These null sec changes are not good. The mining ones especially. Ccp you need to do something to fix this. There needs to be more ore in the anoms. And the mining upgrades for the sov structures be greatly reduced in price for power. I hope you fix this ccp. Your new escalations for the ratting anoms require too much and are too hard for the little reward.
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Iām not sure if you want CCP to fix the gameā¦ xD
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Yeah sorry about that, I replied to the wrong person there!
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After a couple weeks with Skyhooks and Metenorsā¦i can say it already sucks to do this rinse-and-repeat-job. robbing your own facilities, gatherings the few ressources half a day for just a few iskā¦
Deleting Skyhooks and Metenors would make the game better againā¦
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Is not robbing them and simply letting them mature an optionā¦?
ohā¦so im supposed to maintain that for othersā¦and run and payā¦ usually you would just deanchor the stooopid metenox and skyhooks and build back to pocos againā¦
If its hurting Null, its hurting some areas more than others. Until the āblue doughnutā starts eating itself, it is arguable the hurt is not enough.
That is a problem for leadership to solve, if the jump gate is valued higher than some miners, either the miners need to prove how the ore is more valuable than the strategic worth of the jump bridge, or move to another area with more flexibility in the grid.
EVE has to die some time. Is this the last straw? Probably not. Its highly unlikely the playerbase will unify in the same way seen in blackout to reject this change, as its being smartly deployed in a way where the change is being drip fed and āvoluntarilyā in a way that the frog does know its being boiled.
Which is one of the outcomes when passive moon goo was removed. Its smart, but it only goes so far when the fundamental problem is the barrier to entry to be an āidenpendentā group is so high.
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This patch has substantially raised the barrier to entry for nullsec, and thereby strengthened the Blue Donut.
Right now, if you are part of a bloc, you have the 24/7 coverage to have your skyhooks defended, and you dont need Metenox drills because you have enough actual miners (and can tax them via mining ledgers).
This patch did nothing about the force projection that prevents small powers rising in Null. As evidence, two recent campaigns.
Catch : EX6, which saw 1200 pandemic horde pilots not be enough to establish a staging fortizar to push Dracarys out of the worthwhile part of Catch. Actually, it was a non-battle - PH backed off and did not jump ā¦ because a bloc was on the other side.
Detorid : Less than thirty NCdot pilots are enough to force out an independant alliance, because they have a bloc behind them, and the other bloc is not interested in defending independants.
So. Yeah. Unless by āreinvigorateā you mean āforce people living in null to bloc upā, this patch will not reinvigorate null.
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No change is going to allow a small alliance to compete with Horde, Goons, Init et al.
What the game needs is incentives for the big alliances to go to war with one another, particularly in supercaps, which this expansion does not bring.
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In theory, the blocs are at war.
I say in theory, because neither of them are trying particularly hard - the Imperium has drawn a border at EX6 in Catch, and from there through the South, and Pandafam isnāt really trying to go past it.
There is the usual raiding across the border, ranging from ESS thefts to ganks of ratting supers or jump freighters. Thefts from skyhooks are being added, but at the end of the day thatās not actually different to an ESS raid - itās basically the same gameplay, aimed at a smallish gang trying to stay in position for long enough, which usually means preparing a gang and hitting in the other sideās off hours.
Neither side has confidence the nodes will stay up well enough in a 2000+ player battle involving supers and whatnot, and that means neither side is willing to throw the 1200 to 1500 pilots through a gate (and thats what was on each side of the gate at EX6, and in a timezone that wasnāt great for either Imperium or Pandemic Horde).
Where this patch fails is that de-invigorates nullsec by making it even harder for small alliances to grow. Due to itās terrible trusec, Provi and the South East are slammed by this patch - it doesnāt matter how high you push the ADMs, or what resources you commit to improving your system, if your systems are hard-coded as low-trusec ā ā ā ā Space by CCP, then you live in low-trusec ā ā ā ā Space (which also has ā ā ā ā Moons, because Moons are basically linked to trusec).
Additionally, you need 24/7 protection of the skyhooks that are fuelling what upgrades your ā ā ā ā Space can have ā¦ which means you need to convince many more alliances to join your group.
At the same time, the blocs are entrenched in the high-trusec Good Space, with a nice buffer around it, and they still have all their old supercap stockpiles, and still have full strategic mobility using cyno chains.
So, if you want a continued boring and static nullsec dominated by two blocs, neither of which are confident the servers will let them fight each other ā¦ you bring in a patch like Equinox.
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Amen to that. Iād also add that supercap pvp wonāt really return until supercap indy is fixed, 200b titans isnāt a price point where that is realistically possible. I bought by first titan for 45b, Nyx for 15b, dreads for 1.5b (with a T2 fit). Those price points incentivised content.
I think removing jammers would also help, if they brought the price of supercaps down at the same time as removing jammers, that feels like a good trade-off. Much greater risk, but ability to restock within a reasonable timeframe.
But ultimately if the servers canāt handle it, most null sec content is just a RIP.
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I think itās important that this patch, which was allegedly about reinvigorating null, did nothing about jammers, or about force projection, or about the existing stockpiles of supers and dreads.
Scarcity was, and remains, about pulling the ladder up on any people who didnāt already own the superfleets.
