Eve players have always been discovering more and more efficient ways to utilize CCP’s own game mechanics, eventually to the point of them being considered broken (drone assist). In some cases, “working as intended” could be broken. Titans being able to bridge fleets anywhere in the map within minutes (proven), many would say is broken, however the mechanic is working as intended and doesn’t need to be be changed, but the way in which it is used definitely needs working. When should the line be drawn between “working as intended” and broken? I will try to explore the topic in this post.
This year, perhaps more so than in the past, the topic of a sovereignty rework has been hot on everyone’s mind and it appears that one is finally coming. Sov has been something that has needed reworking for along time and CCP is finishing laying the ground work for a complete revamp (a possible reason for the 6 week expansions?). The CSM 9 will be discussing this matter at the upcoming summit with CCP and I sincerely hope that they are able to agree and implement a plan on fixing sov.
The current sovereignty system was implemented with Dominion in 2009 and at the time was a very well received expansion as can be seen below in a survey from CCP Games:
Overall most people were happy with the sovereignty system but as time went on it grew outdated and today is in dire need of an update. What changed over the years was not however more game mechanics being added but rather the ingenuity of players to exploit and utilize the game mechanics even more, to the point of something being considered broken. Today 0.0 space is mainly empty with 1183 systems controlled by 3 entities in the game, two of which have agreed to not attack each other’s “home systems” fully (B0TLORD Agreements).
Despite this stagnation we still have big battles such as B-R5RB, HED-GP, and Asakai right? Wrong. While such battles can often be great turning points for a war more often than not the assets lost are quickly replaced and the 10% time-dilation makes it unenjoyable for everyone. In fact in B-R5RB there were multiple sub-capital fleet battles raging in surrounding systems as it was decided that the lag that the sub-capitals cause was not worth their damage output.
The fact that your average newbro is unable to be involved in any type of fleet of this kind puts a lot of people off from the game and with the barrier for entry this high its no wonder null-sec is stagnant. Another thing that I believe needs to be addressed just as much as sov is the fact that there is no way to defeat an apex force; other than a larger apex force. The thing about all these mechanics is the fact that they are not inherently broken, simply the way they are being used is.
I believe that since it can be difficult to decide what exactly is broken within the sandbox of Eve, CCP should rely more and more on the CSM and thus the players to decide what to balance. It appears that they have been listening to their players more and more over the last weeks, evidenced by this thread from when CCP changed the WH spawning distance and I hope this is something that continues into the future.
Drone Assist is something that CCP stated that they like in the game and in the drone assist nerf the cap was reduced to 50 drones per “drone bunny”. This was mainly due to large “slowcat” fleets forming then assigning their sentry drones to a quick locking interceptor who was able to quickly destroy the enemy fleet. Drone Assist is not something inherently broken, however the way players were using drone assist was. So CCP devised a clever solution, they reduced the maximum number of assigned drones to 50 allowing fleets to not benefit as much but Incursions and multiboxing missioners to benefit from it.
I believe that the way CCP managed drone assist in a great way, listening to the players feedback and then balancing it in such a way to keep the core mechanic in the game, still allow it to be used by players, and not break it in other uses such as mission running; small gang PvP; and incursion running.
If something is impossible to nerf without removing the concept behind it, should CCP nerf it even if it removes that mechanic from the game? Where do you stand on this? Is CCP doing a better job balancing? Let us know in the comments.
