I have a question of curiosity more than an idea…
@Brisc_Rubal with the advent of moon mining and the lowest tier goo in 0.5 systems, is possible in the future (hopefully sooner than later) to allow just those low end reactions be done in Highsec? you know the raw stuff like silicates and evaporites being able to be done in highsec but restrict higher forms of reactions.
Edit: sulfuric acid for example?
I have one doubt about the Infamous Data. I know that Brisc can’t answer because NDA, but I want to note the diferences between:
The first would be a lesser case (as some corps may thrive and ease the data) whereas the second set, overall drop of overall wadecs, would be the kind to raise concerns.
I speculate that the Infamous Data was of the second type and the CSM was truly shocked to see how many players are being lost actually because of wardecs… but it’s not beyond possible that CCP showed them the first kind of data to enlist the CSM for a planned wardec change.
(Neither it is that CCP knew that wardecs are killing players like crazy but it was deemed sustainable loss until player counts dwindled beyond a point)
The only argument against this is that the CSM went to the meeting all agreeing that changing wardecs was one of their top 4 priorities. Therefore CCP would have already have CSM support. From reading the CSM minutes, I get the impression that CCP will be outlining their changes when they present the data to the rest of us.
We all knew these blanket wardecs were hurting the game, what we didn’t know was the extent. When you step back, it’s kind of stunning that CCP had a mechanic in game that was significantly hurting the game, they knew about it, but waited until the CSM brought it up before they thought about doing something about it. I simply can’t fathom how any company could do this. And CCP Fozzie’s statement ‘about waiting for direction from senior management’, I simply can’t understand an employee knowing something was seriously hurting business, and ‘waiting for a decision’, in my line of work, we would be suggesting changes and pointing out how bad inaction was, professionally (of course), but I would never simply sit around and wait . What other company would leave a mechanic in their game that “significantly hurt new player recruitment and retention”? Sure there’s the whole sandbox mentality, but then there’s destroying your own game. If I were in Hilmar’s position, I’d be having a serious talk with my senior management about their mis-placed priorities.
I just can’t wrap my head around this level of inaction. I’m glad at least the CSM have the best interests of the game on this one.
You telling me you’re surprised about all this? Look at what CCP did with Fozzie-Sov Entosis Sov. And it’s not like the initial iterations of Space Aids Jump Fatigue went down too well with the player base either. How many times have they needed to revisit that one to make sure the mechanic worked in such a way that it didn’t break the game?
If I didn’t know any better I would say that sometimes CCP is deliberately trying to drive EvE off a cliff. Not sure if its due to laziness, stupidity or just being understaffed, but surprised I’m not. Let’s hope they didn’t wait until it was too late before they decided to start fixing wardecs.
In most wardecs I started the corp emptied to a shell and everyone just joined another corp or they simply reformed the corp (close & reopen) to shed the wardec. This tactic was deemed a non-exploit by CCP some years ago and is in high use.
So we really need more data. Was this effect accounted for? We don’t actually know and that might be a major contributing factor to this effect.
@Brisc_Rubal
Any idea if this was accounted for?
Is there even a connection to retention here at all? I know you guys jumped right on it and declared it a retention problem but that doen’t really follow given the stats could be screwed by corp jumping and reforming. Has anyone bothered to ask that?
Did they break down the WD data any further? I am asking in regards to:
Size of WarDecced Corporation and its effect on retention.
Ratio of Attacker’s ALLIANCE and (separate) CORP vs. Defenders Alliance (if any, which is another question) and Corp: what effect on retention ?
Length of WarDec and does it enter a point in time of critical mass, a point where the retention rate plummets?
Thanks!
I would assume they are measuring player activity, so corp hopping is neutral to that. Also corp hopping is an advanced and immersion breaking out-of-game tactic, likely not the first what comes into new players mind when experiencing their “Kobayashi Maru“ moment.
All they did was talking about corp activity and not about individual players though.
It was also mentioned that new players are not the target of wardecs. So why bring new players up again?
You know … new in the sense of clueless about PvP mechanics, this can be a state prolonged for a long time. And then new player who join an exiting corp …
… basically every corp in highsec will get wardecced sooner or later, and then fold … some may hop once, twice, but eventually fold unless they become a PvP-knowledgeable group. But as I said before, there is no proper way to learn PvP in highsec. Hence there is a “Great Filter”…
Then say clueless player and not new player if you want to let people know what you are talking about. It only needs a CEO who knows the trick. There are also whole communities like the incursion runners who use this and advertise it. I wouldn’t say this is a niche thing at all. But I would rather have numbers than to speculate over this which brings us nowhere.
