CSM Campaigns

I am Vic Jefferson. I have been playing this game for 4 years, and have tried almost every aspect of this game extensively except for wormholes. I believe myself to be a strong candidate for many reasons. First, no matter what particular aspect of this game captivates you the most, there is a good chance I have been there and done that as a player, and thus can both relate and understand the issues that affect you as a player. Many CSM positions are filled by 'empty suits' which do not play the same game you do, and are given out by large power blocs, effectively depriving you of a voice and giving it to power blocs over players, when the CSM itself is supposed to be representing players. Second, I am not squeamish to criticism and have no issues fully listening to players and their concerns, where playing the game as extensively as I do tends to put me in contact with many play styles and people. Third, my professional career (Research Scientist, PhD) mandates that I am able to work collaboratively with world class experts of many disciplines and from many backgrounds – one is never graced with infinite time and resources, so one must be able to communicate quickly and with minimal friction to accomplish anything, where I would take a CSM position with the same seriousness and professionalism as my real job.

I will touch on a few key points to try and persuade you that I am no different than you – a player hungry for content, whether that is clawing my way closer to industrial supremacy or perpetually roaming in search of the mythical good fight. I only want more opportunities and a better environment for those to happen in on every login, and am willing to go one step further and try to voice our player concerns to those that author the world we play in.

A) Interaction is the only thing that really powers this game.
B) Mechanics that deplete the available player content should be looked at first and foremost.
C)A few smaller tournaments would grow some newer competitors and enliven this aspect of the game.
D)Risk and reward should be at the heart of every mechanic.
E)A sample of ship balance.

A) Interaction is the only thing that really powers this game.

What makes you and I log in? For some of us, our content is meted out to us like a rat in a Skinner box - turn off DotA or Overwatch when you get that ping, and get in fleet to receive content in small kill-mail fortified granules. For others, we chase content, look for the adrenaline rush, try to increase our ever tenuous grasp of part of the economy, or tend to our errands of individual concern. However, most of the persistent and good reasons to log in, regardless of how you play EvE, are because players are allowed to plant and nurture the seeds of content – every new mechanic and revision of old mechanic should consider how much the change will enable players to interact more with other players, or increase the strength and importance of existing interactions.

There have been great improvements to this area of the game recently. Citadels themselves are a great example – players may now own pseudo-stations in areas they previously could not and control their own markets and docking rights. The industrial arrays likewise emphasize player control with added risk – with NPCs out of the way, these open up avenues for player interaction. Not requiring standings for jump clones and the security tag system are also recent examples, where the former gutted one of the last legitimate uses of NPC standings, and the latter meant you could recover security status without having to shoot red things for hours, while also adding a tiny economy around the tags.

The station advertising may seem trivial, but in addition to providing much needed immersion, it adds something that is vastly needed – a community reach out in game. Now, surely experienced players know there's a hundred good ways to get roped into a particular corp or alliance, or NPSI group, etc, i.e. finding stuff to do in game. As of late, especially with the ghost fitting utility, EvE is becoming less reliant on having a small arsenal of third party programs to even attempt to progressing, but what it could really use a revamp of its in game method of exposure to things like NPSI, public roams, various activities, and corp and alliance recruitment. Slowly but surely, there's more to fight over, and CCP seems to get the idea of giving the players control, now you just have to find a way to get people excited and involved with things, without excessively leaning on the community; reliance on third party software is slowly being replaced, when will community stuff follow suit?

D)Risk and reward should be at the heart of every mechanic.

