"those who notice vs those who don't"
I'm actually fine with that.
I had to think a lot to formulate what i wanted to communicate.
I'm fine with people noticing a game mechanic that could favor a win in combat, or how to make more isk out of an upcoming release. Clear example with Tyrannis and people buying the NPC goods, all those crying babies claiming it isnt profitable because of the stockpiles deserve to go bankrupt.
However, i think what we are discussing here is a mechanic that has a long-term outcome in storyline, based out of player actions. This is not a change of attributes in a market item, or adjustment of BPO material usage.
We are talking about the balancing of a mechanic that benefits or hinders a group of people to work towards a goal. Only other similar situation i could think of is the evolution of sov2.0, and how it favored people like CVA back in the day. If CVA suddenly faced a forced change because CCP wanted to make Stations LESS common, then one could interpret it as a need from the developer that is not quite fair with the player base.
Perhaps in similar light, we have here a balance in capture and occupancy game mechanics that if applied 2-3 weeks ago, would have been well received by both sides, because Gallente were in the final phase to recover all lost systems, and Caldari had 1 or 2 occupied systems. Conditions are now a bit different, Gallente are making a great push towards occupancy of Caldari systems.....and although the adjustment by CCP is reasonable and balanced, could have been documented and communicated without much trouble. However if the fix was pushed because CCP does not want certain things to happen......then i call BS, an artificial difficulty is raised towards the Gallente. Why?.
Take note that i'm not accusing anyone of favoritism towards a faction, i'm raising the concern as to why now and why it was not published.....why it needed to be secret?.
The problem of people noticing vs people not noticing revolves around people dedicating their game time to establish the min/max and not focusing in having fun. I don't play the game to detect and identify the min/max alternatives, and i realize that places me behind those players that do focus on such things.
If i just accept it as something that "is", then why is my goal to the grand storyline be molded by them (ccp) if in the past everything was dynamic? and things adapted somewhat to player-driven developments?.
Not sure if i communicate my perspective well....but for me the fact it was a hidden fix raises way too many questions and possible answers do not seem to be "for the betterment of the game". Although funnily enough that might be fueled because we often need to interpret events in eve with two sides (one public and one hidden) and a great deal of paranoia.
