping or instant locking. Instant cloaking isn't ideal either for that matter.


7) Even with the new interceptors it takes 4-5 seconds to get to an anom. If you're playing on a 5000ms latency connection you're gonna have a bad time. Stay aligned and stay alert. Oh and do that group thing I mentioned above.

Yeah nice thought. You are lucky to find 8 people playing in any nullsec system outside of PvP. Usually it is one player with 7 botted toons following a main, or entire bot fleets. Remember that part about campers and the anti-play style stopping people playing? Been there, seen that, living the consequences. We used to have 20 to 50 active players in system every day. Add campers, add betrayal by Pandemic because they thought we might have gotten a new nice moon in the moon changes (we didn't), add more campers in our new home, and guess what ... lucky to have 3 real players. And they don't undock because you know you will get hot dropped by 10+. Is that a valid tactic? Sure. What have all those players done? Well ... world of warcraft, war thunder, and Star Citizen, as well as many other mini games. And the really interesting thing is players on *both* sides have quit - because it used to be fun to pvp us, but now we never undock to fight, they don't want to pay $15/moth to sit afk in space stopping people playing EVE, and they have quit, too.

So yes. Enough already, nullsec needs to be made viable for players. Interceptors are fun, but they need to have things to be wary of as well. Like minefields. Or maybe re balance sniper ships so they can actually well ... snipe ;p

Anyway, my view - currently this game is tracking down to permanent mediocrity, due to bad game design decisions and lack of courage on the part of CCP to face up to past design blunders. Step up, fix it, or watch the player base get stripped away by the new games coming online next year.



Things I am still waiting for:
1. Walking in stations, you know, with some point to walking in a station other than to see your boots.
2. Some meaningful interaction with DUST marines, economy.
3. The return of skill
4. >5% of players in null.

It really sounds like you are complaining that CCP is removing split weapon systems. Really? Split weapon systems are generally much less effective than double-bonused single weapon systems. It might hurt variety a little, but it makes ships more capable in general.


The interceptor changes have very much enhanced the ability to catch ratters, which can escalate into PvP. If you ware upset about the lack of "PvP" in your area, then move. Different regions have different activities, and you find less PvP when living in a region with nothing but blues for 30 systems every direction.


There are ships that get into warp extremely quickly, and there are setups that can still catch them. However, that doesn't mean you lose all the time, or have no options. Come through a gate with an insta-lock thrasher, so your inty can't just warp off.. then power away! Generally speaking, there are choices you can make to not die.



Interceptors have plenty to be afraid of..... smart bombing BS's, instalock alpha ships, etc, etc.
There are many nullsec players... I recommend using ingame & out-of-game tools (like dotlan) to find them.
As for your 20-50 active members no longer there.... sounds like you either need to start recruiting again, or you should move on to a more-active group of players that fits your style.

I think you need to wake up and get your head examined.

Can you please provide some connection to how any of this is related to WoW? Instead of just using the bad side of MMOs to somehow force quicker decisions based on "public view".

I don't want to cast any doubt on your obviously thorough testing and knowledge of how the game code works.... But....

For normal gameplay (imagine Audio is not even there)

Your computer needs to know what ships are near you (and in the system) right?
Your computer needs to know how far these ships are from you right?
Your computer needs to know what direction they are traveling in right?
Your computer needs to know what modules the ships near you are using right?

Don't you think that your computer could possible contain the game code that says, when a ship within X Km of you turns on module Y >>> Play Sound Z.


Seriously, just turn off your Audio and stop being a Drama Queen.

Goons in Star Citizen? Great ... and here I was actually looking forward to playing it. Oh well, another game ruined before it even got a chance to launch.




Well they had to ruin it eventually. There wasn't anything else left for them to screw up.

IF YOU AS THE CSM LET THAT HAPPEN THEN I VOTE NO CONFIDENCE IN YOU AND THE CURRENT CCP DEVS

Seriously, no. Just no. If people are not playing in H enough now, then work out why and fix that. Don't dumb the game down MORE.

Cynos in wormholes will ruin WH entirely. Ability to hatch a station in one? sure, with med facility, sure. Cynos? No. Just no, never, forget that or you may as well just delete WH space entirely.


