EVE General Discussion

Reducing effort is pretty much the definition of efficiency in this game.

Lets put it in math terms....

let r() be the reward function and E is the effort the player puts into the game.

r(E) is the rewards a player gets for effort level E. Now, a reasonable assumption about r() is that it is increasing in E.

r(E') > r(E) when E' > E.

If ISBoxer reduces E presumably people are not paying for ISBoxer to get less rewards or to work harder. So it seams reasonable that the following holds.

r(E') = r(E) and that E' < E.

Where E is the level of effort a player expended before getting ISBoxer and E' the amount of effort afterwards.

Further, that this holds for all levels of E since E and E' are arbitrary.

In short, ISBoxer shifts the player up to a higher reward function. So lets denote the non-ISBoxer reward function as r, and the ISBoxer reward function as R. Now we have,

R(E) > r(E).

In other words, with the same level of effort the ISBoxer will make more ISK. Now it is entirely possible that people will reduce effort and make just as much isk as before, but it is more likely that some will reduce effort while others will not, and that ISBoxer would indeed have an impact on the economy. The more ISBoxer and similar programs proliferate throughout the Eve population the stronger the impact.

I'm going to guess that a tipping point was reached and CCP decided to act.

By your own admission it would let a player run more clients than without it.

More clients while ratting....more isk.

More clients while mining...more resources/isk.

And I could see broadcasting "shoot this rat" as improving the PLAYER'S efficiency. Without ISBoxer one would have to go through each client and assign the drones. Then go back to the main client and shoot the rat they thought they should shoot first. Then all the other drones start shooting. If your trigger client can't shoot (jammed, damped, etc.) then you can lose the benefit of drone assist....now you have to cycle through the clients again setting up. With broadcasting problem solved via 1 click. If a player can make 2-N characters do things with 1 click with ISBoxer vs. 2-N clicks without ISBoxer, that is unequivocally and absolutely and improvement in both acquiring ISK and in game resources. Anyone arguing against this blindingly obvious result has an agenda they are pushing.

So it isn't an improvement in the efficacy of things like an ishtar or warden IIs. It is an improvement in the human player's efficiency.

And for things like ratting, CCP doesn't give a ****ing **** about how much isk/character you are making. They really, really don't. That is a useless and irrelevant metric when it comes to the issue of inflation. At that point all that ****ing matters is the amount of isk entering the economy vs. the amount of goods entering the economy.

But nice try with the word smithing again.

You would have a point if all of the stuff you listed actually sees an improvement when a repeater is used. You're not using the repeater to increase the number of clients ratting. For most miner fleets using the repeater decreases efficiency as there's only so much you can do with the sorting of overviews to try to vary the roids being hit. If you're running a giant ice mining fleet then the repeater is "good enough" when combined with a varied overview setup. For actual minerals the whole thing doesn't scale that well.

Your hypothetical about shooting the rat isn't remotely how it's done in game. I've posted a video of me running a nightmare fleet in incursions with just eve in windowed mode (8 nm 2 logi 1 ore dropper 1 booster). Nkey rollover means all you do is hit all the fkeys you need once per click as you click through the clients. That's how it would work if you're killing a rat without a repeater.

I'm still waiting on a response from CCP before I dust off the NMs again to see how fast I can click through. I REALLY want to make sure that CCP knows what I'm doing before I do it because I have no doubt it'll look awfully like a repeater on their end.

Where is that my admission? I think for most players, you will be limited by how many clients your hardware can run WAY before you are limited by how many you can control manually. Again, the problem is that this game requires so little input that large scale multiboxing is possible. Honestly, if you understood how little the multiplexing, VFX and round robin features were really used in PvE activities you might understand it a little better. The greatest benefit to PvE is the ability to rapidly switch between screens and get a quick look at all those clients - which EVE-O Preview provides completely, and windows itself does a pretty good job of even without that.

You say that, but there's no difference from a resource/isk entering the economy point of view between one player running 10 characters and 10 individually controlled characters. We certainly haven't seen CCP going against multiboxers in general, which you would see if that was their actual focus, and they aren't against new players, which also has the same effect. Moreover, multiboxers bring in both ISK and goods, and so are just as balanced as anyone else. If anything, multiboxing is more able to bring in goods than ISK, and even removes ISK (in the form of LP rewards), which counters the massive amounts of ISK brought in through individual AFK ratters in null. I continue to reject the idea that ISBoxers have anywhere close to as large an impact on the economy over any other manual multiboxers or even swathes of individual PvE players as people like yourself are attempting to claim.

