Equinox wormhole changes

Why is that it feels like CCP is trying to helping big wormhole alliances while, shoving cutting off the smaller organization from content. I understand CCP is trying to get more capitals out and moving in wormhole space, by making the drifter Require a capital to spawn. Why still not increasing the isk loot drop from the avenger response. Which is good for c6 wormholes, but not c5!

The proper fix to this would have been to make the avenger loot drop more blue loot, enough to justify dropping a capital in a c5 wormhole. For example a single marauder could do a c5 site with drifter while costing close to 4.6bil isk to field. Or fleet gameplay of confessors with guardians and a command desi.

Does CCP really hate smaller organizations in the game and must feed into large alliances this much as to cut off everyone but big alliances from being able to make the same amount of risk as they do? Also CCP must not know how these farm holes held by these alliances work, where they roll out all the wormholes, giving them 2 hours of low risk capital crabbing. As long as the capital stays on grid with the avengers the attackers will die.

Well done feeding the large alliances while cutting 3/4 of the rest of wormholes from the drifter ratting! At least change it back for c5 drifter ratting give the little guys something to make isk at as well.

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The change was a low-effort, zero-thinking knee jerk sort of response to “Selling blue loot seems to be one of the larger ISK printing activties in Eve, which is unfair to Nullsec so it must get toned down to make nullsec isk printers more attractive”

It feels like a python script that uses GM commands. Drifter goes poof as it enters warp, or poof right infront of you if the capitol leaves and not even a cyno animation or even the smallest attempt to make it feel like it would fit into the Eve universe or follow the same rules as other ships in space.

This change severely penalizes those who venture into C5’s from other places to kill rats, which is quite alarming. 90% of the “blue loot isk printer” from the monthly are the ones who routinely farm the C5/6 sites, and then farm a different C5 hole until its out of sites on their alts.
This just makes it so that the alts have more sites to run, as the sites are SIGNIFICANTLY less lucrative if you do don’t live there or in a connected capitol sized hole that could bring a capitol ship.
Less isk for the smaller groups, more isk for the big guys that are already entreched.

Why would CCP go out of their way to bring in the nullsec stagnation mechanics that penalize small groups to stop them from interfering with the larger groups’ main methods of isk printing?

Their main objective was to basically nerf ISK export from WHs. They decided to do that in expense of smaller groups instead of nerfing statistically the safest and fastest way of profiting in WHs which is C6s. I suppose WH CSM representatives if there are any for WHs agreed on that. I think you need to be a representative of a bigger group of players in order to get into CSM. Rich get richer.
I do not like the change at all, I invested extremely heavily into my ability to kill drifters with my Golem which costs more than 7.5bill surpassing Dread value. I put the risk on the table in order to be able to farm that. Also it takes substantially longer to kill Drifter with a Marauder than Dread.
There are so many better ways to improve all of this. Unfortunately it seems like the decisions are being made by people who do not participate in the game or are greatly lacking critical thinking abilities.
Speaking of the statistics, before the change ISK made vs value lost in C5 was perfectly balanced 2:1 maching nullsec, while in C6 it is 5:1. The change has no impact on C6 farm. Also a fun fact, if we added total value of blue loot exported and value lost in all WHs from C5 to C1 except c6, we would get their ratio close to 1:1.

P.S. Pochven is also printing ISK with the same risk as C6 being 5:1. Total ISK generated in pochven is almost equal to all total ISK generated across the WH space. Why not do something about that if there is a huge need to reduce inflow of ISK into the game?

P.S.S. C4s are in abysmal state and these changes make lives even worse for those living there and below.

P.P.P.S. The smartest way of reducing the ISK from WHs would have been reducing the total amount of combat sites present across C6s or reducing spawn rates of sites.

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Should be pps not pss

@topic
well, since CCP claims this is just a “fix” and was intended to work as it works now right from the beginning, I doubt any complaints will do any good and no arguments will be even considered. They will just answer that you should see the years of additional drifter-income as “bonus” and be thankful that they haven’t fixed it years ago already.
And I can only imagine they will touch these sites again when WH space receives a full game-expansion, if ever.

