War Economy! The profitability of Destruction and Loss

Below this line is an essay I have posted to the Eve forums. Feel free to comment here, as well.

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Greetings,

 Its really fun to fight over stuff and blow things up in Eve. I am always looking for new and even more fun (and devious) ways to blow things up, or create opportunities to blow things up, or get pad to blow things up. What you will find below is a set of ideas I have been considering for a while regarding combat, loss, and ways to make it more interesting and profitable.

Steps towards Something Greater

Recent updates have brought changes that, while seemingly small in scope, have the power to change the fundamental economic drivers of Eve Online. The first, and perhaps most powerful of these changes was the ship insurance payment changes.

 Insurance reimbursements for lost ships are now paid based on the actual value of materials required to build them. This implies an extremely powerful concept: The ISK value of items within Eve can be derived and refined into a single clear number based on aggregated market data. This also implies that such a value can be determined for any item sold via the market. Simply by tracking the ISK value of materials required to build items, the market value of the items themselves, or some combination there of, anything from Meta 1 Scramblers to a Tech 3 Cruiser can have a mean ISK value. This is a key concept for proposals given further in the essay.

 The second of these recent changes was the addition of many faction items to the market. The actual ISK value of these items has quickly become clearer since their addition. Some faction items can still only be bought and sold through contracts. While contracts are perhaps useful for rarer items, common items can be tracked more easily through the market. There is also much more price fluctuation in contracts. Multiple items being sold in one contract also makes determining ISK value for items with no market equivalent near impossible. As stated above, determining ISK value is key.

 Finally, the most recent update has brought the ability to see what implants were lost when “giving someone a quick trip home”. This is truly the crownpiece of any aggregated ISK value calculation system. We can now know everything lost upon ship and pod destruction and therefore determine down the very last cent (or ISK in this case) the value of all assets involved.

 Together I believe these changes warrant a serious rethinking of bounties, kill rights, and factional warfare. An incredible new world of opportunities to enrich the game play experience within Eve Online lay before us. Systems where destruction and loss have clear value, and more importantly, clear rewards are now possible. There are many possibilities –many more then I can relay here and keep my essay any reasonable length! I will try to hit on a few of them below.

Bounties that mean something!

Instead of silly pod destruction Empire generated bounties could pay out a percentage of the target’s assessed losses until the total bounty prize was depleted. Players could freely add their own funds to such bounties as they desired. Private bounty contracts would not only be possible but desired! Two parties, be they single players, corps, or alliances could enter into a contractual agreement where by a third party’s assets were targeted and destroyed. A percentage value of the destroyed items would be paid out to the aggressors.

Under such a system payments could only occur for items which were destroyed, not dropped. However attackers would now gain from both drops and destruction. No more cursing the wicked drop fairies because your targets faction modules did not drop! (At least not so profusely)

 Its also interesting to consider pricey “uninsurables”, such as T2 ships under such a system. So you finally caught that annoying nano fit Vagabond? While he gets 30% of the value of a tech 1 stabber for that loss, you on the other hand are operating under a private bounty agreement and get some portion of the actual value of his T2 hull. Lucky you!

Killrights

Within such a system kill rights could be updated to allow destruction of the aggressor’s assets up to the assessed value of incurred losses. This also begs for a reconsideration of transferrable kill rights. That however is not within the scope of this essay.

War Declarations revisited

Instead of a flat fee to attack any given corp or alliance, limited destruction rights within empire space could be purchased. Mercenary corps could no longer endlessly attack groups of industrialists for a flat weekly fee. At the same time attacks which serve a specific purpose could be executed more freely for considerably less isk. (Caveat! I am not supporting one system over another here, just giving some possibilities. Troll for life Brutha!)

Faction Warfare could be truly profitable!

With a more granular loss calculation system in place Faction Warfare payments could be expanded beyond simple Loyalty Points. Cold, hard ISK could also be paid out. This would allow a new income stream in Eve for FW participants! It might also help balance out some of the disparities between opposing empires that currently exist. More opposing FW targets would mean more possible profit and more danger!

Suicide Yarr!!!

 Did those guys who just trashed your freighter in high sec with a suicide gank do it for the “LOLs”, or because they were paid off? Anyone really dislike you? You may never know. I like to imagine this as a nice replacement for the recently lost insurance payments.

 As you can see there are many possibilities. I believe the examples given above only scratch the surface. The key to all of this is an aggregated market evaluation system capable of giving an arbitrary value to each and every item bought and sold.

