winter patch: Dominion

[IainC]

Clearly what seems to CCP sneaking in yet another nerf to mission rewards in Empire...

Could you list some of the other ones from recent patches please? I appear to be reading different release notes to you as the constant stream of nerfs to mission rewards seem to be missing from mine.

You're making up an argument that doesn't exist and then countering it with nonsense statements. Either you really are that stupid or you are trolling for some reason that I can't fathom.

[Reg]

Nobody is being forced to play the game in any way.  Nothing is being removed, banned or stopped.  Nothing is precluded.  Nothing is unavoidable.  Nothing is blocked, suspended or made unreachable nor obfuscated, hidden from use or otherwise made inaccessible.

Right. It only penalizes people you don't like. People you disapprove of.  The "lazy" people. The "anti-social" people. People who don't play the game exactly like you.

Could you list some of the other ones from recent patches please? I appear to be reading different release notes to you as the constant stream of nerfs to mission rewards seem to be missing from mine.

So an 11 percent tax isn't a mission nerf on your planet?  They just disguised it a little this time rather then directly lowering the payments the way they have before.

[IainC]

OK, you are that stupid. Let's get back to talking about the patch now that's been empirically proven.

[Nerf]

Reg, it's only 11% of like 20% of the income you get from missioning, maybe less.  Bonus' aren't taxed, loot/salvage isn't taxed, LP rewards aren't taxed (which make up the lions share of the reward).

It's more like a 2% tax.  *rage*

[Endie]

This injustice shall not stand. To the tea boxes.

[Brolan]

And to add to that, I really wonder how many people in NPC corps would have even noticed this change if ccp hadn't announced it.

Some of the members of CAS noticed while playing on the test server, before CCP made an announcement.   And ever since that all the corp chat has been about is this tax, to the point where I am sick of hearing about it.  They are filing petitions in protest and sending emails and letters. They are trying to organize a protest of some kind.  Anyone who thinks they are taking this lying down is dead wrong.

[Sparky]

And to add to that, I really wonder how many people in NPC corps would have even noticed this change if ccp hadn't announced it.

Some of the members of CAS noticed while playing on the test server, before CCP made an announcement.   And ever since that all the corp chat has been about is this tax, to the point where I am sick of hearing about it.  They are filing petitions in protest and sending emails and letters. They are trying to organize a protest of some kind.  Anyone who thinks they are taking this lying down is dead wrong.

Pfff... call me when they glue a bunch of teabags on a hat

[Slayerik]

Hey, I say keep all the people we can in empire. It just raises the chances of huge ganks.

DOWN WITH THE NERF!

[Endie]

And to add to that, I really wonder how many people in NPC corps would have even noticed this change if ccp hadn't announced it.

Some of the members of CAS noticed while playing on the test server, before CCP made an announcement.   And ever since that all the corp chat has been about is this tax, to the point where I am sick of hearing about it.  They are filing petitions in protest and sending emails and letters. They are trying to organize a protest of some kind.  Anyone who thinks they are taking this lying down is dead wrong.

Holy crap this sounds awesome.  I don't know whether to troll them into fury or to concern-troll them onto the barricades.  I think I'll log in two alts and have heated debates with myself in Caldari Navy corp chat.

[IainC]

And to add to that, I really wonder how many people in NPC corps would have even noticed this change if ccp hadn't announced it.

Some of the members of CAS noticed while playing on the test server, before CCP made an announcement.   And ever since that all the corp chat has been about is this tax, to the point where I am sick of hearing about it.  They are filing petitions in protest and sending emails and letters. They are trying to organize a protest of some kind.  Anyone who thinks they are taking this lying down is dead wrong.

Your first mistake is reading corp chat in an NPC corp. Schoolboy error. At least in mine (RUN) it's like Jita local without the poorly spelt scamming attempts.

[Reg]

Reg, it's only 11% of like 20% of the income you get from missioning, maybe less.  Bonus' aren't taxed, loot/salvage isn't taxed, LP rewards aren't taxed (which make up the lions share of the reward).

