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General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Jade Constantine on 05 Aug 2014, 08:38

Title: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Jade Constantine on 05 Aug 2014, 08:38: Quote from: Steffanie Saissore on 05 Aug 2014, 06:37
On a side note, I have to agree with Jade...not just in general but also in the context of I truly feel that a massive shake up of null needs to happen. How to do it though, I'm not sure.

Problem is Eve has gotten massively bigger in terms of fleet numbers and what you need to make an impact while not getting massively bigger in terms of how many people are actually playing the game, generating an income for CCP and funding the development of the game, plot, plot, background or interest.

This is a bizarre apparent contradiction but there are design missteps and failures along the way:

Take first 5 years of eve - you had concurrent player numbers of 7000-15000. Game felt fresh and new, as a player you mattered. Fleet fights might be 5 v 5 10 v 10, or an awsome 100 v 100 in early block wars. Most organizations could soak a few battleship losses but would suffer in a prolonged attrition war and fall apart or sue for peace.

Then things began to change, sovereignty models and passive moon income began to make nullsec entities extremely rich and there was no balancing drain on resources. Things like improved server performance made fleets huge, people used passive income to plex for alts, RR removed attrition from fleet fights. Invulnerable outposts studded nullsec making the landscape more and more difficult to re-conquer or change. The rich became richer and everyone else more risk averse.

The Concurrent numbers doubled but fleet sizes went up by 10x - the role of the individual was eroded. In most massive bloc fights you have half a dozen people actually playing the game by commanding and thousands of drones pressing F1 and anchoring on the primary. All big successful alliances essentially became the same - same external logistics, same gaming guild philosophy and atmosphere. The goons were the first really, but they would go on to influence culture and feel across nullsec.

But while fleet sizes and barrier to entry to achieve anything in the game had skyrocketed the amount of money CCP had through subs to spend on anything interesting to the rest of us stayed the same or diminished. We had some astonishing mis-steps from CCP. Wasted millions on the vampire game, wasted millions on Dust 514, abandoned conceptual development, greedy microtransactions, 18 month plans of nothing, player rage and mass sackings of its staff. But nothing really to address the essential core problems which meant that while Eve only had a concurrent user level of twice its golden age it felt like the individual player was nothing at all.

There are some core issues:

Player corporations and alliances are all mechanically the same. This is boring as hell. Aside from customising a logo and name and setting a tax rate they are identical. Some will go on to become famous - but there are 100,000 dull samey corps in the game. If creating an organization involved making choices, compromises, investments and would differentiate your experience and exposure to the sandbox that would be a huge step forwards.

Too much perfect intelligence:

Eve suffers from a hideous disease called perfect standings awareness and local chat as an intel tool. This corrodes the experience from top to bottom in conventional space. It makes fleet battles an excercise in ordering spreadsheets and means %99 of players don't get to play. It means there is no way to avoid, hide, fool, smuggle past, or otherwise evade the eye of the powerful in space. All strategic conflict is timer based and TIDI means you cannot use initiative and momentum to achieve even the smallest objective.

Too little loss:

Fleet RR is a cancer on the game. It means that winners take no casualties as a rule. Its one of the main things that mean modern eve battles are inferior to battles happening in 2003-2004. You can't force a Pyrrhic victory on an enemy, you don't get a hard fought draw, there is no ongoing cost to the side that's winning. And without war costing - funds just increase, more ships, more hardware, more outposts, more grind more ... dullsville really.

Indestructible outposts:

I ran on a campaign to make these destructible in 2008 and won the first CSM with more votes than any other bloc candidate. I told CCP that outpost spam would ruin the feel of 0.0 and by insulating organizations from strategic loss would add to the problem and mean the current winners would be increasingly impossible to dislodge. I got this proposal voted through the CSM only to be told by CCP "sorry we can't do it because nobody understands the code". Now six years on we have a stagnated nullsec full of pointless spammed outposts nobody can do anything about that means it takes 10,000 man days of siege to clear a single region. But still, you talk about making them destructible and the powerful players in 0.0 balk at the idea and warn CCP off.

Too much hiring from the player base:

The problem with eve is its a factional tribal game from the player base and people are loyal to their mates, they want to win and make sure their mate's win. CCP has traditionally been cheapasses, they don't pay well and not many people want to live in Iceland. So they make up their hiring needs from veteran eve players. These people don't come to the design table with fresh eyes, they come from the player community and with the bias and opinions created from that sphere. The devs want to continue being popular with the big fish in nullsec, nullsec tells them not to rock the boat, no design that could possibly discomfort nullsec gets anywhere near the game, and yet nullsec bleats about how boring everything is.

So we've massively increased fleet sizes making the individual meaningless.
We've massively increased wallets of the powerful making losses meaningless.
We've massively reinforced the holdings of the powerful making attrition meaningless (or impossible)
We've increased the amount of hardware needed to host 2000 man fleet fights that look terrible in videos making nobody from outside the game want to play this.
And all the while the concurrent player numbers have barely doubled since 2005.

Active development has reduced. CCP have laid off background writers, events team, creative people. 2 other games have crashed and burned. All we are left with today is minor ship balance changes, some redesign work on industry and a new timeline promising player owned stargates in a couple of years.

