Dammit CCP, I wrong a huge reply to this thread, and then my page got ganked by your site maintenance.

For the most part this is one of my favorite expansions to date. Corp bookmarks are awesome. Missing shots are awesome. Engine trails are awesome. I love the new font, I can read things. I could go through all the awesome line by line, but you could pretty much take the patch notes and remove 1% of them, so the easier option is to go ahead and list that 1%

Primary thing here is the drone hordes. All other regions received a buff to their payouts based on the bounties received. Because drone regions donGÇÖt rely on bounties, they didnGÇÖt get a buff (or for that matter, any direct balance compared to other regions). However, it did effectively receive a huge nerf.

There are several disadvantages to drone hordes already. You have to salvage everything being the primary one. This either requires two accounts (cutting into real life money, or ISK if you play with PLEX), switching ships constantly (which cuts into isk because the hordes now take twice as long), or you have to pay a corp mate to salvage for you (again, cutting into isk). There is also the disadvantage to most pilots that after salvaging you have to turn the drops into liquid isk either by selling them directly, or building something with them. There is a lag created in payout here.

Most drone residents were fine with these disadvantages because there were also advantages, to one site in particular. You could spawn the entire site at once. This means that you didnGÇÖt have to worry about aggro changing from spawn to spawn, so you could run the site in the same amount of time by using a second account or a corp mate. You also didnGÇÖt have to recall drones because the aggro changed. You also had the option of only killing the battleships, taking the loot from those. This decreased the value of the site a bit, but increased the speed at which you could run them, it was generally considered more profitable. The TLDR of all this is that the disadvantages of these sites were offset by the speed at which they could be run, increasing the isk per minute value of them.



In the expansion, by changing them to a wave mechanic, you forgo all of these advantages but still have all of the disadvantages. You can no longer safely have a noctis in the site with you while running the site because of aggro, for the same reason itGÇÖs necessary to periodically recall drones, increasing the time it takes. You also cannot work your way through the spawns killing only battleships and warp a noctis in after, I found out the hard way that it seems you have to kill EVERY ship in the site before the despawn will occur.

This happens at a time that all other regions have received a buff to a greater or lesser degree, effectively increasing the isk/min amount that can be earned from all other sites. I encouraged CCP to look at sites and ensure they were balanced from an isk/min standpoint before the patch, whether this be the suggested change of bounty payouts on drone so they can be directly and fairly balanced or simply changing the mechanics. I have no problem with drone regions being different so long as difficulties are balanced by easiness.

Mostly, I wouldnGÇÖt have a leg to stand on if CCP had looked at them and stated that they were examined and found to be balanced, but the fact that they publicly stated that these were not part of the balance really sucks for those living in that region.

To those saying this is a GÇ£bot nerfGÇ¥, thatGÇÖs ignorance at best. ItGÇÖs been shown time and again that bots can be written to do almost anything. At best this will break them for a few days until the code is updated, and then theyGÇÖll continue to run sites, probably with more efficiency than a human ever could.

Oh, one more feature I love, the ship spinning counter, whatever smartass at CCP put this in, I <3 you. Same with the destroyed monument outside Jita. Overall this is still one of, if not, the best patch to date (IMO). I love the focus on the little things, they are force multipliers that make this game so much more fun to play. Thanks CCP, and keep up the new focus (by balancing drone regions first preferably :P).

-BBK
PS. I can't wait for time dilation, I understand the desire to troubleshoot this on it's own though.
Also, your forums keep eating my BB code, so here's the post I'm trying to reference.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=375781#post375781

You live in crappy space. Just take over a better one if you're unhappy. Where is the fun if all space is equal.

What a negative Nancy.

no thanks for their hard work, no positives, no we just focus on nit picking two features.

Thanks for the expansion guys! Keep up the good work!