CSM Minutes

Seriously, Just Stop

So the CSM minutes has been released and they contain an alarmingly high level of bad ideas for wspace.
I will be going through the full wormhole related section below, the full minutes can be found here:
http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/csm/CSM8WinterMinutes2014.pdf


Wormhole-related topics
With Fozzie, Greyscale, Bettik, Masterplan


1)  WH effects.

"Chitsa brought up the topic of Black Holes. He said they’re not worth living in at all, and suggested making them provide industrial bonus effects. When asked what the current effects were like, James described them as “putting on a blindfold and going roller-skating on an ice rink”. Fozzie says that CCP could consider changing them, but they would also want to consider changing other systems, such as Pulsars and Wolf Rayets (mostly due to inability to buff capital reps because of those systems). The CSM expressed their support."

The first paragraph is presented as a discussion on Black Holes but it is in fact much more than that with the sneaking in of Pulsar and Wolf Rayet effects so let’s break it down.
Short of a few deranged loons, no one anywhere ever likes Black Hole systems and they are almost universally empty and avoided.  The idea of turning them into mining/industrial systems is an interesting one and I see no real issue with it.

So that's the good, now for the bad.

Here we see another prime example of CCP tacking on changes we do NOT want onto changes we DO want.
So we're going to change Black Holes? Ok cool, lets change Pulsars and Wolf-Rayets too while we're at it!
Wait, what?  Why?
The 2 are in no way related what so ever and yet have been lumped together here as if they were one and the same.

Allegedly, CCP want to change Pulsars and Wolf Rayets so that they can make fleet boosts apply to capital local reps.
Um, ok.  I guess.  Nope, you lost me.
Let's assume that fleet boosts actually need to apply to capital local reps, though personally I don't see why.
Would making that change make capitals over powered in these 2 WH systems?

Let’s start with an Archon in a C6 Wolf Rayet. 
Currently a well fit Archon can perma tank roughly 27.7k with fleet boosts (just the resist ones), without overloading or popping drugs, which in effect means you need at least 3 dreads to kill it outright through its reps if the pilot is good.
If you want to go the neut route, you would need 2 full neut Bhaalgorns to make it unstable running just its local tank or 3 if you want to fully cap it out without it running local tank.
For comparison, you need 1 less dread outside of a Wolf Rayet to kill the same Archon, number of Bhaals doesn't change.
So what changes if you buff the tank by the rough 35% that applying the other 2 fleet links would add?
Well to put it simply, you need either 1 more dread or 1 more Bhaalgorn to kill the Archon.
Ok, so there's clearly an effect but surely the whole point of making boosts apply to caps is to make them better right?
I hardly think this change is game breaking in any way, especially considering how much stronger Dreads were made in their buffs while Carriers have remained unchanged.

So what about C6 Pulsars and Chimeras?
Here you have the issue on the other side of the equation with cap regen being buffed by the Pulsar while actual tank is unchanged.  As such, a Chimera in a Pulsar doesn't inherently tank any more than anywhere else but it can afford to drop cap mods for more tank which ends up having a similar effect.
Currently, a Chimera can tank around 20.6k while needing 3 Bhaals to neut it out under tank (or 4 without running tank), or you can tank 26.5k and drop the number of Bhaals by 1.
Note that I'm talking about fits you're actually likely to run into, not 40bil officer fits that can, and should, get much better stats.
If you buff the tank by 35% you actually get a very similar result to the Archon in upping the numbers needed to kill/neut it by with the same fits.
That said, there is one big difference between the Archon and the Chimera in that the Chimera can be fit in a way where it has low tank but so much cap regen that it is virtually immune to any amount of neuting which means that it becomes very difficult for low DPS small gangs to kill as they can't cap it out.
I understand why people may complain about that but I really don't have an issue with it.  If you want to engage carriers in a Pulsar, you need to bring a combination of neuts and DPS which I don't see an issue with.

All in all, Pulsars and Wolf-Rayets are currently very well-functioning system types that are balanced and have a good level of upside and down side.
They do not need any changes, even if cap reps are buffed.


