The main argument supporters of the proposed range spawning changes have been making is that it's currently too easy for carebear farmers to just roll their holes and be 'completely' (realistically the correct word there is 'mostly') safe while they run sites all day, every day.
Well ok, it is pretty easy to roll C5/6 holes at the moment and while a competent enemy can prevent you from doing so, realistically most groups can and do close holes into their system that they do not want pretty regularly.
That said, is this a bad thing? Let's discuss.
The crux of the conflict here I believe to be a fundamental clash of mindsets.
The people who hate farmers and automatically support any and all changes that hinder them, regardless of who else they also hinder, hate the fact that these people won't fight them and that they're hard to catch. They consider them a waste of space in WHs and believe they have no right to be there.
On the other hand the have the farmers who just want to be left alone and their ideal desired level of interaction with other WH groups is as close to zero as possible.
This kind of difference in world view is pretty global and can be found in all areas of EVE, be it AFK cloaky gankers vs. botters in null, incursion runners vs. war deccers/gankers in HS or in WHs where it's the PVPer vs. the PVEers. It's nothing new or unusual.
Are farmers actually a problem in wspace?
I'll go over this from a few angles.
Do they take up too much room?
Well, farmers generally live in C5 space as it is a bit more secure than C6 space (due to the nature of rage rolling and how many C5s and C6s there are. There are also historical reasons that we won't get into...) while providing the same income when running escalations.
Ask anyone in WHs how populated C5s are. Their answers might vary a little but none of them are going to claim that it is full, as it certainly is not.
I'm not sure exactly what the real number of empty C5s is but if I was to hazard a guess I'd say that somewhere between 25% and 50% of C5 systems are completely empty, ie: have no active POSs, so C5 space is certainly not full.
Likewise C6s are also nowhere near maximum occupancy, C4s are probably closer to 75% empty and classes lower that this may be used for PVE but the corps there are not the 'farmers' we're looking at here.
This means that it not like the farmers are taking up room that would otherwise be used by PVP groups. Anyone who wants to move into C5 space can do so, even with more or less free selection of what static they would like.
The rarest C5 systems are C5s with C2 static which is what my corp currently lives in and we were still able to find a perfectly good one with no occupants when we moved in a few months ago after maybe a week of searching.
Do farmers actively reduce content levels in WHs?
To me this is an easy no and I can't understand why anyone would claim otherwise.
They're not pushing people out of wspace, as discussed above, so the only comparison to look at here is do farmers bring more or less content to wspace than another empty C5?
Well I've killed farmers before, haven't you?
I've killed them running sites, I've killed them rolling holes, I've killed their scanners, I've blown up their POSs, I've killed their haulers, I've even stolen their ships out of their POSs.
That all sounds like content to me.
What was the last bit of content an empty C5 brought you? Well PVE, sure. A bit ironic perhaps...
Bottom line is PVE farmer corps do actively bring content to wspace. Sure it's not as much content as active PVP groups but it's a hell of a lot more than an empty system.
Do farmers hurt other groups in wspace?
Well they're certainly not going to shoot you if that's what you're worried about!
I had a think about this and I came up with two ways in which it could be said that farmers actively hurt other WH groups.
The first is that if there is a farming group in your chain while you're out scanning, it's very possible that their WH will no longer be there when you head back with your scout, leaving you stranded.
This has happened to me personally maybe a half dozen times in my entire WH career and while yes, it's can be annoying, it didn't really inconvenience me all that much and rolling their WH is well within a corp's rights. Hell, I've actively collapsed scanners in and out of many a WH.
The second way is that if all the farmers suddenly left the game then it would probably drive sleeper salvage prices up a bit as there would be less people running sites. It would basically only affect melted nanoribbon prices since blue loot is locked to NPC prices and farmers do not generally run mag/rad sites.
That said, PVP groups run site pretty often too and I doubt the prices would be terribly affected. Still, it's a consideration.
Where does this leave us?
Well, so far we have discovered that farmers are not preventing PVP groups from coming to wspace, they provide real content and they have minimal negative impact on other WH groups.
So far, I'm not seeing the problem.
Let's look at it for the opposite direction and take a look at what impact the proposed changes will, or will not, have on farming groups.
As a brief summary, the proposed change is that heavier ships will spawn further from a WH the heavier they are. The important ranges to note are caps spawn at base 20km, battleships at base 10km and orcas in the middle.
