You are just being foolish now. Do you think players leaving the game is a new thing? No. It has always been a thing. In fact, when there were more players it very well could have been a larger ISK sink in relative terms.
Now, if you don’t have enough ISK growth relative to the growth in the real economy then you’ll have deflation. Too much deflation and GDP collapses. So if players leaving is an ISK sink you’ll need to account for that in regards to ISK growth.
Maybe. I’m all for more ISK sinks if needed, but aside from the RMT market, there is little evidence of rampant inflation. The amount of ISK we have seems to track well enough with the overall expansion of the economy. I am open to complaints about how new ISK is distributed to who and what activities CCP is incentivizing by the method they do that, but the absolute amount of ISK seems at least in the ballpark of what is appropriate.
That doesn’t mean however there isn’t a problem with over-production. On average, we are all several fold richer than we were five years ago (estimating from the ISK supply and player logins) and there are no signs of us starting to consume those assets. In the real world that would be super awesome, and even in game some of that is super awesome with more expensive structures and capital proliferation, but in a game where the primary activities are shooting each other, and building stuff to shoot each other, that increase still concerns me. We aren’t doing the first for some reason, and the second becomes less and less relevant the more stuff we accumulate. Further, the accumulation isn’t likely proceeding fairly meaning that as the power discrepancy grows, the less likely new entrants will be able to dethrone the current dominant players. Even the first, the shooty-shooty bit, becomes unnecessary at some point after you have everything you want, and the game is reduced to a meaningless, consensual PvP shooter where losses, and building stuff, don’t really matter.
The amount of ISK and presumably goods lost to players leaving is pretty staggering and a bit damning really. That fact alone could be used to argued that CCP has completely failed to build a real sandbox when the largest sink of goods and ISK is players getting bored with the game. It is a game however, and people are going to want to progress by accumulating stuff so it is only natural that it will be have such a large economic impact. But given the levels of production, we are probably lucky most people seem to ignore the pleas of “can I have your stuff?” when they move on and take their assets out of the economy.
Now as the optimist, maybe we are putting too much weight on economic superiority. The number of players (well, accounts) a group can actually bring to a fight is a huge factor, and while being able to throw ships at a problem maybe an advantage, perhaps it isn’t as great as the pessimists fear. That is probably only partial consolation if your game is primarily building stuff for others in an era of plenty, but in the battle for nullsec, it is possible, both theoretically and from examples of history, to dethrone a richer entrenched group by overwhelming them with cheap ships.
Let’s hope CCP can find a way to spark some conflict in nullsec and perhaps we will find out.
Agreed. I think overall ISK growth is fine. Your point that ISK growth might be wrong in terms of where it is occuring (NS vs. other space) is one worth considering. I’m not convinced it is a problem, but I’m open to the possibility that it could be a problem and not just economically.
I can see the problem here. I agree with your overall assessment. Destruction in game takes the place of depreciation IRL. So not enough destruction could be bad. Of course, if player preferences shift so that we’d rather have more stuff than previously…then we’d see an increase in ownership. That is fine. Now, if there is no such shift in preferences, but we see an increase in ownership of stuff that might be a problem. Thing is these things are impossible to discern from aggregate statistics in the MERs…even the raw data.
Again I am not sure this is a problem. Maybe it is, but I am not sure that “fairness” has a place in EVE. But then again maybe there is cause for concern. Is there a mechanics issue that Goons are using to their advantage? Maybe. Could it be a problem for the overall game? Maybe. I haven’t see a compelling argument yet, just some possibilities and speculations. What Goons seem to be doing is building up a very solid defensive position. Could that be a problem? Maybe. But then again we have seen things like this before. the old Northern Coalition sat at the top of the game like Jabba the Hut…but they fell due to internal rot. Could that happen to Goons? IDK, maybe. I’m skeptical of doomsday scenarios and also claims that Goup A will never ever be defeated in EVE. I’ve been around long enough to see those claims come…and go…right in to the trash can (that moron Mord Fiddle comes to mind).
Really, and how much was “lost” in 2012, 2013, and 2014? See we don’t have data on that so it is kind of hard to say. It is possible that, in relative terms, when there were more players, ISK leaving via this method was actually larger. I’m not saying it was, but with more players in game there are more players who can also leave.
Can you say this has not always been the case? Seriously, apply the logic you usually bring to most of your posts. Suppose the rate at which players leave the game is constant…then relatively speaking in the past ISK being sunk by players leaving could have been greater in the past.
And keep in mind that in terms of inflation/deflation the issue is not number of players, but the growth of the real vs. nominal sides of the economy. If with players leaving the real economy is still growing at the same rate, but ISK growth is declining as players leave CCP might want to find a way to boost ISK growth to head off deflation. I’m not saying this is the most awesome thing in the world, but players leaving AND deflation is not going to be good if the deflation is large enough.
