Alliance force projection needs massive nerf/removal

[Syriot]

Current state of sov space is very sad, handful of alliances hold it all, while realisticly the space should be vast and mostly empty allowing smaller alliances to get a system or two and by that allowing bigger competition and wars. The fact that those bigger alliances systems also mostly are empty, however can project their full force within minutes to accross their dominion is extremely overpowered against those who are small/medium groups and want a system of their own.

I’m all for massive space wars between great alliances, this is what makes EVE so great, however they have far too much territory. Around 80-90% of their systems are empty most of the time.

Now what is the greatest dream of every new established corp? To get their own sov space. And current mechanics simply make it impossible, while, as a SPACE game, it should be easy to get your own territory.

I’m not saying that every 1 man corp should get a system, however a group of 30-50 dedicated men absolutely should be able to conquer and build their own empire. With current system you need thousands of members or join other big alliances or pay rent for a system. While what it needs to be is to simply take it by force.

It would absolutely also improve the growth of playerbase. When instead of current handful of stagnating alliances, there would be HUNDREDS of them in the sov space, all fighting wars with eachother, that would increase amount of capsuleers and interest of the game greatly.

I myself am returning player, looking for a corp, however I am not willing to join some massive corp just to become some NPC in their spreadsheets. I want smaller groups, however they simply do not have the means to offer the greatness that I desire. I want to be able to be a part of creating actual new regime that can force will of it’s own upon others.

Current mechanics do not allow small groups to achieve such power. Big alliances roam safely in their territory, making easy ISK, no risk whatsoever. That needs to change.

EVE should be a elite PvP game, where nowhere is safe and even the top dog can lose it all. As it was at the beginning. But right now, if you are part of a big group, you are safe in the best territories among the universe, while if you are not part of such group, you have no chance of getting out of mediocrity.

[Syzygium]

In the recent devblogs/streams around fanfest CCP/FC mentioned that they want to adress large fleet power projection. However, no detailed plans have been revealed for now.

But yeeh, it’s long overdue…

Until then, enjoy JSpace. The last remaining oldschool EVE Online experience. Best fights, no Cyno, limited escalation, no botscouted local. Perfect design.

[Syriot]

I do not watch the streams, however that is good news. That may be the greatest obstacle hindering the game at current state.

I love wormholes, it is my favourite place. I make my ISK by hacking and wormholes give me the variety I desire. Local count should only be given out on high sec and maybe low too, there’s no reason for null to give out your presence in the system. Perhaps tie this to a structure, some sort of scanner, you build at the gates and you can destroy it anytime?

[Dyver_Phycad]

The removal of projection does not help smaller alliances get space. It makes even less likely that they can do it, and even more people join the bigger blocks because they offer the convenience and services for a good null sec experience.

Good job, you made null sec even worse.

If you don’t want to join massive groups, you are in luck: Delve and Querious currently have a number of smaller groups for scrubs like you.

@Syriot

while if you are not part of such group, you have no chance of getting out of mediocrity.

What do you expect if you are a mediocre group? As a smaller or medium size group, you cannot expect to be as powerful and influential in your area as a big block. WTF kind of expectation it hat even?

@Syriot

Around 80-90% of their systems are empty most of the time.

Yes, because they are useless and you can’t do anything worthwhile there. But if they are empty and unwatched, how about you go there and do your thing there. You can rat, mine, camp pipes to your hearts content and do “elite stuff”. Aren’t these systems perfect for you the way they are?

[Syzygium]

@Dyver_Phycad

The removal of projection does not help smaller alliances get space.

Thats total nonsense. The only reason that at the moment big groups simply “claim” hundreds of systems, which then are mostly emtpy for large parts of the day / or are then just “rented out”, is the fact that they can reach every single one of them totally convenient within minutes from their heartlands and also get back after they wiped whoever set a foot into there after wards.

@Dyver_Phycad

Aren’t these systems perfect for you the way they are?

Again total nonsense. Those systems are still in convenient cyno-range of the blobs and the only things you can do there is very limited hit&run tactics, but as soon as you get spotted you can set a timer on when the BlackOps Blob will arrive to bust you out of space.

