I'm Trying To Be Reasonable...

I'm really trying to see the issue from all sides, I really am. But its hard to see how this change makes sense. Its hard to see how this was not put to the CSM 5 last summer or winter first. I just... I just don't get it!

Let me start from the beginning. CCP Greyscale posts a dev blog about changes to anomalies (aka complexes) in null sec. The idea is that null sec has gotten too flat with the advent of upgradable systems and that the anomalies that spawn from the upgrades will have their quality determined by the system's true sec:

Those changes in full
We've batched nullsec up into five security bands, based on the current truesec values that are already available via the datadump: 0.0 to -0.2, -0.3 to -0.4, -0.5 to -0.6, -0.7 to -0.8 and -0.9 to -1.0. (And yes, we're rounding in the same way that we do in the UI currently, so the boundaries actually lie at -0.25, -0.45 and so on.)

Firstly, we've evened out the upgrades so each one has four sites in it now, rather than five in the first and four in the rest. We're also retaining a mix of the sites that we're aware are regarded as "filler" by high-end players, for several reasons: to act as genuine filler so the earlier upgrades in some systems aren't empty; to give newer players resources they can use without much competition; and to give people running anomalies a little more safety from marauding enemies.

In terms of the high-end sites that high-end players are after - Havens and Sanctums for normal factions, and Hordes for drones - the break-even compared to the current system's maximum of four is around the 3rd and 4th band (-0.5 to -0.8 space), which are -1 and +1 respectively. Below this, things get worse (0.0 to -0.2 systems won't get any high-end sites after the change), but the -0.9 to -1.0 band can potentially gain an extra six top sites with full upgrades. 26 of the 34 regions have at least one system in this security band, with half having 5 or more.

Emphasis mine. I've seen it said that a player running the Havens and Sanctums pulls in around 30-35 million an hour while the next quality complexes down bring in 9-10 million. So essentially the lowest quality upgraded systems in null sec lost over half their value.

But one of the goals of Dominion in providing upgradable space was to increase player density in null sec. This change seems to indicate that player density got too high and they want to cull the herds so to speak. Sure, some players will glom onto the alliances in control of the high value space with its plethora of high end sites, but most will be forced to look back to high sec mission running.

There was an outcry about this change and CCP Greyscale took to the forums to post this:

Hi again,

Update on the above post: we've looked at the concerns brought up here, and done another evaluation pass as mentioned above. The outcome of this is that, while we understand and appreciate that these changes will negatively impact residents in some areas of space in the short term, we feel that on balance they are still likely to result in a noticeably positive overall outcome in the long run. This decision is mainly predicated on the fact that we still have a sufficient degree of confidence in our models of nullsec causality.

We understand that many players have alternate models that predict negative outcomes; we will of course be monitoring developments post-deployment to confirm whether or not things are developing in the way we are predicting, with an eye to modifying the proposed system if we see unexpected negative outcomes occurring, but we don't believe that the arguments raised by players in this thread weaken our model sufficiently to justify changing our plans at this stage.

We appreciate that this decision is not going to be regarded as a positive one by most participants of this thread, and we of course respect your right to continue to express your previously-noted disapproval here in a civil manner.

That's all for today,
-Greyscale

Of course the natural question is, "can you show your work?". Give us the models, show us how you expect to see the outcome of more conflict out of this. Show us what you expect to be acceptable losses in null sec populations. Make us see what you see, Greyscale, 'cause its not coming through at the moment.

Make no mistake, this change hurts my corp and alliance at a wallet level. This will make it harder for us to live and fight in null sec. Coupled with the bitterness of the perceived rampant botting and CCP's unwillingness to combat it to any serious degree and there is some serious concern that many veteran players will give up after this change.

While I understand the desire to make different parts of space have differing values, I do not feel that pulling the rug out from hundreds if not thousands of grunt players is the right approach.