Yes, structure spam is an issue.
Yes, bashing structures is painful with little reward.
Yes, as a former CSM member, this was a topic brought up to CCP and discussed.
That said, I feel that the announced change will not get the desired results of more sustained conflict.
tl;dr: They are burning down the house to kill the spider.
The change will cause corp & alliance logistics team headaches, leading to some consolidation of structures in a familiar form of “weaponized inconvenience” that we have seen with Ansiblex relocation and Abandoned structure states. People like me who do this kind of work will complain, but much like the other changes, the job will get done and the organized groups will continue on unscathed.
I’m not against change or some version of the Quantum Cores, but the proposed implementation is unlikely to create the results expected by the Dev Team.
Personally, I’d rather spend alliance ISK on blowing ships up rather than on paying a retroactive tax on maintaining the status quo as most larger groups will do.
The change will lead to fewer structures in space and further incentivize players to concentrate in space and travel less. Again, the optimal strategy will be to join larger groups for better protection from attack.
As we have seen with other major changes intended to create conditions for conflict, this will likely fail to do so as well. Scarity has failed to create conflict. Nerfs to supers and capitals have put fewer targets in space, reducing the ability of “hunters” to find prey, continuing to reduce people fighting in space. Mining has moved in dramatic fashion to minimal risk High Sec space.
Yes, for the first few weeks there will be an orgiastic spike of destruction, much like the Abandoned Structures change, but once that is over and areas are purged, there won’t be many new structures being put up to replace them.
If you couldn’t defend a structure from getting blown up the first time, you certainly aren’t going to anchor a new one in it’s place to get blown up for a second time.
Industrialists will likely see structure construction wind down to a trickle. Between the great unanchoring of citadels pre-Abandoned change and new consolidation, the stockpiles of structures and standup modules will be significant. I’ve built over 200 citadels myself and don’t expect to build many more in the future.
Structures consumed a lot of P4 material in the past, so we will likely see increased supply with lower demand leading to further prices drops, accelerating price declines. Besides having less to build in this area, smaller industrialist will likely find fewer places to build and those will likely have higher indexes.
I’m not a High Sec person, so I can’t speak with any authority, but based on what I saw during the first weeks of Abandoned states, I wouldn’t want to be a high sec structure owner that can’t easily form 250 person fleets for defense. Bob help the structures in High Sec if the Null Sec powers decided to ‘farm’ them for Cores rather than buy them. As The Mittani clearly showed in Niarja, the force that can be brought to bear from large Null Sec groups is extreme and outstrips any typical High Sec group capabilities.
As I mentioned in my time as a CSM member, there is a disconnect between how the Dev Team thinks players will react to changes and how players actually adapt to change. We have repeatedly seen design changes that do not work in creating conflict and getting more players going more places, just in creating speedbumps for people looking for fun.
If it wasn’t for the purely ego and grudge driven conflict we see in the current wars, New Eden would be fairly dull place with small groups filamenting around hoping to catch a ratting Myrmidon (if they are lucky).
Don’t chase kitey bullshit.
See you on grid.
