Can't disagree with that, as Dust grows so will EVE's interest in the game.

Wow, to be honest I was expecting some kind of opinion against what I stated purely for the sake of it as it seems to be the forum mentality.
+1

A way to integrate better with EVE and resolve the situation where attacks can be made across any number of jumps is to have clone packs not automatically transferred to the target planet but instead have to be transported there by a ship in EVE. Space superiority would then be important as a defended system would be difficult to attack unless the attackers co-ordinate well. The more jumps the clone packs need to travel, the greater the chances that EVE pilots would attack and destroy them, whether hostiles allied with the opposing corp or random pirates.

The clone pack size should be set to a large enough size to require the use of a dedicated hauler or significantly dedicated combat ship, i.e. several thousand cubic meters. This means that CovOps frigates and Recons couldn't haul them adding more risk to the journey. It also may mean there is a PVP user for Marauders . The ships would need to reach the planet being attacked and offload the clone packs onto a structure similar to how the orbital bombardments beacons work.

The clone packs would have to be transferred to the planet at any point prior to the attack. If there are no EVE pilots willing or able to transfer the clone packs then the Dust corp should have the option of hiring an NPC transport and escort/s at a fee. They would then have to make the journey and potentially (likely unless it is a very short distance) be destroyed.

I could see some fun attacks where an EVE corp brings a fleet of 20 cheap transports through a gatecamp in the hope that the real one can safely make it into warp.

I'm not complaining about anything. But seriously, what's the point of taking more land after you've taken 5-10 districts? Not many corps have enough skilled players to hold that many timers as it is.

I'm not saying EoN should just be able to hold 80% of MH for the lulz, and i'm sure my corp and alliance tag will invite a massive amount of troll posts to this simply because people are mad. But seriously... whats the point?

People aren't mad. we just want to have fun playing in all the game modes. EoN complaining in multiple threads now about how hard it is to defend all you have taken, boohoo. You can't hold what you wanted, you shouldn't have been so greedy. The war hasn't even been happening for a full week and already you guys are taking to the forums and locking up districts with a fake corp so they can't be attacked. Get more players if you can't handle it all. Or face the consequences of your actions. FEC is coming, hide.

Funny, cause all he cares about is getting XXX amount for a "paycheck" haha. To bad, oh I won't get paid isk to play if we lose all our districts, or I will have to get less and less if we have more people".

Worthless to eve players though right?

It doesn't have to be worthless to dust players though, you can call equestria for all it matters. To dust players PC is just PC. The systems are just dots on a big board that's part of another game.

Sure they will eventually open null sec and land grabs on sovs but thats 3-4 years away realistically.

I think you're getting the wrong idea behind this post. I'm not saying anything about a small group of elite players owning MH and trying to get a mechanic to push for that.

Honestly, once EoN has reduced it district number (through whatever means) what do you think will actually happen?

PC currently tends itself towards farmville. Any corp will only ever be able to hold so many districts at which point its futile to even try to take more. Even with a frontline mechanics you would easily be looking at 10-15 battles per night for each corp if they start pushing too far, but alliances can keep pushing for more control. By focusing attacks on a frontline, there would end up being more attacks each night as alliances vie for control of more space.

This has little to do with being unwilling to split paychecks. Why would someone, as a leader, want to have to deal with more logistical headaches trying to manage more people for the same reward either way?

The game itself lends to a situation where you don't want more land than you can reasonably defend simultaneously in a single night.

I guess what it comes down to is, I'm not suggesting these changes because of any sort of selfish desire to maintain control over MH. tbh I can care less what happens to PC, i've moved on to FF14 anyways. These are just my parting words about a flaw that I see in the way the system incentivizes people to participate in PC (which it doesn't do very well considering how few people actually give two ***** about it).

I just look at the future of EoN and think... whats next? What could possibly be next?

The logical conclusion of this FEC war is that EoN will be reduced to a number of districts that it can defend... and then.. what? Where would be the drive to want to battle in PC when you're essentially fighting to take districts you can't afford to defend?

All you can do at that point is battle for the sake of battling, but you're no longer battling to own land, you're just doing it to do it. That's fine if that's the culture that CCP wants to foster, but that system would be better served by removing PC altogether and reimplementing the corp battle system.