But the game is stagnant. Nullsec will not change. Privately the coalition leaders are not unhappy with the prospect of Eve going bankrupt with them in top spot - it would be a kind of victory after all. But in order to get back to the spirit of 2005 and before when we had individuals achieving things, making stories, making names and enjoying the freedom of the sandbox we need some radical change both within CCP management, Design, and also within the player base (which quite frankly will require some of the bravest decision making any games company has ever been called upon to do).

Salvation of Eve is going to require CCP to plan Armageddon for Nullsec and it needs to be so brutal and vicious that in the future it'll take genuine effort, talent and commitment for any power to hold a constellation - let alone 20 regions. No plan that doesn't start with "how will this hurt the coalitions and reduce the effective fleet sizes and super cap numbers three months from now" is not worth discussing in this context.

These plans are being discussed in the player community, but rest assured, if any of this stuff ever gets to within 5 light years of a devblog you will see the Mittani.com making the largest shouts of outrage ever heard in the gaming world to anyone who will listen.

Anyway,

Yeah, that's what is wrong with Eve but the funny thing is - its still the only game that has ever tried for a genuine player led sandbox and even now when it seems to be in a more or less inevitable decline, its the only such game any of us are ever likely to play in our gaming lifetime.

The successor games to eve "elite dangerous" "star citizen" etc etc will be very careful not to tread eve's path in the way its developed in certain important ways, you have only to read their forums to realize how much they don't want another CFS coalition in their stars....
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:27: [admin]Topic split because while this is a very insightful post, it is outside the scope of the original thread it was posted in.[/admin]
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:45: I wonder if it wouldn't be entirely impossible to get one of the big blocks to actually participate in some capacity with the RP/lore side of the game. I know there's gotta be at least one large alliance leader getting extremely bored who'd be receptive to the idea.

I like players like Ayallah, who last I saw was in PL. PL is a very non-RP alliance, so while I never like seeing good RPers who actually PvP in those groups, I think she sort of serves as an example of how just because someone's in a "leet pee vee pee" group that doesn't mean they're not engagible ICly.

For my own part, I couldn't be bothered reviving DF1AS when I came back (for a while) for two reasons:

1. No way for a small outfit to seriously impact the powerblocs in nullsec. I was never interested in taking space, but it's now relatively impossible to so much as severely annoy a major power. Capital and Supercapital overproliferation in conjunction with the current sov mechanics make it more headache and more expensive than it's worth and require more bodies than I can be arsed to motivate into doing something long, drawn out, boring and profitless.

2. Most of the people who DO roleplay, particularly the ones Havohej would have so much reason to dislike and thus have conflict with, be they on the IGS or in ingame channels - they don't undock because they're all bloody alts and being alts, wardeccing their 1-man corps wouldn't even have the effect of making the game unplayable for their corpmates (thus putting pressure on them to stop being dickheads IC).

In other words, my old playstyle is no longer a thing and it's hard to muster the fucks to give about resubbing my account. That may be :bittervet: of me, but I'm not saying how eve sucks or this sucks or that sucks... just saying that, for the most part, I recognize that Eve no longer has much room for a Havohej.

I AM watching the UNITY thread, though... I'm thinking if I were to resub tomorrow, I just might be trying to get involved in that.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Lyn Farel on 05 Aug 2014, 13:24: How is CVA doing ? I hope they at least kept their main NRDS core philosophies, if not for RP (they already lost back in the years)...
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 13:42: Last time I went through Providence, CVA was still there, still NRDS and still fielding better fleets than Severance (and mustering faster at that), but I got caught in the middle of a CVA vs. PL skirmish and died. I've seen things recently that suggest they're still an RP entity, but I'd love to hear something from someone in the Amarr bloc who might actually have contact/participation with those folks.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Steffanie Saissore on 05 Aug 2014, 15:02: I sometimes get the feeling that the whole sandbox experience of EVE is slowly withering away? On the surface, there does appear to be a whole lot of stuff one could do within the game...sometimes it feels like a bit too much...yet from my experience, once you get passed the initial phase of seeing shiny ships in space, the options seem to quickly disappear. With recent changes, high sec is becoming less useful for industry and such...from my impression, it seems that a POS is now a major requirement if you expect to make a decent profit. Nothing wrong with that, but from the solo player (or for a very small corp), a POS is either impossible or puts a big target on your back.

Low sec seems to be the savage frontier where one never knows what is going to happen and then null...where in order to make it, you pretty much have to join one of the huge blocs...thereby further making it harder to shake things up in the one area that feels like it ought to be where we all are doing something and making our fortunes and reputations. With the blocs, I feel that null is in some ways just as stagnant as high sec...sure there are some huge expensive ship battles, but at the end of the day, it feels like the loses incurred by either side is barely noticeable.

I realize that I do not live in null and do not participate in or with any of the blocs, but that's the feeling I'm left with from what I see in game, read on the forums and elsewhere.

I also think the whole attitude of kicking the other guy's castle over is another issue...on one hand, sure, EVE is unique in that piracy, corp-theft, spies, etc. is not only possible but in many cases actively encouraged and celebrated. Cool...but at the same time, having seen other new players get burned by offers of 'assistance' it is a wonder why the player base doesn't grow. Sure, if you can get into a corp, you are supposedly safe with your mates...but even then, you're always told to watch out for thieves, spies, and awoxers. The high level of paranoia that the game breeds takes it toll...I have only been in the game one year and have found I need to take days if not almost a week off now and then because of the constant "am I going to get ganked going through this gate?" This in turn does not really breed a welcoming environment for new players who are wanting to experience what on the surface appears to be an amazing space mmo.

