Re: EVE server attack

#16
I can't comment on "tech moons" (you mean moon mining? I've never heard that term used before), but you surely can't expect everything to be perfectly balanced right out of development. Stealth bombers and motherships were a HUGE change. Unbalanced, perhaps, indeed some things in EVE are horribly balanced, but not to the point I'd call it broken.
What the f###.

No really. What the f###. What game are you playing? How can you be so incredibly out of f#####g touch with the game that you've not heard about the tech imbalance for the last two or three patches, or supercaps online, yet still believe you are able to comment on it? Get the f### out of this forum, you have no business here.
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Re: EVE server attack

#17
Tech imbalance? O noes my 100mil cruiser is stronger than a 10mil cruiser, WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?!

Admittedly I have not heard anything about the last 2 or 3 patches, but you could be a bit more specific...

Supercaps online. Sure. Titans can rape caps. But they can no longer kill smaller ships since they changed doomsdays. Plus, titans are not vulnerable in that 6 or 7 other titans can instakill them. A bit too encouraging of blobbing, but still a good change, imo, unless you're a capwhore. It's not really CCP's fault that big nullsec alliances can afford titans like candy. If they make them more expensive then nobody else will be able to build any.

You can't really a balance a game based on the decisions of a few nullsec alliances to spam titans. You don't like nullsec alliances? Then GTFO claimable space. Go to NPC-controlled nullsec or lowsec. Or just don't fly a cap and laugh at your friends QQing that their cap got killed.

Re: EVE server attack

#18
Tech imbalance? O noes my 100mil cruiser is stronger than a 10mil cruiser, WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?!
yep, you don't know what a tech moon is (what the f###)

haha i can't believe you think the tech imbalance has to do with ship tech tiers, it's like listening to someone complain that hedge funds are a bad investment because you keep your money in a physical hedge made of plants
Supercaps online. Sure. Titans can rape caps. But they can no longer kill smaller ships since they changed doomsdays
yep, you actually think titans are the imbalanced supercaps (you are wrong)
more random babble about titans
yep, you really have no idea about anything related to supercaps
You can't really a balance a game based on the decisions of a few nullsec alliances to spam titans.
yep, you really have no idea about...anything at all

do the game you play (?) a favor: take two hours to educate yourself on the state of EVE online and the remarkable talent required to f### things up more and more in an attempt to fix them (take the case of fleet lag: fleet fights were possible before dominion, after dominion they were horrid; this is because CCP broke the game and did not know how to fix it without loads of research. another good example is the transition from r64 to tech, which made so many things worse that it was clear CCP had no idea what they were doing). kugutsumen.com is a good place to start

please do this thread a favor and do not waste any more time making it clear that you are uninformed; you have already demonstrated this thoroughly

Re: EVE server attack

#20
oh ho look what i found
An Open Letter to CCP Regarding Tyrannis
by Miyamoto Isoruku

Dear CCP,

We've known each other for a long time. I've been playing your game for three years, and I've come to love it. In a way, I've come to think of you guys as my friends. No matter how bad my day has been, EVE is always there, with its delightful mix of exhilaration and tragedy, even if that mix is perhaps too often overladen with monotony. And that is why I'm writing you this letter: you need an intervention.

You see, CCP, you can't keep doing things the way you have been. You've become addicted to expansions, to the point where you're ignoring everything else - most particularly, the happiness of your players and the quality of your game. You've become so desperate to meet the arbitrary deadlines you set for yourselves that you push expansions out the door without even doing basic quality control, or after having stripped out huge chunks of what was initially advertised, or with massive unintended consequences.

Worse, problems that have plagued the game for years remain ignored in the face of your self-imposed need to push out two content expansions a year. For instance, why hasn't the Bellicose been touched, or the Prophecy revisited? Why are rockets still useless? Why has nothing been done to make nullsec more profitable than sitting in empire running level fours all day? This last point is particularly salient, as it has crippled Dominion from the get go. The result, as the Mittani lays out in his most recent piece for TenTonHammer, is that rather than revitalizing nullsec warfare, Dominion has hamstrung it, by vastly increasing the costs of sovereignty and barely increasing the rewards.

Or what about Faction Warfare? This was supposed to revitalize lowsec PVP, bring grand battles, and help new pilots test out combat before moving on to the "endgame" in nullsec. Well, after rolling it out to so much fanfare, you proceeded to leave it to sit, alone and unloved, for a good solid year. Far from being PVP-driven, it turned into an LP farmer's heaven. Oh, and the faction penalties you receive from taking part in it is enough to discourage any pilot from joining just to try out PVP. I can do that in Red vs. Blue - and not only will I not lose sec status, I won't lose standings either.

