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Industry Teams - Current Plans

First post First post
CCP Engineering Corp
CCP Engineering Alliance
#1 - 2014-12-04 13:08:24 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Dorrim Barstorlode
Hello Industrialists,

As part of the Crius Industry release, a feature was added that most of you are probably familiar with called Teams. This feature allows you to hire teams of specialist NPC workers to boost your industry jobs for a price.

Since then we have been closely tracking all related Industry metrics and dials and it is apparent to us that since going live usage of the feature on TQ has been very low relative to its goals (with single figure percentage use in manufacturing jobs and near nonexistent use in research). So while we definitely think that the core idea behind the feature is a good one and brings value to the game and you, in its current state it is adding the wrong type of complexity. We have done some initial investigation and It is clear that bringing it up to the quality standards you should expect of us is a large project. A project which at this time is not the highest priority for us against some of the other things we are looking at. Given this, we believe the right thing for EVE and it’s players is to remove the Teams feature from the game over the next few months until such a time as we can properly revisit it.

Our rollout plan for this would be to disable the seeding of new teams by the end of 2014, and to disable the UI features in one of the first releases of 2015. That being said, we want your input and feedback on what is ultimately a fairly unprecedented course of action for us. While we feel we have done our due diligence additional context from you is always appreciated.

Thanks for reading,
Team Game of Drones

Feel free to poke me on: Twitter

Calorn Marthor
Standard Fuel Company
#2 - 2014-12-04 13:16:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Calorn Marthor
Oh. Sad to see the feature go. :-(

I believe that the low usage is not due to the idea not being appealing, but because teams have a very limited scope of usability.

1. the bonuses are not that big (understandable, because there is an easy-to-calculate advantage which is a no-brainer once the team is available).
2. you need to specialize on one item or a very narrow group to see any effect and produce high volume
3. the auction mechanism is total crap. Either you go for a non-interesting team no one competes for OR you have to be online in the very second the auction ends AND type fast (try this with a typical nullsec system and their cryptic names while the competitor only has to spell "JITA" 3 secs before end of auction - caused me some frustration)
4. because specific teams do not spawn all the time, you need to have the specialized production running for a longer time.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#3 - 2014-12-04 13:20:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Harvey James
perhaps they just need too be more impactful .. buff bonuses, i imagine a big problem here is still the over usage of jita ,

perhaps an option is to disallow any teams near jita entirely and try too force people too move too get a stronger bonus and thus profit..

possibly hike the taxes up in jita aswell to force trade hubs too move



Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using

Desert Ice78
Gryphons of the Western Wind
#4 - 2014-12-04 13:20:56 UTC
What exactly is the issue here - the Teams feature or nul-sec industry in general?

I am a pod pilot:


Test Alliance Please Ignore
#5 - 2014-12-04 13:23:49 UTC
Might be better to just leave them for the players that actually do want to bother using them for the small bonuses they provide. Wouldn't be the first feature in EVE that was left in "as is" state even though it didn't work as intended.
Fancy Fox Enterprises
#6 - 2014-12-04 13:24:36 UTC
Why remove the functionality and penalize those people that are using them before you have a chance to revisit them?

That, the feature isn't where you want it to be quality wise doesn't seem like a good reason to just remove it from the game outright.
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#7 - 2014-12-04 13:24:54 UTC
It's a shame that the feature is being removed, but with the low usage, and the problems with it, it's better to remove it until a team has the time to work on it properly, rather than leaving it in a half working state. Sad

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter

Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#8 - 2014-12-04 13:26:19 UTC
removing standings from trade/taxes etc.. might also help



Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using

StarFleet Enterprises
#9 - 2014-12-04 13:27:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Abramul
Two suggestions:

- Team bidders get a commission on team use fees, split between bidders. I'd go with 10% of the team cost modifier, so 0.5%-1.0% of install cost generally ... but higher could work.
- If teams are available for a job, display potential material / time savings in red by the team icon.

This should give incentive for people to install teams in industry systems where there are none, even if they themselves aren't building.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#10 - 2014-12-04 13:30:15 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:

or with the fast releases .. just keep tweaking it a little rather than disband it for god knows how long like so many things that get released and ignored for years before being redone or fixed

buff the bonuses they give by 50% each time until people use them, find other ways too discourage the use of jita so heavily etc..



Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using

The Ironfist
#11 - 2014-12-04 13:34:19 UTC  |  Edited by: The Ironfist
That is going to make everything capitals and above even more expansive... The BPO changes were not that bad because of the build teams if you take em away that is an increase of about 10% build cost for everything capital and higher. They might not be used a lot for T2 and subcaps but for capitals and supercapitals they are used A LOT!

The issue arent the teams the issue is the industry cost index. That thing is too damn restrictive if you invest into upgrading an amarr outpost all they to get the 5% material reduction and then proceed to hire teams you get punished for it by CCP's new isk sink and its not just a bit of a punishment you get hit with a sledgehammer. I suggest you guys take a good look at the scaling of your industry cost index. Because in nullsec it pretty much prevents more industry.
Makari Aeron
Winnie Blues and VB Crew
Unchained Alliance
#12 - 2014-12-04 13:34:55 UTC
I didn't bother using them because they always became too expensive for what I wanted to do. I don't manufacture constantly because I'm in nullsec and I don't always want to go to hisec to get moon goo or random parts needed for anything higher than T1 manufacturing. Thus bidding on a team is in my best interest. I would have wasted my money on a team I didn't end up using too often and I would have taken a team someone else in EVE could have used better. it was a great idea, but I feel there should have been more teams and that they should be more impactful to manufacturing.

