Into the Known Unknowns: Wormhole Updates in the Hyperion Release
Greetings adventurous capsuleers! This is CCP Fozzie bringing you another dev blog with a first look at some of the improvements we’re working on for our Hyperion release on August 26th.
For Hyperion, EVE’s Team Five-O has been hard at working on a set of changes for Wormhole residents of New Eden. We presented our current plan to the CSM at the end of June to ensure they would have plenty of time to participate in the feedback process. Now that we have most of the potential changes prototyped to ensure that they are technically feasible, we are ready to share them with all of you and start gathering your valuable feedback.
This blog will cover the basics of several proposed changes, and we will be taking feedback on each of them in a set of stickied threads in our official Wormholes subforum. We are very interested in all reasoned feedback on each of these changes and our team will be following these threads very closely. We realize that since most wormhole mechanics have not changed in a very long time there will a certain amount of shock involved with any proposal that affects the status quo, but we are confident that our community can provide us with calm and useful feedback nonetheless.
**No Plan Survives Contact with the Players: Let’s Talk About Emergence**
Before we go over the individual proposals in detail, I would like to take a moment to address wormhole residents directly and hopefully dispel a few misconceptions that seem to have taken root in parts of the community.
By now quite a few players have heard stories about the history of how Wormhole space was designed within CCP. The original vision for this new space was that it would be a place for players to send temporary expeditions in search of riches and adventure. It was believed that the extremely lucrative rewards of this uncharted space would draw players to search for their fortune, but that the difficulties caused by randomly changing wormhole connections would prevent players from settling down permanently in this hellish environment.
Now with the benefits of hindsight this prediction appears amusingly naive. Ingenious players have quite easily overcome any and all challenges and created an entire society within this uniquely hostile environment. You quickly learned the secrets of wormhole spawning and static connections, developed techniques for long-term starbase living that nobody had ever seen before, and created your own set of social norms, vocabulary, and even a shared religion.
Over the years I have seen some players drawn some unfortunate and incorrect conclusions from this story. The belief that CCP is angry about this unintended behavior or that we are trying to somehow eject players from wormhole space to bring it more in line with the original pre-release vision. This belief couldn’t be further from the truth and betrays a regrettable misunderstanding about how CCP approaches ‘unintended’ player behavior in EVE.
There’s a story that our CEO, CCP Hellmar likes to tell about his personal experience playing EVE right after launch in 2003, and the moral of that story applies here as well. Some of you have probably heard the story before - here is a link to the video of him retelling that story from Fanfest 2013. Go ahead and give it a look, the relevant section is about three minutes long.
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Back? Ok let’s talk about the parallels between that emergent activity (jetcan mining) and long-term wormhole residence. In both cases EVE players proved even more creative and resourceful than CCP had ever expected, and CCP developers were surprised by the emergent gameplay. In both cases CCP also quickly realized that what the players had created was even better than what we had originally planned. We are not interested in trying to squash unexpected player behavior (unless it’s an exploit that breaks the game experience for everyone else of course). When CCP speaks about giving players the power and acting as janitors of the game we’re not just spouting marketing lines. This acceptance of player agency is right at the core of EVE’s success over the last 11+ years.
We are absolutely happy with how players have taken the wormhole feature and run with it over the last five years and we look forward to many more years of watching the adventures of the wormhole community with joy and awe. Anyone telling you otherwise is woefully mistaken.
Normally I wouldn’t feel that we have to go over our views this explicitly, but I’ve been seeing a distressing number of players misunderstand our position and I wanted to hopefully end the confusion once and for all.
Now that we have that cleared up, I’m sure you’re interested in seeing what we have been working on for our Hyperion release!
**Hyperion Approaches**
The main overarching goals of our proposed changes are:
- Create some variety and excitement in wormhole mechanics since most haven’t changed in many years
- Provide ways for players to engage more fully with the random and mysterious elements of wormhole life and a ease back on attempts to ‘tame’ and control wormhole mechanics
- Address some of the imbalance between wormhole environment effects
- Address some of the imbalance between wormhole classes
To reach that goal we are proposing the most significant package of improvements to wormhole space since the release of the Apocrypha expansion in 2009.
These changes consist of:
- Wormhole effect rebalance
- A second static for Class 4 wormholes
- More randomly spawning wormholes
- Mass-based spawn distance after wormhole jumps
- K162 appearance only on first jump
- Loosening of bookmark copying restrictions
- Ensuring that scan signatures stay consistent over downtime
Taken as a whole, these changes are intended to preserve the best parts of wormhole space and provide a new level of excitement as creative players rush to adapt their tactics.
**Wormhole Effect Rebalance**
One of the many unique aspects of wormhole life is the variety of special wormhole effects that can be found in many W-space systems. These effects can significantly change the balance of power within any given wormhole system by providing system-wide buffs and debuffs and they provide a great variety of combat environments for players to encounter. We are extremely happy with how wormhole effects have worked out overall, and will be taking steps in the Hyperion release to make them even better.
