POSs, outposts, OUTPOST SERVICES, jump beacons, jump bridges all of it, no auto repair, you have to get out there with carriers and triage if you didn’t want to be there for hours in logi cruisers (which REALLY FRIGGING SUCKED).
There were also no damage caps so in attacking the calculus was basically “how many dreads do I need to one cycle his dickstar”
Or you would ref it and log off nearby so when they came out to rep whatever it was that you messed with it was “Hot Drop O’Clock”
I’m glad to hear the war on botting is going well. But I agree with Scoots. That devblog is chock full of blog and sorely lacking any actual details. Other than the botting stuff, it could have been summed up in three very short sentences: “We did things. We are doing things. We will do things.”
Color me not impressed. The core principle seems to be PvP for all. Some of use pay real money for the right to play this game, hopefully in a way we want to, not in a way that CCP thinks we should.
I am not a PvP player, never have been and never will be. I am not rich, I am one of those care bear miners - that CCP seems to hate with a passion, I know that much of Nul does.
I play to unwind from long hard days at work. My joy in the game is being able to build something new, some I sell, some I fly and some I just enjoy.
Unfortunately I just resubscribed yesterday for a year. If this is seriously CCP direction - PvP in every activity, PvP as the only favored activity, I may wish that I had done my subscription one month at a time.
CCP - at one time you tried to provide a variety of activities that each person could do, to provide balance across all career types and for all levels of play from those who spent 20 hours a day logged in to those who spent a couple of hours a week on line. That seems to have been completely tossed over the side in this last strategy.
It is unfortunate that no one on the CSM actually represents the builders of EVE, the folks who spend days in high sec belts mining what they need for the next ship batch or set of modules. Nor do they represent the couriers, the high sec ratters or even the bitter vets who take on a flock of newbies and help them stay in the game.
Come on CCP you can do better than “All things PvP”.
A few years ago I mined in a hulk with all the mining assistance my slots could give me, Jetcans and an occasional hauler run to bring 4 or 5 jet cans into the station. I did not worry about the belt rats, I mined and took the risk of CODE. With tougher high sec rats, the hulk eventually evolved at an “all tank” Orca, with 3 mining drones and 2 light combat drones, slow but safe mining. I suspect next might be battleship mining with lasers and a couple of mining drones, if you turn up the rats more.
I don’t know how many mining frigates I have given away to starting players because their ship did not make it through a mining trip over the last couple of years. Want to retain players, they need a place to learn and gather some ISK so they can replace what they lost - otherwise they are lost to the game.
So yes CCP - I object to your PvP for all strategy. How about some real thinking on how to retain people who want to build, rather than just destroy.
I love that carebears like this kid are so afraid of PvP that when CCP releases a devblog talking about ecosystem changes as a whole, the carebears delude themselves into thinking this is about PvP.
I second your motion, for Eve to thrive and grow, Eve should have time and space for everything and everybody, should have space for creators, spaces for PVEers spaces for PVPers, spaces for explorers, space for settlers, spaces for warriors, spaces for relaxed players, spaces for super dedicated, spaces for soloists, spaces for associations and groups. One (PVP) ring that rule them all will not produce any results no matter how loud the PVP minority, renter corporations and stellar council denies it. Thank goodness corona and lockdown will pass soon, and then we will see the real results.
A wise man said “let a thousand flowers bloom” and his homeland flourished and prospered, what about ccp and Eve?
This will not solve anything, at least problems that CCP is planning to solve. Why? Because the MAIN problem is not identified. Main problem of EVE is skill injectors and if CCP is not planning to address elephant in room, game will never be balanced again. Most games, EVE too, are balanced about player’s skill in game. Those skills are, skill points of you character in game + some brain cells of course. EVE was designed around of premise that accumulating sp in game was time dependent, every part of game is designed that way. To do certain activities in eve you have to fly specific ship in game. You want to mine in null sec, you need rorqual, because everything else is waste of time. Of course nobody is saying that you can’t mine in exhumer. People is min max everything in games and so in EVE. But in pre Injector EVE, jumping form one activity to other would take time, now it takes only money!(sure you could buy char of char bazaar but there are only limited numbers of chars, and more important they are time dependent) CCP made tons of bad decisions in past, some players would take huge advantage of it. Now when CCP make bad decisions in game, most of players will jump on wagon to take advantage of it, because you just need to shuffle some skill points between chars and you are ready. Every goddamn pilot in eve and their grandparents jump in rorquals and went to mine u null sec. Why? Because CCP was greedy and allow them to skill inject into existing chars or even make new ones and injecting needed skills, and voila, half of eve went to mine in null sec. If there was no skill injectors… you would have to skill into rorqual , which will take months if not years.
By nerfing sources in game, by nerfing money velocity in game, CCP will not balance game for good. Sure it sounds good on paper but in reality it won’t change anything, CCP knows that, most people know that too. If you nerf all key points in game at same time, you will not change game a bit. CCP will angry some players, some may leave game, CCP doesn’t need veterans to leave.
What then CCP should do?
