An old article about ideas UO and Crowfall developer in PVP

Rust is a survival game. It is a lot harsher and overall extremely different than EVE. There are some similarities, but I would not classify them the same. There isn’t really a complex economy with trade, speculation, manipulation and piracy in that game. Things like that made UO and EVE very special and are completely missing from those type of games.

Oh yes, I was a backer of that one. It tries to copy a lot of EVE. Sadly it doesn’t really work in my opinion. It somehow went full power creep with basically the same stuff multiple times in different tiers and you have to endlessly grind for it. There is nothing, really absolutely nothing interesting in this game. It’s just grind from start to end in my opinion.

Yes, EVE is special that way. And it changes a lot how the game is approached. I don’t think suicide ganking would exist the way it does if it wasn’t for multiboxing. Alts completely cancel the effect the security status has. I would not say that it would vanish, but it would go back to fleets of individual players.

It probably takes some time until you are invested enough to go multiple alts. I played for years with just this character before I created a second one and most other players I played with had only one. This isn’t appealing to everyone. It also kinda kills immersion.

But there isn’t really a point in discussing alts and multiboxing further. At this point it has become an integral part of the game for better or worse. It is still possible and viable to play with only one character.

How is “unfair” PvP not real? Since the PvP in EVE only emerges if there is something to gain for one side and usually we shy away from it because of the loss, that reflects so much more a real situation where the fights that take place actually has purpose. The “fair” MOBA type PvP that some here advocate and identify as the only kind of “real” PvP in their mind is some artificially staged meaningless and in the end once again repetitive and boring minigame.

I get why they propose that. Many MMORPS that exist today have PvP basically outsourced to some attacked MOBA minigame mechanic that have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.

I find the conflicts EVE produces with the unique mechanics it has far far more interesting than such staged “PvP”. Also if someone is more interested in staged PvP there is really so much options to get that elsewhere.

I don’t really understand why people like @Kezrai_Charzai think all games gave to be the same, but I assume it has to do with them not being flexible enough in their minds that EVE can work differently and that they have to learn and approach some things in a different way to be successful.

Also some just have some deep rooted white knight feelings and think it is just “wrong” to have non-consensual PvP at all.

1 Like

Or, it could be, that some people understand how business works. And that a downward trend can only continue so far before EVE becomes “not EVE”, not because lame-ass pretend-PvPers aren’t allowed to get their jollies attacking the weak in safe space, but because it doesn’t have enough players to pay the bills.

You don’t strengthen your business by catering to an absolute minority of your customers. PvP makes up 15% or less of what happens in EVE. Non-consensual PvP in high sec makes up, at a guess, less than half of that.

Regardless, because you’re a sensitive little PvP-wannabe, you keep focusing on that one point. “OMG Kezrai is trying to make everyone safe!”. You should’ve just left your quote off at “I don’t really understand” because you obviously don’t.

Non-consensual PvP in high sec is a tiny issue. It pleases a very small percentage of the player base, and it annoys a slightly larger percentage of the player base. I only talked about it here because it is the topic of the OP.

EVE’s problem is overall bad design. The advertised game doesn’t match what the actual game delivers, the risk/reward structure is all wrong (passive PvE is rewarded much better than active PvP in a PvP sandbox), new players are taught to be sheep and not wolves, the game mechanics encourage alting and botting, etc. etc.

If you had anything useful to say about the overall game I’d happily give you your noob-hunting in safespace… but all you can do is whine about how you need your little non-con hunting ground while the rest of the game slowly collapses around you.

PS: I don’t really care about ‘fair’ PvP although I have a preference for what I consider ‘real’ PvP (a reasonable risk to both sides) because I think it promotes a better overall growth profile for the business. What I care about is interesting and available PvP that is worth engaging in for more than 10% of the player base. Sharks hunting minnows doesn’t provide that.

1 Like

You don’t even understand the simple concept of market segmentation

That must be that deep rooted white knight feeling I talked about, that prevents you from understanding how this game works.

Since you don’t get the core concept of this game it is pretty meaningless to say “PvP makes up 15% or less”. You somehow think only actual combat “counts” as PvP. That is not how this game works. This is a sandbox where you always compete against other players in various forms.

I guess with you it is a mix of completely not understanding the game and some deep rooted white knight feeling. But mainly a complete lack of understanding the game.

EVE has a fabulous design. The issues it has with the NPE are issues with the NPE alone and not with the rest of the game. CCP ■■■■■■ that up, nothing we can do. I guess they listened to much to people like you who want a different game, the NPE reflected that perfectly.

The average age of the miners I killed in highsec is 4 years. Does that still qualify as a noob in your books? I’m not interested in killing newbros. What I do is essentially piracy. I want to play this game without grinding and that is best done by stealing from others. New players don’t have anything of value, old players have. And those are the people who come to the forums crying for more safety for themselves while holding up the newbro in front of them like a shield, because they can’t even admit it is for their own benefit only.

CCP has looked into the common sentiment that ganking is a problem for new players and they found zero correlation for that assumption when looking at the data.

