I think we should be able to Contact other corps to fight our battles for us, so the US players can play on their own time, and the EU players don't have to be disturbed by the US players attacking them.

I believe it's a good thing if PC dies entirely. They would then have to push for changes to FW asap, so that you could have organised fights there, instead of FW just being pub matches as it currently is.

However a few changes to PC that I would like to see, if they intend to keep it in the game.

No passive ISK. We're mercenaries, not land holders. Bigger rewards (for winning) though.
Attack warning dropped to a couple of hours (currently 24 hours). The reinforcement window is still present.
Bonuses to something EVE side the EVE players would care very much about.


Honestly though, I would much rather see EVE corps holding the districts instead of Dust corps because, as I said, we're mercenaries, not land holders. Those are the kind of things I want to see short term though.

You can.

But if the Attackers set a time that you away doing something else, you could contract somebody else to fight for you.

I like the idea of more active districts but there's a flaw in your comparison, if a POS enters reinforcement in EVE it costs the players essentially nothing, if someone loses all the clones on their district except 150 that's a lot of ISK they've just been cost even not counting the production levels or converting to Dust ISK.

I do want to see more active combat in PC but honestly I don't think this is the way to go about it.

0.02 ISK
Cross

It doesn't cost them a POS unless they don't respond to the threat which is much easier to do, it also doesn't require as much for an EVE fleet to make sure they don't lose their POS in this context as it does for a Dust corp to protect their district.

The idea of making defending districts more like protecting POS, or maybe SOV is a good one, but the mechanic you suggest in the OP isn't making defending districts like that it is significantly more punishing.

0.02 ISK
Cross

I don't disagree with either the motive or the intention of your suggestion I simply find the mechanic to be problematic.
You are quite right preventing the "blue doughnut" effect is an important part of keeping PC alive and it does seem like something needs to be done to keep things from getting stagnant. The major drawback I see in your proposal is that it essentially requires the defender to lose clones without any ability to actually respond (presuming that they have more than 150 clones). That can be abused pretty heavily as a mechanic and could lead to an entirely new type of framing.
A corp, like mine for example, who fights in PC battles but does not hold turf of our own could easily farm money off of districts which have stored more than 150 clones and could do so with minimal risk or personnel.

1. Record timers and play patters for various corps/alliances
2. Choose a low activity attack window
3. Launch a plethora of attacks that we have no way to field the troops for but can drop one guy in long enough to take a single cannon and finish the match with a win.
4. {If needed} Avoid the few battles where hostile forces are actually fielded.
5. Profit.

With this sort of method even if we lose a few fights a night due to simply not trying to contest any battle which actually has hostile forces we're still going to make a net profit, if if people git wise to what we're doing? We just leave a spotter in match with any team that's deployed to tell everyone else if that team is still in the battle or if they're pulling out to go elsewhere.

This would also hit the smaller corps and alliances harder than the big ones because the smaller guys have manpower to cover their play times thus being easily suppressed into a state where their districts effectively never produce anything for them even if they never actually fight and lose a battle.

This is just one set of examples, again I agree with your intention as I understand it but I do not see this mechanic working.

0.02 ISK
Cross

PS ~ If the process and problems that I outlined would not be mechanically possible under your suggested system please explain where that is accounted for/what I may have misunderstood. I will likely continue to play "devils advocate" at the idea for awhile but if there are answers to these concerns then I'd say you've found a solid method, if there are not then we need to look for another tool to address things.

Agreed here, a more robust meta would bring a great deal to the table.



Okay it seems I'm missing some mechanic in what you are saying because I'm not seeing where that profit is at risk for the attacker during any point of the process.

Here's my understanding, please point out where I'm going off track from your suggestion.
Attacker hits a no show battle, attacker wins that battle costing the defender the minimum clone loss and thus reaping the ISK gains of the biomass/theft mechanics. Having profited even above the cost of the clone pack the attacker simply seeds the actual fight at the 150 clone mark not caring what happens to the defender or their district because the attacker has already profited and has no 'skin in the game'.

So, what did I miss?


