Wormholes

I've been watching this thread from the beginning and refrained from commenting thus far to see just how these changes have played out. Now though, to me at least, its becoming pretty clear that CCP isn't taking this thing very seriously at all. It seems like CCP is treating this thread as another case of "Well, nobody is replying anymore, so that means the players must have accepted these changes and all the [valid] complaints about it were just players whining for the sake of whining. We know what's best for them and this just proves it!"

No it doesn't CCP. As a lower class WH corp which occasionally dabbles in PVE and PVP in higher classes, after this patch it has become so tedious to find either A) people to shoot or B) a WH that has combats without 6+ other entrances to watch, that hardly any of our corp tends to log in anymore. We all have a limited amount of time to play EVE and most of us now choose not to spend that time scanning empty wormholes anymore. Now I know you're reading this and thinking "oh, just another person saying the same thing that happens every patch, let me just skip this post", but I do have to ask before you do that; is this the intended result of this change? To have a mass exodus of WH space? I'm sure many of those in this thead know what I'm talking about; we've all noticed how much more empty WH space is since this patch went live. I've even seen a couple of corps leaving WH space altogether and I've sometimes helped to scan them a way out!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every system we visited before the patch had people or sites in, but as of the last couple of weeks now we can regularly go into chains 10+ deep and not find a single active POS or player. I'd really like to see these promised figures, because at the moment all the feedback we're getting seems to be empty promises. Is it because you are scared of what the numbers say? Or is it that although the amount of people living in WH space is less because of this, you consider the loss to be an acceptable margin and don't want to disclose such information in fear of a huge "Hah, we told you so!" backlash on the forums?

I'd put my money on the latter. I don't really expect a response or any of these promised figures to ever see the light of day, but could you at least do us the courtesy of replying to the several common complaints made time and time again in this thread rather than just saying "we're still watching the thread, don't worry!". It's starting to become a bit of a joke reading the same things over and over again and having no official response to some very worrying concerns that some of the other players in this thread have brought up so far.

EDIT: Also I'd like to add a massive +1 to everything epicurus ataraxia has said in this thread so far. It's a shame that none of this feedback seems to be making the slightest bit of difference!

To paraphrase Clint Eastwood: "A developer has got to know its customer's limitations."

You cannot control the choices players make when you do not control the entire list of options they have to choose from. Every player has 2 options that they start with before CCP adds any to the list. They are "leave this space" and "quit the game." The former may be CCP's intention from time to time, for valid reasons. The latter should never be intended.

Players make choices based on their own limitations, such as: available playtime, available resources, available assistance from others and yes, of course, risk of loss. Of those limitations the only one CCP can affect directly is risk. The others can be indirectly affected but not in an immediate fashion.

So playtime is out of their control. If there were a graph of playtime mapped against fun, peak playtime would meet up with peak fun. If something is less fun, or to use a term repeated in this thread --tedious--, that reduces fun and reduces playtime. As some have mentioned, increased reward along with increased risk can balance out fun.

Available resources are out of their control, they aren't going to just dump isk in people's wallets. They can adjust the rate at which players can earn isk but the effect is not immediate.

Available assistance means friends online and is only directly affected by available playtime which is tied to fun.

That leaves risk, the one thing CCP can directly affect, so they grabbed it and wrenched it up to 11. When I say that I mean the combination of Mass-Based-Jump, Extra Statics, Extra Randoms, and Frig Holes. These features could all have merit in isolation, but together they kicked the risk up high enough that people are ignoring CCP's recommendation of "accept more risk" and choosing the always available "nah, I'll do something else." Anybody who had a proper understanding of the choices would have seen that coming.

So what happens now? Well the choice list for CCP is much shorter: Revert the changes, Keep the changes and hope new people move in, or Pick and choose and hope it's the right formula for fun. I don't know what the right formula would be, but it has to take into account that players first question on risk is "how much of the risk can I control for?" The question of "can I afford to lose this?" comes after you decide how much risk you are actually facing.

Any developer that fails to understand the limitations of what they actually have control over will force people into decisions that developer won't like in the end. You CANNOT force people to play a certain way, but you can force them to choose between playing that way or quitting.

One last thing to discuss. Why is CCP trying to fix a symptom rather than the problem that created the symptom? Rolling holes is not the problem, it's a player-made solution to the actual problem of having nothing to do until something changes. The choices were always: wait, logoff, or roll the hole. If you want to fix the actual problem, find a way for people that want fights to find them easier, and people who want isolation to find it easier. Then play with the variables on how long isolation can last, or how often it can happen, and what kind of fights can be found. Boom, content.