More conflicts in game, in all area of spaces. Don’t nerf things, instead make it harder to do it! Mining in null sec, leave ore alone, nerf ways of mining it! Nerf ships, nerf rorqual. In pre injector EVE, all ore was there, but you didn’t have …. ? Let’s guess what that is ?
Market changes not needed at all, Economy 101 tells you that you need system where goods change hands as much as possible, so taxes are higher ( CCP has all numbers and they know better), you want ISK velocity as big as you can get so ISK changes hands, recent market changes are opposite direction of that. You need market traders in game, CCP made them go away. Time will tell, just look ISK sinks linked to market and you will know.
About bots ? CCP MADE BOTS! It can not be simpler than that. In pre injector eve era, bot existed too, but once CCP found bot and banned bot, It took time to make another bot. Now all you need is credit card and few minutes of injecting bought skill points and you are ready to bot again.
CCP need to address SKILL INJECTORS first!!! And then everything else. I don’t say get rid of them, just make ‘em less impactfull on activities in eve. Make predefined chars and sell ‘em for cash ? I know that injectors are cash cow for CCP, but CCP you have to be honest with your customers!
Anyway that’s my 2 cents, someone who is in this game for 10 years
P.S. Sorry for bad english, english is not my native language.
Cost Of Ownership, The CCP allowed the possession of the property at no cost, simply because they were unable to program the limited storage space in the stations. Thus, the rich cumulatively became richer and new players could not reach them … This and a few other big corporations-only scams made Eve a source of “free beer” and a source of money for someone and for the others a boring game.
And now show is over, patron has gone (RIP) , ccp is sold and must earn their paychecks…
Resource scarcity is so that CCP don’t have to design new ships: dreads, then capitals, if more people do this we’d get bigger and bigger ships. They want to cap it at titan and keep star and if we keep mining the way we do we’d eventually grow out of them. Growth is good in an economy but not good in a game economy. People are already scared from seeing 60 bil titans, now you want them to experience what? Trillion dollar motherships?
We don’t care about ABC, we need more content: more ships for different causes, more balance such as to those T3 Cruisers which can klll battleships. We need more players, more new players, and making sure they stay. To avoid pay to win you should cheap out Omega to 100 PLEX, and increase the real world price of PLEX. I personally would be fine with IN GAME ADS (other people might hate that) if you give us more players and easier ways to afford omega,
Make battles matter by decreasing production. We can prevent big corps from getting much bigger with new players by deleting some APIs, this way big Nullsec corps might need more verification to avoid spying, disincentivising people to join. This would also boon non-permanent PVP such as solo PVP at plexes, where spying is either impossible or unavoidable. Eve is also known for scams, and that is why I came here for. Alt scamming/spying might get a buff. Smaller Nullsec corps=smaller Nullsec alliances=less bounty farming+less rorqual mining.
Less production increases the percentage of capital already held: just make sure destruction increases for a short while, get a galactic war going with a PLEX reward or something, or a glory ship for everybody in an alliance or something like that. Increase destruction so that there’s like 3 titans left after the battle and then nerf all production, get everybody back on day one. Remember, friendship is the best ship, the biggest capital of big alliances is their identity as the biggest alliance, so they won’t bother. Propbably big alliances are tired of inconsequential battles and pressing F1 every 180 seconds in a titan and would much better fly frigates around shooting stuff.
Eliminate botting in highsec: that’s your thing, maybe build AI or just look at people who are named similarly, or ships in the exact same position, or something.
Multibox/AFK mining: Buff suicide bankers and make sure concord can be cheated, like wormholes can be jumped as Criminal, so people are more wary. This would also increase “chaos” as wormholes are very chaotic. AFK mining should decrease as mining actually generates material, increasing literal production. Make other AFK activity a thing, like anomalies that only need you to sit next to a box for 20 minutes doing nothing, but make sure they need scanning so that bots don’ t use it, and make sure it pays out ISK (inflation not production), and less ISK.
How about subcaps designed explicitly for killing capital ships instead? When enough people become loot pinatas they’ll find a way to realize their goals with only subcaps.
Maybe a “does +1000% damage against capital ships” hull modifier or somesuch?
You mean the ultimate gank-ship for popping freighters? Yeah. That’ll go over well all through highsec, won’t it?
The bigger issue with a hull bonus like that isn’t the hull bonus: it’s the rest of the ship. Let’s say that ship’s got enough of a tank to survive the inevitable swarm of fighters or dread guns, or just capitals fitting smartbombs… well, if it’s got that good a tank, how well does it survive against subcapital weapons? HMMM.
If it survives well against subcaps too, why would you ever bring anything else?
If it doesn’t survive well against subcaps… why not? Is it just an issue of light fighters and HAW dreads being unable to hit it? If that’s the case… why did it need the massive damage bonus, when it might have been able to use a more general-purpose bonus?
If it doesn’t have enough of a tank to survive the fighters and HAWs… well, then it doesn’t matter how much damage it’s doing, it’s not going to live long enough to be a factor.