I totally agree that there is a problem with what's happening now and I want to reiterate that I support the intent of your change but from my current understanding it won't eliminate farming it will simply move the mechanic of what is required to farm.

Cheers,
Cross

I dont play eve, just going off what I have learned from others. Thanks for that input, good to know. Glad there can be some sort of constructive talks in this forum, as opposed to the Troll Room.

As to what one guy stated about how people who are good at this game are 'less than human'...

you are an idiot

Now that I got that out there, I disagree with you. While I would love to see more competition, people that excel at the end game should NOT get punished for being able to handle themselves. Do you think EON was GIVEN the territory we have? No!
We fought long and hard for each district. It is not our fault that corps did not have the organization or manpower to hold their own.

That IS EVE and this is DUST. The strong hold the best parts of space, while the weak have everything else.

I think more systems would alleviate the problems though. Open up areas outside of Molden Heath or something.

Ruh Roh. If guys from your own alliance are starting to say it... GASP... it may be true.

You are just like all the a-typical elites left playing dust in your blue donut. You ****** up, you blued up, you killed competition. You blame CCP. I blame you.

we can agree to disagree, but the evidence is clear. What you all have done certainly didnt help the game, didnt help competition, didnt help bring the game back from the dead. All your leader can say is "but ROFL, CRONOS, NF all tried to do it" glad they failed, kept this game going. If one mega alliance owned PC within the 1st week, which could have easily happened if the stars aligned and the PLAYERS wanted to do it, this game would be further into the grave than it is now.

My stance? Alliances are bad for this type of game. No other game allows such imbalance to be created by the players. WHy? Because online players are douchebag griefers for the most part. I wouldnt allow an online gamer to water my lawn, let alone hold the keys to creating player balance/match making in the end game of a 16v16 lobby shooter.

So if you are not helping the situation, what are you doing? exactly. take the blinders off and LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. god, you guys are so block headed and stubborn its crazy.

I know you are confused.. you all are confused. YOu dont want this game to flourish, why would you? You "earned" your molden heath farmville. Enjoy it.

I know you are confused.. you all are confused. I am tired of explaning time and time again why what you did was bad for the game. Good for your tiny percentage of the playerbase that could be, but bad for the game. bad for balance. If this were star wars, the force would be imbalanced.. and you all know what happens then.

YOu dont want this game to flourish, why would you? You "earned" your molden heath farmville. Enjoy it.

I have asked you (as in EoN) COUNTLESS times what could be the worst thing that happened if you tried my idea. ALL of you colelctively told me to "stfu". Why? What do you have to lose? Your bond? come on, if its as strong as you claim it is.. put it back together in a week if the idea fails. YOu have no excuse why you shouldnt try my idea... you just simply "dont want to".

And what if you dont try my idea? What happens to dust then. You wait another couple of months for CCP to change how the timers work? really thats how you are going to fix a dead game? THe players control what happens, its up to the players to fix the imbalance they have created, or not change it.

Tired of saying this a thousand times to def ears.

It would be your choice to forget what you guys did. I dont think anyone would forget. You dont see the picture. What benefits are you receiving by staying together in DUST. Im not talking about disbanding your website. Forget about the "lore" or "brotherhood" you have . If you have it, where will it go? Just vanish into thin air. Come on dude... you guys are holding on by the skin of your teeth that this game is going to be great someday, yet you sit there in farmville doing nothing.. afraid to break up some make believe internet alliance in a game that is dying. EoN will be here after dust. Awesome, I hope so for you guys. What does that have to do with fixing the imbalance that EoN created today. So what? Try it.

Ive used this correlation before, I will give you one last go then I have to leave.

I know Dust and Chess are two completely different games, but for a second imagine they were similar.

Chessboard
Pieces
Placed perfectly on either side = fun, challenging, skill based game

Now for Dust

Chessboard = Planetary Conquest
Pieces = Mercenaires
Placed imperfectly, balance tipping strongly to one side = not so fun, not so challenging, but still a skill based game.


