A new layer to EvE. (Your player base is nearly a decade ahead of you)

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Greetings guys,

                       I am very sure this topic has been covered, however, my search doesn't seem to be pulling anything up for me.

TLDR;

  • Ability to create coalitions
  • Alliance and coalition taxation
  • Alliance and coalition level fits

The most important part of eve for me, bar blowing up ships, is blowing up ships with the people you like. The community aspect of eve is why I am here, eve in many ways has many different mechanics to facilitate community building, that said CCP has promised us many overhauls when it comes to UI, Corp management, Alliance management etc. Before this turns into a rant on how this hasn’t been a focus for CCP and the fact this is the most important aspect of any MMO, none the less one that claims to be a sandbox. I think the community building aspect of eve is lacklustre in that, it does not facilitate very well, the idea of connecting communities or building them.

First off. corp and alliance management systems need a work on, big time! You can find countless ideas and common threads in these forums from QOL to full-on UI changes. I think what I’m about to propose will not be as effective without these changes, however, it is something i would like to see in the game.

Why do we have to rely on spreadsheets or 3rd party tools to be a part of, or administrate a coalition?

The current meta is;

  • pilot
  • corp
  • alliance

it has been very clear for many years that coalitions exist, could this not be introduced? what are the problems of having such a system?
Alliances should have the option to join a coalition, similar to how the alliance - corp mechanics work.

  • Shared standings
  • Shared mails
  • Coalition logos
  • Easier structure management
  • Coalition chat

The list goes on.

This also leads me to a point of taxation “oh no he didn’t” as much as people don’t like the idea of tax/rent this is the largest form of income in the game bar none. It is often the very foundation of coalitions and alliances to provide services for its members. Can we get an alliance tax system? furthermore a coalition tax system…
set taxation for specific corps in your alliance or specific alliance in your coalition, this could even be done through the billing system and or the current mechanics. There is no way to find out who is even part of said coalition without out of game means… does that seem right?

oh, the hours and hours of admin and spreadsheeting that would be done in mear minutes!

As these coalitions and alliances reach unreal levels of players, there is more and more of a need for these types of systems. Using 3rd party tools requires a lot of admin, why I ask, can CCP not make these very important community creation and administration tools? Maybe im missing something? why is it, this kind of thing cant done with ease?. Would you rather not have your eve communities spend more time playing the game and expanding their own communities reach. People are spending way too much time on makeshifting tools to cover a hole in the development of what is essential for a game like eve.

Fits:
Why no alliance fits ccp?
Why no coalition fits ccp?
Why no share fits to selected group ccp?

I think its high time CCP introduced systems into the game that facilitate the roles people play in game.
FC
Diplomat
Standings directors
etc.
A lot can be said on this and is probably for another thread.

The most important part of eve is its community, although spaceships are real nice! what is nicer is the tools to get to fly them more often.

2

I’d prefer it go the opposite direction. The corp should be the central structure of EVE. Alliances should be volatile with a typical lifespan of a few months. An alliance more than 1 year old should be exceedingly rare. Sov should be on the corp level. Everything on the corp level.

Stagnation is the mostly deadly threat to EVE. You’re wanting to make it worse.

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3

Maybe people are blue to too many people… The point I thought of eve was that emergent game-play came from the players self organization. Maybe the cumbersome corporate interfaces and lack of access graduation was to cause epic betrayals.

The recent tidi hype disconnect fest was a result of megablobs of blues. Why make it easier for eve null to just coalesce into a few utterly massive entities. (just tossing out stuff…)

4

Going to have to agree with @mkint here. The larger a bloc of power becomes, the more stagnant the game is.

I live in the blue donut. We’ve not had a real reason to worry about our space in years. Yea you’ll see one or two corps/alliances fail, but overall the blue donut is just as intact. And it’s only getting stronger.

I’m not saying we’re invincible. I’m just saying that our combined strength has all the neighbours unwilling/unable to engage, save for Tri… and because of that, Insmother now burns as Tri loses all of its space.

5

You are going to have to be more clear on your premise? how will any community building tool in the game, create more stagnation? Furthermore, please expand on what you mean by a short life span for an alliance?

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6

There are already massive blue blocks. They did this with the tools eve already has. This may just makes it easier to get bigger.

they are already so big they cannot even fight each other without the game grinding to a halt…

7

Honestly, I don’t know all the levers to shorten alliance lifespan. Disincentivize it for one. Make corp poaching a thing. Make it easier to jump alliances without losing anything. And yeah, move sov to the corp level, or better, remove it altogether. There are probably lots of ways to make it more volatile. Moving wallets up levels will just stabilize it even more than it already is, reducing volatility, increasing stagnation.

8

As part of that very same blue doughnut i understand your sentiment, however, Drone regions are like Providence, they don’t take space and no one wants thier space, For other “blocs” this is ever changing. Providing the tool for management of these Coalitions has no bearing on how that said coalition/alliance creates content.

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9

DRF is taking Insmother :wink: It’ll probably just get rented out by the Russians… but…

For other groups, I still believe that more localized fighting would produce an overall more enjoyable experience. Massive battles are super-cool in concept. But the reality of 9-4 is that unless something major changes, they’re not enjoyable.

