I doubt they know or want to know. Otherwise they would not have introduced structures or mechanics which necessitate thousands of people to fight over them.
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They tried. Players complained it wasnât enough fun and would make dreads less used. So here we are
And then they complain about how EVE is hard and how it should be totally safe and more like World of Warcraft and ganking needs to be removed and yadda yadda yadda⌠I rather have those gamers stay where they are.
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Too late. Apparently 70% of the player base are now them, according to some guy in another thread.
None of the mechanics necessitate thousand of people fighting. At most, you must inflict 7500 damage per 20 second cycle to pause the repair timer. As long as the timer is paused, the damage you do up to the threshold is applied to the structure. So in theory, 25 bombers with ample torpedos could take an extra large structure like a keepstar.
The problem is, once time dilation begins, it becomes harder and hard to beat that threshold. Then if TiDi become too much and you canât do things like load and launch fighters fast enough, you wonât be able to keep the repair timer paused.
As for why each group brought so much⌠That had nothing to do with game mechanics but rather simple strategy of N+1. Think of it this way, if the last one standing wins, and no one cares about losses, all you have to do is bring more people to win. Obviously this is an oversimplification. However it is the basic concept. And unless you add artificial limits which goes against the core principal of EVE, this will always be possible.
Holding a keepstar requires to have thousands of people as backup and support. Try to hold a Keepstar as a small entity and tell me how that works out for you. 
No, donât bother. I know how that goes. I just need to look at the lost CVA Keepstar or the Keepstar killed in Jaymass or Auga, as big examples that spring to my mind.
Iâm in this thread too! Hi everybody! 
That is a false argument. You are conflating a substantial number of players with the citadel attack mechanics.
âHolding a keepstarâ means being able to repel the attackers. The size of force that the players bring to bear is what determines the size of the defending force (or more accurately, the success of the defending force).
If I bring 25 dudes in bombers, you can hold the keep with 5 dudes in RLML caracals.
If I bring 2500 dudes in supers (in pretend land with no tidi), you need an effective counter to that (for example, 2500 carriers and 500 faxes - exact tactics are moot).
Yes, in practice everyone wants to kill a keepstar which means you will have a lot of attackers and a large number of defenders because of that⌠But the mechanics do NOT necessitate it. Merely the size of the killmail.
This is not how EVE works. The mechanics on paper support your argument, but in practice your paper argument is meaningless. The mechanics necessitate the large number of people because your 5 guys counter to the 25 bombers is met with a counter of 20 Cerbs to kill the caracals, which in turn is countered with a 50 Cerbs fleet to counter the other Cerbs, and so on. The mechanics actively encourage and necessitate that you have a large number of people behind you to hold such a structure. The mechanics necessitate that you have a ton of people to attack and defend these big structures.
No.
The Citadel Attack Mechanics necessitate that you meet the minimum damage cap. THAT is what CCP introduced.
Absolutely no part of that requires a large number of players. The exact opposite in fact, they intended to make it possible for a small gang to kill a citadel. It doesnât matter if itâs a Retardu or a Keepstar or a Palantine. They are the same mechanics, and for you argument that the mechanics make it a requirement, it would have to hold true for all citadels not just keeps.
Iâve killed astras with bombers before. It was uncontested. It did not require thousands of players - and it was the same mechanics. The exact same mechanics.
That is players escalating the fight. Which it makes sense they would given the cost of their keepstar. Itâs a major investment, of course theyâre going to protect it.
But in a world where that escalation did not happen, that citadel would still die. THOSE are the mechanics.
Your argument would be equally valid for all of Eve PVP. For example when some dipshit forgot to set the parking brake on his titan and jumped it into an enemy fleet. Now all of a sudden this 100b titan just caused half of Eve to ping for rage forms. For the record Iâm talking about the battle of Asakai, which involved 3000 players.
That was LONG before citadels were even a thing.
Then you donât pay enough attention. The mechanics around a Keepstar, or even a Fortizar, to defend and attack it require that you have a large number of people doing it if you want to succeed in achieving your objective. The on paper mechanics may give you a minimum number of people to pause the timer, but they do not discourage bringing more people to the attack or defense than what is actually necessary to hit the damage cap. The mechanics dictate that you need a lot more than that in order to be successful.
