I remember my first Christmas time in EVE. It was not with my current character, but rather what is now my industrial alt. I remember logging in and finding 100 snowballs and a snowball launcher in my hanger. I remember setting out in my 1.0 security system and getting into snowball fights with other haulers. It was loads of lolz fun until some guy in a kestral locked me up and fired a missle instead of a snowball. Concord was quick to dispense the “coal” into his stocking and he was rather upset he lost his ship.
People have been screaming for snowballs and the launchers ever since, but I can see why CCP will never give those to us again.
This time around, CCP is giving us an patch to address performance issues. I am continually happy that CCP puts forth the effort to improve the game, but the general sentiment I hear from my corps mates can be summed up with the following statement:
“So, they are going to patch for the damage that the QR expansion did because everything was fine before the expansion? How is that a ‘gift’ when they are fixing what they broke?”
I can understand where my corpies are coming from. Prior to the QR expansion, lag had been significantly reduced and post patch, we lag out in 5 on 5 fights again. It’s not really a gift when you repair damage that you cause by changes to the game. I take it this way, it’s a gift in the sense that it’s not taking months to fix, but rather weeks.
I understand why CCP put in the larger stargates. Such a change allows you to put interceptors and assault frigates on a gate camp to reprise their roll as tacklers….in 0.0 space. Low sec? Well, you simply can’t do it, sentries will pop that small ship in a few seconds. Pirates don’t see the love again.
Webs? Well, they are simply useless in stopping ANY ship from returning to the gate. Still, it can be dealt with, you just camp both sides of the gate.
Transport ship changes? To date I have tried to catch 100 transport ships with my HIC and I have only caught one as he logged off as he jumped through the gate. In 0.0, bubbles catch them, so the changes make sense there. Transport ships are truly blockade runners now.
Piracy is hard work, always has been. We have the constant threat of sentry gun fire upon our actions at gates and stations in addition to all the other perils of PvP game play. It’s not as easy as people think. You have to maintain awareness of what is going on at all times. Add to that the new requirement of having to adapt to the “stealth nerf” adds another challenge. It’s a tad annoying, but it’s part of why I play this game. It makes me use my mind.
CCP has a hard job to do when they try to balance game play. Changes that balance game play for empire and 0.0 inadvertently nerf low sec game play. It’s the nature of those sections of space. Low sec continues to see the nerf bat whether or not CCP intends to swing it at us. Game balancing is just as much an art as it is a science. CCP, come on and show us some love. We provide that “danger” that you advertise exists in the game. We need some new tools as well.
So, when are pirates going to see some love? When are they going to allow us skills to “hack the sentries”? How about a gang ecm module that disrupts the tracking on sentries? How about aligning to a pirate npc faction so that those NPC’s on a gate actually help us? How about allowing in game pirates to be ignored by Concorsd and sentries just like the npc pirates?
So, what kind of love would you like to see pirates receive?
On a side note, I wonder what they will do about the recently discussed starbase exploit? Read more on SHC (http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?t=21936).
December 11th, 2008 at 9:39 am
We did get the Apotheosis last year. I want a present EVERY year
CCP disappoints big time this year.
One idea for showing a little love to pirates: Make it possible to fire at and take out low sec gate sentries briefly before they “recover” and begin shooting again. Just like billboards, but with lots more HPs and once taken out, they stay inactive for maybe a minute instead of (iirc) 20 seconds.
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December 11th, 2008 at 11:05 am
True, we did get the Apotheosis, but that was to celebrate EVE’s 5th Birthday.
I would love to be able to pop or hack the sentries. Seems that would make sense for pirates to be able to do, but only time will tell.
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