Highsec Markets

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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So we all know of the recent changes to market trading and market taxation which forced the closure of TTT and had wide ranging impacts throughout the cluster. coughwarendingcough

I think this solution by CCP was a bit heavy handed, for a game that claims to have the truest virtual representation of a real economy, one that is as much as possible and at almost every level, driven by the playerbase. This was an INCREDIBLY restrictive move.

Instead i feel that CCP should have made the idea of a player owned market hub a continued goal to strive for… and to have to defend once you have it.

Make it so that only one of the market hubs can be onlined on a structure in a system at any one time, so that if people want to take control of a market hub in a system, they have to force offline any other hub already in that system, be it bribery, covert action, direct assault, etc.

Also make it so that in Low and High sec they have to be fitted to a keepstar, meaning it’s a much larger investment and risk to own a market hub, one that you can’t just do on a whim but have to devote continual effort to keep running and defended.

Then if CCP wants to adjust profit margins or anything else they can use a taxation system on the owners of the citadel, and can tie it to security status, or range from established market hubs, or standings with system owners, etc. (Maybe even set up a taxation system that uses standings between citadel owners and market users.

Possibly create a new tier of keepstar and fortizar. These new structures would be similar to the Palpantine Keepstar in that only a certain number of them can be operational at any one time (Not the expense part, make them reasonable to build), make it per system, constellation, region, cluster, whatever, but make them a point of conflict so that if people want to fight over them they can.

Now at this point some people might be saying: “Well we saw with the TTT, large coalitions can sign NAP for a cut of the profits, so there will be no conflict.”

To this i say, easy solutions.

Firstly while we have seen mega coalitions band together for the sake of profit, we’ve also seen cluster wide conflicts with huge numbers of groups on either side, all it would take to spark off a conflict would be for a group with followers to have a falling out and create a division, something as simple for that to spark off a galaxy wide war for control over the trading towers in high sec.

Secondly, If no conflict is happening, it’s obvious that everyone is happy enough with the profits to overlook minor slights and work together peacefully, if this happens tax the system a bit harder to drop profits and wait for greedy minds and under table deals to create conflict.

Imagine a goon spai gaining access to the roles to the trating tower next to amarr and oflining the huv there, cancelling all of the market orders in progress, complete market rest there, hundreds of billions of isk worth of non-refunable taxes lost.

Then moments later, no longer blocked by the region wide block on number of online hubs, one is onlined next door and new orders start being created.
What choice would you have as a trader, there would be trillions of isk worth of goods that would be needed to be moved one system over and relisted, imagine the ganking, imagine the scarcity that would be created, the chaos that would shake up existing stagnation.

Again i think CCP was too heavy handed with their solution, and should have thought of it a bit more, there is so much potential to keep the reputation of a realisitic and almost completely player driven market, while adding another subtle control mechanisim for them to tweek as needed.

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No, that is decidedly not what CCP should do. In High sec, markets should stay in NPC stations so that taxes can draw ISK out of the game and not into small but powerful player groups. TTT is exactly the result of this idea that players should be allowed to have their own market structures in high sec and defend them. It leads to monopolization and unassailable wealth.

They should also stay in NPC stations so that markets remain a neutral space that no one side can take advantage of. Nothing positive comes from this worthless and romantic idea that competition in the market would make anything better. The opposite happens with markets in EVE: They get worse by being spread out, lack of coverage and lack of reliability. None of these things improve a single aspect of EVE.

A Keepstar is nigh impossible to remove in high sec because of the sheer amount of chars and ships to attack it under 10% tidi. It has been tried before and the TTT KS prevailed without breaking a sweat.

This is a worthless suggestion. People have been undercutting TTT for months and years and were all kicked in the bucket after a 1 week war.

That is nothing but a worthless pipedream that will never happen ever because the group that controls TTT does not allow randoms into their circle.

And that tiny little hub will be pushed into structure reinforcement within 3 days.

Did you notice something during that war? Exactly! TTT remained completely untouched by this. Not even when goons were on the retreat to their core constellation or Papi on the losing end of M2, no one even thought about touching TTT from their group nor did anyone attack TTT or put up meaningful new hubs to draw away trade from TTT. This does not and will never work.

All in all: No, we don’t need player controlled markets in high sec. They cause nothing but issues. Not a single positive thing came or comes from them (No, lower taxes than in NPC stations is NOT a good thing). They reduce direly needed ixk sinks, they flood massive amounts of ISK into the hands of small, powerful groups, they spread out markets and cause disruptions in a system that should work flawlessly so that people can do PVE and PVP without additional, undue and unnecessary and completely worthless hassles.