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Thatās precisely my issue with Scarcity and indy changes, I bought my titan when they were 25% of the price they are today, so did many other vets. That still took me 5 years to realise running 4 accounts. Smaller alliances and newer players literally have no hope, they either accept theyāll be embarking on a significantly longer journey than vets or they just give up pursuing it, either way, thatās a pretty ā ā ā ā experience for someone who joins the game reading about the likes of B-R and wants to aspire to take part in such a battle in future.
CCP removed the ladder after a good proportion of the game had climbed it, akin to Blizz removing epics from MC after half the players on each server had farmed it out.
For me, had CCP introduced super titans or motherships at the 200b price point, perhaps with a new Black Hole generator facility as a hook that allowed you to form a gate across the map for generating content/wars, perhaps have the destination be some kind of 200 AU deep safe so attackers could prepare without needing to gate caps so we could see big battles regularly. Who knows, lots of holes in that idea, point is more that they could have inflated up, for those that climbed the titan mountain, as Dunk once said, give us new mountains to climb!
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I think it can be done, but you already need to be in space defined by CCP as good space.
And that means being part of one of the blocs - including the very successful Blue Donut of C5/6 space.
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Except that we are tired of defending too. With CCPs complete nerf to JBs it will be even more tedious to run around and chase nano elite pvpers. If worst comes to worst they can always hide in ESS as designed by our dear game devs (remember boys and girls, no risk for elite pvpers all the risk for everyone else in the game). Itās a complete crap mechanic that just makes life in 0.0 more tedious (as if we didnāt have enough logistics work to begin with).
Considering that EX6 is 7 jumps from GSF home (shorter for Brave and D.C.) you are crying that we managed to fight off people coming from other side of the universeā¦ If you want to cry about blocks cry about lack of NPC space in drone regions which makes them safer than even WHs. There is no feasible way to attack those regions.
Not even that. Added tedium (both logistics and having to defend from effectively nano gang elite pvpers 24/7) is draining on everyone. Add to that gigantic nerf to our space and being forced to spread out (again only beneficial to those elite pvpers as umbrellas become less effective). Small groups would just get pushed out as big groups will need more space (or alternatively, people just quit so numbers go down).
PS: what allows small groups is big blocs not attacking them because they understand that growing groups are good for the game. Of course some (NC. pathetic legion and such) do like to stomp on them to pad their kb but GSF has never really done that (in general we are donāt touch our infrastructure and you are good to live on our border).
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Nahh, PH didnāt come from the other side of the galaxy, theyād put jump clones into their staging within Catch, and had caps staged in NPC stations in Curse. Between the lack of real jump fatigue, suitcase dreads to go with suitcase carriers, jump freighters and occasional convenient wormholes for shuttles, force projectionās pretty simple these days.
But it was bloc vs bloc, so itās a draw. Imperium continues their defensive strategy of drawing a line at Ex6 and not attacking past it, and Pandafam continue their strategy of installing Valued Allies on the other side of that line.
Note that if you stomp on a small group, you can then approach the remnants with a deal, to stay in the space they are in as long as they pay rent, or alternatively to recruit some of their surviving capital pilots and/or FCs as āvalued alliesā.
Not that anyone in null would ever do that, of course.
Actually no. Pathetic horde are the ones that are so concerned with their KB that they never attack unless nearly certain of victory. This is of course a bit harder 7 jumps away from 1dq, and even less from Brave and D.C. stagers.
We are not attacking PH and FRT due to time zone tanking and the fact that they live way too far away from us, plus it is practically impossible to attack drone regions.
This I agree with, skyhooks (and ESS) are utterly terrible mechanics that only pander to elite pvp friends of our dear developers (who all hail from that background).
No patch can change n+1 game. But this one is making everyone in 0.0 question why the hell they are paying for this game. More tedium, massive nerf to the space, and so on. Itās just more of usual CCP game ādesignā where elite pvp nano gangs (gotta run away if anyone shows up) are boosted a the expense of everyone else.
Jammers help the small guy a lot so not sure why you are hating on them. It allows you to negate big guyās capital supremacy. You need just enough to keep their subs away from the jammer which is significantly easier than fighting their sub and capital forces at the same time.
This is what our CSMs have been saying from day one to CCP. But good luck getting them to admit that they did something wrong or, god forbid, create a greater mix among their game developers.
Only result of such a change would be Serenity on TQ, a single bloc owning all the space. Making attacking too easy means that someone gets defeated and that lowers the number of groups by 1. Since we are already at 2 big groups that would be death of TQ. Currently it is harder and harder to attack far away from home (due to logistics getting harder, while being relatively easy for your opponent). Remove that and there is no limit on whom blocs can crush (other than what already exists among competent 0.0 leadership that donāt allow attacks on smaller groups).
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It is still far away from their home and thus more complicated for their pilots than simply taking 7 gates that we need to. Deployments are always tiring for the pilots.
We donāt do that. Our leadership has always been very understanding that new groups and new players are vital for survival of EVE. Not to mention that neither imperium nor Init do renting, so either you are part of us, a neutral party, or enemy.
PH and co are different, they are pushing the whole rental empire towards its logical conclusion, Serenity on TQ.
Regarding rental programs, well, some of us have long memories.
Yes. The current Imperium prefers Valued Allies to renters, and the cultural revolution with Goons accepting āpubbiesā and kicking for attempting recruitment scams is real.
(and, boy, were recruitment scams the shittiest thing for the game players ever invented).
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