More Meat on the Bones: the next "Big Direction" devblog

[Endie]

Following the last devblog, which was all about broad strategy, a new one is up concerning the more specific operational design goals for the upcoming nullsec rebalancing, content changes and so on.  It's huge and very different in places.  There are bits that I think are over-ambitious but in general I like it.

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=946

It's a really good set of high-level design specs and I think shows that Stoffer is a good influence.  I really like the idea that small gangs can do stuff on roams but that the amount that can be done is balanced, since the real pain for us on our roams is often goading people into actually reacting.  I also love the fact that they are finally looking at how to make nullsec more accessible for the little guys.

(yes I posted this in the wrong forum at first).

[Stabs]

Can we mine Veldspar?

[Endie]

I would be unsurprised if veldspar, scordite etc were minable from planets in nullsec at some point.

[tgr]

Make the low-ends a planetary mineral and the highends an asteroid mineral?

Would possibly make mining via a barge viable, even if it'd still be boring as fuck.

[Endie]

From reading that, I imagine that the drone regions as a source of high ends is going to get hammered as well.

[Simond]

So have the highsec crowd started shitting the bed about "how unfair this all is" yet?

[tgr]

They haven't talked about nerfing missions, so why would they worry?

[UnsGub]

I like what they wrote.

I have no idea what actually needs to be changed in game to make it so and I suspect they do not also.

Content changes are cheapest.

System changes get expensive.

Content and system changes really expensive.

New content and systems are years away.

[Nevermore]

It's nice that they have a good roadmap, but somewhere along the way they will :CCP: it.

[Sir T]

CCp have good concept blogs but it always turns into shit implementation. really the whole system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up

[Endie]

That's not how MMO development works, even if it were true.  Which it isn't: they have a shitload of development assets on their balance sheet that they can't just throw away because they'd do it differently next time.  They've got an iterative development process going which in the cases where refactoring has already occurred, such as fleet lag, the results have been huge.

Folks who play the game have seen this: we're back to excellent performance in 1500+ person fights, for instance.  Even on unreinforced nodes, in hot drops and ambushes, we've been having 700-person fights (like in Y2-ANO this week) with virtually no lag.

There are plenty of other major systems which have gone from dev blog to successful implementation: wormholes are a classic example.  Yes, they also implement some terrible decisions, such as the supercap nerf or the dominion sov system.  But the fact is that the game is hella fun right now for those of us who are playing, so clearly not everything in the design is wrong.

[Stabs]

They haven't talked about nerfing missions, so why would they worry?

They have.

Best agents

    * For further discussion. The best agents in the game should all be in nullsec, in keeping with the "richest area in the game" theme. There should be a clear margin of value for nullsec agents that acts as an enticement for mission runners to move there.

That would certainly seem to mean level 5s. It could possibly mean level 4s and 5s. Now the 5s are in low sec and they're not run much but the high sec level 4s are a huge conduit of isk and LP at very little risk. If they just moved the 5s it wouldn't really be a change - some agents no one gives a shit about get moved to somewhere else where no one will give a shit about them still - big deal. If this bullet point is to have any impact on the game they need to move 4s, that's the only thing that would get high sec mission runners thinking about moving to nullsec.

Another thing is that generally, this devblog seems to inject a lot of reward into the system. But Eve basically doesn't work that way, it tries quite hard to avoid mudflation. (Eg the stabilising of the plex after it spiked over 400m in May). So I think that beneath the obvious is some kind of major nerf to someone's income (probably in high sec) to balance the numerous ways in which these changes will increase nullsec income.

[Stabs]

But the fact is that the game is hella fun right now for those of us who are playing, so clearly not everything in the design is wrong.

I'd very much like to second this. "Eve is a terrible game" has become something of a mindless meme. It's a complex simulation with something for everyone to dislike about it but that's the price of complexity.

[Fordel]

Mission runners would just run 3's or quit flat out. No one is going to risk their pimped out mission ship in low/null sec.

[Brolan]

Mission runners would just run 3's or quit flat out. No one is going to risk their pimped out mission ship in low/null sec.

QFT.

[Kageru]

Yes. And it's the wrong incentive. The question should be why is low-sec a barren wasteland that the vast majority avoid when it should be a training ground for PvP and small corporations flexing their wings.

And the reason is because CCP really are bad at game design and Eve is a terrible, but unique at times epic, game. There is so much that could be done to give the game better balance, incentives and non ball-busting gameplay but CCP are largely asleep at the wheel. I mean really the fact they're only just filling white-boards with basic design goals for Eve should beg the question of what they were working off before.

[Morat20]

Yes. And it's the wrong incentive. The question should be why is low-sec a barren wasteland that the vast majority avoid when it should be a training ground for PvP and small corporations flexing their wings.

And the reason is because CCP really are bad at game design and Eve is a terrible, but unique at times epic, game. There is so much that could be done to give the game better balance, incentives and non ball-busting gameplay but CCP are largely asleep at the wheel. I mean really the fact they're only just filling white-boards with basic design goals for Eve should beg the question of what they were working off before.

Other white boards filled with basic design goals?

[Lantyssa]

Mission runners would just run 3's or quit flat out. No one is going to risk their pimped out mission ship in low/null sec.

Yep.  As it is I've moved away from my home system to a different L4 agent since half of mine were sending me into low sec.  I don't mind poking my head in there if there's a good reason, but I'm not risking my battleship to a gate camp.

[Stabs]

OK. How do you think CCP is going to implement "the best agents in the game should all be in nullsec"?

[tgr]

Personally I'd assume they'd make the nullsec agents better than the hisec ones, rather than nerf the hisec ones.

[Fordel]

OK. How do you think CCP is going to implement "the best agents in the game should all be in nullsec"?

