Cornak4CSM2k19: Vote Cornak for CSM14

Council Of Stellar Management CSM Campaigns
1

Greetings, loved ones.

My name is Cornak, and as many of you likely know from the last 8 months or so, I am running as a candidate on CSM 14. I’ve been doing town halls and writing posts for the last few months, but I’ve been holding off on officially posting here until CCP announced the details of the CSM, so here I am.

I’ve got a campaign site I’m quite happy with, which contains a whole lot of info. I do wish to stress, however, that my platforms are not things I expect to see implemented, but rather a way to get a view into my feelings and priorities. The CSM is first and foremost a feedback entity, not a game design team. You can explore the site here: https://www.voteforcornak.com

Who Am I
I’m Cornak Firefist, I’ve been playing EVE on Cornak in a variety of locales since 2013. I have, at various times, lived in highsec, lowsec, FW, and wormholes, with RVB, Brave, TEST, and COF. I’ve run both Brave and Dreddit, Brave during the end of 2015/beginning of 2016, and Dreddit for the last year and a half or so. I’ve also had quite a lot of fun with the tournament scene in EVE, and was very sad to see the AT go this year. You can read more here.

Why Am I Running
There’s a few reasons. First and foremost, I bring a whole lot of experience to the table. I’ve had long stints in every major section of space, and have had an active role in leadership in half of them. I’ve seen a lot of things and met a lot of people, and I have a high degree of confidence that I can give solid feedback on just about any issue that comes up, as a significant portion of being on the CSM is being able to give feedback on a wide variety of things without breaking the NDA.

The other big one is that I feel a significant portion of the game is very reactionary, and prone to exaggerating the actual impact of changes. For many people, everything seems to be either ‘the end of EVE as a game’ or ‘the greatest thing to ever happen.’ I want to see a more moderating voice on the council, and I am that moderating voice.

What Are My Biggest Concerns
The below is taken from the ‘Our Goal’ section of my site:

Before anything else, it’s important to note that my platform is based not around what I expect, or even intend, to see implemented, but rather to demonstrate my priorities and my view of the state of EVE. The CSM isn’t a game design team, it’s a feedback team, and so it’s important to acknowledge the limitations of that. CCP has expressed a desire to expand the CSM’s role, but until that happens, I want to ensure expectations are realistic, as it would be easy to misinterpret this site as ‘things that will be done.’

While there are a lot of specific issues with EVE, one of the points that overwhelms just about anything else is the lack of continuous balance. There have been stops and starts before, but the balance team really is key to this, along with CCP being more willing to make changes outside of big patches. Single ships should not remain overwhelming dominant for months at a time, and issues like citadels that affect everything at a base level should be a lot more adaptive.

In my opinion, it’s worth potentially having some short term imbalance issues due to a speedier implementation, as that can be corrected quickly when balance is on a shorter cycle. When balance is stuck to multimonth periods, you can go far too long with a ridiculously overpowered or underpowered ship or module controlling the meta. Plus, it gives more time to work on underloved ship classes like Black Ops that have been waiting for years, as well as Tiericide, which seems to have ground to a halt.

The other prime problem is the abundance of botting. Due to the ease of spooling up new accounts, ratting bots have become far easier than every before to run even when accounts get banned. While certain groups overstate the scale of the problem, it cannot be denied that it is in fact an issue that affects us all. EVE’s economy is still predicated on humans, so when you introduce the ability to create isk without any human labor, you start to see drastic effects, such as the uptick in ratting bounties, as well as the increased plex demand to fund these accounts.

While reporting bots is a key part of this solution, part of the responsibility also lies with groups harboring bots. When corps can collect taxes from botters, that’s an easy way to launder isk. Obviously, players don’t have the tools at the same level as CCP to detect these things, but it is still viable. I take great pride in nuking bots from TEST when I find them, and I hope to be able to push other groups to do so, instead of encouraging non-reporting.

Finally, and this is a pretty big deal to me personally, we really need the AT back. You can read more in my blog entry on the subject, but it’s a core part of the EVE experience, and one of the most enjoyably components of the game.

How Can I Learn More About That Sexy Guy Named Cornak
Well friend, I’m glad you asked. You can contact me in the following manners:
Discord: Cornak#0148
Slack: cornak_firefist on Tweetfleet
Twitter: @CornakFirefist
Website: voteforcornak.com or cornak4csm.com
Be sure to check out my weekly blog posts here.

I’m also very willing to do a town hall with your corp, alliance, or fish people collective. Just hit me up and I’ll be down to set up a time in the TZ that works best for you. I’ve done 33 town halls already, across every major nationality and time zone in EVE, and the campaign hasn’t even started yet technically. If your group doesn’t speak English, it’s no issue, I’ve done Chinese, Korean, Russian, German, and French town halls via translator.

27 Likes
2

Reserved, because it’s the cool thing to do.