I think it is something that doesn't need to be removed completely from the game since EVE prides itself on being a game where the player can do what they want, but having a slightly more co-operative aspect could go long ways to either sparking the desires of current players and even bringing in an influx of new blood.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Samira Kernher on 05 Aug 2014, 17:08: Agreed with most of the stuff here. For a universe that prides itself on giving player agency, lately it's felt like EVE has one of the more static universes around. If nothing the individual does (or even the small group) has any impact, there's not much point to playing.

Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:45
I AM watching the UNITY thread, though... I'm thinking if I were to resub tomorrow, I just might be trying to get involved in that.

Yeah, it's looking pretty neat. Makes me think about actually playing again. I vastly prefer having conflict (that involves space stuff rather than just IGS/Summit) against other RP entities than just pewpewing the usual OOC militia/pirate in a plex. Props to DeT.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 17:26: Would be awesome to see a complete server reset. All the ISK, all the SP, all the POSes, all the ships, all gone. Which moons are or aren't valuable, randomly re-distributed with no region being inherently worthless and thus not worth going to war over (i.e.: Providence). Everyone starts from scratch, with the current game mechanics/content exactly as they are. Fighting over sov in frigates and cruisers until the first battleships start to appear, the first carrier would be a coup, the first supercapital an unassailable juggernaut - for a while. Maybe that sort of thing would break up the coalitions and set the stage for a new political scene in null.

But it will never, ever happen. So... meh. Fuck it lol.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Anyanka Funk on 05 Aug 2014, 17:43: Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 17:26
Would be awesome to see a complete server reset. All the ISK, all the SP, all the POSes, all the ships, all gone. Which moons are or aren't valuable, randomly re-distributed with no region being inherently worthless and thus not worth going to war over (i.e.: Providence). Everyone starts from scratch, with the current game mechanics/content exactly as they are. Fighting over sov in frigates and cruisers until the first battleships start to appear, the first carrier would be a coup, the first supercapital an unassailable juggernaut - for a while. Maybe that sort of thing would break up the coalitions and set the stage for a new political scene in null.

But it will never, ever happen. So... meh. Fuck it lol.

+1

If they built a second tranquility server to host it and kept "Tranquillity I" alive. Maybe that would be too much work or too expensive to bring in more player accounts?
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Utsukushi Shi on 05 Aug 2014, 18:26: Well. At this point virtually the entire nullsec blogging/writing/podcast community is behind pretty severe changes to nullsec. All with the aim of increasing the viability of smaller groups. CCP Seagulls plan for the future was to tackle nullsec along with the POS/corporate changes. So all in all you can decide that means nothing or assume that one way or another some crazy shit is going to go down in the next year or two. Given that I choose to keep playing EVE I am going to bank on the later.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Ché Biko on 05 Aug 2014, 18:28: Maybe...CCP could create a device, one that would require tens of thousands of people across the cluster to build and activate, and that device, once activated, would activate all self destruct sequences of every capsuleer outpost, starbase, ship and implant*.
Or something like that. An ingame reset button that honors the sandbox.
And a way for capsuleers to end the Empyrean age themselves**.

...Until the next one begins, of course.
*(http://www.fangirlmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/kerirussell.jpg)
**Or a chance for the Goons to finally actually destroy EVE. Same thing, really. :P
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: orange on 05 Aug 2014, 20:36: Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 13:42
Last time I went through Providence, CVA was still there, still NRDS and still fielding better fleets than Severance (and mustering faster at that), but I got caught in the middle of a CVA vs. PL skirmish and died. I've seen things recently that suggest they're still an RP entity, but I'd love to hear something from someone in the Amarr bloc who might actually have contact/participation with those folks.

RP-lite at best. Most of the leadership is most interested in maintaining NRDS, but not a whole lot of RP emphasis.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Esna Pitoojee on 05 Aug 2014, 21:14: Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 17:26
Would be awesome to see a complete server reset. All the ISK, all the SP, all the POSes, all the ships, all gone. Which moons are or aren't valuable, randomly re-distributed with no region being inherently worthless and thus not worth going to war over (i.e.: Providence). Everyone starts from scratch, with the current game mechanics/content exactly as they are. Fighting over sov in frigates and cruisers until the first battleships start to appear, the first carrier would be a coup, the first supercapital an unassailable juggernaut - for a while. Maybe that sort of thing would break up the coalitions and set the stage for a new political scene in null.

But it will never, ever happen. So... meh. Fuck it lol.

This is actually one of the problems with the existent sovereignty mechanics: Structures have such a huge pile of hitpoints that even if the defenders don't contest, capturing a system with a few tens of battleships could take hours (and doing so with frigates could be downright brain-killing). Under current mechanics, a reset would rapidly stagnate into unchanging null until someone assembled enough battleships or a bomberswarm to achieve a relatively quick capture.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 22:07: Seems the solution to that issue would be tying Sov to number of POSes in system, making the POSes much more expensive to purchase (if not also to maintain) and reducing their HP by a third. Tie the number of POSes to the TCU's 'grip' on a system... i.e.:

Plant one POS in unoccupied system, as soon as it's online, you can make a claim via TCU. Now you have sovereignty. You plant two more towers over the next month or so (because shit's expensive now, yo). Interloper comes and plants one tower to operate out of, putting your system under siege. They work to take down one of your towers. Now it's two to one in favor of the incumbent. If they manage to knock out one more of your towers, it's tied at one - system vulnerable. They can knock out your TCU and put down their own - stealing sovereignty. But you still have a tower to operate out of - you're not 'dead' yet.

