If people ignore citadels markets then that will be evidence that the npc trading taxes have been set too low...

and for all the people saying the new taxes are going to be to harsh on ppl using npc stations remember the point is to get people to not use then and to use player built ones. if a player can do it NPCs shouldn't

This slope seems awfully slippery, gee.

No, you're thinking that CCP will escalate it. You are wrong.

Considering how OP NPC stations in low sec are I don't really see what the problem is with nerfing the ever living **** out of them. If you are such an elite PvP force I'm sure you can keep a citadel alive.

If a 100 man mission running corp all donated an hour of time worth of ratting rewards, they could purchase a large Citadel egg. And an active 100 man corp could easily defend one too.

And the fears about nullsec groups storming in, declaring war on everyone else with a citadel and tearing them down to try an maintain control of Citadel markets? Total tinfoil. We are a lazy bunch. It's hard to get us to go bash towers or entosis systems in nullsec, much less heavily defended citadels in highsec.

That's enough to run a Citadel or POS, utilize labs and manufacturing, refining, and have enough people who can show up during the very short window in which a POS is vulnerable. Especially in highsec where it requires a war declaration to tear one down and the defender can call in allies. And even then, the attackers have to successfully siege the Citadel three times, and then only during the small predefined blocks that the owner sets. Seriously, the medium citadel is only vulnerable for 3 hours a week.

But me? I'm putting up a Fortizar (Large) citadel on day 1, with my 6 hour a week vulnerability window split between 06:00 and 09:00 Wednesday and Thursday. I don't honestly expect any hostility towards it. Because that would require someone to have a reason to kill it, and the strength to do so. Oh and a fleet of BS's that can take out 4-5 RR Sentry domis sitting under a structure capable of nearly instablapping a BS. Not concerned.

yeah if thats the only thing no way i'm bothering to leave jita...

most of us with poor standing either ignor them when flying in hs or if we want to be safe use alts to trade

Don't be obtuse
I was referring to asset safety which is the "risk" taken when putting your assets in someone else's Citadel and thus the barrier to entry for them.
There is no ability to threaten your assets in an NPC station

Asset recovery can be triggered by the user at any time

How much ISK worth of implant does your "young player" has in his head that is at risk of being blownup causing him a major loss but would warrant creating a jump clone (5 million ) + jumping out of it (5M or new 1M proposal) for a grand total of 6 or 10 million ISK.

Because if they don't add cost to NPC station, there is no way to make citadels useful without breaking other things. Why would you put so much at risk by anchoring a citadel if you can do everything it does in a free station? POS had/have advantage over station but the service offered by citadels are not the same so we can't just let everything the same. If citadels are supposed to ever be attractive market places, the market there will need to be better to justify the risk for anyone. The current tax rate is SOOOOOO low right now there is virtually no margin for CCP to make the citadels hence why they are nerfing station instead of making citadels even better over that. You can't make the tax rate better than practically nothing so they made the practically nothing part bigger so there is a window for citadels better. Same for the clones and other services offered by citadels with a station equivalent.

At some point, it has to go one way or another and you can't really make things better than so close to perfect so you go the other way.

1st, the guy who leave because he lost his POD is pretty much lost in advance. The 6 million it could cost him to protect said implant is irrelevant since he probably lost a 30 million ships at the same time.

As for your 2 +4 learning implants, your fist jump will cost you 6 mill to install a clone and jump out of it. That's a 15% cost for the fist jump. Each subsequent jump will cost you 5% of the cost (I am counting the jump back in the learning clone and out again) to again, protect said investment. This mean you will have to make 17 consecutive jump in and back out to finally have burned more ISK than losing said implants would of cost you. Which also provided you with, accounting for a jump every day, 17 days of +4 worth of implants training because you made sure you would not lose said implants. How much you value this is your choice but saying it would be worth it for a 2 mill back and forth fee needs some evaluation imo.

i have no issue with it and i dont live in null

The best way to get people to use the Citadel clone vats would be to give the Citadels the ability to reduce the JC timer.

Looking at all of these comments it seems the tax is going to have the desired effect.

