EVE General Discussion

This doesn't really help the thread but some of the best fun I've ever had in Eve is as a "POS Gunner".

I'm sure "Citadel Gunner" (oh look no real skills required) is just as much fun. All you have to do is login during your vuln timer :)

Its the only time you're ever going to be in charge of your own "deathstar" in Eve

I was not looking at the war dec cost and time involved in terms of the indy structure or citadel yep that is more of a pain for teh attacker I agree, however they could pull a POS down if strategically outmatched, so what happens now it has to sit there and be shot at, no evasion, so that is worse, next issue is that they are so weak in terms of offence and of course what is needed to reinforce them. Next issue as you are quite aware most hisec corps are not really more than one man indy corps, they have no chance of defending them, befor ethey could use a POS which they could adjust to be quite well defended and a pain but now no.

From my point of view I wanted to see them at the same level as a Large POS and to be honest ISK tanking being the reason if you want, because proportionally I felt that was a reasonable expectation. I wanted them to be a challenge to take down based on the average corp size in hisec, sadly that is not the case when two DPS and a logi can take them down. Take me, I could put one ship in space and have a Citadel gunner, I don't think I would be able to do much at all as they are, and if my only option is to fly a Falcon and hope I jam an ECCM'd to hell and back merc Logi, well what is the point. Nah they are not going to be fun and I never had the chance to use my top skilled POS gunner skills...

Exploration is better in riskier space, same goes for volume and types of ore in terms of mining. PI is better in riskier space, part of my PI empire is in low sec.

Personally I am happy with the Rorqual as it is, I don't want to see it nerfed to the degree they are talking about nerrfing it, but no one gives that a chance do they, its nerf before the impact is allowed to happen. And this thing about AFK mining, I cannot see where the hell you get that from, I cannot AFK mine, it is just not possible, the roids are small and certain days I get two cycles worth of ore and that is it. You really think I can AFK mine?

I have no idea what these drilling platforms will be, I think they are moon goo related, but who knows. I hope that people can have multiple ones around moons which will shake things up a lot and make it more interesting.

I am not a fan of incursions, you know that but people seem to ignore the fact that sometimes you get one in hisec and it is messy as hell.

Boredom, weaponised boredom is the biggest turn off in this game, or putting content out of the reach of most of the player base, people don't mind being blown up, I have seen that attitude by most of the people I have met in the AG group, however they do want a correct balance. This bleating you talk about does not really exist, it is a view of gankers that people who want balance want total safety, or want to end all PvP in hisec, nope, you are just blowing a loud trumpet there and it is a bit annoying.

Anyway Astrahus and Raitaru's in hisec are too easy to kill, this is an issue that needs to be rectified, I remember you insisting that one man war deckers could take one down, I am sorry to see that they listened to you in that, what is wrong with people having to form up to kill these things, that is what I said in the F&I or feedback thread and CCP just went and screwed it up IMO.

Though they do look nice sitting in my hanger....

Be thankful they take that much to shoot. The original plan called for them to be killable by a single player in a entosis-fit frigate.

The problem of having people form up massive fleets to shoot them is it locks out small groups from attacking them. CCP designed them to support groups of all sizes fighting over them which is why they started with the entosis mechanic before switching to the DPS cap system to allow both small groups and large groups to fight over the same structure. Grid control, not meeting some arbitrary damage bar, is suppose to decide whether these things explode or not. If a five-man corp wants to fight another five-man corp over a structure, they should be able to.

These things are tedious to shoot and drop nothing so the vast majority go unmolested in highsec. If anything, CCP has made them too safe in my opinion, or perhaps just failed to provide sufficient conflict drivers given how they are piling up in most highsec systems.

What's wrong with a single player trying to shoot a structure anyway? That just means (all things being equal) you have to bring two people to see them off.

They do, when they're defended.

It's a "jolly jape" to pop most of them because that's the exact same level of consideration that was given to their deployment.

People throw up structures with no plan, capability, or desire to defend them, relying solely on people opting not to attack them (because it's annoying, time consuming, and not really worth it) to keep their asset safe.

As has been shown, Citadels have anemic weapon systems, but they can support with other means their defending fleet.
The windows of aggression are also narrow, and defined by the defender.
CCP has stated this as intended.

What concerns me more, with POS being phased out, is what happens to small corps.

With the information I have at hand, Im seeing some concerning gaps in CCPs grand plan.

The outcome of this, I expect as further consolidation of small corps into larger entities, on the larger entities terms.
Furthermore the proliferation of Citadels, exponentially, as a severely slowing effect on the exchange of territory between NS entities.
J-space is even more complicated, owing to logistics problems, especially for smaller entities.

Im not seeing a lot of positive results here in terms of player dynamics.

Instead Im seeing congealment and concretion of larger entities control of their apace, both in terms of expending resources in creating Citadels within it, and also the reduction of smaller entities capacity to defend their own assets now that the POS system is being phased out, in favor of fleet defense and more expensive installations.

