176 (edited by Burial 2015-07-22 14:15:42)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

DEV Zoom wrote:

I'd like to state that we won't make any changes in this particular matter until we don't have a relatively common understanding. Discussion is welcome and encouraged, and with the incoming changes and our new plans you'll probably have a lot more to talk about very soon.

It's been going back and forth since last year's August and all the possible arguments have been made. There'll never be a common understanding on the forums, but we had a common understanding at the round-table.

The ball is in your court.

177

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Burial wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

I'd like to state that we won't make any changes in this particular matter until we don't have a relatively common understanding. Discussion is welcome and encouraged, and with the incoming changes and our new plans you'll probably have a lot more to talk about very soon.

It's been going back and forth since last year's August and all the possible arguments have been made. We had a common understanding at the round-table.

The ball is in your court.

Your round table consisted of a 3/4 majority that represents a 1/10th of the current population.  And we don't have a common understanding, I disagree strongly with removing station locks.  And you had an impromptu meeting during my working hours.  That's not a round table, that's get some guys together to push an agenda.

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
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Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

178

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Lemon wrote:

Jita or whom ever is for unlocking.

Can you describe the gains or benefits of unlocking these beta stations? I understand your saying this is step one but what do you foresee as the immediate gains or impact of this change.

Further more, where do you see this growing or being expanded on to support the above points.

I believe a true focus should be on picking apart the pit-falls of beta and other areas that don't support player growth properly. Once Identified a work around or fix can be designed and implemented.

I understand Joke may choose to not leverage cookie-cutter builds to shut players down but it inevitable that a player or group of players take a action that paints them as a target as every group has eventually done in the history of PO.

When the above happens these mechanics will be used against them and they will be victim to it.

My point is what is 'your' dev road map that starts with unlocking betas go to next and what are the steps to create a active and proper beta environment?


Fair question.  I'll try to give some detail in answering.

First change would be opening Beta 1’s.

The hope would be that now that there is no risk of having assets locked out and enough stations so that effective camping can only really be done to one or two entities at a time beta would become more populated.
Others would live in SI. NSE and Joke would be on Hokk. Cons and CIR on Dom. ERA on Hoop.  There wouldn’t be a lot of industry happening as reward still isn’t there but at least there would be missions with 4 different locations of people any 3 of which would potentially have targets.

Second change would be a rebalance of alpha – beta 2 islands reward so that it pays to progress.

This would see a considerable nerf to alpha alongside a considerable boost to Beta. Corps would find the risk reduced due to station unlocking alongside the reward increased. More PVE happens on Beta. Corps begin to move their industry out there. As alliances have begun to break up PvP becomes more frequent, less all or nothing and indy gets ganked like crazy. By this point corps in the free outposts have begun sap fights vs the station owners as station income becomes important as well as station bonus’

Third change would be risk rebalance

A war on the terrible scouting mechanics. Under station / teleport detection is nerfed. Station chat channels can be turned off for anyone who doesn’t own the station. Beta has the undocking protection severely nerfed alongside a station ownership bonus that returns it to previous levels. This makes undocking if you don’t own a station a lot more dangerous than if you do. Armoured probes.

At the end your left with the ability to move to beta one for some beta reward and some risk. You can move to beta 2 for a much increased reward and the risk of getting locked out of your station. You can then move to gamma for a similar reward but more roam protection. The downside would be the requirement to win set piece fights at will.

As this progresses the corps that cut their teeth in Beta 1 would potentially progress to Beta 2. As it becomes clear that turning up with massive forces just leaves you staring at the outside of a station people come in more reasonable roaming bots. Ganks happen. Counter ganks happen. Corps get used to killing station scouts and repelling borders to protect their indy.

NONE of this will bring in new players. Lets be honest and upfront about that. What it will do is create an environment where some of the people who have left the game but are watching would consider coming back.

Over the space of six months to a year (alongside I would hope some other easy and good dev content) the game creeps up to the 100 – 150 person mark based on older players having fun in a game where pvp is roam dominated and not sap dominated.

Once this reasonable base of vets exists new people entering the game don’t think they are playing dayz and don’t get steam refunds. Slowly but surely it begins to grow.

That’s the dream. Will it work? I don’t know. I do think for the comparatively small amount of dev time it would take that it would create a real difference and for a lot of people recapture the parts of the game that are fun. Roaming PvP. Risky yet lucrative PVE. Defense and Offense ops. Production and industry in a hostile environment. Territory control because you live there, not because you don’t want someone else too.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

179 (edited by Obi Wan Kenobi 2015-07-22 14:31:58)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Jita wrote:

Doing something to help is better than doing nothing.

