Thor Odinson42 wrote:
I don't see the current mechanics changing anytime soon. No offense to those on the CPM, but I think there is a slight conflict of interest here. The small elite groups of players stand to lose quite a bit if the mechanics are changed.
The current mechanics have locked the vast majority of corps out of PC. In fact there is little to zero chance that an up and coming corp can learn on the job fast enough to hold a single district. And that's buying a district from a small elite group.
The chance of a corp with players that have not been in PC taking a district from an established PC corp with clone packs are close to zero and they'd have to invest at least 144 million ISK to give a real try.
The fix to locking will lead to more fighting, but to expect any different outcome than what we've seen is insanity.
I think there is going to be a run on Renegade. Players will start leaving in mass. They will jump into one of the power alliances and then there will be a period of quiet before the two remaining powers go at it. It will be the same names, just some with different tags. One of these powers will end up with an absurd amount of land that SHOULD be undefendable and the cycle will repeat.
You're almost certainly correct, and to an extent that's OK in my opinion as a member of a small corp who learned the hard way about PC. (on a side note, I don't think your corp-mates answer that blowing up small corps is a good solution, that's what alliances are for.)
The elite players by nature of their skill, experience, and equipment, will always dominate PC, which is more or less working as intended. Whats
not intended is a small hardcore group being able to hold so much land on their own, which is what you are getting at in your last sentence.
If you ask my decidedly non-expert opinion, the "district locking" in and of itself is not the major issue. If 2 corps from the same alliance want to
legitimately fight eachother over and over again like a corp battle (since we
still dont have those...
sigh) to keep some districts in alliance hands that's not such a big deal. The big deal is that being able to be done on a massive scale
without actually fighting, and with both sides making a profit. If a corp with 50 highly skilled members can hold 4-5 districts by such a method (and
only side making any profit) that's not necessarily game-breaking, it's when that same group can hold
60(!) districts like Nyain San does, with essentially zero cost.
The zero cost at least appears to be getting fixed here. That then eliminates some of the motivation for locking as you get a lower return on your investment. The hopeful downstream effect is that the next EoN or Renegade decides its not worth it to hold 150 districts or whatever, and some small sector will always be up for grabs, I imagine.