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I’ve been playing EVE for a little over two years. I began as a solo PVPer, but I got my start several months after Upwell structures landed, so null was already well on its way to being the dogsh*t wasteland it was up until this weekend.
Solid fights were rare but worth the price of admission. About 8 months ago I noticed the game getting… awful. I was prepared to quit, tried a few things different to see if I could rescue my interest in EVE. Thankfully Wormholes did that, but I miss the hunt.
The blackout has successfully restored the qualities that attracted me to the game in my earliest times. It’s not just about dank frags. EVE can be fun even if you aren’t actively shooting something.
In my opinion the blackout provides many passive benefits to EVE gameplay that… I don’t even know if I can live without now that we’ve gotten to experience them this week. Put simply, when blackout is on, EVE feels good to play. This is a fundamental quality to games that stand the test of the time (which EVE traditionally has, only coming into doubt as of late).
Here’s what I think is going on with the blackout that’s worth preserving… no matter what the future holds.
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The blackout dramatically improves the signal to noise ratio for attackers. Local provided unlimited false positives (8 in local? Oops just intel bots and procurer alts). Bots presented attackers with the perception that space was active but in fact was hopelessly un-engageable. Now, when something is on D-scan, or more importantly, when something is on GRID… there’s a reasonably high chance that thing is a real player, capable of error and pride…
The net impact of this is quality over quantity content. Space already feels emptier, and may yet become even more empty, but when encounters happen, at least for me so far, they have been far more meaningful and memorable… because they’re not flown by f*cking scripts
Finally, because there is less noise, roams have the potential to be chill again. I’d take 15 empty systems in the new format over 5 empty systems and 10 VNIs in the old… because in the old format I *had* to waste my time chasing them down on the off chance one was a f*ck-up. Fewer or no bots cleans this up nicely. You can have a 3 hour empty handed roam and even feel a little good about it… sometimes it’s relaxing to just boat around EVE with the music on, and not have to do case-work on every bot you come across. -
The blackout forces good-faith krabbers to actually think about what they’re doing for a change, to the benefit of all parties. In two nights I’ve come across as many instances of krab behavior that transcends what has ever happened with local.
I’ve often been amazed at big blobs of Procurers warping away from a single Succubus for fear they might… lose a drone??? Maybe? With local, these procs pre-align and mash warp as soon as I hit grid. Without local, I’ve seen these same formations of miners actually get their drones out and put in work (and they were rewarded with kills and few losses).
This is good gameplay. Warping to an Athanor is properly scary now. Smart krabs will be putting scrams on their procs or switching out one of those multiboxing accounts with a garmur, and sh*t is GOING TO GET REAL. Some krabs understand how cancerous a blob of procs really are. If the Blackout goes on, they all will.
In Insmother, I ran across a blessed Chinese ratter who decided to pimp fit his VNI to tank 500 omni while running Havens. He beat the sh*t out of my gank fit Scythe Fleet, forcing me to warp off. The motherf*cker CHASED ME to the sun, even though he didn’t have a scram. I was able to polish him off… and it’s a fight I will never forget, and would have never happened in a meta where that dude was under zero threat of being tackled.
I expect these trends to continue, and get more developed and powerful… soloists will have a greater challenge, and the ratters (hopefully) get some defensive gameplay that they can enjoy. -
The blackout provides a thin layer of M.A.D. which is better than no layer at all. Everything is potentially bait. Nothing is potentially bait. Everything has a cyno. Nothing has a cyno. Maybe there’s 7 Curse’s at planet 2… maybe there aren’t. You can’t ZK recon somebody until they LAND ON GRID, which gives people less time to decide if there’s 25 Leshaks about to dick down whatever they try to drop on this poor little roamer. I personally get a double bonus because there’s the word “Wormhole” in my alliance name. That’s right bitch, the heavy armor fleet is one click away. They’re definitely not playing League of Legends right now. No sir.
One of my least favorite things about null militia meta has been the ubiquity of Tech 2 EWAR as a one-sized-fits-all answer to solo and small gang encroachment. These ships are extremely effective, and nearly immortal when flown properly against an underpowered force… but if you do get your mitts on them, they’re an easy and shiny killmail. I expect as time goes forward, the hard roaming crews are going to give the entire cluster pause about impulsively undocking that Rapier every time they see an Omen Navy on intel… because that sh*t is going to get eaten up by well organized gangs. This will shift the meta down the cost ladder, which is a GOOD THING. Cheaper meta = more people getting involved. Cheap ships are easier to engage generically, have more weaknesses, and don’t feel as bad to lose or be killed by. (I’d much rather eat sh*t to 7 caracals than 2 web lokis)
In closing, I have read the rumors about a “Communications Device” or some nonsense which people believe may be a tool that Null empires can use to restore local service to their space.
At a conceptual level, I am not opposed to Alliances have some level of control like this over their empire, but I cannot stress enough how limited this needs to be. If it’s Just Another Upwell Structure, then why f*cking bother?
If the Goonie Goons want local to be available in 1DQ, or CVA wants it in 9UY, then I think they are entitled to make that decision and pay for it. It’s their space and they worked for it. But these structures cost and function should be linear with distance from Capital, or along the same line of thinking, there must be some relationship between the possibility of local and centrality within an empire, defined by whatever metric is most useable… presence of Keepstars?
It just needs to be anything other than “drop beacon, add fuel, laugh”.
tl;dr - The blackout improves the quality of the game for players undocking and engaging in space. These qualities need to be preserved on some level if and when local is restored either by reversion or by new mechanics which bring it back piecemeal.
*edit* formatting has been breaking a little, sorry... reddit editor tool is... bad
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