If there's an outpost involved, you can lock docking rights... up until the point the sov is vulnerable (that is, tower count tied). Then Scotty doesn't care who docks and you can't make him.

Outposts should be destructible. Contents of corp hangars should go to the corp hangar of the conquering corporation or the executor corp of the conquering alliance.

But again - my dream version of Eve sov mechanics will never come to pass. The best I can hope for is a severe, powerbloc-shattering shakeup. If a TQ2 did come to be, though, I'd find the money in my monthly budget for a resub. Who knows, might even find the effort to band certain actors together to lock down a region... a la Tortuga.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Ayallah on 06 Aug 2014, 00:18: I agree, something needs to be done about null. I agree on many of the problems and with some of your proposed solutions

However, your view is just, way way off.

Quote
"The devs want to continue being popular with the big fish in nullsec, nullsec tells them not to rock the boat, no design that could possibly discomfort nullsec gets anywhere near the game, and yet nullsec bleats about how boring everything is."

Literally everyone who lives in nullsec and tons and tons of people who don't even have been screaming their heads off in the last six months going back to before I even started playing about how much they hate current sov null mechanics, proposing possible fixes from the massive to the mundane. For literal years ccp and the player base have been all trying to 'fix null' The reasons why this has yet to happen are numerous but your reasoning of why is one of the few that isn't.

Quote
"These plans are being discussed in the player community, but rest assured, if any of this stuff ever gets to within 5 light years of a devblog you will see the Mittani.com making the largest shouts of outrage ever heard in the gaming world to anyone who will listen."

The leaders, the ~bob barbecue~ types have been shouting loudest of all that something needs to change with many common ideas of what is wrong and diversity (with common themes) in possible fixes to it. I mean literally every day there is an article from 3 random people, marlona sky, the martini, elise or SOMEONE about how null needs to be fixed. The shouts of outrage are happening now, I mean Mittens like, last week just started a new series dedicated soley to bitching about the game from his perspective and suggesting solutions. And of course everyone reads them and comments on them and they are all over r/eve/ Kugu (RIP) zulu forums SA, get discussed and debated there, responses are written on en24 and martini and new threads show up daily in the official or battle clinic forums about this.

Quote
Privately the coalition leaders are not unhappy with the prospect of Eve going bankrupt with them in top spot - it would be a kind of victory after all.

this is also wrong

It is like saying ccp won't stop code because the miners like them :roll:

But, yea shit's fucked and stuff needs to happen and I agree there is a problem and I agree with some of your proposals and disagree with others and I can't even do another one of these threads.

I mean, you don't even have removing jump drives in yours =/
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 06 Aug 2014, 00:46: Quote from: Ayallah on 06 Aug 2014, 00:18
I mean, you don't even have removing jump drives in yours =/
I cba reading 20 forums about one game anymore, so forgive me for not being up to speed on all of the past year's ~~griping~~ discussions about the game from all quarters.

That said, removing jump drives has been seriously suggested, and well-received as something that would be helpful? I'm not a capital pilot, but I liked the idea behind getting a covops through and suicidally popping a cyno a few dozen AU from the enemy position to survive long enough to put a capital fleet on the field to support the battleship/support fleet that was set to jump into the enemy bubblespam camp.

That's probably not been done in that way in ages, given how much things have changed, but it's sort of a romantic notion I have. I'd hate to see the jumpdrive entirely gone.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Lyn Farel on 06 Aug 2014, 04:16: Would definitely resub intensively if there was a total reset.

Especially with no alts and no jump drives and that shit, with proper convoys and actualy MULTIPLAYER (not doing everything through one player with multiple accounts and alts).

Quote from: orange on 05 Aug 2014, 20:36
Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 13:42
Last time I went through Providence, CVA was still there, still NRDS and still fielding better fleets than Severance (and mustering faster at that), but I got caught in the middle of a CVA vs. PL skirmish and died. I've seen things recently that suggest they're still an RP entity, but I'd love to hear something from someone in the Amarr bloc who might actually have contact/participation with those folks.

RP-lite at best. Most of the leadership is most interested in maintaining NRDS, but not a whole lot of RP emphasis.

Well at least they kept true to their NRDS core ideals, which is already something... It's good to see that these ethics still have their staunch supporters.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: V. Gesakaarin on 06 Aug 2014, 06:05: The greatest reasons I see Eve stagnating is that the power creep over the years has essentially favoured defense over offense. I left null years ago because at the time when they started releasing caps/supers post RMR in addition to iterations on starbases and outposts post-RMR that the trend at the time for mega-coalitions would continue to expand. My reasons at the time were simple, giving structures, caps and supers that much hp would reward defense too much. By that, at a strategic level when defense is "OP" then of course the trend will favour a more static type of warfare.