As was once pointed out, most players do not post on the forums. If they leave they probably do so quietly and probably for reasons outside the game (getting married, having a kid, getting a job after college, all of the above). So they leave and maybe hope to come back. So yeah the “Can I have your stuff” is funny, but largely irrelevant, IMO. But if you are leaving…can I have your stuff? 
I understand you point that maybe the MERs are pointing to a problem. But the problem is probably more subtle than many are claiming. That the changes to the game are such that they have created the Goon/Delve “Problem”. But then the solution is to address the actual problem not the symptoms. And no I’m not saying “Nerf Rorquals.” And maybe the problem is Fozzie/Aegis Sov is “too fluid” which has lead to NS entities to basically negotiate more.
Here is a legit question…
Did we have more Sov wars under Dominion than Aegis? Nope…no trolling here…legit honest question.
Well consider the two following scenarios:
That several other regions in EVE pull their thumb out and utilize their space as effectively as Goons have for the last 6months, thus doubling/tripling etc the isk/mining generated by Goons currently.
That player attrition stops, or accelerates. Thus either lowering or increasing sink.
That is a hard one to answer, it is fairly subjective, because the issue with the Dominion system took a while to show, but in the end it drove people away from nullsec because all that would happen is that one of the big powers would just smash you with super blobs outside your main TZ. So often what happened is that people gave up after the first failed attempt to defend one system and sometimes not even fight at all,.
Whereas now we have quite a few skirmishes going on and we saw the use of area denial used by Tri against FCON as well as the use of entosis fleets, yes it is not fun to sit there but you can have some interesting skirmishes. Certainly from my prespective the fights are more intrresting, but someone who was say a PL super pilot would think differently, but hazing SBU’s or TCU’s or IHUB’s with supers was pretty boring too.
I would suggest you compare it to pre-Dominion which resulted in some epic long term campaigns. It may be that the citadels end up producing that sort of type of fight and I am optimistic that it will happen. So I have no issue with what the Goons are doing as such, they are playing very well, I am not happy with the use of JC’s and think that needs changing, but I think the conflict will be interesting at least for a period.
I have also noted taht so many more people are jumping into capitals, and using them, so that is a change in attitude, I think it is quite interesting and I am not so bothered by the per capita increase in ISK supply.
It has always been the case. I never said it wasn’t. Nor do I say it is a problem. It just is.
The reality though is that it is a non-neglible phenomenon that impacts on the economy. We don’t have all the data, but that how many people are leaving the game significantly impacts the economic numbers is clear from the MER. In some edge cases, a single person/group being banned can create a visible spike the total economy of New Eden. However, there is no reasons to suppose people don’t leave with goods proportional to the ISK they also take out of the economy so it is largely irrelevant for this discussion.
My only point was that if you set out to build a game about collecting resources, building stuff and then fighting with them, and a huge fraction of those virtual weapons leave the game universe unused when players quit the game, that might be construed as a failure. I lack the experience and data to really judge CCP on that, but I do see how that argument can be made.
That probably depends on what you call a war. In terms of great wars people can name, probably yes, given there has been exactly one great war under Aegis Sov (World War Bee) and zero since Upwell structures came online but the time frames are not equal. But in terms of other major wars that reshaped the map? I am not sure were we can find such metrics. I have this:
Which shows the number of ship kills per month in nullsec. That might argue there is more fighting going on in null after Aegis Sov, although I’m not sure what it says about real wars. There are also more people in nullsec now, so CCP has been moderately successful on that front.
Ok, I also grabbed this:
This is the number of systems that lost their sov per year from DOTLAN. It’s hard to say much other than 2017 had the lowest number of systems where sovereignty was taken, although not much lower than 2014 which was before Aegis Sov.
I tried to find a definitive list of “wars” somewhere but came up empty. From an economic perspective though, whether something is a war, a skirmish, a drunken roam, or even just play fighting probably doesn’t matter much - losses are losses. From a player perspective though they seem quite important both in motivating players to log in and to start the game. I think it is in everyone’s interest that CCP finds ways to create some real, balanced wars of all scales. It’s not easy I am sure, but the current status quo is significantly underperforming in my assessment.
Yes that could be a problem too. But you don’t solve it by causing deflation right now.
Thanks for the lengthy answer. Yeah I don’t know either. I want to say yes but we had Dominion sov a lot longer so maybe it is just that. And no I am not saying go back. But maybe we need to tweak the current system. I don’t know. These things are like herding cats.
Yay! Graphs! People looking at the data. Makes me happy.
Which always wondered about the bounties in null, both in a lore, economic, and practical since…
Lore… Being that null is outside of both empire and Concord hands, “SHOULD” Concord being paying bounties in Null, it’s basically a whole nother empire.
Economic… The way the money is “generated” for bounties out of thin air has made more super wealth than can be sustainable. It’s just a giant tech bubble waiting to burst and drop it on the poor slubs at bottom.
I have wondered to my;5if dropping the bounties on a grading curve based on system security might work.
Practical… The super production bonuses, amazingly high amount of free afk rattling money flowing in, plus the almost complete universal distribution of moon goo has made the big blue dounut just a big car show to show off everyone’s “$$ego$$”.