As an aside, I'm flabbergasted that most of the people advocating against the change tend to say variations on the "it doesn't affect me much personnally, but here's a list of people and mechanics it will upset", while most people in favor of the change tend to say "it doesn't affect me much so it can't be that bad". I have yet to see someone pointing at anything that can be construed as positive for the game as a whole. I just can't see that being a good sign.

This is pointless. Everytime I argue money - because noobs are my crowd, and 2M can be considered a lot of monies for them, or for me if I have to pay the fee for 100 pilots on the game time I use for myself rather than them -, someone argues psychology (but paying 2mil to have fun is NOTHING!!!), and every time I argue psychology - and I think that the effect is psychological, not so much monetary -, someone will argue money (if you feel bad about spending 2M, suck it up).

Either way, good job, you made a point! check that off your bucket list.

It still doesn't address the issue that for newbie oriented groups, it's less fun and more work. And if you don't want people trying to vary their eve life, and in my particular case don't want them as fresh blood for YOUR pvp, there is something wrong with the way you look at things, imo.

Everybody in the station will have the same transaction costs (more or lrss) as you do. And if there is a nearby citadel which is out-competing the station just move your stuff and sell there instead.

You could even set one up yourself...

Your assets are 100% safe. This is a major feature of citadels. In fact, CCP Nullabor seems to be leaning towards removing even the 10% asset recovery fee in Empire space. And we haven't even seen the final balancing on how strong these structures will be and you are already declaring them indefensible.

Yes, you will have to defend your citadel. And yes, someone bigger than you might knock it over. But if the worst happens, your stuff will magically appear in a nearby NPC station a few days later, intact and probably without any cost to you.

NPC stations will continue to exist. If you or your corp are too timid to risk deploying a structure, that is your choice, but don't begrudge other groups braver than you are willing to take the moderate risk for the significant benefits these citadels will offer.

It's nice to see CCP finally restoring some risk vs. reward back to the game after years of just making everything safer and easier.

I never said that.

Not really. It's true they are making stations worse in order to make citadels more attractive...

If they don't do this it will just be the Drifter Incursion fiasco all over again. You can't release a new feature which is riskier, but pays less and expect players to do it.

CCP has made a major investment in these new structures and they want people to use them. There has to be some game advantage to using them.

I too am a little concerned these tax rates are a little too punitive, and perhaps other incentives would be a good idea, but deadlines are fast approaching so I expect what we see here is close to what we will get on initial release.

Nobody would put their assets at risk of being locked out for that kind of benefit. That is where the issue is. The station are currently just too good to offer something meaningful. Putting billions in assets at risk of being locked out for just a few day if something happen to the citadel is taking too long to recoup by just shaving of just that little tax. The peoples who build said citadel will also want to recoup some of the cost of building it and they would kill their only carrot of slightly lower taxes if they ever want to run an income to pay it over time because the difference doesn't have enough of a margin to play with.

If you are not sure they will be worth the risk, it means NPC version of the services are too good for you to value the advantages the citadels are supposed to bring to you. Problem is, some service you can't just make "better" in the player owned version. You can't really make jump clone "better" than they are because it create other issue. The tax can be made slightly better but the difference is extremely small so CCP is pushing for making the margin between the 2 larger to let some leeway to citadel owners to play with. Refining is getting the same treatment because again, the margin to play with for the owner is rather small. Unlimited office number is a good thing if you open it up to every one and set it up in a place where people will want offices but you can't be sure who will be able to use it because it's really dependent on geography.

There is not enough room with the current numbers to make them significantly better than what the NPC stations offer.

Sometimes you need to punish. People will not leave the safety of NPC stations even with this tax, you need a rather large difference to get people to give up on huge safety.

I like how everybody word it as a punishment and not as a new baseline with benefits for using a citadel. It sure make their whining look more worthwhile if it's against a punishment than against not having all the benefits of other solution proposed in the game.

[ Your only options are to adapt to the higher NPC station fees, embrace the citadels as they are trying to encourage you to do, or unsubscribe and find another place to spend your leisure time.