Or let's take the user interface. It is a crime that, after six years, there are still modal dialogs in this game. It is appalling that, after every single purchase, the market page refreshes, making large-scale trading an ungodly pain. And it is extraordinarily frustrating that the interface state settings are not linked by a simple "OR" logical operation, but by some absurd black magic which somehow fails to show hostile war targets even when I have clicked the boxes to show hostile war targets. Screw walking in stations, I want a user interface that isn't held together by duct tape, toothpicks, and gremlins.

To be blunt, EVE is in danger of collapsing under its own weight, and every half-baked new content expansion you put out only adds to the problem. What EVE needs right now is not more stuff. Indeed there is enough stuff in this wonderful, horrible game that one can easily spend one's entire playtime exploring only a tiny fraction of it. No, what it needs is for the stuff that's already there to be perfected. You need to get the system you have running smoothly before you can start adding more stuff onto it. Otherwise, new expansions, far from improving the game, will actually weaken it.

People put up with EVE's countless problems and idiosyncrasies because of the extraordinary amount of player control within this unsharded universe. But your architecture can hardly handle the load. Your user interface is more suitable to office software than a space simulator. Huge swathes of the game are totally out of balance. Your GM department is inconsistent at best. And you do not have a copyright on the idea of space-based MMOs. Right now, you are extraordinarily vulnerable, even if you don't realize it. A competent competitor could destroy EVE Online. How? Simple: by stealing the idea of having a space-based, player-ruled, unsharded MMO, but learning from your mistakes. Carefully design the UI, the software architecture, the server support, all the boring technical stuff. Scale rewards with risks and required investment. Be serious about game balance. Provide a PVE and mineral-gathering experience that isn't mind-numbingly dull (this last may be easier said than done).

I do not want this to happen. I would prefer if you woke up to the fact that you need to fix this game before your very existence as a company becomes as endangered as your home country. Friends don't let friends commit slow, painful suicide - which is what you are doing with this constant, unsustainable cycle of content expansions.

I don't know anything about Tyrannis. It could be the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I understand that it's an absolutely vital tie in for DUST. But please, CCP, push Tyrannis back to winter - or later, if necessary. You need to fix what you've already got before you go on to something new. Otherwise, by the time you try to, it may well be too late.

Very Sincerely,
Miyamoto Isoruku
spoiler: tyrannis was terrible and broke the game even more (when he wrote this, supermoms online hadn't even kicked off)

ed: CCP has made a few good balance decisions - removing cyno DDs, AoE DDs, buffing bombers, briefly fixing lag before they broke it again (oh CCP). hilariously though a lot of the DD nerfs came right alongside the buffs that made supermoms so game-breaking (oh CCP)
Last edited by General Battuta on Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: EVE server attack

#21
Actually, with Incarna coming this week, I think it's likely to be the first time CCP have done two major patches in the space of a few weeks. We're still recovering from the last UI update patch, and now they are throwing Incarna at us. Oh, and throwing is both figurative and literal - Stupid walking in stations crap is going to kill my systems memory if they don't do something about it's performance drag. And you can't even turn it off (as of yet) unless you want a crappy bitmap background. Great job there CCP.
The Expanse. Watch it!

Re: EVE server attack

#22
Why is a 6K DPS ship that costs 10 billion isk game breaking? That's 6K DPS with perfect skills and a full rack of drone control units, IIRC, on a battleship-sized sig.

I'll say that what I've read about Incarna has me rather disappointed (as a matter of fact reading about it makes me want to go cry in a corner, or hop a flight to iceland and smack somebody upside the head), but overall you seem to be fairly representative of the average EVE whiner that bitches and moans about everything CCP does, and totally trips balls at anyone who disagrees (This second part at the very least is true). If you aren't going to explain wtf a "tech moon" then STFU and GTFO. You're the one complaining about it, not me. What I know about moons is you mine minerals from them that are used in T2 production. You told me that's not what a tech moon is. So, then... What is it? And why is it SO HORRIBLY BROKEN CCP OMFG! Transition from r64 to tech? That makes no sense. r64 sounds like a moon mineral name, surely there is no resource called "tech". I wasn't aware that moon mining has ever been any different than what it is now, I've never seen any huge overhaul to it in any discussion of any expansions I've been around for.

