Local Comms Blackout - Discussion Thread - Part Deux!

[Ramona_McCandless]

@Arrendis

If you think we didn’t, you’re insane.

Well there is literally no benefit to claim otherwise though, is there?

[Arrendis]

To claim what, exactly? That we just waved our hands and magically had thousands of people appear? That organizing and managing that many people doesn’t require having in place functioning systems to make sure all of the scut-work gets done? That developing those systems somehow just ‘happened’ by chance?

[Ramona_McCandless]

Yes. There is no benefit in claiming that is the case, so protesting me saying it is redundant.

[Azalais_Selenica]

So, does anybody know when this charade will finally, if ever, be over?

[Wander_Prian]

There is no set time. CCP is the only one who knows. Better start adapting.

[Litsea_Reticulata]

@Arrendis

We also told CCP we’d do it, before the Rorq changes went in, but that’s another issue.

Yes. It is shameful the number of times CCP was warned by the players what would happen, all the way back to trollceptors and beyond.

@Arrendis

You can’t try to balance a game around ‘ok, so this will clearly be the optimal path, but some people will refuse to do it and then be butthurt that others don’t ’.

Perhaps some of us hope that CCP will fix imbalances before they are abused to the point of breaking, though its equally likely that CCP will continue to have a myopic view of their own creation.

@Arrendis

And why would they leave their main logged in when they could just close that client, too, and play something else?

It used to be in null I was told to stay logged in so anyone passing would see us in local and not know when we were really doing anything. Not much point in that now, though anyone can just open the map and see that I’m not relaying doing much but count my titanium.

@Arrendis

That developing those systems somehow just ‘happened’ by chance?

Whats’ that story about the thousand monkeys and a thousand years on a thousand typewriters and they’ll write war and peace?

@Wander_Prian

CCP is the only one who knows.

If only that were the truth. The lack of interaction and discussion from both CCP and the CSM on this topic does not build much confidence the things will be getting better before they get much, much worse.

[Hector_Nabali]

I have canceled my subscription, sorry ccp, add content and stop ■■■■■■■ the players Null is not Wormhole.

[Azalais_Selenica]

No, i’ve already said ye ain’t gettin’ me booty.

[Mark_Marconi]

If null is not the safe space it has been for so many years then people will not have there Rorquals out for hours with fleets of miners, as they could be destroyed without warning. As I said Risk vs reward is better now. So that will make it worth while to mine again as the markets are not flooded by people in ultra safety. Be they armies of bots or otherwise.

[Mark_Marconi]

Comments like these do not really help the reputation of Null players who appear to need a massive safety net bigger than that in Hi-sec. After all in Hisec there are always people not in your alliance in the same system.

[Ryder_ook]

The point many here are just not getting (or ignoring) is that
Capital ship operations are least effected by the black-out.

If you are sitting in something that has a decent chance of lighting the cyno and seeing the first Fax arrive before it dies you are dandy - as long as you are part of a big enough group. So Rorq and Super pilots are least affected, and Carrier pilots only to a certain extent.

The pilots who can’t fly anything bigger than a battleship are the ones who are completely ■■■■■■. They will evaporate before standing fleet can muster a response.

And to those who will start yelling about “going in groups” and “being in comms” and “having an alt at the gate” - that sounds all fine and well. Until you look at the newer, smaller, weaker players who are starting up and trying to build something for themselves. These who churn out the money for a R4/R8 moon to mine for themselves (weekly barge pulls) for example. How many people do you think will guard their operations that a not much more profitable than VNI ratting (if at all) in a remote corner of any claimed sov?
They died in the first days. They don’t log in anymore.

So the answer is “get more accounts” or “get more pilots”.
More accounts is very questionable because that is just another way of pay to win, isn’t it?
And how exactly do you motivate your pilots to mine anything less valuable than a R16 moon in numbers pray tell? CTA level operations?

If this is the intended effect - to shoot down certain parts of the nullsec economy and make it the haven of self-declared elite-PvP and capital ship pilots again, then it was successful. At least where I live.

[Mark_Marconi]

Eves motto used to be HTFU, now it seems to be, Mummy!!!

[Arrendis]

@Ramona_McCandless

Yes. There is no benefit in claiming that is the case, so protesting me saying it is redundant.

