Any intentions of revision in the future if BPO's and APEX suits start to become a major issue? I.E: Team A knows they're going to lose the fight so they just hammer out a bunch of BPO's for the lulz, not incurring any loss at all on their behalf?

What about LP/Aurum items? How are they calculated into all of this?

BPO's actually have an assigned ISK value so while they wouldn't be expending ISK for their deaths they would still be adding to the opposing teams profits every time they die. LP and AUR items also have assigned ISK values AFAIK so it would all just go into the pool. (Someone blue can correct me if I've somehow misunderstood here but I think all of this is accurate).

xD!!!!!

Are you serious? so we just replaced ISK farming with ISK farming for screwing around in a PC match?

Sign me up. Lock the districts and let's all have a blast finding out who can get killed the most running BPO LAVs into the side of a tank. Sounds like great fun for racing tournaments. Just have a bunch of tanks trying to blow up BPO LAVs while they run around the map. Don't even bother hacking the objectives, just blow each other up for the lulz. Hell, I have a capture card, I'll record it and edit it all on the house.

EDIT: Dude just CONCORD sanction the BPO's out and be done with it.

Dear players,

Last night we changed PC reward mechanics from Biomass to GÇ£Keep what you KillGÇ¥, on a team basis.

CCP has been aware of an exploit involving alt-farming ISK through the Biomass No-Show method for some time now until we could gauge the situation.

After lengthy discussions with the majority of District holders, we have decided to switch the reward mechanics to a new method, which has been previously discussed in the Features and Ideas Forums.

This means that Team A will earn Team BGÇÖs ISK losses, split equally among Team A members, and vice versa.

This means that District battles are no longer GÇ£winner takes allGÇ¥, making it viable to stick it out, switching to more cost effective gear and causing enough losses on the enemy to break even.

As the exploit was the only viable way of creating wealth in PC, we hope this change will influence a bigger shakeup in PC tactics. We may reduce the cost of Clone Packs to initiate a Raiding aspect, where Corporations decide to try to make money by minimizing their losses and inflicting more than their own cost plus the Clone Pack.

We are also preparing changes to Planetary Conquest, introducing Command Points and Earned District Income (not passive) which allows us to say GÇ£while Districts are not economically valuable now, they will beGÇ¥. This has also been extensively discussed in the forums.

Some corporations may decide to stop investing in PC, some will change their tactics, and we predict that some will continue exactly as they have been, and collect as many districts as possible before the changes.

A change is coming, and we hope it will be worth it.

Playing in the match - even if it isn't a tactical push for the objectives - is still more involvement and entertainment than the prior versions. A no show doesn't earn ISK, putting one guy on the field against a team provides minimal value etc.
If folks find it more worthwhile to fight for the payout of 150 standard level (or starter level) fits worth of ISK then sure why not?
It isn't as if they couldn't go make ISK in a Pub anyway, to earn an average payout of 300k for a team under this system the fit cost of the opposing team needs to average at 32,000, a pure STD assault fit clocks in at around 10,125. BPO/starter fits are going to provide that value or less meaning that the scenario you describe would give payouts of about 94,922 or less so ISK earnings would be better by simply running a Pub.

If mercs want to run team deploy pure BPO matches for lower than Pub level payouts at longer than average pub time lengths, because no one hacks points, then I say by all means let them do it. It's not like players spending their time doing that holds any balance implications, they could earn more faster in Pubs already.

0.02 ISK
Cross

I think you underestimate how much PC entities are willing to do just to get some free ISK. Hypothetically speaking, let's say you got 20 people (plausible).

Team A: 1 Logi with drop-uplinks, 15 guys running all BPO gear averaging the 32,000 ISK you mentioned.
Team B: Bunch of dudes with Shotguns. Doesn't even need to be a full team. Four guys is plenty.

Logi on Team A just drops up-links, no-one hacks any objectives at all. The fifteen other dudes on Team A just spawn at any of the drop-uplinks in their free BPOs on throw-away alts and Team B just spam-farms them as soon as they spawn.

For the sake of argument, we'll say that you have 15 dudes spawning every 10 seconds.

That's 2,880,000 ISK every minute or 144,000 ISK every minute for each member of your 20 man farm team. Since they didn't hack any objectives? You just handed them the keys to a massive ISK faucet because the game will go on for about an hour or more.

So, nah, being as I don't generally make 9,000,000+ ISK/hour running Pubs, this would be an insanely profitable avenue for the patient and if it's anything we've learned from exploiters in this game is that patience is a commonplace.

I'm not just talking out of my hind quarters, I'm speaking from experience (EDIT: Pro tip, we did this calling in BPO LAVs and constantly hacking/re-hacking turrets). You give them the keys to do it and they will do it. There isn't any reason why BPO's should be used in PC as a player in PC, at that point, should be using -at least- higher level gear where the BPO necessity is no longer necessary and I don't see any reason why having BPO's/APEX's in PC is in any way beneficial, functional, immersive, or investing in performance gains.

With player trading coming I think it might be safe to consider setting ISK values of BPOs to 0.

