Player Features and Ideas Discussion

All good ideas here!

I highly doubt (for example) CFC liking the idea that anyone can dock in any of their stations that isn't CFC...doesn't matter if it has agents or not.

Can CCP take the hit of Subs when people are pissed they lost their collective EVE life?

Another good idea is that NPC entities take unused SOV space. Kinda like an Incursion!

Just make SOV unattractive or very expensive (exponentially) the further from an assigned alliance/home "home" system. The problem isn't huge alliances with vast DPS projection. If some system mechanics were changed to make smaller SOV more profitable it would shrink the need to hold vast unused (apart from moon goo mining) space closed to the smaller corps/alliances. Hard to explain so ill give an example.

Allow a particular SOV home system to be set as the Alliance "base" "home". This "home" will allow 50% decrease in the minerals/rats required to increase the indexes. Allow "home" systems to install station/gate defences (guns whatever) linked to the strategic index.

Allow lower sec space indexes to increase further than +5 to promote more activity in a smaller region of SOV.

Example:

Trueesc

- 0.0 - allow max index 5 for industry/military/strategic
- 0.5 - allow max index 10 for index industry/military/strategic (for much greater mining, rat yield and defences)
- 1.0 - allow max index 15 ......whatever just an example

More active members in an alliance SHOULD yield greater reward potential.

SOV systems further away from "home" incur greater and greater costs to maintain and systems with empty indexes increase the cost even further to the point it would be pointless to rent systems or hold SOV for no other reason than to hold it. It would open NULL to a far greater number of subscribers. Limit a single corporations home SOV potential to 25% index bonus and an increased cost per jump squared (Jump + jump ^2) from home with increased cost for inactivity. So 500mil per month to hold home system which decreases with system activity while 1 jump from home would work like 1+1^2 x 500mil = 2 billion for next system. 2 jumps 2+2^2 = 8 billion per month. So to hold 2 systems ether direction of home (5 systems) as a corp would cost 20billion isk per month which would increase with inactivity and decrease with realistic activity. Alliances would have the ability for each corporation to set a home system decreasing the cost of expansion greatly however once all the corps have a set home the cost of holding systems outside this influence would be HUGE the farther away from the last corp home. It would not be vastly expensive to hold perimeter systems 1 jump away from last home corp but inactivity would increase cost over time.


For this to work moon goo should be made far more readily available and the yield of the moons should increase with the industry index.

Example:

Truesec - 1.0 home system mined above industry index 8 should allow R32 moons to be mined and at 10-12 R64 moons to be mined. Bare in mind it would take considerable numbers mining or ratting to crack these indexes so smaller inactive corps/alliances would be incapable to make this viable. Most T2 ships are not cost effective anyway especially HACS so why not drop production costs to 60 mil otherwise pirate/faction cruisers will win every time. Not to mention the huge difference in SP required to fly T2 ships effectively.

This would make truesec systems very attractive to make home for many big alliances but pointless for smaller ones. Even if the larger alliances break up into smaller ones and make themselves blue it would still require many active members in each case to make holding huge SOV regions very expensive if the regions remain inactive. It at the same time would take nothing away in terms of isk power from large active alliances. With the new changes to industry and specifically station slots, industry has no need to be spread out from a system, providing sufficient materials are available locally in belt/ice/moongoo spawns.

With empty regions of unclaimed space people would be more willing to explore sites and do escalations etc.

This solution is the only viable way I can fathom to solve SOV. To be honest the longer CCP leave the best components of eve to an extremely select few subscribers the more subscribers will migrate to better, more rewarding and more importantly cheaper games.

i really do like this idea but i find one major flaw. if the residents of this new world were able to build supers and titans and any other form of capitals... how is that going to be fair for anyone from the outside that wants to take it? and who is to say the current null sec groups wont send its legions of men without supers and titans and capitals to carve out a few systems in a region there and then build caps for defensive purposes.

if you have any thoughts on this i would love to hear it

Currently systems worth rattingin are -0.8 and lower, let's say the new space would be -1.0 to -2.0; all you'd have is current power blocs heading to the best systems and leaving inferior space behind.

Also supers don't take long to produce, you'd have first ones popping out from the multiple ovens in 3-4 months and we'd be in the same situation again.

Agreed that only 3-4 systems per region are worth anything. And I think that all nullsec should have more resources, but that its connection to empire should be more tenuous. If all the major powers ran into the new space, then we would have fixed the stagnation in existing space and a glorious power vacuum would arise.