.

Well not always. some times the attempts to help can do more harm than doing nothing at all.

Burial wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

I'd like to state that we won't make any changes in this particular matter until we don't have a relatively common understanding. Discussion is welcome and encouraged, and with the incoming changes and our new plans you'll probably have a lot more to talk about very soon.

It's been going back and forth since last year's August and all the possible arguments have been made. There'll never be a common understanding on the forums, but we had a common understanding at the round-table.

The ball is in your court.

No on station locking we didnt reach a common understanding. Jita was typing up the post & I said im still against it, BUT if it did happen on Beta 1 I said we will see in 6 months people asking for locking back again. Or worse yet new players trying at being driven out of the game by tactics we have seen used way back in the day.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

180

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:
Burial wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

I'd like to state that we won't make any changes in this particular matter until we don't have a relatively common understanding. Discussion is welcome and encouraged, and with the incoming changes and our new plans you'll probably have a lot more to talk about very soon.

It's been going back and forth since last year's August and all the possible arguments have been made. There'll never be a common understanding on the forums, but we had a common understanding at the round-table.

The ball is in your court.

No on station locking we didnt reach a common understanding. I still said i was against it but if it did happen on Beta 1 I said we will see in 6 months people asking for locking back again.

The common understanding wasn't that it would even work, but that trying something is better than trying nothing.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Jita wrote:
Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:
Burial wrote:

It's been going back and forth since last year's August and all the possible arguments have been made. There'll never be a common understanding on the forums, but we had a common understanding at the round-table.

The ball is in your court.

No on station locking we didnt reach a common understanding. I still said i was against it but if it did happen on Beta 1 I said we will see in 6 months people asking for locking back again.

The common understanding wasn't that it would even work, but that trying something is better than trying nothing.

yes but by no means was there a consensus on it being a good idea.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Every time Burial and later Jita (two persons) brought up station locking over the past year it was slammed down with overwhelming negative community response.

Repeating the same suggestion over and over again obviously has some effect on Zoom's perception otherwise we wouldn't be discussing it for the Nth time.

If you want an active Beta population, DEV Zoom you need to give veterans and newbies alike reasons to go out there and fight for owning it or using it. Without a reason nothing else will work. You can make Beta 1's crappier then Beta 2's, we will move to Beta 2's and the Beta 1's will be empty wastelands with unlocked stations, so brosef can go mine Epri there and go looking for miners to gank somewhere else without having to worry about someone taking his station away from him.

That's the reality.

Everything else in some magic fairyland where theres a queue of people on Alpha waiting for stations kept locked by a privileged few, is poppycock.

If this is about increasing activity and population, increase tangible rewards on Beta and nerf Alpha into hell like I've been saying for years.

If this is about poor Burial and Jita going out to Beta without getting gangbanged, make a separate island-shard for them and their 5 cronies from the roundtable and give their accounts a one-way trip to that shard and let them play in their own little world.

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Ok lets do a little bit of detective work here.

Lets take a trip back into this game History & have a look at what kinda of threads & comments were made regarding Beta before we had intrusion 2.0

Player population is irreverent when looking at this one issue as having a larger population back in the day was due to the impact of many other factors.

My memory is a little fuzz but, when did intrusion 2.0 come in?

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

184 (edited by Obi Wan Kenobi 2015-07-22 15:34:50)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Ok just as an example heres a thread from way back notice some of the comments:

http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … t-ganking/

OP:

Chief Ubenor wrote:

Had my first PvP experience the other day. I play pretty casually, killed a few Arkha's, killed a few one on one in Castel, nothing to brag about I know, killed 2 v 1 - nothign to brag about either. Castel should be able to handel 2 service droids. Then the guys just ate me by none-stop spawning in starter arkhas lol. Good job CN cool. You can kill a dragon eventually if you just keep poking with a stick, right? All you need is determination. Which yuo guys had enough. Or you just like to grief.. hehe.

My question here is:

When corporation has an outpost enemy corporation members can easily get there, dock and do whatever else they want. So they basically can gank you all day at your own outpost. Whats the point for corporation to have an Outpost in beta island? Is that a matter of prestige cause I don't really see any other point. There are no defence mechanisms, there are no access restrictions. In other words outpost is open for everyone either it belongs to any corporation or not.

