With the dust settling on the battle of CCP-US which ended with 60 Black Legion Dreads dead and a CFC Erebus down, I am left wondering, has the last “Great” battle in EVE occurred? If you listen to all the Nullbears and all the standard “CCP you are fucking idiots” comments; then yes you probably would argue that engagements like this won’t happen again. However, in reality these types of fights will continue to occur. For starters, let’s consider that the battle in CCP-US had over one thousand pilots in the solar system. While it wasn’t the biggest fight in EVE history, it certainly is an uncommon occurrence that will continue to occur regardless of the nerfs coming to jump drives. As hard as it is to assess the original location of the Black Legion. Dreadnought fleet, the truth is that this battle would have been plausible in the post-Phoebe reality that will hit after November 4th.
A little research in Dotlan shows that if someone wanted to do the same thing in CCP-US, the post-Phoebe deployment for a Black Legion. Fleet would take an extra 15-20 minutes then it currently does. This, utilizing the Villasen solar system in Low-sec in Black-Rise as their starting incursion point. The same scenario would take between 20-30 minutes if the aggressors were to come from NPC Venal.
CCP Games attempts in curving force projection by nerfing Jump drive ranges and adding fatigue will only slow down capital fleet movement. The fleets will still reach its target solar system unless the travel distance traverses an obscene amount of regions. They may encounter something on the way, or miss that Titan. All this is part of the “working” as intended mantra. Flying capitals isn’t meant to be easy, nor is meant to be a teleportation affair. The players of EVE – especially the null-sec ones – are if one thing, extremely adaptable. Their ability to change their habits to work with the new changes is something that has been done for the other last twenty-something patches. Those not willing to adapt have already cried, protested and moaned in the various EVE Online forums and social networks, and the truth is they are nothing more than a very vocal minority. Some have even gone as far as threatening to un-sub (oh the horror) and selling their super-capital characters.
In the end, the world will keep spinning. Engaged EVE Online players will continue to play EVE. And those players who feel they are getting the short end of the stick will be reminded how there must not be real win-win scenarios in EVE, somebody is always bound to lose.
Will we see battles like the one at B-R5RB after Phoebe? Probably not, but jump-range apologist tend to forget conveniently how rare those fights were. They tend to concern-troll EVE Online boards as if these bloodbaths were a regular incidence in EVE and how the growing player-base were directly dependent in it. So in the end we aren’t missing that much nor is CCP Games.
In this very same context; will battles like CCP-US continue to occur? Yes, we will probably find that after the changes more and “smaller” +100B capital battles will happen even more often.
It is necessary to remind ourselves that this is just phase one of CCP Games’ new “vision for Nullsec”. It is exciting to think how influential will stage two or three be. While some people are naturally resistant to change in their play style, adapting something only real and dedicated players are able to do. Some have called this natural selection at work, in EVE Online this is business as usual.
