EVERYTHING I Learned from the CSM 19 Candidates

@Drake_Iddon

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
Pochven’s ecosystem is entirely based around a single pillar of content (flashpoints), should that pillar fail then the entire region collapses in population and activity, multiple additional pillars of content need to be brought to the region to prevent this

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
The December 22 patch in pochven added a respawn timer to flashpoints, the result of this was not only a complete collapse of pochven’s population and pvp based ecosystem, but it also made the region’s unhealthy impact on the wider economy even worse

The above graph is a good example of what happened, you can see that the region activity dropped like a stone after december, but also the ratio between isk generation and ship destruction absolutely skyrockets above a ratio of 10

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
In terms of making the pillar less unhealthy to the game I have already been doing this which you can see on the graph there have been two patches introduced through my efforts (and from the input of those on the pochven roundtable, plus the help of some CSM members that helped amplify out voices)

For the multiple pillars of content side I have already mentioned it in my thread:

Turn some (or all) of the OBS payout value from direct isk injection into red loot that must be looted when the site is completed, this would actually add risk to chaining sites back-to-back, encourages PvP to steal the red loot from other fleets, allows for backstabbing, thefts, and should naturally decrease the inflationary impact that Pochven has on the wider eve economy

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
As mentioned above and in my thread, I have the backing of multiple current and former CSM members of the work i have done so far

How will you present your findings to CCP?
Many of these findings are already presented to CCP, they are present in the roundtable that I organise, we have produced white papers that have been read out at CSM summits, plus I (constantly) poke devs to keep pochven fresh in thier mind

@Aurous_Victoirespere

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
New player acquisition and retention.

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
PCU trendline since 2010, plus the anecdotal evidence that an increasing number of new characters seems to be older players multiboxing (I am personally also guilty of this).

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
Incremental changes to streamline the new player experience, increased AIR Career rewards to help newbros ramp up, and re-tuning risk/reward for mid-tier PVE (e.g., in low class wormholes but also everywhere else) to encourage the newbros with the right personality matrix to undock for finding a big pile of money or die trying.

On the flip side, since botting is a phenomenon that simultaneously cheapens the gaming experience for real players and competes in similar spaces as newbros do (mining, high sec missions, low tier abyssals, null anomalies, etc.), increasing friction for bots also supports this goal.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
To be determined throughout the rest of this campaign period, but regardless of where the CSM candidate comes from (null sec, low sec, high sec, anywhere), increasing the number of people who start playing this game and keep on playing is good for everyone. I would frankly be shocked if anybody said “no, Aurous, we don’t need to work on new player retention.”

How will you present your findings to CCP?
Powerpoint, probably. In all seriousness, CCP holds way more data on this than any of us players do. If given the opportunity I’d be happy to help crunch the numbers but on this topic it’s not so much a matter of hard data as it is a self-evident issue that grows larger year by year.

“seperate the compressed ORE from the Long-Limb Roes”

Wait, which one do I want to be? Both sound equally (un)attractive.

@Bill_Dingha_Cynabal

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
If I’m perfectly honest, I’m not really coming into my CSM candidacy with a single flagship issue. I think there’s a lot of room for improvements and fixes to this game, but I don’t have a bee in my bonnet. To answer the question though, I think there’s a major unintended consequence unfolding with Metenox Moon Drills. A lot of people are happy with the return of passive moon mining, and I understand that completely. But Metenoxes are far less interactable than Athanors, and so space gets less interesting when Athanors disappear. And Athanors are disappearing fast, at least in low sec.

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
I’m not going to pretend to have compiled a meticulous spreadsheet. But last week I did an assay of 30 low-sec systems in Placid and Solitude. In these 30 systems combined, there were 5 Athanors pulling in moon chunks. A similar tour about a month before Equinox turned up in excess of 20 active Athanors. I’ll ask CCP for the actual data on low-sec Athanors with moon drills before and after Equinox.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
The intent of the design appears to have been for Metenoxes to primarily go on moons that wouldn’t have been good candidates for Athanors anyhow. The lower overall yield of the Metenox was almost certainly meant to make it an appealing option only on moons that weren’t worth it to actively mine. This is not how it has played out. One obvious solution is to leave Metenoxes as they are now, and buff Athanor mining slightly via one of several dials (asteroid count, asteroid size, tractor beam speed, moon ore volume, etc) until a better balance is achieved. Any such buff will, of course, drive down the price of moon minerals somewhat as the supply of them increases, so care would need to be taken.

