Content predicated on the particular structures continuing existing, especially in areas wherein replacement of them is either difficult or mechanically impossible where changes to the defensive posture tend to mean significantly more than previously, as the structure itself is what’s valuable. Not to say it should be invincible, or have no risk associated, or be treated any different from any other structure in the game no. (Even though in some instances they are already treated differently than any other structures in the game)
There is nowhere, other than pochven, where replacement of these structures is difficult or mechanically impossible. This is part of the problem. They are cheap and they are prolific.
As for the rest, I said they infrequently generate anything more than an uncontested killmail - that is still “daily content” for people, which was what I meant in the second paragraph. Please, stop with the pedantric parsing of every thing I say to try to find some fault and drag out this conversation.
which ignores entire fields of content people get out of structures. If you assume all other playstyles are valid, which you seem to be stating you do not.
Stop misrepresenting or narrowly defining (to the exclusion of what I’m actually saying) what I’m saying and I’ll extend the same courtesy again.
And can you guess where the structures I’m particularly concerned with are?
And, not wanting a special treatment box, can you guess why I’m concerned about the changes globally?
The proposed options to avoid it simply do not exist
Okay, this conversation ends when you put words in my mouth. I have said, repeatedly, for the last four years. that all playstyles are valid and I’ve busted my ass to help provide changes to benefit all playstyles, including some that are not my own.
you provided a dichotomy, not me. Didn’t place words in your mouth, only explained what you said to you. If you didn’t mean what you said, then that’s not my fault for reading it.
You excluded all other content with greater frequency other than “uncontested killmails,” which you stated is still “daily content.” When it excludes even the possibility for most of what I do, it feels kind of important to highlight that.
There seems to be concern over ‘no-shows’ for defenders (particularly for defenders forming for ‘final’ timers on medium structures). Attackers don’t necessarily have to commit a significant force or ante-up their own core-like asset for shield timer harassment. Attackers can simply decide not to show up and repeatedly blue-ball defenders only having invested time and potentially ammo.
Proposal:
Borrow a mechanic from Dust 514 of Clone Packages, wherein an attacker would smuggle/deposit an item (with mass) into the structure delivery bay in order to begin the process of bashing structure shields (this process could be immediate or slightly delayed for the payload insertion to take effect, possibly depending on the grade/cost/troop-experience-level of the payload).
If the attackers do not show for successive timers or failed the process to eliminate the structure this item (a special-ops mercenary clone troop garrison) would be internally captured by the defenders. The defenders themselves could choose to reuse the payload troop garrison on a counter-attack or haul the payload to an NPC vendor who would redeem for ISK, similar to structure cores.
If you believe timers are generating contents, why not change the L and XL structures as well？
Make M-structures have more defence capabilities will also create more contents.More PG and CPU,more slots encourage small group denfence much more frequently.
By the way I am happy ccp make a smaller reforence window.
So, the first thing I think happens? Is we stop asking the question, and we stop feeling like that question is being completely ignored by people who want us to pony up 33% more $$.
And yeah, maybe people do offer other opinions about whether or not the perceived problem is a problem. But at the very least, then we’re all proceeding from the same point. As for part (3) there…
It’s a feedback thread. Right now, our ability to give informed, constructive feedback is significantly impaired. And frankly, Brisc, if the issue of CCP’s resources becomes a consideration… they should tell us that. The more they let us understand the limitations of their capabilities, the less we’re gonna feel like they’re just ignoring us.
I mean, this isn’t news to you. This is what you do. It’s all about clear communication. The better the communication we have here, the less pissed off people will usually be.
Lol. No it won’t. Here, Brisc, lemme esplain to you how this goes… and this isn’t ‘how it could go’, this is how actual wardecs go right now:
Let’s say you prove you can fight back against the HS predators. You go and RF their War HQ. 24h, then next window +/- 1.5h, right?
Except as soon as they realize you can fight back, the holding corp for their war hq drops alliance. CONCORD immediately invalidates the wardec. Now not only can you not shoot the structure because it’s not at war with you anymore, but they can still shoot yours for 24h until the wardec auto-ends.
Oh, and that same move? That’ll keep you from being able to bring in allies as the defender, because the war’s been invalidated! Yaaaaaay I hope your timer wasn’t in that window!
Edit: and yeah, I used the new #s for time. But the point stands. They already drop the structures out of alliance to invalidate the wardec, just like their pilots switch corp to out-of-alliance alt-corps to avoid getting shot when we’ve come to highsec to defend things. HS predators tend to be even more risk-averse than poor titan pilots, man.
