Supercapitals, Ponies and Rainbows.

[Sir T]

And the supers that were in system were Ex Bob who expertly pulled what is technically called the BOB Maneuver (run away while their allies get murdered)

[Kageru]

And the victory mostly depended on the enemy deciding there was someone else who needed a kicking more or was easier to drop super-caps on. With the resources available to them their losses were readily replaceable and dropping super-caps on non-core systems would have been successful at nibbling away at goon space.

[Count Nerfedalot]

Re the original thread topic: 

Call me a cynical, jaded, untrusting bastard, or just another wacky conspiracy theorist, but I find it VERY hard to believe that any "fix" for the supercapital problem that CCP has in mind will bear any resemblance to any of the reasonable ideas or expectations aired in this thread.  Nevermind the colossal incompetence they have demonstrated with almost every design decision or implementation they have made in the past.  The real problem is that too many folks at CCP play the game and enjoy their perks as members of the good ole boys club.  That club is still butthurt from their humiliation at the hands of the goons who not only spanked them with superior tactics, organization, intelligence and enthusiasm, but had the gall to do it with cheap ships and newbie pilots who most definitely were not and never will be welcome as equals to the "elite" long-timers.  The insult to the egos of the self-identified privileged elites is not something very many humans have the moral fortitude to overcome.  Even if their official policy and logical business model dictates that they not pander to the privileged, their personal identification with the ranks and perks of the privileged seems too ingrained to completely suppress, even if they were to honestly attempt to do so.

I suspect a significant proportion of CPP that actively plays the game thinks it is wrong for a bunch of goons noobs to be able to trounce old-timers flying advanced ships most of the "noobs" can't even dream of flying.  They like the fact that an established power full of long-time players can achieve near-invulnerability to a pack of newcomers, no matter how many people the newcomers can bring or how good their tactics are.  The fact that the goons were able to not only fend off BoB but looked likely to outright win against them even before their alliance was crippled from within was a morally reprehensible state of affairs that literally hurt it seemed so unfair.  They may not admit (or even believe) that this elitism is at the root of their design decisions, they may whitewash those decisions with claims of impartiality or platitudes like "rewarding their most loyal customers", but strip away all the bs and at the core it is going to be incredibly difficult for them to separate their selfish interests and belief in their entitlement to privildge sufficiently to make a truly rational decision on this.  They are just too personally invested in the outcome to be impartial about it.

I will be astounded if whatever "fix" does finally come actually fixes anything, at least the first time around, and totally flabbergasted if it in any way makes established powers once again vulnerable to newcomers like they were before supercaps were added.  The only chance of the latter happening is if enough of the top decision makers actually believe the threat of thousands of goons and other relative newcomers permanently leaving the game is a real and imminent threat if they don't, and even then the odds of them getting it right are slim given their record.

[Kageru]

I don't think you are in a minority position here. The only hope is that CCP will realise that an inflow of noobs is what keeps null-sec going. Making it the playground of super-capital heavy super-powers is death to their game long-term. But they are still distracted, under-resourced (in terms of Eve) and have no easy way to make a 20 or 80 billion Isk ship worth that money without being over-powered when massed.

It is a fascinating design challenge though which I think is why there is the discussion. Rather than any belief CCP will do something sane.

[ajax34i]

Actually, I don't think they're going to magically gain expertise and coding talent, but I do believe that they are being forced out of the good ole boys club by their financial situation and the fact that some sort of suit will take control of CCP to fix the company, so it will no longer be a dev play sandbox.

[Amaron]

Whatever effects they hope to achieve will be grossly distorted through the lens of their incompetence.   At least there is a chance they'll nerf them in a useful way on accident.

[Count Nerfedalot]

So, what might be some of the more interesting consequences if CCP bungles this "fix"?  It seems to me like The Mittani has made himself remarkably vulnerable on this with his two-step of "fix it or the goons quit" then "it's cool, CCP has our backs".  If CCP screws the pooch as expected his reputation takes a body blow.  He's proven quite adept at the metagame (players vs players), but I don't understand what he could possibly hope to have gained by playing the meta-metagame (players vs devs) this way.

