The last few weeks we have seen a variety of articles concerning what needs to be done fixing Eve. The issues range from sov mechanics to popular terms such as “apex force.”
Suggested fixes likewise range from overly complicated and dramatic changes to extremely subtle and vague suggestions. Few if any of the proposed suggestions really seem to strike a happy medium that would provide any sort of realistically balanced outcome. Hopefully here, I can touch upon some of the problems in Eve and provide a viable suggestion.
Rather than just another “X needs to be done about problem Y” we will look at exactly why Y is a problem, and furthermore define X. One of the difficulties in outlining the problems and providing fixes for them is that they are all connected to one another somehow across different platforms. Sov is an issue because of jump mechanics because carriers are such military forces because of how sentry drones work etc. As such, some of the things discussed in one section will blur into another.
One of the main complaints about sov mechanics is that it’s to difficult to take. I would venture to say that the difficulty is fairly on point. Taking territory isn’t suppose to be easy, it’s suppose to be difficult and cause sleepless nights and ruin a couple marriages. The main problem is how sov is maintained. As long as bills are paid, sov stays under the ownership of whoever took it initially. I’ve always been an advocate of the “farms and fields” concept, wealth going from bottom to top instead of the current top to bottom model. Many of those same concepts can be applied to how sov warfare works out as well and a few aspects of faction warfare, which I had addressed in a previous article, can be applied to 0.0.
Defensive SBU’s are garbage. It should simply make the system vulnerable for attack. Full stop, that needs to be done as a no brainer no matter what.
If you don’t live in, you don’t really own it. The same way you have different 0.0 indexes based on how much you mine or rat, you could have for residency. This plays extremely well with the whole farms and fields concept. If wealth really came from the bottom up from activities such as mining, manufacturing, ratting and so on, then small gang nano fleets showing up would have more relevancy than just an afternoon exchange of ammo. Making an area dangerous to live in, can push people to move which in turn affects the flow of resources from the bottom up. And when residence leave, the residence index should also fall causing the area to be vulnerable to attack.
Right now sov sucks for new people because nobody new can truly come into the scene and take over things. But if coalition X has a low population in area Y, then group Z can move in and cut their little piece of the pie for themselves. Likewise, once you defeat an enemy, it shouldn’t be so hard to take over their territory if they’re not there to defend it.
Lowsec is a good testing ground for 0.0. That may sound crazy but it really is. Believe it or not, but people own territory in lowsec. Yes anyone can dock in any station but certain people hold the moon assets and have the numbers to throw around in their respective territory in effect “owning” the area via residency.
Certain FW mechanics are also viable for 0.0. Now I understand that we don’t simply want a lowsec copy in 0.0 but a little bit of cross over would do 0.0 well. I’ve always been fond of the idea of having truly diverse fleet compositions where you have a battleship wing, an ewar wing, a logi wing, but also a cruiser and frig wing and that each ship class could have a viable objective that truly affects the outcome of the battle.
The fact that an Isthar fleet can drop sentries, and then spend the rest of the fight zipping around away from their own drones whilst they pour their damage into the enemy fleet is complete nonsense. It’s a sub cap doctrine that is essentially immune to EWAR, has battleship weapon range and with the mobility of a cruiser. Few people would call it anything other than what it really is: Broken.
sen·try ˈsentrē/Submit noun a soldier stationed to keep guard or to control access to a place. synonyms: guard, sentinel, lookout, watch, watchman, patrol
Sentries should have a role and as the definition of their name, that roles seems to be guarding and keeping control of a place. Sentries should not be a drone system that can be assigned to another player. The ship using them should be limited in the range from which they can leave their sentries. Technically being a battleship class weapon system, they should also lack the tracking that they currently employ (yes even after this token nerf they were given.) Sentries should be a weapon system that doesn’t promote mobile warfare. It should be a “sit here and trade shots” sort of weapon. This could be done by some simple number/code tweeking.
The other option is to nerf the sentry drone itself into the ground but then create new modules that could be used to bring them back up to the capabilities that they are at now. So if you want the same range, dps or tracking, you would have to sacrifice your high/mid/low slots in the process.
It’s been argued by some that Logistical ships (Guardians, Scimitars etc) have made it so that fights are no longer “close” and instead we see one side completely wiping out the other side once one group loses their logistical capabilities. This can be true at times although I’m not completely convinced. One manner in which this can be resolved is by having it so that ships need to be much closer to their logi in order to receive the full rep amount. In this manner fleets have the choice of being more mobile but less tanky (further from their logi) or more tanky but less mobile (closer to their logi.)
One of the critiques that was leveled against jump ranges, and for once had nothing to do with “apex forces” is the use of jump freighters and logistics (in the conventional sense.) There are no longer supply routes that had to be maintained, defended and fought over in New Eden. You bring your JF to Jita, Amarr, whatever other Trade hub, load up on what you need, undock, and jump to a cyno in lowsec right on a station. You then dock up, cap up, undock and jump to the next cyno on your journey until you reach your destination. Unless you just completely screw up, get suicide ganked in highsec you’re pretty much invulnerable to any danger to you. Now I understand logistical work can be difficult and what I’m advocating will make it more difficult, but with that will come more content.
Now some have proposed we simply get rid of Jump Freighters all together. And indeed this would make it so that you would have to escort your conventional haulers through an armed group to the intended system. However I realize this is unrealistic and would cause so much out rage among players, that CCP would not even consider it. Instead I propose a much more simple suggestion: Cynos cannot be lit within 100 KM of stations, including poses. This way, you do need an escort, and people will be camping your pipe systems further increasing the number of engagements.
We’ve already touched upon some issues via proxy concerning “Slowcats” and other carrier and super carrier doctrines. The nerf for Sentries proposed under the other section would likewise affect carriers as well. You could still have your slowcats, but they would have to choose in what they would be effective, DPS, tank, logi etc based on the modules they would fit. But the current spider tanking, 100+ range max dps blob…thing, cannot continue to exist as it currently does. Subcap ships all have some sort of counter. No one can just drop battleships and just shut down any other doctrine. Any time where the counter to a doctrine is the same doctrine + 1, CCP should know that that is an imbalance.
Now that we have that out of the way, we’ll focus on the main issue we see with the “apex force” and that is its ability to move across the universe with relative ease. On top of the proposed change of not being able to light a cyno within 100 KM of a station or POS, there should be further limits. The notion that 1 T1 frig can fit a little bit a fuel and a cyno, and can bring in hundreds of Archons is plain stupid. Each ship that jumps through should burn more fuel of the ship that lit the cyno. Another possibility is to limit the number of cap ships that can jump per same cyno based on class or mass. We could further add an aggression timer for any ship that jumps through a cyno as well as a spool up time for the cyno itself. Now if you want to bring in your slowcat fleet you need to hold the field with a subcap force. This could be further balanced by introducing a “capital ship cyno” specifically needed for all carriers+.
Suddenly the big hammer “apex force” no longer moves with the flying sandals of Hermes. Is it a complete fix? No, but it hits the dartboard to say the least.
These are not complete fixes, nor should they be thought of as such, but they are very good places to start. The majority of the proposed changes require only basic code tweaking. Basic, but much needed. My vision for Eve isn’t one where two major powers dictate how the game is played but rather a diverse patchwork of sov holding entities contributing content on a wider scale.
~ Seraph IX Basarab
