Can’t type a simple “yes” on the forums. Not enough characters.
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I appreciate you hearing me out on this topic. I’ll drop it.
Seriously, this is your answer to “there won’t be many small groups with structures left and gameplay styles will die”?
And in my opinion, you should not expect the game to be balanced around something that works on the 5000 level but is broken at the 50 level either.
A game where there are a handful of groups each size 5000 is worse than a game with a hundred times more groups, some of which are small.
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I don’t believe what you’re saying is true in the first place, but if it is true, then this is the alternative.
I disagree. If it works at the 5000 person level, that means the game is working for the majority of players. But this is inherently subjective. I played EVE off and on for ten years in small groups and it never kept my attention. It wasn’t until I got into a big group that I started playing every day. The idea that one playstyle is “better” or another playstyle makes the game “worse” is nonsense. There’s room for everything in EVE, and this change is not going to destroy every small group in existence. These groups existed before citadels and they’ll exist after this change.
Only if you assume the number of groups remains the same. A group of thousand has more players that a group of hundred, but twenty groups of hundred has more than both.
Of course, if you drive away 15 of those 20, the big group is again a majority. But the game will be less for the loss of variety.
We agree, obviously, that it would be best if changes did not break any play. For any size of a group.
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I think the problem that is causing the level of disscussion mostly is how can citadels be still viable in all areas of space but not so easily be used and maintained in null to the degree they become a problem .
My suggestion as a possible solution would be attach a 'surplus fuel bay ’ that gets depleted to a significant degree everytime the station reinforces .
Meaning setting up and maintaining stations that are easily attacked but difficult to destroy becomes a much larger logistical and cost problem in null but maintains the balance in wh, low and high sec .
In that null seccers can discousge spam by simply reinfocing sheilds at a significant cost to the ‘spammer’ over many stations but they maintain there current functionality in other space areas were spam isnt the problem
/edit i also think this surplus bay should be seperate from the main fuel bay again costing the defender time and effort everytime they are attacked in that someone needs to visit the station and redistribute the fuel each time it reinforces. Perhaps even have seperate bays for each reinforcment timer because of this .
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So Keepstars online is coming… got it
Just remove medium structures since they dont serve ANY purpose and are just liabilities
Also I can’t afford Fortizar, when is CCP selling Forts on the store?
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Quit being a poor. So many ways to make isk in game and with little effort.
#NoPoors
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So with your logic if you cannot afford to replace a Fortizar every week then you should give up playing, does CCP think that?
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If you lose a Fortizar every week I think you need to reconsider your position in the eve universe and change your game play or allies. Obviously you are doing something wrong if you are stupid enough to lose a Fortizar a week.
Though, I am sure people who build Fortizars would love for that to happen.
That is what I just asked you, you just repeated the question back at me with a pitiful insult. Obviously you want less people in the game and CCP seems to want the same thing?
The Goons lost a large number of Foritzers in a short period under invasion, should they all give in?
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Come on, Drac. Nobody wants fewer people in the game. If this drives players out of the game, then they should revisit it. But I doubt that’s going to happen.
No, you asked me if I thought CCP thinks people should lose a Fortizar every week. I am not CCP so I cannot speak for them. I stated that if you are stupid enough to lose said Fortizar every week then you need to reevaluate your position in eve because you are obviously doing something wrong.
Goons can easily afford to lose plenty of structures 
I am discussing smaller groups who can afford a fortizar, but not multiple. If you are a small group and you are constantly losing your structures then you need to reevaluate your position.
I have seen so many nerfs of small groups play that I have a genuine feeling that this is the case.
So that was a needless insult, because people lose Fortizars under invasion, nothing to do with stupid.
So you retracted your comment about being stupid to lose a Fortzar every week, make up your mind. Or are you saying it is stupid to be in a small group? Not really sure what you are trying to say here?
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Nullsec groups “under invasion” can almost always replace any structure they lose. Nullsec alliances/coalitions have plenty of isk to replace lots of things.
Bud, I am in a small group. Live in lowsec. If we lost our fortizar and other structures then there is a good chance we are not going to throw up new ones in the exact same spot/area. Since we know that if they got blown up once in that spot, great chance it’ll happen again.
If you (a group) lose a structure then put up a new one in the same relative location and then lose it again and then replace it again and repeat that cycle then you are stupid and deserve to constantly lose your structures.
