Remember the "dedicated balance team" ccp promised last summer? CSM member reveals ccp ***canned it

Communications Center General Discussion
508

Are you being serious? Thats like saying “The Dread Pirate Scarlet community is really small.” :smh:

And speaking of small, 1.5% of players sounds like really solid evidence that few people do incursions, right? Hmm, well maybe not. See the part you failed to take into consideration is that is not a cumulative number. Here is the money quote from Quant’s devblog:

You understand why the part that Quant emphasised is important to your claim that nobody does incursions, yeah? One of the big draws of incursions back in thier heyday was that you made so much ISK that you could spend most of your time/month (or year) doing other stuff. There were people who would grind like crazy for a month just so they didn’t have to do PVE again for a year.

Further, you understand the shear volume of characters under consideration yeah? How many characters log in each day? SInce you claim Incursions never became a popular thing, people just did missions/explo/ratting, you should probably use the 2011-2013 numbers. But lets keep with Quant’s 2015 metrics. Lets be conservative. If peak Concurrent Users averaged 25k, I think 50k average total users/day seems fair. SO, on any given day in EVE there was an average of 750 users running incursions that day. If only 750 users ran incursions in 2015 then there would be cause for concern. Nobody has offered any evidence to suggest that (or anything like that) so far.

Finally, consider that all mission running – from career missions to L5s – only account for 19%. Go spend some time on Dotlan’s stat page. Look at the top 10 HS systems by NPC kill in 2010 and compare it to '12, '13, '14 and '15. In 2010 top spots went to L4 mission running hubs. 2 years later, the top systems were neither L4 hubs nor fed by L4 hubs. Its almost as if 2012 characters with BS + LG gun skills moved on to other activities. I wonder what that could have been?

As much as I hate incursions, they have been hugely successful from the standpoint of PVE design. Burner missions, which are merely additions to the L4 mission pool, seem to be popular as far as L4 missions go. You don’t do them. Neither do I (but I have not done L4’s in 5 years either). The number of garmurs/DD’s I see coming and going from Langissi alone, however, suggests that there are plenty of people who do. Even if they are not doing burners exclusively. Same goes with clone soldiers (which I did for sec purposes). The rest are underused because of ISK/hr, low availability of information, or because they are new (it took a solid year before Incursions hit thier stride).

Oh, and M. Gladwell is the qualitative equivalent of Vince Offer. Great for selling a product, and you will love his nuts, but not someone you should quote seriously. I would argue that the majority of all TED talks are of the same caliber, but thats another story.

IMO, your whole “but mah PRAXIS” post kind of falls apart under even cursory scrutiny. You would have been better off limiting your claim to something like “There is a group of players who are advocating for stuff only they will enjoy. I will not enjoy it, therefore CCP should make more content for me.”

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509

I’m sorry I thought you were talking about “mining fleets” as RW content.

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510

No problem, its an easy mistake to make.

For the record, during the roundtable I was critical of the npc belt mining fleets as well, I said “if people want PvP like things, people provide enough of it”.

511

That was my tought exactly. I couldn’t believe what I’m reading when nullsec sotiyos were released. Is it that bad in NS that we need NPC AI to behave like players? There is not enough pvp in NS so CCP need to spice things up with NPC?
I don’t even comment mining fleets… If players want to shoot miners there are plenty of them in HS. We don’t need NPCs for that, and pvers won’t bother with them because standings lose and pvp like activity. It’s always: for whom content is created? I don’t see much sense here.

I had high hopes with FOBs rats but in the end shouldn’t players do what they supposed to do? Something is rotten when we need NPCs for that.

BUT either it was asked by players or CCP still following the path to connect pve and pvp into similar thing (like burners).

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512

Not sure where this comes from, don’t remember a positive comment about “PvPvE”, looks like an inside-out idea of CCP. Maybe there was a misunderstanding, as people suggested PvE being doable efficiently in PvP fits. It’s so obvious that hyper clever and strong NPC won’t work as expected.

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513

Posts like yours is why these discussions fail. Who said anything about no one doing incursions?

I pointed out that incursions are a LOT less popular than missions and mining (and undoubtedly anomalies and probably exploration as well). I point to incursions because it’s one of the few places where CCP has given us solid information. In other words, they aren’t telling us how small the burner community is or how non-existant the FOB community is, so incursions are useful to the point.

That point is that soloable content is more popular than group content even though it’s less profitable in an absolute sense. That content with “dumb AI mobs” gets used way more than this advanced “AI acting like players” stuff is. That CCP is trying to reinvent the wheel with what they are doing with PVE instead of building upon their success.