They could make nullsec agents shit out titans after every mission and it still wouldn't shift the population anywhere. The people who like to run missions are not the kind of people to enjoy low/null space. Mission runners are NOT about risk and reward, they are about efficiency and sustainability.

They'll be big fat sheep and they know it, so they stay where its safe, or they'll fuck off to another game all together.

[Sir T]

Ok, serious question. What ideas would people have fof low sec to make it viable and still a "training ground" for PVP, rather than being in many ways MORE dangerous than null sec?

[Lantyssa]

Have Concord at the gates.  They won't patrol the whole sector, but if you shoot someone within a few hundred kilometers of the gates they will come smack you.  Maybe within range of any stations, too.

That way it's between high sec and null sec, with the most important spots unable to be camped.  Miners would still be a big target.  People doing PI would be a target.  Just trying to enter the system, would not make one as big a target.  (Jita is still dangerous after all.)

[Phildo]

Null sec agents already are better than hi-sec agents because you can use them to shit out faction implants.  And the reason newbies don't go into lowsec to PvP is because their t1 cruiser or frigate will die in seconds to gate sentries.  It's harder to PvP in lowsec than 0.0 because of that, and the security status hit you take making it eventually impossible for you to go back to empire without grinding NPCs.

[ajax34i]

OK. How do you think CCP is going to implement "the best agents in the game should all be in nullsec"?

They will have level 1 and level 2 agents in high sec, level 3 in lowsec, and level 4 and 5 in nullsec.

Sounds like EVE is fun again because you guys are making it so.  "No lag" is awesome, and really all they need to do is do that and then let the players have at it unhindered.  Problem is, lag is brought back with every single patch, so they are conditioning their playerbase to hate patches and gradually like the time between the patches, which is probably not going to be good for their bottom line.

I unsubscribed because I didn't want to download 700MB of a room; I was just training skills otherwise.  Playing X3TC.  Not really seeing any other MMO I'd be interested in, right now.  And as far as single player games, I wait until there are lots of positive reviews, and details about how bad the DRM is, before I buy.

EDIT:  As far as lowsec PVP, the rules about when one can attack and sec. loss and all that are too complicated.  And, carebear ships are too weak (haulers for example) defense-wise to venture into any kind of PVP.  Personally I think that people would feel much more confident about their survival chances if they're behind a battleship-sized tank, even if their chances of dying are as bad as now.

[Nevermore]

OK. How do you think CCP is going to implement "the best agents in the game should all be in nullsec"?

They will have level 1 and level 2 agents in high sec, level 3 in lowsec, and level 4 and 5 in nullsec.

I can think of few things that would drive away more subs in one fell swoop than that.

[Morat20]

I can think of few things that would drive away more subs in one fell swoop than that.

I think CCP grasps that. They seem to be trying more for the carrot than the stick, but given their other problem is they don't want anyone to "win" 0.0 space and turn it into, effectively, another Empire...

[ajax34i]

I think that they may grasp that, but given the financial pressures of developing 2 games at the same time and today's economic pressures, who knows what will happen.  I also think that they, just like we, don't really agree on what can be done to "fix" whatever each issue is.  So, we'll see.

[Kageru]

They could reduce the effect of gate camps either by having more entries between high -> low -> null to avoid the chokepoints. Or some way of telling if the other side of the gate has 5 bored people circling it and waiting for your slow aligning ship capable of doing a L4 or L5. They could leave L4's in empire and have a "mini-sov" system where you take NPC contracts to secure a system or constellation, take an automated tithe from those ratting under your protection (and learning how to defend themselves) and fight off other groups wanting both of those. Tie it into faction war as well and have the missions designed around PvP kills and proving you hold the space rather than killing NPC rats. They could finish the treaty system they mumbled about so that "soft" alliances could be formed between nascent groups.

There is no shortage of mechanics that could be placed onto the largely empty canvas that is Eve. But as long as it's in the hands of CCP nothing is going to happen till Dust launches and their solutions tend to be simplistic, dull and confuse good PvP with players ganking one another.

[Setanta]

Have CCP even thought that a 100% revamp of faction warfare in lowsec might be a step in the right direction? Better rewards, better mechanics, better implementation?

[Kageru]

CCP are pretty much diverting 100% of their budget and focus into Dust. They have a couple of small teams still working on Eve, one group making grand plans they don't have the resources to do and the other trying to fix the lag they created several expansions back (and package Eve-code for re-use I suspect), but they're unlikely to do anything dramatic in the near term. They don't even seem to be able to put out dev blogs at the moment.

They didn't even show up at the Faction War round table at their own convention   

[MahrinSkel]

For what it's worth, they at least seem to have some good minds on Eve, unlike the usual situation where everyone with talent goes to the new projects.  But it remains to be seen if they can keep them focused, and put enough resources behind them to keep Eve moving forward.

I like what I see, both on that board and in the explanations of what they mean in detail.  That's a big step up on the last couple of years when they really seemed to be flailing randomly, design-wise.

--Dave

[Stabs]

CCP are pretty much diverting 100% of their budget and focus into Dust.

Bullshit. If you honestly think no one at CCP is working on or cares about Eve and that it's a terrible game just go play something else.

Besides Dust is Eve in a sense. The future holds one virtual world played via two different pieces of software. To a player the virtual world is the game not the box it came in.

[tgr]

They've got 400+ employees. How many of those are working on EVE?

[ajax34i]

You can't do that, because 400+ employees include the tech support, datacenter admins, and upper management, and all of these people are working on EVE because it's in the same center and on the same hardware as their other games.

Anyway, "completely revamp x" isn't a guarantee that whatever they come up with is any good, and that's the problem - do you take the crap you're given now, or do you wait through lag and bugs to see if the new stuff they give is crap (which it will be)?