About those arenas people wanted

[Archer_en_Tilavine]

I did come up with some ways of making the PVP arena not-terrible or even possibly beneficial to the game in the official feedback thread:

@Archer_en_Tilavine

How can instance PVP be not-terrible or possibly good?

First let’s recognize that:

• PVP Arena tokens being a limited resource means people can’t queue up whenever they want (unlike other MMORPGs), they need to possess it first, so this controls the rate at which players are drawn away from the rest of the EVE universe
• PVP Arena tokens being a limited resource means it will necessarily be priced so as to be prohibitive to some, at least those wanting to engage in PVP Arenas with high frequency. Hooray for market forces!

Between the two above, CCP has to be careful with the rate at which these tokens are seeded after the limited time event (during which they should be common) when this inevitably becomes permanent (at which point they should become less common)

• The PVP Arena could be designed to only permit lower-end fits (hulls + module metalevels), such as T1/Faction hulls + T2 mod/rigs + non-abyssals only, thereby:
  • Forcing those wanting higher-end content to get it from the rest of the EVE Universe. If you want to use your Deimos or Tengu or Vargur or Avatar, you need to go elsewhere.
  • Helping deplete the overabundance of T1 meta modules from market while keeping higher metalevels from being depleted.
  • Helping prevent N+1 in the arena itself (other than from skill levels). If the PVP arena promotes “fair fighting” with a lower barrier to entry than FW (thanks to fit module restrictions that FW doesn’t have), then it can give carebears the confidence they need to PVP, while also eventually intentionally becoming boring (particularly to vets who normally sport bling fits) so as to make players want to move on to “real PVP” elsewhere. This would make the PVP Arena fizzle out in favor of the EVE Universe as a whole since “fair fights” get boring as a while.
• For similar reasons, implants could also be limited to at most +3%s and Low-Grades. (Use jump clones to switch to/from “Arena Bodies” if it matters so much)
• After the limited the event, the permanent arena should not have prizes, so the only thing it ends up doing is serving as an ISK sink + training ground for carebears (who might not PVP otherwise).

etc etc