Player controlled markets are a thing for areas of space where PLAYERS control the area, ie. Sov Null sec. No where else do we need structure markets. Not even in areas of high sec that have no stations. Just build more NPC stations if there is a need for a market.

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Zhalyd, thank you for your reply, toxic as it was.
Mostly just insults, and “non of this will work”

Perhaps in the future if you would like to be taken more seriously, and if you want to continue to converse with adults you might want to try constructive criticism, take an idea and find a way to make it better, rather than just shoot it down as too hard to work with.

Again thank you for your response and so here is mine before i mute you for being toxic.

No, that is decidedly not what CCP should do. In High sec, markets should stay in NPC stations so that taxes can draw ISK out of the game and not into small but powerful player groups. TTT is exactly the result of this idea that players should be allowed to have their own market structures in high sec and defend them. It leads to monopolization and unassailable wealth.

Then CCP can tax the structure owners, i did cover this, please stop picking apart the idea, taking it out of context and then using it as an example for how something will not work.

They should also stay in NPC stations so that markets remain a neutral space that no one side can take advantage of. Nothing positive comes from this worthless and romantic idea that competition in the market would make anything better. The opposite happens with markets in EVE: They get worse by being spread out, lack of coverage and lack of reliability. None of these things improve a single aspect of EVE.

Once again this was covered please read more carefully, one of the driving forces in eve online is that most of the economy is player driven, this is an exciting thing and has never been done to this extreme before, leaving the market hubs in NPC hands doesn’t not fit with this model.

A Keepstar is nigh impossible to remove in high sec because of the sheer amount of chars and ships to attack it under 10% tidi. It has been tried before and the TTT KS prevailed without breaking a sweat.

This is actually a very good point, and i appreciate you bringing it up, perhaps the hub could lower the effective EHP of the structure it’s fitted to, making running a market hub an even riskier venture.
But this definitely needs refining, again thank you for bringing it up, and it’s sad that we wont be able to explore this further as i will have you muted.

This is a worthless suggestion. People have been undercutting TTT for months and years and were all kicked in the bucket after a 1 week war.

Not sure what you mean here, too bad.
If you’re talking about competition, then isn’t that a good thing, isn’t that a conflict driver?
I’m confused because later to talk about no-one competing with TTT.

That is nothing but a worthless pipedream that will never happen ever because the group that controls TTT does not allow randoms into their circle.

A useless drivel of a comment, Goons managed to shut down 2 alliances through turning individuals, it is the one thing goons are renowned for is being opening despicable and underhanded.
Perhaps in the future you might want to think of the validity and facts of your argument before making it.

And that tiny little hub will be pushed into structure reinforcement within 3 days.

But you just made the point that keepstars are impossible to kill, so which is it?
Pity i wont get to find out.

Did you notice something during that war? Exactly! TTT remained completely untouched by this. Not even when goons were on the retreat to their core constellation or Papi on the losing end of M2, no one even thought about touching TTT from their group nor did anyone attack TTT or put up meaningful new hubs to draw away trade from TTT. This does not and will never work.

So then according to this statement the rewards for having a trading tower weren’t large enough make it worth attacking and replacing, that is something that can be tweeked and balanced.

All in all: No, we don’t need player controlled markets in high sec. They cause nothing but issues. Not a single positive thing came or comes from them (No, lower taxes than in NPC stations is NOT a good thing). They reduce direly needed ixk sinks, they flood massive amounts of ISK into the hands of small, powerful groups, they spread out markets and cause disruptions in a system that should work flawlessly so that people can do PVE and PVP without additional, undue and unnecessary and completely worthless hassles.

Player controlled markets are a thing for areas of space where PLAYERS control the area, ie. Sov Null sec. No where else do we need structure markets. Not even in areas of high sec that have no stations. Just build more NPC stations if there is a need for a market.

If keepstars in highsec are too hard to kill, perhaps then a rework of the defense of citadels fitted with market hubs is needed at the same time then.

Isk sinks will still be there, they will just be taken as a lump sum from the profiteers via a market hub tax, rather than from each individual transaction, it could be linked to any number of things, volume of isk, volume of transaction, average transaction amount, etc, the number of potential switches are enormous for CCP to play with.

The positive things have been listed already:

  • Conflict driver.
  • More realistic , more player driven economy
  • More switches for CCP to adjust in order to fine tune the balancing of new eden as a whole.

