Greedy Goblin

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Weekend minipost: nothing to see here!

The roadmap for the next fall, winter and spring is out! There is only one highsec related item, they finally implement the Throne Worlds Incursions which they wanted months ago. And even that only targets the most unbalanced and casual/solo/newbie unfriendly income source: highsec incursions. Nothing else is for highsec (or general graphics and IT improvements with no game rule changes). So once again, CCP is developing for the group that yells the most and doesn't pay a single dollar (as no sane nullsec ratter would not PLEX).

It's not a "gimme-gimme!" post, as my own gameplay is nullsec centered: killing Imperium (and tomorrow and Tuesday you'll see it's going pretty well). However the highsec casual crowd who are the majority of the playerbase and who pay $ for those PLEX-es of the nullsec players (and me), well, they get nothing! Not even a token feature. Absolutely nothing. As their number is already decreasing, it's only a matter of time before CCP won't be able to fund development and has to shut down servers. I just hope it happens after I've beaten Goons.

Clarification: I no way suggest giving more rewards to highsec casuals or safety for those idiots who haul billions or fly purple Tengus. Actually, I'd suggest the opposite, decreasing LP and mineral income in highsec. I suggest more gameplay, features, teaching methods and above all: a way for them to form groups with other highsec casuals without being wardecced and forced to not play for a week.


PS: I wonder how many innocent Ibises will be slaughtered to provide kill marks for alts and friends.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

If they do it right, rookie and not fully fitted ships would not count for a kill mark.

As for the updates: Citadels are a High to Null to WH addition, so there is that.
Plus you get a couple new ships that can be used anywhere.

What would you adjust in high sec?

Ida Noddack said...

Wardecs should be on a per region basis. That would allow, or perhaps force, bear corps to move around and regroup rather than simply log out. Since there are 23 empire regions, reduce wardec cost by 22/23rds.

Ideally, corps could wardec many corps, but only the same corp in one or two regions. If CCP expects players and corps to have a bunch of new structures, then this seems important.

Gevlon said...

If unfit ships won't count, they'll just pop T1 fit Rifters.

Wardecs are a broken feature since they place risk not on a rewarding activity, but on playing with others. You can get 100M/hour safely doing incursions in a 1-man corp, but can be popped while mining in a Venture because you have some friends.

While Citadels can be erected in highsec, there is not much point to, as there are stations aplenty.

daniel said...

the interesting thing is, while ccp did the ship balancing from the bottom up, they are doing the game balancing the other way - if that is the right way remains to be seen.

the funny thing is, that the crowd yelling the loudest will be (if the servers shut down) the saddest as well. everyone else will just find another computergame.

@sriojas:
"What would you adjust in high sec?"
"I suggest more gameplay, features, teaching methods and..."

noone would be hurt if (hs) missions were group content - you have to have a party of 5 to enter the mission etc pp.... e.g. in t1 cruisers so the group needs to bring tank, dps and logi. one needs to understand that the payment of hs missions isn't of interest to the hs carebear as he is playing for the sake of grinding and not to fund his multiaccount elite pvp titan fleet whatever.

having said that, eve's allaround looks are a major selling point, so more gimmicks are ok with me.

Anonymous said...

Nullsec was ignored for 5-6 years so all of the attention is mostly CCP fixing stuff that has been broken for at least half a decade. Yes highsec also needs attention but null has been and in many ways still is far more broken.

Anonymous said...

Citadels are going to be quite good for high sec industrials. Currently using a pos for bonuses means a 24 hour safety window before assets needs to be evacuated after a wardec. With citadel's timer set for only one day this means jobs of 6 days duration can be set and completed safely (providing you use insta undocks, scouts, so on).

Anonymous said...

Some of the most tedious 'game play' I've had in Eve has been waiting around for other people to show up so I could do content with (for) them. (Grinding for standings.) Looking for group time is wasted time. Waiting around for people to deal with real life stuff is wasted time. Being obligated to work at the pace of others, to not take breaks when you want to is all irritating... And, worst of all, group content relies heavily on following a script usually developed by people on the no risk test server. There is no discovery, just mechanically following what someone else has determined to be best for the group. Ugh.

Group play has its place but, for a lot of people it is shit that they don't want to do or don't have the contiguous time blocks to do it in. They want to log in, have instant fun, make some progress and stop when they want to stop.

The more CCP has tried to force group play, the more their subscriber base has withered.

CCP has said that new player retention stats look something like this:
10% go to group play, stay for longer.
40% go to solo play, stay for shorter.
50% quit.

CCP's response was to try and force the 40% into the 10% by 'encouraging' group content (group content worth more than solo, new content is group content.) This has clearly failed.

Perhaps CCP should be making interesting, primarily solo, content for the 40% so they stick around longer and have more chances to form friendships.

Unknown said...

Just to note: Burner missions are mostly High Sec and increasingly group content.

Anonymous said...

> If they do it right, rookie and not fully fitted ships would not count for a kill mark.
Not fully fitted ships becoming new meta in 3...2...1...

> Citadels are a High to Null to WH addition, so there is that.
What's the point of having a citadel in hisec?

> Plus you get a couple new ships that can be used anywhere.
What's the point of any of those ships in hisec? They have no PvE value, and fleet maneuvers are not hisec business.

@Gevlon:
Thinking back about your pve corps suggestion I denied it because it could be used to make gankers un-wardec-able, which is obviously unacceptable. Tried to find a solution for the issue by placing restriction of being unable to set red safety in hisec while being in PvE corp in exchange for being non-wardec-able, but that breaks lowsec, where war dec is legit tool to avoid standings loss and chase people fleeing from confrontation into hisec, and obviously even people from PvE corps should be able to shoot back in lowsec. Got any new bright ideas honoring the ganking restriction for pve corps?