You want to reviatlize Dust, You want your EoN bros to be happy and see more fights, figure out a way to bring back the fun and challenging parts back. Rebalance the cosmos. Rebalance corporations. Balance, balance, balance. Every other successful game STRIVES to create it, Dust players run from it like the plague because its "more fun" to win and stomp your enemies not into the ground, but out of the game. People in your alliance actually brag about making people quit the game. How the hell is that a good thing? Only in the mind of the a-typical elite gamer. hence why I said figure out a way to fix the mentality.
But once you have won, clearly thats not so much fun now is it. RESET the game? Go back to square one? Do something other than sit and wait for CCP to change some minor thing 3 months from now regarding PC. CCP isnt going to do it. You the players can.

This is extremely outside of the box thinking and I dont expect you, or any a-typical online gamer to get it. I'm looking for someone in a place of power and influence who can sway the leader of EoN to consider trying this. Mavado is a joke, maybe you can help the cause? But for the last time, what do you have to lose?

You have yet to answer my question. What is the worst thing that could happen from trying the above situation.

Nobody on your side has been able to answer that question. They choose to ignore everything I write and say "we are not splitting up, we worked hard for this". But what is this? Farmville? Thats exactly what it is. You want competition, but refuse to create an even playing field where competition can flourish. Contratulations, I guess. But i know based on your responses here already that you will go back to blaming CCP.

Listen, tomorrow when you wake up.. log into dust.. will the game be different? NO. WIll it change anytime soon? NO. Will there be another mass exodus from this game once Diablo 3, GTA 5, Bf4, and PS4 come out in the next few months. YES.

Can you the players do something NOW, not in the future, or the past, but the present to ATTEMPT to change the landscape of PC? Yes.

If you choose not to, there is nobody to blame but yourselves. Like I said, even tho this is a video game, unlike any that has come before it, failing miserable, the PLAYERS actually do have to have some sort of responsibilty for what they do in the game and the consequences of their actions. I KNOW ITS ******* CRAZY RIGHT? but tell me how that statement is not true in this particular game.

And i think you are blind and far from an innovater, I had hopes I found the one.. but I was wrong. Keep waiting for CCP to fix timers thinking that will change anything. Keep thinking some mass movement of skill will grace the Dust landscape to proivde you the "challenge" you claim to want so much. Keep doing nothng while more and more "carebears" (remember, we are the people you wnat to be able to shoot at) migrate to greener pastures. This game is so far from EvE its not even close to similar. As described already, EvE differs from dust that the masses can in fact rally against one. How do you expect to do that when battles are fixed to 16v16?

Life lesson for the day... A man has the ability to admit when he is wrong. I was hoping there might be a man amongst your ranks, but I was sorely mistaken.

Here is an example. I play a small war game called Game of War: Fire age. I have a strong alliance, yesterday a smaller alliance attacked one of my guys.. so I went and destroyed him and all his buddies. Awesome I thought! Right? wrong. Few days later now there is nobody for us to attack, nobody to fight, so we are just sitting here farming. Boring! But those are the ropes right? That is the essence of competitive games. Thats why the industry keeps taking our money I suppose. lol

Agree to disagree. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Now, before we continue blaming Eon for the state of the game, calling them neck bears, losers who've never touched a girl, and so on, I would like to point a few things out:

They are playing within the rules. There has been no cheating, as far as I have heard. No special access to anything. No extra members on their sides to fight against.

They have fought for their land honestly and fairly.

That said, this situation of them having all of Molden Heath is horrible for the game. Most people wont even bother with PC, because EON can afford to grind them down, even if they lost a few territories. They simply have the resources to sit back and hold. Numbers don't really matter here. We could try with 900000000000 other players, but current mechanics wont let us. All the gamers in the world would be meaningless. We can only bring a tiny fraction of the eve players to fight at any given time, so however big or small Eon is doesn't really matter. They can sit there and reap isk just by sitting there.

And stil, they have done nothing wrong (technically). And no one here can say they would do any differently, because the promise of being able to have a giant pile of cash flowing up your butt would be too much. If we are all honest with ourselves, we would all do the exact same stupid thing.

So, let's stop blaming them. They are not the problem. The system is the problem. It needs some harsh changes.