There is again another “open letter” to CCP about how poor are the nullsec dwellers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1e3h175/imperium_open_letter_to_ccp/
Why is nullsec so poor?
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“Five years ago null was a vibrant place, people dropped on capitals every day. Carriers and supercarriers would die daily. Rich lands meant fat prey. Fat prey meant many hunters. Many hunters meant many counter-hunters. Action was constant. People fought with abandon because they weren’t terrified of losing their Eve life savings and having to grind 2 years to have a chance to replace it. The numbers back this up.”
Sounds to me like they want less grind, nothing about being “poor” in that letter. I doubt Nullsecers are poor.
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You may be confusing “poor” with “risk averse”.
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Thanks for this, NOE. Some of us, who have been around a while, have seen/heard all this before. I read Asher’s comments and those of Gobbins but found little new in what they had to say. Nullsec players have been complaining about resource harvesting and sov mechanics since I joined the game, in 2013, and – judging from what follows – for some time before that.
The following quoted text appeared in September of 2015. The author has moved on but his words were surely prophetic.
For those, not wishing to read this digest of the article, I provide a link to the original item, here, and a link to an audio version, narrated by Yours Truly, via Drop Box.
Read on, dear Forum-dweller, and weep:
“Historically, EVE’s health, whether it be good or bad, has been determined by the state of nullsec. Though most EVE characters do not reside there, nullsec drives the game’s action, stories, and media coverage.
Regardless of the sov system, nullsec needs to offer rewards that attract players away from empire space.
In years past, players lived in nullsec and made their money there. But CCP noticed that most EVE characters were in highsec, so they began to prioritize highsec dwellers’ concerns. CCP continually increased the amount of money to be made in highsec. CCP chose not to balance the increased rewards with increased risks.
Gone was the traditional stigma associated with highsec money-making. Before, nullsec sov holders considered making money in highsec to be almost shameful. And when their space was threatened, even by small gangs who disrupted their mining and ratting, the nullsec PvE crowd fought to defend themselves.
CCP’s system of nullsec reform had a few objectives in mind. They wanted to break up the big coalitions, they wanted people to live in their space, and they wanted people to fight each other for it again.
There are basically two ways for a game developer to get players to do something: Carrots and sticks. The nullsec changes have been criticized for being too much stick and no carrot.
They wanted it to be possible for a handful of players to cause trouble, even if they didn’t really intend to take a system over. The idea: “If you want to keep things running smoothly, you’d better live in your space and defend it constantly.” Another stick.
The idea of owning a system is less enticing if you have to work harder to defend it.
What about the carrots? CCP has tinkered with nullsec rewards, but has basically done nothing. Over the years, whenever I’ve argued in favor of buffing nullsec, I have said that highsec rewards and safety must be nerfed, too. How much more would nullsec PvE need to pay, to get all the PvE’ers to abandon their highsec alts and do their isk-grinding in null? Too much.
The biggest of the big coalitions is, of course, the *Imperium. Unfortunately, the very organizational capability that makes the Imperium so big also made it the best able to weather the storms of the recent nullsec changes.
The problem is that for nullsec PvP to function, you need to restore the PvP food chain. That begins with drawing PvE’ers into nullsec and boosting the benefits of owning the space that you want players to fight over. Otherwise, it’s just RvB in 0.0 space.
As reluctant as CCP is to meaningfully buff nullsec rewards, it’s even more reluctant to meaningfully nerf highsec. Years ago, when player numbers were twice (or more) what they are now, CCP was afraid to anger the highsec carebears. There were too many players living in highsec to alienate them with a bunch of highsec nerfs." End Digest.
Those of you familiar with his style will easily recognise the author of these snippets. He need not be named, but he should be accorded respect for having refrained from saying, all along, ‘I told you so’.
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interesting, so he did just copy-paste that 2015 text in reddit.
It seems this meme is pertinent again:
I’m not in any way a null-seccer, and I do feel that in the past CCP has perhaps been a little too generous with their handling of null-sec.
However I don’t see this as a “poor us” letter or a cry for handouts. It’s pretty obvious that prior to scarcity, industry and sov changes, Null could afford to toss huge fleets at huge battles whenever they could muster both an excuse and an opportunity to do so. And those huge battles are part of what makes EVE history (for better or worse).
