I didn’t know where to post this so if there’s a more appropriate section for this topic then please let me know, I’m not familiar with this forum.
I feel like in order to address the inevitable get good/skill issue comments I need to preface this by saying that this isn’t a reaction to me dying to a bubble camp. I’ve been playing FW for years, I understand the mechanics and how to avoid them. I have been the bubble camper a lot more often than I have been the victim. That isn’t why I’m making this post.
The FW rework with Uprising expansion created an accessible playground for smaller scale pvp that was welcoming to newcomers. You built a solid space where players could learn the pvp fundamentals without some of the oppressive and punishing mechanics of nullsec. Then with the introduction of insurgencies allowing bubbles in corrupted systems you completely broke that design philosophy. It created an instant quit moment for the kind of player this game has serious trouble retaining, those newer players that are looking for more accessible and casual pvp.
The boundaries between lowsec and nullsec existed for so long for good reason, that distinction is the reason why many veteran players choose to stay in FW over moving to nullsec. Blurring the lines by flipping random chunks of FW space into essentially nullsec defies the purpose of FW even being a lowsec pvp environment. “If I wanted bubbles I would live in nullsec” is a very prevalent attitude among FW players.
Noobs shouldn’t need to study the convoluted insurgency mechanics and then consult their maps to check which systems are bubblable before flying around in what is supposed to be the most noob-friendly and accessible introduction to pvp, they already have enough on their plate as it is. Most of them don’t have alts to scout ahead for them. When they want to undock and have fun but they keep jumping into bubbles on gates and dying before they even get a chance to fly the ships they keep having to spend their limited funds to pay for, they don’t think it’s a cool dynamic sandbox mechanic. They think the game is boring, broken, unbalanced, overly punishing and full of griefers and they log out, often never to be seen again.
We can’t expect people to simply move to other systems when the insurgencies spawn around their staging or blocks the route from their trade hub into the warzone and grows to include 20 systems. The reality is that a lot of people just stop playing until the insurgency moves because it becomes impossible for them to operate independently. It’s like you tried to create some kind of interesting, dynamically changing geography to spice things up or help prevent frontline stagnation, but you actually just built a farming area for big groups that pushes many solo pvpers, noobs and smaller groups out of their own warzone for weeks at a time.
FW is best when it provides an accessible loop of fighting over plexes and being able to die, reship, and join the fight again easily. Bubble camps sitting on half the gates completely choke that loop. Instead of newcomers actually getting a taste of the fun and entertaining gameplay Eve has to offer like being able to fly their ship and maybe make some money plexing or take part in some fights, they instead far too often get caught in a bubble and deleted before they can even do anything. You can already gate camp effectively enough with a few guys and a decent setup, it really doesn’t need to be easier. We don’t need more boring, lazy, passive camping at the expense of active content generation that new or solo players can actually enjoy.
If the logic is that bubbles are meant to be a punishment for empires failing to push suppression, that system completely breaks down anyway because the incentives aren’t there. Bubbles aren’t the kind of thing where everyone in pirate factions wants them and everyone in empire factions doesn’t, it’s an issue on which people on both sides are divided. The reward for pushing suppression is terrible, everyone in all factions hates counter-insurgency guns. It creates a conflict of interest where nobody is even motivated to grind suppression with many empire pilots actually motivated to do the opposite and help push corruption instead, so we always get mass corruption and pirates win every insurgency. Maybe the bubbles wouldn’t be as much of an issue if anyone actually pushed suppression so fewer systems were able to become corrupted enough to be bubblable, but nobody does that. The whole insurgency mechanic is fundamentally flawed in a big way.
If you want FW to be a healthy onboarding system for new players to get into pvp, the insurgency mechanics and especially bubbles are seriously working against that. They are driving players away from the game instead.
The people who comment saying this is a skill issue and tell anyone who mentions their negative experiences to get good would still play even if you removed bubbles from lowsec entirely. I understand that some people do enjoy bubbles but it’s not like many of them are playing the game just for the bubbles. There are however many people that choose to log out or quit the game because the bubbles ruined the FW experience that they would otherwise be enjoying. I think the only reason you don’t hear more people complaining is because they’re not even here any more, they just quietly logged out and never came back.
I don’t think losing so many valuable players who can’t stand the bubble mechanics is worth those times where good content was generated because a fleet that would’ve disengaged instead got caught in a bubble. The vast majority of bubble-related deaths in FW space are noobs running into gate camps and that is really not great if new player retention is a goal.
Not only in terms of gameplay but looking at it purely from a business standpoint, it effects the bottom line because adding such an obviously polarizing feature to the game that does nothing to bring in new players but clearly causes many players to either avoid playing temporarily or quit playing entirely makes absolutely no sense. Especially when it’s a feature that already exists elsewhere in the game for people who actually want it, and you’ve injected it into an environment that many people enjoyed specifically because it did not include that feature.