You obviously haven't read a word in this thread. I don't give a **** about the FEC or about TP holding more districts than it could/should reasonably hold and if I posted this on an alt you wouldn't haven't even posted this.

Lets get over the venom directed at my corp tag for two seconds and actually think about what the purpose of this game mode is supposed to be.

Seriously, what is subd gonna do once they've taken a couple districts off EoN are they gonna try to take any more? You'll eventually reach a point where you will take only as many districts as you can hold and then what? You just defend them and farmville it up right? That's why people get so burned out on PC... you reach a point where you don't want more, and you don't want to take more... so the whole process just seems futile.

I wanna talk about the future of PC, not the present.

Fair enough, and I get your jist. But I don't think even in Eve with a much bigger sandbox anyone thinks or expects to control it all. i HATE when people bring Eve up when talking about this game, but I think it's a good example here.

If someone went through all the trouble of gaining a LOT of sov in Eve because they have a ton of skill, it doesn't guarantee that they'd be able to defend it all. They would probably be burnt out from it.

With people having the appropriate amount of land that they can defend (enough teams capable of defending multiple timers) it would lead to a larger number of corps being involved.

The issue we have now is that in addition to the success Eon has had, you had a LOT of bandwagon jumpers that flocked there. Now those guys may not be participating in PC battles for Eon corps, but they most certainly are not involved in some other corporation that is striving to make their mark.

The sandbox needs some variety. And perhaps there needs to be some mercy for corps that you know can't compete with you. Imagine if Mike Tyson just sized up every guy he ever came in contact with.

This is what we are fighting for. PC was broken for a while. We didn't want to keep our district before. Most didn't. thnis is how TP came to be who they are. They took advantage of a broken system, and profited. Good for you. That's what this gmae is about. Now that PC is mostly fixed, others want back what they once had, or what they want to have. TP can't handle it with 30 or 45 members. tough. Fight for what you have, or decide it's time to get out.

I think you should make clone packs for corps already in PC cost 80mil still and Corps not in PC 10-20 mil. You may worry about people abusing that system by making corps outside of PC just to hit a planet, but perhaps create a timer of a week for corps to enter PC.

Like you said, the barrier for large alliances to pay the 80 mil is not isk. So make them pay to have the "attack anywhere" advantage.

Also attrition distance needs to be lessened a little bit. Like to echo the other guy that said there is no point to the chokes on the map if you can hit within 4 jumps at 100%. Example, those in egbinger can hit audesder at no penalty. So the fortification of your front lines is pointless.

I feel you need to have high attrition to start and higher percentages as you move out. So 80% once you hit outside current system then go 70%, 2nd jump, 65%, 3rd jump and 65%, 65% 65% 60% 60% etc. Allow people to still hit really far out, but at a reasonable clone cost, but still allow the ability to fortify your front lines.

I totally agree with most of your points. This is what allowed EON to be such a great stakeholder to start.

If they had to attack front lines first they would have probably gotten held up. Currently there is no real chock points in MH anyway. Perhaps once they expand on PC it can be a valid tactic, but until then its all pretty pointless. PC needs to have some purpose. Which is what I am looking forward to on FW. I think it will be this games saving grace.

Something I said when they first announced the changes last month

So i'm sure by now most people have heard about the great 'FEC' Coalition attacking EoN to take back what is essentially an obscene majority share of PC. It's quite clear that FEC was going to 'win' this war the moment they launched the first clone pack, why? Well its quite simple really, there is literally no way for a corp like TeamPlayers to sustain attacks on 70+ districts indefinitely, however, I am extremely proud of TeamPlayers, and the people who have temporarily joined the corp to help us hold the districts, for the severals day we were able to hold as much as 45 attacks per day, sometimes with 6 overlapping timers at once. It was an incredible experience, and one I wish to never have again. So why am I making this post now?

Disclaimer: I'm not going to comment at all about the current state of this war as it has no bearing on my feedback here.

Well the fact of the matter is, what is the point of PC? It is supposed to be a mechanic that gets awesome corp v corp matches where you fight over something that matters. However, the game mode is completely pointless... it is a self defeating game mode.

