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.
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.
Once they leave, they won’t come back. They’ll have found something else to do with their time. They will have developed new habits, and stick with them.
My god that is a nail it completely post if ever I have seen one, total awe and respect for that one. So spot on.
At the moment there are many small groups (and even corps of major bloc’s) fighting over trash space and having fun, why are CCP ruining that? Makes no sense at all.
No, what I said was that what is good for the bigger group is good for significantly more players. That’s the point. You want to maximize utility for the most players. That tends to mean that you focus on where those players are, and a majority of characters in the game are in big groups, across all areas of space.
Yeah, I’m the one making these decisions for CCP. Right.
As for the resentment, I find that people in this game have a very hard time being civil to people who disagree with them, and they immediately like to assume that those who do not play the game the way they do have no ability to understand what it’s like to play the game the way they do, which is a pretty big (and usually wrong) assumption.
And if they respond to you with what the problem is, that changes nothing, since this is how they are planning to address it. I’ve explained why I’ve pushed for these changes. Obviously what I suggested was persuasive since they’re making them. So hey - if you don’t want to wait for CCP, you can read what I said the problems were and stop waiting.
Everybody benefited from the implementation of citadels - I mean, that’s literally why these small groups are complaining. They like and use these structures and generate content from them. If they didn’t want these structures, they’d still be using POSes or living our of NPC stations. This argument makes zero sense.
I don’t think they need to be resolved together - we can do this and then go fix the war dec switcheroo nonsense.
They can fight other small groups all they want. Do you honestly think no small groups will fight each other if this change goes through? Again, what did they do before medium structures?
None. But why should they have advantages that the big groups don’t have?
Again, you seem to think this is going to push people out of the game. I don’t think it will. Folks will adapt, because that’s what we do in the game.
I think it is a bad idea when we start making any kind of balancing decisions in the game based on what “individuals” will do. This is an MMO. You start not doing things because they will have a negative impact on somebody, and that literally means you can change nothing in the game. Every change will screw somebody over. Doesn’t matter what it is.
Right, because Atrum is going to love SRPing 5 bil jackdaws. That is the reason why you don’t do it, not because individual players can’t afford them. It’s that it’s not financially feasible for the large groups to require expensive ships because they are going to be the ones paying to replace them when folks lose them, which is inevitable. And no large group exists without SRP. It’s one of the primary benefits to being in a big group.
I appreciate what you’re saying here and you trying to fight for the little guy, but you don’t need to pretend that the reason we do things is some kind of altruistic “let’s let everybody play, coach!” kind of thing. It’s because it makes the most sense, gets the most people in fleet, and numbers are important in this game.
I think the problem starts with the CSM elections, you seem to have to be a member of a large nullsec block in order to get enough votes of your own block. Reading CSM member Brisc’s comments just makes me sad (he’s probably a well known player with great statue but he should perhaps restart playing Eve from scratch).
I guess it’s hard for these CSM members to understand small (in my case hi-sec) corporations that own a M structure. As such owner (corp of 25 of which 1-2 are active) it’s pretty impossible to counter a wardec with 3 spidertanking basilisks and a 10-5 HACs fielded.
I really can live with my M structure being demolished (it generated enough mony) IF I would at be able to take at least a few attackers down with it as a structure gunner (and doing so would make the fight more interesting for them).
Unfortunatly there is no way you can do any serious) damage at all. Mounting fireworks does about the same amount of damage. I had two wardecs recently both surrendered (which depletes corp wallets) and was asked for a test fight (and be able to use the M structre agains them). The first corp just quit after 10-15min because they got bored.
Big block CSM members on the other hand see stuctures otherwise: they have to clear them in large numbers (spam) that takes a few days each.
So my advise is to give M structures the power of at least a Fortisar so they can put up a decent fight.
They fought over POS. Are you saying that they should go back to fighting over POS? Because ‘let’s base our playstyle around a thing CCP still insists they’re getting rid of’ seems counterproductive, man.
How does this give them any advantage the big groups don’t have? Once again: anything they can do, we can do, better.
I think we’re already seeing it do that. You’ve got people here telling you that this will cost their groups members. When those people stop logging in, do you expect they’ll report back weekly to say ‘still gone’? Or will we just stop hearing from them?
You’ll notice I didn’t say ‘while inflicing no burden’. I said the least onerous. My phrasing regarding individuals was to draw the contrast between the burden we can share out among a thousand people, and 50% of that total burden hitting a group of a hundred people. .1%X per person vs .5%X per person.