Basically what this means is that it's much harder and far riskier to roll holes with heavy ships and they spawn outside jump range and you need to get them back onto the hole to jump back.
Does this actually affect farmers though?
Well, I guess it does mean they can't roll holes as safely but do they need to?
I've run my share of sites in the past and I've even been on two PVE 'expos' before where all we did was run sites.
Our process did involve closing all incoming WHs and critting our static so yeah this would have been affected.
However, I've run many more sites in whatever home hole I was living in at the time and the process there was far simpler; warp to site, run it.
Sure, I'd put mass on WHs if I was on alone or I knew there were hostile groups in the chain but I never really bothered with much security.
The reason for this is that by FAR the most common way of getting jumped while running sites is to have someone roll directly into you and the is something you can't avoid no matter how much preparation you do and how many precautions you take.
I'd say at least 90%, probably more, of site ganks happen because someone with enough guns rolls into a system where someone happens to be running sites and this is something the proposed change will have zero effect on.
In fact, the changes will make this even easier as there will be less warning for new incoming WHs due to the K162 spawning mechanic changes.
That said, this change will result in far fewer PVP groups actively rage rolling which means farmers will actually be safer than they are now.
So ok, in summary the changes would have up to 10% impact on PVE farmer corps. This is very minor and can be further negate by using systems with low class statics that are easily massed with BSs ect.
To the farmer haters out there, is this enough to make up for the far greater hassles and limitations this will put on active PVP groups?
I say it isn't even remotely close.
Personally I have never understood the hatred of farmers by so many in wspace.
I mean sure, I get that they don't give you fights but there's not much any mechanics change can do about that.
People also seem to be of the opinion that is things become so difficult for farmers that they can't continue to function that they will somehow turn into PVPers or be replaced by PVP groups.
This just is NOT the case.
If CCP went today and deleted all farmers from WHs with a magic button and banned them from wspace their systems would not magically attract bloodthirsty pirates. They wouldn't suddenly see the light and join an existing PVP group. They'd just leave and go run incursions or rat in nullsec.
The alternative to farmers is not a PVP group, the alternative is an empty system.
If you need further proof of this, go look at what happened in C6 space around late 2011 and 2012 when several C6 PVP groups decided to evict everyone who didn't fight. C6 space still has not recovered from the barren wasteland it got turned into.
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
Sunday, 3 August 2014
They're Touching Them Again...
So it looks like the PR department of CCP has scrubbed out once again.
Apparently there are changes being made to WHs that change how far away from a WH a ship spawns based on its mass, with the upper limit currently being up to 40km (which is hilariously outrageous!).
The first I heard of this was in this forum thread:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=362811
Based on the post, the change has already been deployed to SISI where it was found by several people.
There was no forum post, no dev blog, no nothing. Just a straight release to the public test server.
Not even looking at the change itself, this immediately raises so many red flags in regards to CCPs development, testing and release cycle, not to mention PR, that it's no longer even funny.
As near as I can tell CCP didn't ask anyone if people wanted this change, didn't ask anyone for feedback and didn't tell anyone it was coming until it was publicly released on the test server.
Once again a change is being put in place in WHs that has MAJOR impact on day to day w-space life without so much as an afterthought given to asking us what we think about it.
To make matters even worse, this change is absolutely atrocious and the VAST majority of the feedback has been hugely negative.
Further to that, perhaps the most ironic thing is that this come right after several months of heavy feedback being given to CCP by players and CSM regarding changes we DO want in WHs, none of which have been looked at yet.
For those who don't know, I work in IT testing for a company that has a wide user base that we work very closely with to cater to their needs while we constantly update our product so I am acutely aware of how annoyed customers are when we change something in a way they don't like or do not communicate any upcoming changes well in advance.
In typical fashion, CCP has noticed the looming threadnaught of hate on this issue and Fozzie, seeming losing the dice roll, piped up a half dozen pages into it that the changes are preliminary and not yet set and that it's a ways off yet. The usual back pedal nonsense to try cover a PR cock up.
Here's some free advice CCP:
Do not release changes to SISI without any warning. Typically, changes get put on SISI not that long before release and as players, we generally assume that anything on SISI is in final testing stages and that it WILL go onto the live server with minimal further change.
Any major changes should be posted either on the forums or in a dev blog WELL before they are released onto SISI.
I urge the CSM to tell CCP to show it with this change.
It isn't needed, it isn't wanted, and it is very bad for WH life.
