Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Being Reasonable: Followup

Yesterday's post generated a lot of comments and since my blog has shitty commenting I figured I'd just do it here.
S.W. said...
I've seen the number for sanctums at around 75 million an hour, and in the threadnaught someone posted that they are making 100 million an hour. I think the real concern is that nobody has provided real data, neither CCP nor the legions of tearful sanctum pilots in the forum. I feel like I need to go run some nullsec anomalies (but not Sanctums or Havens) to see what the isk/hr rate is on them, to get a real feel for what these changes mean

I too would like to see real data.
Also wonder if the baseline is what the average income is for L4s in Hisec. What's that number nowadays?
The most common number I hear banded around is 10-20 million ISK per hour, not sure if that is with
looting/salvaging or not. Assume pros can get more.
Gar said...
I think the idea is to create areas that are more "valuable" than others. Having a dynamic system in which any area can be upgrade means no one has to fight for the space. They can simply put up their TCU's and start upgrading the system.

Wouldnt these changes bring in a larger need for alliances to fight for more valuable property?

Typically alliance income comes from membership dues and moon goo, while anoms and ratting are personal pilot income. So I think its unlikely an alliance would choose to fight over better ratting space but I'm not sure. I'm all for having "lumpy" space values and reasons to pick system A over system B to claim, I question if hitting the regular grunts is the best way to do it.

Agent said...
Whether a player can make 100mil vs 25mil an hour in a sanctum will have no impact the population in nullsec. Isn't it more likely that CCP's goal has nothing to do with population control, but rather with the ease of vastly concentrating ISK? Put another way, should EVE's 360,000 players have 20,000 who can afford super-capitals or should it only be 1,000? Should super-capitals be personal toys or something an entire alliance needs to scrape together?
Of all the arguments I've heard for nerfing anoms in null sec the issue of ISK inflation is the strongest one. However, it is not one that CCP Greyscale has made in two or three posts (including original blog). Its all about "driving conflict and making space for small new alliances, etc". I also doubt that most supercapitals are funded by players ratting/plexing but I could be wrong, and I doubt that supercap proliferation will be slowed by this change since it requires minerals and sov space to make them, not ISK. While the number of independents who can afford 20 billion might go down, the less demand might lead to a lower price of the ships themselves which are currently estimated at 12-14 billion to make.

Regardless, I think some players of limited resources will leave null sec when they find they cannot replace their losses as quickly.
Motriek said...
I gave up on 0.0 anoms some while ago. Topped out around 50m an hour if I was lucky. Then I pit an alt in a wh Corp. Problem solved. And if that was nerfed? I'd park the alt to run l4's in hisec. 65m easy with a T2 fit, and way less risk of losing a faction/deadspace fit.
Back to th original point. This effectively re-creates sec status 'waterfront' in 0.0. Which makes it easy to perma-afk-cloak alts in all the best systems. In fact, there are so few -1 systems, they will all be perma afk-cloaked. Which really, is win. Can you imagine how hard the tears about afk cloakers will fall? Seriously, exploration will take off.
Did I mention I don't run anoms?
I have heard wormholes done right are a gold mine for players in them. One good benefit of this change might be more diversified income generation tasks such as exploration and wormhole exploitation which I'm all for.
Logan Fyreite said...
I don't have any hand in anoms so the hell do I know. I just know that it seemed a little strange that any system could upgrade to be as good as a -1.0 truesec system could be. I think this is supposed to provide a reason to go out there and fight for better systems. Think of the strife this will cause among big coalitions if one ends up suddenly better off. That's just a guess of the impact but I hardly think it is "pulling the rug out from hundreds if not thousands of grunt players is the right approach."
ISK is still super-easy to come by if you have the time to do so. This just seems to be taking a step to turn off this particular isk-faucet.
Like I've said, if the ISK faucet is the problem, TELL US! We're smart players, we can understand the benefits of reigning in ISK inflation. Hell, cut bounties in half across the board to fight inflation in that case.

As for causing strife between coalitions, the current scuttlebutt is that the Technetium bottleneck with the majority of the tech moons being in NC space was done on purpose to give a "conflict driver" and induce alliances to attack NC space and break up the coalition. If true, we can all agree that the end result was a richer and thus stronger NC due to the profits from those moons. Thus if the same logic holds true, the Drone Region Forces are going to be even harder to shift from space. After all, they took a full on power bloc invasion from the NC and repelled it (props to PL for the enfilading attacks).

StevieTopSiders said...
Conspiracy Theory! CCP is trying to influence 0.0 politics, because they hate coalitions. Remember when they put all the Tech moons up north? They did that in hopes that alliances hungry for moon goo would break up the NC. Now, they want to tackle the DRF. Because the Russians have so many systems with low true-sec, CCP hopes that again people will break them up to get good anoms. My money is on it not working.
Oh hey, there it is. :)

Jeremie said...
The problem with this solution is that it kills the major isk income source for the casual player, and makes them less able to fight. On the flipside, had they made any changes to how mining works, they might be able to eliminate or reduce the bot problem, which in turn, reduces both income and material into the larger alliances, which then reduces the use of super caps in the field, which then allows for more space to be opened up because you will then only use supers for critical operations.
 I agree. And yes, I would like to see some progress made on macro ratting and mining.