The Value of Conflict

 The goal here is to create a War Economy: A system where destruction and conflict have value -not only an immediate value, but a speculative one as well. Conflict is what drives Eve Online and makes it the engaging experience we all love. I believe such a system would give players the tools to fight with one another in new rich and robust ways. It would give us new excuses to blow up important internet spaceships. And most important, it would be fun.

Smart people working hard for Internet Spaceships

 Seleene, a current CSM member made an excellent post on his blog here. What started out as a simple reply quickly turned into something too long to post as a comment so I decidedto just drop it on my own page.


 From a purely business perspective CCP's choices make a great deal of sense. "We have standardized and unified our code base. We are expanding our product line. We are creating new environments for consumers to experience over our entire product line, and testing these environments in our current products." All this sounds really good, and to a large extent is. However from a creative perspective these choices are mediocre at best. Its like spending years creating the best canvas possible but never getting around to actually painting a picture on that canvas. Also, all these choices do little to keep consumers interested in their flagship product, the one that actually pays their bills. To rectify these problems its going to take a complete rethinking of what CCP is about, and perhaps a change in management.

 Unfortunately there is very little historic precedent for such radical paradigm shifts without major crises. Whether it be within individuals, vast empires, or some mid-size company in Iceland, such large changes in culture and thinking do not come easy to our species. Is this to say its impossible? No, but highly unlikely. Sadly such a crises would probably come from CCP being unable to pay their bills as a company and ceasing to exist. It is exactly this scenario the passionate player base is trying to avoid. Ironically, I think this is exactly what CCP is trying to avoid as well, but addressing the problem from a completely different perspective.

 I personally do not completely disagree with the overall choices CCP has made. I think there has simply been a tipping of the scales too far in the direction of business oriented decisions and away from creative iteration. All of the original creative ideas in Eve have had many years to be tested and retested. It is time the results of these years of testing and experimentation be used to rethink some of the underlying core mechanics of Eve that are seen as broken and inadequate by all parties involved. To put it clearly, the limited resources of CCP need to be shifted back in the direction of significantly improving their current product. I really think this is all it would take.

 The answer coming from company management for along time has been "Yeah, we will get around to fixing that stuff..." By the time they get around to it there may not be a game left to fix. Irregardless of the CSM or outcry from a devoted, and perhaps dogmatic consumer base, the gamble is theirs to make in the end.

EDIT: All of these thoughts and much more is clearly and articulately expressed in this Eve Radio Chat.

MJ

Ship Iteration Part 1, Overall Mecahnics Changes

 Hello again,

 Here's the first part of some ideas for mechanics changes to Eve's PvP system. I feel this still needs a lot of editing, but I might as well throw it out there to get things started.

Overall Problems with Ship Combat:

 As it stands now smaller ships have minimal value in combat. The larger the fight, the less ship types are valuable, and the faster smaller the ships die. This goes against some basic concepts of what combat in Eve should be about:

-          All ships have roles

-          All ships are valuable in fleet combat

-          New players can serve a valuable role and enjoy combat in that role in all scales of combat

-          Veteran players can serve a valuable role in any type of ship -not just the largest

-          Capitals need sub-capital support fleets and should be supporting large sub capital fleets –not the other way around.

 There are some specific reasons small ships are less valuable. In particular these are:

-          Drones of any size can be fit on any ship thereby giving large ships a powerful and often unending counter to any smaller ship class.

-          Energy Neutralization does not scale well versus smaller ships. One shot from a large neut and your frigate or cruiser is out of cap.

-          Capital class ships are effective against smaller ships. This is in part due to the formerly stated drone problem. However Fighters deal significant damage to cruiser class ships, while Titans can single-shot anything –and do.

-          ECM does not scale well. Smaller ships have weaker sensor strength and fewer slots to counter ECM. It is an “I win“　button versus smaller ships, and most T1 ships.

 Many of these issues need to be examined holistically. They cannot be dealt in an individual way. Let’s being with drones.

Drone Size Restrictions:

 Endless light and/or medium drones on large ships are a problem. The larger the ship, the more drones it can hold. There needs to be some changes to how drones deal damage, and restrictions placed on what type of drones each ship can carry.

-          “Drone Slots” need to be added to the game.

-          Smaller ships would be limited to light drones.

-          Cruisers and Battlecruisers would be able to carry only a small amount of light drones (less then 5), and mostly medium drones.

-          Battleships would carry a small amount of medium drones (less then 5), and mostly heavy drones.

-          Capitals could only carry heavy drones and fighters.

