I think the best way to shake things up especially in Null-Sec is to change the Resource System.
Mineral Resources Availability.
Combat Sites Availability (anomalies).
Cosmic Signatures Availability
Rare Loot Drops.
CCP should change the Availability of Resources in EVE especially in Null-Sec.
Or better yet, CCP could create a really Dynamic Resource System. Creating greater incentive for Mega-Corps to clash in search of new resources.
In the context of this new Dynamic Resource System, the resources in the Delve Region should already be very depleted.
This would force the Mega-Corps to move to a more resourceful region, and so on so forth. This constant movement should help combat Null-Sec Stagnation and Consolidation.
I donāt think thatās a good idea. These mega groups will just travel around the cluster, leaving depleted regions behind wherever they go. Who should take these? Besides, I am pretty certain that the mega group in question would just need to oscillate between Querious, Period Basis, Delve and Fountain on a regular basis with Keepstars and everything setup all over the place for when resources return to be locust farmed.
Well it would be a conflict driver as to build titans, you need a lot of them. As a strategic resource should be fought over.
You just need to look at the MER to see the the sheer scale of resource harvesting is WAY, WAY out of wackā¦22 titians were lost in August. These are ships that were supposed to be rather rare go down all the time and nobody bats an eye. Why, because building them is no problem when everyone is gushing with the materials to build them.
OMGā¦do you know why Delve produces so much? Of course you donāt. Because Goons, et. al. have cramed 30,000 pilots into pretty much one region. What determines total productivity. People*their productive capacity. Increase the number of people and total productivity goes up. Your entire premise just blew away in smokeā¦so why do this?
The issue isnāt that Delve is super resource rich, just that Goons/the Imperium are really good at developing institutions and a culture that allows them to krab like crazy.
It makes poinless building your own home. And that sweet āupgrade and defend my homeā feeling is vital part of the game. You want conflicts in null - add WH NS connection generator. So WH gangs can create NS entrance whenever they want and harash people there.
Organising a move op for large alliance is not a simple thing. More and more experienced players, capable of doing this, get into the age, when their game starts to be causal, so no one wants / have time to do so on regular basis.
That has nothing to do with the available resources, though. The same amount of resources (more even) was available in the past and we did not have these huge issues. What went wrong is that CCP changed Rorquals and made building these ships easier. Delete these changes and many things will be fine again.
Keep in mind that the stockpile of ships/resources needs to be thinned-out too and the best way to to that is war(s)ā¦and this best thing is to have people fight over whatās left.
This way Rorq pilots are still valuable so CCP wont alienate those players if they ādeleteā them.
They only need to nerf the Rorq. Nothing else. This flood of minerals only started pouring after the Rorqual was turned into an Uber-Mega-Superduper Miner and thus away from its original design role: The superduper mega booster. Turn it back into that. Give it back itās original mining yield after the changes but limit the number of Rorquals per resource agglomeration to 1. No other Rorqual within a few hundred to 1000 km around an Asteroid should be able to use Industrial Core. That leaves these people with barges and exhumers to use. Ships that you can easily MJD away when they are under panic.
Why should one care about these alt armies? CCP created them to bolster their online character numbers. Now that we live in the era of chaos, they should be taken away again so that EVE can return to a better place. No one needs these Rorqual swarms. The alts can still be used with exhumers to mine if you so desire, but they are at a much greater risk and a much greater hassle to manage.
When changing systems in EVE, it should be kept in mind that the changes should lead toward, not simply āless resource productionā, but also drivers for conflict, for game activity, for competition, for niche environments.
Iāve been poking around with various ideas for re-designing EVE for a couple years nowā¦ but in general except for tossing out half an idea here and there in a relevant thread, Iāve never posted the āgrand EVE analysisā breakdown because I simply feel that CCP management is:
Immune to rational constructive criticism from the player base
Incapable of programming/modifying basic EVE game mechanisms in a fundamental manner, without breaking twice as much as they fix.
That said, what if āResource Warsā as a āgame thingā was exactly what it said? An anomaly pops, it has a timer on it. It has entry gates in different regions or some mechanism for allowing forces to prepare to enter it. Gateway opens, forces warp in, fight to establish dominance and protect their miners/haulers while they scoop loot as fast as possible.
Various sized anomalies allowing various sized forces to enter, similar to WH limits.
Allows a lot of control over resource production, areas available, conflicts sparked etc. etc. Provides for conflict and active play.
Chance of something like that happening/actually getting coded?
Possibly but my suspicion is that if you only nerf the Rorq, larger and larger bot-fleets of exhumers would just start to appear.
Somebody could have put real money into those characters and CCP always needs to tread lightly when it comes to this area. Also itās much better to do this lore wise and just say weāre entering a period of low resource availability rather than hitting the easy button and saying āsorry Rorq pilots, you lost and your toons/investment/ships are not worthlessāā¦
Trust me, the Rorq buff IMO really hurt EVE and Iād love to see them gone BUT the EVE monkier is āadadpt or dieāā¦if you just remove a ship then there is no real adaptingā¦
A good idea and similar to the current resource anomalies but I wouldnāt what that to get any larger an turn into a whack-a-mole game for Corps. These conflicts need to occur over current NE systems and be the core driver for wars.
No one is talking about removing the ship. I am talking about returning it to its intended role. The role that it had before these ludicrous changes. There are lots of ways to adapt, too. For instance, in the wake of yield reduction people have already started to use exhumer fleets and chain PANICing.
As for āhave put real money into those charactersā: I put real money every month into my characters in the form of subscription, but since I am not part of big group, I cannot use my carrier to make the modest amount of ISK that I used to make before blackout because it is simply not feasible enough any longer to risk that ship for gains that require 10x longer to recover in case of a loss. CCP has not tread lightly there either. It is only fair that one of the 3 ships that has harmed EVE the most in the recent years gets a punch in the guts and returns to its roots.