Even without being active in null, it’s been pretty clear that the amount of large-scale activity has been dropping and the amount of turtle-up and farm increasing. I think the post makes some good points about broad vs. deep development. I’ve often felt that null would be better off with a sov system that allows for something like heartlands-hinterlands-border/raiding lands than the heavily concentrated defense and farming they’ve used.
Hopefully CCP can tweak the new sov systems and other allocations so that null has both productive space worth defending and less-developed space worth raiding in to or fighting over.
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Because they have all the high-end minerals, capital ratting and best planetary resources…
They are just whining because they have to bite into their decade big stores they’ve been hoarding and actually put in effort to live there.
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I’m in nullsec, and wouldn’t call myself poor. I’m very recently broke because I spent all my ISK on a fancy new ship you chucklemucks aren’t gonna get a chance to blow up yet, but I’m not poor. It’s entirely possible to get 2 billion a week in nullsec without trying all that hard, but it does take some pre-planning and good practices.
To the extent I understand the letter, there are veterans (call them bittervets if you must) who object to the new changes because of how they see it will affect the game longterm. I don’t pretend to fully understand what it is they’re upset about; I’d rather see the list of specific changes they have in mind, but that’s my 0.02 ISK as an individual, not as a representative of my corp, alliance, or coalition.
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If you want less grind and more money making opportunities in null, that’s fine. No problem. Buff null income/decrease the grind as the players there see fit. What happens in null doesn’t concern me in the least as I live in high sec and travel (when I was more actively playing) into low sec for FW and other fights.
Why is it necessary to nerf high sec income (which isn’t as great as some think anyway) as part of the plan to make null better though? Is it the old idea of forcing older high sec players like me into null as the “endgame”? I was under the impression that in Eve there was no “endgame” as such and that each security level of space was valid to live/work in and there were multiple ways to enjoy the game. I prefer being part of a small RP alliance living/earning in high sec, making forays into low sec and have absolutely NO desire to live in null.
Please explain why making high sec worse makes null sec better? I truly don’t see the connection (unless the intent is to make high sec into some kind of newbie-only, super low income starter area which I feel is a terrible idea). I know I wouldn’t hang around for that. I’d just find a new game to play rather than be “compelled” to play the way someone else feels is “right”.
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I am not sure about those saying things about income…as in straight up ISK generation.
What my opinion is, is that the Null leaders are looking at the future and the effect on Industry. You do not get ISK from directly mining or gathering of any resources. You do not get ISK directly from turning resources into use able gear or ships.
The tedium of crafting in this game IS in my opinion causing issues, some minor, and some major.
It is the major issues that are making Indy people frustrated, throwing up their hands and quitting that part of the game if not the game all together. Null leadership depends not just on their Combat PvP oriented and PvE oriented personnel, but their dedicated army of Miners, econ analysts, and crafters.
CCP and most especially @CCP_Rattati practically admitted they screwed up by creating the border anoms, instead of just moving Kernite back to HS and Spod back to Null.
In my opinion they are admitting their scarcity screw up even more by attempting to let Null create the mineral they want the most. Buuuut, CCP is also hamstringing them into oblivion with stupid tedium.
Who cares if you can make 1-2 Billion in a week or less in Nullsec, you can do that in HS as well if you know what your doing. But, who cares…if you cant spend that ISK in anything less than 6 months because the builders and resource collectors CAN NOT craft any faster than that because of CCP.
In my opinion, that is the issue being addressed…ISK generation no longer mattering much, because crafting is bottlenecked to such an extreme degree that the crafters are going “F’uq this I quit!”
In the long term what are we looking at here? an EvE game that no longer has mining as a profession, only combat PvP and PvE? NPC vendors only for ships and gear?
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Here’s the real People’s History of EVE:
Highsec used to be infested with carebears. Then back in 2012, James 315 founded the New Order. Over the next 8 years, there was a mass migration of carebears fleeing to nullsec to escape the Code. In 2020, James declared victory. The population transfer was complete. Highsec was the pure, carebear free utopia that we all still enjoy today.
But meanwhile, nullsec is in shambles. The major alliances have devolved into daycare centers for whinging carebears. Every single time there’s an update, they all start in with the crying and moaning. The only possible update they would accept would be if CCP just gives them bigger rocks, more anoms, more isk per tick. That is the only thing they wouldn’t complain about. Anything else is a crisis for them. Pretty soon they’ll be shooting the statue again. Mark my words. I’ll bet a crisp 100,000,000 isk note on it.