[JWIV]

So, what might be some of the more interesting consequences if CCP bungles this "fix"?  It seems to me like The Mittani has made himself remarkably vulnerable on this with his two-step of "fix it or the goons quit" then "it's cool, CCP has our backs".  If CCP screws the pooch as expected his reputation takes a body blow.  He's proven quite adept at the metagame (players vs players), but I don't understand what he could possibly hope to have gained by playing the meta-metagame (players vs devs) this way.

Vulnerable to whom?  Pubbies already hate Mittens anyhow because he's in a null-sec corp, so who cares?

[Kageru]

Super-capitals are pretty much a null-sec concern only so by and large the pubbies have no reason to care. However in terms of the null-sec game there are basically three power-blocs and one of them has a clear super-cap superiority and the resources to extend that lead. So CCP's balancing will determine how null-sec evolves. Both for the existing powers and any new groups trying to establish themselves.

That said I don't think they'll nerf super-caps nearly hard enough to change the current balance of power.

[eldaec]

So, what might be some of the more interesting consequences if CCP bungles this "fix"?  It seems to me like The Mittani has made himself remarkably vulnerable on this with his two-step of "fix it or the goons quit" then "it's cool, CCP has our backs".  If CCP screws the pooch as expected his reputation takes a body blow.  He's proven quite adept at the metagame (players vs players), but I don't understand what he could possibly hope to have gained by playing the meta-metagame (players vs devs) this way.

I really think you're misunderstanding the source of political power of faux intellectual forum posters in goonswarm.

[Sir T]

The [roblem with a "fix" is that the consequences of the original bungle are still there. The NC is gone for example. All those Supercaps won't just vanish. This isn't as simple as a WOW expansion where "green pokadot gear" makes the previous "pink stripe gear" obsolete and everyone is on the same level again.

I believe the T3 ships were an attempt to make a new level and to make t2 ships and stuff obsolete and put everyone on a closer level, but they were tied to the Wormholes which meant that supply was a serious problem, and they wound up being yet another rich players toy. Not to say that Wormholes were not a good addition by themselves, they were, but tying the level playing field to wormholes was stupid.

And this leads to another problem. People say "Oh a supercap casts 30 billion" but thats just half the story. the fact is the amount of labour that's involved in getting the material to make one is vast. Frankly I doubt they would even be in the game without macromining and the levels of material that you can get in the drone regions. That's another thing the killing of the jump bridge networks is going to affect btw, the ease of getting material out to your manufacturing sites in 0.0, so its going to be harder to build them from now on. Which means less will be built in the future, so the people with the advantage in supercap numbers will keep that advantage.

Frankly My solutions would be CCP breaking out the Jovians blowing up every one of them, but the second they started that all the supercap pilots would log off till CCP got bored.

Super-capitals are pretty much a null-sec concern only so by and large the pubbies have no reason to care.

Not entirely. Supers can operate in low sec where there are no Bubbles. Hell people used to camp gagtes in invulnerable motherships till heavy Interdictors came out, and then Supers vanished. I think its only boredom thats keeping people from operating in low sec. I dont knjow of Titans can DD in low sec, but Bombers should work and fighters definatly do.

[Stabs]

Amend Supercap high slots to only fit strip miners primed with Veldspar crystals.

That solves the problem of not enough people in nullsec mining Veld at the same time as redressing the military balance problems.

Pass me a stone, for I am death unto birds.

[Fordel]

Low sec is the same thing as Null Sec as far as everyone who lives in high sec knows or cares.

[Sir T]

Might as well be yeah.

[Kageru]

As far as I can see (and I still count as a noob) low-sec is pretty much a wilderness. So while you can hot-drop a swarm of super-carriers (titan DD's do not work) into low-sec it doesn't really change much from dropping a couple of hundred battleships or T3's. There's either nothing there to deserve it or the target flies or dies.