1 Like
3

Now I’m wet. VOTE4CORNAK

2 Likes
4

Can confirm that Cornak Firefist is the best thing since sliced bread!

2 Likes
5

You’re the man cornak.

1 Like
6

If Cornak Firefist puts as much passion and know-how in his job as a CSM member as he did in other eve online aspects then I can say without a doubt that he will be an valuable asset and representative not only to nullsec blocs but to other groups as well.
Running two of the top newbro-friendly corporations will also make him a very good representative to the new pilots of New Eden.
Also, pretty fair dude, he made pay extra taxes when I was late even if we kinda know each other long time. :smiley:

1 Like
7

Do we? The last few AT were utterly boring and not worth watching at all. The only tournament worth watching in recent history was the Amarr Championships. Simple reason: It dictated what ships participants were to use and did not leave that up to participants to decide. Because of this, it was full of interesting, varied fleets with different tactics almost every match. The AT on the other hand? 3 ever same setups every match. This is not something that EVE needs back.

I think this is an very naive approach. Balance is not as hard as most people make out it to be. Just an easy example:

  • Rorquals. You know how much people parallelize everything possible and worthwhile with alts. With that knowledge it should be absolutely crystal clear not to give a ship such a massive mining yield that it can wreck the economy in a matter of weeks and turn ships that were once supposed to be pinnacles of group efforts into individual pocket change mass trophies. CCP did nothing like that. They followed your naive line of thought and we all know the results.
  • Another example: T3D. They were introduced with ridiculously OP stats just so that people would use them and CCP have the justification for their development. They replaced whole ship classes from frigates, destroyers to cruisers and battlecruisers for a long time. Instead of giving these ships sensible stats that you surely have to be able to infer from other ships as a developer of a 14 years old piece of entertainment software CCP opted to go the bonkers way.
    Someone who thinks this kind of development practice – total disregard for empiric evidence for developments going to come forth from a decision – is a horrible candidate for the GSM, as worthless as this entity is.
8

But is dreddit recruiting?

1 Like
9

Do we? The last few AT were utterly boring and not worth watching at all. The only tournament worth watching in recent history was the Amarr Championships. Simple reason: It dictated what ships participants were to use and did not leave that up to participants to decide. Because of this, it was full of interesting, varied fleets with different tactics almost every match. The AT on the other hand? 3 ever same setups every match. This is not something that EVE needs back.

The AT generally has the same setups in the first round from the top teams because they’re hiding the more clever ones for later rounds. Beyond that, the amount of theorycrafting and effort by the top people on each team is extraordinary and complex. There is virtually infinite depth to the AT, and then ten thorax comes in and completely resets all that theorycrafing. It provides some of the most high level small group piloting, along with a healthy dose of theory and espionage, in the game, and is worth preserving for that gameplay alone. However, it also brings a whole lot of attention to the game via the Twitch stream each year, which tends to draw people in who ordinarily would never look at EVE. Every year in chat, you see boatloads of people coming in and going ‘what is this game’, ‘how does this work’, ‘this looks cool’, etc, because EVE is suddenly much higher on the Twitch rankings than normal. That’s a great way to pull people in.

I think this is an very naive approach. Balance is not as hard as most people make out it to be. Just an easy example:

  • Rorquals. You know how much people parallelize everything possible and worthwhile with alts. With that knowledge it should be absolutely crystal clear not to give a ship such a massive mining yield that it can wreck the economy in a matter of weeks and turn ships that were once supposed to be pinnacles of group efforts into individual pocket change mass trophies. CCP did nothing like that. They followed your naive line of thought and we all know the results.
  • Another example: T3D. They were introduced with ridiculously OP stats just so that people would use them and CCP have the justification for their development. They replaced whole ship classes from frigates, destroyers to cruisers and battlecruisers for a long time. Instead of giving these ships sensible stats that you surely have to be able to infer from other ships as a developer of a 14 years old piece of entertainment software CCP opted to go the bonkers way.
    Someone who thinks this kind of development practice – total disregard for empiric evidence for developments going to come forth from a decision – is a horrible candidate for the GSM, as worthless as this entity is.

These are two great examples of where a short-length iterative cycle would come in handy. One of the big reasons both rorquals and T3Ds took off was because they weren’t OP for a month and a half, they were OP for months and years depending on the specific hull. If the Svipul had been rebalanced within a month and a half of release, and continuously tweaked after that, it would not have dominated the meta overwhelmingly for so long at almost every level of play, from solo to fleets.

On the broader topic of ease of balance, EVE is indeed a really tough game to balance, because of how many moving parts there are. Most MMOs are already a lot of work, but then you throw on this colossal and wonderful sandbox, and it puts it up to 11. Every little change you make can have a massive change elsewhere. My favorite recent example of this is mobile depot volume, where it’s a pretty small change to a pretty minor object, but completely changes the way rorquals work, and causes significant potential losses just by that one line entry. The butterfly effect doesn’t just apply to players, it applies to game balance, so it’s important to be able to compensate when game balance goes wrong.