Another approach that should be implemented simultaneously with the Athanor buff (or even instead of it) is introducing interactive gameplay related to Metenoxes for people who aren’t interested in bashing the whole structure. Either a heist mechanic, or a return of the siphon mechanic.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
I have not talked to any other candidate about this idea. I gotta be honest, I don’t really hobnob and rub elbows with Alliance leaders and a lot of the other people who are likely to run to CSM. I’m just a dude zipping around in a Corvette trying to build a Cynabal. But I love brainstorming and I have zero ego about my ideas. If I’m elected and I present this idea and the other CSM members support it, great. If I present it and the other CSM members immediately point out why it’s a dumb and bad idea, that’s great too. We’ll come up with a better one.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
In complete sentences. Maybe with a chart or two. In my real life, I’m a journalist. It may not come across in my forum and reddit posts, but one thing I do know how to do is lay out an argument clearly. Remember, I was able to facilitate dozens of bugfixes and small improvements to the Career Agents without even being on the CSM. Just by detailing everything that needed to be done in a clear and approachable way.

@Dujek_Oneye

  1. I think the impact of the equinox and incentives to hold more space, not less, do more work, not less, and taking away both the fighting incentives and economic incentives of raiding goes here. I think the honourable mention is inflation, with the universe-wide tax break, and several faucets that are bigger than they should be.

  2. Given how new these issues are, the more MERs we see, the better evidence we will have. There certainly are some trends in the nearly 6m PLEX, c6/pochven/homefront faucets. That we are seeing huge moves and space redistribution for null blocs to take more space also supports this.

  3. If skyhooks are to promote fights, the raiding windows need to be long. They also need to be tied to activity in space, so people can’t set everything to Chinese timezone and be free from raiding. 12-hour windows with variation centered around the most active time for alliances could be a start. I also think we need it iterate slower, and not go from 24h windows to 1 every 3 days.

  4. I think more skyhook raiding has wide support from candidates, with some exceptions.

  5. I have enough of an academic background that I can write a concise paper explaining my thoughts. I don’t think I will necessarily start the work before potentially being elected, though.

@Redus_Taw

  1. Though I have mentioned many small changes, the main idea I want to carry into CSM is thinking about longevity.

  2. I would defer to CCP for player base age and number of unique logins (ip address?).

  3. This is multi-faceted. It’s a bit of these small things I’ve mentioned: Get rid of multiple accounts, introduce PvE bounty hunting, introduce in-game comms, but mainly we need to take a step back and look at not only what MMO players enjoy, but what non-MMO gamers dislike about MMO’s. An example for each. We could use something like ‘World Bosses’… give me Space Kaiju. Why is everything I’m shooting a ship? For the non-MMO players, we should consider making changes to grinding. The most common complaint about MMO’s I’ve ever heard from those that do not play them is sitting there for hours and hours doing mindless tasks.

  4. Never asked. I can’t get small changes to go through, nevermind something like that. I might be able to reach more people and get through to them if I’m in CSM. I’m hoping that is the case :slight_smile:

  5. Defer to CCP in the months following changes.

@Prospektor_Schipplock

I honest prefer not to answer this question. But i do, because i choose to answer question in my thread.

  1. I understand that Powerblocks, have enough votes to easily bring the half of the CSM. But i miss the diversity here.

  2. This can be prooven by checking the old CSM Candidates, where at least more then half of the CSM was represented by 0-Blocks.

  3. I think CCP should cherry pick here, the best applicants to keep the whole story even.

  4. I dont know, because i do not have asked them recently.

  5. This question is unclear, do you mean, when i am CSM - or do you mean in general. I think CCP, is full aware of this Situation and changed the last CSM the rules regarding to that.

@Rots_Mijnwerker

Rhett Schouten Thank you for taking the time to compile all this, the following are my responses.

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
For me it’s about how CCP promotes thriving new groups with leaders who feel encouraged to engage in community building. A lot of my campaign is about community growth and the reduction of ‘space work’ but also the streamlining of the Alliance and Corp tabs which i feel would be hugely beneficial. I envision a role building system with better information and info blurbs. Something intuitive, a place where CEO/Directors can build their frame work with many options and accesses that are not inherently bound by a large role theme. ie. Color Coding, Streamlined Medals and Titles, and Custom Corp Icons. I also feel the need to say that a lot of solutions are likely to be found in the diplomatic standings tabs and how mechanics here could influence conflict

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
I believe the evidence is that the alliance and corp tabs have been largely unchanged in purpose and function since my early years. Diplomacy in this game has been largely unchanged since i have played. I needs to be revisited.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
I think the practical approach here is to bring up the UI in these windows with today’s eve. This i believe is about envisioning what alliance and corp management could look like if reworked. I think the practical is important here as what needs to be considered is what feels clunkiest (ie the rankings window) and how do we improve that. How to be better inform our future content creators with info blurbs etc?

