Jita Park Speakers Corner

I read a lot of Eve articles and one thing that they have in common is that Sov is barely changing. While most players don't think that's a bad thing, it has led to some stagnation for the game and how to get new entities in to the sov null. Well, I'm not here to tackle the latter issue as that's a different can of worms.

What I am here to address is the expansionism of Sov holders and how to make it a bit more interesting for everyone involved.

We have I'm sure, heard the much touted phrase "Farms and fields", that people would like to see more of, so I humbly introduce such a concept, extending the already existing military and industrial index to Sovereignty to decide who actually controls the system/constellation.

A sovereignty index meter could on a fixed time basis (daily, weekly it hardly matters at this stage), take account of all the activity in a system and assign a value for the alliance doing the activities.

This will of course include activities such as ratting and mining (the farms and fields), but should also take in to account industry, mining, data and relic sites. Why not even gate activity?

This means, if an alliance wants that region for itself it needs to actually use it, and actively defend it, not just one massive battle, but lots of massive battles, a system at a time. Just how many man hours would need to call a system your own for the alliance? That's a balancing issue, too low and it will be too easy to see systems flip on a regular basis - interesting certainly but massive burn out for everyone, hostile and defender alike, too high and that could dissuade smaller entities from carving out a niche for themselves.

Ask questions, poke holes, give support. What do you think of a such a sovereignty game mechanic?

So SOV is determined by grinding PvE for hours and days on end?

because that isnt horribly bottable, boring, and discourage people from risking ships and supers to actually fight eachother.

in a meanwhile you punish anyone who DOESNT go and grind out their SOV daily, crushing the soul out fo them, instead of pvp-ing and having fun.

SOV is player controlled territory, it should be determined SOLELY on the interactions between groups of players, on that note, even structure grinding is a pain in the ass that detracts from actually going out and fighting.

I think a better answer may lie in how a null sov system can be taken. There's an article in TMC that looks to FW mechanics as a template for making sovereignty mechanics more 'interesting.' All theoretical, of course, but allowing a sov system to be whittled down through something like plexing before nailing the ihub brings the small ships back into the equation.

Or simply give sovereignty to the one who really has it: to the one with the most active forces in the system, i.e. the most powerful, active, armed ships.
Of course dampened in such a way that sov cannot be flipped overnight back and forth, but if you are the dominant military power consistently over the course of a week or two, you should have sov.
And of course the present sov holder can try to fight you out, so there you have an active method of how sov is determined.

Except i dont hate carebears, i generally am one, that doesnt mean i magically agree with this idea.

PvE in EVE is considered one of the most universally boring, botworthy, AFK-inducing activities in existence. Forcing a grind that MIGHT involve large player interaction into instead forced red-crosses and orbiting timers, or variation thereof, is a TERRIBLE idea. theres a reason 90% of the people in FW are just bots farming LP.

besides, nullsec si ADVERTISED as the player centric, player ran, player conflicts zone of EVE, making the primary focus of that "conflict" be through a non-player 3rd party means you may as well just call it extended-faction-warfare, and then delete it becasue FW is terrible to everyone but roleplayers.