Arrhidaeus said...
I would support this change if the value of systems in 0.0 was dynamic, so those who always wanted the best space would have to periodically invade people and move to maintain it, rather than just bunkering down.

TeaDaze42: @kirithkodachi I argued against tying upgrades to _static_ truesec values but CCP didn't like the idea of making it dynamic based on use :( (about 19 hours ago from web in reply to kirithkodachi)
Planetary Interaction resource depletion is a pain in the ass but it does make resource extraction more interesting. I think dynamic changes to true sec status would have been awesome, even if it was such that a value could only vary a certain amount so that the shallow null sec systems (thanks Mord for the naming) never got better than the deep null sec systems.
Mord Fiddle said...
With regard to asking CCP to show their work, well said.
Given their tendency to pratfall from one unanticipated macro level outcome to the next, there's a certain irony to CCP's design team leads acting as though they're Eve's solution when they're demonstrably the problem.
I would love to see their model on how they predict what the players are going to do. Its possible their model is accurate, but I would love to see the assumptions and supporting data points.

Calderus Rex said...
I'd love to see an investigation into this by someone in the NC with a credible ability to collect, analyze, and present data (ehem, like you KK!). Personally I've managed something around a sustained 60-80M / hr, running sanctums in Delve, using two accounts - BS + Carrier. Not 60-80M per acct, that's total (avg 12M ticks on each acct). That's without the 10/10 escalations, and I have not invested that much effort in perfecting fit/skills/ships, so maybe 120-150M / hr is possible (2 accts). I've seen others get higher using ridiculous means (ehem, titans / moms for ratting), although, as PLs last trip north demonstrated, that can come to a rather rapid and poor end.
That said, I think the change is a good idea, they've just slightly over-shot the break-even point. They should have aimed break-even slightly lower, with top end space being that much more lucrative. Give a REAL reason to fight over the best stuff.
I get that people with crappy space (in terms of truesec) don't like it...that's, ehem, the point! If you don't like it, go take better space.
I too would have been fine with a devaluation of shallow null sec but it seems so extreme. Perhaps the issue is that they overdid it on the initial Dominion release to begin with? Nah, they could not have possibly made a mistake, right? Models of causality and all that. And surely they would come out and admit a mistake.

Naoru Kozan said...
I don't live in null-sec so I'm not at all sympathetic to players not being able to afford super caps for ratting.
Though CCP's change to null-sec does seem very arbitrary. Maybe they could rebalance the "true-sec systems" to spread them out more and redistribute the high end moons?
I'm pretty sure the majority of players hurt by this are the ones buying drakes and maelstroms, not supercarriers. I could be wrong, but from my experience the big rollers do it through insane hours online ratting/plexing but are a minority, or other income means like me (writing, trading, tech II manufacture, etc).

As for redistributing them, if they do it evenly then the "conflict driver" reason is moot, right? A slight redistribution might be helpful but that seems unlikely.

Talinthi said...
Well my uber long wall'o'text got lost this time :( oh well heres the shortened version :)
these so-called "high-end" sites sanctums and havens are quite low isk/hr there are many better ways to make isk if one actually takes the time to look for them. Frankly i dont get how people can sit there and keep turning there guns/missiles on and off as they cycle from rat to rat.
Other forms of isk making for NULLSECCERS only:
They were especially nice for casual players with not a lot of time/attention but I agree with your point that they can adapt to survive.

TetraEtc said...
Have a cry kiddies... you cant make as much isk unless you fight for the better space... and not just pay for it.
Isnt that the point?
That may be the point, but it might not actually be the result. If the alliances sitting on the deep null sec space can fight off all comers due to having superior ISK generation sources, then after a possible initial upheaval and stabilization you are back to a static null sec on the resource much like NC is virtually immovable on the Tech moons in the north. Concentrated valuable resources lead to fortresses on those resources and it is hard to wrest power from the powerful.

NoizyGamer said...
It's not about the density in null sec becoming too great, its the economy. I keep hearing about how the money supply is growing too fast. At Fanfest, CCP Dr.EyjoG said he wanted to see the growth in the money supply slow from 2-3% per month down to 1-2% per month. The Dominion sov changes are THE biggest money faucet in the game. Maybe these changes will slow that faucet down.

Again, if money supply is the issue, make it point number one in the reasons! And deal with other huge faucets like missions and insurance.

Rixx Javix said...
I fully support this change and think it makes perfect sense and is long overdue. And while it is only a small step in the right direction, it is an important one that will form the foundation for future changes and resolutions to long-standing problems that exist post-Dominion. Congrats to CCP for having the balls to do it and the wisdom to see that it needed doing.
And that was as low-key and well balanced as I can be.