It's more like a 2% tax.  *rage*

Ha I know that. I've said it's not a huge deal and people aren't going to quit over it.  And it doesn't affect me. I don't run missions and I'm not in an NPC corp.

It'd just be nice if people were at least honest about the reasons for it. So far Simond is the only one who actually admits up front that it's just more of CCP trying to enforce their vision of how the game should be played.

CCP has said, since the year dot, that they want all people to eventually move out of empire and into low/nullsec. The whole "Sit in Empire running L4s for eternity" was a fuck-up they never intended to happen. Adding time-scaled drawback to people who refuse to take off the training wheels after a reasonable period seems like a logical way for them to follow this design.

So spare me the "risk versus reward" babble and the convoluted justifications. This quote above is what it's really about.

[IainC]

Except that even if they have said that, their actions have been opposite to that. There has been more mission content, more mission rewards and a constant improvement to PvE in pretty much every patch. CCP doesn't want people to stop running L4s and it's a pointless goal to aim for anyway. This change isn't about getting people to stop running L4s either despite Reg's rather incoherent claims to the contrary. It's about making mission runners choose between total safety and higher rewards just as in every other area of the game.

People chaining L4s all day aren't going to stop doing that because of a new corp tax, they're just going to have to decide whether it's worth it for them to keep on doing so inside the NPC corp.

[Endie]

It's all about risk vs reward, Reg.  Basically, you'll be able to buy immunity from wardecs at the low, low price of 11% tax.  That's a perfect example of the balancing of risk vs reward.

[Amarr HM]

One way of looking at it is "Mr mission runner" sitting in empire running level 4 missions on his own thinks to himself maybe I should join a player corporation, but no it's not attractive with their 5-10% tax rate so screw that. But now you have a situation where it actually makes sense for him to join a player corp even if only a small incentive. So he joins one with a 2% tax rate & a few weeks later they get wardecced and oh noes he loses his prized Raven, so he and his corpies all jump in ships and die miserably trying to get revenge but get a few kills and have a bit of fun along the way. All of a sudden the Mission runners realise that there's actually more to Eve than sitting there mindlessly running ill conceived missions and complaining about not enough content.
tldr;

In a nutshell no we shouldn't care about the lonely mission runner in Empire being a stuck in the mud.

[Reg]

In other words, the change is just fine because it's designed to encourage people to play more like you do.  I'm glad we're clear on that.

[Endie]

In other words, the change is just fine because it's designed to encourage people to play more like you do.  I'm glad we're clear on that.

It's all about risk vs reward, Reg.  Basically, you'll be able to buy immunity from wardecs at the low, low price of 11% tax.  That's a perfect example of the balancing of risk vs reward.

Do you feel that some areas of Eve should be essentially risk-free without any associated cost?  That's the real question, not forcing playstyles on people.  As I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, nobody is being forced into any playstyle.  They're just paying protection money, essentially.

[Sparky]

In other words, the change is just fine because it's designed to encourage people to play more like you do.  I'm glad we're clear on that.

Do you rant at Blizzard because eventually you're forced out of Goldshire when all the mobs go gray?

[Phred]

Reg, it's only 11% of like 20% of the income you get from missioning, maybe less.  Bonus' aren't taxed, loot/salvage isn't taxed, LP rewards aren't taxed (which make up the lions share of the reward).

It's more like a 2% tax.  *rage*

Actually, someone on scrapheap said bonuses are taxed too now.

[Reg]

Do you rant at Blizzard because eventually you're forced out of Goldshire when all the mobs go gray?

Why would I do that?

Oh wait, I see. The 90 percent of the playerbase who happily play their game mining and mission running in Empire are just hanging out in the level 1 tutorial area.  They must at all costs be encouraged to play exactly the way you do. Because... oh never mind, obviously I'll never understand. I'm sure you all have very good reasons though to be so annoyed that people you don't know and have no contact with are enjoying the game in a way that you don't. It must be spoiling your fun somehow.