This specific data we saw was activity by players before a war dec, during a war deck and after a war dec. The numbers showed relatively high activity before the war, drastic reductions in activity during the war and that activity never came back up. Thus, a significant percentage of players docked up, logged out and never came back.
Incursions are not a good example, as we are talking mostly about alts of (nullsec) veterans. Most people in highsec have no clue about PvP, these are the ones we are talking about, and new players start right here.
We saw a variety of data that I can remember, but what struck me most was the vast majority of active war decs were largely from a handful of corps, the total number of players on the aggressor side vs defender side (which was more lopsided than even some of the Orioles games I saw this year), most wars saw very few PVP deaths, and the activity metrics I’ve already noted.
All of that combined was pretty stark.
Be a bit more specific here. The CSM minutes clearly talks about corp activity and not about player activity. So where you looking at activities of a corp before, during and after a wardec or effectively as you suggest the activity of individual players no matter their corp affiliation, whos corp get hit by a wardec? This distinction is pretty important.
For the corp or the individual player?
It would suggest that maybe if the stats where about players which the CSM minutes states otherwise. So what is wrong, the minutes or you?
I can’t be any more specific than what I have already said, because of the NDA.
If CCP releases the data, you can tear into it, but I don’t think you’re going to find many silver linings.
I haven’t completely caught up on everything here. I see that part of the blame for the current state of wars is the removal of the watchlist. If I remember correctly, it was removed for providing unfair intel. So what if they added a form of the watchlist as part of the War Report system. Something like number of war dec pilots in a region/constellation/system, in the last day/hour/now.
That way you cant target a specific pilot (i.e. Titan Pilots), but you would know where you need to go to find the targets or know when the aggressors are inbound.
There is a significant difference between trying something (even something foolish) that doesn’t work. And not addressing a mechanic that significantly hurts your own game’s growth. Look at how they responded to the broken local chat. They tried something, it didn’t work, but kept trying more and more things to fix it, hell one of my main characters doesn’t even have local - having no local had no impact on me. But this is apparently having a significant impact on the bottom line (making money), and they are waiting to address it???
Hi-Sec issues…
Ive played in Null, Low, high and WH space, and lived in all of them aswell. I honestly dont think Hi-sec has any issues as in…agents, missions, minerals or oppotunities…
Neither do i think there are ANY lack of isk oppotunities with in Hi-sec as current.
HI-SEC’s biggest problem, is that there are 10000’s of players out there, that dont understand how
to get into said content… ive recently joined a corp with many newer players. Watching what they write and talk about, concerns me a great deal. They dont see the same HUGE!-FANTASMO’BIG-GAME that i see. Becourse of ther limited knowlegde of game systems.
Eve Biggest problem, is introducint the possibilities to new players, that are avalible to them.
Do i honestly think that some of the hi-sec rewards/npc-bounty-mission-mining has been nerfed a little to much, ye’ but its MINOR… the rewards should in my opinion be slightly better or provide better oppotunities to “make” something.
the Agent finder is a BAD BAD BAD tool… becource it gives people the “FAKE” idea that this is all
the options avalible to them… rather than what is actually possible.
You are correct with your points on how poorly EVE explains and guides newer players to all the available options in the game. Those issues DO need to be addressed. However, there will still remain a huge group of people who want to gather with a FEW friends and mine,mission, and explore and are willing to pay RL money to do these activities, since HS casual play doesn’t really generate enough ISK for PLEX. These are the people being driven out by blanket wardecs and stagnant gameplay. CCP needs to do an emergency revamp of WD protocol to allow for social corps as a short term/speed fix. Expand on it by adding a GRADUAL increase of corporation types that ties structures and capabilities to the availability to be wardecced after some dev time. This sink or swim option only in regards to corporations is just plain stupid. Finally, set a long term goal (6+ months) of adding MEANINGFUL additions to HS PvE activities with the goal of new/enterrtaining and less about isk creating. Let’s also get opinions and feedback from HS only players, as well as from the usual groups.
Great. All examples you listed can be worked around to do exactly the same thing that is done today. Is was basically a list of non-solutions.