Okay. Since we’re apparently going to use selective quoting to read a sentence and then act like the following 4 sentences explaining it don’t exist, I’ll just quote myself back to you because this was already addressed in my first post.
I do take issue with this and have to disagree with it strongly, particularly because it treats balance changes as a zero sum game. I’m not saying “don’t make positive changes for the rest of the game.” Make positive changes for the rest of the game. Go ahead with this positive change even. But here is a thread to provide feedback, so people are saying “hey, this will be a major problem in this way. Is it possible to address it?” in the feedback thread. And that doesn’t mean don’t implement any change. Its just asking to find solutions to the side effects of this change if possible. That’s the whole point of a feedback thread. It is possible and reasonable to make tweaks to a planned change to make it playable for everyone.
There’s no reason smaller groups need to have a significantly tougher time with it, to the point that their entire playstyle has to be upended so that null life is a little more convenient. It can be designed and balanced so that both sides can thrive and benefit from the changes.
I mean, this is literally also addressed in the same quote of mine already linked above. “Can we maybe find a balance approach that achieves the goals without screwing these people over.” It has been said already.
Anyways, I’m happy to discuss balance issues and implementation, but none of the actual ideas I brought up have been addressed in any way so I’m going to refrain from cluttering the thread with senseless back and forth until they are.
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It seems CCP agrees with your sentiment and are increasing prices 33% to reduce “poors”
#NoPoors -CCP Games 2022
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Meanwhile I had the opposite experience – the constant nagging and activity requirements started to burn me out, and it grealy reduced my enjoyment of the game.
You mention it is subjective, and then follow that up with “bigger is better from my experience, therefore what is good for the bigger group is better for the game at large”. If a choice has to be made on whether to spend more time thinking about a solution that addresses the ““problem”” in a way that doesn’t have a hugely one sided benefit to the larger groups compared to the small, then you clearly have no problem telling the smaller groups to get F***'d, after all, you had more enjoyment moving to the large group and so should they right? That alone summarizes most of the resentment toward you in this thread, they disagree, and you say “well I’m the CSM so what I say goes”.
Note still waiting for clear idea of what this ““problem”” is from CCP – no offense to the CSM, but a formal response from CCP is really needed to explain what the issue is, what CCP’s view of balance is, and only then can we as a community have a base to start discussing how well the “how” of addressing the issue and getting to balanced looks like.
It was POS’s that started a lot of this. From siphon units, keeping their fuel up, and being a “safe space” for supers and titans as those couldn’t be docked or stored (and then stolen when the POS shield goes down after being forgotten about) – there was a good amount of counter play for smaller groups against the large.
Citadels changed a lot of that. No more siphon units, no more super hijacking – those are safe in asset safety.
The small group counter play has ALREADY been removed with the introduction of citadels, and now this pushes things even further into making null blocs safer and more more able to punch down.
Needing a freighter to structure spam with fortizars, and the increased cost, won’t change the nullbloc vs nullbloc structure spam tactics of boring the other army to death in a stalemate. This change solely hurts the smaller groups for the benefit of the largest, who have already disproportionally benefited from the implementation of citadels.
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That is a pretty strong and certain statement to make, are you sure about this?
Bud, isn’t that a beer?
So you don’t live in nullsec, hmmmm.
Is that region, constellation or even system?
So you are telling people not to defend their space and fight for it?
You just seem remarkably confused?
Sure, but they need to be resolved together, rather than saying ‘sure, that’s broken, but let’s break it worse and eventually maybe someone else will fix this broken bit’. Especially with CCP’s track record on iteration.
Why should small groups have to pick fights with big groups? Why shouldn’t they be able to fight with other small groups? Why should the game be set up in a way that will actively impair that dynamic?
Of course you can. Think of it like an effort tax, Brisc. Either way, the burden this presents will be felt differently by group size. Why should the cost of the system be placed primarily on the shoulders of those who benefit from the system the least? If they system is balanced to work at the 50 person level, but requires more total effort at the 5000 person level, well, don’t we have the manpower to bear that burden?
Isn’t that part and parcel of what we’ve told CCP for over a decade about most of the changes that have blown up in their faces? That large, organized groups adapt better and more successfully than small groups, and can distribute the workload of that adaptation more efficiently? That there is nothing that’s advantageous for small groups that large groups can’t make use of even better, just by acting like a dozen small groups?