Moreover, this change will not help us fight more structures of organizations of equivalent size, because less structures held by small organizations will be in space. This is already happening; I know of several lists of structures that will be taken down and not replaced by large ones if these changes go through. I know of several tens of content-creating structures that will simply cease existing, and very likely I know only about a fraction of all of them.
We’re not going to get more fights, because the things we’ve fought at will no longer be there.
Anyway this was a pretty depressing thread to be honest, especially when no one knows why this is even being implemented and what their balance issues are?
The issue above all else when people talk about weaker defence and easier offense is sustainability. What I see from these changes is one man and his dog coming in and doing the shields. Then people milling around, forming to defend their structure, moving stuff around to other structures in case they lose it, losing structures, losing ships and not creating ISK to replace those losses as they will not have time to do much else, so their ability to continue to deliver content and even decide to come back and use that space is removed.
If the issue is people dropping these things with a years supply of fuel in, then make the fuel bay last 45 days.
In my opinion, the game should be developed so that it aims at having 5000 groups with the average size of 50, rather than 50 groups with the average size of 5000.
Brisc, thanks for your engagement with the forums.
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I invite you to quote the answers to the following questions from any of the CCP responses in this thread:
What is problematic about the M structures role in the current ecosystem?
What does a more balanced role in the ecosystem look like for M structures?
How does this thread’s proposed changes achieve that?
(Note: “allowing people to field varied ship types on grid” was the motivation for the previous module changes, not the current proposed changes around structure timers)
If – like me – you are unable to find CCP quotes in this thread that answer the above questions, I kindly ask you help us get answers, even if the answers are “we can’t say”, “we don’t wish to say”, “wait until Fanfest”, or something else. That is at least more transparent than today.
This is a very interesting and far reaching set of changes. And people have concerns about how it will impact certain groups of people in the game. Notably smaller groups across various regions of space. Nobody is saying “balance the game only for these people and no one else.” People are saying “hey these people may have been overlooked and are going to be disproportionately affected. Can we maybe find a balance approach that achieves the goals without screwing these people over?”
Suggesting that those people don’t matter isn’t exactly helpful to the conversation or to finding solutions that keep things viable for everyone. Obviously there are tradeoffs with anything and there will be new challenges for everyone with the changes. Not everyone will be happy. But everyone should be considered.
Now, these changes appear to aim to reduce structure spam, which is a good goal. Personally I think they put too much focus on band-aiding the problem (making the grind to destroy spammed undefended structures easier) and not enough focus on removing the reasons structures are spammed in the first place.
Personally I would prefer to see the utility of medium structures reduced (no tether? No Freighter/JF docking? No clone bays/other carefully selected services? Understand these are just vague ideas and I’m not suggesting to do all of them) to make the structures less appealing to spam in the first place, while still achieving their “someplace to live” value to small entities. I think a lot of small entities can get by without a tether or repair services, or what have you far easier than they can having a structure that they have to evac as soon as it gets reffed while they’re sleeping. And large entities can benefit from these services from their larger structures, while it becomes less advantageous to spam an Astrahus in every system ever because the utility is lowered.
I bring this all up to express that these attempts appear to seek to reduce the “grind” (the symptom), where I feel a more effective solution would be to remove the motivation for players to spam structures and create a grind in the first place. I think focusing on the root of the issue will negatively impact less groups and achieve more meaningful results in the long term. I’m not saying that these particular examples are the right answers, I only suggest them to complement the idea of shifting the focus on M structure changes towards less utility rather than less survivability.
Trust us, bro, that 33% extra is gonna be so worth it… in the mean time, let’s make your space home less of a space home, and more of a space… tent? Cardboard box maybe? And no, we’re not going to tell you what we envision the ideal balance point for your new space blanket fort. You’ll just have to trust us, bro.
I Guess m structure’s major problem is the medium size null sec group use this cheap structure(to medium group) spam wasting huge bloc’s time and fleet to clean them without any engagement. It is a boring process.
But this patch will huge impact the ture small group in all kind of space. In conclude, Medium group make huge group boring,Small group get punish
I turly believe to solve this issue in null sec m sturcture maybe need other kind of mechanism compare to high,low and wormhole. And it shouldn’t be a big task for developers.