CCP RedDawn: Ugly people are just playing life on HARD mode. Personally, I'm playing on an INFERNO difficulty.

CCP Goliath: I often believe that the best way to get something done is to shout at the person trying to help you.

Syrkos Technologies
Joint Venture Conglomerate
#13 - 2014-12-04 13:35:24 UTC
I'm glad to see the feature go for now, and that you reacted so quickly instead of leaving it in.

Funnily enough, the reasons you are removing it mirror my initial fears exactly from back when the feature was announced in detail. Which, I suppose, is just a fancy way of saying I told you so. Doesn't change anything though, I still love the game and what you're doing with it :D

Lone wolf and nomad extraordinaire.

Red Teufel
Feign Disorder
#14 - 2014-12-04 13:35:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Red Teufel
I'd use them but I blew up all my isk. also add commission to who won the bid. and please don't remove them.
Veda Blade
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#15 - 2014-12-04 13:35:53 UTC
i get that it doesn't get used much, but why the removal?

i fail to see what benefit that has, just have that single digit % use their teams and fix it later?
Insight Securities
#16 - 2014-12-04 13:36:14 UTC
While your reviewing crius industry changes have a look at cost indices calculations. Rather than being based off the square root of job hours make it a bit more linear. Spread the industrialist out a bit and see if teams become more viable.

I can just see the headlines "Industrial Action in the Forge - Workers Strike due to overcrowded conditions". Then we can import teams to reduce labour cost maybe?

Bad Taste.
#17 - 2014-12-04 13:40:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Makhpella
Yeah lets remove all the things ppl dont use... like half of the null sec systems, minmatar ships, NEX store. Unbelievable.
Goonswarm Federation
#18 - 2014-12-04 13:45:12 UTC
Teams would be 1000% more useful if you'd just fix sniping. It's not like we don't know how that's done, you implement an ebay style auction.

But between having no iterations on teams and not having them at all I suppose shutting them down until you fix it isn't a terrible move.
Jarnis McPieksu
Gallente Federation
#19 - 2014-12-04 13:48:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Jarnis McPieksu
Why removing them before first trying to fix the STUPID auction system and other problems with them?

I used them all the time, made good chunk of extra profit too.

Problems I see with them;

* Large number of utterly worthless teams (1% off building probes. CCP plz), so if your metric is related to how many of the teams are hired and used, those will skew things. We builders do math. If math says that fiddling with teams gives me 5000 more isk per unit and total of a few million (for spending a few million to hire a team and pay for the extra build costs), I won't care. If the math says I'm going to be making 10 million more per unit (and hundreds of millions during the duration of the team being around) I'm interested. Yes, I LOVED that 5% off logistics T2 cruisers and 2% off cruiser-sized hulls team and would hire again! (Total of 7% off Oneiroses and Scimis for a month made me piles of ISK)

* Worthless bonuses for non-manufacturing tasks (so if you deep six research/copying teams, I won't shed a tear over that). Would need total re-vamp. You generally overestimate how useful a time bonus is. I don't care if the job takes 2d 15 hours or 2d 13 hours really... Now if the job takes 1d 15h instead of 2d 15h, I'm interested...

* Large percentage of available teams having very small bonus (0.5% bonus... not quite worth the :effort:) and very hard to grab the valuable teams (2%, 3% etc) without alarmclocking for auction end times.

* Too few teams for T2 component building (having to pay off large slice of the profit for a good component team since there are so few of them compared to how many manufacturers need them). I would never build T2 stuff without a component team but it is bit stressful to fight over a good (2%+) one...

* Terrible auction system. No sniping rules whatsoever. Look at online auction sites and learn something before implementing.
Calorn Marthor
Standard Fuel Company
#20 - 2014-12-04 13:51:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Calorn Marthor
I used teams, i like them and I don't want to see the feature go away, although I have to admit the proposed course of action sounds sensible from CCP's point of view.

Different proposal:

1. Scrap the auction mechanism.
2. Spawn teams randomly, but with a bias towards actual industry activity.
3. players can bid ISK incentives to have teams spawn in specific locations. When they do so, they have to select a specific item category (broad or narrow) from a list.
4. optional: you may use teams that are not in your current location, but the salary then goes up drastically with distance.

ad 3: this means if a team is spawned with say specialties for "Capital construction parts" and "Small Ships" then the likelyhood for this team to spawn in a given system is higher if a system has had a high production of that item types in the recent past (those guys are intelligent and seek to work where there is actually work to be done)


1. roll team abilities randomly (as before)
2. for all systems determine relevant production of last 30 days per item category
3. for all systems do ISK incentive sum up all ISK incentives for this planet for the given abilities (e.g.: Jita - Small ships - 10m ISK)
4. roll team home system based on (base chance + relevant production bonus + relevant ISK incentive bonus - teams already present malus)

Why is this better than the situation now:
- you don't have the snipering any more
- players still have the ability to affect the dynamic space-scape with their actions
- ISK incentives require a meaningful decision - it's not 0.01 ISK more than the one before or 1 second later than someone else
- the "pull" mechanism has a passive self-organizing component because teams are more likely to spawn where the actual production happens. Which means the spacescape gets bent by your actions anyway. More sandboxy than ever.

OK, this proposal would need some ressources etc to be implemented, but what do you think about the idea?

The whole thing could be labelled "improved team AI" ;-)
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