Adapt or die as they say.

The problem is simple.

Citadels and their services will cost isk to run, even if you mine it yourself. NPC stations will offer the same services at a much cheaper/free rate simply because they have no fuel costs plus the added bonus of not exploding and ammo is thrown at them.

In order for citadels to work the NPC station are going to have to charge a bit more than citadels for their services otherwise the effort, cost and risk of owning a citadel is simply not worth it. So because the costs of NPC station services is so low the only option is to hike the prices so the citadels can have the option of charging less as a reward for using them.

~snip~

1: POS's currently consume an absolutely stupid amount of fuel each day across EVE.
2: Citadels are intended to eventually completely replace POSs as a method for everything POSs currently do, till POS's are gone.
3: If citadels don't require fuel block to run, and Citadel services don't require fuel to run, suddenly you have literally hundred of billions of isk a day worth of PI and ice products that are no longer being consumed. Way to accidentally nuke entire professions to avoid some trader inconvenience.

Low tax's are a pull yes. But since transaction tax stays the same between NPC and Citadels, the primary difference is in Broker fee's. And since that can get down to less than .75%, the draw to use a Citadel instead of a NPC station is close to nonexistent.

CCP MUST use the stick here, because we are already hip deep in carrots.

in order to get those lower taxes you need to raise the already super low taxes of NPC stations.

(and)

And since that can get down to less than .75%, the draw to use a Citadel instead of a NPC station is close to nonexistent.

We don't have any stats because it hasn't happened, because the transaction fee's have as far as I know, never been changed.

We are presuming that people won't see Citadels as a attractive trading location because for something to be attractive compared to something else, there needs to be a difference between them. There is currently not much room between current NPC broker fee's and 0%.

As far as the "The majority of people are being taxed at a higher rate", that's about 3 days to get Broker relations to IV including the trade 2 prereq, and 4 to 5 only makes the difference between .75% broker fee's and .8% broker fee's. that's a REALLY low bar for being competitive in trade.

We can make fairly safe assumptions that there will not be a giant exodus to player Citadels for trading if the tradoff for potentially having to move and relist all their orders, repay broker fee's, and rehaul everything to a new citadel is a grand total .75-.8%. and that would be if the station owner was entirely selfless and had no broker fee at all.

Realistically, we can assume the Citadels open for trading will have at least .25% broker fee's, making the margin for switching even slimmer, at .5 to .55%.

The problem is that if you look at everyone who supports or explains their statements, it's usually not the people calling doom and gloom.

People say "Nerfing stations to make citadels worthwhile is bad, you don't have to make them cost isk to run, and then stations could stay the same, with citadels being even lower to be a carrot" Explanation: If we did that, and Citadels didn't require large amounts of fuel for services, there would be insufficient consumption of PI and fuel blocks, and Ice miners/trader/manufacturers/PI people would majorly suffer because of that.

Somehow we have both the arguments that nobody will trade at Citadels even with a massive tax increase due to safety concerns, and the idea that the difference between the current low tax rate and the tax rate of a Citadel is enough to attract lots of traders even without changes to the tax rate. I don't even know how to react to seeing both of those at the same time.
How can we explain ourselves and support our reasoning, if the cop out rebuttal is always "Nullsec conspiracy, they must only be looking out for them to the detriment of the rest of the game" ?

The reason I am ok with this is because it has to happen if citadels are to work.

It's a really weird policy to actively make at least half of your customers angry and frustrated all the time.

Contestation of ability to conduct highly competitive trade in a certain location will be the actual risk, not the loss of assets. Just as how any other activity can be interrupted in EVE by other players through multi-faceted means in all types of space, trade will now also be able to get interrupted by political and military measures.

1) What size of group should occupy the Medium, Large and XL Citadel?
2) Whether those number are suitable for all areas of space?
3) Whether Citadels' initial costs are to be returned via player usage?
4) If so, what timescale should the costs be returned by?
5) What kind of initial uptake do CCP want to see?
6 What will the consider a failure or success?
7) Does CCP consider Citadels attractive to use without the market tax increase?
8) If so, why are they increasing the taxes?
9) If not, what other options have they explored to make Citadels attractive?
10) Have they read the constructive feedback made by members of the thread?

