First, a lot of people expect that CSM candidates are equivalent to devs. Based on talking to current and previous CSM members and from CCP’s own description, this is not what the CSM does, so promising features and changes in a CSM campaign is unrealistic. That said, this is something that people look for, so here are some examples of the issues that I would like to advocate for:
1) Continue to make EVE a game that new players want to start playing, and have a community that loves getting new players engaged in the game.
This is the most important part of keeping EVE alive and well as a game. There should be many paths for new players to be able to get into groups to play with, and many worthwhile things to do in the game, whether it is being useful in big or small PVP fleets, doing various types of PVE, or contributing to the running of alliances of any size.
I think this year, one of my least favourite changes was the change to Pochven: the Ishtar meta deserved to be changed for its monotony, but it was replaced with only marauders, which is equally monotonous but also much harder for new or low-skillpoint players to get into. I don’t believe that any particular space in the game should be reserved for only veteran players, especially not exclusively multiboxers.
2) Making a larger variety of ships fun, affordable, and viable to fly in all types of space in New Eden.
The changes to T1 and pirate battleships this year are welcome. I think all patches deserve to have at least some changes to the least used ships in the game. I think it’s a problem when one or both sides stand down a fight because of the consequences of losing ships, and several classes of ships could be cheaper or more powerful to make people want to undock and do more while they are playing. Lastly, any space in the game where only a narrow subsection of ships gets used would benefit from a shakeup in that meta.
3) Making space worth living in without needing tons of it.
This relates directly to Equinox. I think many people were expecting the opposite of a patch designed to reinvigorate Nullsec: making the space better, but perhaps also making it so we don’t need huge sprawling empires. Make the space more active by encouraging active use. While the deadline for total adoption of the system has yet to come, the fact that using the new system is seen as the stick and not the carrot means that it isn’t the design direction we were hoping for.
4) Making space work more meaningful - Equinox was a step in the wrong direction there.
I feel naturally drawn to doing space work because it is a good example to set. More people helping means that we don’t burn out as many people. At first, the skyhooks meant that we had to recruit a bunch of space workers to steal our own reagents to run a small amount of services. The recent changes to skyhooks in particular means that Equinox introduced more space work, but it isn’t even impactful anymore. Now we don’t get to raid our enemies’ skyhooks either, realistically. Game balance through tedium is a lose/lose.
5) Fixing projection instead of introducing changes and then walking them back.
CCP swooped in at the last moment to save the number of Ansiblexes, jammers and beacons. I think my alliance, at least, could accept having way fewer, and have the few we got to keep be more meaningful. I think giving them back after threatening to take them away was the wrong move, and makes it feel like rebalance can’t happen. I also worry CCP might try to introduce yet another hub system. Thera, Pochven, Turnur, Zarzakh - what more are we going to get? Let fights happen more locally.
6) Addressing the recent bugginess of EVE.
I have a nicer computer than in 2020, but now my launcher freezes constantly, I can run fewer clients in big fights, and I randomly disconnect on multiple characters. I hear the same from others. The game just feels slightly less stable than it has previously, and it turns people off of EVE.
Things I had on my list last year, that still feel relevant:
- Something fun to do in any play session - there are relatively few things in EVE that can be done both in a small amount of time and that are fun. Abyssals are a good start, but there could be more.
- Mission progression (especially for new players) - the rewards for missions have remained unchanged for years, despite inflation, meaning that missions are now a trap for new players. Low level rats have such small bounties that shooting them can lose money.
- A reason to engage in unequal capital fights - currently, there is little reason for smaller groups to drop capitals against larger groups, since the smaller group’s capitals will often be simply wiped out with little/no strategic gain. I have some ideas about how to address this.
- Quality-of-life and UI improvements - there are a number of unintuitive and painful UI issues that could be improved or drastically overhauled, such as anything involving corp management and corp advertisement.
- More reasons to be in wormholes, increasing the accessibility of Pochven without ruining it, etc. This has honestly just gotten worse in the past year.
- Game mechanics breaking after changes and not being fixed - for example wormhole spawns break, and you lose your site if you disconnect due to the game stability problems.
- Fighting perverse incentives - calling attention to things that are (or will be) unintended and undesirable outcomes of design decisions, both in current and future gameplay. For example, “seagulling” in FW. This year I also think the excessive amount of alpha alts with numbers for names in high sec can be added to the list.