This is just how they are. It’s safe to say that you can disregard any of these “open letters” or whatever as tears. Ignore the nullbears, they’ll eventually settle down again until the next update.
Personally I find Equinox to be a fantastic update. My Osprey Navy Issue is pink now. This was long overdue.
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The Reddit thread linked in the OP discusses mostly purely nullsec issues. The “nullsec vs. highsec” issue is a different (older) discussion from a questionable source. (By questionable I mean the original author, not Sasha’s quoting of it.)
It would never work for CCP to try to pump up nullsec by making High ‘worse’. Much as you indicated for yourself, gamers in general aren’t motivated that way. CCP has tried to do it anyway, over the years, but mostly by letting other areas stagnate while pumping up the rewards in Null. (Rorquals, anyone?)
For quite some time now, CCP has been putting the brakes on various areas of the game, and this is probably more apparent in Null where players regularly risk higher-value items that have gotten significantly more expensive and take longer to replace.
This might lead to some population drain as some players abandon Null sec for cheaper, safer, easier (although lower) earnings in high sec, but I doubt that would hit a significant percent of Null players. (Although someone more familiar with Null groups might well correct me on that.) As you say though, the earnings in high just don’t touch what you can do in nullsec.
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I mean I don’t really see it as being poor due to all the sites and the payout. Sounds like they just want the less grind for the same reward. But if I want to give the benefit of doubt, perhaps too many pilots are trying to grab the same pie, so even though I very much doubt null sec generated less wealth compared to say 2017, perhaps those “losers” of the race to grab the wealth feel squeezed.
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Poor is not the right word, but annoyed and frustrated by ever more busy-work instead of fun is a better description of the state of things.
My alliance has been on content deployment for over a year now, but my killboard sees whole months worth of no activity and the alliance activity in the last 7 days has been consistently falling. It’s now down to double-digit kills in 7 days for the “best” players when it used to be in the in the high triple-digits.
But all this is to be expected from a game developer who doesn’t talk to the player base anymore. A developer who doesn’t even add comment topics under the ever scarcer dev blogs so that people can tell them how wrong they are or what they should do better.
On the other hand… With non-sensical comments like these it’s not surprising that CCP has no idea what they are doing. If space is less developed, it’s not worth raiding or fighting over. It’s less developed for reasons: you can’t do anything meaningful there.
CCP does the same dumb thing. On the one hand, they want us to fight over space repeatedly and constantly (with these sov changes, among other things), but on the other they tie us down with a huge anchor that does not permit moving around and giving up your current holdings in favor of conquering new holdings (namely the structures that require a humongous load of investment and, once in place, reduce the motivation to move again to 0 because of all the losses that would incur).
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I just read that post on Reddit and it seems that he is rather upset that the asteroids are so small in terms of ore that they have to do a continuous clickfest:
The current iteration of mining is particularly galling. If CCP wants to lower the amount of ore produced in nullsec that is a balancing decision (and imo not a particularly good one) but the design decision to put this ore into ever smaller rocks is an awful one. Clicking on more rocks is not engaging gameplay. Put less ore in larger rocks but please for the sake of every person who mines do not inject tedium into less rewards. There are many other issues which I believe the CSM can address more effectively than some sort of “list of demands” in an open letter.
This is one of my biggest complaints in regards to mining in hisec and has been like that for a long time. What this impacts is the excessive multi-boxer most of all, but I found it tedious with two accounts. So if you do fix this in nullsec, do the same for hisec too, it is tedious beyond belief…
As for the complaints about being stretched out and not being able to deploy, or that people are too poor, does he mean the people in major alliances or the people they prey upon.
I tend to go very cheap and cheerful in most of my activity, and I have noticed that as a trend in many others, why is that? Has it something to do with the simple fact that Medium structures can die if sneezed on, and that the big alliances tend to smash any large structure that smaller groups put up limiting them to subcaps and not very expensive ones at that, colour me surprised, because I am not surprised if that is what the impact is. Though part of this is due to the increased cost of most things.
I have heard from others that the recent sov changes were costly and did not work out that well for smaller groups, so I was kind of going oh dear, more pressure on the small guys, I wonder if that will reduce the number of people active in nullsec, perhaps that is what is the issue. Reading the comments by smaller groups and what my own contacts have said that is indeed the issue.