So basically "what if the weak give up and the strong thrive"? Well that's just the way of things

It's not 0.9% though, it's between 0% and 0.1875%. Are you going to shift your goods to a citadel for a maximum 0.1875% decrease in brokers fees (which only happens if the citadel gains nothing from the market)?

Except you're vastly exaggerating the impacts. Long term all it will do is increase the gap between buy and sell while margins will be minimally impacted. New traders always had to consider skills and standings as career traders like myself will consistently crash the margins so we limit access to the items market.

Sure they can, most of us are in the group categorised as strong or in the other category of "what's going on" who wouldn't notice changes anyway. I doubt we'd notice if the weak left, and if we did I'd take it as a personal challenge to keep the market stocked. Fun fun!

~snipping out unimportant bits~


Okay, so 700 trillion is traded in the Forge, and their taxes? 7 trillion or about 1% at most? Sorry, that is a small RELATIVE number. Here, let me give you a helpful hint, in economics while absolute numbers are not irrelevant, the vastly more important numbers are the RELATIVE numbers. What is the price RELATIVE to your income, RELATIVE to substitutes, etc.

So you can knock off the nonsense about 10 trillion ISK in taxes. It is small. If somebody came and took 1% of my income would I roll over and die? No. Not in game nor in RL. Would I like it? No, but I'd adjust and move on.

It's not an inconsiderable amount of tax raised if you consider the volume of ISK being traded: it manages to raise substantial sums over the whole of New Eden, almost 10 trillion ISK. We have no data on how few people are paying that level of tax though.

I love how taxes are so low they raised only ~10 trillion ISK last month alone.

Sales tax will be the same and doesn't go to the citadel owner, so still irrelevant.

Most people trading anything resembling a regular basis will at lest have the skill which takes like 10 days tops to train, so 0.75%. The thing is, you're not talking about random louts on the market, you're talking about major market players, because if core traders don't move, the hub doesn't move. That's who has to be incentivised to move.

We agree that a tax decrease would be an incentive to move, but you seem to believe that any amount is an incentive, and what I'm saying is that it would need to be an amount that would be unachievable with the current system. I have thousands of open orders and you're having a laugh if you think I'm shifting them to save myself up to 0.1875%.

I think the problem here is we have wildly differing opinions of what the weak are. In the context of this thread, the weak are the ones who will huff and puff and ragequit if the change goes through and citadels start rolling out from null groups. I believe that would be a minimal number of players. The strong would be people who knuckle down and adapt to the change, be that through diplomacy or aggression.

And damn you for making me like a post by Lucas.

What buy orders? The louts won;t move if the market doesn't. They are selling instantly, so they don't have brokers fees anyway, so they have no reason to move, and if the big market players don't move, there won't be any orders based there.

Tampering with markets to make them "better" or to suit some end often blows up in the faces of not just those doing the tampering, but everyone else in those markets.

CCP is making a simple change and announcing it ahead of time.

They are not trying to make the market better though now are they? They are trying to make an in game item better, much like tiericide.

As for the risk/reward and broker's fees, CCP is making the change to induce players to move and to induce players to set up citadels in HS.

Can you stop your completely and totally intellectually bankrupt attempt to try and justify NOT having citadels in HS? Your ability to turn on a dime and go 180 is indeed impressive, but it also underscores you dishonesty.

X-Large Structure hulls will cost around 30-70b+ ISK in materials to build.

By tampering I don't just mean a simple change in tax rates. That happens all the time with very predictable and even small effects on the economy. Especially when announced ahead of time. Don't believe me look at the research of people like Joel Slemrod.

It remains to be seen doesn't it with regards to rewards and there are risks with a citadel you do not face with an NPC station.

**** off the owner for some reason, he may cut off your access in which case your stuff is tied up for 5 days. How much revenue would be lost in that situation for you? Not to mention the time it would take to move to a new citadel, if there is one, or go back to an NPC station?