If you have the reality of ~90% of players quitting before they ever lose a ship and then you still point always at the 10% and think we have to look for the issue there, then sorry, you are obviously not interested in solving this problem at all but just want to use it to push some other agenda. This critic isn’t targeted at you specifically, but what we see from older players every day on this forums.

You still have a very limited notion of what PvP is. Again, this is a sandbox. PvP emerges from actual stuff in this sandbox which may be disagreements, resource conflicts, piracy, etc. and sometimes also just random violence yes. This all gives those conflicts real meaning.

I know in most other games the “PvP” is arranged and balanced and has absolutely no meaning apart from the points you see on the table at the end. I find that extremely boring.

Because this emerging PvP is the actual engine of the stories that make EVE so great. I have absolutely fond memories of conflicts over the years in various forms because all of them actually had a story to it only those people involved experienced. It is not something CCP did, but actual stuff happening in the sandbox. And it really doesn’t matter if I was alone against whole corps or if it was the opposite, it was always extremely immersive and “I was there” moments all over the place.

You simply don’t get that in other games. It seems you never experienced something like this in EVE or your wouldn’t advocate for changing it. It is exactly what Hilmar talks about when he says “magic moment”. And I agree with you that the NPE is utter garbage, because not only doesn’t it even try to steer people in that direction, it actively leads them in the completely opposite dead end highsec farming simulator.

I have seen people who play this game for 5+ years still mining in highsec to “prepare” for null. The best thing that can happen to such people is a good gank and some violent non-consensual PvP with other players to finally push them out of their endless grind loop.

4 Likes

Ganks have reduced. So the gank alts have not been jumping gates to get in position/back in position after ganks? How many alts to gank a freighter.

(Ganks x GankAlts) + Hauls = missing jumps?

I dunno. I think we all here market statistics in our favor hoping the ignorance of others?

So you think hi-sec is bad. All grinding in hi-sec. Nullsec = good, no grinding happening there :rofl:

A lot of players prefer ‘safe’ mmorpgs. Safe areas. Most players do by a long way. The ones who prefer the dangerous/open ffa full loot pvp are a niche among players.

Your idea that hi-sec players should be in null is short sighted to the extreme. Many players don’t want to live in null, and would rather quit.

You should understand what words mean before you use them. Market Segmentation is about identifying portions of your market that are higher growth or higher profit, and developing strategies to market to those portions.

What you are referring to (or trying to) is Niche Marketing, the process of identifying a specific higher growth or higher profit market segment and developing your product to address their needs better than the less-targeted competition.

What you are missing here is that both these related strategies are intended to help a company address higher growth and higher profit opportunities.

This is not niche marketing:
EVE%20Player%20Count-2013%20to%202019-Peak%20and%20Average

This is “painting yourself into a corner because you identified a non-growth market segment, and then also failed to address their needs through proper game design”. One reason EVE had any success at it is because other companies are too smart to develop a product for a non-growth market.

Again, please work on understanding words before you use them. Here you’re trying to pretend that ‘competition’ means ‘PvP’. Virtually all MMOs feature competition for resources, market competition, competition for drops etc. ‘Competition’ is not PvP.

The thread topic is about non-consensual player combat and it’s effect on the player base. My posts and links are about player combat. The statistics I linked from CCP Quant use PvP as player combat. Your own comments are in defense of and support for non-consensual player combat, specifically in high sec.

I know you don’t want to address the issue that PvP is a minority activity in EVE, and that non-consensual PvP is the minority of the minority, but pretending everything in the game is PvP won’t make it so.

I use information from credible industry sources and verifiable data to base my opinions on. You use “the game must support non-consensual PvP because I like non-consensual PvP”. Guess who doesn’t understand how gaming businesses work?

Yep those steadily dropping player numbers are surely proof of “fabulous design”. As is the recent desperate flailing of CCP to do anything at all to correct those nose-diving numbers. In fact, if you remove Alphas, bots and multi-boxers from the above numbers, you’re likely down to less than 10,000 actual players average on-line these days. To support hundreds of employees and the approx. $50 million per year burn rate of CCP’s expenses, they need to do better than that.

Well you can call it piracy or whatever makes you feel good about it. From a game population perspective, what you actually are is a parasite. Each parasite in the game needs dozens if not hundreds of healthy victims in order to continue leeching resources from them. Each parasite chuckles to himself while stroking his ego, maybe goes on the forums to brag about his mighty battles against mining vessels and laugh about the tears of the fallen.

Meanwhile, every single parasite has annoyed, irritated or driven off dozens if not hundreds of potential players. They may not all quit, but they will certainly all complain about the parasites in EVE to everyone who will listen. That’s not a sustainable growth model.

Go into any public chat in any major MMO these days and say “Hey fellas I’m kinda bored here, I was thinking about trying out EVE Online. Is that a good game?”. Then you will see what the general public perception of EVE is like.

Hint: It’s not positive.

