Gideon Zendikar for CSM 19

Greetings capsuleers,

My story in EvE:
I started in ProviBloc and quickly started FCing/PvPing with my old Alliance Elemental Tide. I learned the basics of nullsec and tried my best to sustain myself within republicovs crazy frigate and destroyer kitten roams.
When my corporation decided to leave ProviBloc with Evictus. I doubled down on my FCing.
After leading my fellow members into many battles and getting better by doing so I quickly started FCing for the whole Legacy Coalition during several of the conflicts they had during that time (Winter War against FRT e.g.) But as all good things my time with Evictus came to an end when their development did not coincide with where I wanted to go within EvE.
As a former member of ProviBloc I returned to where I started. But this time it was different . I did not join ProviBloc but the group fighting my former comrades. Going back to my roots within T.R.C but far more experienced I did what I excel at: Take newbros, shape them into a formidable force and try to get them involved within the community as active new members.
Overcoming our archenemy I continued FCing within T.R.C until the day that a certain Reddit post was created that introduced me to the bad that can happen to you personally within a game that creates such tight bonds with your fellow peers.
After being accused of being a spy for the Initiative and later cleared from this accusation I joined the corporation I currently am a part of and this is where my story is currently at:

I mostly reside in Thera - go on deployments of different kind and try to be part of an active Universe. As an example of one of my activities you can check out some videos I made for Bring Solo Back.

What I hope to influence and give feedback on:

  • Make space topology matter again: Too many tools break the geography of this game - be it jump drives, ansiblexes,filaments, conduiting or bridging when transversing through space one can avoid taking regular gates far too often. You rarely see fleets burning a long way through their own space anymore - this takes away chances for smaller groups to setup bombing runs, catching stragglers, bubbeling part of the fleet while the other part is stuck in warp so you can engage the smaller part first. All these angles of attack used to be deployed far more often when you actually had to take fleets through gates and the attacker could try to predict the path that the defender is likely to use. These things were vital to give smaller groups the chance to use their more connected communication and setup to fight the bigger groups. Ansiblexes in particular are the worst offenders of this. A more detailed reasoning is given in a reddit post I created using input from various FCs: Ansiblex Reddit post
  • More online shared bookmark folders.
  • Make Anoms broadcastable: Just an small tweak to that would be a huge quality of life improvement for small gang PvP - esp for hunters/tackle.
  • Keep skyhooks a point of conflict: CCP has hinted at changing the mechanics around the skyhook more in favor of the ones deploying them. Skyhooks have been a point of conflict and smaller scale fights often start on them. To keep them as a seed for local responses and conflict they have to both be worth defending and stealing. Here I could give reasonable feedback as someone who has been in Alliance Command and is doing small scale PvP regularly.
  • Increase nullsec active income: Nullsec income is currently severly outclassed by other available options: This leads to the active playerbase shifting to more insulated parts of space that are hard to interact with. Farmholes and mutaplasmids are examples of this. Leaving nullsec dominated by more passive and scalable options of income.
  • Increase value of fitting, reduce value of hulls: pirateering would be in a much healthier place if the ammount of loot you would get from regular t2/meta 4 fitted ships would increase. This would not affect PvE players directly by keeping the cut even point of their activity the same while increasing the incentives to go out and hunt those roaming in space. If loot would be a bigger income source of our day to day activities that would also be a much needed benefit for being in a smaller group as loot would have to shared by fewer players.
  • Inclusion of the base fitting skills into the default skillset of every char - it is okay if a newbro can not fit t2 guns on his hull but whenever one designs a doctrine or a ship for them you always have to keep their lower powergrid/CPU in mind and at the same time these pilots are kept from engaging with the community through a skillpoint barrier - This hurts player retention and is just not needed.
  • T1 ship reblance is needed: In my opinion T1 ships should at least be viable as an isk efficient way to engage against enemy pilots. A lot of T1 ships are no longer competetive even on a isk efficency basis. T1 Destroyers pale in comparisson to the faction destroyers that require the same skillset, they are too slow on grid and their relative big signature just makes them easy targets to apply to. Faction Dreadnoughts that just require an addional BPC while requiring the same materials to build make the T1 dreads not worth it as a whole. T1 battleships and dreadnoughts would just require a cost change to make them viable while T1 destroyers would require some balance changes (improve on grid movement speed to be at least faster than T1 Cruisers)
  • More rapid changes in the meta: It sometimes just needs a numbers tweak to upset the current status quo and those upsets give us theroycrafters and FCs a chance to be the ones adapting faster by putting time and effort into figuring out the new meta as well as give industrials rapid new emerging markets that will benefit those that are able/willing to adapt quickly.
  • remove/adjust drone assist. Multiboxing is fine as it limits the effectiveness to react to disruptions of your gameplay as the player can be overwhelmed by the increasing demand for input he has to manage. This leads to a drop in efficency if he tries to utilise as many accounts as possible. This dynamic is limited for drone ships as they can scale far easier by assiting their drones. leading to examples where one player in a massive drone assisted fleet can contest smaller to midsized Alliances worth of players on his own.
5 Likes

