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It's not if it can defend it "easily", it is a case of can it cause enough damage to the enemy fleet to discourage killing it for laughs.

Jury is out to be fair, but it doesn't need to be indestructible, just not worth the trouble to go to in order to "casually" kill it.

But they don't kill it for laughs, they kill it for the loot it drops, since even the bare hull drops a massive amount of loot.

Thank you for point that out to me. That's what I get for reading the thread on a phone with a tiny, tiny screen.

I still feel the need to restate that using a Citadel doesn't give me any advantages worth the cost. Repeating "it's all going to be worth it" makes you sound like a cult leader, not a rationalist.

What this is is just a punishment. "You're using NPC stations and we don't want you to do that". It's a failure by the game designers to come up with attractions for Citadels which will tempt people into using them.

The players in this thread have already come up with some good incentives: Security offices in Highsec, less/no faction police on grid, things which stations in Highsec can't do.

It's worth repeating this though:

"The space where Citadels could compete is anywhere between 0% and the current highest tax. Not the current lowest tax, the highest. If Citadels had a lower limit of 0.75% sales and 0.01875% Broker's fee, they'd still be competitive, because very few people are currently paying that lowest tax band. "

Make NPC Stations and Citadels equal, then expand the possibilities Citadels can have horizontally, not vertically. Choose a Citadel for what it does that a NPC station can't do, not what it does that an NPC station does worse.

One is progressive development, the other is regressive.

Oh I definitely agree, sticks are a terrible way to do this.

I never said that. I said you have a choice: risk a structure for benefits, or forgo those benefits and stay in your NPC station. The decision of whether those advantages are worth the risk and cost to you is yours of course, but you are very much intended to have to make that decision by CCP.

Not really. It's true they are making stations worse in order to make citadels more attractive, but it part of an effort to restoring some of the risk vs. reward that is so lacking in modern Eve. Players need to be rewarded if they offer themselves up as a target to other players and currently, NPC stations are just too safe and too good for players to accept the cost and risk of a citadel.

If they don't do this it will just be the Drifter Incursion fiasco all over again. You can't release a new feature which is riskier, but pays less and expect players to do it. Sansha Incursions rewards should have been nerfed into the ground or removed entirely so players would run the new content. Instead, the new content was mostly ignored, and all those developer hours were essentially wasted on a feature that hardly anyone used.

CCP has made a major investment in these new structures and they want people to use them. There has to be some game advantage to using them.

I too am a little concerned these tax rates are a little too punitive, and perhaps other incentives would be a good idea, but deadlines are fast approaching so I expect what we see here is close to what we will get on initial release.

I'm sorry, but that's how I read " Don't cry though if you are left behind by other groups more adventurous than yours who will enjoy the bonus to refining, free jump clones, and reduced market fees that will ship with the citadel release, and in the future, bonuses to industry and more. "


You have a funny way of saying exactly what I was saying and treating it like a virtue.


The Drifter Incurisions were an interesting concept which failed at more than one stage in more than one way:

It was targeted at the Incursion running crowd, but made it impossible to use battleships without losing them. It wanted to attract roleplayers, but made using the 'right amount of players' impossible. The best way to play was to swarm the Drifters with many many frigates as a buffer, then use battleships. This made it ISK effective.

It didn't work the first time it was implemented, which killed the hype it did generate, and when they did re-introduce it, the un-dodge-able DD made it unenjoyable to run. When they finally patched the numbers exploit, they had effectively killed any reason people had to run it.

Boiling it down to 'there wasn't enough reward for the risk' ignores the actual facts in a way which doesn't help your argument.

Do I think that they're representative of how Citadels will be introduced? In some ways, yes. Unreasonable punishment means low uptake and less continued activity. Botched implementation kills hype, means early adopters don't encourage other people to play. Most importantly, attracting the right crowd means making more of what they like, not pretending they'll like it, when they won't.

Let's look:

"unreasonable punishment" : tick.

"pretending they'll like it" : tick

"botched implementation": Well we're not there yet.

Sideways, not vertical. I want people to use Citadels, but I want CCP to think of the people who won't be using Citadels too. They're not an underclass to be abused or denigrated.

Releases can be delayed. A "We want this to work right for everyone" post is something that garners a positive response, and doesn't make the less engaged, newer players go "well, CCP aren't interested in having me, so they won't get my money".

Guys, my biomass queue is up. Just before I delete everything, understand that CCP has defied a 1,000+ reply threadnaught on Reddit and the official forum protesting against these changes. This is the same arrogance that ignited monocle-gate. Because CCP knows better than the players. Or something.

Whatever. I am voting with my feet and wallet.

o7

/biomass
/uninstall

If you are not sure they will be worth the risk, it means NPC version of the services are too good for you to value the advantages the citadels are supposed to bring to you. Problem is, some service you can't just make "better" in the player owned version. You can't really make jump clone "better" than they are because it create other issue. The tax can be made slightly better but the difference is extremely small so CCP is pushing for making the margin between the 2 larger to let some leeway to citadel owners to play with. Refining is getting the same treatment because again, the margin to play with for the owner is rather small. Unlimited office number is a good thing if you open it up to every one and set it up in a place where people will want offices but you can't be sure who will be able to use it because it's really dependent on geography.

In the spirit of giving Citadel owners more leeway, shall we limit the number of people able to be docked in an NPC station? Surely that's a space where players can compete...

What I really meant was not worth the cost, and unfortunately using the wrong word has confused the point I was making.

If an XL citadel costs ~150 billion ISK, how is that ISK to be recouped? Is it considered a sunk cost or are all citadels meant to make back their fuel and initial expenses? In what length of time should a Citadel recoup their costs?

As for 'not worth the risk, NPC stations too good', I think that's incorrect reasoning. Allowing a Citadel lower taxes than a NPC station would be a pull factor, even if the lowered taxes were only below the current highest taxes, simply because players don't wish to lose ISK to taxes they don't have to pay. Similarly, player offered jump clones in locations where there are no NPC stations (or where the players have run out of 'station space' will also be a pull factor.

Nerfing NPC stations strengthens the pull factor, sure, but it doesn't mean it won't exist if you don't.

From my point of view, they are putting those change in so the citadels are worth it unlike the drifters who were not worth the hassle because the reward were not at the right level for the incurred risk of losing battleships as often as required by running the content. People voted with their feet by not going into drifter incursion because it was not worth the hassle. If citadels are not worth the hassle, people also won't use them. People will keep using the alternative if the new option is not at least as good of a deal. The deal does not need to be the exact same but the combo has to be about as good. Drifters added risk of getting your BS one shot while giving out pretty much nothing. If your citadel can be destroyed compared to a station, there has to be benefits to owning one and that is what those taxes changes create.

The original option of using NPC station will still be there like sansha incursion were still there but they are trying to make them more closely matched in risk and reward.