Yesterday, CCP announced more detail on the upcoming changes to capital and super-capital ships in Eve. Literally game changing stuff.

I am at Eve Vegas and attended both the formal presentation and the informal roundtable afterwards. After listening to both and talking with others, there’s not doubt that the fundamental strategies of capital warfare will need to re-imagined in the future.

After looking at some the writings on the interwebs, there is a bit of frustration and dismay at the changes, often centering on the lack of exact answers on specific questions. I sat through several questions in person about taking a “500mn fit something through a C5 static into a wagmatar system for something something krab site with a Jujubear doctrine” and how it was broken now. I need help parsing the wormholese language. My eyes were rolling so hard I could see my own spine.

The truth is that there simply aren’t a ton of exact answers just yet. From what we can see, CCP has made a few key design decisions and they are letting those core ideas drive the rest of the details. The details aren’t hammered out yet.

Basically, CCP has decided that if capitals are going to fight, then capitals are going to have to seriously commit to the fight, and they shouldn’t be able to n+1 their way out of losing ships. To make the fights more fun and diverse, they are adding a ton of new ways to create wrecks via impressive badassery.

We players must accept that our doctrines, fittings, tactics, and strategies will all need to change. Yes, the weapon timer/no refitting rule will change your plans. You will lose ships while you wait out the timer. Yes, not being able to dock while scrammed at a structure will change your station camping plans. Yes, your fleet is gonna get hurled away from the titan, wrecking your sweet positioning. Yes, the capacitor suck doomsday thing will make your logi weep.

What most people can’t get reading highlights on the interwebs, is that the Dev Team is open to new ideas and feedback on the changes. They mentioned it repeatedly. I don’t think they will move away from the core design choices, but do seem open to listening to ideas and concerns from players.

With permission from CCP Larrikin, I recorded the roundtable discussion. As you can hear, they don’t have all the answers yet, but are listening to what players have to say. Sometimes they say no or disagree, but often you’ll hear that it’s an interesting idea or real concerns. Also, you can hear wormholers ask weird snowflake questions that baffle regular pilots.

Listen to the roundtable here.