Low-sec and faction warfare not being an approachable feeder into null-sec is another example of CCP's poor grasp of game design and lack of effort.

[Amaron]

  If CCP screws the pooch as expected his reputation takes a body blow. 

Why?  If they don't fix it then he should tell Goons to quit.  It's not his fault if CCP fucks up as usual.   That personally seems like the best possible outcome to me.   People not quitting enough is the biggest problem.

[Brolan]

  If CCP screws the pooch as expected his reputation takes a body blow. 

Why?  If they don't fix it then he should tell Goons to quit.  It's not his fault if CCP fucks up as usual.   That personally seems like the best possible outcome to me.   People not quitting enough is the biggest problem.

But they never learn.  I mean, look at Everquest.  WoW kicked it's ass and it pretty much died, but you still have people like Brad McQuaid thinking he still needs to make a game grindy to be successful.

[Sir T]

WOW isn't grindy? 

[Surlyboi]

Wouldn't know, never played it for more than 20 minutes.

[Comstar]

EVENEWS24 reports...well not much new really.

CCP Soundwave did say Gallente would be looked at neat year, and we can expect the supercap nurf in the next 3 months (no change there).

Also, he wants to nurf/destroy Datacores. I should get around to collecting and selling mine, they've dropped in worth a lot recently.

[Simond]

WOW isn't grindy? 

Compared to any prior diku?
No.
No, it isn't.

[Brolan]

EVENEWS24 reports...well not much new really.

CCP Soundwave did say Gallente would be looked at neat year, and we can expect the supercap nurf in the next 3 months (no change there).

Also, he wants to nurf/destroy Datacores. I should get around to collecting and selling mine, they've dropped in worth a lot recently.

Did they mention what they would use for Invention if they get rid of datacores?

[Amaron]

WOW isn't grindy? 

One to max level in WoW is literally about the same as two hell levels in original EQ.

[Pezzle]

Yeah and grinding all that stupid faction in WoW took forever.  While much of that is optional I think it is unfair to suggest WoW has substantially less grind.  They simply shuffled it around.  This may have changed somewhat since I quit years ago but having seen a friend playing recently it is most certainly still there. 

[Kageru]

Pretty much all MMO's are going to have an element of grind. Virtually inevitable with a game expected to support so many hours of play. The grind was shorter and better concealed in original wow. Not that I'm sure what that has to do with EVe though.

[DLRiley]

Guild Wars

[Nevermore]

Guild Wars

Had some soul crushing faction and title grinds.

[Ingmar]

Guild Wars

Had some soul crushing faction and title grinds.

Not to mention the entire storyline of Prophecies!

[DLRiley]

Guild Wars

Had some soul crushing faction and title grinds.

Not to mention the entire storyline of Prophecies!

I don't remember being an r5glad giving me +1000 health.

[Stabs]

EVENEWS24 reports...well not much new really.

CCP Soundwave did say Gallente would be looked at neat year, and we can expect the supercap nurf in the next 3 months (no change there).

Also, he wants to nurf/destroy Datacores. I should get around to collecting and selling mine, they've dropped in worth a lot recently.

Did they mention what they would use for Invention if they get rid of datacores?

I'm a bit nervous about this. Datacores are the cornerstone of my play for free strategy. Then again that may be why they're nerfing them.

I doubt they will leave people completely high and dry. As in the skills being useless. They may do what they did with PI. The change there for people who missed it was that the resource spawns move around a lot more often. Every now and then you have to move your extractors. The sweeteners were that they reduced clicking and raised overall output.

I imagine with datacores they might tie it in to the missions. Something like you get 2.5 times the research points as long as you do the mission each day. Since the missions are Hand The Guy Some Trit or level 1 Courier runs that wouldn't be too onerous but of course a shock to people who hope for completely passive income.