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Whoever is running and/or evaluating your data is not very good at it. You're looking at correlations and calling them causation. You're attributing things like increased activity in null to Phoebe, when in fact it is due to other factors such as the "this is eve" video and recruitment in nullsec in general. KarmaFleet alone has picked up several hundred players (hundreds more of characters) that were recruited from high sec and/or directly into null from Reddit.

This data does not show any causation based on Phoebe, and without realizing that, you're going to severely ruin the majority of nullsec.

Granted that I am not a PvPer but I do mostly live in null and I don't think that having system flipping as a goal is really a good goal for increased PvP.

I think the focus should be more on giving people reasons to fight over the space that they occupy rather than constantly forcing people to move around.

I in the past have mentioned working use of the space into profitability of the space and also increasing the reasons to go NRDS as having a lot of neuts flying around can increase small gang activity.

I have posted some of my ideas on this before and won't duplicate them here but if one of the devs want more info drop me a mail and I'll expand on this.

I think cloaky camping is a huge problem that give way too much power to what is mostly afk game play. The amount of affect that an afk cloaky camper has compared to his actual time engaged with that client is so off balance that I think it is a far far greater problem than the off grid fighter assist that you are currently nerfing.

In this devblog: Graphs are wildly misinterpreted, statistics are given the finger.

Thanks for the graphs and information CCP, however there is something bugging me from this devblog.

1. You say that there is a +23.6% increase in manufacturing jobs per day in Nullsec since Phoebe, thats nice
But only a +0.7% increase in mining volume per day in Nullsec since Phoebe. Even with the +5% increase in NPC kills per day in Nullsec since Phoebe and presumed reprocessing of loot into manufacturing materials, the numbers mined from nullsec to support these building jobs come up way to short.

I can only conclude that nullsec is still on the Jita life support, and it has been mentioned in the [Phoebe] Long Distance Travel Changes - updates! thread that nullsec needs this lifeline because the major coalitions are to scared to truly life in nullsec on their own without outside help.

The [Kronos] Freighters and Jump Freighters Rebalance [Updated] was a great start at looking how hisec and nullsec interaction of materials could be improved, but you kinda dropped the ball by caving into nullsec Lords demand and allowing Jump Freighters and Rorquals to be special-cased, the conditions for any nullsec stagnation is not taken away this way.

2. Capital Ship Activity, you mentioned in the original Phase One Dev Blog, that you hoped the reduced chance of being hotdropped would provide more opportunities for people to feel comfortable using small numbers of capital ships in PVP.
Your conclusion so far is that the overall score for Capital Ship Activity: A wash.

Continued work on engaging and balanced roles for Capital Ships will be needed in the future, especially as some of their current roles in structure shooting are de-emphasized in Phase Two.
Please also keep in mind that you also have Covert Ops Black Ships to play around with for balancing

3. Sovereignty Conquests, now this is where I have the most trouble with.
The whole article about this reads like CCP wants to play in the sandbox and the company decides how nullsec social clubs are allowed to play with the sand.



There is hubris in this, and I would like to call Bullshit on this before we have another "customer disgruntlement" incident.

Regards, a Freelancer

Edit: customer disgruntlement incident elaborated

The Summer of Discontent 2010
The Summer of Rage 2011
The Summer of bad PR 2012
The Summer of Mintchiplol 2013
(to forum moderators: I did not name her CCP name or linked to any ccp/chribba deleted eve online forum threads)
The SOMER of BLINK 2014
Next: Summer is Coming 2015

This is the same company that seems to think BCs are in a "good place" because their overall generalized stats show a lot of BC dps (almost 100% soley from highsec suicide ganking in taloses), and that ishtars arn't imbalanced because people that are AFK die in them.

Fozzie:

Would you be able to add engagements to to those stats? Kills are all well and good, but battles are better, yeah?

ie: How many large engagements were there on a week to week trend?

Actually something easier to track:

How many kills were involved in where the deceased was less than a full squad? A wing? More than 2 wings?

