Edit: Somewhere between I posted this and DT the droprate of Filaments in Data Sites was significantly raised. People who wasted their time before lookiing for filaments are now running sites. Rage disappears rather quickly once the problem is fixed. I’ll leave what I wrote as documentation for what I think went wrong.
Edit2: Maybe we need a better, more concise way to bring up SiSi feedback to CCPs attention. Forum discussions might be too hard to follow and extracting good information from long winding posts or hot headed circles of contradiction might just not be feasible at all. Any ideas?
Edit 3: It seems we need a way to somewhat collect, cluster and structure such feedback in the future, so that CCP can receive something digestable. I’d be game for supporting that in some way.
Unless there will be a major intervention by CCP, Abyssal Deadspace will brutally fail to be the new and exciting content that the company announced and many of us hoped for.
The day in New Eden started out great. Despite getting a major patch, the cluster went online after only 30 minutes of downtime. Yay, CCP, that’s really awesome. Around 9 hours later after scanning upwards of 60 Data and Relic Sites in 3 different regions, I found my first Filament. I know that some people felt they found their key to the new content rather quickly, which in this context means just a few hours. Most people I know who are looking for them, have been doing it for hours to no avail.
[21:45:58] Kestler Jagrafess > and then im gonna nail my dick to a table because thats more productive than trying to find filaments
Just to give you a taste of the reactions that float around. If you don’t trust my examples, you may take a look at the market history in Jita.
After spending 9 hours to find one lousy Tier 1 Filament, I ran the site as I’ve done many times before on SiSi. Tier 1 is supposed to be easy and it was. First site, 1 more Filament, different type, I don’t care just take the same ship again, it’s only Tier 1. After spending roughly 15 minutes for 2 sites, I am out of Filaments again, because the 2nd site didn’t drop one. Another 9 hours and repeat? I don’t think so.
My overall loot count, now that the Filaments are used up:
3 x Triglavian Survey Database = 300k ISK minus Sale taxes
1 x Crystalline Isogen-10Time spent: 10 hours
Even if I assume that I got bad draw after bad draw in the RNG lottery, and reports from friends wouldn’t support such an assumption, this is purely ridiculous.
Consider how much actual active playtime it will take to scrap together enough materials to build even the Damavik, not to mention the Leshak. While players may currently run blindly into these sites, losing their shiny ships and pods on the way, they’ll soon start to ask themselves: what for.
While Abyssal Deadspace could certainly prove to be entertaining for a longer while, due to the challenges and ever changing setups, it will never be so much fun that economic questions can be ignored.
As it stands now, the playtime necessary to create Triglavian ships will be so massive, that the ships themselves could only become extremely expensive. Players will want to have them and use them, that’s a given. The ones who have deep pockets and the ones who are happy to grind several hundred to several thousands of hours, will be happy owners of Triglavian ships. Compareable to how Marshals are acquired, apart from the necessity to undock and risk your ship and pod.
And this is why the expansion as such can only become an utter failure: the great new content is locked away behind grind, grind and more grind. Did I mention grind?
Abyssal Deadspace was a great idea. The promise of new challenges excited many people, it led to extensive discussions amongst the playerbase, a lot of testing, feedback and participation. There were many things to look at, so many things to consider while keeping open-minded about change.
Many players worked their ass off to contribute to this process. I don’t have to mention you by name, everyone who reads the Forums knows who you are.
CCP, you ironically agree that Spaceships are serious business. Unironically, I ask myself, how you are still in business. It can only be for the sheer unbreakable loyalty of us, your playerbase.
Loyalty deserves respect and what you, game company of our hearts, have thrown at us today is not respectful. You may think that we will take everything as long as the game continues to be, and you may be right. Still, abusing our loyalty, disrespecting us by taking thousands of player hours work for testing your product and turning it into this abysmal joke, will not make our relation a better one.
You may be right about us, maybe we are the stupid loyal plebs who may moan, but would never rise up. Does that make you good leaders? It does not.
Maybe it is time to get down from your high horses and not only listen to players feedback when it supports your own opinons. And that is what they are: opinions, nothing more. The way you’ve started Abyssal Deadspace today, has shown in all its sadness, how little you understand your own game and how much you must look down on us players. You may think that it will be okay to throw out whatever and react only when there is an outcry: it is not. There is no excuse for such sloppiness, we’re not your rats and honestly, this pattern of your behaviour is getting old.
EVE will continue to be great, no matter what happened today. However, you, game company, could be a better part of this relationship. Not only for us, but really for yourself. Critique is never easy to accept and even harder to confront oneself with it, but has been a model for success all through history. Use us for that process. Learn from it. You don’t need to always be in charge. It is okay to accept that players know the game better tha anyone else. Owning that, is not a sign of weakness, it’s proof of strength.
Have a good night of sleep and then please fix these stupid droprates, make Abyssal Deadspace the fun thing that it has been on SiSi and make it something all players can enjoy.
Thanks.
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