Scarcity won't make Caps special again

[Marvyn_Nightshade]

Once something has been un-specialed, it can’t ever be special again.

Caps basically got whored out to the point where every player with a few mil sp, and some cash to spend on Plex could buy a Rorq, and mine their way to a Supercarrier and beyond.

You can’t undo that with “scarcity”.

Caps are normal now. Making them unobtainable after normalizing them is just going to make people feel cheated.

What the game needs (and I don’t know if it can get it), is another tier. A new “special”. Maybe a cap killer ship that can take out caps (but sucks against subcaps??) Maybe a ship that can do something awesome like group cloaking.

Or maybe it transforms into a robot human. Or a lion!! Or maybe groups of 5 lions can come together and form a robot human!!!

But whatever the new special is, they just need to do it right this time and keep it special.

[Destiny_Corrupted]

@Marvyn_Nightshade

What the game needs (and I don’t know if it can get it), is another tier.

Bolivian Tree Lizard cleanup plan

[Shipwreck_Jones]

Well, I agree without about people feeling cheated. But MMO’s do have churn, and capitals will become special again to subsequent generations.

Moreover, I’m beggining to doubt the value of “aspirational goals”. Yeah, it can keep people engaged and logging in. But I’m not sure that it’s the best way to hook players. But this is a can of worms, and I don’t want to write a 2k wall of text right now. So, I’d rather ask what other people think about this.

And then you have the matter of balance, and trying to figure out how the new tier fits into the meta. Has to powerful enough to be worth it, but not oppressive to subcaps (or even other capitals). Has to be expensive enough to compensate for power, but not so expensive that players feel like it’s turning the game into a grindfest. Has to be desirable enough to be an aspiration goal, but not so powerful that it renders newer players noncompetitive or irrelevant. Nor, can it be so powerful and expensive that only the biggest groups and richest players can afford it. This would allow them to be oppressive to other players and groups, as well as make them feel like they are significantly disadvantaged… unless you make Turbocaps sufficiently vulnerable to less expensive ships, which will undoubtedly make turbocap owners upset. I mean, we already have players complaining about how their shiny ships can die to less expensive whaling fleets.

Meh. It’s going to be a tightrope at best, and an impossible task at worst. And, what’s interesting to me, is that the bittervet nullbears who think that CCP doesn’t know what they are doing are the very ones that are trying push CCP to a change that could have absolutely disastrous consequences if not handled correctly.

Yeah, this is some… interesting logic going on here.

And let’s not forget the fact that I heard CCP Devs (Fozzie perhaps) say that balancing around ship cost doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, I think ship cost can and should play a role in balance. But trying to mitigate a ships power solely on cost hasn’t exactly worked out in the past. When ships had tiers, everyone flocked to the highest tier. And players turned caps from organizational assets into personal assets.

Anyway, I could go on, but instead I’ll just curse Destiny Corrupted for being quicker on the draw than me. Me, and my walls of text. Meh.

[Gordon_Murphy]

You know scarcity is over, right? You’re like 3 years late on this post.

[Zhalyd_Lyehin]

Remember the old CCP that had a vision for titans to be alliance level efforts and not individual person, mass spam chinese toys? The old stories of how Ascendance and BOB had to involve their entire alliances to get 1 titan out of the cooker? Yeah, some people still remember. Not CCP, obviously.

CCP had all the tools in hand to keep it that way if they had actively managed how titans and supers are being build and if they had stuck to this basic design principle of the old days.

@Shipwreck_Jones

And then you have the matter of balance, and trying to figure out how the new tier fits into the meta. Has to powerful enough to be worth it, but not oppressive to subcaps (or even other capitals). Has to be expensive enough to compensate for power, but not so expensive that players feel like it’s turning the game into a grindfest. Has to be desirable enough to be an aspiration goal, but not so powerful that it renders newer players noncompetitive or irrelevant. Nor, can it be so powerful and expensive that only the biggest groups and richest players can afford it. This would allow them to be oppressive to other players and groups, as well as make them feel like they are significantly disadvantaged… unless you make Turbocaps sufficiently vulnerable to less expensive ships, which will undoubtedly make turbocap owners upset. I mean, we already have players complaining about how their shiny ships can die to less expensive whaling fleets.

Any of these points are completely meaningless when it comes to caps and supers and titans in particular. What is the point of having 1 titan in your small group if it cannot do anything against another group with 20 Titans? These ships are meant to be oppressive against smaller groups, they were meant to be owned only by the richest and biggest because they have the industrial capacities and manpower to build them. If you make them more vulnerable, smaller groups are hit harder than bigger groups because they cannot protect or replace them as easily and well as the bigger groups. Arguing that they should not unfairly disadvantage one group over another is completely besides the point. It is the very nature of these ships that they favor one over the other.

[Shipwreck_Jones]

@Zhalyd_Lyehin

These ships are meant to be oppressive against smaller groups, they were meant to be owned only by the richest and biggest because they have the industrial capacities and manpower to build them.

Honestly, I think you helped make my point.

I mean, if the point is for the ships to be oppressive against smaller groups, then that’s a pretty damn good reason not to put them in the game in my book. I have nothing against the nullbloc play style, but I’d prefer it if CCP didn’t design mechanics that were hostile to smaller groups.

[Zhalyd_Lyehin]

That I will totally agree with. I am a firm believer that EVE, at least after turning titans and supers into mass products instead of alliance or even coalition efforts, would be much better off without these ships. It would solve lots of issues and give CCP time to focus their attention on other issues – until a time arrives when they can return them in designs that stay true to their original design concept.

[Ramona_McCandless]

Remove caps.

Tell criers to htfu or leave.

Done.

[Mara_Pahrdi]

While I could imagine other solutions, this certainly would be the easiest .

[Kezrai_Charzai]

I assume the OP is half way to being a joke given the nature of some of the suggestions, but partly serious.

Although I’m not sure one half-joking post makes for a “push by the bittervet nullbears”, but perhaps there’s dozens of these posts lurking about that I haven’t seen yet. Or perhaps someone’s lost control of his terminology again.

At any rate, as others have IMO correctly pointed out, an endless arms race of new ships any time players get bored or dissatisfied with old ships isn’t the way to go. (Although I think EVE has the room to support an option of a ship class between battleship and capitals, but that’s a different topic.)

Better if CCP works on putting new activities, foes, or reasons for conflict that requires using capitals in new or different ways. Players need less “things”, and more actions they can do with the things they have.

[Marvyn_Nightshade]

@Shipwreck_Jones

Moreover, I’m beggining to doubt the value of “aspirational goals”. Yeah, it can keep people engaged and logging in. But I’m not sure that it’s the best way to hook players. But this is a can of worms, and I don’t want to write a 2k wall of text right now. So, I’d rather ask what other people think about this.

Yeah. Big problem with aspirational goals is they make the player feel like they “won the game”. Which in turn makes it feel like it’s time to go find another game…

A good super aspiration should be one that grants only a marginal advantage, but takes a gawd awful amount of skills and costs to get. Like say… a slow moving ship with a weapon that only has a range of 10 meters, but does catastrophic damage to anything it hits. (Or a giant robot with a sword that does catastrophic damage…but it has to catch up to you first.)

It’s hard to think of good ridiculous advantages to give ships, though.

The Monitor Flag cruiser is probably a good example. A half useless ship that’s hard to get.

The important thing is for the focus to be on vanity. Not actual strategy. And of course… the problem then is for CCP to resist the temptation to sell it to high rolling newbs with access to daddy’s credit card.

(That last challenge may be the greatest on CCP has ever faced.)

[Kylanti_Hendar]

Arguably this was marauders before the buff.