Frankly, Ive never understood the decision to phase out POS.

Calculate the DPS the launchers actually put out once you take target sig & some speed into account.
Then consider what happens when you neut the structure to it's cap of which there are not things like structure cap batteries to help,and even if they were there are so few slots.
Logi just outside 250km with sniper DPS is obviously one solution. But you can just fit your logi/dps for ECM and face tank all the DPS also with how miserable it is.

Sure they should require 'defending'. But someone turning up to gun is someone defending. If no-one turns up they don't shoot at all. And they are meant to be a force multiplier, so that 1 guy turning up to defend should count as 5 to start with. If 4 people turn up they should count as 20.
Otherwise why bother to turn up at all when the attacker outnumbers you, which is the current situation they are in for highsec, where it's so irrelevant once the attacker has more than 3 people it's just down to fleet size. And this is the issue.

I have been watching this thread, and wondering why it has not devolved into trolling and name-calling. Is everybody OK today? Is there a flu going around?


One thing I would like to add to the topic's vector regarding solo/casual play and the "going big" in reference to a keepstar is this: while I would have to submit that no casual player could expect to go big and get something they might not be able to defend, and seeing that this is in line with the vision that CCP has (the usual hurr durr this is a multiplayer game make friend and all that HTFU-ery), it's noticeable that casual play has taken a hit but not in ways we could expect to see people complain about.


That is, if a solo or casual player cannot expect to go big, what can they do in a game where such direction seems to be the norm?

What's interesting is that real casual play content is in fact too easy.

Those who know me can stop reading because they seen this. I refer to exploration. Exploration was the best casual play because you could do it for a short time, or a long time, or end up intending on a short time that takes a long time (didn't need that sleep anyway) or expect to play all day, be 100 million or more ahead in the game 10 minutes later, and decide to quite while ahead.

That's one of them.

While it was construed to be the gank crowd complaining about nerfs, mostly to ganking, the biggest nerfs have happened to casual play. It's too easy.

So given that, what is such a player to do? If he's not going big, he does not have much to do. Solo or small gang PVP perhaps. But that has it's own set of issues and most people don't like wandering for hours just to get BLOPS dropped.

It seems like the casual, and mostly non-PVP (ship to ship intended combat PVP) activities became too easy and stale. Yet new content, like new sites, citadels burner missions, etc. require teamwork that casual players lack. Look, if all you got is an hour and you wait half of that for the fleet to form up and then the Logi is like "OMG wife agro" and is gone for 29 minutes, you just spent that hour doing nothing.

Yes maybe you an do the EZ Bake exploration and there some PI clickfest. Or if you have a roid vacuum put that to use. But what is the end goal of that? You might get ganked but that is still less likely to happen depending on numerous circumstances. So the outcome is predictable.

The end goal is.... a citadel? Then they can't defend it? It's like buying a huge house and not being able to afford the utilities I guess.

Like it or not, vast hordes of rank and file casual and solo players, given stuff to do that keeps them engaged and interested, were the lifeblood of the game. Todays carebear may be tomorrows NPSI fleet member, or partake in bombers bar, or go to nullsec. In the meantime what little they could do meant something to them. So that kept them coming back. They didn't read the forums, they didn't want to become space famous (or infamous) and I even met miners who never heard of Hulkageddon even around the 5th occurrence of it. Eve was that big, and that crowded, for that to happen. Unlike now, with these "Kusion fleets" and blanket deccers camping gates in highsec. Sure we get some big fleet fight over some citadel in nullsec somewhere but that was treated like some big historic event. Had something like that happened say 7 years ago it would have been a much bigger deal.

Art wise, and shelf-borne content wise (ship choices, modules, customization) the game is better than it has ever been, but it seems boring, predictable, and rehearsed.

So in summary, while a casual can probably not expect to build a citadel for lack of defending it, if that's the end goal for many a player, and they are told "no way man, it'll get blown up by people who like to blow them up for sh!ts and giggles", and the only draw for the game is that milestone, what are they expected to do? And I say this not as a plea that they should be given a chance, but that more difficult, interesting, and detailed content between point A (nothing) and B (citadel) won't make it the end all be all.

Once upon a time players used to join all starry eyed thinking they would be a fleet commander in some super acting like Captain Picard but then they ended up on some tangent far more rewarding and after a couple of years would not care, or even remember, why they started playing Eve.

Thank you for pointing it out so well, they really are pathetic, setup Eve style to be easy kills for content for easy jolly jape style play, that is why so many people don't even bother to man the guns, no one likes to play futile defence do they, I wouldn't, in fact I don't think I would waste my ISK on putting weapons on any I put up, in fact I think I will put about 80 up all around the same time and only use three.

Place them all in one system and place them strategically to create space ascii. Have you noticed that a citadel bracket icon in space already looks like the stars are giving you the bird?