The EVE Online ecosystem is in a bit of a flux heading into 2021. The game has definitely been through the ringer, what with active wars between major powers and the state of the economy. Sure, a lot of that has been to deal with botting and ISK inflation, something CCP plans to do more about in 2021—although there’s more to it than that.
As the dev blog on the subject of the EVE Online ecosystem put it, they’re trying to regain control of things that have been left unnoticed too long.”In EVE, much of 2020 was spent in renovation working on the goal of regaining control of the EVE economy which had been spiraling towards major excess of ISK, minerals, and assets,” said CCP. The plan looks pretty crystallized then.
The Encounter Surveillance System and Dynamic Bounty System were just part of that, even though players hated it. That’s just the more obvious nerfs designed to bring power back in line with developer plans and projections. Among the goals hoped to be achieved by these changes was the “reining in capital proliferation,” with mineral distribution changes and other tweaks designed to make it harder for large groups to stockpile tons of assets for industry.
And even though the other tweaks of the “Scarcity Phase” CCP has continued to count on player feedback. especially from the player elected CSM. CSMs 14 and 15 have been a bit hamstrung by COVID-19 preventing in-person meetings, but things are being worked on behind-the-scenes. The plans have not been fully revealed yet and for good reason.
Botting and RMT issues continue to be a major problem in EVE. To that end, several exploits and loopholes in the ISK generation systems of Faction Warfare and high-end PvE have been closed, helping to choke off the illicit ISK supply. Further changes are in the works there as well. A major shift has been coming for a while now, with players routinely complaining about RMT and bots in-game. Although the disaster of Hypernet spam in trade channels, even those chats designed to be helpful to brand new players, remains a major issue.
Hints surrounding the future of the game are spread throughout the post. With obvious inferences to iterate on industry, like adding more defined roles for Orcas and Rorquals to better balance their output, being at the top of the list. The other hints include the idea that LowSec and wormholes may be getting some major changes, as it appears CCP wants to make the LowSec space more distinct, and seemingly trying to tie it to more demand for wormhole space. That could be very interesting.
Source: CCP Games