Then why imply it with statements like “if you think they worked to be where they are, I think you need to think about how it works”? Yeah, we worked to be where we are.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Perhaps some of us hope that CCP will fix imbalances before they are abused to the point of breaking, though its equally likely that CCP will continue to have a myopic view of their own creation.

Here’s the problem: Let’s say CCP has 1,000 developers working on EVE. They don’t, but I’m inflating their team size to make a point. If CCP has 1,000 developers working on EVE, maybe 1/10th of them are working on any specific issue/change/whatever.

So that’s 100 individual human brains working on X.

There’s roughly 10,000 people in Goonswarm, filtering for alts, we figure. Most of us like problem-solving and figuring out ways to tweak what we’re doing.

100 individual brains working on X vs 10,000 individual human brains working on exploiting X.

And that’s just Goonswarm.

This is a problem every game designer, GM, Dungeon Master, etc etc is familiar with: no matter how smart you are, the players outnumber you. They’ll come up with crap you never anticipated. You can’t fix things before the players get to them, because you’ll never fix everything. Instead, you need to understand your players, so you can work with them.

Now, CCP could ask the players for information, but that only gives them anecdotes, filtered through the lens of the very small percentage of people who read these forums or /r/eve, INN, or wherever. The vast majority of players don’t. Instead, you need real data about those players. So you do something. You make a change that can be easily undone if you have to. It’s one that doesn’t require any prep, no additional coded systems to invest developer time in, etc. And you start collecting data on how people adapt, and what they do in response.

You know, exactly what they’re doing now.

@Litsea_Reticulata

It used to be in null I was told to stay logged in so anyone passing would see us in local and not know when we were really doing anything.

That’s a double-edged sword, and always was. It leads to things like ‘we’ve got 1400 people in local, why can’t we fill a fleet?’ Well, it’s because those people aren’t really there. So ignore them.

@Litsea_Reticulata

Whats’ that story about the thousand monkeys and a thousand years on a thousand typewriters and they’ll write war and peace?

Infinite monkeys, infinite time. Infinity’s a lot bigger’n anything we’ve enjoyed.

@Litsea_Reticulata

The lack of interaction and discussion from both CCP and the CSM on this topic

What can CCP tell you that doesn’t in some way influence (and thus, ruin) the data? And the CSM literally can’t tell you anything they know, because they’ve signed NDAs.

@Mark_Marconi

If null is not the safe space it has been for so many years then people will not have there Rorquals out for hours with fleets of miners, as they could be destroyed without warning.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAAHAH.

Seriously, what’s going to really endanger those Rorquals? Dreadbombs? Lock rock, get into the defense fleet, get ready to light cyno and P.A.N.I.C… If you’re paying attention, rorqs are as safe as ever.

@Ryder_ook

The pilots who can’t fly anything bigger than a battleship are the ones who are completely ■■■■■■. They will evaporate before standing fleet can muster a response.

And to those who will start yelling about “going in groups” and “being in comms” and “having an alt at the gate” - that sounds all fine and well. Until you look at the newer, smaller, weaker players who are starting up and trying to build something for themselves.

First: yes, the little guys will always have the hardest time adapting. Someone upthread said ‘you can adapt faster’, and that’s sort-of true. Small groups don’t need to do as much to get all their guys to adapt. But if the adaptation is ‘die’, then you don’t really want to do that faster, do you?

As for the little guy just trying to start up… Null is not the place for small groups of newbies to try to claim space. You need at least some experienced pilots who can give you some operational capacity. Look at Brave. They grew massively in their first year, but they lived out of lowsec for a lot of it, and when they finally started taking sov in null… failed hilariously for another year, got farmed, had over a dozen attempted leadership coups… it was ridiculous.

You need some level of experience and competence to survive holding sov, even if it’s just at the leadership level. So that’s part of it. Next:

@Ryder_ook

These who churn out the money for a R4/R8 moon to mine for themselves (weekly barge pulls) for example. How many people do you think will guard their operations that a not much more profitable than VNI ratting (if at all) in a remote corner of any claimed sov?

And how exactly do you motivate your pilots to mine anything less valuable than a R16 moon in numbers pray tell? CTA level operations?

Honestly, nobody should go to null based on the money for an R4/R8 moon. Find something in lowsec where a group’s got a structure up, and either work out a deal there to mine it, or ninja that crap whenever you can. Even better? Go to HS, keep an eye on a moon w/good ore, and then just mine the ■■■■ out of it when it fracks. The owners of the refinery can’t stop you! If you don’t have your own structure in space, they can’t even wardec you! What’re they going to do, gank you? Keep it up long enough, and you’ll tank their sec status and get them locked out of their own system.