It was my first PvP experience so I didn't know that Outposts are actually so open for everyone to use them. And since after you blown up you get free arkha with bullets and guns you can gank the heck out of anyone there lol. lol Do they really expect us to have 5-10 people patrolling teleport to outpost 24/7, but what for really? if 4 people decide to grief they can just make that outpost their home on a secondary account which doesn't even need any EPs invested. 4 Arkhas respawning as soon as dead - thats like none-stop DPS. Maybe not too big of DPS but enough to take down Light droid or assault droid - piece a cake.

Suggestion:
What you guys think about an adjustment to allow only the owning corporation members to have access to the beta island outpost? They can still gank and grief you, but they would have to come all the way from the Alpha Terminal if they are blown up and wouldn't be able to none stop respawn and grief. They would actually have to be more organized and plan their blockades on teleporters and we would have a chance to confront them by being able to regroup at OUR outpost. Does that make sense?

I shall continue my search!

BTW this guy talks about how arkhe's were used but later in history we seen other mechs / bots use in this same manner.

Also any one remember having alt scouts logging on in your station when intrusions were about to pop? I do.

Now imagine he had a detector on. have one of those in each station & 1 or 2 on TPs into the island & BAM 50% coverage of an island with in 2 mins.

Edit 2:
An old thread started by Neoxx talking about an idea he had at the time but some interesting topics are raised.
http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … rmissions/

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

185 (edited by Race Drones 2015-07-22 15:49:27)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

...Also any one remember having alt scouts logging on in your station when intrusions were about to pop? I do. ...

Yes, two days ago.

NOTE: I was in the roundtable only to be informed.

Jita wrote:

... Corps would find the risk reduced due to station unlocking alongside the reward increased. More PVE happens on Beta. Corps begin to move their industry out there. As alliances have begun to break up PvP becomes more frequent, less all or nothing and indy gets ganked like crazy. By this point corps in the free outposts have begun sap fights vs the station owners as ...

^^ 100% speculation.

Do you have any magic crystal ball?.

Ignorance is curable, Stupidity is not.
The "Planet of the Apes" is not science fiction, is a daily reality.
All is in "The Matrix".
See Beyond the Obvious.

186 (edited by Celebro 2015-07-23 01:10:06)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

If nothing is going to change, then I would support this unlock only on beta 1s. Different strokes for different folks. A change can only be good or bad, but I guess the game has not much left to lose. Locked OPs on beta 2 should give enough content for whoever can take it; easier to defend and probably more rewards from missions.

Beta 1 will become a stepping stone for new corporation to do industry although my ideas, sounds like a good option too: http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/125736/#p125736. This came about by giving terminals on Betas a good use and as a stepping stone which can also be done on beta 2, and avoiding OP unlocks.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Im all for new ideas so I say open beta 1. People who arent familiar with hellcamping will get a taste of it so we shall see. I propose that if this change doesnt work a new beta/alpha island variation is created with all the benefits of beta 1 and pvp windows. No open pvp 24 hrs a day. I guess it would be similar to what they are doing on Archage (I dont play it so I dont know for sure)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

DEV Zoom wrote:
Naismith wrote:

But won't all of that change when you complete the mission revamp and add field terminals everywhere?

I did ask if access to the highest missions will be tied to station ownership or just to the field terminals, did you change your design plan?

I don't think field terminals alone are enough to encourage someone who is into missioning to live there. They are good for some quick in-and-out stuff, but nothing else.

And yes, highest level missions might be tied to station ownership in the future, but with the current revamp we're only going up to level 6 for now (to be safe), and that will be true for all beta bases and terminals.

Perhaps it would be wiser to wait and see how the metagame evolves? I wouldnt hazard a guess as to how it will turn out, but I think we can agree theres a chance it can stimulate people into going out there a lot more then they currently are.

The elephant in the room that should be considered is that stations are generally only worth holding if they have an active hack SAP, and if someone like us in POE is actively producing on such a scale that we care about station returns. Please remember DEV Zoom, that POE willingly relinquished control of 4/6 betas for the general population to fight over. If they arent being fought over, people who should be fighting over them obviously don't see any benefit in owning one.

So really it's not a case of there not being enough space, its a case of people not finding the space worth it. The people who started this campaign live on Alpha - why arent they taking stations and living there? With sparks gone there will already be 3 unlockable terminals on different sides of the world.

189

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Naismith wrote:

POE willingly relinquished control of 4/6 betas for the general population to fight over

When was this? I dont think anyone was actually aware.

You also have to factor in that this was a choice.