Additionally outlined in my CSM announcement is the diplomatic approach which is that I strongly believe the diplomacy tab can be brought into the newer UI world and could be utilized as a tool for BLOC breaking. An example would be upkeep costs for having blue standings which scales with alliance member counts, War mechanics currently have a fee, l believe costs associated with friendly standings is a great opportunity for an isk sink on larger coalitions.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
One of the first comments on my thread is from Dujek Oxeye which i greatly appreciated. I think however the support of the eve player base is what i most strive for. Right now i think many CSM candidates wouldn’t outright support my hopes for these adjustments as they would kinda go against the norm and status quo. Change scares people.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
I think first this involved making connects at CCP which is what the CSM affords candidates the opportunity to do. I will likely present findings in concise write ups with the assistance of my peers (CSM) and look to make the pitch for some of these changes if CCP’s focus that CSM cycle permit me the opportunity.

@Gideon_Zendikar

  1. Ansiblexes

  2. sov maps and the lack of medium groups existing in the current meta - a thread i created and is cosigned by a lot of EvE content creators and/or leadership: Reddit - Dive into anything 2

  3. Anything that creates more of a delay for projection across multiple regions/lots of jumps

  4. If you check the other posts on this forum this point is often repeated in a lot of drafts

  5. create more posts like mentioned in 2. to get broad feedback that is backed by data

@creatnos

  1. Skyhook changes that just got released.

  2. Reddit uproar, talking to about every person on discord Ive interacted with in the last month,

  3. The secure bay was enough to balance the skyhook on its own in my opinion as a very minimum, in fact I think it’s a lot cleaner than the old maturation bay. For timers, it would have been alot better to create something like a 6 hour a day invuln time rather than 1hr per 3 day vuln timer

  4. Most other candidates agree the severity of the changes were too much. And those who believe they were good in entirety don’t actually care for the health of the game, only their own wallet.

  5. Compile some data about how little fights have been occuring over skyhooks and explain to ccp that this is now just a nationalized passive income stream for null blocs.

@Ankh_Lai

Hey Rhett, awesome questions and I’m glad to answer.

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?

  • Homefronts are a fantastic opportunity for newer players to start making meaningful levels of isk, the problem is, they were placed in High Sec. This means that multiboxers can dominant the sights and control the sites, effectively starving newer players on mass.

I would propose either moving them/adding them to low-sec, or making them a limited PVP area, so that fleets of newer players (such as EVE Rookies and EVE University, can effectively contest the sites).

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
I make my money in Pochven - the joys of it is, that whilst the isk faucet is incredible (and probably overpowered), the sites are contested. This means that you’re both having to create fleets that can take a fight, but also discourages multiboxers (who frequently will get pushed out of sites by fleets of multiple players). This creates competition in the market.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
As I said before. Move/add the sites to low-sec or make them a limited PVP area so that the sites can be contested.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
I’m yet to talk about this specific issue with any candidate, but I do hope to talk about such things with Kshal when I am interviewed on their stream this week.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
The same way I approach things in my day job. Data never lies. If you can present X number of sites are completed by multiboxers vs Y number of sites are completed by “normal” fleets, then that tells the story. CCP need stories from us as much as our opinions.

Frozen_Fallout

1. What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
The Loyalty Point Store is a horrible new player experience and needs to be completely overhauled.

2. What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
This aspect of the game hasn’t been updated in years and is filled with new player traps that are not needed and can actually give you negative isk per LP.

Expanding on the Player LP trade system with actually accounting and a true system of trade would greatly improve the life of a new player that relies on LP for their income.
At the very least the LP stores need to be slimmed down to actually items that are useful to a player and ensure there is a proper balance in related LP stores, at most it needs to be completely revamped from the ground up. Faction Warfare is a new player activity but understanding how to extract isk out of the LP store is currently an advanced skill.

3. What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
Remove all the bloat inside the LP stores and tone it down to items that players should actually buy.

4. What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
To be honest I think I have heard of others in the CSM talking about this.

