Right, so… never mind the fact that EDENCOM was formed specifically to combat the trigs. Apparently since both factions hate drifters, and drifters are going to play a larger role in the trig narrative going on, kybernauts shooting trigs will just be… forgiven? Forgiven for killing untold numbers of baseliners (normal non-capsuleer people) and ripping stars away from their home empires? Now of course, it’s CCP’s game and I’m sure they have to take mobility in k-space in to account. But narratively, like… how does this make sense?
This whole thing was built up around the fact that standings mattered. Except for whatever reason, they just don’t now, because both sides like it if you kill drifters. From my perspective, this just makes me not want to engage with any content involving drifters from now on. I grinded out all the invasions and killed as many Trigs as I did just because of how much they annoyed me in chapter 2, and how fast I got sick of their “cryptic Hot Topic in space” aesthetic. I don’t want the triangle scum to suddenly like me because the enemy of their enemy is now a friend, at least when it comes to drifters.
I can take the fact that there’s a region where Kybernauts are granted safety in, that’s fine. Just make standings matter at least? Just as us EDENCOM supporters shouldn’t just easily be given berth in to Triglavian systems, Kybernauts shouldn’t have an easy way out in to nullifying the consequences from EDENCOM systems. Make choices have consequences. I’m not going to participate in the further triglavian content until then, and it’s a shame because I did kinda like chapter 3.
Standings were one of the biggest things about the invasion content, where if you shot Trig ships you’d gain Edencom standings but lose Trig standings, and vice versa. This effectively made it near impossible to traverse systems belonging to the opposite faction. However, drifters (and rogue drones) are present in the final liminality systems. Killing drifters gets you derived standings with both Trigs and Edencom. Not only does getting standings for both not make sense narratively, it completely nullifies any reward Edencom supporters get because kybernauts could just grind drifters to get their Edencom standing up if they so wished, allowing them to eventually traverse Edencom held systems.
“Defending k-space” is essentially the only reward we get, which I guess is fine if you roleplay, but those who OOC supported Edencom basically get nothing. They get even less, in fact, because you cannot use gates in Trig space unless you have positive Trig standings. All of the PVP that t-space was supposed to bring? Well, if you’re pro Edencom and go there looking to disrupt anyone carebearing that has Trig standings, they can just warp out, go in to the next system you can’t access, and either hide or respond with something that can easily beat your fleet comp.
What annoys me the most is the standings. I spent months upon months shooting the dorito bastards because I hate them. I don’t want them to get all buddy buddy with me just because I shot some rogue drones.
And this could be just a “well CCP likes being cryptic with all the trig stuff, and it’s all a surprise, oh boy!” I’m fed up with the cryptic ■■■■. I find it tiresome. If CCP plans on giving Edencom supporters some kind of reward down the line, they should tell us.
Well, EVE has always had logic loopholes and common sense failures.
My favorite are the missions where you rescue some innocent civilians from a set faction and transport them/offer free aid to them; then that same faction dings your standing because they didn’t like you rescueing/aiding their populace.
Now it is obvious why CCP didn’t want to tell anybody, even the CSM, what was happening. If anybody had known that positive Edencom standing would become worthless, people might not have participated.
It’s not even that hard though. Literally all they had to do to satisfy me was not give positive Edencom and Trig standings for killing drones and drifters. That’s it. Keep the dynamic intact. Instead, CCP expects us to just blindly unite with this force that was planning on forever altering humanity and disrupting system travel everywhere, because Drifters bad I guess. Also because wow guys look how cool the Trigs are? Aren’t they cool? Don’t you want to be friends with the Trigs? Join the flow, Kybernaut!
(and yes, technically we are all kybernauts, Trig supporters are just “sobornost kybernauts”)
