From what I understand, there were requests for reinforced nodes in multiple systems, including staging systems. As a result there weren’t enough reinforced nodes to go around. X47, rather than being on its own reinforced fleet-fight node, ended up sharing a node with a staging system.
The fault lies with us, the players, requesting that staging nodes be reinforced (they are reinforced already) and with CCP for not having sufficient fleet fight nodes available and a system for prioritizing the allocation of fleet fight nodes to the systems that will be most impacted. Also, there was no contingency to deal with the number of simultaneous logins experienced in this fight.
CCP says they have increased the number of reinforced nodes available. However, a better system for allocating fleet fight nodes to the highest priority systems is needed:
-
Add fields to the fleet fight notification tool for primary battle location, with separate fields for secondary battle locations and staging/mid-point systems.
-
Systems with Keepstar armor timers should be high priority by default, and always be allocated a dedicated node. A system with a Keepstar armor timer should never be on a shared node.
-
CCP devs should also manually reach out to alliance leaders or their CSM reps before a major fight to understand the key objectives that will drive server load and allocate resources accordingly.
The Northern war is likely to continue to spawn fights that span over downtime. CCP should develop processes for dealing with this:
-
A system of reinforcing the hardware that handles log-ins when fights are adjacent to downtime to the extent possible.
-
Introduce a state of suspended animation during periods of heavy log in volume. To prevent unfair advantages, during suspended animation, all new server calls would be ignored and a black screen that serves as a blindfold will be displayed while the grid is loading.
-
Once the log-in queue returns to normal levels and the server has transmitted the current state of the grid to local clients, the “blindfold” is removed and the battle resumes. There may need to be a period of temporary super-max time dilation to cue all the server calls that will come in at once.
Also, there may be other things that could be done to reduce the server load and make things more transparent to players:
-
During time dilation, introduce a graphical representation that an action has been cued into outstanding calls. For example, a dotted line around a module appears immediately when a server call to activate it has been cued and is pending server action. This will make what is happening more transparent and discourage repeatedly spamming activate on a module.
-
Add a drop down under the tidi icon that displays things like outstanding calls, etc.
-
Enable a fleet fight mode that allows you to reconfigure your client settings, close windows, etc. for maximum performance and then revert back to the original state once the fight is over.
I’m sure CCP is thinking of many of these things already. Whatever the solution is, it shouldn’t artificially limit the numbers or freedom of players. Who can motivate the most players to fight is often the most critical factor in fights, and an important aspect of gameplay for alliance leaders and FCs. It cannot and should not be dictated by the devs.
The bottom line is that no other game operates on the massive scale of Eve. Many games have more players, but none can put them together in massive battles on the scale that Eve does. The reality is that there will always be technical boundaries that limit how many spaceships we can smash together at once. CCP has been pushing those boundaries for 20 years and they deserve some credit for that. I hope they will keep pushing them for 20 more.