I personally don’t really care, since I am not doing this max-efficiency-krabbing that aims to extract billions per evening out of the NPCs. Tbh I am not even sure if it is that healthy for WH space either, too much holes that are inhabitated by just 3 dudes and their alts (often even renters or ticker-tanked alliance-alts) and all they do is rolling themselves in and crabbing billions in close-to-perfect safety with their blingmarauders that haven’t died once in years. And the “content” they bring is… neglectible. Active and pvp-ready corporations that really ‘live’ in a WH as an active group will have absolutely no problem to roll and farm their statics by force, using a subcapfleets and ignoring the drifter or using the rolling-capital for triggering the escalations. Concepts for that are already around and discussed and they seem to be viable in a real group scenario. The only ones really “suffer” are those lonlely “altcharcorps” that neither want to share profits nor dare to go out on the chain to farm. Shrugs.

The alt corps keep their farm, as they will be able to get the drifter wave.

The only ones that lose are those who venture into C5 space, generally those in c2-c4 space with a c5 static, but it includes highsec as well. It’s the folks who do not have the option to bring a cap, even if they had one available. In other words, the little guys, from the lower class WH dwellers to the highsec day trippers.

The “altcharcops” do not suffer, as they have already a set up that will clear the site (to include the difter) in under 5 mins with a cap. In fact, they get a benefit of more likely that more sites will be there as the random passerby’s will be less likely to crab them out since they lost 40% of the entire site’s value with this change.

Honestly, it’s true that we no longer get the ISK for killing the drifter, but it’s s also faster to farm C5 sites without worrying about the drifter.

Additionally, we no longer need to have a drifter fit, since it won’t spawn unless there’s a cap on grid. Not to mention we no longer need to deal with assholes in exploration frigates spawning the drifter with a single drone to get easy kills.

The same goes for dealing with capital escalation waves. If someone wants to drive us out with a capital, now, they have to be fully committed to landing on grid instead of just initiating warp. This provides us with the opportunity to kill said capital that didn’t really exist previously.

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Fresh Doctrines are invented as we speak, for home- and staticfarming. It’s really interesting to see what people come up with, especially in the more active alliances that have multiple PyFa Gurus :). The new mechanics won’t be any problem at all, active and smart groups will adapt quickly and farm like before whenever they like to. Just the tools and tactics will change.

Renters who simply live in a crabhole with their 3 alts will probably have more problems. But I have no mercy for those.

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Could you elaborate more what you exactly mean? There is no way to farm like you did before.
The change simply is a huge nerf to income for those who do not own any C5s or C6s. Seems like you do not know that there are maximum mass limitations for traveling between wormholes. You can not move a capital from a C4 to a C5 and so on. Preparation to farm a WH takes more than an hour, profits made per WH got reduced by more than a half for most of the players.
No doctrines or gurus can help with that. Also what about people who have invested billions and billions in order to be able to kill the Drifter with their Golems, abyssal modules and months of training. I have nothing against balance, but the way it is being done feels simply stupid and disrespectful. Also if you took into account statistics of value generated and lost in c4s and below the change would not make any sense at all.

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Of course you need to adapt if the mechanics change. Nobody said you can do everything like you did before.
You have to differentiate between people who take the investment and risk to claim a C5/C6 and those who wanto enjoy the higher level of safety in C4 and below where nobody can seed in capitals to have a huge benefits during an eviction process. The first group absolutely deserves tho farm the additional Drifter Money as compensation for the higher risk and investment they take. And they have already found ways to do it efficiently in their home and static. The second group does not, in my opinion (and obviously in CCPs opinion).