Similarly if on the off chance it is destroyed. **** happens. Goons dropped a bunch of sov once because 1 guy went on vacation and forgot to put enough ISK in the relevant wallet.

So yeah, I see your turning on a dime as rather suspicious. You have a very clear incentive to push against these changes....and you seem determined to use any argument that is convenient.

If anything RL economies are far, far more complex. There is much, much more innovation and creative destruction, and leverage is a much more of a factor. Not to mention the meddling in the economy for political reasons. So this notion that the Eve economy is more vulnerable strikes me as dubious at best.

We have nothing at all like this in the Eve economy. Literally nothing. Making a well publicized change to something like taxes which everyone can see and can figure out the effects of...has not had the same effect....ever.

As for limit entry pricing that is a theoretical possibility, but it is harder to find in real life. This is why you find alot of legislation that in the end is designed to limit entry into markets. Examples are licensing requirements, certification, trade barriers, and so forth. It's a great story that sounds good when you first hear it, but in reality the idea of a dominant firm keeping out entrants without the coercive power of government is not much more than that a story.

Because we believe it is important to the long term health of the game that Citadels, which are with no doubt the most important feature added to this game since outposts were added in 2005, become a healthy and integral part of the game.


Lot of us nullsec players are thinking really long term here. We have been playing for years, and will continue playing for years, and want the game to continue improving, even if it means some short term inconvenience.

Citadels are the first step in CCP revamping everything from POS's, to Outposts, to mining, production, research. deployables, intelligence gathering, new player controlled stargates and systems, etc. Everything is going to be based on and centered around the citadel bases and mechanics, tied into a unified command and ownership structure instead of the current small fractured and disorganized legacy code that was a result of building in features one at a time for years without concrete plan or deployment structure. It's been CCP's road plan since they announced citadels years ago.

We need it to NOT flop like so many features which have come before. And if easy station trading needs to become a little less easy and simple than it is now to provide Citadels that initial kickstart, I'll do my part to make it happen, even if I make no money off Citadels, lose my .2% broker fee's at NPC stations, and have top pay my enemies to use their Citadels.

On an alliance level... We live 35 jumps from Jita in Fountain, and the alliance is so poor we don't have any SRP for anything.
Putting up a trade citadel and defending it? Not going to happen.


I'd say so yeah, we wouldn't have had the nullsec empires if we were all living out of POS's with their nightmare access management.

WH's are a close second, I'd agree, but I'd still place the mechanic that allowed players to spread and live across nullsec above it.

It depends on how you view the multitude transactions and what is being traded. Tobin taxes apply to financial transactions usually something like in the foreign exchange markets Not to going out and buying a loaf of bread. And what types of goods are these things, for example is a 125mm Gatling Autocannon an asset? You can't really use it to produce anything else. It does have positive economic value in the game though....

And I'm sorry, no, not a VAT. What value has been added? Nothing. I actually pay something more like a VAT when I do invention. I take a bunch of stuff and make it into even better stuff. I add value in doing that. All you do is is more like arbitrage in a commodities market.

And a financial transaction tax? When I show up and buy stuff for a ratting ishtar how is that different than say buying a car and getting some added features? Why is it not a consumption tax or a sales tax?

I'd say the broker's fee is not a tax. It is a fee you pay to access a market. It is like other prices. It is not really any different than the NPC sell orders for things like robotics before we had PI. Now, in similar fashion, broker's fees will be something players can set in citadels. However, to ensure that the new market has a chance to work, like with PI, the old system has to be changed. With PI the NPC market orders simply vanished. Here CCP is being far less harsh. You are not going to wake up one morning and find all your market orders gone and all your stuff sitting in your hangar. You will have plenty of time to unwind your positions and decide to move to a citadel to avoid at least some of the increase in broker's fees...or not.

And right there we have another substantial change to the game. Huge in fact. Robotics used to cost some ridiculously low price. Now they are probably 50-100x more expensive (I want to say the price was something like 1,200 for robotics). As an inventor I was definitely negatively impacted, not only did it effect my costs of building from T2 BPCs, but also in running the POS the corp I was part of had put up to do invention.

