So, I have just run across this post on reddit, and would like to throw my two cents on what to do about it.
post by Legolas170
[This is a hisec crying post. If you are a nullsec player, you can probably skip this one, but I probably feel the same nerdrage now that you felt during blackout so I can feel your pain to some extent there]
“At the core of EVE Online is a universe where actions have consequences, and this year the consequences of the Invasion storyline will have deep and lasting effects on players. Players will have to make their choice carefully – will they side with the new invaders, or will they resist?” said Bergur Finnbogason, EVE Online’s Creative Director. “Chapter 3 delivers a universe-changing event with a series of activities and player-driven decisions that will span the summer and change the landscape of EVE forever!”
- Having now seen the conclusion of the invasion content, we can see that the first part of this is false. There was no way to influence the outcome of the invasion. The Triglavians were always going to get 27 systems. This can be seen from the fact that we saw as many as 5 Liminality candidates pop at once. 5 liminality candidates coming under attack at one time is basically guaranteed to result in one, if not more losses. If EDI showed up to babysit the Caldari(an all hands on deck event considering the Caldari rat problems), Kybers could split up and push Gallente/Amarr systems uncontested. If we showed up to help the Gallente, they could just contest us in full numbers and allow the Caldari system to be autopushed, while they sent a small force to handle the Amarr and delay. The only thing we all spent hundreds of hours doing was prolonging the inevitable, at the cost of tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions worth of isk. On the final day, when it looked like we might have held off the 27, we had 3 active liminal candidates up, which effectively made things impossible. With almost every player between EDENCOM and the Triglavians active, it seems that EDENCOM was never supposed to have a chance to hold off the invasion.
In hindsight, if we had known this going in, we could have literally ceded every invasion system, been done with this ■■■■ in a month, and potentially still have access to Niarja if the magic 27 had been hit before it became active. The amount of burnout this content has caused has been astounding, and to find out that all of that was for nothing ■■■■■■■ sucks.
The Pick-A-Side Dichotomy was a ■■■■■■■ lie. Nobody in EDI wants an exclusive region, nobody in EDI wants gates locked off. What we did want to see was literally anything. It’s become sort of a meme at this point that “We fought for months to protect the galaxy, and all we got were these lousy t-shirts”. We got mails from new players, from roleplay communities, industry corps and FW groups asking us to come in and save their systems. CCP, in their wisdom, even put up systems that were required to complete Tutorials and Epic Arcs for invasions, and some of them were lost, and new players literally got sent into systems with Triglavian gatecamps while they tried to complete their tutorials. We showed up, we worked just as hard as the Trig-aligned players, and in return got less than nothing. Not only do we not have access to shiny new systems and null rewards(none of which we have asked for nor want), but we don’t even have the ability to run any Triglavian content anymore. There is no longer a way to earn DED LP for our LP store. There’s no longer a way to make money fighting Triglavians, however meagre it may have been. There’s not even a good way to get into T-space and take the fight to them in any meaningful way, seeing anyone who see’s a combat fleet on D-scan can just jump gate and leave us behind. Even if we did catch something, it’s worth noting, Triglavian rats would defend them, and it would be very, very difficult to secure any of the loot we picked up.
The current handling of the invasion is terrible for new players. Laying aside the aforementioned gaffs with newbros being yeeted into gate camps as part of their tutorial, the invasions were really good for getting new players engaged with the game. The fact that a new player could see that a system was being invaded, ask in local what the ■■■■ was going on, and then be given a cruiser from any of the races, and immediately get to join a fleet was INCREDIBLY valuable and good for the overall health of the game. I cannot speak for the Kybernaut fleets, as I was not in them, but at least in EDI we had players from Faction warfare to mission running to lowsec and nullsec PvP, to Indusry/Miners to wormholers, and the EDI fleets served as a way for them to make connections with vets and access playstyles that would have taken a great deal of time for them to access previously. I know ten or so newbies that started running wormholes consistently because of someone they met in EDI. I know several more who’ve started to dig their teeth into faction warfare after going on their first frigate roams into lowsec. All of them now know what it means when they hear “align to the broadcast”, “anchor on X” “broadcast for reps” and “primary is X”, as well as understanding how fleet communications generally work.
I’ve met a lot of new players who were either just starting out, or coming back after being bored by the game, and I’ve been told a handful of times about how this content was the first that they’d found really engaging and fun in Eve online. I know all the vets, myself included, were pretty worn out by the content by the end of it, but to a new player, hearing that the navy is engaged with invading forces, and then warping into a big fleet fight is really really cool. Finding a new player, and then taking them to see Field Bases with all the EDENCOM rats was fun. Telling people that we’d personally fought hard for these star systems, and that people fighting for the other side couldn’t come in(there are some caveats) was fun, and it showed them that even in Hisec there is such a thing as player agency and impact on the map.