2.)  K162 Delay

"CCP Bettik then suggested a mad science idea, where incoming wormholes would not spawn the signature for the K162 immediately, but instead it would be delayed for an amount of time. James disapproved strongly of the idea, and expressed that such an advantage should be balanced by being unable to leave the grid until the signature is spawned.  Chitsa got excited and strongly approved of the idea.

CCP Bettik then explained that there are two options, where they could just delay it on the sensor overlay, but not to probes, or they could delay it for everything, including probes. Chitsa suggested a delay of three minutes, while CCP Fozzie proposed it could be a variable number of minutes. Chitsa was supportive of the idea. Malcanis suggested that the delay could go down to 0 minutes. Chitsa expressed that such mechanic would increase wormhole PVP as well as reinforce wormhole space as a harsh space to live."

This has been done to death in the threadnaught on the WH forums and I've posted about it before so I'll merely summarize here.
Yes, there should absolutely be a delay on the overlay for K162 WHs.
No, there should absolutely not be a delay on being able to probe newly spawned K162s.

The Ideal situation here would be to disable the overlay entirely in wspace and go back to how things were before.


3.) More Valuable WHs

"Chitsa proposed the idea of making some wormholes more valuable than others. For example some wormholes could have dual statics or increased chance of outgoing connections. Greyscale agreed that it would be something interesting. Chitsa expressed that such system would be great as players would need to find out by themselves as to which system is more valuable. James proposed the effect could even be a roaming effect. CCP and CSM were in general agreement that it is something worth looking into."

This is a really bad idea.
As soon as you make some systems inherently 'better' than others you end up with a massive arms race and will end up with a few huge groups holding the systems and no one else being able to get anywhere near them.
If you want proof of this, go back and take a look at what happened in nullsec with Tech moons.


4.) Lowering WH Income

"CCP suggested making w-space systems less profitable the more POSs there were in the system. James explained that this was effectively true already, as there is no way to increase income and the more players, the further income needs to be split."

Another terrible idea, well handled by James.


5.) I Don't Even...

"Greyscale asked what would happen if K162 wormholes did not spawn a signature, and was strongly rebuffed as this would vastly reduce the number of connections available in w-space."

6.) C7 Space, AKA:  AFK Cloaky Central

"Masterplan proposed adding some more systems without any moons. This was well received as well. Chitsa mentioned that such idea was already discussed a while back and it was called C7 space.
Greyscale then proposed making ships not disappear on logout in this new space."

Just Stop.
What exactly would be to point of this new C7 space?
A place where you can't anchor POSs, can't log off, can't live out of an orca... seems like a fantastic place to never go!
Even assuming you could log out normally, what would adding these systems bring to WHs?
I would need to hear some extremely good reasons why this space is needed before I'd be on board.
There are tons of empty existing WH systems, no need to add more.


7.) The Take-Away

"In summary, Bettik said his take-away was the geography needed a bit of a shakeup, rather than just the content. Chitsa agreed with the idea of shakeup as wormhole space has not had its fair share of shakeups compared to other spaces."

I have no idea why this was the take away CCP got but whatever.
Does WH geography need a shakeup?  I don't know.  It's certainly true that it hasn't had any shake ups since its introduction.

It may seem like I'm super conservative and don't want any changes to wspace but it's actually not true. 
I would love some changes to wormholes but I am not willing to sacrifice the great system we already have in order to get them.
The simplest most effective way of shaking up the WH geography would be to add more wandering connections which is something people have been asking for from the very beginning.

Currently C1-3 WHs have wandering connections from kspace and wspace, C5-6 systems have wandering connections from kspace and C4s have none.
I would propose adding wspace wandering holes to C4-6 and wandering kspace connections to C4s.
This can't be hard to implement for CCP, it wouldn't break any existing functionality and is easily manageable by adjusting the spawn rates if they become problematic.


All in all I don't think either CSM rep handled these issues very well with Chitsa being particularly bad at it.
I hope the next round of WH CSM reps do a better job.

JM