Yes…I am quoting myself because I’m a pretentious jackass…
While I miss those “halcyon” days. I get why CCP is worried about player retention. I get it. Part of me says, “Hey, just go back to ‘here is your noob ship now pfuck off’.” But maybe times have changed. Maybe players are different with many different games pulling at them.
But I can’t help that coddling players is not the solution. Why not? Because guys like me and others will see that and figure a way to min-max the ■■■■ out of it and use it to our advantage much more so than some new player still figuring stuff out and with a handful of ISK vs. my tens of billions or other players with hundreds of billions. In the end the game will still look “rigged”. Yeah, maybe these new players have a leg up, but us veterans will have not just a leg up but legs up…dozens of legs up. We are past masters at min-maxing the ■■■■ out of this stuff. Selection has produced long term players who look at patch notes and look for any and all angles. And then passing it along to alliance and coalition buddies…it creates an unbalanced playing field when the goddamned mother pfucking intent was to create a level playing field.
In fact…I’d argue that when looking at mechanics, balance, etc. in EVE Online one should keep in mind the principle of generality. That whatever you do some subset of players, it will also be there for all other players. Those players will also look at that change and try to figure out the best response too said change. Basically, if you are going to create a benefit for players in group A realize that players in all other groups other than A will be able to use it to their advantage too.
If you aren’t thinking in these terms you are doing it wrong.
Edit: Yes, some of you might be thinking of Malcanis’ Law. Very good. But Malcanis’ Law is, IMO, a special case of the principle of generality. The principle of generality is that if you do X for group Y then you should do it for all other groups. In EVE Online, the principle of generality is the default. There is almost no way for the Devs to implement a change and exclude other groups.
So if you implement some benefit for miners then all other player can see it and try to use it to their advantage. Since there are also players with lots of SP and wealth it stands to reason that these older players can leverage these changes to their advantage to a greater extent than new players.
This can actually exacerbate the problem of power, wealth, SP disparities between new and older players while the actual intent was to reduce those disparities.
We have to remember that the game is a complex system and that players will be looking for any and all advantages. As such they won’t just keep doing what they were doing before a change in mechanics. New and old players, especially older players, will note the changes and respond to them. The “linear” type of thinking many engage in is not only wrong it is potentially harmful.