Dude, we’d approach it the same way we approach the NAPOCs now. We give the bling-fit NAPOCs… normal APOC SRP. We’d give these normal Jackdaw SRP. Notice that I didn’t say anything about us SRPing at that price. That was kinda the point: the burden would be on the individual, not the group.
You’re right. I don’t need to pretend It’s why I do things. Because it is why I do things.
Why should smaller groups have some advantages over large ones? Because that has been the case for all times of human history and it is what makes assymetric conflict interesting.
At all times small forces used hit&run, hide&seek and force multipliers like - you guess it - OUTPOSTS & FORTS & CASTLES if the opponent approached with larger force that you couldn’t beat in open combat. It was always a LOT more expensive for the Kings to pursuit and corner and hunt down the rebels than it was for them to hide and sting. Often to a point where the big armies tired, reconsidered and gave up, giving the smaller ones breathing space and time to regroup.
That is why structures and hideouts were built in the first place, because with a force of x armed defenders you could hold off 10x or even 50x attackers for quite a while or at least make it very costly to storm the keep. EvE structures can nothing of that. They are just big pinatas for the big guys to loot.
Fortified and Armed Structures of any kind have been used that way for all over history, they always gave an enourmeous defenders advantage, especially for the inferiour group and made razing them very inconvenient or expensive for the attackers. And POSes fulfilled that role pretty good. Upwell Structures DON’T. And you want to make them even weaker and wonder why people don’t agree that this would be “better for the game”. So sad.
And yes, people will adapt. They will use less stations. Or they will go join some big blocks for protection, paying “rent” to the same kind of people that threaten to kill them if they don’t. Just to survive. What a sad game. Or, wich is the case for some part for sure: they adapt by leaving the game instead of accepting one kick in the nuts after another from this totally biased game design.
Most alliances/coalitions who actively live in nullsec can replace their structure, I am sure of this.
Bud light is a beer.
Correct I do not live in nullsec.
Can be either or it can be all. If you are constantly getting smacked down and losing structures in a region, constellation or system then it is probably time to stop deploying structures and move.
No where did I say that. I said if you continuously lose your structures. Meaning, if you defend it once and lose, then defend it twice and lose then it is probably time to reconsider your position. Whether that be finding stronger friends, or by moving.
This is not quite fair. Rarely do invaders in our region “stick around” so to say. They move through, shoot things, and leave. Weeks, months, years later, someone else comes by and tries the same thing. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose. But as you say, we do have the isk to replace them once in awhile.
This. Losing your structure as a small corp has little to nothing to do with its location, it’s just random if you are scouted by someone looking for a small guy to stomp and an pretty much helpless structure to raze for easy loot.
Also the idea of just “moving” is barely a solution for any small corp. Where exactly shall they go?
Nullsec: The landlords approach and just kick you out. “Thou haveth to pay us rent for existing and obey our orders, else you be beaten and kicked your teeth in for this is ALL OUR SPACE!” (even if we are too lazy and incompetent to prevent ninja-anchoring!!!).
Lowsec: The next midsize pirate gang reports back to HQ: “Yehaaa, yammi yammi lootbox found. Just lets BURN IT. BURN IT ALL. BURN IT BECAUSE WE LOVE FIRE!”
Highsec: The wardeccers scout add line #96 to his excelsheet of corps to wardec for the lulz and structures to raze for the core in the next weeks.
So where shall they go exactly? Lowclass-WH was the only space left, people took the most ugly holes, with bad PI-options, annoying effects, lousy connections just to be left alone by the griefers because even they don’t want to spend a week in a lousy hole. And now CCP comes and even kick them again with totally unnessessary changes.
Once in a while is not an invasion or eviction. Occasional destruction of structures makes it easier to replace losses. Continuous loss because you can’t defend your structures yet you continue to drop more structures is where our debate is on.
Ah, the old bigotry back again. Doesn’t know the CSM, doesn’t know who I am, but has zero concerns assuming my views, experience and that of the rest of the CSM.
But people left. So many people left that CCP reversed the blackout.
That’s the thing, Brisc. It’s not about if you’ll leave. It’s not about if I’ll leave. It’s not about if Arrendis or Plato or anyone else in this thread will leave.
It’s about if the game will be diminished for losing variety. And unlike you claim, people will not always adapt, as we saw in the blackout.
Most now, shifting away from that certain statement.
Nullsec blocs invade lowsec a lot less then they invade nullsec regions, you do understand that?
It really depends on the willingness of big blocs to steam roller through in terms of losing the large structures, the mediums will be easy now.
Let me assure you currently in the existing system in terms of 3 timers we are defending quite nicely, it is when this hits that we will likely have issues.
Seems to me that you are advocating for people to move out once this goes live when people start losing their structures when previously they were defending them.