5. How will you present your findings to CCP?
If elected I will work with other to build a spreadsheet to show how horribly imbalanced the LP store is

Aqustin_Agustus

  1. The single consequence that requires CCP’s attention right now is the wildly harsh change recently made to skyhooks.

  2. My corp, before the skyhook change, rage rolled daily and almost always had available skyhooks to rob. Since the Skyhook changes, our success rate with not only attacking skyhooks, but just finding any withing our available time zones has dropped significantly. While the ISK loss can’t be denied, the most important loss was the dramatic decrease in available content from alliances that would form to respond to our thefts.

  3. The solution has already partially been implemented to skyhooks with the secure and unsecure reagents bay. The update went too far with shifting the advantage away from attackers, however, and adding in a small raid window has effectively shut down skyhooks as an open to the public content source and has turned them into strategic targets of war. The best solution now is to roll back the time zone restrictions and adjust the ratio of secured and unsecured reagents based on their market impacts post change.

  4. Frozen fallout in his CSM campaign post, mentioned the overreaction to skyhook changes that I’ve brought up here, and shares my opinion on the role that skyhooks should play as a source of content and this is a sentiment that is shared among many people in the Eve community, not just people who play primarily in Nullsec.

  5. The short term economic impact shows a trend of possible panic trading, and this was highlighted by The Oz in his September 27th report. As it stands, the long term economic effects would be presented after enough time has passed to allow for market orders to stabilize to the new changes. This, however, does not reflect the impact on available content, and presenting this will have to be primarily done through direct community feedback over the next few months on how both alliances and smaller groups have adjusted to the new raiding changes.

Kenneth_Feld

  1. 4% tax - specifically as it applies to research

  2. I made a new pilot and trying to research a frigate BPO was nearly impossible without a few months of abyssals or other isk making activities - plus I speak with new industrialists all the time and the number one question is always about this

  3. Change the formula for ME/TE research to lower the percentage taxed for the final product (I would say lower the tax, but not sure if that is on the table

  4. I would say unamimous - or nearly at least

  5. Same way I presented before - gather data, put it in a readable and concise format and make it “Easy” to fix rather than some elaborate complicated scheme that takes 3 engineers 4 months to code.

commander_Shepard_Brotherhood

Im commander Shepard Brotherhood, super long name, i didnt know what I was doing when i first played. Or you can call me Michael. My favorite thing to do in Eve is honestly just flying cool spaceships and getting fat kills. I love black ops gameplay, dreadnaughts, HAW, dreads, etc. Sometimes i like to just relax and do some missions or ratting.

Im really not known at all in the Eve community except for really the group that I fly with thats about it. Figured I would apply cuz it would be a fun thing to part of, and I care about keeping this game going for the long run, I want more players in the game playing, and to bring those player numbers up, not from alts, from more individual humans.

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
One Consequence that I think requires CCP action is ISK generation and equity that encourages more and more multiboxing to get rich quick schemes(Here me out). Which really impacts the solo player or those who dont have 10 Accounts.

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
I say this because as someone with multiple accounts, I cant ever see myself playing Eve again with less than how many I have. It feels as it has become mandatory at this point, especially for ISK making. Newer players or less well off players in Null or even high sec, have a much more limited way to generate ISK. They cant CRAB(needs cyno alt and fax alt), They cant do WH garrisions, need scout alts, and rolling alts etc. They can do Poch, but cant compete with the guy with 20 Vargurs. (Im not saying you shouldnt be able to do 20 Vargurs Llama:-| )
What I want to point at is that person with only a couple characters or just the 1 want to rat, They are directed to just Ishtar spinning, doing some lvl 4 missions, poch(high skill gap), fillaments, some more. But not everyone wants to log in and just rat in their Ishtar all day in the hours they have. the next is Stormbringer ratting, or mach smartbombs, which require more characters. obviously newer players and those with 1 account wont make as much as those with more, but i think that there is a change here that can be fixed, make soloing Havens have a little better income. Address the ability for bots to easily ishtar spin as well. The gap between Poch and null ratting with just 1 character is massive.
Then there is my opinion on what scarcity did to the game, the rich got richer and those that werent rich got mostly left in the dust. I loved being to just lose ships and feel it that it sucked, but not think welp there goes my wallet to replace it.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
Honestly, finding a way to make ISK generation in null for solo account players better, make more activities accessible to solos all around new eden, High sec, low and null. And then make these activities generate better isk. Not at all be on Par with poch or super CRAB beacons, but something that lets players actually catch up reasonably.
Missions need to be completely reworked and fixed, this is the first thing new players see when playing. And the ISK made from that is laughable, Its better to just immediately go to null after some initial skill training and run sites in a vexor. especially Lvl 1-3 missions are just a complete joke. Lvl 4 needs a good bump as well.
Then what else is needed is some more solo content all around that doesnt need more characters to be efficient at and lets some players actually see it as a way to eventually afford something they want.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
I have actually not talked or looked at many of the other CSM candidates overall, other than Ankh Li, Who is very much more the betterment of the new player experience and I want my thoughts to be in line with what he is saying as well. The NPE should be much better and Isk generation and better newer and solo content can help with that.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
If I am on CSM I will go about it by expressing my thoughts and evidence to support, I do not know the proper way of presenting ideas on CSM as I have not been on it before, but I will learn the proper way to approach it.

