Zamiel7

I think you're missing the point of what a salvage skill means. The 100% necessary change being suggested is that element destruction needs to be a thing in some form or another for the sake of balancing; it's not realistic or sustainable for the victor in PvP to be able to walk away with someone else's entire ship, the only cost being using scrap to repair it. That is a ridiculous amount of profit for successfully winning a PvP encounter. A proposed salvage skill means that players will have the ability to profit from the wreck of a destroyed ship, but not get an entire new ship out of it. It also means they won't have to necessarily haul the entire wreck back to their base; they could just salvage parts of it on the spot. I'm not sure how any of this "cuts down the speed" of combat; it's not like the targeting is technical enough that you can target specific elements of the ship to more "gently" disable a ship for the purposes of making repairing/salvaging it easier. Fights ought to result in destruction; all the salvaging skill would amount to is being able to glean something from that destruction. If a player has two computers and is willing to buy two accounts, I can't see any way that NQ would be able or incentivized to punish this. Personally, I don't see any issue with multi-boxing, but as a long-time player of EVE, that was the standard for many players, so I'm used to it. That being said, the issue with the Cube meta has nothing to do with multi-boxing and everything to do with the way core sizes interact with radar and how that makes large railguns oppressively strong. An XS core using large rails can lock and fire upon S, M, and L cores without those cores being able to even lock onto the XS. Doesn't matter if it's one-person multi-boxing or 2+ people working in tandem, that is the broken aspect. But, that brings us to the planned fixes: NQ-Entropy stated in an interview that they plan to make it so that core size is no longer tied to radar lock distance. This means that an XS core can be locked at the same distance as every other size with a large radar. This alone heavily nerfs the effectiveness of only using XS cores with large railguns because they lose their biggest advantage mentioned above. Entropy also mentioned they are looking into perhaps limiting weapon size to core size, which doesn't merely nerf the current meta, it completely destroys it. I personally don't think locking weapon sizes to core sizes is necessary, but I'm also banking on a more in-depth energy management system to balance issues related to that. Armor should also probably be reworked if only because despite the fact there are tons of different honeycomb, only a handful are actually useful and distinct.

Tech issues can be a real killer for many people, there's no doubt about that. I have one friend that gave it a shot but was unable to play effectively due to his computer specs. Admittedly, he could use an upgrade, but the point remains that optimization is a breaking point for many people. But with that said, I think the existence of content that people are actually able to commit to in meaningful ways (e.g. multi-faceted player-driven economy, territory warfare, and exciting/rewarding exploration) will keep people coming back and renewing their subscriptions. DU already has a fantastic construct building system, and while that alone is enough to keep many people engaged, the above mentioned features ought to drive even greater retention.

That's fair. Admittedly, my organization and I tend to be the ones actively looking for PvP and along the routes between planets where atmospheric radar has no use.

You might have a point that the goal of PvP right now is to take the other person's ship wholesale, but there's no way that can or should be the case going forward. Sure, you should be able to get something from taking down someone else's ship, and I actually quite like Johnny's idea of having salvage skills to glean parts and such from a wrecked ship. Maybe you have the chance of recovering damaged/destroyed elements, or being able to loot damaged/destroyed containers for their contents, but being able to walk away with an entire ship is ridiculous. Also, let's not forget that the reward of PvP is not always material in nature. I imagine quite a lot of PvP will happen over being able to secure valuable resources/territory or simply because two organizations are attempting to undermine each other's efforts to expand/conduct operations. And this is to say nothing of the intrinsic rewards of PvP because even in it's current state, I do think it's still pretty fun and engaging, and it's hopefully only going to get better.

That might very well be a bug. My understanding was that if you removed a TU and renounced the claim on a territory, the next territory you claimed would cost the same as the previously claimed (now unclaimed) territory.

I think the heart of the conflict is based around people's expectations not being met. One extreme side of the spectrum is a group of people who expect to be able to attack whoever they want, wherever they want, so anything that curtails that is undermining their expectations. The same is true for the opposite extreme: some people just want to be able to mine, build, and trade without having to worry about other players interfering with that. Whether we call it PvP, PvE, PvPvE, combat, emergent gameplay, sandbox mechanics, or anything else will not change divergent player expectations. As I said, there's merit in what you are saying. How players perceive mechanics matters, but I'm skeptical of how much that perception is rooted in language and semantics. Perhaps the best point in your favor is that the term "PvP" has accrued powerful connotations, both positive and negative, and so its use might very well be deleterious to the discussion. But at the end of the day, I'm not sure it's possible, much less effective, to try to alter the vocabulary at this point.