Do you feel that some areas of Eve should be essentially risk-free without any associated cost?  That's the real question, not forcing playstyles on people.  As I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, nobody is being forced into any playstyle.  They're just paying protection money, essentially.

Tell me more about the enormous risks you incur as you collect datacores every month from your 900 alt characters to be sold in Jita.

If you guys can't see that the real problem is that there aren't enough interesting ways to make isk in 0.0 then I really can't think of anything else to say to you.  This is me exiting the thread.

[tgr]

In other words, the change is just fine because it's designed to encourage people to play more like you do.  I'm glad we're clear on that.

I'm going to point out the usage of the word "encourage".

Is encouragement bad now as well? I thought it was just bad if the players were *forced*.

[Amarr HM]

Tell me more about the enormous risks you incur as you collect datacores every month from your 900 alt characters to be sold in Jita....

Uh suicide gankers? Your argument is ridiculous sitting in empire running level 4 missions in a corp to avoid the 11% tax rate is the complete antithesis to my and most peoples playstyle here. If CCP were to force our playstyles on them then they would need to remove Empire and level 4 missions altogether.

[tmp]

Do you feel that some areas of Eve should be essentially risk-free without any associated cost?

I'd say given how the game has panned out over the years, there is clearly a demand for this option from the current playerbase. Whether the game can afford messing with that part of its subscribers remains to be seen.

[Endie]

Tell me more about the enormous risks you incur as you collect datacores every month from your 900 alt characters to be sold in Jita.

If you guys can't see that the real problem is that there aren't enough interesting ways to make isk in 0.0 then I really can't think of anything else to say to you.  This is me exiting the thread.

Actually, the six-monthly-to-annual datacore runs, which require me to traverse lowsec and which I do in a combination of inties (the riskier bits) and a supertanked drake (the highsec bits), neber done afk, are just about the most worrying parts of my Eve year.  Amarr describes why.

And we get that there aren't enough interesting/lucrative ways to make money in 0.0.  This move is probably (in part at least) a cack-handed attempt to find a money-sink in order to avoid the inflationary aspects of more lucrative 0.0 space with Dominon's yet-to-be-announced shift in money-making to the alliance member.  Cack-handed because it will affect so very few people.

[Amarr HM]

I will say one thing, there should be a provision that it doesn't effect people on trial accounts.

[Skullface]

Why would I do that?

Oh wait, I see. The 90 percent of the playerbase who happily play their game mining and mission running in Empire are just hanging out in the level 1 tutorial area.  They must at all costs be encouraged to play exactly the way you do. Because... oh never mind, obviously I'll never understand. I'm sure you all have very good reasons though to be so annoyed that people you don't know and have no contact with are enjoying the game in a way that you don't. It must be spoiling your fun somehow.

Internet Spaceships, man.

[Gets]

There will be, Amarr. The tax affects macro-ratters more than anything else, but if you go back to looking at it as a change to achieve a design goal, then it's understandable. Not a long time ago they sent out a study to their players, in multiple languages (I got one in Russian  ) looking for trends and gathering statistical analysis. Burning out after doing a million missions after decking your CNR out with Navy mods is probably quite high up there. It's essentially about socialization and the things that makes EvE, EvE. Making new friends versus dieing alone in an NPC corp and moving more towards "emergent" gameplay (stuff that gets EvE in the news from my point of view) rather than scripted (spoon-fed) gameplay.

Tidbits of information that might widen the thread back up a bit:

*Titans seem to be worth three and a bit sieged dreadnoughts in raw firepower, plus the Yamato gun.

*There will be more emphasis on coalition warfare, having allies you can count on, especially ones that are more local and you can count on. No more roadtrips?

*No Sov4, no invulnerable CSAAs.

*Two new career paths for newbies - Exploration and Advanced Warfare. The first one is self-explanatory, but the other one is very interesting. Advanced Combat will be centered around tackling, webbing, ewar and all which deals with PvP, including getting used to the very realistic aspect of blowing up.

*Sov warfare more "cerebreal". Wondering where they dig up that concept since everyone on eve-o thinks with their ass.

