And CCP realized it became a problem at some point when more and more people got supercaps to drop them into basically every fight. From being a strategical use at important occasions it became an everyday business that destroyed the game experience for all smaller/newer groups that simply couldn’t counter it. So they created fatique to at least make sure these ever-increasing fleet couldn’t be used basically everywhere in no time.
But what happened: People built even more caps. Hundreds. Thousands. Probably tenthousands over the years. Skilled even more chars who could use them and simply outgrew the change. Installed mutiple staging systems with reserve-caps and jumpclones to instantly access them. Over time, the inflation of mobility options was greater than the fatique-nerf was limiting.
Then again, CCP realized it became a problem again and too many groups were simply using Hotdrops again as their daily business and rarely doing anything else but baiting and dropping someone significant smaller. Again the breathing room for all casual groups who just wanted nothing more than to roam around and have some fun in kitchensink T1 gangs became thinner and thinner. So CCP made hotdropping “more expensive” by limiting it to more expensive ships (and with that Chars that needed to be more developed).
Again, over the years the inflation spiral outgrew that change completely. New income sources made it possible for individuals and groups to generate ISK in ungodly amounts. A Recon today is nothing but peanuts for those hotdropping groups. It literally does cost nothing. In times of SkillExtractors, SkillFarms, SkillInjectors also the bait and recon pilots can (and are!) frequently replaced. And it’s really not that much of an investment to create a fresh char that can fly a plated recon and open a Cyno. For these groups, it’s like ammo cost. Also there was enough time for these groups to massively skill into BlackOps, which only require cheap, disposable frigs to open a Cyno. And with every month you get more and more chars being able to field these hotdropping ships, the problem is only getting worse.
That leads to the simple conclusion that all the previous nerfs only bought some time. They were 5 steps back, but the players already made 10 steps forwards and completely outskilled, outproduced, outgrinded all these “nerfs”. We again have the situation that powerful hotdropping groups essentially pose a luring threat to large areas of the game, making it incredibly uninteresting and unattractive for newer groups to even try to settle somewhere out of highsec. As said, outside of the Cynojammed or Cyno-restricted FW areas, Lowsec life is literally dead. Only hotdroppers and those blue to them can even exist there. Small/Medscale roaming barely exist any more because of constant hotdrops (including the cap- and supercap backup which makes any attempt of resistance by a smaller group completely useless).
That simply doesn’t happen on a scale that is even remotely comparable to the number of hotdrops these groups do on smaller/weaker targets that have not the slightest chance to fight back or evade those drops (unless not undocking / not engaging). These groups usually have the manpower, the masses of altchars, spies and allies to operate their toys with almost complete safety. To think they can be baited and bombed at a scale that would affect their operations even slightly is a complete illusion. It simply doesn’t happen.
Calling every observation and statement of a clear disbalance and unhealthy development in game environment “whining” is not appropriate. It is usually only used to discredit a poster without having good arguments. And most of the time already knowing that he has a point, but not wanting to admit that.