We have had a good understanding for quite some time about which wormhole effects are in need of significant changes, both from the experience of CCPers in wormholes and from reviewing feedback from our very vocal wormhole community. However metrics can also often be useful for evaluating the state of existing features and in this case metrics can be especially instructive.
The following chart shows the relative activity level in systems that contain each of the six wormhole effects, normalized for the number of systems available with each effect.
(click to enlarge)
It is obvious that the Black Hole effect is in need of some help, and indeed one of the most commonly requested changes to wormhole space is a reworking of Black Holes. This effect increases ship speed greatly, but also applies penalties to agility and damage projection. The result is a set of systems that players consider frustrating and tend to avoid. In Hyperion we are completely reimagining the Black Hole wormhole effect into an environment that makes proper use of the speed bonus and provides exciting high-velocity gameplay.
We are also making a set of changes to the other wormhole effects that will help focus their strengths and keep them balanced relative to the other choices.
Finally, we are also streamlining the progression of wormhole effect strengths across different classes of wormholes. This means that the increase in effect strength from one class to another will be more predictable and that the bonuses in lower class wormholes will be more noticeable than before.
Black Hole
(click to enlarge)
This is the big one. Black Holes are generally unfun and uninteresting in their current form, a shame since living in a system with a black hole should be awesome in a sci-fi game. The major penalties to inertia (which affects agility) and damage projection currently prevent players from truly taking advantage of the speed bonus.
Our solution is to keep the core concept of a “speedy” wormhole but make it truly useful by cutting the inertia penalty in half and rebuilding the other bonuses around high speed missile skirmishing. With bonuses to missile velocity, missile explosion velocity, targeting range and a new penalty to stasis webifier strength this wormhole should provide a new and exciting environment that is unlike anything else in EVE.
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Missile velocity | +15% | +22% | +29% | +36% | +43% | +50% | ||||
Missile Explosion Velocity | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Ship velocity | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Stasis Webifier Strength | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Inertia | +15% | +22% | +29% | +36% | +43% | +50% | ||||
Targeting range | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% |
Magnetar
(click to enlarge)
These are the most popular wormholes by far for PVE, for good reason. The big bonus to all damage provides a very compelling environment. Our goal here is to preserve their current uniqueness and feel while making it a bit easier to take advantage of the tracking penalty to avoid damage in PVP, as well as keeping the effect more balanced for PVE. We will accomplish this goal through a reduction in the effectiveness of target painting modules. Switching the missile penalty to explosion radius helps focus the Magnetar effects towards the signature radius side of the tracking system, as opposed to the Black Holes which mostly interact with the speed side.
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Damage | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Missile explosion radius | +15% | +22% | +29% | +36% | +43% | +50% | ||||
Drone Tracking | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Targeting Range | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Tracking Speed | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Target Painter Strength | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Heat Damage | +15% | +22% | +29% | +36% | +43% | +50% | ||||
Overload Bonus | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Smart Bomb Range | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Smart Bomb Damage | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Bomb Damage | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% |
Pulsar
(click to enlarge)
This is another fairly healthy effect. However we are a bit concerned with the strength of capital shield tanks in Pulsars, primarily due to the cap recharge bonus. Our planned solution is to strengthen the counters and provide more interesting variety in gameplay by adding a bonus to capacitor warfare.
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Shield HP | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Armor Resists | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Capacitor recharge | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Signature | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
NOS / Neut Drain Amount | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Armor HP | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Shield Resist | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Small Weapon Damage | +60% | +88% | +116% | +144% | +172% | +200% | ||||
Signature Size | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% |
Cataclysmic Variable
(click to enlarge)
For Cataclysmic Variables we are interested in buffing the smaller scale uses of the effect as well as preventing balance problems with spider-tanking carriers. The change here cuts the cap recharge time penalty in half (so that ships receive higher cap per second rates in Cataclysmic Variable wormholes) and add a new penalty to remote capacitor transmitters. Due to the nature of capacitor transfer bonuses on logistics cruisers and capital ships, this penalty is much more significant for carriers than for smaller ships.
Affected stat | Wormhole class | |||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |||||
Local armor repair amount | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Local shield boost amount | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Shield transfer amount | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Remote repair amount | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Capacitor capacity | +30% | +44% | +58% | +72% | +86% | +100% | ||||
Capacitor recharge time | +15% | +22% | +29% | +36% | +43% | +50% | ||||
Remote Capacitor Transmitter amount | -15% | -22% | -29% | -36% | -43% | -50% | ||||
Ship | Mass | Base Distance | Distance to jump range | ||||
Min | Max | ||||||
Covert Ops Frigate | 1,280,000 | 5.5 km | 0 km | 5.5 km | |||
Plated T3 Cruiser | 14,300,000 | 6.9 km | 0 km | 6.9 km | |||
Plated Bhaalgorn | 101,000,000 | 8.8 km | 0 km | 8.8 km | |||
Orca | 250,000,000 | 10.1 km | 0.1 km | 10.1 km | |||
Average Carrier | 1,120,000,000 | 13.5 km | 3.5 km | 13.5 km | |||
Average Dreadnought | 1,240,000,000 | 13.8 km | 3.8 km | 13.8 km | |||
After discussion internally and with the CSM, we believe these values would ensure a significant amount of risk in jumping capitals through wormholes while also allowing players to effectively roll wormholes using supported capitals and orcas. We expect that creative players would adapt by using specialized fits to speed up their wormhole rolling and we are perfectly fine with this.