Would you support CCP putting NPC stations in every null sec region? Why or why not?

What’s your favorite ship to fly?

You have tagged yourself as a CSM for wormholers. What changes are you advocating for exactly or was it a misclick? I understand you may be situated in Thera, but what about wormholes in general? C5/C6?

If you are not advocating for changes (like reverting the drifter change), could you not put the tag for wormholers if you have not put anything for us?

It’s important I think to understand that the CSM has extremely limited power to make CCP change anything. The main thing they do is help provide CCP with feedback on the things CCP are already planning to do.

Geography should matter - npc stations give less control over a region to the nullregions adjacent to that station. I do not mind there being a difference between regions in that aspect. If people deem dronelands for example to be that much more valueable because of that reason - go there invade it claim it as your own.

Retribution, Gnosis, Exeq Navy are currently options i enjoy as they are cheap enough that i can take a risky engagement and not be bothered about the loss.

Wormholes by their nature are less connected than nullsec - the connections are unstable and mass limited. For day to day reliable content for peolpe in wormholes that dive into Null and peolpe like me from Thera content from Nullsec is an important part for a healthy EcoSystem. So the direct changes here would be more adressing income inbalances between different risks for the day to day operation. A lot of the high income active tasks atm are min maxing peolpe into more isolated parts of space that are harder to interact with: PvE abysaals, Highsec incursions and in parts wormhole krabbing are overshadowing other spaces active income options. A more healthy and vibrant Nullsec that has currently the most players would give wormholers more people to hunt - similar to the targets that like old rorq whaling fleets.

In regards to this there seems to be a disconnect between current representation on the CSM and a lot of Wormholers that were engaging with the old Skyhook system. Reading comments across the discords I am part of and the disconnect when debating these topics via pms with some of the CSM shows that there is a group not really represented well atm.

I do not think you understand what WH life has come to for the recent drifter changes. Hunting does not equal isk gain. While content is fun, it does not give the isk needed to fund WH ventures. The content you seem to be aiming at is mainly nullsec and less on issues that are plaguing the current life for Wormholers.

I live in C5 WH space and you have not shown any reason why I sohuld vote for you for WH space. You have not addressed any problems that we are facing nor any solutions.

I know you have stated, “CSM has extremely limited power to make CCP change anything. The main thing they do is help provide CCP with feedback on the things CCP are already planning to do” is false. Look at the skyhook changes that were made because of the Nullsec blocs complaining about it. You in fact do have the power to advocate for changes and for better gameplay.

With these views in mind, I cannot vote for you.

Thursday evening Gideon was kind enough to come over to the Eve Rookies Discord for an interview about his CSM19 campaign! Here’s the video.