LET US BE VERY CLEAR. MAKING EVE EASIER WILL NOT STOP STAR CITIZEN DEMOLISHING THE PLAYER BASE ON LAUNCH DAY. EVE WILL ONLY SURVIVE IF IT REMAINS SKILL-BASED STRATEGY GAME THAT IS BOTH UNFORGIVING OF MISTAKES AND IT MUST ALLOW PEOPLE TO MAKE MISTAKES

If I want to build a nyx in a wormhole and get it trapped there ... so be it. Allowing cynos in WH means the game is diminished, because there will be no risk to invading capital fleets. Goons (etc) will simply cyno in roqual with clones and a dread fleet, destroy and loot everything over a couple days, then move on to the next one with no risk of being trapped in the WH. Stopping people from splitting weapon types because it is 'bad' is also an example of this diminishing of the game - is it a mistake to mix missiles and turrets? Usually, but players should be allowed to make such mistakes.

Conceptually this is the same design element as in a RPG where putting on metal armour stops a mage casting magic. The WoW 'babying' approach is to make it so mages cannot put on metal armour, at all. The sophisticated RPG approach is you can put on the armour, but you suffer the consequences. EVE Online is famous for consequences (such as forgetting to have enough fuel in your POS in a WH) - but it must also continue to allow players to make mistakes. If it does not, it will doom itself.

Oh while we are at this ... sniper ships like Apocalypse need to be able to target and shoot out to 500 km, and should micro jump drive distance x50%/level. When speeds went up and up and up more, the 250 km hard limit on targeting failed to keep up. You can't change one aspect of a game like this and expect things designed 10 years ago to remain appropriate.

So CCP ... STOP TRYING TO MAKE THIS A FIRST PERSON PILOT GAME, IT IS NOT AND NEVER WILL BE. Star Citizen is, and is from the ground up. Making combat 'twitch' in EVE is just going to make the game look stupid - and admit it, that is the intent of the interceptor changes. I don't like instant, I like skill being required, but there is such a thing as too far. And recent changes have gone too far, without considering other systems such as hard cap on targeting range. Don't break EVE because you know someone else is making something worthy of being very afraid of, as that won't work.

The way for EVE to survive is to be EVE Online - distinctive, strategic, chess in space where you can discover you lost many moves ago. Making it too twitchy or very gimmicky (orbital strikes anyone?) is just going to leave it a muddled mess that makes people want the "real" EVE back.

So CSM ... do your job. Stop cynos in WHs, before they really do ruin that.

Or get out. All quit, en masse, with an open letter to the developers saying you are done with the dumbing down of EVE and CCP's designers' increasingly desperate measures to counter the threat posed by a first person space game that seeks to have the depth of EVE Online. This game will be absolutely fine if it stays true to its core design philosophies. The only problem is that it hasn't done that over recent years, and is fast heading to being a theme park not a sandbox. That game model works too, only when a new ride opens in a shiny new theme park, the old park closes. To survive, add more sand, not shiny versions of the same old thing, and don't put cynos in WH to make null even more pointless.

You are one of the null alliances actively trying to stop people playing this game. And your alliance leadership is actively promoting Star Citizen.

Answer these:

1) EVE Valkyrie is intended to be a direct counter to the appeal of a first person fighter experience in a rich world, as is intended by Star Citizen, yes or no?

2) given the DUST514 fiasco, do you have any confidence in CCP having the ability to integrate EVE Valkyrie into EVE Online in a meaningful way?

For my part, that's yes and no. When a titan can instant pop a carrier, there simply is no time window for EVE Valkyrie pilots to be able to be involved in any meaningful pvp events. That and they would just get smartbombed to death anyway. So Valkyrie may be a lot of fun, but like DUST it will not be relevant to EVE Online itself.

Oh and Star Citizen not being set in stone is actually the problem for CCP. Star Citizen's designers are listening, and adding things in still to increase the appeal of that game. They even have mining ships now. By the time they are done ... it may look an awful lot like EVE, just without the 10 year old legacy code, and a design that admits you can't put everyone in one system at a time and expect things to still work, rather than pretending you can and crashing out on the best battles.