I'm starting to get the feeling you don't like me; there is a tone of confrontation here. If you want to have it out, please throw me an email, I'm not comfortable having people mad at me. (Another reason I would be a terrible CSM member.)

Anyway, I would be very interested to know what the "future changes and resolutions to long-standing problems that exist post-Dominion" are that this lays the foundation for. The expected consequences in teh dev blog all seem to be immediate and self-contained:
Expected consequences
  • Some alliances will immediately start wanting to look for better space
  • In the longer run, there'll be more conflicts going on, with more localized goals
  • Newer alliances will have an easier time getting a foothold in nullsec
  • Coalitions will be marginally less stable
  • Alliances will have to choose more carefully what space they develop, where their staging systems are, and so on (low truesec systems generally tend to be in strategically inconvenient places)
If there have been some followup, I'd love to know what they are.

Finally, stealing from our alliance boards, one of the leadership had this to say about the subject:
However Pilots who rely on Sanctums/Havens for 100% of their income will need to adapt.
However Corps who rely on taxing their members for 100% of their income will need to adapt.
Remember CCP is only nerfing two anoms, Sanctums/Havens. This leaves; Moons, PI, Industry, Mining, Manufacturing, WH's, Missioning, Exploration/Profession sites etc.
Small Gang/Roams might drop down to BC+Logi's to keep the costs down (IE less BS/HAC/Recons).

Chin up guys, adapt or die. Personally I'm in the "adapt" camp, CCP won't be getting rid of this pilot so easily!

NOTE: I haven't had a lot of time to follow the threads on Eve-Online forums and such so if CCP has given more insight that I'm missing here, please post a link in the comments to it.

EDIT: Jester's Trek post on the matter strikes very true for me. Here is a part:
This change is going to do nothing to reduce the blob, or to hurt large alliances in EVE Online.  Large alliances, even those in poor space, could care less about ratting income.  It'll be a blip on their radar, nothing more.  This change hurts two entities in EVE Online:

  1. the small 0.0 corp that relies on ratting taxes to pay for sov upgrades, towers, and reimbursements; and,
  2. the individual pilot, new to 0.0 and PvP, who uses ratting to pay for their own ship losses early in their PvP career.
Those small 0.0 corps and new 0.0 players are going to respond in the only way they can: by looking for new sources of funding.  In some cases, those new sources of funding will come from joining larger 0.0 alliances with better ratting space.  In others, those new 0.0 players are going to fall back to jump clones and Level 4 missioning in Empire.  Either way, the small 0.0 alliance and the small 0.0 gang is who CCP Greyscale is hurting here.


  1. Gosh Kirith, if I've given you that feeling m8 then I apologize. We go way back and I'd like to think we can have some fun at each other's expense now and then.

    So, all kidding aside for now.

    My only "foundation" thing is that this change is good and it finally directly relates to true-sec standings in null. Personally I think this is a long overdue (and probably minor) change that fundamentally makes sense.

    My hope is that further changes like this, perhaps to the cost of sov as it relates to true-sec standings, will only help to further enforce null space and fix some of the long-standing sov issues that Dominion brought about.

  2. PS: It certainly doesn't do that on its own of course, but it is (imo anyway) a start in the right direction.

  3. Ok, I wasn't sure if it was "for fun" anymore or "serious business". Its hard to tell sometimes. :)

  4. Always imagine me with a smile and my tongue firmly in cheek, it's how I write everything.

  5. 1. I stole that conspiracy theory from Ripard Teg, though I've been telling everyone about it, so consider me the publicist.

    2. I'm not against this change, but I think that truesec needs to be dynamic. If you farm Sanctums and Havens and rats constantly, there should be less rats, and thus the system is more safe. This would encourage people to migrate from system to system in search of better rats. With static truesec, we see lots of war now, but once powerful coalitions are established in areas with good truesec, we go back to square one.

  6. "0.0 to -0.2 systems won't get any high-end sites after the change"

    Does this apply to NPC space as well? I hope not. Let the small groups keep making something when not camped in. It's not like NPC space dwellers are getting anything from system upgrades etc. anyway. Seems like they might be an unintentional casualty of this change.

  7. Anonymous5:59 pm

    I think a better way to work this idea is to link the income from sites to the security value of the sector. Alliances could then improve a sector to unlock sanctums but 0.0 & -0.1 sanctums would earn less then sanctums in -0.2 sectors. I'd love to see someone earn 100 mill an hour (me actually) but I'm lucky to make 20 mill an hour in NC space.

  8. Something I think that would also help to shake things up a bit, would be to make jump bridges work only for alliance members. This would make defending such large blocs like the nc alot harder. It shouldn't take only a few mins to cross half the map. Only the largest and richest alliances could even come close to maintaining such a large network. In the end it would be easier for an alliance to take out another alliances supply network. Players would be forced to either live closer to conflicted areas and to make use of jump clones more often to get around.


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