2 Likes
10

Survey says it is indeed.

3 Likes
11

Unironcially here to spread the good word of Cornak. The most dedicated CSM candidate you can ask for!

1 Like
12

Cornak is a good dude when he isn’t playing on the opposite team in forum mafia and you are a victim of his sleuthing/smokescreening. Which is a good thing, because it shows even when it’s silly he gives 100%.

1 Like
13

Cornak is better than your favorite choice

1 Like
14

well i think i found my second person i’m voting for.

1 Like
15

You misunderstand. But what can you expect. These OP stats should have never made it into EVE… Saying they are okay if only they were corrected quicker is not a good development approach. Supporting that is not good for EVE.

16

It is inevitable that at some point, something OP will enter the game. With how complex EVE is, it’s not a matter of if, but when. The question is, how do you minimize that? Do you wait around for 6 months or a year trying to come up with the perfect solution and hope it works, or do you make adjustments every month and a half in order to fine tune the balance. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather see active rebalance progress fixing the issue when they go overboard, rather than waiting around for ages. I think that’s also better for the game as a whole, given how badly an OP ship like the svipul, or machs, or T3s, or Ishtars, or Drakes, or Feroxes, or Muninns, or whatever the flavor of the month is can mess up the meta if left unchecked. Better to fix it fast and maybe get it wrong in the other direction, or not enough, than to wait a year to fix it.

1 Like
17

Commendable, but there should also be more focus on telling CCP when something is obviously totally OP so that it should be nerfed before launch instead of after launch. A lot of time could be saved and put to better use that is currently wasted on “observation” and “tiny step balancing changes”. These things are also necessary because you cannot get things right all the time. In that regard I agree with you. However, glaring examples, examples that slap the “I am OP as heck” sign in your face, should not happen in the first place. Faster iteration cycles are not the solution for these things. Comprehensive development is…

18

No one is saying that the optimal situation isn’t to release things that are balanced before release. That’s obviously the best possible situation. It’s equally important, however, to recognize that no one is perfect, and especially in a game like EVE, mistakes will always be made. So having the safety net of a month and a half iteration cycle instead of 6 months or a year helps a whole lot with those mistakes that slip through. I would love to see absolute perfection in all things, I just don’t think that will ever happen, because EVE is made by humans, and humans make errors.

1 Like
19

Independent of rorquals …

It has always, literally always, been CCP’s modus operandi to change balance in a way that makes sure there is at least one ship that is OP. This is intended. On purpose. Absolutely what they want. Definitely not accidential and definitely not a mistake or done out of cluelessness.

There’s a lot of room available, where reasons can be found. I can only speculate, but the fact that it is what CCP has always done means that believing “they’re dumb/clueless/incompetent” is just a reflection of a short-sighted mind incapable of understanding bigger pictures.

There is a huge crowd of people who will always flock towards the currently best ship, which is usually always OP. That’s what makes it the best. The rest of the crowd will hate on this OP ship. After a year or so, CCP will re-balance and create a different OP ship. That’s the TL;DR of how CCP has been doing it for as long as I can remember.

Despite what haters think, this has the benefit of providing people with a direction. We can call it “they’re trying to be the best”, or we can call it “they’re losers who need it easy”, but - as always - the reasons don’t matter more than the outcome.

Another benefit is that people will try finding ways of beating that OP ship anyway. There’s usually always a way, most people just suck at actually tinkering and figuring things out. Instead they just copy.

Now, in regards to rorquals themselves …

What strikes me as fascinating is how people are completely oblivious to the idea that what CCP is doing, with all the consequences, is 100% intentional. Instead they only ever concentrate on what they think is right, which usually isn’t what CCP thinks is right.

They never try to understand why CCP is doing what they’re doing and I guess that’s because thinking about that is just too hard. It’s the same in real-life in politics, where people only center around the idea that “they are dumb” instead of laws/rules/regulations being done that way for a very good reason. People thinking that those, who make rules/laws are dumb, are actually extremely useful for those in positions of power.

People never really try to understand. Most people being asked to try will still see things from their own perspective, oblivious to the fact that they’re basing their opinions on the idea that “CCP is dumb” instead of trying to find reasons why what they’re doing is perfectly intentional. Yeah, I’ve tried it. Doesn’t work. They’re dumb.

There’s always only a small fraction of people who can be convinced to try thinking about it differently without their bias and of that fraction there’s only a small group of people who don’t need to specifically be talked to in a specific way that makes sure they actually manage to understand.

Anyone assuming there’s a single chance that CCP will stop making ships OP, or that CCP is going to stop their fascinating ways of controlling the behaviour of the masses, does not actually understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

20

Do you have a citation for this claim?

I find it weird that your transition into talking about Rorquals end up not addressing Rorquals at all. Would you mind explaining your ideas on this instead of soapbox insulting this mysterious group of “people”?

1 Like