And no Goonswarm is not the government.

And maybe that is your problem? You are like an old time classical economist trying to look at the water-diamond paradox from only one perspective. For decades they were wrong until Alfred Marshall came along and basically said, "You're doing it wrong." Part of the impact on the market is going to be the impact to the "normal guy". In your hubris you appear to have forgotten that and think all that matters are the traders.

Is a transaction involving a car a financial transaction? Yes, but certainly not the type Tobin was referring to in regards to a Tobin tax. Not even freaking close.

Your VAT analogy sucked, badly. You literally add no value to the commodity. You are an arbitrage trader.

What you are paying with the Broker's fee is a price. Now it will become, in many instances a price set by players as opposed to CCP.

I'm focussing on ensuring that both market locations are healthy.

Players can act like a government

What a load of pure Bravo Sierra. No. Just no. Simply because I charge you for access to something you value and for which I have incurred a cost to provide to you...does not make it tax nor I a government. That is just bullshit.

Nobody argues that a fee to gain access to something desirable that the charging party has paid for is a government and that its asking price is a tax.

If any entity in the game is like a government it is CCP.

Player run citadels are similar

~Tobin Tax~

Now if you want to say, "A tax reduces the number of transactions." That's different, but no damn need to bring in the name Tobin. All taxes tend to decrease the number of transactions.

As for price increase I have not argued there will be no tax increase. I have disputed the claims that the price will rise by the sum of the increase in the tax rate and the increase in the broker's fee. The actual price effect will be more varied and depend on the price elasticities of supply and demand.

As for these changes are you finally admitting that it may a lead to a portion of traders to move from NPC stations to citadels? That the effects on the in game economy will not be horrible? That the in game economy is far more robust than your earlier claims?

it's not about small groups being unable to prosper, it's about someone wanting all the benefits of a large citadel in a medium citadel so they don't have to fork out the isk. He asked what the benefit is if he can't do everything and I told him.

Oh yeah, I totally get what he wants, I just disagree that he should just be handed it simply because he wants it. It's pretty obvious they have set up the rigs the way they have specifically to avoid people being able to use a medium as a complete refinery hub.

More about what exactly? All he's claiming is that newbies won't want to pay 900k for protecting the implants they can supposedly afford while they can't afford their 900k.

Then shouldn't his suggestion be "please create a small version of a citadel that has none of the benefits of a citadel, can only be used by owning corp members and can only fit T1 refining rigs and a refine/process module with a limited size bay for holding ore/materials, with no asset recovery"? .

Instead he's asking for a medium to just have full refining ability with the module and rigs fit.

Undoubtedly even if they just limited it to 52% across the board refining he'd still complain because the guy next to him can now get 55% in highsec

I know right? It's gonna be awesome, finally the game will start to have consequences for even more actions! Even if they are just isk based.

the claim would suddenly swap to how unfair it is that someone with a medium citadel can gain 3% more base refine and he can't.

he was looking only to retain current functionality

Just go put a jump clone in a citadel near where you want to have a jump clone.

They do not make me want to install a clone inside a citadel.

If players start competing for trade citadels we could have quite a bit more drama and combat in HS. I think that is a good thing. Shake up a boring a sclerotic HS.

Further, I agree with Anhanka that these could shake up HS quite a bit bringing much more to HS in terms of conflict and drama. I suppose if you just like logging in and minning for 2-3 hours while watching Netfix that is not such a big deal, but I think revitalizing HS and making it more dynamic and interesting could be a good thing.

But right now war decs are easily avoided, you just dock up and bore them to death. Now if you put a citadel on the field you may have to do something besides just dock up and then find yourself in the nearest NPC station. That could happen, but I'd find that unfortunate. I'd much rather HS players find ways to defend their citadels somewhat more proactively.

This is where the idea of a trade alliance could come in very handy. With a large enough trade alliance or with enough profits from the citadel hiring mercenaries actually undocking and fighting could be a thing. And the defender does have some advantages. First, you'll have the guns/weapons from the citadel. You can always dock up provided you can live long enough for your timers to expire.