The more land I grab, the more land i have to simultaneously defend... what does this do? Well it creates a scenario where there is a maximum amount of districts my corp will ever be able to hold, and so once I reach that point why would I want more districts? The game mode itselfs should always leave a corp wanting more districts, wanting more income (and whatever new goodies we get from holding land down the road) and always wanting to attack to try and gain more districts.

But no one wants to try and grab more land after they have a certain number of districts, you simply can't... its a self defeating game mode, the more land my corp has, the less I want to have more of it. This is counter productive to the spirit of the game mode itself, and its very likely a huge reason why people say that PC has failed to hit the mark it was supposed to.

What PC needs in order to get people excited about holding land is some sort of frontline mechanic. Where alliances are constantly pushing front lines night after night to try and expand their territory and take more land. In this way, taking more land doesn't necessarily leave you susceptible to more attacks, you encourage more fights, more attacks, constant metagaming, and a dynamic PC land grab experience.

I'm curious TTG, despite the poor bonuses, do you really think anyone would ever care to put a POS on a planet in MH? It would be almost pointless considering these planets have a habit of switching owners constantly, and its almost impossible to hold onto land unless you are a very skilled corp. Nothing is safe in MH, there is no stability.

While I think we need large changes in the way PC infrastructure works, i'm not going to bother highlighting them as the suggestions are irrelevant in large part. However, we need one very specific change to the way PC works.

Change clone survival on transfer to 100% for 1 jump and 0% for 2 jumps. We need a way to protect districts, otherwise we will never care to push forward and take more, as we are too susceptible to losing those districts. Its self defeating and it causes most players to be completely uninterested in taking more land, as they struggle to hold the districts they currently own. This also makes alliances more important, as you can have someone actually watching your back, instead of having corp X attack you from 6 jumps away and completely bypass and territory you currently own.

This isn't a complete post by any means, and I don't know how to handle clone packs and new players entering PC, but without a way to protect your districts, it is literally pointless to try and take more. You will find a limit to the number of districts your corp can reliably defend and then have no desire to take more after that. This kind of culture is why PC makes no sense, and why no one wants to play.

What happens in the end? Most corps give up, and then one corp comes in and snatches the land no one else wants.

What do you guys really think will happen once EoN gives up on PC? There will just be a new 'EoN' in town who stomps everyone out of existence and takes all of the land cause no one can hold up to the instability of this game mode.

TL;DR - PC is a self defeating game mode, the more land you have the less you want more land. We need a way for people to get excited about flipping districts and flipping planets, and right now there is very little incentive to. We need some sort of frontline mechanic so we can comfortably continue to push forward and have more fights as a result. PC needs to be a little more like PS2.

I may be completely wrong, and i'm sure there will be plenty of people who disagree. This is just my thoughts on PC from someone who has probably played over 100-150 matches against all sorts of corps. Organized corp matches where you play only for the W and everyone gives it their all is the most fun i've ever had in an FPS. PC has the potential to be amazing, but no one wants to play in it, the more invested you are in PC, less invested you want to become and its fundamentally wrong to the way we should want to play it.

Okay a quick question...
How would your ideal system work in comparison to the current system?
I think you're a smart guy but a detailed plan would do wonders...

Yeah I don't have all the answers by any means. I'm just trying to highlight that I think the lack of a frontline mechanic is really holding PC back, and like Piercing Serenity said... PC should just be a means to an end, you should always want to play more PC and always want more land (even if you can't quite get it!). Right now its more of a glorified corp battle matchmaking system, which could be better done if we had a real corp battle matchmaking system lol.

There are many other changes that need to be made as well though, no doubt. I'm sure TTG has some fairly detailed documents on how they plan to implement their next iteration of PC. I don't have the time or energy to construct some sort of detailed plan that probably won't make a difference anyways. I think there has been some decent discussion amidst all of the trolling and TTG can do with it what they if they end up reading this thread.

Just a few more questions...

I'd assume returning the old corp battles would be a step in the right direction.

but frontline mechanics have issues(lack of a lasting effect,continual defense,etc) but also advantages(don't bite off more than you can chew,allows for fluid and realistic combat,etc)

anyways... look it doesn't really matter. I knew I would receive a lot of hostility due to my alliance tag, and I don't really care. I'm not necessarily saying I have all of the answers here, but its well acknowledged that PC is in a bit of a broken state atm.

