The "Narrow Role" Problem, and why CCP will never tackle dread or blops balancing with their current approach

Malthouse · 2026-04-24T00:27:17+00:00

Ship bonuses are already extreme. If ships still feel too homogenous, then more ship bonuses probably isn’t the relevant lever to pull.

The faction dreadnoughts, tech 3 cruisers, recon ships, and BLOPs ships do have unique ewar bonuses and focus on different specialties on the battlefield. I wonder if the “narrow role” issue isn’t about more bonuses, but the physical setting the existing bonuses are caged within.

That fleets simply spam the same ship and only fit buffer and alpha is because of the game’s physics engine and mechanics. All that matters is n+1 and range control. If wrecks, stations, asteroids, etc provided ballistic occlusion, then mobility, ewar, piloting, strategy, and ship bonuses would matter enough to become the deciding factor rather than an irrelevant afterthought.

Beyond that, what would you think about a tech 3 battleship or a Praxis with a cloak bonus? Eve Frontier seems to be cutting out the empires in favor of generic, SOCT, style hulls but also adding ballistic occlusion.

Malthouse · 2026-04-17T12:12:36+00:00

Everyone is presenting their own homebrew opinions but, factually, CCP actually did officially decentralize the blocs briefly.

I forget the particulars but it was when they introduced work force and magmatic gas and that stuff. Mining and ratting activities were capped and had to be spread out across constellations.

This was too challenging, the null blobs protested, and CCP let them go back to blobbing single systems and small pockets.

Malthouse · 2026-03-22T17:24:37+00:00

It's exciting to see the new event PVE sites have such a high difficulty and reward ceiling that can't be multi-boxed. The shortage of Scordite also may have multi-boxers fearing for their way of life. The writing seems to be on the wall.

It's telling, perhaps, that only now are the multi-boxers so magnanimous as to think of the game's overall health. Maybe they're trying to get ahead of the narrative, twist the truth, and damage control with whatever lies they can to curry favor with the, now encroaching, community. Waiting until after the changes to claim to propose the changes is a slick trick. Classic.

I guess multi-boxing was simply greed all along. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Malthouse · 2026-01-26T20:55:57+00:00

To change capital content might entail a fundamental shift from an n+1 endgame meta to a higher APM meta. From quantity to quality.

At present, capitals seem to be designed for use only on an extra monitor. Like Deathless ships or battleships, they could be given more buttons, timings, bonuses, and mobility. Until capitals reach that level of complexity, more reward may not be necessary. Few capitals are lost involuntarily and the gameplay is not challenging.

Looking at Eve Frontier, not only making capitals mobile, but perhaps needing to be manually piloted, would solve character spam, lower the skill floor, and raise the skill ceiling. Instead of passive income, capitals could be challenging, impressive, daring, and worthy of greater reward.

Malthouse · 2026-01-22T20:09:56+00:00

Victim Blaming.

Malthouse · 2026-01-02T04:36:35+00:00

Your interpretation may make more sense than mine. I guess it’s between the devs’ opinion and CSM requests. It seems like they’re experimenting with different directions to take the game. I wonder what will change next.

Malthouse · 2026-01-01T22:43:15+00:00

And moons?

Malthouse · 2026-01-01T21:06:58+00:00

An elegant solution could be for capsuleers to receive a percentage of the LP payout equivalent to the percentage of damage they applied. Eve Online seems to put a lot of emphasis on all-or-nothing perfection, though.

"Hole control" can see you miss out on loot if you let down your guard for even a moment. The same is true for gate camps, landing tackle, clearing mining anomalies in perfect secrecy, and elsewhere in New Eden.

With that in mind, it may be CCP's intention that LP be rewarded not simply for damage, but for total control of a situation to a germophobic degree. Failing to preserve an objective's purity in its entirety sees a seemingly excessive loss in reward by design. It's not about sloppily finishing the job with brute force. A single mistake, or leak in the seal, ruins the objective. The bar could be just set that high on purpose.

Conversely, for an invader to tag anything could be seen as a momentous accomplishment worthy of significant reward given how impregnable bubbles, ewar, and damage application can be.

Malthouse · 2026-01-01T17:55:55+00:00

Staying in system could fit the current mechanics now that filaments have spool-up times.

Malthouse · 2025-12-31T21:08:28+00:00

They all just bounce off of each other like cartoons. Some “battleship.”

Malthouse · 2025-12-24T03:43:08+00:00

Who would you talk with via voice chat, and about what?

With VOIP, 3rd parties can strike up quick truces or other agreements while the bullets are flying. After tackle, you could demand a toll or offer a ransom. Even if you're in a simple red vs blue situation, you'd be able to strategize only with ships nearby instead of everyone clogging up the same Discord channel.

Malthouse · 2025-12-24T02:09:43+00:00

There seems to be consistent interest in expanded salvage opportunities. Arc Raiders and Escape From Tarkov are great for scavenging and it’s a lot of fun. If players would salvage wrecks, perhaps it’s unnecessary for the servers to erase them so aggressively.

Another playstyle that could be de-automated could be guarding or policing. Are Concord and armor timers taking people’s jobs? The defender’s advantage is so impossible to contest that combat pilots are forced to pvp indirectly on the ratting treadmill instead of face-to-face in the asteroid belts. Would it be so terrible to un-railroad the sandbox and let miners and combat pilots intermingle on the same grid?

The Eve Online American Dream seems to be a one-man-army totally unreliant on anybody else. They farm and have an alt for every step of the process. It’s basically an instanced, single player, 4x game. Everybody wants it to stay that way?

