DEV Zoom wrote:Maybe we're entering deep into theorycrafting now, but I'm really asking myself the simple questions:
1. What do you roam for if you're the only faction living on your beta?
2. Which one is better gameplay and involves more players? A tight circle of veterans "living" and hoarding and farming ad nauseam, or providing incentives for casual visitors from Alpha to have their fun with missions or ninja epriton mining or whatever.
I'm trying to extend casual gameplay as much as possible to betas, and break the circlejerk of the usual suspects there, pardon my expression.
Nothing deep there Zoom, it's simple stuff with little theorycrafting.
1. Jita lives on Alpha and gathers his clique to come visit us on weekends usually. The only corporations actively living on Beta for a long time has been our alliance (CIR, 77th, Cons), NSE (our friends) and OTHERS for a while. Everyone else pretty much stays on Alpha (bottable spawns, scarab-mining liquid ores, etc) until weekend hits.
2. Anything that promotes new players and new corps to go out and claw their slice of Beta is a good idea, as an outpost holder absolutely love the field terminal missions and the taxes outposts will receive from this as for the first time in the history of the game it's in my interest to have random people on my island.
The steps you're making right now - PVE revamp finishing off (you really need to get field terminals out into Beta 1 and Beta 2's), tying taxes into outposts, redesigning the TP network with cutting off Beta 2 from Alpha, buffing facility points on Beta and nerfing them on Alpha, they all lead towards the same direction:
1. Current Beta residents either stay where they are (as our real-estate loses value the moment Beta 2 is cut off from Alpha) or move to Beta 2's, freeing Beta 1's up for other corporations instead of Beta 2's being useless wastelands of active-hack farming.
2. Big vet corps that are Alpha residents because they don't want to risk anything either stay on Alpha and produce assets at a worse rate, or they get off their *** and move to Beta (creating content in the process)
3. All corps have a reason to recruit newbies and have them doing missions near their Beta outposts (taxes for corps, content for newbies - before this it wasn't worth the time to recruit a newbie)
4. Alpha loses its role as the apex wealth generator with the removal of static spawns, missioning becomes the new apex wealth generator (best missions on Beta, see point 1-3 how it ties in with each other)
5. With less internal TP's and more walking on highways, there is more opportunity for content & conflict = fun
None of this will happen overnight, but it's the direction you're taking the game right now. I've always been the first to call you Devs out on ideas I thought were stupid and I never minced words about it, now for the first time in a very long time I'm honestly hopeful about the future as the last couple of ideas you've come up with are awesome.
Your ideas however, hurt all the veteran corps that dwell on Alpha and only venture out to Beta for PVP. They will lose their apex wealth generation, their production will get hurt as they'll be forced to haul the Shin-Telly-Hersh triangle to maintain 100pts facilities, and they will have a harder time harassing Beta corps from Alpha if Beta 2 is cut off from Alpha.
Of course they're gonna complain and throw tantrums.