Wardecs are probably one of the mechanics with the highest potential for generating engaging content, but largely fail to do so because of the asymmetry of it all. I.E. they could actually plant lots of great content seeds to get things rolling, but do not currently. Most of the larger wardec alliances can just blanket war-dec the entire game as there are no actual consequences to this other than token ISK costs, and no real risk to them due to high sec mechanics. If the wardeccers had to actually play a game of how many alliances and entities they can safely dec at once, say, by actually having ante on the table, things would be vastly more engaging. Right now there's nothing for defenders to actually attack to end the war, and no actual liabilities for the attacker, so the best strategy is just to dec everyone and take the easy pickings. However, numerous people have proposed structures or citadel modules/rigs that would be required to declare and wage war in high-sec – these would be a great addition to the game because they would turn wardecs into an actual game; how many and which things can I safely dec? The rest of the game has a very interesting approach to content. Someone gets attacked, somewhere, for some reason. Suddenly they talk to their friends for help defending….and suddenly the attackers also find allies, thus the escalation begins. Before you know it, EvE’s twisted and Byzantine alliances all work out who’s side they are going to fight for over a given, initially small, conflict. This right here is the essence of EvE – there are social consequences beyond one episodic instance, the game fosters these like no other, and conflict is rich with many different concurrent dimensions.People could actually get involved in the war once the attacker actually has some skin in the game. Now players could actually fight back – fantastic, an actual risk and reward paradigm for wardeccers!

I have feeling that a lot of the forced mechanics and entry barriers in early EvE design reached for this philosophically – opening one door comes at the cost of closing another door, like standings etc., but they failed in implementation because it punished players for just playing, not for ‘bad’ decisions. There is no current way to be bad at wardeccing, because there is nothing at risk.

E)A sample of Ship Balance

Blops are one of the last classes on the teircide agenda. To infer what is on CCP's mind with TII ships, one merely has to follow what they say, i.e. TII ships of all sorts represent specialization, along with the work they have already done on some of the TII ship lines. The TII cruiser line, while there could be a good deal of smoothing to make some ships more viable, does give a good philosophical paradigm. You can get more tank and raw combat prowess with the aptly named Heavy Assault Cruiser line, or you could forgo these in favor of more finesse in the Recon lines, trading raw tank and such for utility and EWAR. This continues on to the TII battleships so far – you can get damage, application, and tank at the cost of mobility in the Marauder line, or you can trade the tank and some of the application for a very unique ability among sub-capitals – a jump drive.

That's all well and good on paper, but they really do leave something to be desired for the price, both ISK and SP. Currently, there are few good ways to use them – looking for easy pick-offs with a few friends, as tackle and damage supported by triage for ganking large targets, or as an entire fleet supported by t3c logi if you have massive numbers. There are those that think giving them TII resists would be a good idea – this would be a horrible idea for a few reasons. First, it violates the teiricide paradigm – they aren't supposed to be progression from the t1 variant, they are supposed to be a specialization – not simply just a better more expensive ship. Second, this would give larger groups something that would come to be reviled – a jump fatigue reduced TII battleship fleet, pushing us a little back to the pre-Pheobe age, where content and power is only in the hands of the few. With a few triage pre-staged, these would come to asphyxiate any reasonable fights in very little time. What they need is specialization. If they are meant to be highly mobile platforms for quick strikes into heavily populated or defended systems, they need the tools to do so. Right now the only appreciable reason to drop them, in this particular context, is to showboat honestly. Why would you jump in a minimum 2b ship that starts the drop at 30% capacitor, requires at least one sensor booster to lock something in a reasonable time frame, cannot align quickly, and cannot warp while cloaked, when you could use any of the other options that do comparable damage at a faction of the cost and risk? Granted I like blops, a lot. I have more ISK invested in their fits than anything. This doesn't change them being bad at ambush tactics when every second counts. To make them specialists, Blops need a temporary bonus upon jumping that will make them 'show time' ships, highly capable for at most 60s, such that they excel at their specialization, without offering a simply better, jump capable, battleship. It could be anything – 300% scan resolution, heat damage reduction, agility, speed, application, etc. Furthermore, a revised bridge mechanic, preferably configurable on the module, where you could jump your blops and it's gang, similar to the area effect of command destroyers, would make them far less clunky and more like the 'specialists' they were meant to be.

>he logs in

I endorse this product and or service

VIC SIGN MY MANTITTIES PLS

You may not be here that long but you have my respect and you do know your stuff!

Nice to see you here.

So this meme is a bit tired, but I will try to pick it up and work with it, eh?