So yes, I look at null today, and it resembles something more akin to warfare with castles or in the trenches of WWI. That's because system defenses can become so significant that you need equally significant numbers (and especially caps) to break them. This then causes the defenders to try and call more numbers into the area to counter, and vice versa in escalation until you end up with thousands of people in a system and the joys of TiDi. Naturally then sov wars will always trend towards grinding battles of continued attrition because in reality there exist no real options but to fight that way.

Even now in non-sov related pvp the increasing trend towards defense with logi frigs and cruisers means that after a certain point the fights become nothing more than a question of, "Who has more logi in fleet."

Maybe it's all part of CCP's masterplan but I'm not sure if for many participants it's all that fun feeling like the entire game at all levels must be one massive grind no matter what you might try to do. I don't know, sometimes I think Eve would be much more fun if it was developed more like an actual Wargame or Strategy Game rewarding or permitting things like active defense, mobility, the offensive, real combined fleets where ships of all classes have identifiable roles, strengths, and weakness to exploit...

But no, I think the future is going to remain medieval castle warfare with spaceships and remote reps > all.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Ayallah on 06 Aug 2014, 06:58: Quote from: Havohej on 06 Aug 2014, 00:46
I cba reading 20 forums about one game anymore, so forgive me for not being up to speed on all of the past year's ~~griping~~ discussions about the game from all quarters.

I don't think anyone can anymore but the reply wasn't directed at you

Quote from: V. Gesakaarin on 06 Aug 2014, 06:05
The greatest reasons I see Eve stagnating is that the power creep over the years has essentially favoured defense over offense.

3 day long system timers when you can literally move an :apex: capital ship fleet across the entirety of eve in 15 minutes.

:psyccp:
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Lyn Farel on 06 Aug 2014, 07:28: There is offense/defense/logi issues yes.

There is also what was mentionned above : no resource attrition anymore. When in the past losing your battleship fleet meant that you were in serious economical trouble was something.

If the amount of resources in the universe were finite, maybe determined by the harvesting activity of the previous day or just the number of active players, then we would not have resources limited only by the hours people can spend harvesting, but also by the finite number there is in resources spots.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 06 Aug 2014, 10:46: Quote from: Ayallah on 06 Aug 2014, 06:58
I don't think anyone can anymore but the reply wasn't directed at you
Of course; didn't mean to sound like I took it personal if that's how it came off.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Silver Night on 06 Aug 2014, 12:08: I suppose they could reverse the HP buff from way back and halve all HP on everything. Would make Mael and Tempest pilots happy.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Vikarion on 06 Aug 2014, 19:10: My recipe for fixing null?

1. No more jump bridges, titan or otherwise. All jumping via cynos. Reduce cyno range.

2. Titans and motherships have a maintenance cost - if you can't pay it, modules go offline.

3. As an alliance or corporation holds more Sov, they pay an escalating cost per system.

4. As an alliance or corporation holds more Sov, the time before a system comes out of "reinforced" decreases.

5. All player-built constructs, including outposts, made destructible.

6. Increase variance in the value of 0.0 sectors. Cluster good moons in areas nearly barren of NPCs, while creating excellent ratting/mining systems in areas of low moon quality.

Reasons:

It's my view that stagnation in 0.0 is driven mainly by three factors: defender's advantage, economic scale, and ease of maintaining an overwhelming force.

To the first, with the long reinforcement timers and quick travel between systems, no attacker can hope to take a valuable system before the defender gets there. Which leads us to the second point: because there is no major disadvantage in holding every system you can (after all, you can be there to defend it in minutes), people are incentivized to find the largest alliance, join it, and enjoy its larger capacity for for extracting wealth from territory. This, in turn, allows the alliance to grow even larger, and to take more (essentially free) territory. And they can do that, because of the third problem, which is that, unlike real life, in Eve you never even have to worry about maintaining a military after you've bought the hardware. Because of the fact that it's a one-time cost, Eve players never have to decide whether they should buy a ship they can afford right now. There's no penalty for plowing all your wealth into guns instead of butter. And because of this, whoever has the biggest fleet has nothing to worry about as a trade-off...ever.

That's bad.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Esna Pitoojee on 06 Aug 2014, 20:34: Quote from: Vikarion on 06 Aug 2014, 19:10
4. As an alliance or corporation holds more Sov, the time before a system comes out of "reinforced" decreases.

Addressing this individually for a moment - I'm actually shocked this hasn't shown up in more "ideas on nullsec" threads. It's so blindingly simple that even I facepalmed when I realized I hadn't thought of it yet. Are people just averse to suggesting anything that might have a hint of more structure fights?
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Vikarion on 06 Aug 2014, 21:03: Quote from: Esna Pitoojee on 06 Aug 2014, 20:34
Quote from: Vikarion on 06 Aug 2014, 19:10
4. As an alliance or corporation holds more Sov, the time before a system comes out of "reinforced" decreases.

Addressing this individually for a moment - I'm actually shocked this hasn't shown up in more "ideas on nullsec" threads. It's so blindingly simple that even I facepalmed when I realized I hadn't thought of it yet. Are people just averse to suggesting anything that might have a hint of more structure fights?

I dunno. I just thought it up a bit ago.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: V. Gesakaarin on 06 Aug 2014, 21:27: I think null would be more interesting, engaging, and dynamic for me if there was a real option to live some kind of nomadic lifestyle out there. Where there was the potential to have industrial capital or sub-capital ships that gave real options for small corps or alliances to store ships, fit them, reprocess materials and build assets etc., on what's supposed to the frontier without the need to claim systems, build outposts, deploy starbases and join a mega-bloc as the only means to protect your interests.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Morwen Lagann on 06 Aug 2014, 22:26: Considering how much people rage about anything involving shooting structures, I can see a few reasons why more structure timers would be a good thing.