Mike_Azariah CSM

Okay. In order

  1. Communications CCP to players in a LOT of ways

  2. sorry I have a lot of knowledge locked behind nda so I am cautious with what proofs I show

  3. a) We need a better ending to the career agents that points the players to corps
    b) CCP devs should be out talking to us more often, after covid the old style seemed to die off a bit
    c) CCP should have a stronger presence in the forums

  4. I am fairly sure K’Shal supports a lot of this greatly

  5. I remind them at regular intervals, also at end of term I usually write a ‘wish list’ for the next term on the internal documents that CCP gives us access to.

m

m

The_Oz CSM

  1. Certain minerals are bottlenecked so much that their price is comparatively way too high (e.g. Isogen)

  2. (Super) capitals are too expensive because of this. Mining is not economically viable compared to other activities in EVE outside of massive multiboxing.

  3. More and larger rocks of certain types in space.

  4. Literally everyone is in favor of this. I am the voice of reason on the CSM.

  5. I bring this up constantly when I speak to CCP.

Viciate

  1. If I had to pick a single source of friction that would be seen as an identifiable issue to take up, I would select factional warfare standings.

  2. The proof of this lies in the player workaround for factional warfare standings wherein players make alpha alts to boost a corp’s overall standings.

  3. I don’t think the solution lies in breaking the workaround; I think instead the solution lies in either changing or removing factional standings as a requirement for being enlisted in factional warfare.

  4. I’m honestly not sure what support my observations have from other CSM candidates, but I would welcome the opportunity to work with both CSM and CCP to investigate possibe solutions.

  5. I would present my findings to CCP by pointing out my observations and backing up with data where I can(login metrics, survey results, testimonials from players, etc). As I have never been in a CSM meeting, I don’t know what the process looks like, but I am sure there is a reasonable protocol for presenting such things.

Frippyy

Hello Rhett, i appreciate the comment with the points you’ve raised as well as asking some damn good questions. Therefore i shall try my best to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Q1. What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
A1. One of the main things that i want changed within the game is the current skyhook mechanics.

Q2. What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
A2. The evidence i have against this current system s the communities very negative response to how the skyhooks mechanics were changed. Which at launch I thought were perfectly balanced, this being they could be robbed at any time meaning that home defence became a lot more important and encouraged a lot more small gang PvP which we all know is fun. Now with the current mechanics, there being only a certain period in which a skyhook can be robbed, i feel like CCP took something that was very good and almost ruined it.

Q3. What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
A3. The change i would suggest is a very simple one which would require very little effort on their part. the change would be to revert the mechanics of skyhooks back to how they were. a simple and minimalistic request that would provide a lot of benefits to all.

Q4. What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
A4. I currently haven’t discussed this idea with other CSM19 candidates however from now onwards it is going to be one of my main talking points of my campaign. In terms of support i have for this idea, the people ive spoken too being corpmates and a podcast host both alike supported this idea.

Q5. How will you present your findings to CCP?
A5. If elected I will voice the concerns and complaints of many who have spoken to me about this matter and i would gather any necessary data in order to prove my findings.

very much appreciate you commenting on my post and if you have any further questions do let me know. o7

Bexey_Songweaver

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
Loss of new players due to in game violence

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
Difficult, but hoot haas above makes his observations clear. The road to becoming a more mature player from the initial game is difficult and needs to be made easier or at least clearer. I have suggested some form of incentive driven fleet missions to bring in new players to introduce them to faction and non hi sec gaming.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
New player fleets that are created with incentivised missions
Hubs where people can pick up this content. Maybe the trade hubs where a player can become a mission agent for newer players to join a fleet

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
Some from others. The focus tends to be on high end content

How will you present your findings to CCP?
If I am elected then within the forum as best I can, otherwise Helmar is getting powerpoint spam

Ariel_Rin

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
The Excel Addin that CCP have put all their promotion and effort into, is dead in the water, as it, as with all Third Party Applications it relies on ESI.

