The broken economy and standing issues of Capsuleer Day XXIII

Events In Game Events
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I would like to highlight the massive imbalance in the current “Warpath” event compared to previous ones (like the Gallente Elections). The changes made by CCP feel like a direct penalty to dedicated players.

1. Point/Token Inflation:
In previous events, an Officer-tier module (e.g., Presidential Mining Boost) cost 250 points. Now, a similar “Modified” module costs 5000 tokens. That is a 2000% price increase. Even completing the event on 4 separate accounts (1000 points each) won’t allow a player to buy even one full set of 3 modules. Previously, 2.5 accounts were enough to buy 6 modules and plenty of consumables.

2. Increased Grind / Reduced Rewards:
The repeatable missions are now significantly more demanding. During the elections, a “3 missions” task awarded 40 points. Now, a “6 missions” task awards only 30 points. The efficiency of time spent vs. progress gained has dropped by 2.6x.

3. Hidden Standing Penalties:
The “Warpath” combat sites are a trap for veteran players. Killing “Elite Mercenaries” results in massive standing hits (-0.378 per encounter) for Amarr and Caldari factions. This destroyed years of careful standing management in just 20 minutes with zero in-game warning.

Conclusion:
This event is no longer a celebration; it’s a punishing grind. CCP has turned a “Capsuleer Day” holiday into a job that provides 10 times less reward for 3 times more effort. I request a review of the store prices and a restoration of standings for those affected by the lack of warnings in the event UI.

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Strategic Analysis: Why CCP’s Current Event Design Will Fail

Goal of the changes:
It appears CCP aims to combat multiboxers/farmers and prevent the market from being flooded with high-end modules (like Modified Mining Boosts) by drastically increasing prices (up to 5000 tokens) and tripling the grind requirements.

Why this strategy is flawed and will not work:

  1. Collateral Damage to Solo/Casual Players:
    While a professional farmer with 20+ accounts will simply put in extra hours to reach the goal, a regular player with 1–3 accounts is physically locked out of the meaningful rewards. By trying to stop “whales,” CCP has effectively killed the event for the backbone of their community.

  2. The “Economic Stagnation” Trap:
    In EVE, the economy thrives on destruction and replacement.

  • Previously: When modules were affordable (250 points), players bought sets of 3, fit them on ships, took risks, and eventually lost them in PvP. This created a cycle of production and consumption.

  • Now: At 5000 tokens per module, the item becomes “too big to lose.” It stays in a station hanger as a trophy, never seeing space. This stops the circulation of wealth and kills the very content CCP hopes to encourage.

  1. Standing as a Non-Negotiable Resource:
    CCP significantly undervalued the importance of faction standings. Asking a veteran player to trade -0.8 Amarr/Caldari standing (which takes years to build) for a single temporary event reward is an absurd trade-off. Standings are a strategic asset; by attaching massive penalties to event NPCs without warning, they’ve made the combat sites “toxic” for their most loyal player base.

  2. Demotivation through Impossible Goals:
    Psychologically, an event should feel like a celebration. When a player calculates that even with 4 accounts they cannot complete a single 3-module mining set, the “fun factor” evaporates. This leads to “Event Burnout,” where players simply stop participating because the reward is mathematically unreachable.

  3. The “Active Mining” Trap: Why ignoring drones is a design failure.

In the current event, mining challenges only count ore harvested by lasers, completely ignoring mining drones. This is a direct hit to Orca and Rorqual pilots.

  • Invalidating Capital Ships: The Orca is designed to mine primarily via drones. By excluding drone yield from event progress, CCP is telling pilots of these 2-billion-ISK ships that they are unwelcome in the anniversary celebration.

  • Discouraging Cooperation: A pilot providing boosts and compression to a friend should be rewarded, not penalized. This mechanic forces players to switch to smaller barges just to “tick a box,” destroying the natural hierarchy of mining operations.

  • The “Anti-AFK” Obsession: CCP’s attempt to force “active clicking” by disabling drone counting doesn’t stop bots — it only frustrates legitimate players who enjoy the social, relaxed side of industrial gameplay.

Verdict:
CCP is trying to control the economy through forced scarcity, but they are actually achieving player alienation. You cannot celebrate an anniversary by making the game feel like a punishing second job.

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Yea, I’m not really feeling this current event. It does seem a tab bit too grindy

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In previous events, an Officer-tier module (e.g., Presidential Mining Boost) cost 250 points. Now, a similar “Modified” module costs 5000 tokens. That is a 2000% price increase.

Tokens in the Capsuleer Day event drop from the event sites as well. Tokens in the Presidential Election event did not.

The “Warpath” combat sites are a trap for veteran players. Killing “Elite Mercenaries” results in massive standing hits (-0.378 per encounter) for Amarr and Caldari factions.

CCP has confirmed that this is a bug. Contact support.