Most of the missions and anoms in this game predate 2006 and yet they are still the most popular and used content even though the players who use that content are the very people calling for change.

Simplly put, if you make something in 2006, then you make ‘better stuff’ from 2009 to 2018 and yet the 2006 stuff is used more, it means you should look at WHY the 2006 stuff is used more and the newer stuff is unpopular and niche at best.

IMO, your whole “but mah PRAXIS” post kind of falls apart under even cursory scrutiny. You would have been better off limiting your claim to something like “There is a group of players who are advocating for stuff only they will enjoy. I will not enjoy it, therefore CCP should make more content for me.”

This is the other reason why discussions here, with folks like you, fail. You think there is some ulterior motive when there isn’t. I’m not asking for anything, I HAVE what I like (they are called Havens. Sanctums and Forsaken Hubs). Yea, I’d like for CCP to not mess them up with their 'improve AI" and “PvPvE” thinking, but I don’t own CCP and if they screw it up, will I have other games to play.

But I am saying that reinventing the wheel is stupid when you don’t have to. A couple years ago, CCP added NPC Capitals to high end anomalies. It was a GREAT addition, it ticked of some afk ratters, it gave people like me incentive to think differently (damn, I need to sacrifice some dps on my rattlesnake so it can survive a Dread Spawn) and it didn’t involve some new AI stuff or anything.

THAT is what CCP should be doing, Playing to their strengths. CCPs strength is not adding new content, apologies to the great people at CCP, but CCP sucks at making content. CCP should concentrate on making the environment we play in and giving us tools with which to screw with it (and each other).

That’s not me asking for stuff, that’s me saying to CCP “Do what you know how to do, like what you did when you made missions and anomalies, and stop trying to be some other company that provides ‘content’”.

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514

https://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=917074&page=7#187
Read that

It has been a frequent request over the years. Google search showed one as far back as 2004 but I don’t have the link saved.

515

See, now that was a good find. You can see in this thread people saying “I never heard anyone say they wanted this stuff that CCP is doing”. But that just means they weren’t paying attention.

People said ALL THE TIME that pve and pvp shouldn’t be ‘different’. They falsely believed that if only they had a ship that could withstand PVP while they were PVEing, that pvp guy that killed them wouldn’t have killed them lol. They probably failed to realize that they would have still lost their ship even if it was pvp fit because PVPrs almost always beat dedicated PVE players at PVP

(It works in reverse too, I’ve seen smug PVP jocks die embarrassingly in PVE sites because they didn’t listed to people who actually run those sites and thought “I win fights against real people, these rats can’t hurt me!”… WRONG lol).

“PVE should be like PVP” has been conventional wisdom in EVE for years, and people should be able to see now that it’s is and has always been a wrong headed idea.

516

That’s not just an Eve problem as well. MMO’s have do try to separate pvp/pve in some way. The skills and tactics and equipment used for one are often liability in another. That said i used to rat in a pvp sacriledge… but that was when you could still assign fighter XD. (I got to get back to null… soon soon…)

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517

Yep, and as we’ve seen in a few other games, there is always this desire to ‘merge’ them, usually with not so good results. CCP is going through that phase right now with “pvpve”

That said i used to rat in a pvp sacriledge… but that was when you could still assign fighter XD. (I got to get back to null… soon soon…)

I’m right there with you. This is another of my ratting toons:

I also have Machariel and Rattlesnake fits that can withstand PVP. They aren’t as good as pure pve fits for isk making, but they sure are fun when you get a kill. People should learn that interrupting Jenn aSide isk making is a BAD IDEA :slight_smile:

I got no problem with pvp, and being in null you should have to deal with pvp encounters. But I am saying that CCP trying to make PVP like PVE encounters is wrong headed. CCP should just make sites like what we have now, as you can see from the above killmail, WE will figure out the PVP stuff.

Edit, just wanted to link another km, both the VNI and Mach are me… I love blowing up people when they attempt “ISKUS-Interuptus” on me lol

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518

Fair. Change my wording to “most people tried incursions and then left”. Which is what you have said.

COmparing Incursions to all missions (not to mention mining) is pants on head retarded. Incursions do not overlap with lvl 1 missions. Or even lvl 3. They overlap with L4s.

You keep referring to the “burner community”. Are you going to refer to other missions as having a community too? Second, if “they aren’t telling us how small the burner community is” then how do you generate the statement “the burner community is small”? Honestly, I would like to see what kind of reasoning process get you there.

I agree that solo content has a place. EVE had no PVE specifically designed around teams until Incursions. SInce then they have dropped a few more. But on your list of PVE developed since 2009 more than half are done solo. So isnt that CCP “building upon their success”?