Please enlighten me on the source of all of this ISK that ISBoxers supposedly collected while you weren't playing EVE. The vast majority of ISBoxers were miners, and the second was likely incursions, which while they generate ISK also generate LP which removes ISK. Most ISK in the game comes from bounties, the majority of which will be from AFK ratters in null which requires nearly zero input, certainly no multiplexing.

Keep running circles, it is amusing.

Artificially-generated ISK that would not have been there had it not been for the ISBotter and its equivalents.

There were no new resources to match this ISK on a regular basis.

Even if you had your friends double down on ISBotter mining, as you were printing ISK, there were no movements, or dynamics in the whole of New Eden to consume these resources and products.

Teckos, this not only ensures the long-term health of the economy, this moreso secures CCP's future success as a company, because the number of real players at that time was decreasing, with ISBotters spawning in their wake - There would later on come a time, where a situation could develop, which could see drops, in a very violent manner, in the subscription numbers to levels unseen since the birth of Eve, as said players came to command ever-greater number of accounts, giving false sense income security - a leveraged hostage situation.

In the very end, it would be just like Chinese server Serenity - botters and people who sell PLEX to do PvP.

Diversity and ever-changing dynamics with real actors - this has been and always will be the future of EVE.

Looks like CCP do want to see Eve thriving for a Second Decade after all.

A 1,200 mil per hour income on a casual 13 account setup - could be scaled further. You even commented that this is still possible to achieve.

But it isn't.

Case in point: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/the-fw-exploit-2012/ - Five players on record had done all this. Five people. Consider, consider this - LP doesn't print ISK, after sinks, this resource gives the holder ability merely to command the wealth that is already in the system.

From 468 mil to 600, then back to 468.

Imagine what can be done when you can artificially print ISK instead, and then leverage it by the number of accounts.



Numbers pls.

You seem to spot no problem, and that is perfectly fine - nobody is perfect, delusions do happen, especially mania-linked ones, but having ISBotters on the BOTH side of the economic equation doing their thing™ - Is this the kind of game that all of us would like to be playing in?

Rhetoric question!

Chinese Eve server Serenity says Nǐ hǎo - Hello!

That's great, said Incursions just opened up to NORMAL people in considerable manner. AFKtar gonna afk. vOv



Precisely, it was a FW payout imbalance - look at its results.



It is irrelevant how it is done, what matters is the artificial inflows.



And it indeed (probably) had been so, so is that the point, then, that proves they are fine? THAT'S THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ECONOMIC EQUATION!

Operation Success - from ISBotter in your words having zero impact on the economy, we've advanced to admission, and to Faucet & Sinks, as well as resource acquisition discussions.

But CCP knows everything on the following topic, and more, anyway.

CCP Quant pls ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ gib data



No, of course not - in your mind.

15,000 ISBotters getting ISK from CONCORD
15,000 or equivalent number, to match the above inflows, of ISBotters acquiring, mostly tech 1, mind you, resources.

Numbers exaggerated, but it scales very, very, very, very, very well at any level.



According to my intel, it would seem the last bastions of the Machines held out until the Earth-March of the year 2015-YC117.

If anyone hasn't seen this most relevant presentation, do enjoy - EVE Online Fanfest 2015: CCP Security - Better Safe than Sorry!

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

The problem is not high incomes per se, the problem is artificially-leveraged incomes per 1 player - There is no consumption, or PvP happening in other words, to match either the ISK printing or mining at these levels.



Yes, exploits are very, very bad and distort everything, hence we are in this thread.



Over the course of the two years that it had been active, yes it has had a very considerable & long-lasting impact.

To the point of one very liquid commodity having a head and shoulders formation in place right this very moment.

And there is no short-selling* in Eve!
No stops!
No leverage* from a central bank infinite finance facility on the flip of a switch!

*1: In this particular commodity CCP can act as a short-seller.
*2: There had been a leverage-type system in effect due to ISBotter - damage has been done, but it is recoverable



I have always considered both sides of the Economy, it is just that naked ISK printing, unsubstantiated by the adequate acquisition and destruction of resources and ready products in the medium and the long run, alone, wrecks more than some Veldspar in a hangar, or even on the market ever could.

But feel free to try and milk a Dysprosium moon for more than 100 * 24 * 30 = 72,000 units of Dyspro per month.

You don't understand.

Leveraged ISK printing income per 1 player.

With no resources to match = Inflation.

But most importantly - No universal consumption to match = Stagflation.