In truth I don’t think sov matters anymore as the placement of Citadels and the force that comes from that citadel defines your actual control or a system or area, in reality the TCU and IHUB should be merged into one unit and just apply the system upgrades and ADM system.
When the Goons kicked Tactical Supremacy out of Delve, in the end they dropped 30+ supers on many nodes, which kinda made me laugh when so many people had said that people have no reason to use capitals…
I have 5 capitals and am working on a super, all of them are PvP, this is the reality of what people are doing, when we had a fight with Fraternity a while back we had one guy who reshipped twice into a dread, in other words he was in his third dread at the end of the fight. I wonder if that is something that people should really be concerned about?
Huh…that is an interesting idea. Well worth considering.
The bounties are quite an idiosyncracy, but what irks me is that you can gain lots of security status from killing rats in null, but you cannot lose any security status there, no matter what you do.
As for the bounties, it is pretty clear that there were large incentives placed in lawless space to entice players to go play EVE there, but clearly that didn’t work or it worked in a funny way or . . . maybe it worked perfectly as it was intended to. But what actually seems to have happened is that the offer of safety (high sec) won out over the offer of riches (null sec).
The dominance of Goonswarm in the economic realm to me is a clear cut example of getting the best of both worlds. The Goons have the military might and will to offer safety to players in a place where there are already great riches to be had.
Humans clearly value security over wealth. If only there were a way to make them fight over it . . .
There are, but Malcanis’ Extended Law refutes them all.
(Or so at least is the view of NS powers)
The best thing that could happen in EVE atm, is that everyone else pulls their thumb out and starts doing what Goons are doing in Delve.
NOW.
This is the new meta.
Use it, or lose it.
Recognize the impending Swarm that is building to sweep through Eden.
Put aside differences and get ready to face it, together, or fall divided.
Also to block the hell out of Delve import channels.
But its probably too late for that, and just prompts Goons to move their schedule forward.
Still, better to hurt them while you still can, at a time of your choosing, than before they have fully mobilized.
A Great War is coming, and it will be Goons that are the aggressor.
Prepare now, together, before the Swarm takes you all, piece by piece.
Also be aware they have probably already bought out/infiltrated key members/roles of opposition, or will do so at opportunity.
Wow what a drama queen. If Goons “break” the game then the onus is on CCP to have forseen this and put a stop to it.
If CCP is unable or unwilling to do so then maybe when you are a new player starting the game you must join the Goon Coalition in order not to be podded immediately on login.
That’ll be hilarious though. Of course the game may as well be dead by then.
???
Ironically, it is more likely the Goons that are fighting aainst a swarm.
I think your worry is rooted in the the idea of symmetrical conflict. A hurts B. B hurts A. In such a paradigm, the Goons have some advantage, but will the next conflict (assuming there is one) be fought that way? Capital for capital? HAC for HAC? Keepstar for Keepstar?
I think that remains to be seen.
Last swarm I recall was World War Bee. Oddly the Bees did not do that well, that time. But, as a result, they are learning, evolving, growing.
Yeah it could happen and things could end. But I have lost track of how many ends of the world I have survived. How long Eve has been dying.
I will keep playing my game, thanks
m
Goon leadership is far too smart to completely wipe out all other powers in the game.
They need customers for all their ISK.
No, goons will continue to maximize their income streams ingame and more importantly, with the high-level meta game, specifically influencing or outright controlling game development. And they will continue to attempt to create demand for ISK from all other players in the game, by having all other non-goon controlled sources choked off.
Mutant Bees!
BTW, I had a blast during that war. I was going out routinely shooting stuff and having fun. That is like the third time the coalition I was part of “lost it all”. Funny, everyone always talks about this indomitable force that will end up killing the game…and then that force folds like a cheap pair of trousers…
BoB…
the old Northern Coalition
IT Alliance
The Imperium in Deklein
That DRF nonsense…
Malcanis’ Law is roughly that any change made to empower new players, will be leveraged to greater efficiency by older players.
Malcanis’ Extended Law is roughly that any change made to empower smaller corps, will be leveraged to greater efficiency by larger corps.
Its a Sword of Damocles that hangs by a thread over every change CCP makes.
I disagree with it as an axiom, but its hard to argue against.
Swarm is colloquial for when Goons go to war, as their icon is a wasp/bee.
I understand your point though.
Most of the war will be symmetrical, as force vs force. Keepstars are part of symmetrical warfare just as any fixed structure would be IRL.
EVE isnt particularly good at allowing for asymmetric warfare in terms of fleet battles on large scales. I dont know what fleet doctrines/tactics each power will utilize, but its hard to go wrong if you have more caps/titans than your opponent. Then its on you making a mistake, rather than the opponent outplaying you.
Goons are masters of a wider definition of asymmetrical warfare, especially in terms of economic, political and intelligence warfare. They’ve demonstrated that many times over, and thats only for those ops that ever where even identified.