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
Support Ticket #2270789, Issues logged with the EVE Excel addin, caused by ESI 504 timeouts. EVE Support have denied assistance.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
Communicating the issue is by far the absolute minumum of effort that should be required.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
Most other CSM candidates aren’t directly in the weeds dealing with ESI daily putting the fires out and keeping people flying spaceships.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
As we already have, as data driven clear reports of the direct impact this is having on players

2 Likes

O7 Capsuleers

Last year I asked eight questions and then compiled the answers into a huge mega-thread. It was massive. With the exception of MILINT_ARC_Trooper, no one had a thread bigger than mine, to be fair MILINT_ARC_Troopers’ thread was so weighty and knowledgable it teetered on the edge of collapsing into its’ own core.

That catalogue of replies is now a time-capsule and encapsulated within are the hopes and disappointments that CSM 18 candidates considered worth speaking about during the year of EVE’s 20th anniversary.

The responses gave voters en masse an opportunity to test and compare each hopeful CSM 18 candidates commitment to their claims of being community oriented, knowledgable, responsive and representative of player values. Given that the CSM does not directly control any aspect of EVE’s development and that the successful candidates are those that can identify existing and future consequences, co-operate with other CSM members, and communicate issues -from a player perspective- to CCP staff one-to-one, I’ve formulated a set of questions designed to seperate the compressed ORE from the Long-Limb Roes in this years election race.

Year-on-year the Independent Representatives, Solo players with single accounts, Worm Holers, Triangle People, Semi-nomadic Role-Playing Sandbox Explorers, and Salvagers, have been organising and gaining traction against the self-secure Null-Bloc Empire Candidates and their vast hordes of leather-skinned, evil, flying-monkeys. More-and-more players are choosing to vote in members they believe can positively impact CCP’s approach to the game regardless of their in-game affiliations.

Exposure matters, who are you, what is your clue?
As was the process last year I will post each candidates reply in a super thread, first-in first-served.

This years questions:

  1. What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
  2. What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
  3. What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
  4. What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
  5. How will you present your findings to CCP?

If you have already identified and spoken about a problem in your CSM candidacy bio at the top of this thread feel free to copy pasta that response where applicable. I’ll copy paste directly from your response to this post. Choose your goblet…. wisely.

Let the games begin, and may the odds ever be in your favour.

1 Like

@Frozen_Fallout
@Aqustin_Agustus
@Kenneth_Feld
@commander_Shepard_Brotherhood
@Mike_Azariah
@The_Oz
@Viciate
@Frippyy
@Bexey_Songweaver
@Ariel_Rin

There is a limit of ten mentions per post, you are replies 11-20

1 Like

@Gustav_Mannfred

  1. Botting mainly, there are a lot of bots around, be it in homefronts, low tier abyssals or FW. There must be something done.

  2. Just check FW and see a lot of Algoses that warp off when you enter the site. Check characters doing homefronts, some of them are new toons with similar character names.

  3. Possibly more limitations to Alpha clones, such as limiting the amount of normal skill injectors they can use, as well as some changes to the 1m skillpoints for accounts created using a referral link. That when you are alpha you get like 100k sp, but once you upgrade to omega you get the remaining 900k SP. A lot of these bots in Homefronts and FW are alpha clones

  4. There are a few others that have botting mentioned in their campaign posts.

  5. Most likely at the meetings we have, but as I am not yet on CSM and have never been, I don’t know how exactly that works yet.

@Kshal_Aideron CSM

Interesting set of questions this year. Honestly, this one is pretty easy.

  1. CCP’s communication to the player base. I think the release of Equinox speaks for itself on why this needs CCP’s attention.

  2. If you can’t feel the rage from the player community about how Equinox was released and the decisions made about the Skyhooks, I can’t really can’t help you.

  3. This has to be a decision within CCP to become more communicative and transparent with the player base. Or, allowing the CSM to explain more to the player base on how and why we got here.

