It’s usually impossible to post to the public my opinions on unannounced features, due to the NDA.
Here’s some ways I tried to redirect features which have since been announced/released. Unfortunately, CCP rarely comes back to new (or even old) features to change their design, even if they’re DOA.
Metaliminal Storms
The storms are, in my mind, a wasted opportunity. The limited impact of the storms is the greatest failing. I pushed for storms to primarily affect the infrstructure in the areas they hit. Here are some of my suggestions I made at the time which CCP didn’t act upon, as they had already decided on the scope before asking for our opinions.
- Ansiblex, Pharolux and Tenebrex structures would be disrupted or disabled
- Upwell structures would lose functions such as tether and defences
- System indexes would be hampered
- Inability to anchor new Upwell structures in the storm
In my mind, this would have genuinely enticed attack, and required that citizens of the affected systems “batten down the hatches”.
As for effects on ship combat, I pushed for certain storms to have a lockrange cap affect – forcing close(r) range combat.
Combat Arenas
I’m strongly against CCP creating areas of the game strongly defined for specific activities, but I was pleased to see that the addition of Arenas didn’t detract from the pvp frequency elsewhere. I feel that, functionally, Arenas are in a good place.
A disappointment with the very first iteration was the lack of module and implant limitations – although they were quickly added after the first event, the fact that CCP didn’t act upon the advice to develop them immediately made the first event one that left a bitter taste in a lot of people’s mouths.
While certain pilots who exercised their wealth definitely had piloting skill to compete at a high level, the overwhelming force of pure isk was too much to bear. Such a shame that this product was launched on schedule rather than slightly delayed to have the best first impressions.
Mineral redistribution: Valuable Lowsec Ores
This one hurts deep inside of me.
The addition of further reasons to use Rorquals in lowsec is a poison upon the area.
Rorquals are an accellerator of very large group formation. Mining is an activity where, with the current mechanics, you are encouraged to sit stationary in one location for long periods of time.
When you do this, it requires that you have a defensive force ready to assist. Having a defensive force ready to assist encourages more mining. This snowballs to constantly grow the size of groups to facilitate and profit from (largely) uninterrupted mining.
I begged for CCP to redesign mining to comprise almost entirely of exploration and other forms of research, with onyl a very small portion of the time dedicated to cycling mining lasers or drones on a rock. I call this concept Prospecting rather than mining.
Nothing happened, even after I explained what mining encourages people to do in it’s current form. I pleaded with them not to simply apply Nullsec mechanics to Lowsec.
As a result, a few months later we’re already seeing large groups band together defensively to protect Rorqual mining in Lowsec.
Thanks, CCP.