FInally, wrt to you “not asking for stuff”: You ask for CCP to do more stuff like the old stuff that plays to thier strengths. That is asking for stuff. You get that right? You still have not provided a convincing argument for why creating new stuff is somehow bad. Your evidence and argument sofar is crap, which is why i spent so long pointing out the flaws. So, without better reasons I default to my earlier advice.

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519

You can skip burners completely with no agent penalty when they show up in your mission queue. There is a reason for that feature… I have yet to do them. I dont like them. (yes i looked them up and watched them done on the test and was not interested.)

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520

IIRC, the idea floating around was that PvE fits should be viable in PvP. That is, that a Battleship in a PvE fit, should be as difficult to kill as if it was in a PvP fit.

That’s not the same beast as “I want to PvE in my PvP fit” and let alone “I want my PvE be like PvP”. The complain was about how fitting for PvE usually makes the ships easy PvP kills. In that sense it was a similar complain as when barges and exhumers had paper tanks totally unrelated to their cost and the threats they were exposed to.

I don’t know exactly how or why this became a “let’s make PvE like PvP so PvE players have a easier transition to PvP”, because risk is a very strong constant and players never take a greater risk than the balance point they enjoy.

This accidentally explains why riskier PvE with higher rewards doesn’t works very well -a highsec PvEr who wants more rewards for more risk, might as well go FW or mission in low or null, there’s no need to bring that risk to highsec unless your aim is to draw lowseccers and nullseccers into high.

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521

Unless I misunderstood the final line of Tipa’s post, that is entirely not relevant. People have been asking for NPC to have more player-like AI. I have yet to see anyone provide evidence that such a thing has been wrong headed.

522

ok. And? No offense, but am not sure what you not liking them has to do with others. Or them being not done.

523

The stuff on the list that isn’t group content tends to be the ‘better AI’ stuff. We aren’t just talking about solo vs group. We are talking general PVE direction. CCPs current direction (as described in the Massively article I linked earlier in this thread) is deeply flawed.

FInally, wrt to you “not asking for stuff”: You ask for CCP to do more stuff like the old stuff that plays to thier strengths. That is asking for stuff. You get that right? You still have not provided a convincing argument for why creating new stuff is somehow bad. Your evidence and argument sofar is crap, which is why i spent so long pointing out the flaws. So, without better reasons I default to my earlier advice.

That’s an attempt to play games with words (yet another reason why discussions here fail). You probably understand that I am not asking for something for myself (other than “don’t screw up what I’m already doing”) but are unwilling to admit it.

My advice to CCP is the same I give everyone. Do what you can do well. Just like in real life I prefer burger joints that mostly just do burgers. The burger joints that “want more market share” so they add stuff like “Fois Gras Fries” and “Kale and Avacado Soy Burgers” not only don’t get my business, they tend to fail with the general public as well.

How many times does CCP have to fail at something before folks like you will start doing the same and say to them “CCP, please stick to what you know you can do well”? (the link is about FOBs, which even after all the man hours CCP put into making them have maybe 2 or 3 dedicated groups looking for them and running them…)

524

This is because for some reason you don’t want to see. It’s easy enough to see with a glance at Dotlan maps (where you can see where incursions are and see how mission running hubs are way more travels, more popular and have more NPCs killed per day constantly).

You can see it on zkill with FOBs and Sotoyos and Drifters and other things that now make it on kill boards. Not a lot of people are hunting these things

I’ve found over the years that sometimes people are so naively optimistic (and think that any change is good) and thus have a hard time with the idea that older stuff could be better than newer stuff. They tend to fail to pick up , then, on the idea that maybe there is a reason why the older stuff is more popular (and that the powers that be, CCP, should be learning why this is instead of wasting time on new shiney stuff very few people will engage in).

525

This is relevant. They are not popular thus the opt out.

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526

Exactly. When they were harder to opt out of in the beginning (on the test server), MANY mission runners cried foul. So CCP changed it to what it is now.

I don’t hate burners, I think they are a mostly good addition. I run some from time to time in cap stable fits.

The point is not “CCp should do nothing but anoms and missions”, the point is that ALL of the pve additons in the last few years have been PVE people say they want but really don’t. If they’d added like a few new regular missions AND FOBs, I wouldn’t be here typing nor would I have participated in that last roundtable.

But CCP is totally ignoring what we who PVE actually do in game. A company should play to it’s strengths, CCP strength is not pve content at all.

527

IIRC they were opt out before they were released. Lets assume they were not. So, if CCP looks at the data and decides the number of people who have completed burner missions is greater than X%, it would be fine for them to remove the ‘optional’ nature? Or would you be irritated about that?