One exception to these rules would be the Gallente drone boats. These ships have less high slots, turret hardpoints, and a limited power grid. Their alternate toolsets for fighting smaller ships is much more limited. Therefore these ships would be allowed one full flight of 5 drones of a smaller type. This would be quite potent, but limited to only one set. As an example, the Vexor would have 5 light drone slots, while the Dominix would have 5 medium drone slots.

Lets give some specific examples to help visualize these changes:

Megathron: 3 medium drone slots, 5 heavy drone slots

Vagabond: 2 light drone slots, 3 medium drone slots, drone bay increased to 30m, bandwidth unchanged

Drone movement, tracking, and damage dealing:

All drones should be able to shoot their target if they are in range even while moving. The issues with drones warping, to stop, to shoot, to warp needs to end. However the amazing accuracy of large and medium drones that are not in warp versus smaller targets needs to end, as well.

-          All light drones should be effective at dealing damage to frigates. This means some tracking boosts to Acolytes, Hornets, and Hobgoblins.

-          Medium drones should deal some damage to frigates, but not an overwhelming amount.

-          Large drones should deal next to no damage to moving frigates. They should deal some damage to moving Destroyers, Cruisers, and appropriate damage to moving Battlecruisers.

-          Sentries should exhibit the same characteristics as large drones in this area.

-          Fighters, should deal solid damage to battleships. As the target gets smaller, though their damage should reduce down to nothing quite quickly.

-          Fighter Bombers should deal no damage to moving sub-capital ships.

Energy Neutralizers:

 In their current form large Neuts simply destroy smaller ships. One shot takes a small ship’s capacitor to zero. Overall neutralizers are quite strong and give a very high reward for simply being in rage of the target. Lerger neuts certainly should give some advantage to larger ships without completely making fights one sided. To this end I suggest neuts remove the lesser between some percentage of a target’s capacitor or the neut’s maximum given value. Lets give a specific example:

 Current Large T2 Neut: Energy Neutralized, 600 GJ

 Suggested Change: Energy Neutralized, 600 GJ or 40% of Target’s Capacitor, whichever is less

 This change would cause all ships to lose less energy as their cap got lower. 40% is still a significant amount of any ships capacitor, but conversely, as targets grow larger the base flat values would take over meaning smaller neuts could not overpower larger ships. Ships with bonuses to neutralization would see all bonuses given to both the percentage value and the flat value. On a side note, because of the way Energy Vampires work I believe the framework to implement this change already exists.

Challenges with ECM:

 As Stated above, ECM scales terribly in its current implementation. Additionally, unlike tracking computers and sensor boosters, the modules used to counter ECM serve no other purpose. ECM drones are also incredibly strong with little skill investment required, and in many cases even stronger then ECM modules, themselves.

 The design goal of the following changes are to continue to allow ECM to be a strong EWAR platform (ECM is all the Caldari do so it better be good) while allowing smaller ship some chance of not being completely countered. It’s also important to maintain some sort of sensor level advantage for T2 ships and larger combat ships such as battleships and carriers.

To begin with, I would like to see the current sensor strength of all ships removed and replaced with a percentage value. All T1 Ships up through battlecruisers would have a base value of 100%. T2 ships and those larger than BCs would gain sensor strengths greater than 100%. Specific values could be played with.

Second the ECM modules themselves would have a base percentage jamming chance. The calculation for jamming success or failure would be (ECM Strength/Ship Sensor Strength). As an example, an ECM module with a jamming strength of 20% would give .2/1 versus a T1 frigate,  which is obviously a 20% chance.

Next, the racial strengths and weaknesses to jamming would be moved to the ECM modules. So Caldari percentages would be lower, while Mini percentages would be higher.

Finally, ECM drones would see their percentages lowered to 1/4 of the ECM module counterpart –so somewhere around 5%, give or take some percentage points for drone size. This would lower the odds, but hopefully not make ECM completely useless.

Overall the goal is to get smaller ships back in the game, while maintaining ECM as a strong platform.

I'll post more parts to these suggestions as I get them ready. Comments appreciated!

MJ

Essay 1: Eve, MT, and the Future of the Game

Here is my first, in what I hope to be a body of essays. As with all my essays, I reserve the right to edit after it has been posted. Enjoy!

Who Am I?

