So we all saw what happened today and that now there’s 2 major blocs really and any neutral won’t be for long as either side will try to absorb it and if he refuses it will have to jump to the other side for safety.
I think that’s due to the game not having a real reason to “fight” other than bring content to their members otherwise they quit.
IRL(I know this is a game) most wars are fought mainly for resources/land, which longterm will benefit a country and empower it, resources tend to be finite thus the one who can control more reserves will benefit the most long run and will be able to improve it’s system trough the economy benefit of that resource. Today we can see it with the rare minerals used for electronics/fuel… etc.
But in eve… They added scarcity but it isn’t really scarcity it’s just… more annoying… adding scarcity by increasing the cost of a resource that can be farmed 24/7 is not scare is just delaying it… yes short term you’ll have less capitals or whatever but long term they’ll still be there, as if before I had to mine for 1 day to get the materials for a capital… now I need 2 but I still get the capital.
So I feel Eve in a future expansion should add new types of resources that are important and finite, what I mean by finite is that there’s a limited ammount be it for a week/month, the corp that controls them can use them to get different boost… Like they can be given to industrialist to get a % bonus on the production off stuff, or they use reduces the costs of maintaining Keepstars, or whatever, a slight buff that doesn’t get involved directly in PVP, like a flat damage boost but that makes a corp/alliance get an edge over it’s enemies. The main point is this would incentivize to attack other coallitions for those rare resources, they would not be in any system, they would be trully scarce.
How something like that could be implemented I’ve no clue, and it’s even harder in a game like eve 20 year old game with player driven economy, if I give Frat X resource that boost the production of Avatars(Happens to be the meta ship 2 years from now) but I give goons a boost to the production of amarr shuttles ofcours that’s kinda…bad… and even more if the resource happens to be deep in Frat territory which it’s harder to get to.
The 2 ideas I got to implement this is either:
Planets: Make certain plantes trough the addition of industrial plans get X resources, those will have a X ammount and will repelanish within 1 month of it’s deplition. Those regions with those planets would be heavily contested and highly wanted by different corps.
Asteroids: Every X days Sisters of Eve sends a mail that they detected that in the following days steroid X will land on Y system with Z resource. thus making that system wanted and contested.
This real scarcity depending on the point would theoretically counter massive blobs too, because if we’re all friendlies in a huge reason but there’s scare resources and I can’t acces them because the stronger one of both of us controls them or just gives me a very small % I might want to break with him, look for another ally to go after him and he’s resources.
I just feel right now there’s no reason to war, other than I don’t want my corp members to go afk, because People in the north and in the south can get the same at any time however they want as everythign is infinite they just made it take more time.
(All I said take it with a grain of salt and not as a conclusive thing but the main idea is: No real scarcity of something to fight for=No real reason to risk a 4.000 irl dollar ship for “fun” when I can do it in a 20 euros marauder)