Even if, as you say, CCP are incompetent game designers, they are not incompetent programmers, especially in the security department.

Re: EVE server attack

#23
i understand you're upset; going from the relatively heads-down perspective of a solo (and apparently retired) EVE player to the big leagues, where people do outrageous and stupid things like pay down their home mortgages using RMT'd tech income, can be startling. but please, instead of getting more and more butthurt, could you just do what i've suggested and take some time to read up on the issues?

you have access to google, right? it takes one search to end up at a thread like this. stop crying, start learning - there's a lot of interesting material out there, and i've given you pointers on how to begin.

these are issues recognized by the entire EVE community. everyone in this thread has expressed astonishment that you're not aware of them. are we expected to explain to you what a 'podkill' is? what the difference is between 'highsec' and 'lowsec'? these are basic facts that every EVE pilot should be aware of - why are you upset that we aren't filling you in on them in a forum that's marked for the discussion of EVE?

are you interested in learning more about EVE, how it works, and why the latest CSM elections went the way they did? where do we need to begin? are you familiar with the t20 scandal? the r64-tech transition? the supercarrier issue? the NC? do you know what the CSM does, and why it's so dissatisfied with CCP?

CCP's programming is not universally bad - the EVE python code is notoriously sloppy and they constantly break their own netcode, creating the lag issues that have choked EVE's high-level content on and off and on since Dominion - but this is more because they don't take time to iterate or improve than because they fundamentally lack talent.

you simply have no right to cry that you don't understand; the information is out there for you to pick up, in websites that have been recommended to you two or three times now. if there are questions you can't answer by reading the EVE tribune, kugutsumen, sins of a solar spymaster, or whatnot, then we can tackle them - but don't come to an EVE forum and then complain when you're called out on not knowing much about EVE.

Re: EVE server attack

#24
Why is a 6K DPS ship that costs 10 billion isk game breaking? That's 6K DPS with perfect skills and a full rack of drone control units, IIRC, on a battleship-sized sig.
i encourage you to take this question to kugutsumen; many of the most prominent fleet commanders in the game's biggest alliances will be happy to describe the problem in depth.

i think this sums the problem up nicely - and bear in mind, it's a problem CCP created, after being warned they were making a huge design mistake, in Tyrannis:
Why is the mothership so broken?

It is possible to create a mothership fit that has more tank than a titan

Motherships can do more damage to a POS than most dreadnoughts

Motherships risk nothing to do either of the above. They are immune to electronic warfare already and sacrifice nothing in order to have insanely strong tanks. They also risk nothing to deliver damage in excess of that of a dreadnought.

A Mothership can, if it wishes, solo hot drop a Tier 1 capital outside any tower, even "death star" towers, in the game and kill that capital ship before it can warp off or move into the safety of the tower's shields.

It can do this even in Low-security space where even the mighty Titan must give up it's Doomsday device and bombers can not use their bombs and interdictors are not allowed to deploy bubbles nor can anchorable bubbles be deployed to stop them.

In lowsec the only remote threat to a mothership is that a fleet has enough heavy interdictors to hold it down while cycling their warp disruption generators (with scripts in so they can only tackle 1 mothership at a time) so that they can get repaired.

Motherships, in fact, have the ability to fit so big a tank that without an incredibly powerful fleet you can't even kill them before their 15 minute timer if they log out while you are shooting at them AND have them tackled. (It is actually possible to fit an Aeon class mothership with over 100 Million effective hitpoints)

The only real defense against a mothership was stripped by a recent change to how fighter-bombers worked. CCP decided that, due to lag issues, they would change bombers from using missile code (which allowed smartbombing ships to reduce/eliminate the incoming fire from fighter-bombers) to using turret code (which made them cause less lag but eliminated the ability to neutralize their damage).

As a result of all the above the Mothership, not the dreadnought, is now the preferred ship to hot-drop other capital class ships. It is, additionally, also the preferred ship class for attacking a POS. Even the fact that fighter bombers can't hit a pos tower itself isn't much of a limiter because the mothership can deploy 25 sentry drones which allows them to do in excess of 4,000 DPS at sentry drone ranges which means they can effectively replace dreadnoughts as the main force when attacking towers if you have a few of them on the field. Couple that with the fact that you can extract the mothership instantly at the first sign of danger while you cannot do the same for dreadnoughts.... well... you can see why so many alliances that can field numerous motherships have stopped bothering to field dreadnoughts unless they absolutely have to (usually triggered by the other side just having a vastly larger capital fleet and they need the numbers).
the other primary issue not discussed here involves the cyno range of motherships - they can cross distances much larger than other caps/supercaps, and with the upcoming jump bridge array nerf, they also outrange subcap fleets - meaning the most powerful ships in the game are also the most mobile. mothership blobs can do everything in the game better than anything in the game. what's worse, they cause a lot of lag, which means they can kill enemy fleets while the enemy pilots are still loading grid.

