[Rewriting for clarity now that kids aren’t needing things]
Greetings,
I’m an alpha, who actually had a Steam Card in my hand to up to Omega. I logged in and saw this post. I’ve now decided to stop playing EVE would be best.
The rational goes as follows:
-Alpha pilots are currently cannon fodder, as we can’t fully skill up, use any T2 ship (including those that have neither bubbles nor cloak), and are still learning the game. Additionally, certain items that have unique ship restrictions and make hige differences in pvp outcomes (like assault damage controls) to lowly alphas give the impression that EVE is simply Pay to Win.
-Drones are, by far, the most ubiquitous secondary weapon system across the span of ships found in EVE. The nerfs basically make type 2 light and medium drones unreachable, which were of marginal value to bots, take a long time for an alpha to skill into, and provide a significant amount of PvP equalization. Most drone types are already restricted from alphas for afk purposes (no mining, no salvage [which many players don’t bother with anyway], no ewar except web, and no sentry drones.
-If someone was abusing drones in alpha bots for damage purposes, these nerfs do nothing, as more accounts with more lower skilled drones swill bring DPS back to0 original values (and more quickly since less skills needed, and with reduced cost of the drones). As such, I don’t see how this will improve the problem CCP has communicated to us.
-There are no other weapon systems suitable as a secondary in realistic use. Any free high slot is usually fitted with more primary weapons, as few if any Alpha ships have bonuses for more than one weapon type (other than Sunesis, Gnosis, and Praxis).
-Alphas are not getting those (considerable) skill points back and thus the cap of 5mil skill points is that much more confining. I will note the current Week o Skills is not going to offset that loss.
-To add the VNI drone restrictions are coming in at the same time is just disheartening. As that’s currently the most reliable way of making money for my Alpha in a nullsec corp (there aren’t more than 2 anomalies in much of corp occupied nullsec, and a corp member is likely to collapse that wormhole you ventured into while you are exploring).
This is a considerable double whammy, as the closest thing an Alpha can get to a competitive ship is a Navy or Pirate ship (which aren’t cheap for our reduced money-making abilities). To me, there is now such a barrier to playing (and losing ships with) fleets that I don’t see how to continue along that line of game play without going bankrupt.
I emplore CCP to ask Smedly (DayBreak Games CEO and EVE Player) how bad the imbalances in Planetside (MMO similar to CCP’s Dust) affected their player community, and how that anger-fest resulted in SoE / DBG’s significant effort that went into balance into Planetside 2, I should also mention that Planetside started as subscription, then went restricted free, and Planetside 2 is totally free with paid for optional upgrade paths. To me EVE / CCP is in the late days of Planetside–caring more about squeezing money out of an old title rather than look at the fundamental group-think in the company (and possibly loss of develo-er talent) that is steadily breaking the game mechanics.