Distances need to be meaningful again, so effort and unattractiveness become the greatest layers of protection for small groups again. Nobody forms a blob to bust a 10 man mining OP if he needs to travel 45 minutes, have 30 seconds of fun and then needs to travel back 45 minutes. Especially not if cynos don’t allow direct hotropping aka jumping the blob pretty much instantly into your targets face to obliterate it.
That is how small groups surived in the early days. It wasn’t worth to hunt them for a big group. They could live and grow and thrive even in direct vincinity of larger groups. That is why we had a much much more divided map over a decade ago. It wasn’t worth it to blue everyone around you if then the next guys to get any fight from were suddenly an hour of travel away. So you wanted a rather small space, a short blue list and borders to someone you could actually have your skirmishes and brawls. Unlike today, where you can basically bring your forces over whole regions within less than an hour.

[Syriot]

@Dyver_Phycad

The removal of projection does not help smaller alliances get space. It makes even less likely that they can do it, and even more people join the bigger blocks because they offer the convenience and services for a good null sec experience.

Good job, you made null sec even worse.

If you don’t want to join massive groups, you are in luck: Delve and Querious currently have a number of smaller groups for scrubs like you.

I have no idea how did you think that the blocks gain anything on that. On the contrary, bigger blocks will lose majority their convenience and territory. They lose their safe space.

@Dyver_Phycad

What do you expect if you are a mediocre group? As a smaller or medium size group, you cannot expect to be as powerful and influential in your area as a big block. WTF kind of expectation it hat even?

This is a space game after all, space is vast and mostly empty. It is realistic for a small group to have their own sov space.

@Dyver_Phycad

Yes, because they are useless and you can’t do anything worthwhile there. But if they are empty and unwatched, how about you go there and do your thing there. You can rat, mine, camp pipes to your hearts content and do “elite stuff”. Aren’t these systems perfect for you the way they are?

If it is empty they should not have it. Simple as that. I don’t want to “do my thing” there. I want to own it.

[Syriot]

@Syzygium

Distances need to be meaningful again, so effort and unattractiveness become the greatest layers of protection for small groups again. Nobody forms a blob to bust a 10 man mining OP if he needs to travel 45 minutes, have 30 seconds of fun and then needs to travel back 45 minutes. Especially not if cynos don’t allow direct hotropping aka jumping the blob pretty much instantly into your targets face to obliterate it.
That is how small groups surived in the early days. It wasn’t worth to hunt them for a big group. They could live and grow and thrive even in direct vincinity of larger groups. That is why we had a much much more divided map over a decade ago. It wasn’t worth it to blue everyone around you if then the next guys to get any fight from were suddenly an hour of travel away. So you wanted a rather small space, a short blue list and borders to someone you could actually have your skirmishes and brawls. Unlike today, where you can basically bring your forces over whole regions within less than an hour.

Indeed, this whole “teleportation” needs to be eradicated. That includes clone jumping. There is simply too much convenience in the game. Personally, I would even remove alts and multiboxing for the ultimate RPG experience, however I doubt that this is ever going to happen. Maybe if AI should get advanced enough to create such a massive simulator from scratch. Man can dream.

[Dyver_Phycad]

@Syriot

This is a space game after all, space is vast and mostly empty. It is realistic for a small group to have their own sov space.

No, this is a space combat game. You fight for what you want to own.

@Syriot

If it is empty they should not have it. Simple as that. I don’t want to “do my thing” there. I want to own it.

Then claim it. You fight for what you want to own. THIS is what EVE is about.

@Syriot

I have no idea how did you think that the blocks gain anything on that. On the contrary, bigger blocks will lose majority their convenience and territory. They lose their safe space.

They do not really. They still offer safety in numbers, which is what people crave and desire. The state of Sov Null is not a result of the game mechanics, it’s a result of human nature. CCP has tried time and again to reign in on that (FozzySov makes sov more attackable, Fatigue limits projection, ADMs require activity, ESS require protection, Indu Indices requires space spread, and so on). With every step to make it harder for big blocks, they made big blocks more powerful because only big blocks offer the versatility, services, reliability and stability to make this whole gauntlet worthwhile for individual players.

[Dyver_Phycad]

@Syzygium

Distances need to be meaningful again, so effort and unattractiveness become the greatest layers of protection for small groups again.

That is no protection. If you threaten block space, you get rolled out of your little pocket you claimed. That is an advantage of big blocks. They have the manpower and big sub-alliances and corps that can take on whole small-scale alliances with their puny little space shacks.

@Syzygium

That is why we had a much much more divided map over a decade ago.

Over a decade ago, we had Sov divided up between CFC, NCPanfam and the Russians. That’s it. Stop being so rose-glasses nostalgic.