I have been playing Eve since late 2007. Most of my activities centered around PvP. While the single server aspect, and subsequent international player base intrigued me, what got me really interested in Eve was getting my ship blown up and losing my stuff. In my second week in Eve these guys hunted me down, killed me, and made my pod go splat. I was upset about the whole ordeal for upwards of 5 minutes. Then I realized “Wait a minute… I was being a complete idiot… And I just got killed for it and lost everything I had worked for… You can do that in this game! I love Eve!” and was hooked.

What Makes Eve Good?

Real Loss

 Almost all items in Eve are destructible and have a market value. When I lose a ship and get podded I don’t spawn on a “Res Pad” with all my stuff. It’s all gone -every bit of it. Items lost in Eve are gone forever. I have to figure out how I am going to generate the income to replace them. This perceived loss creates an environment where choices matter significantly more then in other games.

Conflict & Challenge

 Whether it be blowing up your enemy in space, or undercutting your rival on the market, Eve is about conflict and challenge. This isn’t pre-scripted conflict told to you in blathering dialog by some NPC with an exclamation mark over their head. Everyone involved are real life players, just like you. There are going to be winners and losers, and the outcome is uncertain.

Cumulative Advantage

 Eve is about building an advantage. While it isn’t as simple as this, advantage can generally be viewed in three areas:

-          Military Advantage

-          Economic, Industrial, and Logistical Advantage

-          Socio-Political Advantage

 Cumulative advantage can build quickly or over time but its results are always quite obvious. If you’ve out gunned your opponent, are better monetized, have a better logistical chain, and can bring powerful friends into the equation then you’ve already won the fight. Just land the knockout punch and get it over with.

Not Because of Internet Spaceships

 For me Eve is not enjoyable because it is a science fiction game. I could be happy if we were all elves firing lightning bolts at each other, or gas mask wearing mutants in some post-apocalyptic setting. What makes Eve interesting is that it’s a wild free-for-all where losses add up, where I am constantly challenged by others to kill or be killed, where alliances and choice make a difference. Eve is survival of the fittest. The smart and ruthless prevail. The foolish and lazy are given a quick trip home to update their clone.

 Not even the graphics are really that important. It’s funny that the end result of most strategic and tactical operations is some tiny white boxes on a dark background with lines being drawn between them (Pew! Pewpew!) It looks like Atari 2600 on a really high resolution monitor but boy is it fun!

Cash Transaction in Eve

 What if we could buy a ship, ammunition, even something as seemingly benign as a faction blueprint with cash wherever we were in Eve? How simple this seems… No pesky market to deal with, no middle men, no transporting, no 20 jumps to Jita. What’s wrong with that? And yet, all these steps, no matter how boring they seem, are what make Eve online the special game it is.

Buying an item for cash would bypass the entire Eve economy, and every aspect of the game. This isn’t simply about the person who is not able to sell a similar item on the market. It’s about the materials required, the industrial process, and the logistics required to move the item to market. It’s about the bypassing of the never ending price war. It’s about removing all risks involved in transporting the new equipment to its intended destination.

Worse yet, an advantage would be instantly been gained. Advantage that could be accumulated simply by spending real world cash would redefine how alliances (lower case ‘a’) are made and broken, how wars are won, and how success is achieved. The winners would most likely be those ones who simply spent the most cash.

In other words, everything that makes Eve great, the risk of loss, the challenge and conflict, and the accumulation of advantage through all these difficulties would be severely damaged, if not completely destroyed. Advantageous in-game items for real money would end Eve as we know it.

But what about PLEX?

 You may be asking yourself where PLEX fit into this. To take the argument above in its purest form one could argue that PLEX give an advantage of isk and therefore break the system. At face value I would have to agree with this. However, looking more closely at the PLEX system I believe this is not completely true.

 First of all, PLEX only cause an in-game transfer of isk from one party to another. That isk is not added or subtracted from the system, and must still be used within the system. This is very, very different from isk or an item just appearing out of “thin air” within the game.

 Second, PLEX are part of a multi-faceted approach to countering RMT, and it appears to be working. This is one area players really need to be giving CCP some credit.

 I believe the benefits of PLEX far outweigh any consequences they bring. The problems they have brought CCP, however are a different story (more on this below).

What about Vanity Items?

　I have no issue with vanity items. They give no advantage, and just like PLEX can be sold on the market to cause a movement of isk. They are completely different from items that give advantage or are in any way are directly related for the daily conflicts in Eve.