Granted I am coming at it from the perspective of a NS player so I could be wrong.

As for this being a bad change, I'm sorry it is a handful of very vocal players, IMO, that are saying that. There are plenty of reasons to make stations and outposts destructible. And if that is true in NS/LS why not make it true in HS?

[T]hose fees never will. Because such fees and taxes will utterly break the game long before they become large enough to create such an incentive. Anything short of that and they lose their point (see: inane), and that results in us just being taxed simply for the sake of being taxed. That is absolutely petty. I won't be driven into using a citadel by way of taxes, and if CCP believes that works, that makes it completely ignorant.

I do not recall seeing an actual gameplay need for a trade hub to be in a player station other than "well that'd be cool, that's why!". If there is a good argument to be made for it, [It's yet to be seen in the thread].

(Lucas)
And it always will, but being an MMO, cooperation is a key requirement for some aspects of the game. It wouldn't be very MMO-like if everything could be accomplished solo or just with a group of mates. It's supposed to require a level of diplomacy. That doesn't mean everyone has to form up into giant coalitions, but it does mean that small groups need to cooperate if they want to excel. The day CCP stops that being a requirement is the day EVE dies.

And sure, sometimes the big guys gain more from a change than the little guys. That's the benefit of them having already gone through being the little guys and working out how to work with or against other players as required.

(Teckos)
If they don't want to grow over time, then that is their problem. They made a choice and now they have to deal with the consequences. If you want to stay small, then you'll have to adapt to these changes. Just as people have adapted to changes in the past.

This game has always allowed people to play alone or with groups. The distinction has always been that groups are granted modest benefits. Some people believe that these changes benefit larger groups too much.

Highsec isn't the place for vocal players: the people advocating for Highsec, bar Gevlon and Drago?, don't spend much of their time there.

My point is, and has been, if we were to go and look at various changes over the years that Devs have made we'll find a subset of players who are butthurt about losing their "style of play". You keep saying I'm not talking about players, but I am. You just aren't getting the message. The Devs make changes, somebody's style of play is negatively impacted. It happens.

Edit: Wrong region fuel blocks? I suspect people do this all the time. For example, you might want a Gallente POS but are in "Caldari/Caldari NPC space". When I was running a POS farm, some people had Gallente POS others Caldari. And we made a **** ton of blocks too. Sooo...not sure what the point of that was.

Edit: And I have lived in NPC space, sov space, LS, HS and NS. I have seen ship doctrines come and go in all areas of space because of Devs, so don't hand me that crap about "This is about players [...] within...NPC space." You keep setting that up as some sort of important distinction when I contend it is irrelevant when it comes to making the game better.

And sometimes I wonder if you continue to ignore the larger context because it suits you. When confronted with the fact that people's play styles have been affected by Dev intervention in the game you just go, "Yah, but that isn't what I'm talking about this very second." Again, you come across as intellectually dishonest with all this hand waving away of things. You basically insulate yourself from all other change that have affected players by saying, "Oh, but that doesn't pertain to this case."

No you are absolutely not talking about the fundamental nature of Eve design. You are talking about a much more limited aspect of the game, so don't hand me this nonsense about fundamental Eve design. Here let me quote you.



That is just one aspect of the game.

And those players are here complaining because they see their way of playing as changing and they are assuming for the worse. I pointed out where such changes have happened quite a bit. I bring them up and you hand wave them away. Each and every time, even when the ****ing apply.

I already brought up PI vs. NPC sell orders. I had a number of alts living in NPC space at the time. It was something that negatively affected my game. Then they shifted over to POCOs...again, negatively affecting my game. And not just me, but lots of people. I mean look at ~all the stupid posters you could find~.

And people adapted and the economy survived.

And look, the break downs were similar to now (NS vs. HS). Many of the arguments were similar to now. I'm sorry, it is the same reaction we have seen before.