Apparently there are changes being made to WHs that change how far away from a WH a ship spawns based on its mass, with the upper limit currently being up to 40km (which is hilariously outrageous!).
The first I heard of this was in this forum thread:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=362811
Based on the post, the change has already been deployed to SISI where it was found by several people.
There was no forum post, no dev blog, no nothing. Just a straight release to the public test server.
Not even looking at the change itself, this immediately raises so many red flags in regards to CCPs development, testing and release cycle, not to mention PR, that it's no longer even funny.
As near as I can tell CCP didn't ask anyone if people wanted this change, didn't ask anyone for feedback and didn't tell anyone it was coming until it was publicly released on the test server.
Once again a change is being put in place in WHs that has MAJOR impact on day to day w-space life without so much as an afterthought given to asking us what we think about it.
To make matters even worse, this change is absolutely atrocious and the VAST majority of the feedback has been hugely negative.
Further to that, perhaps the most ironic thing is that this come right after several months of heavy feedback being given to CCP by players and CSM regarding changes we DO want in WHs, none of which have been looked at yet.
For those who don't know, I work in IT testing for a company that has a wide user base that we work very closely with to cater to their needs while we constantly update our product so I am acutely aware of how annoyed customers are when we change something in a way they don't like or do not communicate any upcoming changes well in advance.
In typical fashion, CCP has noticed the looming threadnaught of hate on this issue and Fozzie, seeming losing the dice roll, piped up a half dozen pages into it that the changes are preliminary and not yet set and that it's a ways off yet. The usual back pedal nonsense to try cover a PR cock up.
Here's some free advice CCP:
Do not release changes to SISI without any warning. Typically, changes get put on SISI not that long before release and as players, we generally assume that anything on SISI is in final testing stages and that it WILL go onto the live server with minimal further change.
Any major changes should be posted either on the forums or in a dev blog WELL before they are released onto SISI.
I urge the CSM to tell CCP to show it with this change.
It isn't needed, it isn't wanted, and it is very bad for WH life.
Monday, 7 April 2014
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.
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
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
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
Another terrible idea, well handled by James.
5.) I Don't Even...
6.) C7 Space, AKA: AFK Cloaky Central
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
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
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
Monday, 24 March 2014
Stop Touching My WHs
Stop Touching My WHs
So the latest and 'greatest' idea from CCP regarding K162 WH detection is the perfect example of why I'm a huge advocate of as few changes in wspace as humanly possible.
Here is the full proposition as posted by Fozzie here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=331782
Ok, so let's break it down in a timeline.
- Life pre overlay meant you had to drop probes to see any sigs and had to watch for new sigs using probes if you wanted to see them. No one was complaining about this well functioning system.
- Odyssey happens, sensor overlay introduced. Now you don't need probes to see new sigs, they show up right away automatically. This change a) wasn't asked for b) wasn't like by basically anyone in wspace c) was hugely demanded for removal from WHs. All in all a big success.
- Now CCP seem to want to do something about it, ok fine. So what's the solution? Is it to put things back to how they were pre sensor overlay? No, apparently not. Apparently it is to roll the change back even further and make it so that you can't even use probes to detect new incoming WHs for an unspecified period of time.
I have no idea why CCP keep trying to 'fix' or 'make better' WH core mechanics when there's never really been any issue with their core mechanics.
Here we have them adding a very bad feature in the overlay that wasn't asked for, wasn't checked with the community prior to implementation and was universally hated in WHs after release and then instead of simply removing it like we're asking for, adding a new feature again in a detection delay on K162s that, again, wasn't asked for and isn't liked by roughly 75% of people that have been responding to the thread and various polls. At least this time they asked us about it first so, progress I guess...
Let's look at the proposed change itself and what it would mean for WHs.
The change is pretty simple, it's just adding some period of time after spawning where a new K162 exit WH cannot be detected on the overlay or even with probes.
Assuming the delay is not something absurd like half an hour, this might seem like a small change but in reality, even if it's 30 seconds it is a major change in WH security and makes it completely impossible to have any security in a WH apart from raw numbers of pilots.
The main concern is obviously for people who PVE.
The only WH PVE I've done in years is C5/6 capital escalations and while the risk is increased there too, I'm going to argue that this is the smallest issue of all activities. The reason for this is that the number of corps that can even warp a fleet into a C5/6 site is quite low and the number of those that can kill a site running fleet is even lower. It's also very difficult to warp back to your POS when a new WH spawns when you're scrammed and/or in siege/triage so if a group that can fight you does happen to connect, you're likely going to be fighting, delay on sig detection or no delay.