Longer/wider chains won't get fights by default, for reasons already covered in this thread. The depth at which players will commit to a fight or continue searching is not under CCP's control. It is yet another limitation that is controlled by the players themselves.

I like that, nicely put, I have no problem at all with the concept of adding risk, but one needs to have a reason to do so first, wormhole space was hardly considered safe in the first place, and they seem to have hoped that by "shaking things up" somehow magically more content would appear.

We can see just how well that did not work.
Some of the changes, touted at increasing risk, actually made the game more dreary and boring, and the blind luck element of dying due to landing in a bad position, just made any sane person hate and despise the mass spawn change outright. We still hate it, and avoid wherever possible.
Did I mention we still hate it and are not going to ever forget it? Or magically going to like it? Ever?

Increasing connectivity has reduced site running, as sensible people react sensibly, there are now near infinite chains to scan out, with the exciting press scan and wait for a bit scanner, again, again. Now another hundred times............ Try it Fozzie, for 3 hours in a row and THEN tell us what a fun mechanic it is.........

And when eventually scanned only succeeds in showing us how empty wormhole space has become.

It seems that CCP were hoping for a quick fix, and suprisingly people failed to believe the PR and press releases bragging about how this was the best thing for wormholes ever, when our own eyes and experience show clearly it was not.
We did not believe it then and we certainly do not now!

Perhaps it is time to actually do something for wormhole space than rather than just kicking a few things around and calling it done?

Ps we like the signatures persisting after downtime, best upgrade ever Yeah hyperion!

Tl;DR. Hyperion the only upgrade designed to increase boredom and make life more unpleasant and dreary for the users who remain. I seriously doubt that was the tagline in the design and marketing meeting.......

But, although I hate to say this, after 100 pages it is time.

We told you so.

Not yet but oh so close, wonder how long it will last?

Well it Is difficult to get ppl to play eve now with the changes.. Our pilots are tired of scanning wh after wh to find content and find nothing. They have moved on to other games.

We had ssc pay us a visit and bait us. I had 3 ppl on line that was it. I went to the other game channel where there was 15 and no one would log into eve for the fight..

That is just sad

SSC always bring a good fight and i wanted to engage so bad but not with just 3 pilots..So now i am getting bored and i do not even look forward to getting home and logging into eve anymore, As where b4 i did..

Just sad

..thanks ccp for Not Listening to your wh pilots and ruining wh space and the game for the great pilots of w space. Except you hans

LOL Wormhole space IS EASY! How much more easy do people want it????

Those that leave the game over the changes are the people we dont playing the game as they are the ones that play other games while waiting for a ping in facebook/teamspeak for a fight and bring appsolutely nothing to content generation for the rest of the EVE community. Lets focus on finding new players that actually want to contribute to the game community, instead of whining constantly about changes that are infact great (for the most part).

Yesterday, for the first time after these changes I entered a wormhole in a Retriever to mine some ABC ores. Also the last time, since I spawned 7-8 km from the hole (previously I never spawned more than 5 km away), as it takes forever to travel 2 or 3 km in a Retriever and I would have been laughably easy to kill even by a solo camper, which is of course not the case when I enter holes with a Drake or any other ship designed to run sites with (as they have better tank, base speed and are fitted with a propmod).
So, Fozzie, thanks for nerfing WH Ninja mining, an activity that maybe three people were doing.

No, it would have happened before as well. They would have just jumped with you back to your hole and not agressing you immediately.

If you find WH so easy, move to 0.0, which is more dangerous (attention: irony) or be a man and move to the most dangerous space in Eve: HiSec.



You know what: I don't want to listen / read from fanboys like you, ignoring reality, talking a lot of bullshit and telling stories that never happened to just troll in a thread and bust those who feel treated in a bad way from CCP or which is affecting a lot of People of wh community in a bad way, especially those who maybe can not hide behind an alliance.

I would be pleased if you can add something constructive, but you can't...

Are you stating that 2 end of life bombers chose to attack you orca because of the changes?? Explain to me why the wouldn't have engaged you pre hyperion.

I'm skeptical of your ability to draw straight lines.

Is it too late to get any of the needed changes into oceanos? Or Will we have to wait until the following release at the earliest?