So make it a tech 2 battlecruiser or something. No one will gank in a 300 mil ship that gets practically 0 insurance payouts. As for tank I would say maybe give it a smaller sig than other ships it’s size and let part of the tank be long locking times, so a few of them have already burned you halfway down by the time you’ve locked them. Should they be good against subcaps? Absolutely not, you should have to have other subcaps to support them.
Probably the most common T2 battlecruisers right now are the Damnation (550M), Claymore (420M), and Vulture (495M). Those prices are for just the hulls, unfitted. Obviously, demand drives the price up… but that demand also means the number produced is higher, providing a downward pressure on the price, as well. With the changes in minerals and some falloff expected in moongoo production, T2 prices are going to rise even further. But for right now, let’s go ahead and say it’s in the 475M range. What does that mean?
Ganking
Yes, they’ll get used to gank freighters. 5b in hull cost for 10 of these things to hit a freighter? No problem. After all, you’re using them to hit the ones your ship scanner told you are hauling 20b+. Even given the whims of RNGeesus, you’ll probably make money every single time.
Actually Fighting Capitals
But at the same time when you go hunting capitals, if you bring 10 of these, they’re already worth more than any standard capital (ie: not supercapital or a faction capital) on the grid. If you think you’re going to bring 10 of these and threaten groups of capitals, well, now you’re saying the hull should be viable in small numbers against small numbers (at least) of hulls 1.5 steps higher[1]. The equivalent case without getting into capitals is someone saying ‘I think 10 destroyers should be able to challenge a battleship gang’.
Does that make sense? Should 10 CDs be able to take on a battleship gang without any real worry?
Keep Scaling
In order to be a reasonable danger to a capital fleet, these things should need to be present in numbers. Again, a small group being an outsized threat is bad. Consider the stealth bomber. In a lot of situations, stealth bombers are as oppressive as capitals, purely because of the massive damage potential. That’s mitigated, though, by the fact that bombers still need numbers to be a real threat, and there’s available counterplay to the out-sized damage that bombs represent: Defender launchers, fast-locking tackle and anti-support, etc. If you’ve got a small group of a dozen bombers, and the target’s got half a dozen Interdictors and a mix of CDs and T3Ds, your bombers are more or less useless.
So in order for these things to avoid tipping the scales completely in the other direction—where the people who have the big toys[2] simply decide there’s no point risking them because these tiny little pissant subcaps can’t be stopped—you need to introduce a bunch of counterplay options. Ideally, yeah, that’d include smaller ships in support of the capitals, but…
About That Sig…
If you’re giving it a smaller sig radius than other ships in the same size class… congratulations, you’re making it tankier against subcaps, too. And you really don’t want these things depending on their sig radius to defend against capitals. I don’t know if you’ve ever flown a carrier, but NSA modules provide massive bonuses to scan resolution. Once these killer battlecruisers of yours are out there, well… people will know they’re in the game. So they’ll fit to account for that. And that means that as soon as you get locked by the carrier[3], you get painted by the carrier.
And of course, once they start painting you, all the dreads can target you more swiftly.
Sooo…
What you wind up with is a ship that can’t be too potent, or it becomes the problem it’s trying to solve. At the same time, the ship’s price tag puts it out of reach of a lot of newer players, and between the price tag and the month+ of skills needed to get into it, it winds up mostly ending up in the hands of the already-established powers who can afford to split 200 people off into a fourth or fifth fleet. But you can’t make it too cheap, or you’re right back at ‘the problem it’s trying to solve’, because T2 Medium hulls are already pretty much the answer to ‘what’s the right ship for this fleet?’ every time. Logi, boosters, HACs, Recons…
Like I said: balancing a whole new ship ain’t easy. It has to be balanced against each and every other thing out there.
1. It’s not so obvious now with the change in skill requirements, but the basic shift in hull size is 1 full step. So Frigate → Cruiser is one step. Frigate → Destroyer (still ‘Small’, but slightly bigger. Call it ‘Small+’.) is half a step, and Destroyer → Cruiser is the second half. So Battlecruiser (M+) → Battleship (L) is half a step, and Battleship (L) to capital (XL) is a full step. 1.5 steps, total.
2. And remember, these people are important to CCP. They’ve been playing long enough to get a capital pilot, or they’ve spent enough in a very short period of time to get a capital pilot straight off. You don’t want to lose those players. But even more than that, CCP’s been talking a lot about how they want capitals and supercapitals to remain ‘aspirational’. That means they need to be something people see, and something people see being worth the effort to get.
Capitals, to be aspirational, need to be something people want to get into space and throw down with… and if that’s part of your business model (which it should be, get people excited about doing stuff!), then having a bunch of the most knowledgeable ambassadors of the game (ie: the long-term players) talking about how you took a massive steaming dump all over the very goal they say they want people to shot for… that’s just not a long-term survival strategy.
3. Remember that whole ‘small sig so you don’t lock fast, but vulnerable to subcaps’ thing? Jackdaw: 625mm scan res. Nidhoggur w/NSA running: 681mm. It locks faster than a T3D.