The affect this has on other classes is much more profound.
If you roll into a C2 and see a Drake + wrecks on scan, how long does it really take to be on grid with it? 1 min? 2 min? 5 min if you're really slow, there are 30+ anoms and you take a smoke break half way through looking for it?
If people running low class sites can't watch probes for new sigs they have very little chance of escaping if a new hostile WH connects to them.
Let's not even get into what this does to the already laughably dangerous activity of WH mining.
This also has an effect on PVP operational security.
If you're bashing a tower, camping a system, conducting a fight whatever, you have no way of knowing when a potential 3rd party connects to you.
Obviously, in a PVP scenario you may well want to take the fight anyway but a non zero amount of time to prepare is generally nice.
Sure, a part of me wants to go along with this change and say 'fuck it, I don't do PVE anyway, let's just kill anyone who does'. Thing is, you can catch people already anyway, it isn't that hard.
Adding a probe detection delay on incoming WHs is a typical CCP style of change that adds a feature to address an issue in completely the wrong way.
I guess I should be glad CCP seem to be listening and noticed that WHers hate the new overlay but they need to actually fix the issue in the way that we're asking for, not by taking it way too far and doing what they think we're asking for.
Yes, the auto detecting sensor overlay needs to be removed from WHs. No, a probe detection delay does not need to be added.
All in all this is exactly why I'm always against any changes being made to WH space.
Hell, even in the best case scenario where CCP remove the scanner overlay from WHs and leave probe detection without a delay, where do we end up? Exactly where we were 4 years ago, in a well functioning wspace.
JM
So the latest and 'greatest' idea from CCP regarding K162 WH detection is the perfect example of why I'm a huge advocate of as few changes in wspace as humanly possible.
Here is the full proposition as posted by Fozzie here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=331782
Hey everyone. Team Five O has been working on a few concepts for improvements to wormhole mechanics and we wanted to run one idea by you all to start some discussion in the community. This idea has already been discussed with the CSM, and we don't currently have specific plans to implement it but we think it's at least worth getting discussion started.
We have been thinking about and discussing the way that the Sensor Overlay has affected Wormhole life, mainly in the ease with which players can now observe new wormhole signatures appearing (which often indicates that the entry of hostile players may be imminent).
We investigated what would be involved with delaying the appearance of signatures on the sensor overlay, but that solution is somewhat unsatisfactory since players could always return to the old trick of spamming probe scans to check for the new sigs. Basically, the Sensor Overlay had only made the existing problem more visible, and it would be better if we could get right to the source.
The potential change would be to delay the appearance of the signature beacon when K162 dungeons spawn. This would prevent the dungeon from appearing on probe scans or the Sensor Overlay for up to a few minutes.
This change would make life in wormholes a bit less safe, and increase the sense of real danger that unknown space should include. The flipside is that actively hunting for pvp in wormholes should present more targets that have a slightly shorter notice to your arrival.
The delay could take a few potential forms, either a set timer of a couple minutes, a timer that has random elements or even one that is variable depending on the amount of mass that passes through the wormhole.
This would obviously be a very significant change to wormhole mechanics, and we think it may be a very good opportunity to shake up wormhole life and further encourage the best parts of the wormhole experience.
I'd like to repeat that this change is currently not planned for any specific release, but we would like to start community discussion on the idea and see where it goes.
Let us know what you think in this thread, and we'll be watching closely.
Thanks!
-Fozzie
Ok, so let's break it down in a timeline.
- Life pre overlay meant you had to drop probes to see any sigs and had to watch for new sigs using probes if you wanted to see them. No one was complaining about this well functioning system.
- Odyssey happens, sensor overlay introduced. Now you don't need probes to see new sigs, they show up right away automatically. This change a) wasn't asked for b) wasn't like by basically anyone in wspace c) was hugely demanded for removal from WHs. All in all a big success.
- Now CCP seem to want to do something about it, ok fine. So what's the solution? Is it to put things back to how they were pre sensor overlay? No, apparently not. Apparently it is to roll the change back even further and make it so that you can't even use probes to detect new incoming WHs for an unspecified period of time.
I have no idea why CCP keep trying to 'fix' or 'make better' WH core mechanics when there's never really been any issue with their core mechanics.