All I can hope is that TTG reads this post gets some ideas on how to improve the value of holding territory. Any sort of hostility or discussion in this thread is probably meaningless anyways.

I enjoyed my time playing in PC, and I am still quite interested to see the future of MH and PC in general. However I can't see PC being any more than good players 'stealing' clones from other corps as a way to make money (by attacking, winning, and then leaving the district as they can't defend more than xx timers).

I think PC will always remain fairly stagnant insolong as the mechanics in this game favor corps not wanting to take additional districts.

To some degree I could agree with you point of view. Some sort of frontier to battle (similar than it is in risk) would be great, but there must be a way to beat Corps thats manage to grab enough land to never run out of clones or isk. Just imagine you could restock your frontiers with clones where as the attackers only can attack with 120 clones per attack thats stupid and that way it is nearly impossible to break such "fortifications" and that would hurt the game more than the current crappy implementation.

So yes there need be the need to act more tactical and strategical but there needs to be a "backdoor" so that there is always a way to beat corps in good positions.

BTW I really don't care about your alliance tag

1st: I agree, 120 clone packs gotta go... they give a very large disadvantage to the attacker and overall just makes a bad barrier to entering PC.

Otherwise: I agree with you to an extent. A mechanic like this would force you rely on your alliance a lot more. You still could take so much land before your borders are starting to infringe on someone else who will be red to you. Through alliances you can make sure you have your back covered while you fight over your planets. Allied corps can also back stab you if you aren't careful

However is here a mechanic I think would very well with a frontline based PC:

Planets no longer have district ownership, and we implement a few new PIs:

Capital District (max one available per planet): Determines planet ownership
Orbital Elevator: Controls the ability to send and receive clones from other planets
Defense Relay: Protect capital district, capital district is not available if a relay is still active.

Modify:
Surface Research Lab: Produces 2,000,000 ISK per day
Clone Production Facility: Produces 80 clones per day
Clone Storage Facility: Holds 450 clones (same)


Planetary districts will now act more like 'modules' for a planet. In this way you can customize how a planet to what you want to do, and in many cases well protected districts may want to switch over to having as many research labs as possible, while contested districts may want more defense relays.

So now lets change it to where planets have a 2 hour reinforcement window and attackers can choose within the nearest 15m increment when they want to attack and which district they want to attack. If they lose the attack, nothing happens, if they win the attack, that district goes offline for repairs.

Orbital Elevators will take 5 days for repairs with a 7 day reinforcement timer (invulnerability timer)
Defense Relays will take 3 days for repairs with no reinforcement timer, only one relay can be repaired at a time.
Clone Facilities and Research Labs will take 3 days for repairs with a 5 day reinforcement timer

Finally, you leave the system in place where defenders get a 1 hour window after a successful defense to move clones around if they want to.

Changing PI should be reduced to 20m from 100m, and take 3 days, with a 3 day lock timer.

So when you attack a planet, you will have to make tactical decisions on how you want to approach it.

1. You knock out the elevator so they can't funnel in more clones?
2. Take out clone facilities so you can attack and have the planet run out of clones?
3. Go straight for the relays asap to try and take the planet?

This would actually give a strategic advantage to changing PIs too, which I don't think I've ever seen anyone do.

Finally, the last mechanic to put in place would be this:

The closer you are to the center of MH (and each new... cluster?) the more districts each planet has. So it becomes risk vs. reward, do you open yourself to attacks from more angles for the chance at a bigger district or are you happy with a few fringe planets worth almost nothing while you help your alliance buddies push into new territory? Something along the lines of fringe planets have ~4 districts and center planets ~8-9 districts.

This kind of mechanic would put a bigger emphasis on having an alliance, you want more land, you need more peeps in your alliance! Mega zerg corps have always been kinda meh, I would rather we try to put emphasis on having alliances with many many corps (and many many chances for corp espionage)

Then, we need to open up land (im thinking 500-700 planets over 2-3 clusters (or whatever MH is), I've diluted the ability for a single planet in PC to make passive money. For a first pass I would leave the clone sale mechanic in. But eventually building a system where PC makes no 'end of match' payouts at all, and its all corp issued contracts would be the real way to make PC battles truly 'player issued' and to remove a mechanic where you can 'farm clones' which is what will be happening soon in PC once the FEC war has concluded.