Hi, fellow EVE online players, pvpers and pvers alike…
I would like to take a moment to appreciate the wonderful ESS update that came in a few months ago (this is not a crybaby post, so please read to the end). For those who have been living under a rock, here’s a brief summary of the ESS and “dynamic bounty system”, picture this…
-You are ratting
-You get your dank ticks
-Half of it goes to the ESS (which is now in every null system)
-Guy comes in and steals ur ESS
-Krabs cry
-And oh, if u overfarm in one day, the percentage of actual bounties paid goes down (500m+ = 5%+ decrease)
So far, we have been adapting to these changes, we have been defending our ESS as best we could, killing any hostiles (or try) that come into system so the bounty modifier can stay tf up. There is absolutely 0 issues with the ESS system (apart from 20 polarized thoraxes at warp in ripping ur ass in half with no way u can save ur isk unless u lose ships) But that has proven to be extremely hard, i will be talking about why.
The problem…
Let’s go over the play style of nullsec roaming right now, a lot of solo players have been complaining about not being able to cause damage to krabers because they warp off the moment you come into system, fair. Now with the new ESS, you, as a pvper, can cause “damage” to the ratters. Problem with this is that if you defend it continuously, making the hunter fail over and over again at stealing your money or killing your ratting ships, they will simply avoid that system and go look for easier targets. And i know some of u smart people out there will say: well move to other systems, go rat in other places. And that’s true as well, but when u kill the same group over and over again…they just are not interested in u anymore, so u end up with no way to keep bounty modifier up. And that is without mentioning how insane the amount of kills you have to get is to keep up with your farming needs. Again, some of you may say: well go rat in r1o, where the modifier is 180%, again, good idea, but ur speaking to an alliance of 20k+, we have 1 constellation with that amount of brm and that is with people continuously killing and camping the crap out of gates, not to mention that the number of good sites is pretty low.
Solutions?
One possible solution will be to remove the bounty modifier altogether, and only keep the ESS, it removes 0 content from both pvp and pve sides, and the ESS will always be bountiful because you are getting the full payout, so robbers would actually find interest in robbing it in the first place (40mill ESS are really not worth it, to defend or to steal since t1 cruisers are about that much if not more nowadays to fit).
If you don’t remove the bounty modifier, at least make it easier to raise the damn thing without having to spend half our gameplay sitting in a bubble thirsting over a noob heron.
Conclusion…
Anyway, the point of this post is for CCP to become aware of what their system has brought down into income in nullsec (btw no more trit in nullsec lol) and if you can’t see it yet, people are about to unsub all their alts the moment war ends and supers become sitting statues again. Sexy fleet warps will not bring them back.