Here we have them adding a very bad feature in the overlay that wasn't asked for, wasn't checked with the community prior to implementation and was universally hated in WHs after release and then instead of simply removing it like we're asking for, adding a new feature again in a detection delay on K162s that, again, wasn't asked for and isn't liked by roughly 75% of people that have been responding to the thread and various polls. At least this time they asked us about it first so, progress I guess...
Let's look at the proposed change itself and what it would mean for WHs.
The change is pretty simple, it's just adding some period of time after spawning where a new K162 exit WH cannot be detected on the overlay or even with probes.
Assuming the delay is not something absurd like half an hour, this might seem like a small change but in reality, even if it's 30 seconds it is a major change in WH security and makes it completely impossible to have any security in a WH apart from raw numbers of pilots.
The main concern is obviously for people who PVE.
The only WH PVE I've done in years is C5/6 capital escalations and while the risk is increased there too, I'm going to argue that this is the smallest issue of all activities. The reason for this is that the number of corps that can even warp a fleet into a C5/6 site is quite low and the number of those that can kill a site running fleet is even lower. It's also very difficult to warp back to your POS when a new WH spawns when you're scrammed and/or in siege/triage so if a group that can fight you does happen to connect, you're likely going to be fighting, delay on sig detection or no delay.
The affect this has on other classes is much more profound.
If you roll into a C2 and see a Drake + wrecks on scan, how long does it really take to be on grid with it? 1 min? 2 min? 5 min if you're really slow, there are 30+ anoms and you take a smoke break half way through looking for it?
If people running low class sites can't watch probes for new sigs they have very little chance of escaping if a new hostile WH connects to them.
Let's not even get into what this does to the already laughably dangerous activity of WH mining.
This also has an effect on PVP operational security.
If you're bashing a tower, camping a system, conducting a fight whatever, you have no way of knowing when a potential 3rd party connects to you.
Obviously, in a PVP scenario you may well want to take the fight anyway but a non zero amount of time to prepare is generally nice.
Sure, a part of me wants to go along with this change and say 'fuck it, I don't do PVE anyway, let's just kill anyone who does'. Thing is, you can catch people already anyway, it isn't that hard.
Adding a probe detection delay on incoming WHs is a typical CCP style of change that adds a feature to address an issue in completely the wrong way.
I guess I should be glad CCP seem to be listening and noticed that WHers hate the new overlay but they need to actually fix the issue in the way that we're asking for, not by taking it way too far and doing what they think we're asking for.
Yes, the auto detecting sensor overlay needs to be removed from WHs. No, a probe detection delay does not need to be added.
All in all this is exactly why I'm always against any changes being made to WH space.
Hell, even in the best case scenario where CCP remove the scanner overlay from WHs and leave probe detection without a delay, where do we end up? Exactly where we were 4 years ago, in a well functioning wspace.
JM
Monday, 10 March 2014
This House is not a Home
This House is not a Home
The issues of living in a POS and POS mechanics have been the hottest topic around the wspace water cooler for some time now.
WH dwellers live exclusively out of POSs, or nothing at all, as it is their only option but POS mechanics are old and have not kept up with the modernization of EVE life.
The suggested fixes to the matter of POSs have varied wildly from 'don't touch it, you'll break WHs' to 'scrap it entirely and give us modular POSs with docking' and everything in between.
Personally, I lean much closer to the 'don't touch it' end of the spectrum as I simply do not trust CCP to redo POSs well and maintain the feel of WH living if they fully redo them.
For instance, I do not want docking of ANY sort anywhere near my WH home and I consider removing the POS force field mechanic a deal breaker on any changes.
That said, POSs very clearly need an update so I'm going to go over what I consider to be the major points that need addressing. I am going to be venturing slightly into the corp management/roles area since it is very closely linked to some of the major POS issues.
Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately?) I have zero experience on running any sort of industry out of a POS so I will only be touching lightly on it but given how often I hear people complain about it, the image of POS industry I have is that it is also in need of major review and updates.
Note: These items are not in any particular priority order.
POS Setup
Anyone who has every set up a fresh POS knows how time consuming and tedious it is to do. There has already been a small pass done by CCP on this a few years back when they removed anchoring timers on most mods and reduced onlining timers but it is still very poor.
This area needs improvement in 2 ways:
1. There needs to be an onlining queue where you can queue up as many mods as you want and they'll go and online in that order without you needing to wait for one to finish and then hit online on the next one. Would function similarly to the skill queue and would make onlining a POS way simpler.