And no, super don't take that long to produce, but who is going to run in and build 1,000 of them to cover 4 regions? Because that's what you need to equal what we have now. Additionally, people who have already built their super probably don't want to build another in a place that Chribba can't 3rd party.

Null sec control should be based on the number of players and the activity level of those players in the system, not on the ability to project massive force or pay large sums of money. This could involve minimizing the requirement of hard-to-grind structures (a game mechanic almost everyone hates, to the point it's a "job" you have to do to actually play the game), and minimizing the monetary cost of holding sov. The largest entities have virtually bottomless pockets when it comes to paying sov bills and fielding massive, OP fleets. Good for them, they've earned it, but in any other game this level of control by a single player-run organization would be considered a massive, cannibalizing exploit. It's ultimately unhealthy for broader player participation.

There's nothing inherently wrong with fielding massive fleets; that sort of player participation and coordination is as it should be. However, there's no good reason why a fleet of equal numbers should be able to so utterly destroy its enemy that it produces a chilling effect against fighting them at all. The problem isn't necessarily that supers and Titans exist, and the solution isn't necessarily nerfing the power of those ships. The problem is in the incentive to use them against far less powerful entities, or against a limited number of entities of equal size for very small gains but at very large expense. Both of those activies ultimately produce détente, which is nice in the real world but death to a combat-based game. It necessitates consolidation of players into ever-larger Alliances, which subsequently limits the amount of gameplay taking place on anything but a meta-level by the very few. We live in a rather large universe, with many, many empty systems, and yet new players still feel crowded out of null. This is unacceptable.

CCP needs to encourage more active players, more new players, and more players spread out over larger areas. This last goal is also a quality-of-life issue for players. When players must crowd into only a few systems to find content (or be ready to deploy on strategic "bashing" fleets), when players must stay close to "base" systems in order to benefit from the supply and support of Alliances instead of being encouraged to actually spread out in their Alliance's sov in order to maximize that same supply and support, it encourages ship-spinning and discourages players from getting out to explore, rat, build industry, and PVP in less crowded systems. It leaves certain systems overloaded while large swaths of the map are sitting empty. It feeds that same old big blob, big ship, big jump bridge network mentality instead of encouraging the smaller group interactions that make the game experience richer and more rewarding for more players. It also discourages new players from getting out and gaining the experience necessary to become a better, more dedicated player. Sov Alliances are the least fun places to be under the current game mechanic, at least for those players who are deeply involved in maintaining that sov, when the sov experience should be the place players go for apex freedom to create their own content.

The reward of sovereignity should be based on the number and activity of coordinated players in a system. If an Alliance doesn't use a system, then they don't hold the system. Power projection can then dictate what enemies might contest the sov you are actually using, and deep pockets can determine your system upgrades, thereby improving the player experience of your members and further encouraging them to use it (and thereby strengthen your sov). What do I mean by "using" your sov? This metric could be calculated based on several factors: minimum number of players occupying the system over a certain period of time or "total Alliance player time" in the system, number of jumps in and out of system, number of PVP kills of and by Alliance members, minimum ratting, exploration, and industry activity in the system, etc. Sov strength should be dependent on a feedback loop of players preferring the system with their gameplay, and strengthening that gameplay through upgrades. The shinier the system becomes, the more likely it is to be contested by another Alliance, thereby completing the circle of life.

Such a sov system has the added benefit of incentivizing activities which encourage players to maximize their personal gameplay as opposed to activities which encourage Alliances to focus their resources at the top. It gives a wider base of players the satisfaction of knowing that their gameplay is responsible for maintaining their sov, and removes both some of the boring, grinding, soul-crushing maintenance burden from leadership and the potential for abuse when leadership becomes absent or corrupt. It provides players greater power to "vote with their feet" when an Alliance is no longer serving their interests, and also to seek out new Alliances that provide a better experience than just being the biggest kid on the block. It makes sov a more fluid, responsive, and ultimately interesting game mechanic tied to the activities of players, much like recent changes to Industry in Crius. It could also produce a much-needed overhaul to the meta game mechanic, which CCP has no direct control over but could use a little shaking-up along with the game code.

Please for the love of god, get Greyscale of the SOV team. The current clusterfuck is his fault.

Oh look, CCP wants feedback so bad they've ignored this thread since starting it.
De-ja-vu anyone?

Nobody in null will like the idea. Outposts are a huge investment for anyone to make and letting everyone to dock means defending it becomes a nightmare of station games.