I’ve seen other people make similar arguments before, and this one in particular is weirdest ones I’ve ever heard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re an idiot or anything. It’s just such a weird way of looking at things that it kind of leaves me befuddled. Let me put it this way.
In a PvE game, you are essentially in competition with the environment. You have to develop and employ strats necessary to overcome the problems and challenges that it presents. And if you don’t, you’ll usually die and fail to progress (a few games will automatically and silently lower the difficulty if die a bunch).
In a PvP game, you are in competition with other players. You have to develop and employ strats necessary to overcome the problems and challenges that other players present. And if you don’t, you’ll die and/or lose the match.
Now, wouldn’t it stand to reason that, in a game that allows for and encourages both PvE and PvP, it would be necessary for players to develop and emply strats that are necessary to overcome the problems and challenges presented by both the environment and the players?
So, I just don’t understand it when players says things like, “why should what ships and fits I fly be dictated by other players?” or this:
There are already a ton of games out there that are PvE focused, and many that have designated or opt-in PvE systems -and this is because this kind of stuff is very popular with players. So, you already have a ton of options. The people who love Eve for what it is don’t. So, I’d prefer it if players stopped trying to turn Eve into a poor initiation of a PvE-focused game.
Speaking of which, Zhaled linked a video discussing why New World failed. Of course, bugs certainly had a big impact. But a major reason cited for it’s failure is that they decided to shift focus away from PvP at the last minute. This meant that the game had to stand on the strength of it’s PvE content, which was decidedly lacking.
Anyway, this post is getting long enough. So here’s a shotgun of opinions.
- Eve is great because of it’s PvP elements, and minimizing or removing them would kill the game, not save it.
- You shouldn’t fly what you can’t afford to lose.
- You should implement proper risk management strategies, not advocate for your enemies to be nerfed, or their play styles to be removed (which is what some players have called for).
- Ganking is already so heavily balanced in favor of prey that profitable ganking is already contingent upon prey making one or more mistakes. Thus, further buffs to prey, or nerfs to ganking won’t make things more fair, but less fair. Of course, that won’t stop prey from asking for “one more nerf.”
- It’s ironic that players insist that they shouldn’t have to adapt to hunters in order to not get killed, because hunters have to adapt to prey in order to get kills.
- Speaking of which, gankers in particular have had to go all in on a glass cannon strat because of concord mechanics designed to suppress “non-consensual” PvP in highsec. This resulted in (most) prey having to go all in on a buffer tank strategy. It’s like an evolutionary arms race similar to that between the garter snake and the toxic newt. The newt keeps becoming more and more poisonous, while the garter snake responds with ever increasing levels of of toxin immunity. The difference with Eve, however, is not that they prey gets tougher to kill, but that they keep asking for nerfs to ganking, while gankers have to keep responding with more ships (and ganking becomes harder and less profitable to do).
- Ganking is asymmetric game play. It’s like the asymetric PvP horror games that has one monster/killer and several human prey. The prey don’t need to be as strong as the monster for the game to be fair or fun. Regardless, many of the nerf ganking crowd advocate that ganking be balanced as if it were symmetric game play -which it is not. Now, if you want things to be balanced as if it were symmetric game play, then we would need to get rid of concord. But that will essentiall turn HS into LS sans capitals.
- PvE’ers have already received a ton of buffs, and ganking has already received a ton of nerfs (yes it also has received some buffs, such as with the surgical strike update). Yet, this has never resulted in the nerf-gankers being happy -why? Because they don’t actually want ganking to be balanced; they want to stop falling victim to it, without actually having get better. And they won’t be happy until it’s dead.
- If you rush into an expensive ship without training your support skills, you made a mistake, and deserved to die. You should then learn your lesson, not lobby for CCP to change the game so that such mistakes no longer get punished.
Gankers are already fighting a unfair fight. I would be a bloodbath if gankers only had to fight a fair fight. And carebear tears would flow like a river.