CCPls: make EVE smaller

I think I found a very simple way to get rid of a lot of issues people are currently unhappy with: make EVE significantly smaller.

Imagine something like this happening: since everyday tasks for mankind include correcting market numbers by 0.01 ISK, activating modules before going AFK, clicking on a button to “invent” something, posting images on websites which they wrongfully call memes, farming easy kills and thinking about the powerful magic behind the phenomena called SKIN, which makes their ship go all colerfull, the entire human race in space has gotten stale and utterly dumb. Not only are their brains wired to overly simplified daily activities, but they have even gotten so lazy that they don’t procreate and thus the number of people didn’t change for ages. Medieval times were intellectual compared to it. Due to a misfortunate event many structures which the people call Stargate cease to work and in the entire universe there is no one smart enough to figure out how to fix it.

Suddenly EVE has 75% fewer reachable sunsystems. 3 in 4 systems gone, people are forced to live closer together and somehow cope with having fewer overall ressources available.

Now, wouldn’t that be fun and wouldn’t that solve a lot of current issues?

Specifically I think it would:

  1. Create a real fight for ressources.
    Currently and even with the upcoming moon changes there is no inherent reason to fight each other for space. You might have a little struggle here and there, but shortly after the dust settles and so do the people. Less space will mean real good reasons to fight for it, real good incentive to get a hold of these ressources. Perfect preconditions for war and conflict between groups of all sizes.

  2. Introduce conflict about ressources inside large groups
    But not only between groups there will be conflict, inside them as well. Who will be the first to activate modules and go AFK for running the desired Forsaken Hubs or mining these juicy belts? Will you be nice to each other and share or will greed get the better of you? Do you like your Alliance members as long as they stay in their system and form a Blue Donut for you, but you will hate them once you have to be Sunsystem neighbors?

  3. Sourcing and Production become more valueable, realistic
    While you don’t judge, you know that the people flying your ships mostly use them to activate modules and go AFK to reload websites where some post images and others comment on them. Now, your job has always gotten a certain amount of respect for doing what others didn’t want to do. Still you were replaceable and deep down you knew it - a useful idiot. Now in the times of chaos, your profession suddenly becomes much more important. Creating ships and being able to provide them to your group has never been more important than now. You and your colleages have a hard time keeping up with production in face of constant and massive destruction of goods in this chaotic war.

  4. No Safe Zones for anyone
    Are you used to live in the last corner of the Universe were rarely anyone ever goes? Do you put funny transparent chewing gum bubbles on stargates which magically shut down parts of everyones spacecraft? Do you carefully destroy every suddenly appearing connection to other parts of the Universe? Just so that you can activate modules and go AFK? Well… you might want to know that this has just gotten much more difficult.

  5. Less Botting and AFK Mining.
    With less overall space, humans are less happy with robots stealing their precious ressources. Robots have no brain at all and prefer to stay docked, because they don’t trust humans in their systems. Same for humans who only activate modules: other will come after them.

  6. The CHAOS EVE desperately needs
    I don’t even know how to explain this, but I will try: a huge part of the motivation to play this game originally was to dive into a world of constant conflict, chaos and ever emerging situations. Many people blame the Gods of CCP, many other blame themselves. Blame was never a good solution for anything, real solutions are what matter. Less space will motivate everyone to fight for what they want - be it with war, diplomacy, ninja-tactics or whatever.

So, serously. I guess that many people hate this idea. My general suspicion is that the people who are still playing EVE are mostly grinders who don’t actually urge for conflict or chaos. I hope to be proven wrong though. There are too many systems in EVE compared to how many people we are. We need more density. 25% of now will still be vastly enough to give New and Old players the feeling of a great and complex universe and you will still find an empty system now and then. But what you will not find anymore is entire regions being competely empty, cherrypicking and conflict avoidance.

So: if you want excitement and real conflict, I see no other way. CCPls shut down the Stargates, merge systems, do whatever is necessary to force humans closer to each other.

Throw us in the pit you promised us.

o7 zluq

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Nice troll, 6/10.

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I’ve read a lot of terrible ideas over the years, but this one takes the cake.

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i like this. pretty accurate in the beginning and the logic is sound. expect lots of opposition by the cancerous, who have grown fat and see the game as their personal farm. maybe a bit excessive at some points, but the general direction is great.

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Its not a terrible idea if one wants sov warfare to be played for keeps, and it would put sufficient pressure on null space to eject renting altogether.