(it hopefully won't surprise you to learn that most titan and other supercap losses are due to lag, not firepower; for a long time it was impossible to even attack an entrenched enemy because loading grid would take 30 minutes to an hour, during which time the defenders would simply slaughter the attacking force with swarms of mothership-launched fighter/bombers)
Transition from r64 to tech? That makes no sense. r64 sounds like a moon mineral name, surely there is no resource called "tech". I wasn't aware that moon mining has ever been any different than what it is now, I've never seen any huge overhaul to it in any discussion of any expansions I've been around for.
the r64-tech transition was a major economic event that made technetium wildly more profitable than other moon minerals, fundamentally skewing eve's economy.

there is a resource called tech, it is concentrated in what was (until very recently) NC space, and because CCP screwed up the Dominion moon goo system, it is enormously more profitable than any other mineral - it's like the mothership of reaction chains. in essence, the technetium problem occurs because all the most profitable space in EVE is concentrated in one part of the map. one particular power gained control of this area, locked it down, and began raking in so much money that it's rumored their leaders are paying their mortgages using RMT (real money trading) profits from selling ISK.

CCP was warned about the tech issue well in advance of the patch, but they were either unwilling or unable to fix it. since then, fixing the tech problem has become the biggest issue in the EVE playerbase - the recent CSM elections were full of candidates promising to do something about the damn tech.

with luck, mittens (or some CSM hero*) will be able to ram a solution through and get nullsec back to its previous, relatively even wealth distribution

the reason the EVE playerbase is so cynical about CCP is because they have a habit of making things worse instead of better: they tried to make motherships desirable and instead made them godlike, they tried to make sovereignty warfare more fun with Dominion and instead made it even more of a soul-sucking grind, they made their game more laggy instead of less, they tried to clean up economic imbalance and instead gave an enormous advantage to one area of the map at the expense of the rest. they just don't have a great track record in terms of intended versus unintended consequences.

Re: EVE server attack

#26
fixed, broken, fixed again, broken again, fixed again (i'm honestly not sure where we are in that cycle right now)

dominion and tyrannis were both notable for breaking fleet fights in a bad way, basically destroying the endgame content that's used to advertise EVE. the CSM raised these issues with CCP, hoping for a quick resolution - the reason the CSM exists is, in part, to deal with CCP's habit of ignoring existing issues in favor of new content.

this led to the notorious July 12 CSM minutes, in which CCP admitted that their 'Excellence Initiative' was more or less dead, and that almost all work on bugfixing EVE had stopped until Incarna and Dust were done. manpower had been reprioritized from fixing the game to making new content.

the CSM asked why, pointing to quality expansions like Quantum Rise and Apocrypha as examples of CCP doing things right; CCP stated that their data showed they earned more new subscriptions by adding new expansions than by fixing existing content.
It was mentioned by CCP that the data does not seem to support that polished quality sells better than new features. This led to a discussion on the balance of customer acquisition through new features versus customer retention through quality and polish. The CSM also stressed the importance of goodwill and overall player satisfaction, which is very hard to measure in statistics until players decide to quit. The CSM is concerned that players are losing faith and loyalty in CCP due previous expansions not living up to player expectations. The CSM and CCP agreed that expectation management can be improved.
in short, you're right to hate Incarna; it and Dust have pulled enough manpower off of EVE maintenance to render the game significantly less stable and balanced. (they did eventually put together a new lag task force, iirc, which has met some success, but I don't think the fleet lag situation has been repaired to post-apocrypha, pre-dominion levels yet.)

Re: EVE server attack

#27
I thought DUST was a bad idea from the start. Combine that with CCP's desire to force everyone to use Incarna features to try and shove microtransactions down everybody's throats, commercial licenses, and the stupid new vampire game or whatever the hell it is they're working on, and EVE is basically turning into a sh###y F2P-style game of the likes one sees from Nexon or Gamersfirst, except with a 15$-a-month subscription. I very much hope that after CCP finally gets Incarna that they care so much about released that maybe they'll start fixing things and listening to the playerbase.
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