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Thank you for the update, Duke Shasta. It’s good to hear that CCP has acknowledged the standing issue as a bug. I’ve already submitted a ticket with detailed logs of those -0.378 hits, and I hope for a swift restoration of my years of progress.

However, the economic side remains a major concern. Even if the standing is fixed, the 2000% price hike on modified modules (from 250 to 5000) essentially locks out most solo players and even coordinated multiboxers. An anniversary event should feel like a celebration, not a mathematically impossible grind. I hope the developers take a look at the token balance as well

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I would guess that CCP saw how easy it was for us to grind out rewards and were not happy with it and overcorrected for this event.

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And the standings gain, coupled with the boosters can be fixed in a matter of minutes

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Yes you can do cosmos missions. But last time when i did, it gave 19 standings to all. Some “+”
Some “-”.

Safe way - epic arc every 3 month. it Gives +0.4 +0.7
2 Warpath sites make -0.8 to amar and i have before it +8. It is alot for 2 ten min. sites.
If we want, we can dress pants thru head. But right way - from down to up. CPP make mistake and did not test main thing. And they must do right now?. Not me

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You can also pay someone to fix your standings

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yea, I believe you are correct.

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Why should I pay other players billions of ISK to fix a massive penalty caused by a confirmed developer bug? Faction standings take years of careful management to build up. Suggesting that players should spend their hard-earned currency to correct the game’s broken mechanics is completely missing the point of game testing and design

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Im saying in general, some ppl are too lazy to fix their standings

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Not a problem for me. I like more epic arcs. I know them and they safe to grow standings without loosing other. Just want good ivents to feel good in game. Not to work in game like in real life.

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I agree 100%..

CCP is way out in left field with this current event… The amount required to complete each part of a specific event category is vastly disproportionate compared to the previous part…

For example the requirements to fully complete the 5 part Hacking task…

Tier 1 = 4 containers.
Tier 2 = 6 containers.
Tier 3 = 9 containers.
Tier 4 = 13 containers.
Tier 5 = 20 containers.

That’s 52 successful hacks.. Since each site has 2 can’s, that’s roughly about 26 full sites to find and complete… Disregarding the RNG spawn aspect, there’s thousands of other players also looking for those sites which makes it a time sink… When you add in the actual difficulty level associated with the hacking game causing attempts to fail, the amount of time and sites required to find and complete the Hacking task is actually even higher…

And that’s just for the Hacking task, all the other event categories are just as bad…

Sure, the amount of Agency event points increases with each Tier but that’s not the issue, the issue is the amount of sites required to complete each part of the task compared to the amount of points gained.. Completing that entire event task gives 500 points which is halfway to completing the Agency event points, then another event task needs to be completed to gain the other 500 points… Course then there’s another 500 points added to the overall points spread for the last week of the event..

The amounts required to complete each category in this event is just way too extreme, basically turns this Event into a constant grind fest time sink… Completing previous events wasn’t nearly half as time consuming and demanding as this one… Even the last event, Gallente Election, wasn’t as bad as this one…

Let’s not forget that this event is being officially advertised by CCP as being new player friendly.. Now I used an 18 mill SP trained Alpha character to run the Hacking category and the ratio of successful to failed hacks was about 3 to 1… Now if my 18 mill SP trained Alpha account can barely complete those sites, then this event is definitely not new player friendly…

Lastly, the Agency rewards, especially the SoE line of ships, is pretty much a slap in the face to older players… Those ships use to be freely given out as gifts to all players via the Capsuleer Day Log-in rewards… After adding in the required amounts, difficulty levels and time investment to complete the Agency points, new players are going to have a very tough time trying to get those ships… Not only that, most older players already have plenty of those ships sitting in station collecting dust…

The Agency event rewards should be new unique items, stuff that both old and new players can get…

CCP needs to actually start playing this game again instead of constantly going way overboard implementing fail ideas like this current event…

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The task requires players to complete missions for Security Agents. However, if a Security Agent offers a mission that requires moving or delivering an item from one station to another (a courier-style task within a Security Agent’s pool), completing it does NOT advance the event counter.

I completed 2 such missions for a Security Agent, and my event progress remained unchanged. This is highly frustrating as these are official Security missions that are meant to count towards the event completion goals.

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Yup, I noticed that too…

Also had the “Materials for War Preparation” courier mission from a Storyline Agent, Security Division, which didn’t count… And during my travels I ran a mission for an Event Agent, also Security Division, who offered the “Transaction Data Delivery” courier mission which didn’t count as well…

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Same.

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Standings bug has still not been fixed.

Just checked and two characters have each lost 2.50 Amarr standing doing the Warpath Defense Grid sites for killing the Amarr elite cruiser.

Please fix this CCP.

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Are you sure. A lot of folks on this forums are saying this is not the case

in fact they are being rather rude about it.