I would seriously consider at least switching BPO LAV isk values to 0.

I gave the numbers in my prior post and there is no way to make the millions you describe.
There are 150 clones per side, that is one hard limit, and the approximate value of a STD BPO fit is 10,125 (not the 32,000 minimum I mentioned, because to hit that value figure you'd have to be running something more that BPOs).

Even at the 32,000 figure, which again requires real ISK fits not BPOs, the max income is 4,800,000 ISK total for the entire team combined. So using your 4 man farm team context, and assuming a logi for uplinks as you described, that's 960,000 ISK per player. If it takes ~15 sec per kill, 4 kills per cycle that's about 10 minutes for those guys to farm up that much ISK assuming ideal conditions and willing participants on the other side. Also excluding the times for opening deployment and set up. The thing is that ~960k can only be made if the other team is using ISK fits and thus losing money.
Using the BPO value of 10,125 or less gives us a max of 1,518,750 again divided by your proposed team of 5.
303,750. So that's still a decent take, but also much more of a pub level take, it requires players willing to respawn and be shot like clock work over and over again in that time, requires set up etc and even then is still an inflated figure because it doesn't account for the time of initial deployment.

Even beyond that these figures assume that you can deploy 4-5 people into one side (or both sides) of a battle and have it spin up and work properly which while it's how things work now may change.

With player trading coming I think it might be safe to consider setting ISK values of BPOs to 0.

I would seriously consider at least switching BPO LAV isk values to 0.

Then let's set the math aside.

What functional, logical, immersive, or performance gaining reason do you have for having BPO's in PC? What is their functional purpose other than exploiting a defensive move to freely defend a district you know you are going to lose and forcing the enemy to incur ISK losses by doing so? How is that in any way fair for the attackers who have to deal with it?

I am liking this... Blue prints for the win...

I guess I'm just in shock that New Eden now incentivizes losing.

That on the loss side you'll take home a payout equal or greater than the win side is....nuckin' futs.

Dear players,

Last night we changed PC reward mechanics from Biomass to GÇ£Keep what you KillGÇ¥, on a team basis.

CCP has been aware of an exploit involving alt-farming ISK through the Biomass No-Show method for some time now until we could gauge the situation.

After lengthy discussions with the majority of District holders, we have decided to switch the reward mechanics to a new method, which has been previously discussed in the Features and Ideas Forums.

This means that Team A will earn Team BGÇÖs ISK losses, split equally among Team A members, and vice versa.

This means that District battles are no longer GÇ£winner takes allGÇ¥, making it viable to stick it out, switching to more cost effective gear and causing enough losses on the enemy to break even.

As the exploit was the only viable way of creating wealth in PC, we hope this change will influence a bigger shakeup in PC tactics. We may reduce the cost of Clone Packs to initiate a Raiding aspect, where Corporations decide to try to make money by minimizing their losses and inflicting more than their own cost plus the Clone Pack.

We are also preparing changes to Planetary Conquest, introducing Command Points and Earned District Income (not passive) which allows us to say GÇ£while Districts are not economically valuable now, they will beGÇ¥. This has also been extensively discussed in the forums.

Some corporations may decide to stop investing in PC, some will change their tactics, and we predict that some will continue exactly as they have been, and collect as many districts as possible before the changes.

A change is coming, and we hope it will be worth it.

This means that District battles are no longer GÇ£winner takes allGÇ¥, making it viable to stick it out, switching to more cost effective gear and causing enough losses on the enemy to break even.

It's problematc, to be sure... But frankly, with how much of a ghost town PC has become, incentivising trying is not a bad thing. As things have stood, with no payouts and clone packs being as expensive as they are, how many corps trying out PC give up after a few losses? Too many. Yes, quitters are quitters, New Eden is a harsh place, etc. But we don't have enough of an active playerbase to kick people in the teeth for trying and failing. Encouraging people to practice and get better, while giving them the ability to keep trying even after some failures is how we keep the community alive at this point.

However, this change really should have occurred in concurrence with other PC changes, such as giving districts value, and making attacking more accessible for non district holders, which we can be pretty sure are coming, but not when. While incentivising more activity by reducing the risk for the less established teams is good... Having no incentive to defend land is not. This change standing alone is possibly more likely to reduce activity. While economic warfare may be an interesting aspect of PC, it shouldn't be the only aspect, even if temporarily. Shutting down exploits is absolutely a commendable thing... but why the rush now after so long?

Here's to hoping things go smoothly and the other appropriate changes are rolled out in a timely manner.

Are you saying that scorched earth tactics are an exploit? To that sounds like a war of economy.

To me, it seems incredibly meta to use cheap/free gear in order to dupe the enemy into incurring more losses than they intended. If I know I'm going to lose a battle, I'm going to make damn sure that I make the guy taking my stuff suffer as much as possible. I think that in of itself, New Eden at its finest.

Now don't get me wrong, in the current state of PC with this being the ONLY profitability in a district....it's not a good thing. However pending upcoming changes, I could see it as a valid tactic in winning the ISK war (since innate profitability will be baked into owning a district outside of ISK)