CCP and CSM both make a strong point that they want to see more smaller groups gaining traction. Unfortunately, a lot of these changes for this line of thinking tends to punish the little guy.
So here are a few of my suggestions, as one of those “Little guy” leaders.
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Make us more valuable. There are a few ways to do this:
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D-Scan invisible forward operating base structure.
This could be a smaller forward operating base for smaller corporations and alliances to safely use for logistics runs. Shallow tether radius, little weapons but sips fuel and has the ability to manufacture it. Possibly online a clone bay. This would serve the purpose of allowing smaller groups that can’t necessarily muster the numbers to defend even an Astrahus from a larger group get a foothold in an area to start getting content. I would put these under the “small” category at best - and prevent jump freighters from being able to dock. Would also only give them two reinforcement timers with <1m hp, and a disposable price tag. This makes it almost pointless compared to just dropping a Raitaru or Astrahus for a larger party. -
Reducing the skill requirements for stealth bombers by a few %.
As of current, I’d call this one of the most fun and satisfying playstyles. However it requires omega - and many stealth bombers are limited heavily on CPU. New players need to spend at least 2 months on core skills before they can even hope to fit one of these - even with meta launchers. Reducing it a little bit and possibly even giving alpha clone access to these I believe would be healthy to the game. Maybe even tech 2 frigates as a whole. Though that may shift the balance a bit too much.
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These are just the ones I can think of. I’m sure someone else can come up with more.
- Make recruitment easier.
This one is huge by my standards, recruiting is one of the biggest issues faced by smaller groups. Most of them turn into trying to suck up brand new players - which I don’t believe is healthy at all.
From my perspective, it would be best to add a section entirely on picking corporations into the tutorial and more ways to advertise without having the resources to develop a recruitment video on billboards. Some way that isn’t spamming mobile depots annoyingly everywhere, maybe in the agency or a scrolling list of advertisements in a station that the corporation has an office rented in. This can also be used as a pretty reliable isk sink.
- Add a delay on killboards.
Right now I can name a few entities with killboard bots on Discord that hunt for specific criteria in a region. These make it extremely difficult for smaller parties to deploy any capital force without immediately getting third partied - adding a delay of at least 30 minutes would encourage more smaller capital brawls. To that end I would also add a delay on the cynosural fields on the map by ~15 minutes maybe.