I made the following assertion in my first post in this thread:
It appears I forgot to provide the reasoning behind that assertion. Here it is:
Special Note: The assertion uses the definition of supply provided here
“Supply is a fundamental economic concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers”
Premise #1: The term “consumers” applies to the EVE player base
Premise #2: the term: “specific good” applies to ship hulls in EVE online
Premise #3: The following quote (regarding capital hulls) is assumed to be factually true:
Premise #4: In economic terms, when “product “A” > “Product “B” (in terms of quality), consumers will prefer to choose “product A”
Premise #5 the market tends to favor the production of the most chosen products.
Premise #6: The biggest limiting (aka trend reversing) factors for purchasing the “superior” product are: Increased Prices (aka the average cost of ISK it takes to purchase) and lowered Supply
Premise #7: A product becomes cheaper when the required production material becomes more abundant
Evidence: examination of the price and volume traded history for all resources tied to the production of “product A” (in this case, everything appears to be asteroid minerals)
Premise #8: CCP monthly economic reports indicate that the average increase to the supply of products currently exceed its destruction rate. This leads to an increase in unused reserves
Premise #9: The following subjective (definition 4a) statement provides evidence that the trend applies to capital hulls (ie, certain player groups have a large reserve of ship hulls).
Premise #10:
Unless significant changes are made, supply reserves will continue to accrue
Premise #11: Capital hull production current has negligible scarcity
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The factory job materials (minerals) are an almost infinitely renewable resource
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Sovereignty currently restricts where cap hulls are made, but not how many
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Individual character industry job limits can be compensated for by the creation of more alt’s
Premise #12: therefore, the potential exists for unlimited reserves of the “best” ship hulls
Premise #13: In any competitive enviroment, there will always be something considered “best” in a given case.
Premise #13 (conclusion), the excess supply of the most popular hulls needs to be considered in any solution to perceived problem of “the obsolescence of Subcaptials”, buff’s and nerfs will only serve to move the title of “best product” to something else.
Random Thoughts:
This statement also applies to the definition of the term Apex Predator
- Sharks in the ocean are still considered apex predators despite the fact that gangs of (weaker) dolphins can fight them off.
Eve is not the first MMO video game in history to contain an apex predator (ex: The Jedi Class in Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies)
Lessons can be learned from that games failure.
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it”
George Santayana
I originally presented what I felt would be a solution to the problem explained above. That “solution” has been demonstrated to have a bunch of faults. I am retracting it. This post fulfills the commitment I made to @Haulie_Berry . I no longer have the motivation to further participate in this discussion.
I wish everyone here luck in figuring out a perfect solution (that everyone agrees on) I love this game, I do not want to see it disappear.