We know many of you will be interested in providing feedback on this plan, and we will be reading and considering all reasonable feedback posted in this thread.
**Changes to K162 Signature Appearance**
As many of you may know, we have been thinking about the mechanics surrounding K162 wormhole appearance for quite some time.
Currently, as soon as the first player initiates warp to a new wormhole, the other side of that wormhole connection (the K162) appears and is visible to probes and to the sensor overlay in the destination system. This provides an unfair amount of early warning to players in the destination system since they receive warning of an impending incursion before the first player jumps into their system. The addition of the sensor overlay in Odyssey made this problem more visible, but it has always existed through the probe system and has never been good gameplay.
We floated an early proposal concerning this issue on the wormhole forums, which discussed the option of implementing a delay after players jump through a wormhole before the K162 wormhole is visible. After discussing this idea on the forums and at Fanfest with members of the W-space community, we heard the major concern that the idea as proposed would have caused players to feel helpless, like there was nothing they could do to detect the potentially hostile players in their system. This is a very legitimate concern, so we went back to the drawing board.
The result is our next proposal, which we believe effectively navigates the concerns of the hunters and the hunted.
As of Hyperion, we are planning to have K162 signatures appear as soon as the first player jumps through their wormhole connection. This prevents players in the destination system from receiving unfair early intelligence while also ensuring that a vigilant player can determine if a potentially hostile intruder has entered their system through a new wormhole connection.
Once a wormhole has been jumped through once, the K162 signature will remain scannable for the lifetime of that wormhole. This scannable state will persist across downtimes.
After discussion with the community we have decided to make some adjustments to this plan to ensure that enough wormhole connections become visible to keep travel options open.
Although K162 signatures will not appear as soon as a player warps to them (as they do currently), they will have a random chance to appear every several minutes once the wormhole connection has less than 15 hours of natural lifetime remaining.
We are looking forward to your feedback on this change, and will be reviewing it from this thread.
**Loosening of Bookmark Copying Restrictions**
This final change is a bit more focused, but should still be of interest to most wormhole residents. Over the years we have implemented certain restrictions to bookmark copying, since it has historically been a major source of database load for EVE. At this point after many other gameplay changes wormhole residents are the most common users of the bookmark copying system, and the request was passed to us from the CSM to investigate loosening the restrictions around this activity. We have done some investigation and it does appear that we can safely reduce these restrictions.
So as of the Hyperion release, you will be able to copy more bookmarks at once and the operations should complete significantly more quickly. We will continue to investigate loosening the restrictions further if the first set of changes works out well. While you wait for us to finish the ongoing work that will eventually enable the long-requested alliance bookmarks, this should at least be a helpful change to tide you over.
As always, we are interested to hear your feedback on this change and to hear what else you would like to see from the bookmark system in the future. Feel free to post all your bookmark feedback in this thread.
**Ensuring that scan signatures remain consistent over downtime**
This section covers a change that wasn't included in the original version of the dev blog, but that we were able to complete in recent weeks.
One very commonly request feature by wormhole residents, especially those who live in Australia and other territories where their playtime often straddles downtime, is for scan IDs of signatures and anoms to remain consistent across server downtimes.
We were initially unsure if we could achieve this change but thanks to the diligent work of CCP Masterplan we now have it working and deployed to our Singularity test server.
This change should go a long way to make the lives of AUtz wormholers much easier as they will no longer need to rescan every signature in their wormhole chain after each downtime.
Feel free to post your feedback on this change in this thread.
**In Closing**
These proposals are not the only improvements we hope to make for wormhole space in the future, and we are actively discussing with the CSM other improvements that could be made. We encourage you to keep communicating your requests both directly to us here at CCP and to your hardworking CSM members.
We hope you have enjoyed this dev blog and that you are looking forward to the Hyperion release as much as we are here in Team Five O. We are very interested in your feedback on all of these concepts and we encourage you to post your feedback, along with reasons for your arguments, in each of the individual feedback threads linked with each section of this blog. We will be hard at work over the next few weeks coding, refining designs, responding to feedback and testing changes for wormholes and we can’t wait to see how all you incredibly clever players find a way to pleasantly surprise us once again once Hyperion arrives on August 26th.
As for the rest of the changes you should expect in the Hyperion release, CCP Seagull will be posting a "Coming in Hyperion" blog soon with an overview and we will be continuing to release more dev blogs with all the juicy details in the coming days.
Good hunting!
-CCP Fozzie