2. You should be able to save POS setups in the same way you can save ship fittings. In order to use one, you would need to online the tower and set its layout. Then if you go to anchor a mod at it that is on the loaded layout, it would automatically go to the predefined location as per the layout and anchor there without each mod needing to be manually placed.
POS Security and Access
This is the big one for most WH groups. Security on current POSs is so limited that it actively limits how much a group can grow until it hits an inevitable security wall of too much risk.
Currently the only security you can put on a POS is a force field password and you can set 3 levels of corp role based access to storage mods and even if you have the role based access setup, the people with higher level access will have access to the items/ships in the lower access storage as well as the people with the highest level access having total access to all your POSs, including pulling fuel and tearing down towers. Clearly you can't give a 3rd of your corp starbase configuration level access.
This forces large WH corps to set up many 'personal' POSs that are secured by force field password and are shared by a small group of people, at most, that know and trust each other. Many large enities have upwards of 50+ such POSs in their home WH which in a 200-300 man corp (about as large are WH corps get) is extreme to absurd levels.
The way I see it, POS security should work in a similar way as chat channel access currently works. If you have a module level allowed usage list it would allow corps to specify exactly who has access to view and/or take from a particular SMA/CHA or use production mods ect.
Ideally this should be able to be set on the POS level and then further altered on the module level so that you don't need to set it manually for each and every module.
Personal SMAs that work in the same way as personal CHAs are also very much needed.
If proper module level security was implemented to POSs it would allow a far greater number of people to live out of the same POS without risking all their stuff to people they don't know.
Refining Array
Currently the maximum yield you can get when refining ore at a POS is 75%. Now, I haven't refined or at a POS or elsewhere in over 4 years so this doesn’t really affect me in the slightest but it does seem like this is a super extreme penalty for refining outside of a station.
I do not know what CCPs original reasons for this may have been but I don't see how upping the yield to somewhere in the 90-100% range would hurt anything.
Currently even C1 corps are choosing to build Rorquals in their WHs for the sole purpose of compressing ore so that they can haul it out to high sec to refine it. Many of those corps then haul to minerals back into their WH for further industrial use. This kind of tedious work around should not be needed for manufacturing items in WHs.
Offline POSs
WH space is littered with old abandoned towers long left to rust in space, their owners long gone and not likely to return.
This topic comes up reasonably often among WH denizens, many of whom want to be able to unanchor and scoop the dead towers.
Personally I don't feel you should be able to just straight up take them but I do agree that removing them should be easier.
I would suggest that an offline POS tower should have zero shields so that you only need to chew through its armour and structure points to blow it up.
Admittedly this is not a super important change but it would clean up the streets of wspace somewhat and unclutter our dscans.
Self Destructing in Force Fields
This shit has to go, enough said.
If not outright banning it, James Argent recently suggested that any SDed ship inside a warp disruption bubble should give a kill mail to the bubble's owner. This is an idea I like a lot in the alternative to just banning SD inside a POS.
So apart from the admitted industrial changes I'm sure are needed, that's actually the end of my list.
Honestly, I don't think that the 'POS problem' is anywhere near as big as people make it out to be. Most of the issues are small items with the big ones being POS setup and POS security.
The security changes are sorely needed and I would urge CCP to prioritize them over everything else but I am also quite sure they'd be the hardest for them to implement.
In summary, I actually really like the POS system. It just needs a few user friendliness upgrades and a real security system. Apart from that, I'll take a space stick with a force field over any modular POS with docking/mooring/whatever-else-that-isn't-a-force-field any day of the week.
JM
The issues of living in a POS and POS mechanics have been the hottest topic around the wspace water cooler for some time now.
WH dwellers live exclusively out of POSs, or nothing at all, as it is their only option but POS mechanics are old and have not kept up with the modernization of EVE life.
The suggested fixes to the matter of POSs have varied wildly from 'don't touch it, you'll break WHs' to 'scrap it entirely and give us modular POSs with docking' and everything in between.
Personally, I lean much closer to the 'don't touch it' end of the spectrum as I simply do not trust CCP to redo POSs well and maintain the feel of WH living if they fully redo them.
For instance, I do not want docking of ANY sort anywhere near my WH home and I consider removing the POS force field mechanic a deal breaker on any changes.