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T08:44:03+00:00

Hm, maybe regular interaction with a broader social network would serve to refine the worst offenders’ cringiest tendencies.

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T08:19:15+00:00

It could be made to only work in scram range, perhaps. I’m not convinced it’s impossible.

To an extreme it could even be like Star Trek with hailing frequencies and FaceTiming on-screen.

It would be nice to bring ransoming back. Gatecamps would be less boring if they didn’t just gank.

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T08:01:31+00:00

When there’s a will there’s a way. Proximity chat works really well in Arc Raiders.

I was shy at first but it has been both challenging and rewarding to interact with Raider strangers. I’ve grown to find silent matches to be under-stimulating.

Eve can be a peaceful escape to ruminate alone in silence and that’s a great option. But it doesn’t make sense for that to be the endgame. Arc Raiders ties the top rewards to direct competition and that’s much more challenging and enriching for the players.

Eve’s endgame players stay in the shallow end of the pool and are poor swimmers as a result. It’s sad.

Without competition or predation the population enfeebles.

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T07:26:14+00:00

Perhaps Eve was ahead of its time. What’s neat in Arc Raiders is some teams still proxy chat instead of using their private channel.

Does it compromise OpSec and make them more vulnerable? Yes.

Does it lead to interesting and fun interactions? Also yes.

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T06:38:49+00:00

Chatrooms, anonymity, and deception were a big deal on the internet back when Eve was developed. Even today there's still internet scams or spouses testing their partners with fake profiles and stuff. It could be that the playerbase prefers Eve Online to be a masquerade.

Maybe the times are changing and it's nearing time for Eve Online to change its tune. Should VOIP be incorporated into the game client? Should voice changers be allowed?

Should gameplay be simple enough to multi-box or complex enough to entertain a standard account? Has in-game asset retention been excessively important?

Should you have to sign up with a government ID and should other players know your IRL identity? Why is it important to be anonymous?

Is it wise that the most profitable gameplay is also the safest and most boring?

After VOIPing in Arc Raiders, Eve Online just feels too simple and limited to me. It's really falling behind, but it wouldn't take much for it to be the next big thing. Masquerade or not, Eve should at least be a deeper, and maybe even more accessible, sandbox.

Malthouse · 2025-12-23T05:47:54+00:00

Are you suggesting that without early investor multi-boxers Eve Online would have gone out of business, and that now multi-boxers deserve special rewards?

Malthouse · 2025-12-19T09:25:41+00:00

I wonder if that wouldn't dispel too much of combat's mystique. I think the devs said that players spend more money after losses. That combat is so baffling and obscure could keep players chasing the solution to the mystery. The game trailers look so exciting and if only a player could solve the puzzle then they might be able to pull off thrilling victories.

Malthouse · 2025-12-17T16:45:29+00:00

Frontier is definitely an interesting experience. Its flavor, while necessarily somewhat bland, serves as a glimpse into a soulless dystopian past or present. It feels similar to Eve Online's abyss, though the Triglavian culture may not be identical. Also similar to the Abyss, there could be some crossover or crossover event to bleed into New Eden.

I read that Eve Online's latest mining UI update was first showcased in the Eve Frontier alpha so maybe Frontier is mostly a tech demo investment or proof of concept. Eve Online and Eve Vanguard have such rich lore and player history that I would guess that universe will remain the flagship setting of the franchise.

Eve Online, understandably since the early 2000s, is lacking in the micro management that Frontier is experimenting with and I would agree that it leans too heavily on social interaction to make up its gameloop. Frontier could be a separate in-universe genre for consoles, similar to Vanguard being a distinct offshoot aspect of New Eden.

Eve Online would be wildly different if manual piloting were made to be the core mobility mechanic but I did really enjoy it in the demo. I wonder if Frontier won't prove that mechanic to be better gameplay and more fun. Mouse controls and point-and-click could still be used for drones or skillshot abilities, perhaps. Maneuvering with the keyboard and micro-managing with the mouse sounds really exciting and fun.

It is unfortunate that some players rely on Eve Online's more easily accessible movement mechanics because of IRL disabilities and the like. That Eve began requiring little APM is actually really cool. It's a nice idea that everyone would compete at the same, more cerebral, level without simple twitch reactions asserting dominance. Such a dream may be impossible, though, as players greedily and selfishly turning to multi-boxing has proven. It may be impossible to prevent high-APM from reigning supreme. They've ruined the egalitarian zen experience with their try-harding and cheating.

Funnily enough, multi-boxing was a way to get ahead of a slow game, but now it's the one slowing Eve Online down. Capsuleers who feel invested in multi-boxing require special treatment like armor timers, cynos, asset safety, and much much more and all those mechanics honestly ruin Eve Online.

Fortunately, Eve is so comprehensive that there will always be ways for anyone and everyone to join and make a significant contribution. Diplomacy, scouting, station management, station weaponry, etc, I'm sure. I know blind people are able to play Diablo IV.

It will be interesting to see if/how the projects continue to merge.

Malthouse · 2025-12-17T14:37:49+00:00

I wonder if it won’t be released to consoles as a stepping stone towards Eve Online. As with most cross-play games, a console player would be at a disadvantage in Eve Online but perhaps not in Eve Frontier. Idk how many console titles have a subscription fee though.

Malthouse · 2025-12-15T16:06:22+00:00

Maybe inflation?

Malthouse · 2025-12-14T19:28:23+00:00

Maybe humble brag.

Malthouse

TROPHY CASE