In fact:

Today, with the big blocks as they currently are, you have more space available to small groups THAN EVER BEFORE. At no point in the last 15 years, so much sov space belonged to so many indendent small groups. The whole of Drones AND Providence (again, yay), Delve and Querious are small/medium alliances.

But again: This guy is like the crap that comes out of Exordium now. Demands stuff to happen so that he can do what he wants, refusing to look around and see that what he wants is already there without any change necessary to the game. Stop pandering and bolstering learning resistance.

For reference: Here is your snapshot from 11 years ago:

Big blocks every where. Null was full of NPC groups (as this guy called the members), and you only had 7 or so regions for “small, medium alliances”.

And just a year later, all that space was gobbled up by the big blocks and the SMA had barely any space left.

Nostalgia, my butt…

[Malak_Starfire]

@Syriot

Current state of sov space is very sad, handful of alliances hold it all, while realisticly the space should be vast and mostly empty allowing smaller alliances to get a system or two and by that allowing bigger competition and wars.

75 alliances currently hold sov, that’s a bit more than a handful. 50 of them hold more than 10 systems. There are several small scale wars going on right now between these alliances, not including the cooling off war between Winter and Imperium. I do agree that projection is a thing to adjust, Fenris agrees as well, but let us not mischaracterize the state of null with overblown lies.

[Arthur_Aihaken]

The only thing that players can generally agree on is that null-sec sucks.

[Dyver_Phycad]

I mean, I am currently active in null sec and making the lives of some locals as hard as I possibly can. I enjoy this a lot.

[Syzygium]

@Dyver_Phycad

That is no protection. If you threaten block space, you get rolled out of your little pocket you claimed.

Absolutely it is, because that little pocket simply wouldn’t be block space for long if the effort to keep it claimed is vastly disproportional to any benefit holding it.

I mean the entire point of removing the 2nd timer from M-Structures was the whining of the NullBlocks that had no interest to form a fleet 3 times to remove a ninja-anchored Astrahus from some remote system they “claimed” but never actually used enough to even notice that some other entity is anchoring a structure there that is freely visible on scan for 24 full hours!

What they want is effortless huge area claming so they can deny space to any newcomers that could be possible future rivals/challengers and rent those system out for passive income. They don’t hold this space by actually being active there but by just threathening to come if someone else tries to actually be active there - because coming over there is so easy.

And exactly that needs to be fixed. If you want to remove a structure from a System 30 jumps (gates) away from your main staging system, that should be an absolute dirt-work really no one wants to do. Because it takes hours of boredom if you do it, traveling via gates in heavy ships, and sometimes even ambushed by a third party and losing a fleet 5 times more than thad goddamn Astrahus is worth. Give it 6 months with a system that way and the big groups simply leave those “remote pockets” alone. Because “cleaning them up” simply isn’t worth the effort and time.

[Cleaner_bot]

Large Alliances tend to rule most games. This is an issue in general where it ends up being large alliances rule the pvp areas and the smaller groups get the remote places.

Albion has it with Black Lands vs Roads
Eve has it Zero vs Worm Holes

Even in real life its same way major countries and alliances vs the small ones. There is no one way to fix it. The best method is having those small areas that limit fleet sizes to help deflect major groups from coming in and overpowering you with brute force.

[Syriot]

@Malak_Starfire

75 alliances currently hold sov, that’s a bit more than a handful. 50 of them hold more than 10 systems. There are several small scale wars going on right now between these alliances, not including the cooling off war between Winter and Imperium. I do agree that projection is a thing to adjust, Fenris agrees as well, but let us not mischaracterize the state of null with overblown lies.

Those 75 alliances transform into ≈10 genuinely independent sovereign entities, with a plausible range of 8–15 depending on where you draw the line between “ally” and “same bloc.”

I’d call it handful.

@Cleaner_bot

Large Alliances tend to rule most games. This is an issue in general where it ends up being large alliances rule the pvp areas and the smaller groups get the remote places.

Albion has it with Black Lands vs Roads
Eve has it Zero vs Worm Holes

Even in real life its same way major countries and alliances vs the small ones. There is no one way to fix it. The best method is having those small areas that limit fleet sizes to help deflect major groups from coming in and overpowering you with brute force.

I am not suggesting that large alliances could not rule, simply remove their overpowered mechanics that allow them to get so much territory with no risk. Again, if your sov space system is empty, then you should not be able to keep it.