How about metrics for the inverse as well?

I am interested in seeing where the metrics are

If they really wanted to increase the amount of PVP happening in Nullsec and to give the "little guy" a shot all that needs to happen is create some more NPC controlled systems in Null. Place them in the middle of large SOV areas. These "islands" of systems would give smaller corps and alliances a foothold in Null and a staging point to launch into SOV space. Obviously if these systems aren't created with enough entry and exit points into SOV space the larger controlling alliance could just camp the point of entry and close off the up start alliances access. Same problem if not enough space stations are available in those areas.

You can already see this in pirate controlled regions that more PVP happens in and around that space.

Regardless of this suggest it will not increase capital kills. No body is going to risk a capital if they think they are going to lose it. Too much of an investment. So large capital battles will continue to happen only between large alliance fleets.

After reading through the dev blog and responses to it, as well as many other articles on these “Changes for Good” CCP is forcing on everyone. I have said this over many of the past patches and everyone just says that the “care bears are crying again”

Well let’s kill pap in this game for a little bit and see if you feel the same way. Every patch for the last 1.5 to 2 years has all been aimed at killing off Industry in eve. CCP says that a player can do anything in eve they wish, what they havent had the courage to say is that they are going to Kill industry in the game so you have to buy all your in game goods from them.

CCP claims that they are fair about their changes, and yet what was fair about making it so that hostiles no longer have to scan down grav sites? And when that was overcome with the use of drag bubbles m they make interceptors immune so they can still catch industrialists out in their mining barges and exhumers.
And all along they see no problem with a person flying or logging in a cloaky ship and closing down an entire system while they may or most likely are not even at the keyboard. If I disrupt another’s game play I get treats from CCP about banning my accounts, and yet they interfere with mine and CCP response is “oh that’s a valid game tactic”

CCP needs to learn and understand what the words fair and balance means before they kill their game completely.

I would have to agree

Thank you CCP Fozzie for a very interesting dev blog. The health of the game (not just null sec) is something I take an active interest in.

Some points worth bringing up (please see WTZ forum post linked above for graph explanations and data sources):

- Null sec population does indeed appear to have increased (even before Pheobe, probably as a consequence of post Rubicon changes) but seems to have peaked. Notice the apparent inverse relationship between the hi sec and null sec populations in this Graph 1 which seems to indicate that there's a degree of null sec players choosing character movement between the two sectors of space depending upon perceived need or risk.

- Population spikes are seen after a successful expansion/release implementation or oustanding marketing campaigns (This is EVE, in particular) as can be seen in this Graph 2. In particular, notice the very spiked hi sec kill data, possibly correlating with an influx of trial accounts or newbros. Furthermore, EVE participation is very seasonal (as can be seen in Graph 1 linked above). Generally speaking, we see a steady decline in player activity as the year progresses, only reversing the trend late in Q4. We therefore have to be very careful in judging how good, or bad, a change is to EVE by focusing on just the data without any seasonal effect adjustments. In many respects Pheobe was good for EVE especially as there didn't seem to be any signs of a "winter is coming" war on the horizon that might encourage greater player participation.

- This next Graph 3 attempts to normalise the monthly kill data using monthly average PCU (thank you to Chribba for providing the PCU data) and adjustment for population distribution too. You can indeed see a bump in PVP activity in null sec but low sec saw a much higher increase for the same Pheobe effect period. Mind you, this graph also highlights how badly null sec PVP activity has lagged behind low sec since approximately mid 2012.

- Unfortunately, the sov conquest data is rather misleading since it is well known that a lot of the data points represent some form of intra or inter-coalition tranfer activity. The big spike in sov conquests after Pheobe was largely down to a certain coalition selling the sov in the south and the new encumbents grinding down the structures without a fight.

In my humble opinion, Pheobe was a good first dose of medicine for a rather sick & tired null sec. Scylla and the sov changes will have a greater impact as a consequence of Pheobe.

Keep up the good work CCP, 2015 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for all EVE players.