As one of your own alliance members said, nobody with any sense would move all their industry to an outpost that could get locked. The only corps that have are part of the greatest concentration of people, EP and equipment in the game and have had those three advantages for several years. I don't really think you understand what risk is, you certainly haven't experienced any significant risk for several years now.

I don't think that it should be a requirement to be part of this preponderance of force, or be at the whim of the same as to whether living in a station is a possibility or not. It will just perpetuate the same conditions that have helped empty the game for years.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

190

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Also Syndic I don';t think ANYONE is saying that the current Beta rewards are enough to make moving there worthwhile. That's a given, improving reward is absolutely needed.

The question is, if reward was improved and beta became worth it does it provide the needed environment to be populated or does it promote ninja missioning and mining, hordrop and withdraw to alpha pvp and whoever is the biggest dog in the yard having total control of stations they don't intend on actually using.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Jita wrote:
Naismith wrote:

POE willingly relinquished control of 4/6 betas for the general population to fight over

When was this? I dont think anyone was actually aware.

http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … x-and-you/

So, from the 30th of November to today... There has been little to no competition for control of 10 Beta outposts, and it would appear nobody is interested in living out of the 3 NPC terminals available in the game.

That is more then half a year of the general population actively choosing not to capture an outpost, instead choosing to live on Alpha and venture out to Beta for PVP only at their leisure, typically weekends.

Jita wrote:

Also Syndic I don';t think ANYONE is saying that the current Beta rewards are enough to make moving there worthwhile. That's a given, improving reward is absolutely needed.

The question is, if reward was improved and beta became worth it does it provide the needed environment to be populated or does it promote ninja missioning and mining, hordrop and withdraw to alpha pvp and whoever is the biggest dog in the yard having total control of stations they don't intend on actually using.

That question is a logical fallacy, Beta should NEVER be designed so that someone who doesn't invest and risk the assets can get all the reward of living on Beta.

The outposts should be worth owning, worth enough to warrant the risk involved. Corporations must "need" to own an outpost, it should be the overriding logical choice forward. Then they have an option, build a Gamma with the risks involved and the rewards, or capture a Beta, or both. Player choice.

If the outposts aren't worth it, we won't see any change in the circumstances - the Devs will merely acknowledge that the outposts are useless and further shrink the game back in time to old tactics and then the general population can pat itself on the back for reinventing the wheel that us and M2S invented a long time ago.

DEV Zoom, here's a simple question: In your opinion, as a corp-leader, why should you capture a Beta outpost?

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

What is this M2S reinventing the wheel you are speaking of?

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Illiathos wrote:

What is this M2S reinventing the wheel you are speaking of?

4 years ago there were no sparks and stations weren't lockable, you could own it and live in it but there was nothing stopping corp X from all coming into your home station and hellcamping your corp there so your only option was to log out or log onto another account and play somewhere else on Alpha.

The metagame back then favored this type of griefing and it was heavily used, along with many other tactics and tricks.

194

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Naismith wrote:
Illiathos wrote:

What is this M2S reinventing the wheel you are speaking of?

4 years ago there were no sparks and stations weren't lockable, you could own it and live in it but there was nothing stopping corp X from all coming into your home station and hellcamping your corp there so your only option was to log out or log onto another account and play somewhere else on Alpha.

The metagame back then favored this type of griefing and it was heavily used, along with many other tactics and tricks.

which are done today on alpha teleports to beta..  The camping was insane!  Same thing that will happen if this goes live.  Period.

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
http://www.perp-kill.net/kill/239407
Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

195

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

The thing is Syndic, Zoom has already stated that the overriding want in terms of beta ownership is a lot of smaller corps holding single outposts rather than alliances. The current mechanism forces alliances to form to prevent station locking.

I didn't see that post to be honest so fair enough. I can honestly say it wouldn't make a difference to Joke, we don't want to put any industry in a lockable outpost and don't want to do sap warfare with 5am ops in a corp with 5 - 10 people. That's why we left hoop all those years ago and its still true today.

It may be lazy in your view but its a play style shared by many.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

196

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Then don't.  Use a npc beta terminal, show up to SAPs in your time zones and don't worry about the ones not in your Timezone.  He'll look at OTHERS they are doing just fine.

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
http://www.perp-kill.net/kill/239407
Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

197

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Ville wrote:

Then don't.  Use a npc beta terminal, show up to SAPs in your time zones and don't worry about the ones not in your Timezone.  He'll look at OTHERS they are doing just fine.