"Sov system has grown in an ad hoc manner without a coherent vision. It has reached an evolutionary dead end. Needs to be much more flexible and easier to balance, with the ability to iterate on it."

*Creating the capacity and evolving activities for player owned space. Complex spawning, better belts and overall risk vs. reward. Not having "ghost town" systems. Agents in Outposts a possibility, but not in Dominion.

*Fleet finder - an overview to see fleets. Capable of being open to new players, but closed and directed for the older players.

*Social networking... in EvE aka Cosmos. My own personal "Wishlist" of in-game items and adding all of you spies to my list of space friends. Getting smacktalk on my own Wall. The joy.

*Time-trial missions. Pirate faction L3s.

*Trusted websites having access to player data (skills, location, etc) using the new IGB.

*Planetary exploration after planetary graphics.

"People will cry and it will be awesome."

Other stuff:

*Walking in station renamed from "Ambulation" to "Incarna"

*Full-on reveal of Dust 514 at Fanfest 09'

*Second EvE novel coming out in a few months.

[palmer_eldritch]

I don't think an 11% tax rate on newbie corps is going to fix any problems re 0.0 vs Empire, and I'd be surprised if CCP thinks it will. As Reg said, the answer there is to upgrade 0.0 which, touch wood, is what will happen.

But a tax on newbie corps does make sense when you consider the pros and cons of newbie vs player corps in empire. A life of safety should cost a little more, not less, than life in a corp that can be wardecced.

It would really make sense if newbie corps had a tax rate of 20%, so that there was a clear financial benefit to moving to a player corp as well as the potential financial penalty of getting your ship blown up.  But this is one of those things that I suspect you really want to introduce on launch day or not at all.  

[Kamen]

CCP has said, since the year dot, that they want all people to eventually move out of empire and into low/nullsec. The whole "Sit in Empire running L4s for eternity" was a fuck-up they never intended to happen.

I realize that it's easy for me to dev bash, but it sure seems like the guys making design decisions at CCP are totally clueless about how their players actually play the game (and basic human psychology for that matter).  These sort of "gee, we didn't expect that!" moments seem all to common over my years in Eve.  Don't they have people giving them insight from a carebear perspective?  Analyst/testers who can think deviously and figure out problems (and how to game) their proposed design changes?

Anyway, their desire to herd the carebears to 0.0 seems laughable to me.  Not sure if I can even believe they're dumb enough to think they should be trying to do that as it is doomed to failure.    There are a lot of people who have seen the 0.0 end game, left, and resumed doing things they enjoyed doing more in empire.  There are others who are chicken shits and will never try it.  There are also some who may try it someday but are having fun in high sec TYVM.

And what's wrong with that?

[IainC]

There's nothing wrong with that which is one of the reasons why I don't place any credence in statements like "CCP wants to move all of its players to 0.0". They may want to incentivise 0.0 more or have a better transition between Empire living and moving to 0.0 but I very much doubt that they have ever stated or intended that Empire should be a wasteland populated only by noobs on trial accounts.

[MahrinSkel]

Eve's problem has always been that you have to search for your fun, or go out and make it.  The tutorial does a minimal job of preparing you for a career as a mission-grinder or single-box solo miner, but after that you're on your own.  If you aren't able to enjoy those gamestyles, or you aren't the sort of person that will go out and play in the sandbox long enough to find where it's fun for you, you're not going to last long:



The last two years-plus of development focus by CCP has been about easing that transition from "lead me by the hand to the fun parts" to making your own way through an incredibly complex gameworld, finding your own fun along the way.  And the deepest and most complex part is 0.0.  For *5* years, they've been trying to get to a point where the servers could handle the battles to really resolve 0.0 conflicts by means other than manipulation of lag, and they've finally gotten there.  So now, it's finally time to see what else can happen, what else the players can do with the sandbox.

Empire is, will be, and *should* be nothing more than training wheels.  It's just taken a really long time to get to a point where "taking the wheels off" (deliberately leading players towards 0.0 play) was anything but a recipe for disaster.