I am wondering if I will end up having to baby sit skyhooks as well as medium structures around DT on Tuesday’s and Wednesdays…, the excitement is likely too much for me from the five minute to DT super that cannot be killed, no, perhaps more kity shite to be bored with…
I take it from this that the Goons will expand their holdings into other regions pushing out others and causing a large amount of upheaval, which in itself may be good for the game, hard to say. But one thing is for certain, the nullsec game has largely turned into a Red vs Blue type of conflict, aka Goons and their blues vs Panfamm and their blues, that is inherently boring in itself and killing smaller groups with these changes is not going to help.
I just wonder how great this is when people just come along and steal your stuff when you are tucked in in bed snoring, and I have to say that it does not appeal to me at all to cover this stuff in the TZ when they are all sleeping, so I guess it will end up with this stuff being stolen all the time and there is no point in even trying, just seems as badly designed as the change to medium structures was.
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To whoever is interested in the subject matter.
The differences between the security zones on the map simply follow the idea of “more risk means more reward”. Independent of how people organize themselves to reduce the risk involved and increase the reward per time unit, the overall feature is the one of pvp. There is less of it hisec than in lowsec etc, and in nullsec the level of pvp is theoretically unlimited (it uses all the toys in the game).
The title of this thread is, of course, a type of clickbait. Nullsec isn’t “poor” if you compare it to other sec zones, in terms of what it has to offer on ISK/hr generation. However, in contrast with high sec, the ISK generated in nullsec flows for the most part back into the game in the form of destruction. That is due to its pvp aspect. Ships and structures have a cost. Scarcity greatly influenced the cost of combat. Equinox put an even greater influence on the practical organization of combat, and the value of sovereignty - in a very negative way.
While Scarcity provoked a lot of grumbling and malcontent, with a mineral price index that smashed through the roof, ship prices going through the roof, redistribution of ore that made no sense except to a few very unimaginative people, a substantial complexity factor added to ship building, mechanics that add little in terms of fun but a lot in tedium like the waste factor during mining, etc etc etc. Players felt that a lot was taken away with almost nothing in return, not only in nullsec, but across the map.
Equinox went more than a step further. That release directly influences the degree to which sovereign space can be developed. Even with some (very limited) changes to the new resources (workforce and power) soon after release the possibilities to develop and defend (!) space have been greatly reduced - and that’s not only due to the silly mechanic on those (in)famous Skyhooks that do require 24/7 babysitting. Equinox is a drastic, overall nerf to the value of star systems, both strategically (what you can use them for, what infrastructure you can put in there) and financially (what autogenerates there and what the sov owner can generate there via the sovhub upgrades). If anyone would like to see it in action, find Dark Shines’ channel on reddit where he goes through the spreadsheet and shows what is (no longer) possible. As an other commentator wrote, Equinox is not a matter of choices, it’s a matter of hard compromises when it comes to choose what you put into a star system. Windows were smashed, walls taken down, stairs broken out - meaning we have to defend 24/7 and can’t even move around in our own house, and there’s no perimeter alert system anymore (Skyhook system which feeds (!) the crucial infrastructure).
Yes, there are the details too: fewer anoms per system regardless of upgrades compared to pre-equinox; smaller (m3) mining anoms containing smaller asteroids rendering ships like a hulk completely useless. Add to that the unabashed, blatant cash grab that the SKINR is, even without the obvious bugs in it that consume some of that cash (reports of skins disappearing once delisted without refund).
Add to that the usual inflated words about how “invigorating” Equinox is, in letters, blogs and vids. No, it really is not. Who are they taking for fools here ? Even the most ardent of spreadsheet jockeys will admit that the result on the new spreadsheet for reagents, power and workforce spell out - in capitals - that space is worth far less, is far less developable, and less defendable. A region exposes its weaknesses like a centipede with unprotected achilles heels: take down the Skyhooks, it will shut the region down with the snap of a finger: lights out !
Surprise surprise. The collective brain power of players, which is larger than what CCP can muster, has figured out that this road leads to disaster for the game itself. Hence you see letters like the ones from Asher, with endorsements from Noraus and Gobbins - effectively making this an urgent wakeup call from the vast majority of nullsec, and the vast majority of industrial and military power of Eve Online entirely, surpassing the usual political differences because the game is at stake !
I am truly still looking for positives in Equinox, a fun element hidden somewhere, something fun and new and exciting that an individual player can engage in, even a small improvement. But I still haven’t found it after more than a month. What remains is nerfs, tedium and a Scarcity 2.0 that goes well beyond the size of space pebbles but affects all aspects of nullsec gameplay in a very negative and inescapable way.