I honestly think a lot of the rage is being left in the dark, which is pretty understandable. The other part is being given a new playstyle that gives you a reason to log in only for it to be yanked away without any in depth reasoning on why this is happening.

These types of player reactions are really a bitter sweet “I told you so.”

  1. I think the candidates that are serving or have served will agree. I believe that other candidates will agree that lack of communication is a problem (because it is) but until you get to experience it one can never truly understand.

  2. Player reactions to the expansion and patches are talked about a lot in our weekly meetings. So really it goes back to point 3 with the bitter sweet “I told you so.” Though, we’re usually a little more diplomatic than that.

And, of course depending what reaction we’re bringing to CCP, there can be screen shots, video, spread sheets (because we’re Eve players) and other supporting evidence.

@Phantomite

Thank you for the questions.

  1. There are many consequences that require CCP’s attention, but to pick one out, it would be the massively parallel nature of so much of Eve’s PvE. Simplistic PvE is boring to run for players, and hugely easy to bot. Huge progress can be made on both fronts with a strong focus on cooperative, multi-role PvE content available all over the game.

  2. Provable evidence that simplistic, soloable PvE is infested with bots? I undock. Most of us undock, and we see it in Null anomalies and in FW complexes. In our own home system, we have a resident bot that runs and docks and undocks like clockwork, to the second, for the majority of the day.

  3. The game already has full diamond AI fleets consisting of DPS, tackle, Ewar and logi. Right now, there’s very little content for gangs of players to be incentivised to go out and fight - well designed sets of rats in fleets, requiring that you bring a mixed variety of ships to fill various roles, would transform casual socialisation in Eve from “limited to voice while all doing seperate PvE” to full in game activity to bond over, and be more engaged by.

  4. I have voiced this in several live shows to great approval. I also, along with any of my other important subjects, talk about this to individuals and groups.

  5. Exactly the same way I’ve presented it to you today.

Thank you for the interesting questions, I look forward to futher discussion.

@Mcopiate

well, like ive already said, i dont like seeing entire regions becoming passive isk farms for the null blocks

would try to change that, i think by allowing us to raid the new drills would go a long ways to making that approach unfeasible

Our next candidate needs no introduction (The Infamous) @MILINT_ARC_Trooper

A collection of goblets is very hard to chose between.

But I chose the carpenters cup.

  1. Mining definitively needs a rework or reconsideration. We have been having major problems for production and industry since the changes. And CCP didn’t factor in many ores need to be “uncompressed” to used for usage in mission payments. So this has created some issues with movement and usage of those ores. Besides obvious wastage problems and large preference on ORE/ factional/ T1 modules due to lack of wastage with those modules. And due to these changes production has been relatively difficult.

  2. The market information on which mining modules and materials, and the types of ores that are or not compressed.

  3. A Practical Change should include some sort of upgrade and newer crystals. [Also on the Reddit post I made mention of a Triglavian Mining Laser concept.] The depth of the resources as well as ways to collect it should be enhanced.

  4. Support for such changes will probably not be coming from PVP oriented/specialized players; but if the argument is made that better mining = more PVP ships to be used in content. There could be some compromises and concept changes to enhance that interaction.

  5. Information will have to be collected and BPC/BPO information as well as ore information needs to be presented to show the problems in game.

Hopefully I don’t roll a D1.

@NeoShocker

  1. The game mechanics regarding the FW/incursions. In particular AWOX’ing and multi boxers. It requires immediate attention, especially in regards to new players to participate PvP.

  2. Post 1 , Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, and also personal experience, voices of other fellow corp members in Insurgency, and other sources.

  3. Several solutions. But so far the best I have gotten to is using the “tether” system on the first max number of pilots in a complex and only those gets LP. In addition if awoxing on “tethered” pilots, the aggressor will get very heavy penalty. Or adding to that effect (disregarding LP and awox penalty), if the threshold is over 50% of the max count, say 5 medium navy site. If there is more than 7, those additional pilots will get a warning to warp off within a time frame (say 10-30 seconds) or will get automatic limited engagement timer.

  4. There are few other CSM candidates that also voices concern for AWOX’ing and multi-boxers. FW/incursion is one of the most fun and ideal game play for new and veteran players to get into PvP. Lack of polishment and adjustment in that game play will discourage players of participating such activity.

  5. By having polls, links to sources, providing solutions. Gather all of the findings and present to CCP.

@AtheistOfFail

As a solo player, I find myself having a lot of issue with the fact that finding content is difficult. Years ago, you could warp one system away and find people mining, ratting and doing other activities, and the game seems deader than ever. I want to change things and give a reason to put certain assets like capital ships on the field and at risk.