That's possible for PvP but not for anything else which is exactly the point you and syndic are making. You can quite easily be camped in and a less strong corp couldn't stop that.

The point of opening beta 1 is to provide a larger area to have this play style in, and in doing so minimise the ability to camp. There are still problems as I've already agreed but they are fixable and if we are adults and recognise those problems we can not exploit them because we want the game to succeed.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

198

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

When you talk about boosting beta but making the mechanics the same what you are actually doing is nerfing alpha as in relative terms they will be worse off.

Your nerfing alpha to such an extend that your essentially saying to the games player base that to play perpetuum at a reasonable level you must be willing to conduct 5am sap ops in gangs big enough to compete with whoever happens to rule the server.

This may be OK for some people but your just limiting your potential player base and the more dead the game becomes the more acute that limitation is as the folks who are left have to be 24 hours and care less. Its self diminishing defeatism.

Now if that's the game Zoom wants then fine, I'll shut the *** up and either wait for enough die hards to make the game successful or perpetuum to die. I honestly don't think it is like that though, I think broadening the appeal of beta to a wider player base is a good thing and that's why I'm talking about it.

It's easy for you to make it about people but for me it's just about the game catering to a play style that is not only popular but fits what I want to play.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

199 (edited by Burial 2015-07-23 14:48:21)

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Syndic, yes. Corporations that've taken the effort of capturing and defending an outpost should get higher rewards over someone using unlocked ones. Betas with unlocked outposts only need to be rewarding enough to provide a chance of profit over Alphas at the end of the day.

You want to balance risk/reward of Betas by only increasing the reward. That's legit if there's enough fun and meaningful content for the masses to stick around until they're ready to capture an outpost. There isn't. Growing up on Alphas doesn't work and there's ghost of a chance the developers can make it work within any reasonable timeframe. Stack rewards sky-high, make the current owners even more powerful, and there's even less corporations surviving the even longer Alpha phase.

New corporations, the new generation, need a stepping stone between Alpha, and capturing and defending an outpost on Betas. Opening up Beta 1's is the fastest and easiest way to provide a place for them. Yes, there will be ganking. Developers should make extra effort to hinder someone like Lemon quadboxing and hellcamping a whole corporation into a terminal. Opening up as many outposts as possible to spread the affected targets is the first step.

As long as the players on Beta 1's are able to turn profit, getting ganked on the field is fine. Open Beta 1's and the option for meaningful and vastly superior content over running assignments on Alpha for the foreseeable future is provided.


Anyway, Syndic, do a reality check. You want the game to cater towards hardcore gaming communities. Those are the only players with the competitive drive to go against these odds. But what hardcore gaming community is going to join a 5 year old game with 20 players online when there's so many newer and more popular games out? The only way this game can survive is by starting to appeal to a wider audience and playstyles.

200

Re: A prediction (about outpost locking)

Jita wrote:
Lemon wrote:

Jita or whom ever is for unlocking.

Can you describe the gains or benefits of unlocking these beta stations? I understand your saying this is step one but what do you foresee as the immediate gains or impact of this change.

Further more, where do you see this growing or being expanded on to support the above points.

I believe a true focus should be on picking apart the pit-falls of beta and other areas that don't support player growth properly. Once Identified a work around or fix can be designed and implemented.

I understand Joke may choose to not leverage cookie-cutter builds to shut players down but it inevitable that a player or group of players take a action that paints them as a target as every group has eventually done in the history of PO.

When the above happens these mechanics will be used against them and they will be victim to it.

My point is what is 'your' dev road map that starts with unlocking betas go to next and what are the steps to create a active and proper beta environment?


Fair question.  I'll try to give some detail in answering.

First change would be opening Beta 1’s.

The hope would be that now that there is no risk of having assets locked out and enough stations so that effective camping can only really be done to one or two entities at a time beta would become more populated.
Others would live in SI. NSE and Joke would be on Hokk. Cons and CIR on Dom. ERA on Hoop.  There wouldn’t be a lot of industry happening as reward still isn’t there but at least there would be missions with 4 different locations of people any 3 of which would potentially have targets.

Second change would be a rebalance of alpha – beta 2 islands reward so that it pays to progress.