We had such a high number of new players, and such a solid retention rate that I decided I wanted to run weekly fleets specifically to keep together this community that has been built up around EDENCOM through EDI. We were to run a Flashpoint fleet once a week, every week, and the beauty in that is that I could(and did) send many new players fittings that they could fly within a week. Starting from day one, in a week you could fight a Dreadnought, make pretty good isk, and get connected with players from a wide range of backgrounds and skill levels. We ran it once, the newbros had a good time, and now that content is effectively removed from the game entirely. SOL, sorry new players.
If anyone has ideas for what else I can do with them in Hisec on a scheduled basis, let me know, but I’m drawing a blank.
- “Well, what the ■■■■ do you actually want then?”
Ideally we’d get a new station(an existing model would be great, no need for something custom and shiny) in the Fortress systems with DED LP stores. We’d get some form of combat site to let us kill Triglavians and earn LP. It would even make sense if we had a Titan bridge(purely rp here) set up that sent fleets into some sort of deadspace pocket so we could fight them there. After all, EDENCOM controls more than double the systems that the Triglavians do, it makes zero sense that they would stop fighting now. Bonus points if Flashpoints become available again, but that one is purely self serving so that I can let more newbros fight the Zirnitra. Finally, coming up with a lore justification(advanced scouts, hacked triglavian gates, etc) would go a long way in the meantime, with the end result being that EDENCOM players would have a meaningful way to continue to engage with the content by being able to transit gates in system. As it stands, a neutral player has an easier time shooting triglavians than anyone who sided with EDENCOM, and that seems rediculous.
TL:DR: Imagine telling players to chose a side, and then completely ■■■■■■■ one side over when the event is finished.
If everything this post mentions is accurate, then it really seems like the EDENDOM side had more loses than gains, as the Triglavian content seems to have really been designed to win in the end, even if taking longer due to player resistance, and all the Trig vs EDI was just a PvP type event with some fancy glitter over it, giving an illusion of player choice, when overall the result had already been determined beforehand.
If it’s true or not doesn’t matter to me, as the result seems to have been reached, which was both sides having content to do, including PvP and PvE, and it’s now the reason why I’m making this post, as the EDENDOM side seems to be lacking any proper content now.
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My proposal.
EDENCOM quick invasion response system
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The EDENDOM players really want to go around shooting down Triglavians, but they have no easy way to do so, and no real chance of an even battle as mentioned in the OP, due to being unable to use the gates there in case the Trig side decides to run away, but there’s some fairly neat targets spread all over New Edem.
It’s the Triglavians that spawn from wormholes in random systems all over the universe.
The only problem is that I believe this system is completely random, so it’s impossible to set up a quick response fleet to one system one day, and next day the closest Triglavian wormhole is 15+ jumps away.
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Here’s where the “quick response” comes from.
Players with good EDENCOM standing, similarly to how Triglavian standing works, will be able to directly jump between EDENDOM controlled systems, so in case a wormhole with Trigs spawns near system A on day 1, players can head there and fight, but when Trigs spawn on another system 20+ jumps away on day 2, they can just jump to a different EDENCOM fortress that’s closer and go do their content without any hassle.
These invasion systems would show up on the same big agency window as before with the invasion, with something like “EDENDOM has detected Triglavian invasion forces coming out from a wormhole. Go fight them”, and on the same manner, Triglavian players would get the same agency window saying “The Klades have created a new point of contact with the old space. Go there shoot stuff.”
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Of course, no more systems would enter the liminality vs secured ratio, and it would simply create ways for players to continue EDENDOM vs Triglavian content.
Systems that generate good PvP activity could have the invasions last longer, or be more frequent there, spawning more wormholes and turning into a hotspot for content, both in K-Space and inside the Triglavian systems connected to the wormholes.
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In order to not leave new players out of this content, there could be a new Faction Warfare style of enlistment, where at any EDENCOM or Triglavian station, the player can sign up for the FW and flag open to PvP with the opposing side, earning standings and LP by doing content.
I’m not going to comment on how the players which are enjoying the new Triglavian zone are the ones who have positive standings exploited from farming rogue drone structures, as that mess is entirely CCP’s to deal with, but from the reddit OP comments, the Triglavian players don’t seem too happy with how things are right now, with bugs related to jumping between Trig systems and other stuff, making the content look unfinished, so hopefully it gets addressed soon as well. 