More timers, more rage. More rage, more quit. More quit, more vulnerable blocs... after a while. >.>
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Louella Dougans on 06 Aug 2014, 23:12: destructible outposts has major implications for npc 0.0 and lowsec within jump range of 0.0.

mostly complaints about stuff being stored in those stations being invulnerable.

Precedent for player stuff in destroyed stations has been set in events - the Yulai and Malkalen stations that were destroyed in the Empyrean age - no effect on players at all.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Jade Constantine on 07 Aug 2014, 02:07: Could be as simple as making a disclaimer box pop up when you join a sovereignty holding alliance with a null outpost?
(similar to the jumping into .4 space one)

"Capsuleer Outposts like everything else in 0.0 are vulnerable to destruction - do not store what you can't afford to lose"

---

By the by some of Vikarons ideas are good, I like escalating sov costs and reduced timers for spam. Now a goon will come along and say "this will lead to the creation of 1000 identical goonswarm 1+2+3+4+etc alliances to avoid it... But while I doubt that is practical anyway, the solution then is to offer each entity in the game a number of + standing slots (10,20,50) or something for free - then charge an escalating fee for additional ones - to make it economically impractical to run with a bunch of identical organizations effecively being the same meta organization. While you are at it - you could also make it impossible for any organization that holds sov to have non alliance members in its fleets - sure people can work round with voice coms but again it makes it harder, more confusing more prone to fiasco.

Of course, people will say - with the game in such a perilously boring state why would you make it harder for nullsec? Which brings me back to my initial post and the disconnect between those rank and file null members who hate the current status and boredom and will hate anything that makes their game harder and less convenient also.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Lyn Farel on 07 Aug 2014, 06:04: I think that somewhat tying the size of controlled territory with money and upkeep is the wrong solution if done alone. Not in the concept, but generalizing a bit, putting limits tied to money is the worst thing to do.

The most famous example of why it is is just comparing the number of titans 6 years ago, and now. But more generally, the economy and the means at disposal to every alliance increases by the simple principle of economic growth. You just have to see how money is not even a problem anymore, and has not been for years now.

Your limits will maybe work the first year, then they will just get overwhelmed by the new capital at disposal for big entities.

The best way to do it imo would be to introduce universe scarcity, where resources to be harvested are limited in time and quantity, and always that corresponding to the number of players and harvesting activity to keep the same scarcity ratio.

Then you will see how even raw material will start to lack in huge wars or upkeep.

Quote from: Esna Pitoojee on 06 Aug 2014, 20:34
Quote from: Vikarion on 06 Aug 2014, 19:10
4. As an alliance or corporation holds more Sov, the time before a system comes out of "reinforced" decreases.

Addressing this individually for a moment - I'm actually shocked this hasn't shown up in more "ideas on nullsec" threads. It's so blindingly simple that even I facepalmed when I realized I hadn't thought of it yet. Are people just averse to suggesting anything that might have a hint of more structure fights?

I think that people will just try to circumvent such things by fragmenting their own structures into smaller ones, but all puppet to the same coalition.

And Jade's solution of + standings being limited would just kill NBSI altogether.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Jade Constantine on 07 Aug 2014, 06:54: that would be terrible :)
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Akrasjel Lanate on 07 Aug 2014, 07:25: Quote from: Jade Constantine on 07 Aug 2014, 02:07
Could be as simple as making a disclaimer box pop up when you join a sovereignty holding alliance with a null outpost?
(similar to the jumping into .4 space one)

"Capsuleer Outposts like everything else in 0.0 are vulnerable to destruction - do not store what you can't afford to lose"

---

By the by some of Vikarons ideas are good, I like escalating sov costs and reduced timers for spam. Now a goon will come along and say "this will lead to the creation of 1000 identical goonswarm 1+2+3+4+etc alliances to avoid it... But while I doubt that is practical anyway, the solution then is to offer each entity in the game a number of + standing slots (10,20,50) or something for free - then charge an escalating fee for additional ones - to make it economically impractical to run with a bunch of identical organizations effecively being the same meta organization. While you are at it - you could also make it impossible for any organization that holds sov to have non alliance members in its fleets - sure people can work round with voice coms but again it makes it harder, more confusing more prone to fiasco.

Of course, people will say - with the game in such a perilously boring state why would you make it harder for nullsec? Which brings me back to my initial post and the disconnect between those rank and file null members who hate the current status and boredom and will hate anything that makes their game harder and less convenient also.

Well you can also add a limit of system an alliance can hold based on the amount of chars on active accounts.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: scagga on 07 Aug 2014, 07:40: This is one of those times that I agree entirely with Jade. An excellently written first post.

Quote from: Jade Constantine on 05 Aug 2014, 08:38
Indestructible outposts:

I ran on a campaign to make these destructible in 2008 and won the first CSM with more votes than any other bloc candidate. I told CCP that outpost spam would ruin the feel of 0.0 and by insulating organizations from strategic loss would add to the problem and mean the current winners would be increasingly impossible to dislodge. I got this proposal voted through the CSM only to be told by CCP "sorry we can't do it because nobody understands the code". Now six years on we have a stagnated nullsec full of pointless spammed outposts nobody can do anything about that means it takes 10,000 man days of siege to clear a single region. But still, you talk about making them destructible and the powerful players in 0.0 balk at the idea and warn CCP off.