Using a static, you can still farm in C5 and C6, but only the sites themself, which is still as lucrative as farming the drifter in isk/time. It’s just empty a lot earlier so you have to roll another one. Preparation times can be worked on, whenever we go into a C5/C6 we don’t need anywhere near an hour to “prepare” that hole. After rolling a new static we don’t even need 15 minutes before we can start farming, maybe work on your strategies here. I can only guess you ‘live’ in such a hole with 2 guys and their handful of alts and simply can’t form a proper fleet to quickly invade and secure a static for farming. Get more people in there, cooperate and share. Or farm a lower-tier static. You know, C3s work great for making money.

Nice change for them, they can bring all those shiny Abyssal Mods to Jita now and sell them, having much less ISK on the grid that could be blown up. I mean, you can do C5s with ease in a non-implanted-lightly-faction-fitted Golem any time. No need to field mutiple billions now, you should be thankful. If you are done, just roll another one and repeat.

No, it’s not.

The total isk payout was dropped to nearly half overall per site, and with the previous remote leshak comps being the go-to for C5’s, the ISK per hour was reduced to a bit less than 1/3.

Throw in the effort needed to bookmark the sites and check statics for activity and most people are better off doing T4 abyssals out of the nearest highsec connected to the chain than grouping together to farm C5 sites.

The only way for a C5 site to be worth while is solo with a marauder, and even then only half of the potential sites are worth bothering with.

You just said it:

What kind of adaptations a smart group could make in order to farm like before. A group who is living in a c4 and below?

They can not get capitals for the defense either, I believe the difference of the risks is minuscular while the set up requires the same effort. Structures and other.

The ISK/ehp to shoot is higher when doing sites than when killing the drifter. It’s simple math, just check Rykkies table. The normal C5 Anomaly gives 140+ ISK/ehp you need to shoot, the Drifter was between 70-130 ISK/ehp depending on which damage type you could apply. So unless you are limited in total sites available (like in your home), running more sites always gave more money in the same time than doing less sites and doing the drifter.
And, magic magic, you can get always fresh sites by just rolling your static, it’s done in less then a minute with a proper crew.

See, this min-max mindset is exactly the problem I have with highclass krabbing. People don’t want to actually live in the WH space, they are so used to print billions each time they farm with their blingbling marauders in completely saferolled holes that I can understand they are pissed CCP has finally nerfed that crap. And it was crap. HighClass WH space was full of renters and alt-farms that did nothing else than logging in every few days, “preparing the hole for an hour” and then grinding through 10+ sites incl. drifter in their Leshak- or Marauderalts, often even bragging at the forums how they make xyz billions/hour. I mean, those “corps” were actually 3 semi-active dudes with their alts, pathetic. Disagree as you like: I am glad that nonsense has become more difficult (or less lucrative, see it how you like).

Wrong mindset in my opinion, but who am I to judge? I am willing to group up and share the profits. In my case even with total newbros who can’t even remotely deliver the DPS I can, still they get their fair share. Thats called “corplife” and I can tell you there is not a single problem running C5 or C6 content in your static with a proper fleet. Yes, you won’t make your 2B per session. So fuckin’ what? I rather go off with only 500M and have a nice evening. You want to minmax ISK? Well, then go run T5/T6 Abyssals all day long and die of boredom.

I was talking about groups living in C5/C6 with a C5/C6 static. They will (and already have) found solutions to keep farming the Drifter efficiently.
Groups living in C4 and below have no godgiven right at all to farm Drifters, stop being so entitled. Wanna do drifters, move to a C5 and risk capitals.

Sure, you can build any amount of capitals you want for defense in a C4. But your opponent can’t bring in some. Your choice if you want to do it or not. There are reasons you chose a C4 to live in and I bet not being attacked by capitals is one of them. At least that is why we live in a C4 as well, it’s much easier to defend, much harder to rageroll for and draws much less attention from big groups. Well everything comes at a price, don’t you think? If you want to keep farming the drifter, grab a C5.

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Shouldn’t high risk high reward be encouraged? You are never safe farming in a WH, at any time someone can log in or roll into the WH you are farming. What do you have against 15bill risk on grid farming that? Do you consider it still being too safe?