It is however difficult to implement when entities hold 1 or 2 systems, ie some would be untouched and some would lose their holdings altogether and it gets rid of the concept of deep lonely space, which is part of a space game.

The reason CCP won’t do it, is because the risk is real that the population rapidly “rightsizes” itself to the new amount of space. ie drop the amount of space by 75% and a few months later find the audience down by nearly 75% too.

The inverse is better.

Raise thresholds for material transport, especially across the LS barrier, to encourage diversified localisation of markets/activities, rather than the massive flood to and from Jita.

the big industry expansion was perfect for that, but as long as jita and the other hubs exist, nothing will change.

Remove lowsec, hardly anyone will notice.

It’s a terrible idea because a lot of people have put in a lot of time to take and hold space over the years. To simply remove space that could be under someone’s control without compensating them first would be absurd.

Any compensation offered would cause massive inflation of the economy and lead to a possible collapse of industry which builds the ships we fly. Not to mention, with lesser space to mine in and live in, everything will become expensive.

All this does not even factor in the large number of players who would simply quit the game because of how drastic this change is. This could work on a fresh server but to do this on an established server running for over a decade is preposterous.

You are saying the idea is bad, because there are people who wouldn’t like their status quo to be challenged. I say, that is exactly why it is a good idea. EVE needs chaos, constant challenges and emerging gameplay. All the grind mechanics drew a lot of people away from the game. Did you find them being recompensated for the years they put into their game? Nope. So, compensation would not happen. Everyone would keep their ships, structures, SP. If you want to dominate or claim space, feel free to try or to compromise for less worthy space.

Inflation is a non-existent issue, because there is no reason to compensate anyone for anything. On the contrary: because of ressources suddenly being worth more, the actions of mining, producing, hauling etc. will worth more than AFK ratting Anoms. Not only would that be kind of fair, but it also makes the entire Production playstyle interesting for many players. There is so much ISK in game that products becoming more expensive would not be the worst thing. Furthermore, depending on how players cope with the chaos that might evolve, we could see situations in which people actually fight for ressources to be able to build new ships.

All this does not even factor in the large number of players who would come back to EVE because it suddenly became interesting again. I think my idea is a fair compromise between clean-slate and continuity. If there are people who have been grinding this game for 10 years and suddenly feel things got too hard for them to continue: i personally think it will not be a big loss for the game as a whole, since the mechanics allowing them to play a “sit it out” kind of “long game” have never created interesting game play for others, while conflict and fight for ressources indeed does.

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There are multiple ways to make the world “smaller”, removing systems is the potato approach.

buff wh’s (48h XL null-null or null-c5/6-null connections?)

tweaks to jump fatigue

jump portal generators for citadels that can bridge to a regular cyno

faster cloaky/nullified/d-scan immune ships. Maybe a command burst or a ship that makes fleet temporary appear blue to everybody.

patches of space under drifter/ drone/ jove incursion. living inside possible in “islands” or some extreme groups in officer fit ships actually running the incursion/ living in that space. cloaking impossible, rats more aggresive the more people in constellation, npc instalockers on gates, drifter AI following people in system, no cynos and capitals allowed (they get doomsday’d by rats) etc
basically hell.

and many more, one of the solutions is get more players but gl with that xD

I like your ideas, and while I don’t play EVE much currently I really think changes in this direction of thinking would be better for all. More conflict = more content and thus is great for business obviously.

Hmm, the high level direction is sounds. As I am keep thinking how to remove deterrent for joining fw and a few other aspect of the game. Maybe I will do the write up in a few days when I am back home.

Or make it easier to kill people in high sec so that it isn’t as safe, this can be achieve by altering the response time of Concord in all areas of high sec space. Currently you absolutely will be concorded in high sec if you attack another player, they need to introduce an element of survival possibility.

That part where bots grow AI sounds very futuristic.

Your changes, while interesting aren’t going to change anything. EVE is what it is not because of mechanics, but because of player mentality. If you make such drastic changes to EVE, all you’ll see is a lot of people leaving because

  • muuh ticks… can’t even farm in peace anymore, neutrals in system 23/7
  • muuh content… can’t even drop 500 caps on that solo frigate anymore without risking a counterdrop
  • muuh fleet fights… blue donuts are even stronger now that everyone basically sits ontop of each other
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This. Just all of this.

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