If by Poitot you mean everything good about NPC null, yes I will do everything in my power to try and focus some attention on this space, space mostly forgotten by the devs. NPC null is where CCP needs to be looking anyway for the current crowd, much more than sov 0.0. Despite their best attempts, sov is still dominated by large, tired coalitions, and the few sparks of promising vigor have been promptly stomped out by ravenous power blocs, hungry for content.

NPC null is literally the dream of the current gamer crowd. What sort of games are jumping and jiving right now? Well Dota, Overwatch, etc etc - games where you can take a small group of friends out for a spin and see what you are, or are not made of. That's the NPC Null dream - take out a small gang of your buddies and roam around, see what you can stir up, have fun, and then dock up and be done with it. Back in the old days, when pirate battleship BPC were worth something, NPC null was even more fun as the PvE followed this model as well - the few DEDs out there created flash points for gangs to fight over, thus resources were acquired by activity, and spurred content. Now NPC null is pretty much dead - It can't really support a diversity of small entities sharing the same space, rather it gets bulldozed over by one large entity that controls the moons. It needs bottom up, accessible income to let people live the dream. Lowsec has FW and L5s, 0.0 has sov-stuff, but NPC null has...well nothing. Yet it remains one of the last few small gang sanctuaries. If the playstyle was supported, things would be great.

In building the new NPC null dream, a few things have to be done. First, an income stream that is bottom up, and cannot be dominated by large groups and AFK mechanics like moons, has to be created. It currently makes no sense that belt ratting via tags, and L5 missions, make lowsec many times more profitable than NPC null. This would allow a re-colonization of the space, and small groups would be supported, and they would thus not spend the majority of their time looking for content, rather they could find it by logging in. Most of the PvPers I know aren't moaning about Jump Fatigue, they are moaning about roaming fatigue - so much of space is empty, logging into eve is a CHORE not an adventure. If Sov 0.0 is the arena for coalitions to fight on a coalition scale, then make NPC null the space for small gangs to play out their dramas and struggles.

I've lived in Syndicate for a long time. Entities like CAS repeatedly voice to me that it's hard for their players to source income in HiSec or on alts, and then look for play in Syndicate. There's no reason why they should have to do that.

When Aegis sov doubled the escalation rate, it gutted a lot of income from NPC null. If it were up to me, I would make the loot tables separate - escalation DEDs drop different things than scanned down, naturally occurring ones. Right now it's just plain silly how cheap pirate BS hulls are, and the saturation of loot makes things just blah. Re-introduce scarcity and rewarding specialization by separating the loot tables, and NPC null gets a tiny buff.

Again, a lot of players do not want the coalitions of sov-space, they want a small gang sanctuary. I would love it if CCP supported all the play-styles out there. Poitot is great again when NPC null shines.

Wardecs - content seeds in salted fields.


Good mechanics are like seeds. If they are carefully nurtured by players, they present an opportunity to grow into content, likewise if players see no fruitful end, they will simply discard the seed to the wind. The problem with Wardecs currently can be summed up as much - both involved parties involved in them rarely see a potential end they would like to work for, so they typically grow into nothing. Everyone wants more people undocked, more things to fight for, more things to get, and more things to lose - every mechanic that encourages participation is good for the game.It's time to make wardecs produce, rather than stifle content.

Say I belong to a dedicated PvE corp in High Sec. On their weekly rotation, one of the large wardec corporations wardecs my mission running corp. The best solution would be to simply drop corp until they are done with their dec. If you did rally the troops, possibly even get allies and friends to assist you, possibly even hired mercenaries, the wardeccers have nothing on the table - they would just dock up. The war is unwinnable from the start because there is no way to actually force the attacker to commit, no way to actually end the war, and the attacker has nothing on the table to lose. Once again I go to my starting statement - content seeds are fruitful when both sides see an outcome they want.

Say my own alliance is wardecced. Maybe it's any other alliance that lives in low or null. The best solution is again, drop to an NPC corp, or use out of alliance alts. If we did bring a fleet to highsec looking for a fight, it's plainly obvious we would not get one - the wardeccers would dock up. Once again, both parties cannot see an end they would like to work towards. In this case low or null dwellers want a fight, and most likely would not get one. In the former case, the HS dwellers want to mine or mission, but cannot do so, and cannot actually force a situation where they can do so again, regardless of how much they rally. Either way, the best solution is non-participation, which is a net loss for New Eden.