10

Strength comes in unity, the very core of human nature. No game nor dictator can change human nature.

Coalitions are not just null based, those that are in null break up all the time, and people, other larger groups come to contest it. I think the problem you see is not because of a said coalition, it is the lack of application for the small guy to have a fighting chance against the bigger powers. The very premise behind the obvious cancer that is Fozzie sov was an attempt to achieve this.

I think you make a good point, but I do not see how this relates to tools to facilitate what exists, what you need is a means (for the game to be fair on both large groups and small)

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11

I agree on the macro.

Here is a question, why do blues not fight one another?

we do it RL, they are called training or drills. Fair point not with real bullets.

when content is lacking why not neut someone and go for a no sov pact and have fun? etc.

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12

How can there be a means to break up larger groups? The larger group is just a grouping of individuals. Any buff to smaller entities would buff larger ones too, as they are a collection of the same smaller components.

And the reason people group up is because it is an advantage.

13

Because then they get swarmed :slight_smile:. There’s undenyably safety in numbers… and while I do not at all fault players for wanting to be as close to unassailable as possible… it’s not good for a game that thrives on conflict. With respect to the OP, enabling better coalition management merely encourages more of these mega-blocs that are for all intents and purposes immune to all but the most severe threats.

For example, Tri… they started by engaging a member of the DRF. They had a narrative, sure, but that’s all ■■■■■■■■. They reset FCON and attacked because they were bored. And they thought they could win. And they did. FCON failscaded hard. The DRF was (iirc) deployed against GotG at the time, so TRI could do it without any real retaliation.

Then GotG and DRF made nice… and TRI leadership probably started pooping bricks, because the DRF front moved right into Insmother. Now the DRF is poking at Tri’s keepstar in A24. That’ll be a HUGE loss for them.

Tri did win the first attempt, I’ll give them credit for that… but it’s inevitable that TRI will lose, because the DRF can replace losses FAR faster than Tri can (we killed most of their capital shipyards). Even if it boils down to attrition, DRF will inevitably win. They’re nearly twice the size, and most of us in DRF can rat with impunity while Tri space shinks rapidly.

14

No-one want to lose. A and your not using real life bullets like you said in RL. Eve has no training bullets so there are no training invasions to be had. So every fight has repercussions. Caps are too valuable to just throw away for lols and they are always a factor in fights.

When nuets come to roam in a blue blocks space they don’t bring out a same sized force and have honor duels. The nuets get massively blobbed. Imagine if some neut brought a few stray supers and moms. The larger blocks would get all excited and just drop on them hard.

15

OFF topic

“And the reason people group up is because it is an advantage.”

I would love to get into why humans and many animals are social and work together in groups such as the Sociobiological point of view, maybe in another forum somewhere.

Im lost in what your saying.

How can there be a means to break up larger groups?
(CO2) a good example.

Any buff to smaller entities would buff larger ones too, as they are a collection of the same smaller components.
This I understand the premise, however its not always the case.

EG. diminishing returns the larger a group is.

300 men on grid 50% DPS application
100 75%
<50 100%
Stupid example to show a valid point.

16

I mentioned those ideas about stats boosts for the weaker side in jest… You cant do that to eve. Please dont gate players into instances of equal teams. Its not a valid concept so its cant be used as a defense against mega blocks. (megablocks and legos are fun blueballs hurt)

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17

Ok one more set of questions for you,

Do you think that ccp could force coalitions out of the game?

Do you think given tools like this that it would be easier for coalitions to be formed and formalised quicker leading to more content/conflict? or not.

If it was easier to set things like this up, and let everyone know who is part of what coalition, do you think it will only be utilised by null entities only?

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18

I think we have gone off topic here, however you are right.
Much can be said for pvp atm in eve, solo is dead, citadels brought the death of small gang, all thats left are skirmish fleets that run if blue block form up fully. or hunters after the juicy pvp and indy guys. I think this would be a good topic of discussion for another thread. A complex one at that :'D

I think a providence provides a good standard for pvp, maybe thats just due to its size and its nrds policies. I digress back to in game tools.

19

To answer your questions in order, no, no and no.

Coalitions will always exist (even if it’s all maintained outside of the game - like it is now), and even if they could force them out I don’t think they would. It would be very anti-sandbox of them.

Coalitions represent greater strength. As an analogy, consider NATO. Nobody will attack NATO, not ever. Because they moment they do, the hammer falls from every NATO member. No nation, no treaty group, nothing. Even the ones that can take the heat don’t want to take it because of just how destructive it will be. The goal of NATO is of course “content denial” because in the real world we don’t thrive on destruction. In Eve, however, the opposite is true.

As for who would use coalitions, no, I think everyone would. It’s a matter of collective security. I do believe that nullsov would see the best benefit from it, but I think that even all the way up to highsec and WHs formal coalitions would be used just as much as they are today. More if it were easier, because who wants the mess of dealing with a coalition now unless they really need to?

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20

It does need a whole lot of discussion. lol. But I think it has merit here as well. The pvp situation and massive entities go hand in hand. Its like a cold war in eve and no side wants to go all in. It costs to much. And it costs too much because of the forces at their command. And the huge alliances are a defense against other huge entities. With it easier to manage larger groups they can safely grow larger. Less vulnerabilities against theft and other things.