Not a whole lot of use for atmospheric radars right now given that atmospheric PvP isn't a thing yet, so I don't know that there needs to be a lot of concern directed there, at least for now. The definitive radar setup for space seems to be having a small radar linked to your pilot seat and a large radar linked to your primary gunner seat. The pilot won't be able to identify (re: lock) any targets meaningfully, but having the small radar means they will be able to see the same targets the gunner is actually identifying and maneuver the ship accordingly.

Catching your enemy by surprise isn't avoiding combat so much as it is ensuring an optimal outcome for combat on your end. An engagement does not have to be fair or preferable for both parties to be considered combat by definition. One could argue that the people who are "best" at combat are the ones that don't take fights they aren't reasonably sure they will win. Of course, this is all semantics and pedantry at the end of the day. Whether you call it combat, PvP, or some other nonsense, there is still going to be a group of people that create and participate in the meta of it and a group that is unable or unwilling to do so.

If you make it so that talent points don't increase while offline, all you've effectively done is forced players to idle while staying logged into the server, which is a terrible idea from multiple perspectives (forces players to keep computers on, potentially stresses the server unnecessarily, to name the big ones). Giving people bonuses for accomplishing things isn't a bad idea though, and it technically already exists in the game in the form of bonus talent points from achievements.

You make a good point, and I even think there's merit in just referring to it as combat, but if you asked me if I thought semantics actually mattered in any kind of substantive way, the answer would be no. I think it's more or less a diversion from the real problem that is divergent player expectations.

Yeah, I don't know about this. These "infinite" possibilities you're suggesting are only effective in terms of how they will time-gate content from players and for no particularly good reason. For example, it doesn't matter if players can or can't mine high tier ore without first training a skill because that ore isn't something they would personally have any need for right away and mining it for money is going to be far less efficient than pursuing other avenues to make money. Skill training as a concept is advantageous not because it time-gates content from players (that is its greatest weakness), but rather because it allows players to progress in the game without having to grind for XP, which has long been considered one of the worst aspects of MMOs. If you just change skill training into another grind, then all you've done is replaced one grind for another, one that players have even less control over. I quite like the fact that skills in DU don't so much as gate content as they enhance it (getting more return on refining things, more damage from guns, etc.) because that doesn't prevent specialization, but it does prevent new players from feeling like they're useless. Take EVE as an example. Surely you'll remember recruitment posts from corporations requiring that applicants meet certain skill point minimums. That was and is incredibly disheartening to new players looking to join groups and experience the best parts of the game. And, of course, there was nothing more frustrating than looking at ship you want to fly in EVE and then realizing that you'll have to wait for weeks or even months before you can even fly it badly. Ultimately, you can incentivize specialization without straight up preventing players from being able to interact with certain aspects of the game, and that is the direction DU should probably go.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that industry in DU is it's weakest point or even on the weak end of the spectrum, relatively speaking. I think it's absolutely due some much needed improvements and quality of life changes though. And I do agree that the ability to skill into increasing links between containers is worthwhile because the link cap on containers is a seriously limiting factor that I'd like to be able to push the boundaries of a bit. One point of contention: the container hub isn't useless in it's current state. On the contrary, it's absolutely vital in growing industry to its full potential as it currently exists in the game. Pound for pound, container hubs have probably done more for improving and streamlining our industry than any element in the game. Of course, the ability to improve their functionality through skills would still be very appealing!

As a veteran of EVE, I can vouch that the energy management system and fitting in that game is reasonably well implemented! That being said, I'm curious how a game with start to finish player ship creation will approach imposing reasonable limits without squashing creativity!

The fact of the matter is the existence of Concord absolutely reduces and/or limits PvP in high security space. I played EVE for upwards of 7 years and you were quantifiably safer in high-security space than in low-security or null-security space (the possible exception being the middle of no-where in null-sec). Your absolute statement that Concord doesn't "limit PvP at all" is ridiculous and almost entirely indefensible because if Concord didn't exist, then high-sec in EVE would be a complete, non-stop warzone, which it isn't and never has been. Is it safe? No, not completely. But it is, generally speaking, orders of magnitude safer than if Concord wasn't there. You are right about one thing though: ganking in high-sec isn't a random act and does take a lot of organization to pull off effectively in the way you described. Of course, scanning ships for their cargo and choosing only the juiciest ones to spring your suicide gank (or suiciding ganking in general) on wouldn't be required if Concord wasn't there to blow you up. That, by definition, means Concord is having a non-zero effect, doesn't it? You have to be careful about undermining your own point for the purposes of sassing someone .

The only specific limiting factor Entropy mentioned in the video was in regards to weapon sizes, i.e. it won't be possible to put large weapons on an XS core. He also tentatively suggested that weapon sizes might correspond to core sizes, but that is the only specific change he mentioned was coming. He did briefly mention potentially limiting elements, but only briefly and likely in relationship to a larger redesign around construct energy management or something similar. There was no mention of limiting voxels or "everything" as you suggested.