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Once again, the mechanics only dictate that you meet the DPS requirement. What two (non-)consenting groups of Eve players do is their own business.
It is player escalations that necessitate a larger group of defenders. It is the knowledge that everyone WANTS to kill that keepstar that makes you know youâll need a large force of defenders.
Whether or not the mechanics encourage or discourage extra people is moot. Thatâs a playerâs choice to participate in the fight or not participate in the fight. The mechanics donât give a single â â â â about whether any pilot or group of pilots chooses to participate.
The mechanics definitely care about that, otherwise there wouldnât be a damage cap to force people to stay on field for a defined amount of time. And this part of the mechanic (just like if it were not there, so that you then could shorten the time on field) require a large number of people to support the attacking or defending forces.
With the damage cap, CCP wanted to discourage N+1, but instead it encourages and necessitates it even more because you need to spend more time on field.
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Quite the opposite. With a damage cap, you cannot blap the structure. That means you are not able to use âthe mechanicsâ to take the path of least resistance (dropping a super fleet on it and making it disappear before your jump aids is even gone).
Okay, so lets say I donât respond. Lets say I have a⌠fort. Lets say youâve got 3000 dudes in a mixed comp to attack it and Iâm not going to fight you.
- If you only bring 30 dudes in bombers and leave the other 2970 in staging system, will you still kill it?
- If you bring all 3000 dudes, will you kill it any faster?
- If you bring all 3000 dudes, will you kill it any slower?
With defenders not showing up, the only mechanic you have to contend with is the citadel mechanic.
Now lets say that I intercept your 3000 on the gate with 3000 dudes of my own. Itâs bubblefucked all to hell. Do the citadel mechanics apply to this fight? No, of course not. You wonât even be shooting at it. Yet, a large number of players was countered by a large number of players.
The citadel mechanics are moot to the number of players fighting each other. The player choices matter there, and only the player choices.
That was not possible in the old system either.
I will kill it faster because the 3000 people on grid will ensure that my guys keep the damage cap up at all times, whereas if I only brought the absolute bare minimum, every loss or every reload would extend the time to kill it. Thatâs how the mechanics work.
Which is relevant to this discussion how?
No, 30 bombers have a sustained dps of 18,000-19000 dps (rage torps) even with reloads. Their reload cycle is 10 seconds. Even if they all stop to reload at the same time, the very first volley after reload will immediately return you to damage cap. The fort DPS cap is 15k raw (18750 with resists). At worst, youâll be a few hundred dps short⌠out of eighteen thousand
There are no losses because nobodyâs there to fight you. Itâs just you versus the citadel mechanics. 2970 players are there for absolutely no reason.
Conveniently, you ignored the other half of my argument. So Iâll ask you again. Do you believe that gate camp mechanics necessitate thousands of players?
You tell me. You brought the old mechanics into the discussion when you said that the damage cap prevents blapping a structure before the jump reactivation timer is over.
What is there to ignore? In your 3kv3k example, no one attacks the structure because everyone is in the gate camp. But I had to bring 3k people to the fight because the mechanics demanded from you to bring 3k people to attack my structure because you know what I can bring and you need to counter that because otherwise the, thanks again to the mechanics, you cannot achieve your goal, as neither the damage cap mechanics nor the old dominion mechanics discourage N+1.
That has nothing to do with old mechanics? I brought up jump aids because without a damage cap youâd have killed the structure a lot faster than your JRT, which would be the only thing holding you in system after the fight. With ships that were able to simply leave, youâd simply leave.
Okay lets flip this around and see if that helps.
Iâm attacking your keepstar with 30 dudes in bombers and 5 dudes in logi frigates. If you donât defend it, it WILL die get reinforced.
So⌠defend it. What do you undock from the keepstar (tethered or no) to defend against 35 frigates?
SD-ASML, Neuts and Jams.
Congrats. You just defended your keepstar with 1 player.