--Dave

[Amarr HM]

Anyway, their desire to herd the carebears to 0.0 seems laughable to me.  Not sure if I can even believe they're dumb enough to think they should be trying to do that as it is doomed to failure.    There are a lot of people who have seen the 0.0 end game, left, and resumed doing things they enjoyed doing more in empire.  There are others who are chicken shits and will never try it.  There are also some who may try it someday but are having fun in high sec TYVM.

And what's wrong with that?

Bit of an overreaction there don't ya think? It's merely an 11% tax on players/macros sitting in NPC corps. All this equates to is a gentle nudge in the direction of setting up or joining or corp. As far as I'm aware joining a corp does not mean carebears have to pack their trunks and say goodbye to the circus, I don't get where all this "forcing into 0.0" bollox stems from, at least in relation to the introduction of NPC tax. Sounds like the Eve-o whine is spilling over to f13 it's not a pretty sight.

edit: toned down the flamebait at the end

[Kamen]

Easy big fella :D

I was only responding in Simon's comment "CCP has said, since the year dot, that they want all people to eventually move out of empire and into low/nullsec."

I was only saying that if that's true, it's stupid.

[Skullface]

Eve's problem has always been that you have to search for your fun, or go out and make it.  The tutorial does a minimal job of preparing you for a career as a mission-grinder or single-box solo miner, but after that you're on your own.  If you aren't able to enjoy those gamestyles, or you aren't the sort of person that will go out and play in the sandbox long enough to find where it's fun for you, you're not going to last long:



The last two years-plus of development focus by CCP has been about easing that transition from "lead me by the hand to the fun parts" to making your own way through an incredibly complex gameworld, finding your own fun along the way.  And the deepest and most complex part is 0.0.  For *5* years, they've been trying to get to a point where the servers could handle the battles to really resolve 0.0 conflicts by means other than manipulation of lag, and they've finally gotten there.  So now, it's finally time to see what else can happen, what else the players can do with the sandbox.

Empire is, will be, and *should* be nothing more than training wheels.  It's just taken a really long time to get to a point where "taking the wheels off" (deliberately leading players towards 0.0 play) was anything but a recipe for disaster.

--Dave

So, what you're saying is constantly funneling thousands of players into a contained area for a climactic battle woul deventually cause problems, and that CCP was simply biding their time before people thought the game was broken?

Where were you when WAR was being put together?

[Amarr HM]

Easy big fella :D

I was only responding in Simon's comment "CCP has said, since the year dot, that they want all people to eventually move out of empire and into low/nullsec."

I was only saying that if that's true, it's stupid.

The relationship between 0.0 and the 11% NPC tax is slightly offset, in fact it's pretty much a soft sell as most players will just setup Empire corps and continue doing what they were doing. I don't agree at all with Simonds comment about CCP wanting everyone to move out of Empire I think they realise this isn't possible and would be quite happy if they could double the current habitation of 0.0, I'm sure right now they have some target in mind.

A snapshot of the status on October 19th, 2007 was used to find out which ship players happen to be in at downtime. We found that 78% of all characters were located in high security areas (security status at 0.5 or higher), 13% were located in low security areas, and 9% were in 0.0 at the time the snapshot was taken. So, the majority were flying in high sec. But what were they flying then?

EDIT: Source

When you consider there are as many or more systems in 0.0 than in Empire & Nullsec combined you can understand CCPs' concern with the underpopulation of this area of the Eve universe.

[MahrinSkel]

So, what you're saying is constantly funneling thousands of players into a contained area for a climactic battle woul deventually cause problems, and that CCP was simply biding their time before people thought the game was broken?

Where were you when WAR was being put together?

Long since fired from Mythic, for saying that the way things were being designed wasn't going work in a PvP game.  I'm sure that the later design-created PvP issues faced by Mythic products had nothing at all to do with the specific questions that were the source of conflict at the time.

Anyway, those that participated in major 0.0 battles had no doubts at all that CCP's game was broken most of the last 6 years, they just found the non-broken parts to still be enough fun to make up for it.  Or they went back to Empire to run missions, or quit entirely.

--Dave