I remember the campaign well and gave it my support at the time, with a few suggestions to make it more palatable.

We understand that the biggest issue with trying to institute such a change would be the furore from the powerful 0.0. alliances and their backers who have made it into CCP employment. I really think we should try pushing this idea again, but perhaps with some pragmatic compromises to make it more likely to get through.

The modifications I would suggest:

1- Stations should be vulnerable to direct assault, able to render them 'derelict', regardless of system sovereignty or other locally deployed structures.

2- Initial damage would disable station services, as already exists.

3- Further damage, which would take much longer sustained fire, would destroy docking and corp hangar functions, making the station 'derelict'.

4- Repair would not be possible with ship-mounted shield/armor repair modules. Repair would require investment of minerals and construction products, meaning that the efforts of the attacker equate to an actual cost to the defender. This gives value to guerrilla warfare and emphasises the need for realistic logistical support to maintain stations.

5- If the station is rendered derelict and essential repairs do not occur within 24hrs, contents of the personal/corp hangars would start to be irretrievably lost (as a %/day). This gives the defender an incentive to fight back to retrieve their assets and will discourage 'docked' warfare. The defender can choose to repair only certain functions, so as to re-enable docking/hangar access, but leave the rest of the station in tatters.

6- No reinforced timer. If the attack occurs in the dead of night, the damage is done. If you cannot defend your space, you cannot have it.

What are your thoughts?
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: scagga on 07 Aug 2014, 07:51: Quote from: Akrasjel Lanate on 07 Aug 2014, 07:25
Well you can also add a limit of system an alliance can hold based on the amount of chars on active accounts.

Oh God why. Surely that is a tax on skill?
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Havohej on 07 Aug 2014, 10:03: Quote from: scagga on 07 Aug 2014, 07:40
6- No reinforced timer. If the attack occurs in the dead of night, the damage is done. If you cannot defend your space, you cannot have it.

What are your thoughts?
Cold. Hard. World.

I like it.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 07 Aug 2014, 10:25: A possible solution to shake up power creep:

Capital ships are persistent, and cannot enter POS shields.

Cap ships require multiple capsuleers to pilot, maintenance costs/whatever?

You want a Titan? Super? you need to babysit it and dedicate people and resources for security. The penalty for you having an I-win, teleporting roflstomp fleet is that it is vulnerable 24/7 during your off hours.

More like real carriers that require escort fleets and logistics.

Logging-in 50 dreadnaughts/supers to teleport halfway across the universe and blap things and then ninja vanish with no penalty? Poor game design.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: orange on 07 Aug 2014, 12:51: Quote from: Lyn Farel on 07 Aug 2014, 06:04
The best way to do it imo would be to introduce universe scarcity, where resources to be harvested are limited in time and quantity, and always that corresponding to the number of players and harvesting activity to keep the same scarcity ratio.

Then you will see how even raw material will start to lack in huge wars or upkeep.

I would support the idea of scarcity; so long that ship wrecks become a collectible, recyclable, resource! But it requires a rework of the whole pve system.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Lyn Farel on 07 Aug 2014, 15:13: Quote from: Jade Constantine on 07 Aug 2014, 06:54
that would be terrible :)

I know right :P
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Mitara Newelle on 12 Aug 2014, 13:33: Quote from: Anyanka Funk on 05 Aug 2014, 17:43
Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 17:26
Would be awesome to see a complete server reset. All the ISK, all the SP, all the POSes, all the ships, all gone. Which moons are or aren't valuable, randomly re-distributed with no region being inherently worthless and thus not worth going to war over (i.e.: Providence). Everyone starts from scratch, with the current game mechanics/content exactly as they are. Fighting over sov in frigates and cruisers until the first battleships start to appear, the first carrier would be a coup, the first supercapital an unassailable juggernaut - for a while. Maybe that sort of thing would break up the coalitions and set the stage for a new political scene in null.

But it will never, ever happen. So... meh. Fuck it lol.

+1

If they built a second tranquility server to host it and kept "Tranquillity I" alive. Maybe that would be too much work or too expensive to bring in more player accounts?

RP server! :)
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Mizhara on 12 Aug 2014, 14:44: Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:45
I AM watching the UNITY thread, though... I'm thinking if I were to resub tomorrow, I just might be trying to get involved in that.

Mmhm. If there ever was something that could get me away from just skillchanging until I hit the sp cap it'd be that. It looks like it may have lost momentum though.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Anyanka Funk on 12 Oct 2014, 09:50: Quote from: Mitara Newelle on 12 Aug 2014, 13:33
Quote from: Anyanka Funk on 05 Aug 2014, 17:43
Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 17:26
Would be awesome to see a complete server reset. All the ISK, all the SP, all the POSes, all the ships, all gone. Which moons are or aren't valuable, randomly re-distributed with no region being inherently worthless and thus not worth going to war over (i.e.: Providence). Everyone starts from scratch, with the current game mechanics/content exactly as they are. Fighting over sov in frigates and cruisers until the first battleships start to appear, the first carrier would be a coup, the first supercapital an unassailable juggernaut - for a while. Maybe that sort of thing would break up the coalitions and set the stage for a new political scene in null.