These do not need to adapt anything. Nothing has changed for them. Maybe except that less people chose to live in lower tier WHs.

They draw less attention from bigger groups only because yield from them is x6 or more times lower compared to c5s. They are not worth the bothering. The safety, investment required and risks are pretty much the same.

Stop spreading that myth. It’s not riskless but its far from being at “high risk”. I have never lost a single ship in C5 sites to other players and all the others I personally know don’t lose their ships either. If you know what you are doing and have some aces in the sleeve in case something happens, you are pretty pretty safe in there.

Your own choice to field 15b. You absolutely do not need that. Your argument is like people claiming L4 missions in HS should be buffed because they use a 20B Marshal for running them. Use cheap ships, don’t bling. We farm C5/C6 in cheap Praxii for 400M each and it works like a charm (unless the guy doing the Logi has a disconnect, but even then… who cares for 400M lost?).

I mean, feel free to link me your C5 farming losses of the entire year 2023 and then we compare it with the money you could have made when farming every second day. And then please try to explain again how that is risky content. I doubt you will.

Nice way to respond selectively. As said: you have reasons to live in a C4 and the price is that you cannot farm Drifters. Absolutely adequate. If you don’t like it and think the risks and investments for a C5 are the same: grab a C5, problem solved.

I started playing in December, I have no record of 2023. In a few months I have been around the group I joined faced at least 2 evictions from C5s. Losing tens of billions in structures and assets. We have lost numerous marauders while farming while taking all the precautions. You can not do much against bombers rolling in or a capital logging in. The people I joined in WHs ended up heavily in negative during the period I have been playing. I personally have lost billions and billions in Jspace. It does not just print ISK. Also after the changes it became a lot more difficult to contest C5s from below.
P.S. C4s could use some love, improved spawn distances for example.

I suppose you and your friends have not done that much farming in C5s.

I love min-maxing, I have spent weeks looking for abyssal modules without proper filtering, I have put so much effort theory crafting and improving my set up for the Drifters. I have invested so much into my ability to do that part of content, bought starter packs and injectors, trained multiple accounts. Facing this kind of decision making by CCP is appalling to say the least from my perspective. I am a newbie of half an year and just like that all the effort I have put in has been washed away by, what I think, poor game design decisions. Why take away content instead of just shifting portion of loot to the escalation or just removing part of drops or reducing spawn rates of sites? Boggles my mind. Not to mention awful implementation of the changes.

I think it would be for the best if I took a break. I am just sad and frustrated and after this it is hard for me to trust the helm and it feels pointless rambling here. Though I love the community. I wish all of you the best. I am out.

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Not more difficult, but no point. You still have the 30+ man fleet rage rolling to look for seiged caps and marauders doing sites, but there is a lot more rage rolling and a lot less catching prey.

I would opt for more in-depth rework of WH sites to better match what c5/c6 structure has, with a drifter-boss style of additional rewards in something that will scram/web a target and take a bit of time to take down.

More reward options, and with additional rewarding benefits (with additional risk) should be the direction.
More carrot is needed to bring more people into WH space, including lower tier space, and more benefits for daytrippers to consider learning some WH mechanics and getting very well rewarded for it.

Yeah, that explains absolutely everything about your story. Also smells like CreditCard Skills a lot. You should really take a break, EVE isn’t a game you speedrun into the endgame content. And if you try, you will learn the hard way that this doesn’t work, CCP decisions or not. I have schooled and trained dozens of newbros over the years, it is basically my prime activity in the game for the last few years and the absolutely first lesson they all get to learn is that “greed causes more losses than anything else in EVE”.

Among all those guys I know living in C5s (or running C5s via static), the complaining has already stopped because they realized how little has actually changed. Use a capable crew, do the sites, exfil. End of story. You can do it in your home, you can do it in your static. Easypeasy like ever. With Drifter or without, just as you like.

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