And all areas of space are not going to be the same. Just as in NS and HS where POCOs and POS can be shot, same thing with citadels. It has always been the case that when a player puts something down in space it can be shot. HS though you'll first need to war dec the corp/alliance of the citadel. And they just cannot shoot it willy nilly whenever they want. Only during windows of vulnerability. And to be honest I always felt the ability to tear down a POS before a war starts was unfortunate. Removed yet another potential conflict driver and reduced risk. Also, the costs of asset recovery will be faster and cheaper in HS. And you can get more traffic in HS. In NS it maybe hard to turn a profit with a citadel. In HS if it works out your citadel could make you some decent ISK.

What I don't understand is why some people think mechanics should be changed to stop other people playing in a way they don't like.

There was also the advantage of Dominion sov which made taking things a huge grind even with supers.

So explain how it would work in HS, with large structures that have lots of HP, with damage mitigation, limited vulnerability timers and relegated to being in sub-capital fleets and people are going to be spread out. So you are missing a number of conditions for your analogy. Added via edit: And where people, at the very least, can shoot back with the citadel itself if not their own counter fleet.

We saw some similar theorizing with regards to POCOs. The NS alliances were going to swoop in and set up their own POCOs and woe be unto anyone who shot them. NS alliances would make outrageous ISK and broken game, we all end up playing Elite Dangerous. But...here we are.

And keep in mind that when an group is off defending and/or knocking over a competitor's citadel that is one less fleet at home defending sov space....maybe more than that. There is a reason the Imperium reduced it's NS foot print. What you are suggesting is that they also expand their HS foot print as well.

Your point?

A lot.

It was finally broken up by the U.S. government.

An analogous institution in the game would be CCP...fortunately CCP is much, much more hands off than the U.S. government.

You let in even one, then it could result in a price war where profits are greatly reduced, even to zero.

So you have to stop whatever you are doing and go kill the citadel, the sooner the better lest others think they too can enter.

Let me clear: monopolies, in general, are a PITA to maintain. And even then market dominance may not be enough. Read up on Standard Oil, even though they controlled over 90% of the oil refining market they actually lowered prices, not raised them. And in the end they lost tremendous market share and were finally broken up.

I think this thread has run its course.
[...]
The real problem is a fundamental difference of perspective.

This is the first set of changes that directly impact the way I want to play. Call this quid pro quo for the howls or rage from all the null bloc types over the jump range nerfs and Fozziesov (which had little or no effect on players like me), if you will.

What I do is shoot folks, encourage other folks to shoot folks and provide help and support to folks who want to learn to shoot folks. Classic small (and occasionally not so small) gang PVP.

I've been playing for almost three years, so no salty veteran here. I've spent most of that time in null, and most of that in NPC null.

Why? So I could play the way I wanted to. NPC stations are the enabler for that. Their ability to support industry, local markets, jump clone facilities - that is how they enable casuals like me to be long term residents in null, providing content to the neighborhood by shooting at everybody who comes along.

NPC stations with affordable services and jump clone facilities are the enabler for the roams we run almost every day (with the occasional bigger public one thrown in). We encourage newbies to spend some time out in null, try mining, exploration, whatever. This will increase the cost of those activities in an already marginal area of space from an economic perspective and will be a bigger deterrent to encouraging new players to try PVP and nullsec and maybe even eventually join a big alliance.

All this e-peening over percentage points of station tax or the finer historical points of early 20th century robber barons - kind of missing the point. The net effect of these changes is a big nerf-hammer on a wide range of play-styles in order to make citadels look better - something that just happens to nerf everybody except the big null bloc folks in a fairly meaningful way.

Most players I have personally known in EVE don't play any more.

Most current players I know are no longer very active.

Quite a few still hanging on (including a couple ten year plus vets) have already decided to let their subs run out as nerfing the ability to operate out of NPC stations (and NPC space) is simply not worth the aggro.

CCP is taking a cudgel to a play style enjoyed by many.

Also, his company was extremely innovative, unlike your typical monopoly,

Let me clear: monopolies, in general, are a PITA to maintain. And even then market dominance may not be enough. Read up on Standard Oil,