But it will never, ever happen. So... meh. Fuck it lol.

+1

If they built a second tranquility server to host it and kept "Tranquillity I" alive. Maybe that would be too much work or too expensive to bring in more player accounts?

RP server! :)

This. I'm just going to use singularity as rp server. Makes so much more sense. Since there are only a few hundred pilots on at any given time. You can go hardline rp without much hand waving.. What is singularity's icly explanation anyway? Isn't supposed to be a Sansha virtual reality New Eden sim?
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Esna Pitoojee on 12 Oct 2014, 09:56: Quote from: Anyanka Funk on 12 Oct 2014, 09:50
What is singularity's icly explanation anyway? Isn't supposed to be a Sansha virtual reality New Eden sim?

There isn't one. It occasionally gets indirectly referenced by people talking about "combat simulators", but there as far as in-character terms go everyone's got their own sim and there's no universal, officially sponsored "test sim" the way SiSi is a universal, officially sponsored test server.

Quote
This. I'm just going to use singularity as rp server. Makes so much more sense. Since there are only a few hundred pilots on at any given time. You can go hardline rp without much hand waving..

Uh, okay. I think it kind of voids the point of playing a game where consequences both good and bad are a major factor to move to a server where consequences are meaningless.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Anyanka Funk on 12 Oct 2014, 10:14: Quote from: Esna Pitoojee on 12 Oct 2014, 09:56
Quote from: Anyanka Funk on 12 Oct 2014, 09:50
What is singularity's icly explanation anyway? Isn't supposed to be a Sansha virtual reality New Eden sim?

There isn't one. It occasionally gets indirectly referenced by people talking about "combat simulators", but there as far as in-character terms go everyone's got their own sim and there's no universal, officially sponsored "test sim" the way SiSi is a universal, officially sponsored test server.

Quote
This. I'm just going to use singularity as rp server. Makes so much more sense. Since there are only a few hundred pilots on at any given time. You can go hardline rp without much hand waving..

Uh, okay. I think it kind of voids the point of playing a game where consequences both good and bad are a major factor to move to a server where consequences are meaningless.

There are no consequences either way when you are immortal. Maybe monetary setbacks. But I'm space rich either way. With the limited time I have to play irl I would rather rp the way I want to on Singularity than to rp in tranquility where majority of null's stance is "fuck rp". Each is own. More fun for me this way.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Morwen Lagann on 12 Oct 2014, 11:13: Quote from: Esna Pitoojee on 12 Oct 2014, 09:56
Quote from: Anyanka Funk on 12 Oct 2014, 09:50
What is singularity's icly explanation anyway? Isn't supposed to be a Sansha virtual reality New Eden sim?

There isn't one. It occasionally gets indirectly referenced by people talking about "combat simulators", but there as far as in-character terms go everyone's got their own sim and there's no universal, officially sponsored "test sim" the way SiSi is a universal, officially sponsored test server.

Particle Tracks (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Particle_Tracks_(Chronicle)) tends to disagree with the latter half of your statement.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: The Scythian on 12 Oct 2014, 12:15: EVE is dying because there are too many subscribers? Oh my..
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: purple on 13 Oct 2014, 23:42: Quote from: Mizhara on 12 Aug 2014, 14:44
Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:45
I AM watching the UNITY thread, though... I'm thinking if I were to resub tomorrow, I just might be trying to get involved in that.

Mmhm. If there ever was something that could get me away from just skillchanging until I hit the sp cap it'd be that. It looks like it may have lost momentum though.

Link?

Edit: Never mind, I figured out how to internet.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Ember Vykos on 15 Oct 2014, 16:07: Quote from: purple on 13 Oct 2014, 23:42
Quote from: Mizhara on 12 Aug 2014, 14:44
Quote from: Havohej on 05 Aug 2014, 10:45
I AM watching the UNITY thread, though... I'm thinking if I were to resub tomorrow, I just might be trying to get involved in that.

Mmhm. If there ever was something that could get me away from just skillchanging until I hit the sp cap it'd be that. It looks like it may have lost momentum though.

Link?

Edit: Never mind, I figured out how to internet.

No...link would be good.
Only thing I found was some stuff on Unity engine unless thats it :?:
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: purple on 16 Oct 2014, 06:28: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=360388&find=unread (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=360388&find=unread)

I saw that the comments here were from august so i paged through the IGS until I got back to august. This is the only UNITY thread I found and it has 14 pages of replies. I assume that's what folks were talking about - but the hype doesn't seem to fit the content.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2014, 08:09: It was the only rawrmatar stuff that's reared its head for fucking ages, so for some of us it's damn hypeworthy.
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2014, 08:12: Also... GET HYPE! (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5123581#post5123581)
Title: Re: The State of New Eden and Why It's Stagnating (Split from It's Been 4 Years)
Post by: Ember Vykos on 16 Oct 2014, 19:03: Quote from: purple on 16 Oct 2014, 06:28
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=360388&find=unread (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=360388&find=unread)

I saw that the comments here were from august so i paged through the IGS until I got back to august. This is the only UNITY thread I found and it has 14 pages of replies. I assume that's what folks were talking about - but the hype doesn't seem to fit the content.

Thanks. I actually found it this morning after you necro'd it lol.