If player controlled markets are only a thing for where players own space, then the same should also be true of any player controlled structure.
By your suggestion all manufacturing, processing, and even harvesting should be moved out of High and Lowsec.
I think that idea might be a little extreme, if you weren’t muted i might have entertained a conversation over refining that idea, but sadly that wont be possible.

Have a nice day, and thank you for taking the time to let me know so quickly, and in your own special way how cancerous you can be to bounce ideas off.

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Then read more carefully. I explained in detail why this is a stupid idea, always was and always will be. If that is an insult to you, you are part of the problem that keeps this problem going.

They have done that and the tax is still lower than in NPC stations and taxes on top of the forced NPC sink tax still go into player pockets. This changed nothing. Not a single thing.

It perfectly fits the model because you can have your player market everywhere else than high sec. It is simply not needed in high sec and does nothing good.

What conflict? Everyone that tried to compete with TTT eventually stopped or worse, joined TTT (the big war dec groups, for instance). Besides, the troll Azbels of the past are not possible any more thanks to Quantum Cores, which makes putting up competition against TTT even more impossible as you will always lose money and TTT loses nothing. So, there goes your conflict. It’s dead.

It’s Keepstars being impossible to kill since they are being put up by huge groups. Every competition only put up cheap disposable Azbels that died within 3 days (1 day war spool up, 1 day armor timer, 3rd day structure timer and thus no active modules).

It’s not the defenses of the Keepstars themselves. It’s the people who own the Keepstar. Unless you want to remove 80% of the Keepstars HP to make attacks reasonably possible, it is not going to work.

They did not drive conflict. They drove the entire aspect against the wall and into a monopoly. And now the fake conflict driver of just dropping cheap structures to troll compete with TTT is gone due to QCs.

A more realistic market always ends up with a monopoly and that adds nothing positive.

CCP is already overburdened with the switches they have to manage and they fail at every possible instance at this task.

Yes, please! High sec does not need structures.

Care to explain why? Resource harvesting in high sec has little impact on the game as people outside high sec mine their own minerals in null sec. Manufacturing in stations has always be a thing, it is in a good place and it removes ISK from the game with the taxes.

This is the best thing you could do. You clearly are not interested in learning about the terrible impacts this entire structure fiasco has on the game and just want to make it worse. And on top of that you insult people, call them toxic and ignore their points because you are not interested in counterarguments. that is both good to know and pretty telling.

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First up, don’t take Zhalyd personally. That’s just what a Zhalyd do.

Now, with that out of the way, I got to tell you that I adamantly disagree with your proposals and a lot of your reasoning.

  • Totally disagree with the one market hub only thing. While it technically removes counter play options for everyone, that really doesn’t matter for groups big enough that they can always use force.
  • Why should the investment cost of putting up a market be raised? And why just for HS and LS? It’s like you’re blatantly trying to propose changes that make it easier for the big blocs to profit from offshoring, while preventing smaller groups from getting into the game.
  • Oh look, a proposal that markets must be put in a new tier of keepstars that are limited in the number that can be built.
  • You “propose” two solutions to preventing large coalitions from profit sharing. However, your first point didn’t actually propose any solution. It was an assertion that conflicts would create falling outs, which would cause fighting over the trade hubs. However, it seems to me that recent history has proved this assertion false.
  • Second, your suggestion to implement a dynamic tax system in order to foster conflict would almost assuredly be circumvented with mechanic fuckery, and, if that wasn’t enough, it involves CCP making a system designed to meddle with the PLAYER DRIVEN market.

and on a side note, the TTT is still open. Naturally, it’s not seeing a lot of business, but it is open.

Anyway, I don’t know if CCP plans to make any other changes, but if we assume that they don’t, and that the tax breaks expire when they are supposed to, we can expect business to move back to the TTT.

TLDR: Your suggestions seem intentionally designed to benefit the big blocks, and prevent smaller groups from competing. As such, I am adamantly opposed to your proposal.
No P2W

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Wait, what?

Other than that, general no to the idea. I’m fine with players owning a market, but there should never have been any keepstars allowed in hisec.

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Meh just added a trade component to the system cost index.

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Personally I am hoping the trade buff stays. Not just because it saves on fees, but it means the market it less split over two systems and taxes are not funding large null sec blobs. Also it means the skills and standings I got (and worked hard for) to get low fees at NPC stations mean something,

Some of your suggestions which if they did want you want, would create instability as people fight over who has the market stations. It is an essential service, I don’t want people fighting over it and causing trade centres to go down. But I doubt that would happen, as TTT shows it would just be the biggest null sec groups that would run a monopoly on it.

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What you why doesn’t seem to align much with the ethos of eve.

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