But don’t go trying to live on R4/R8 moons if you’re not working with a group that can secure its space. It’s just asking for trouble. And that was true before the Blackout, too.

Oh, and use Myrmidons, not VNIs. Especially once the VNI changes go in. They pay for themselves in like 80 minutes, and they’re harder to kill than the VNI. Or use a Dominix, if you want more money for less disposability.

[Ramona_McCandless]

@Arrendis

Then why imply it with statements like “if you think they worked to be where they are, I think you need to think about how it works”?

You chose to answer it. Whether its true or false doesnt matter, does it? However it was extremely unlikely that anyone in benefit of such a circumstance would confirm it.

Its pretty universal in any organisation of any size.

[Ryder_ook]

I know I’m just one of the less-know Indie guys around here but I am from BRAVE and I am talking exactly about our situation.

No, we are not exclusively mining low-end moons but these are the ones small scale indies will rent from the alliance to complement either their income or their specific goo composition depending on local markets.

And of course we adapt. The results can be seen by anybody who is able to read the ingame maps.

[Azalais_Selenica]

@Arrendis

Find something in lowsec where a group’s got a structure up, and either work out a deal there to mine it, or ninja that crap whenever you can. Even better? Go to HS, keep an eye on a moon w/good ore, and then just mine the ■■■■ out of it when it fracks.

Except there are no moons above R0 in high-sec and a few amount of R8 moons in low-sec. It is not worth doing unless you are a bot. And those, astoundingly, are the only ones doing it. Who would’ve thought!
No. Once you have tasted that sweet moongoo, everything else is not quite the same.

[Hillbert_Alexis]

So lets watch all major groups consolidate down, all hunters run out of targets except those, said targets supported by all manner of capitals, rorqs switching from losing excavators to just boosting and pretty much anything and everything else that makes it harder to find decent pvp content.
Meanwhile I’m over here in lowsec mining, refining, ratting and shooting fools.
Chase that content carrot lads and whatever you do, don’t say you can’t find pvp content in null that isn’t you vs capitals… that’s not the approved message.

Anyone with working implants can see this future. Don’t try to argue otherwise with the current state of the game. You npc level pvp players can’t think past the next dank 12 v 1 kill you get anyway.

[Arrendis]

Then if they’re mining in areas covered by one of the six umbrellas, they shouldn’t have a problem. If they’re mining somewhere your umbrella can’t cover… they’re fools.

@Azalais_Selenica

Except there are no moons above R0 in high-sec and a few amount of R8 moons in low-sec.

You’ll notice I didn’t say good goo for highsec. I said ore.

@Azalais_Selenica

Once you have tasted that sweet moongoo, everything else is not quite the same.

Then you have to do the work to be able to get it, don’t you? Dealer’s gon’ get paid, one way or another. Only the first hit’s free, kid.

@Hillbert_Alexis

rorqs switching from losing excavators to just boosting

That would be extraordinarily dumb. [/Spengler]

As I demonstrated either earlier in this thread, or in the previous one, a properly-fitted Rorqual, using only Mining Drone IIs, outperforms a Hulk unless the Hulk has sacrificed all pretense of tank in order to maximize yield and is basically asking to die to the same bombs that will kill the drones. There is no reason to switch from a hull with 1.48M ehp that shrugs off as much as 35k incoming dps, and doesn’t need to gate around in favor of a hull that’s vulnerable on gates, can get up to 90% of the yield, but only has 28.4k EHP and no active local reps. And that’s a Hulk with Rorq boosts.

It’s just ridiculous to even suggest it.

[Azalais_Selenica]

@Arrendis

Then you have to do the work to be able to get it, don’t you? Dealer’s gon’ get paid , one way or another. Only the first hit’s free, kid.

Nah. Just have your cake and eat it too.

@Arrendis

You’ll notice I didn’t say good goo for highsec. I said ore .

Who in his right mind will ever go for moons for ORE?!

[Arrendis]

People who live in places where the big botter fleets roll through right after DT with orcas and hulks and devour all the belts in the system in the first 3h.

@Azalais_Selenica

have your cake and eat it too

Trivia bit: that’s backwards. It was originally ‘eat your cake and have it, too’, as in eat it and still have it. After all, if you have it, you can of course eat it.