Things work differently in a different rule set. Even a tiny ante like a reinforced POS or poco can spark massive conflicts in low or null, and a good deal of this is because all involved parties have something they want out of the situation - participation is the best solution. If there was a way to force an end to the war, or create real risk for blindly deccing most of the game, then more than one party may have something they want out of the situation, and participation will be a better strategy.

There are a lot of proposed solutions as to the nature and size of what wardeccers should risk to wardec. Ultimately, the solution must make the decced party's best solution be participation or it is not a solution at all. However, the wardeccers must realize too, that people are not going to participate unless they can actually inflict real punishment of some sort for the inconvenience they caused - what do they have to gain by nurturing this content seed?

Vic Jefferson is the man for the job, lets make EvE great again!

Interesting ideas and proposals, but I have a few honest questions.

What constituency, really, are you representing? What kinds of players are you looking to speak on behalf of, and how do you intend to gather feedback from them to go on to present to CCP? I feel like you're trying to appeal to a broad base of players and putting up your ideas and credentials without actually telling us how you intend to act as a representative.

Are you aware that the CSM is not entirely an 'ideas machine' with CSM people able to get an agenda filled? Are you prepared to accept that it's going to be a lot of 'this is our idea, what do you think' and having to build working relationships with specific devs and teams? You could table all of these ideas and proposals on day 1, what are you aiming to do with the rest of the year?

I like your way of thinking and your ideas for the game, but having spoken a lot to some former and current CSM members about what the job actually entails, I fear you might not be doing the 'job' (vague as a CSM's role can be these days) justice and how you'll respond to the needs of those who vote for you. If you were running for a dev job, yeah I'd swing you a vote, but you're running for basically a consultancy job.

I want to know how you actually intend to canvass feedback from us on specific areas of the game over the course of an entire year.

I'm primarily a HS player, I've used the Wardec mechanic for four years, I am both biased and well versed of the mechanic and how it works. Not as much as some other, like Lord Raz, Vimsy and others, but enough to make educated opinions on the matter. I also dabble in small gang, and solo, on this character and my alts.



Stifle what content? They do not stifle content. They stop the content of PVE'ers. Not content in general.

And to be perfectly honest. Not everybody wants what you describe. Most Highsec PVE alliance, and I mean true HS PVE Alliance, not a PVE corp inside a lowsec alliance, want to be left alone. Most PVE'ers are PVE'ers and do not like PVP interaction. So what you get is two conflicting systems. One which wants to fight and win, and other which wants to be ignored.

This interaction obviously doesn't mix well.



This is for a random dec, primarily because the Wardecer/Merc, take losses very very seriously. To the people where if one ship is lost during a wardec, it generally means that the other side has dealt a very healthy blow. A Wardecers aim in a dec is a perfect ratio in their favor.

Contracts with Mercenaries are different story, vairable by what the contact demands.

Also wars against Merc corps are winnable. You force them to stay docked. You not only block them from killing you, you block them from killing everyone else as well. If an Alliance has 100 wars, and you keep them docked in station, you suddenly make all that isk invested into wars, wasted.

Wardecs do not have predefined objectives. It is up to the parties involved to define their own objectives. In a random dec, meant purely for killing, a Wardeccers object is simple. Kill and dont be killed. By defining them that simple outcome, you technically win. Even if you lose a few ships, you killed one of them. Which hurts them a lot more than most people understand.





As I said above. If you plainly show your fleet to the enemy and the enemy can see he will not win, he will not fight. Same goes for everywhere in space. Blue balling is a thing everywhere.





As do fights in Highsec, I've gotten in plenty of fights, three I can link videos of, over POS'es. Here,here,and here.




We both can agree that wardecs and highsec in general is stale and needs refreshing. I know and like the idea of Structure based war in Highsec. But I do not like the overall tone of your post making it seem like the defending corps are completely helpless.