So what do you get when you keep scarcity up and make everything cost more, and combine it with increased difficulty to get resources and reduction of the fun factor in playing a game: shortage of gameplay. That is a very sorry state of the game we find ourselves in after all the changes - undoubtedly with the best of intentions - that were brought to EvE Online over the last 4-5 years.
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Nothing new here, and again the result of no communication from CCP. Just like with structures, with Rorquals, with Scarcity.
This was also done better in the past by a long gone CCP that introduced escalations and PVE content that was actually rewarding (10/10s and 6/10s usually), while the modern CCP introduces unrewarding busy-work. I remember a time when CCP Rise said “they don’t want to introduce busy-work”, but then certain lead developers entered the company.
I do not believe that the changes of the past 6 years were introduced with the best intentions in mind. Structures were introduced to replace unassaible assets (outposts, which allowed players to actually be mobile without sacrificing everything when they leave an area, and figures like Hilmar still believe that infinite hangars were a huge mistake). Rorquals were introduced to increase capital escalations to an unhealthy degree but also to increase PLEX sales via skill farming to get more Rorquals quickly. Scarcity was introduced to fix these mistakes (but the mistakes were blamed on the player actions, not on CCP’s development practices). None of these things were implemented with good intentions.
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“Fixing the economy” was - I believe - the motivation. After two years I think I asked the question on this forum which indicator showed that the economy was “improving”. Silence … I don’t ask that question anymore, people already know the answer: there are only counter-indicators. Another meme was the “cap proliferation”, which was and still is a very wrong reason to make people have less fun when consuming the product …
Many of us pointed out why the overall plan was flawed: it relied on numbers on a spreadsheet, not on fun gameplay, numbers that chased some mysterious milestone criteria that were either undefined or ill-defined. There’s no fun in not being able to replace a ship loss, in casu capital ships and larger. There’s no fun in no longer willing to take bigger calculated risks (the big blocks can’t even go back to war even if they wanted to right now). There is also no justification in devaluating the time and cash spent on character development by making this kind of changes. A modicum of respect for the customer in this regard is probably not a bad business practice.
There is no fun in having no choice, and no one needs me to point out how Un-EvE having no choice is !! The very core of EvE’s gameplay experience was touched in a negative way - unintentionally. Our collective game experience, in the broadest sense of the word, is of course larger than that of all CCP folks combined. One more reason they should include (not politely listen to and dismiss) responses from the player base in the solutions. And I have hopes they will. After all, this is their cash cow.
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So you want to remove the only reason that makes these belts unlucrative for mass-multiboxers? Great plan! Quite the opposite is needed, the roids in NS need to have much higher density so a single completed cycle brings in a lot more value than in HS for example, but the roids still need to be very small so the miner has to actively monitor the size, switch targets frequently and decide to interrupt some cycles early if he wants the full potential of the belt. Of course the rock density in dangerous space has to be at a level that doing it this way really brings in huge profits. That is what active gameplay means. If you don’t find that interesting, just don’t do it. Spice it up with frequent NPC-assaults in these belts so the miners have to react to different scenarios (use combat drones, use RR on the Miningcommand Ship, use the ShipMaintenance Bay to switch out a Barge/Exhumer for an actual combat ship once in a while) on the fly and the content might actually be demanding and interesting even for multiple people.
@topic: NS isn’t poor. NS is lazy, risk averse and used to all kinds of pampering mechanics that benefits their lazyness and risk aversity. CCP has made NS into a carebear heaven and now everyone complains that there is not much left than grinding. Asset Safety effectively prevents successful invaders from getting loot and removes any reason for the defender to fight at all if he can’t bring in the full superior force of his block. Instatravel mechanics make all that empty NS space of hundreds or even thousands of systems shrink down to a renting zone where the block decides who might reside there or not (for payment of course), because it is incredibly easy to just burn out everyone who even dares to drop a single structure there - and be back at home on the same evening. It’s just ridiculous, but NS got exactly what they deserve and asked for.
Hint: If you really want a change, you need to sacrifice beloved goodies and move yourself out of the comfort zone. That means: Nerf Asset Safety, Nerf Instatravel/PowerProjection. Then we can talk about boosting local defenses and local income for active players who actually live and fight locally instead of relying on the help of the “standing fleet blob”. Until you are willing to do that, actually nothing will change because the mindset of the nullseccers won’t change.
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