Actually it’s the OP that’s full of it. Or rather, the observations were correct for the first 1-3 days, but they are already outdated. Yes, Pochven was a wasteland for the first few days. But it has already started to change, and on this last weekend there was plenty of activity. Is it bustling like hisec or (I assume) the Goon HQ system? No. And it shouldn’t be. Pochven is basically a new hybrid space that is a lot like wormhole space but has also many elements of normal nullsec. So you’d expect a level of activity that is somewhere between the average wormhole system (close to zero) and the more populated parts of nullsec. And that is exactly where it seems to be headed.
I think the space is actually very well designed, although more tweaks and content additions will certainly be welcome. The standings requirement favors small groups that dedicate some time to establish themselves in the region. This very good because it means that large alliances can’t just easily stomp in and piss in everyone’s beer because many or most of their members won’t be able to use the gates and don’t care enough to invest the effort to change that. So that is actually a core feature of Pochven that must not be changed by CCP.
As for the standings, they were ridiculous at first but since the last patch it’s totally reasonable. I started with 0.0 Trig standing and brought it up to 3.0 in three days, operating alone. It was dangerous and required a lot of concentration, alertness and the proper approach - which made it actually fun. I’d say it was the least boring PvE I ever did in EVE, and the constant danger of surprise pvp made it exciting.
Hopefully Pochven will continue on its current path of becoming an area for true small-scale pvp. It has the potential.
The main fault on the part of CCP is that the new content probably has very little to do with the original invasion content, so the players that were engaged in that do not necessarily like what they got as their ‘reward’ - and in the case of Edencom loyalists, they got less than nothing. Most of the invasion players apparently were hisec carebears and are scared of no-local and wormholes and all that terrible stuff. But others like me who ignored the invasion to see which side would actually get the cool stuff, are in luck. I’m really happy I ignored the invasion, because I would have fought on the side of the Empire against the filthy communist rebels, and so would have to now bring my Trig standing up not from 0.0 but from somewhere in the deep red…
Imagine an FC of a 300-man alliance wants to do an OP to gank the fleet of a 20-man corp that does a roam in Pochven or is either attacking or defending a citadel there. In normal nullsec, they’d just bridge in - not possible in Pochven. Ok so they just fly in… except there may be no wormhole at that time. Maybe there is one - but it has only 1b mass, so only a small part of their fleet can get in before it collapses. So they can just use filaments, right? No, because they lead to a semi-random system and a maximum of 15 ships can jump together, so the fleet will be split up and and can’t get to the target system together.
So to do this, every member of the 300 man alliance that wants to participate has to personally get the standings. Possible, but unlikely that enough of them care enough to invest the effort to operate in space that isn’t really great for their main playstyle.
I think if Alliance Command ordered 150 folk to split into 10 x 15 man teams and ream in standings they could get that done pretty quick. Logistics (as in supply) would be relatively easy.
If its profitable or they want to undermine a rival, theyll do it.
I think I mostly disappointed in myself - somehow I imagined Pochven would appeal to me. I thought it wouldn’t be about a ludicrous PvE grind and then making money farming NPCs. I was very foolish. I feel ashamed.
Yeah, Thera 2.0, with some unique features. One important thing, effectively Jita and Amarr are connected again. Also the space is valuable and living on its own in contrast to Thera.
As we already have a “blue dorito” owning all the citadels, it would be hard for invaders.
Depends, you just want to farm the sleeper wrecks and the high value drone wrecks, the rest don’t drop anything worth looking at, largest drop i’ve seen was 760 logs in a single wreck and i think that was a drifter BS, it doesn’t take as long as you think to farm them if you’re smart about it
I hopped in yesterday via a wormhole with the intent to get positive to EDENCOM so that I could travel freely and what I experienced was not fun.
I spotted at least three people on dscan (Jackdaw, Stratios and Oracle), all of whom seemed to be pretty bloodthirsty. I don’t know if there’s any kind of “code” in Pocbven, I assume not, but they were actively and aggressively searching for targets rather than doing anything with the content themselves. Maybe they had cabin fever.
As for the content itself? I was in s stealthbonber, which I thought might be able to speed tank some stuff, but no. The moment I decloaked on a Rogue Drone from 50km away it was applying heavy damage and neutibg to my AB-fit ship.
It seems to me that you’d need to have a pretty tanky ship, or expensive if covert cloaky, to do anything of substance in there, which puts you at great risk to the wandering hunters. There’s basically zero non-combat stuff to do in there as far as I can tell, and the combat appears to be higher class wormhole level - not something you can realistically run in cheaper fits.
For some bizarre reason also CCP thought it would be a great idea to have massive asteroids surrounding wormholes inside that decloak you from 100km away, and are camped by Drifter AI NPCs (and possibly Drifters themselves)
As a casual daytripper it felt like a lot of hard work for considerable risk from NPCs and players, without commensurate gain.
Yes, we clear sites in there pretty quickly with Ikitursa and zarms. But then we are 4 Iki, and maybe 8 zarms. That was just to be able to get positive standing Edencom as well.
And these places are no different from WH… aside from the PVE content. Your not going to get any friendlier people in Wormholes on Dscan.
If you are on your own, your better joining a group that either already stays there or goes in regularly.
Thanks for the heads up. I was considering how to get positive standings with EDENCOM as a (slightly) Trig-aligned player.
I’ll just keep EDENCOM Fortresses on my avoidance list for the two times a month I visit hisec and put up a contract for the few assets I (deliberately) left in Skarkon (to test what would happen).
Time to free up the JC slot as well, as jumping to my clone in Skarkon requires 3.0 which is unrealistic for a lone Kyber and whatever I had in there isn’t going to put a dent in those NPC’s anyway.
Grab a fast ship (<2s align), and which can target paint 150-200km something, people use vigils for this. Jump to Povchen, check dscan search for NPC fleets fighting at sun/gates/stations/Customs offices. Warp at 100, paint what is shot at (sleeper, drifter, rogue drones) and likely dies, GTFO, wait for tick (10-20min after rat died), repeat. If you die, or no NPCs fighting, grab next ship and roll the dice again.
BTW, Povchen is wormhole space, so you can’t clone jump in/out, just switch clones inside station if you have the standing.
Advanced option, snipe sleepers/drifters from ~300km with a Naga. Fits are all over the killboard.