That said, POSs very clearly need an update so I'm going to go over what I consider to be the major points that need addressing. I am going to be venturing slightly into the corp management/roles area since it is very closely linked to some of the major POS issues.
Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately?) I have zero experience on running any sort of industry out of a POS so I will only be touching lightly on it but given how often I hear people complain about it, the image of POS industry I have is that it is also in need of major review and updates.
Note: These items are not in any particular priority order.
POS Setup
Anyone who has every set up a fresh POS knows how time consuming and tedious it is to do. There has already been a small pass done by CCP on this a few years back when they removed anchoring timers on most mods and reduced onlining timers but it is still very poor.
This area needs improvement in 2 ways:
1. There needs to be an onlining queue where you can queue up as many mods as you want and they'll go and online in that order without you needing to wait for one to finish and then hit online on the next one. Would function similarly to the skill queue and would make onlining a POS way simpler.
2. You should be able to save POS setups in the same way you can save ship fittings. In order to use one, you would need to online the tower and set its layout. Then if you go to anchor a mod at it that is on the loaded layout, it would automatically go to the predefined location as per the layout and anchor there without each mod needing to be manually placed.
POS Security and Access
This is the big one for most WH groups. Security on current POSs is so limited that it actively limits how much a group can grow until it hits an inevitable security wall of too much risk.
Currently the only security you can put on a POS is a force field password and you can set 3 levels of corp role based access to storage mods and even if you have the role based access setup, the people with higher level access will have access to the items/ships in the lower access storage as well as the people with the highest level access having total access to all your POSs, including pulling fuel and tearing down towers. Clearly you can't give a 3rd of your corp starbase configuration level access.
This forces large WH corps to set up many 'personal' POSs that are secured by force field password and are shared by a small group of people, at most, that know and trust each other. Many large enities have upwards of 50+ such POSs in their home WH which in a 200-300 man corp (about as large are WH corps get) is extreme to absurd levels.
The way I see it, POS security should work in a similar way as chat channel access currently works. If you have a module level allowed usage list it would allow corps to specify exactly who has access to view and/or take from a particular SMA/CHA or use production mods ect.
Ideally this should be able to be set on the POS level and then further altered on the module level so that you don't need to set it manually for each and every module.
Personal SMAs that work in the same way as personal CHAs are also very much needed.
If proper module level security was implemented to POSs it would allow a far greater number of people to live out of the same POS without risking all their stuff to people they don't know.
Refining Array
Currently the maximum yield you can get when refining ore at a POS is 75%. Now, I haven't refined or at a POS or elsewhere in over 4 years so this doesn’t really affect me in the slightest but it does seem like this is a super extreme penalty for refining outside of a station.
I do not know what CCPs original reasons for this may have been but I don't see how upping the yield to somewhere in the 90-100% range would hurt anything.
Currently even C1 corps are choosing to build Rorquals in their WHs for the sole purpose of compressing ore so that they can haul it out to high sec to refine it. Many of those corps then haul to minerals back into their WH for further industrial use. This kind of tedious work around should not be needed for manufacturing items in WHs.
Offline POSs
WH space is littered with old abandoned towers long left to rust in space, their owners long gone and not likely to return.
This topic comes up reasonably often among WH denizens, many of whom want to be able to unanchor and scoop the dead towers.
Personally I don't feel you should be able to just straight up take them but I do agree that removing them should be easier.
I would suggest that an offline POS tower should have zero shields so that you only need to chew through its armour and structure points to blow it up.
Admittedly this is not a super important change but it would clean up the streets of wspace somewhat and unclutter our dscans.
Self Destructing in Force Fields
This shit has to go, enough said.
If not outright banning it, James Argent recently suggested that any SDed ship inside a warp disruption bubble should give a kill mail to the bubble's owner. This is an idea I like a lot in the alternative to just banning SD inside a POS.
So apart from the admitted industrial changes I'm sure are needed, that's actually the end of my list.
Honestly, I don't think that the 'POS problem' is anywhere near as big as people make it out to be. Most of the issues are small items with the big ones being POS setup and POS security.
The security changes are sorely needed and I would urge CCP to prioritize them over everything else but I am also quite sure they'd be the hardest for them to implement.
In summary, I actually really like the POS system. It just needs a few user friendliness upgrades and a real security system. Apart from that, I'll take a space stick with a force field over any modular POS with docking/mooring/whatever-else-that-isn't-a-force-field any day of the week.
JM
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