This would see a considerable nerf to alpha alongside a considerable boost to Beta. Corps would find the risk reduced due to station unlocking alongside the reward increased. More PVE happens on Beta. Corps begin to move their industry out there. As alliances have begun to break up PvP becomes more frequent, less all or nothing and indy gets ganked like crazy. By this point corps in the free outposts have begun sap fights vs the station owners as station income becomes important as well as station bonus’

Third change would be risk rebalance

A war on the terrible scouting mechanics. Under station / teleport detection is nerfed. Station chat channels can be turned off for anyone who doesn’t own the station. Beta has the undocking protection severely nerfed alongside a station ownership bonus that returns it to previous levels. This makes undocking if you don’t own a station a lot more dangerous than if you do. Armoured probes.

At the end your left with the ability to move to beta one for some beta reward and some risk. You can move to beta 2 for a much increased reward and the risk of getting locked out of your station. You can then move to gamma for a similar reward but more roam protection. The downside would be the requirement to win set piece fights at will.

As this progresses the corps that cut their teeth in Beta 1 would potentially progress to Beta 2. As it becomes clear that turning up with massive forces just leaves you staring at the outside of a station people come in more reasonable roaming bots. Ganks happen. Counter ganks happen. Corps get used to killing station scouts and repelling borders to protect their indy.

NONE of this will bring in new players. Lets be honest and upfront about that. What it will do is create an environment where some of the people who have left the game but are watching would consider coming back.

Over the space of six months to a year (alongside I would hope some other easy and good dev content) the game creeps up to the 100 – 150 person mark based on older players having fun in a game where pvp is roam dominated and not sap dominated.

Once this reasonable base of vets exists new people entering the game don’t think they are playing dayz and don’t get steam refunds. Slowly but surely it begins to grow.

That’s the dream. Will it work? I don’t know. I do think for the comparatively small amount of dev time it would take that it would create a real difference and for a lot of people recapture the parts of the game that are fun. Roaming PvP. Risky yet lucrative PVE. Defense and Offense ops. Production and industry in a hostile environment. Territory control because you live there, not because you don’t want someone else too.

Jita, I can see where you are coming from with this story, I was looking for more of a technical description disregarding any current political landscape and focusing on the average player and below.

Details of how x mechanic or feature is intended to support the player, which there are hints of sprinkled in the above post.

I think we can all agree that the majority of players that are still here, PO forums,  do no fall into the category or realm of who we are targeting to support and empower with these changes.

Station Locking vs No Lock

It takes days to drop a station and then lock others out currently. The issue is not corporations being locked out but their inability to cope with the methods and tactics of harassment PvP that can be brought on by a beef, which always occur.

Now I want to compare two experiences of mine to demon-strait the players I believe we need to target and support properly for game growth.  I feel they are the ones we have failed to help time and time again.

Using FOOM as a reference example, I engaged them solo in a vendetta for something their CEO stated to me. I could not beat them all but I could beat 80% if not more of them on my own, consistently. Only a few remain

When they did take a step to engage me at 110% to take a defeat me I rang the dinner bell calling my boys. I may have gone down but none of them survived those engagements for I was ultimately baiting them to go all in.

Note I never took the station form them nor did I have docking rights. I merely took control of their beta and shut down their ability to use it productivly.

Lets use STC as a example second example, when I returned from in-activity and they controlled Dom with RG. When this occurred I was locked out of Danachrov and had no access to resources.  They were well over 30+ active players living and playing on that island.

They refused me access and declared a preference to fight me over it. We all know the results of this, however players like DeathMonkey and his brother as well as a few others were capable of learning, adapting and growing from this.

We lost however 80-90% of their players in my mini siege against them.

When the server attempted to assist them, again, I then engaged them with my own support and continued to come out on top despite sporadic losses. Once these conflicts reached a certain point I did bring in the full weight of what is now PoE to crush any and everything.

My point with this is that unlocking beta stations wont change much in the above dynamic. It would be far more beneficial for us to write guides, video tutorials, and feature descriptions to empower these players to successfully venture out. 

The rough numbers for  mission rewards are a great step but I think our main focus should be identifying abusive mechanics or harsh mechanics that could use some tuning to prevent what appears to new players as a complete shutdown to access to aspects of the game.

        The 3 days it takes to turn a outpost around and lock someone is not somthing that happens over night and it can be identified and planned for when it begins to occur.

        You cannot know when a player like myself, Mongolia, Supremeghandi, DeathMonkey or others stage against you and there is nothing to help them combat us besides that station lock as it limits a few of our greater techniques.


We have lost far more to niche play things that new players don't understand and fail to overcome with the currently available knowledge and tool-set.

P.S. All the fits I used to achieve these things were provided to the dev's prior to use and were detailed to be pushing the edge of what is considered balanced. I personally thing balance is in a worse state now than it was previously for these new players as well.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle