Oh look, an Interesting fix for the upcoming Dominion fiasco

I think this weekend I read about 100 forum pages arguing that the way CCP wants to get more people to 0.0... well, to put it bluntly, sucks balls.


The problem

Players feel all the Upkeep mumbo-jumbo isn't going to persuade Empire folk to move to 0.0 simply because in order for 0.0 to be attractive the rewards need to be greater, not equal, but GREATER than what Highsec (and Lowsec) have to offer. Small corporations/alliances will not want to move in a high-risk area which requires effort and isk only to make a bit more cash than in a safe area.


A solution?


On Scrapheap Challenge there's a post by a Mr. Joshua Foiritain of the "Coreli Corporation":

I'm sort of confused as to why dominion would change anything, sure the new upkeep and sov system would reduce the number of colored dots on the map but at the end of the day keeping the small alliances out of your space only really requires you to throw power around...

The system upgrade stuff wont allow alliances to scale down their space at all so rather then covering their entire region with POSes and sov they re gonna claim sov on the outpost systems but still keep on using the systems without sov for ratting, moongold and plexing, which pretty much requires them to rape anyone that tries to move in.

Of course, maybe theyre only adding the basic system and well see stuff actually worth using in future patches...

On the other hand, the fix for this entire problem is easy; Allow people who are docked in outposts with the proper system upgrades to talk to their normal agents. IE: People in Delve can talk to their Caldari navy agents and get missions in delve;
- this allows 0.0 people to move back to their alliance space
- the only limit on players making money per system is lag
- alliances have more people in their space to help defend stuff
- the enemy has more targets to try and kill
- plus theres a small motivation for empire people to move to 0.0 as they can still use their normal agents and theyd get a shitton more LP in -1 0.0 systems then they do in empire.
- also since the people who dont want to go to empire can then run missions in 0.0 corps would make more on corp taxes.

What he is proposing is allowing players to communicate remotely with the agents they already have (highsec, lowsec...0.0 agents, doesn't matter). CCP said adding the ability to hire agents in upgraded systems is not feasible - the code is to complicated and there would be database issues. Well then, how about simply using the agents we already have?


Expanding on the above idea

Here's the way I'd do it, utilizing many of the existing features:

A small alliance holds a bunch of solar systems and an outpost in one of them. In the system where the outpost is located, in addition to having the possibility to upgrade their territory with the current options, a new one would be made available - call it a "Long Range Secure Communications Facility" or whatever. This upgrade would cost cash to be maintained online, just like the rest and corporations would be able to tax bounty income

When this is deployed, a new Station Service is added to the outpost in the system, allowing access for each player to his/her own agents, wherever they may be located in the cluster.Players would be able to get missions from that agent's mission pool in the surrounding systems.

A few points I'd implement to insure the proposal is fair:

• Scale mission rewards (LP and monetary reward) according to the True Security of the system, clearly over the levels the agent would offer in Empire, if it's an Empire agent. This would counterbalance the added risk of running missions in 0.0
  
• In order to claim rewards for LP, players still need to visit a station belonging to the NPC corp the LP is from, wherever that station may be (if you run missions from your alliance's turf in Deklein for the Sanshas' True Power corporation in Stain, you'll need to take a trip to Stain to get that Nightmare BPC).
  
• Limit the number of missions a player can get in a set time-frame from each station featuring this upgrade that he has access to. This will discourage alliances to simply hold one system, lock it down tight, upgrade it and use it to print isk from missions, ignoring the other types of PVE the space has to offer. If their pilots want to run more missions, they'll have an incentive to expand their alliance's territory, which will mean bloodshed and more bills to pay. Limitations should not be so severe that they cause frustrations, but should nevertheless exist.
  
• Make it so that in order to get work from an agent remotely you need higher standings than you normally would when contacting him in person (i.e. to remotely contact your L4 Q0 agent, you'll need, for instance, a standing of 7 instead of 6)

How it all fits within the game's story

Ah, good question. Well, I would imagine all the NPC corporations in Eve would have interests even in the farthest reaches of space - Empire NPC corps would attempt to root out the evil at its source, or even to duke it out with the opposing Empire faction and prevent them from achieving their own goals pertaining to that piece of 0.0

Thus, it makes perfect sense to tap into the local capsuleer pool (oh, wait, that's us) and pay them handsomely for taking care of their dirty laundry, even better than in Empire, since they certainly recognize that there are many added dangers in 0.0.


Why this can successfuly attract Empire dwellers to 0.0 and make life more interesting for all involved


Empire dwellers, more specifically mission runners are given the option of doing something they are very familiar with, with increased risk compensated by much greater rewards. This will insure a smoother adaptation to the harsher life in 0.0 (losing ships, not having the right equipment at hand and making due etc)

In time, even the most hardcore mission runners will come to embrace the other possibilities their new space offers, will learn to *gasp* defend themselves (and to recognize when it's time to run away). They will also learn to fight back against invaders and to become invaders themselves.

A number of people asked in the Dev blog discussion thread what reason alliances would have to squabble over territory when the income from R64 moons is getting nerfed. Well - this might be it. Outposts in 0.0 systems with stations will offer great rewards for the controlling alliance's players. Since CCP said they won't abandon the Truesec system, this fits perfectly. Also, as this upgrade would be conditioned by having an Outpost in the system, I think it will provide incentives to drop additional ones.

Making cash for cool stuff while slapping the enemy who is trying to do the same, what more do you need from Eve?



If you've managed to read this far, you certainly must have formed an opinion about this proposal and are invited to express it in a comment below - I'd like to hear about it.