Other Ideas Worth Considering (WARNING SPECULATION AHEAD)

The Glut of PLEX, or “Why CCP REALLY REALLY wants you to buy a monocle”

 Examining the Jita regional market show an average of approximately 2,500 PLEX sold every day. This comes to around 75,000 PLEX, or 6250 years worth subscriptions moving monthly through Kimotoro, alone. My guess is there are large stockpiles of PLEX in Eve -enough that a large portion of the player base doesn’t need to pay a monthly subscription for quite a long time. While this was large boost of quick revenue for CCP, it has certainly hurt their sustained income flow. Chances are CCP wants you and I to burn our PLEX on vanity items as fast as our little hands can click that “buy” button… In fact, I bet they are desperate to have you and I do this.

 Most companies work off a quarterly profit system. As the amount of PLEX in game surge, less players are paying a monthly subscription. Worse yet, the player base has no need to purchase more PLEX quickly because they are only useful at a rate of 1 per month. This probably means quarterly profits from subscriptions are at a terrible low, even as the player base is growing. And we wonder why CCP is talking internally about expanding in game items…

Dust 514 and Cumulative Advantage

 A few years ago CCP T0ri said something quite peculiar on stage at Fanfest regarding Dust: “No, you cannot buy win”. Dust is going to a subscription free game dependent totally on micro-transactions. How can you not sell players “win” and make money? The answer is you can’t. Buying “win” is what Dust is going to be all about. But wait a moment… Isn’t dust going to allow Eve players the ability to fight over planetary control? And don’t planets give you resources that actually have considerable value in Eve? Then that means people buying “win” in dust have an advantage and… Uh oh… That advantage is transferred to Eve where it can accumulate in the form of profits for players who spend the most money in Dust… I see a considerable problem here. Is there anyway to avoid this problem? Interstingly, yes I think there is. I’m even going to go so far as to lay these ideas out for you right now.

Items

 All items in dust will need to be destructible (real loss!). Perhaps something will be salvageable from corpses and destroyed equipment, but like Eve, what “drops” and what does not should be fairly random. There should be a base set of items that all players gain access to that cost nothing. I suppose you could compare this to the Civilian modules in Eve. Destructible items are good for the game and good for CCP’s revenue.

Currency

Dust will need to have one, and only one form of currency for anything but vanity items. That currency is ISK. However, unlike Eve, the prices for all items will need to be set by CCP, not the market. There will be no “manufacturing” like in Eve. Items are just there to be purchased. There would be three specific ways players could accumulate isk to buy equipment. The first would be by engaging in PvE and PvP operations outside the scope of Eve player initiated invasions. Perhaps through…(drumroll)… Faction Warfare mechanisms. The second would be through payments from players and organizations in Eve. The third would be through purchasing isk directly as a micro transaction. That’s right, buying isk with real life cash.

One Way Economy

Eve players could hire Dust players and pay them for their services. However, no isk from Dust could ever make its way back into Eve. This is the key point to the entire system. This way the advantage Dust players could gain by “buying win” would only be felt on the battlefield within Dust, itself.

 With an endless loss of items through death the “isk sink” would always be draining. It would be the job of Eve players to help fill the sink back up, but our only advantage in doing so would be the possibility of success in planetary control. (Remember, your opponents can hire and finance mercenaries, as well.) Also, CCP would still have its much needed cash revenue.

EVE is JUST A GAME! Why are you wasting your time writing all this garbage!

 First of all you need to go watch this Youtube clip of Herm Edwards 100 times. Back?  Why do we read books, paint pictures, play sports, or do anything not directly related sustaining ourselves on this cold, hard rock of a planet? Probably because there is some inherent value in creative thought and the developmental process… But that is another essay or book to be written. This has also been a great exercise in formulating, and (attempting to) articulating ideas to others.

I hope this short essay has gotten your thought wheels turning. Eve is in for some big changes. Each of us needs to have a clear idea of what we expect, find acceptable, and unacceptable to properly decide how we will handle these changes.

MJ

Welcome!

 Hello,

 This little page will be my place to rant on about general topics revolving around Eve Online, or anything else I feel like.

 Who am I (In Eve)?

 My oldest character is named Mirei Jun. I've been playing for about 3 and a half years. During this time I've tried my hand at may parts of the game, but most of my gaming hours has been spent in 0.0 doing PvP.

 What you'll find here

 The goal here is to make an environment with a bit more structure where ideas can be considered carefully. In most cases, this blog won't be updated daily. Instead it will be a running record of short essays and thoughts I have on the game. If you have comments or constructive criticisms about any of these essays feel free to respond. If anyone sends me a really good essay that counter argues any points I have made I would love to post that as well.

 Even if you don't agree, perhaps these essays will help you formulate your opinon more clearly.