@Arrendis That is factually incorrect. You might not be able to shoot the people anymore after the 24hour cooldown and you can still defend during the cooldown if they try again. Once the war drops from the alliance you can still shoot the structure corp for as long as the war has been paid. Making them loose wars on a warhq is always fun.
All I do is wars…
At the end of the day I will still have my structures in highsec. Goodluck to those willing to take them down, they will definitely loose more than I would loose with a structure. @Brisc_Rubal keep fighting the good fight. From my experience, 99% of structures I destroy is defended.
Thats the sad truth. I knew so much small newcomer corps in the area I have my own little HighSec Business in and they were really nice people with great plans. They dropped stations with good intentions, wanted to offer a refinery for the local inhabitants, a place to compress and repair and clone. An own market so people could buy there to just Jita+10%. Basically a freeport with fair prices in the distant corners of space. The plan was to work together, and build and grow and play this game for YEARS. A little community to grow, maybe even attracting other (new) players. Which means: paying customers and content creators for years.
You can guess where these structures and their people are now. They are gone. They have been destroyed over and over again with all game mechanics designed against them, by bigger groups that only care for themselfes and have all the advantages on them by design.
This “replacement by larger structures” is an illusion that is dismantled over and over again in this topic.
The extra day is not a material improvement for the WH situation. The fact that you can be put into final at any point in the day/night and face an existential battle on a regular basis will be too much to bear for most and is not nearly worth the cost of investment.
This will end upstart WH corporations.
As CCP you have every right to do this. You just need to recognize this is the choice you are making.
The damage this will do to the wormhole ecosystem will take years to unwind, if it ever will.
In my opinion just some slight tweaks and this would be perfect.
Shield - no dps cap
Reinforcement
Armor - dps cap
Reinforcement
Hull - no dps cap, hull hp reduced 75%. A fly could look at it funny and it would blow up.
This would be good for Wormhole space as if they lose the armor timer they have time to evacuate their stuff before the structure will be destroyed with not much fuss from the attackers due to a hull HP reduction.
I generally don’t have an issue with that, but there are far fewer issues with large and extra-large structures, compared to mediums. If the changes to mediums are successful, then I’d be fine with making them the same on the big guys, even though the big guys are far more expensive.
This is a completely different issue that needs to be resolved.
Then hit the structures belonging to bigger groups. There will still be medium structures in the game. This change isn’t going to wipe them all out.
I disagree. There is room in the game for both playstyles, but you can’t expect the game to be balanced around something that works at the 50 person level but is broken at the 5000 person level.
“Structures have been in New Eden for quite some time now, however they have never quite settled into a completely satisfying position in the ecosystem - this is partly due to low-cost medium structures being so closely coupled to their larger cousins. It was difficult to make balance changes to one without impacting the other.”
“With this in mind we’re breaking medium structures out into their own class - allowing us to alter the rules for these structures without changing it for all of them. With this change, we are removing the hull reinforcement for medium structures - giving them a maximum of 1 reinforcement cycle for armor. The armor reinforcement time is being made equivalent to their current hull reinforcement times. Once shield has been destroyed, armor will be reinforced until…”
“It was difficult to make balance changes to one without impacting the other. With this in mind we’re breaking medium structures out into their own class - allowing us to alter the rules for these structures without changing it for all of them.”
The stuff is there, and there’s been plenty of discussion about the issues with medium structures. You want CCP to say it, fine - you’ve asked, they haven’t responded. Probably because they’re both working on these changes and on Fanfest.
Uh, when you’re demanding that no change be made because it could have a negative impact on your 5-6 person casual wormhole group, you are asking that the game be balanced around your playstyle. That’s literally what was being asked for.
I haven’t suggested that the small groups don’t matter. What I have said is that what’s in the best interests of the overall game - which can be defined as 'what makes the game experience better for the most people ’ - is what should be the focus. Every group that has medium structures, large and small, is going to have to alter their behavior in the face of these changes. The smaller groups will have a tougher time of it, but they have a tougher time with everything because of their size. That, alone, is not a reason not to make a positive change for the rest of the game.
This is literally EVE Online. You will get no sympathy from me when people play the game and lose. It’s a game. There are winners, there are losers. Those groups should do what every other group in the game has done when they’ve lost - pick up the pieces, start over, and don’t make the same mistakes. There isn’t a single group in this game, regardless of size, who hasn’t lost a war. You figure out how to win within the mechanics at the time. This is what everyone has to do.