When Hilmar laughably claimed the Blackout and Age of Chaos would benefit small groups because small groups adapt faster, how many of us pointed out that the single most common adaptation to changing conditions—especially among small populations (and small businesses)—is death?
We were right then, and the same principle applies now.
We (and by that I mean the null blocs, not just the Imperium) already have all of the benefits. We get to play with big toys. We get to paint our flag all over the map basically wherever we want, unless someone our size tries to stop us.
What advantage do the small groups have that we don’t?
Why shouldn’t we have to give up just the tiniest bit of our privilege to let their playstyle remain valid? Because you’re sitting here telling people who live that playstyle every day, who have been at this longer than you, me, or Mittens, that there’s room for their playstyle… but only if you redefine their playstyle to be more like ours.
We can adapt better. We can divide up the extra effort between thousands of people. Why should they be harmed to make things easier for the people who already get the most benefit from the system? I get that you’re supporting something intended to give the most benefit to the most people, and that’s totally laudable, man… but is it giving those people the greatest benefit per capita, while inflicting the least harm?
Make this change, you have entire playstyles disappear. That’s what you’re being told by the people who live those playstyles in today’s EVE, and I don’t presume to tell them that I know what they’ll do or how they’ll react better than they do. Once that happens, some of the people who enjoy those playstyles, and not others, will be gone and they won’t come back.
Don’t make this change, and you have… exactly what we already have. Clearly, not making this change isn’t going to drive the big blocs out of the game. Making this change will not bring anyone back. There is nobody out there who quit the game because they had to shoot an Astrahus 3 times, not 2 times.
And no matter who benefits from the mechanics changes, pushing people out of the game hurts all of us.
This doesn’t actually tell us what the problem is. It tells us they’re not in ‘a completely satisfying position in the ecosystem’, but it doesn’t tell us what’s not satisfying about the position they’re in. The ‘this is partly due to…’ part? Doesn’t say what’s not satisfying, only part of why whatever’s not satisfying happened.
So what’s not satisfying about their position in the ecosystem?
Doesn’t describe a balanced role. It describes the steps CCP’s taking to try to get them into a balanced role, but not what that role is. What are those structures for? What makes that different from what the Large structures are for?
We need CCP to say it, Brisc, because as you yourself pointed out, when you tell us what your issue is, that doesn’t tell us what CCP’s issue is. You don’t speak for them. If you don’t speak for them, you don’t speak for them. And that’s totally cool, man, but you can’t say that the CSMs who’ve responded (which, to your credit, is pretty much you) and then claim CCP’s position has been articulated in the discussion when they haven’t articulated the actual problem at all, just given a vague… I don’t even know what to call it… and then added ‘and here’s a partial cause of the thing we can’t define’.
Sure. It can be. It can also be defined as ‘what makes the game experience most enjoyable for the most people while inflicting the least onerous burden on any individual’.
When avoidable mechanics changes drive players out of the game, we all lose. Those are folks who won’t be there to shoot next time, who won’t bring people into EVE. Hell, they might keep people out now.
Lemme try an analogy here, Brisc. I could change every fit we use to require top-of-the-line deadspace mods, officer mods, high-grade implants, all of it. I can hand you a jackdaw that’ll do 3k/s in defensive mode with 51k ehp1. A fleet of those will wreck damn near anything it wants to, just by being that fast and that hard to hit. Surely, fielding those would make the game experience better for people, right?
Some of us… hell, these days a lot of us can even afford the 5b ISK price tag. But for the folks who can’t? Well, sucks to be them! There are winners and losers, am I right? Make more money next time!
It comes down to the same thing I say when people tell me I take EVE too seriously with my space-job: EVE is a game. The people playing it aren’t. Just like my space-job comes down to trying to meet the needs of the most people I can without inflicting any undue burden that I can avoid, that’s the job of the game mechanics, too: benefit as many people as possible, while harming as few as possible.
You can’t evaluate one side of that equation without the other. If you do, your results will always benefit the haves at the expense of the have-nots, and that will only ensure more and more people leave the game, and don’t come back.
To go back to the ‘place in the ecosystem’ framing… if you kill off all the wildebeest, the lions starve.
1. I can do 55k ehp, but I can’t model the pricing because Pyfa can’t pull up a price on an Estamel’s Multispec.
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