@SeriesPro

[Aug 2023] Rhett Schouten

Awesome, yeah they’re a special kind of therapeutic question designed to do exactly that.

Don’t use my page to promote another candidates please…

@DutchGunner

What ONE identifiable consequence requires CCP’s attention?
I will answer this question from my area of expertise and say that iterations on and balancing content is something the game is in dire need of.

What PROVABLE evidence can you supply to support your belief in this situation?
I can provide multiple examples. When the seagulling in Pochven was adressed, it only applied to the sites in Pochven. Seagulling can still be done to the observatory flashpoints within Empire space. And instead of leaving room for play and counter play by forcing players to be within a certain range like 100km from the objective, it was made a zero-sum gain that resulted in the current stale meta.

Another great and recent example is the change to the Skyhook where the balance was massively tipped in favor of the owner. Just going for 50-50 but be raidable 23/7 or every day within a 1 hour timeframe would have been fair. But not the current state.

Finally I want to point out the balance in PVPVE. You have the World Ark Assault Vector in Pochven and the Horizon Siege Points near Zarzakh where the PVE in the site is very challenging for people to run and it only takes a little effort with ECM ships to break the fleet that is running the site or when you enter the site to attack the people running the site the odds are disproportionately in favor of the attackers.

What practical, and balanced change can be made to support a solution if any?
When making changes, make sure they are applied across the game and if you want to keep introducing PVPVE mechanics, make sure that those who want to run the content or disrupt or attack those who run the content are in a comparable position with regard to risk, effort and reward.

What support do your observations have from other CSM candidates?
The World Ark Assault Vectors rarely get run and with the Horizon Siege Points and this is something that the Pochven candidates can confirm and CCP will have statistics on.
As for the Horizon Siege Points, a few big groups could monopolize the sites by pushing others out of the sites by killing them or make sure they could never complete the sites. That too will be confirmed by data that CCP has access too and what others who have interacted with this content can confirm.

How will you present your findings to CCP?
By collecting and combining feedback from other players, collect and analyze data and statistics to strenghten the findings and present it calmly and clearly to CCP to explain and pinpoint the issues in order for it to get iterated on or taken into account with future content.

A good example of the latter is that with the Horizon Siege Points, only people within 100km of the objectives would qualify for sharing in the rewards for running/clearing the site. This limited the options for seagulling and adressed one inbalance for that content.

@Colby_Bosh_tet

  1. The state of wormhole space and its stagnation due to powers pushing people out of wormholes and dictating how other people and groups need to act and play the game.

  2. The recent wormhole war which videos can be found through youtube, stories on reddit, demonstrates this exact issue of dictating to others how they should play. The aftermath of the TDSIN eviction also demonstrates this.

  3. Make the current wealth generation, particularly being C6 space more fought over and harder to hold, giving others opportunities to compete. There are an array of possible solutions i.e adding a null static to C6 space. If nothing is changed then how can this issue be expected to have any changes?

  4. I am not in any large block, I have no bias and no narrative to hide behind. I tell it how it is and want the best for wormholes and the game overall. I want everyone to be able to compete and have some chance at creating their own story, not having it dictated to them by others.

  5. All I can do is present the facts as CCP will do what they see best. But I will make sure ALL who bring their points to be are heard and any changes made to the game are measured against the effects on wormhole space.

It would be really, really, REALLY god-damn nice if CCP finally fixed their garbage voting page by allowing people to actually visit their campaign topics on the forum to see what they are about. I know like 40% of the candidates, and I will absolutely not sift through the forums manually to find out more about them. This is a massive shortcoming of this ancient voting page that CCP refuses to fix and which sabotages informed voting.

what this voting process needs is an at least basic vote-o-mat™ page where all candidates have to give their statements on like 30 or 40 questions with a pro / neutral / against stance and you can then filter which candidate suits your interest the best. We had that at some prior election I think but I can’t remember who hosted that, I think it was a third-party application.

Right now I am totally unable to work through a dozen of topics, streams, reddit- or discordpostings to get a clue who I should vote for. And tbh, 10 votes are way too much, make it 3 per account so anyone choses his favorites and thats it. Like most things in EVE, this whole voting process is unnessessary overcomplex and tiresome for the people who should use it. Keep things simple and usable.

2 Likes

this for sure !