Well, your ‘facts’ have been proven wrong, your understanding of words questionable, your view of MMO history skewed. I suppose it’s no surprise that your reading comprehension isn’t that good either. I in fact did not advocate for changing it but only pointed out that credible industry sources and EVE’s own history show that non-consensual PvP, especially in starter regions, is bad for the population growth of a game.

I’m indicating this is one poor design choice among many in EVE. If the other design choices were much better, EVE could still support non-consensual PvP and thrive. Since it is clearly not thriving, it means that some of the bad design choices have to be reviewed and addressed.

And sorry, but if that means your niche of a minority of a segment of parasites goes the way of the dinosaur, then evidence shows that it won’t be much of a loss to EVE at all.

2 Likes

Yes and EVE is the game for that niche. Because if you didn’t notice it is a full loot PvP sandbox. Otherwise why would you be here and cry about it.

Lucky for you there are other games who aren’t EVE and are doing exactly what you want by not being full loot MMOs. Why not play those?

I don’t think highsec players should live in null. I think they should accept their role, like many do, and not cry about it on the forums to get the game changed. That is really all

Could you stay true to the argument you used for a once? You said non-consensual PvP sandbox. And Rust is definitely matching that description. Of course there are obvious differences, it is not a space game for example. But thats not what you were argumenting with.

I don’t deny that for its super specific niche, EVE is probably the only game that offers all it offers, but comparing it with other games and saying EVE dominates these games with popularity/player count is just not true.

I specifically used quotes to prevent discussion about what is fair and real pvp. There are two groups of players obviously and one will simply not consider cases where one side is extremely outgunned or outnumbered a fair or real pvp.

I don’t say I agree, but I respect their opinion and I try to see the problem from both sides. That is all.

Fact is that when you take the gate and there is a 10+ man gatecamp you can’t do anything (edit: unless you knew about it and came there to drop them ofc). From the definition it was PvP because players killed players, but in reality it is just automatic loss and you don’t get to play. Again, not saying gatecamps are wrong, I have no problems with them and therefore I did not participate that gc thread. PvP in EVE is simply very different to the other games PvP, sure it matches reality - if it was a real game players would behave exactly this way, but it is not really fun for the outgunned/outnumbered party, is it?

Calm down man. I think we just have a little confusion here. I was talking about games like UO and EVE and Rust is clearly not in the same category even if I used a term to describe EVE that may encompass Rust as well probably.

I just think it attracts a different audience.

You are again making the obvious mistake that you limit the PvP to the actual act of combat. In most cases you have lost the fight before it even starts. But why you happen to be in that situation is highly important and part of the PvP. If you can’t see that then… sorry… there isn’t really much we can talk about because you somehow managed to ignore the most important part of EVE PvP.

I wasn’t there from start, I am still relatively new player. But from what I read and heard, the nerfs to ganking were made because of the multiboxers or in a time there used to be more players.

What happened is that multiboxers were not affected by it at all and multiboxing currently remains basically the only way to perform suicide-ganking. And that is wrong in my opinion. As a player who no longer wants to run 8 accounts in same time, I just cannot gank that overpowered Orca that is plaguing highsec unless I find at least 8 more players/accounts flying at least 1t Talos assuming the Orca has ■■■■ fit. And even then it will not be isk effective most of the time but a kill for the sake of the kill. Same to freighters. w/e not a thread for this discussion anyway

I do see it and I have no problem with that. But I absolutely understand why some players don’t get it.

@Kezrai_Charzai has one good point. Not sure if you acknowledged. If all the players who we are preying upon left EVE who wins?

Which nerf are you referring too. I don’t recollect any nerf that was because of multiboxing. In fact multiboxers that gank is rather a “new” phenomenon and appeared only with skill injectors, since you can basically make free omega alts with that.

From various threads about ganking I heard about:
crimewatch 2.0 (not really know what it changed, when I started it was already in effect)
freighter EHP buff

no more idea, but CODE members are using this argument a lot so maybe you tell me?

She projects here feelings and ignorance onto those players. Most players I know get the fact that suicide ganking and wars play an important part in the economy and even the remote appearance that someone could shoot you at any time creates a special dynamic and opportunities they enjoy and exploit. And all this even if they are not actively participating in combat.

People like Kezray/Balos have a completely reductionist idea about certain game principles they only watch in isolation and completely miss the complex interactions and implications those game mechanics have on other parts of the game. In short he/she simply doesn’t understand the game. And I’m really done talking to Balos, it’s like talking to those people who pretend the earth is flat. It may have a certain entertainment value at first, but it gets old really really fast.

Crimewatch 2.0 was a complete overhaul of how highsec mechanics worked. A lot of the mechanics where made more obvious with the visible timers, the safety switch etc. I think it was right around the time when CODE. was founded. All ganking technics CODE. uses are basically post-crimewatch 2.0. The ganking community pre-crimewatch was a lot more diverse and less organized.

There where several. But we still had freighter fleets when those nerfs came and they where always lots of players with moderate amounts of alts. What some say is that those nerfs forced them to multibox. I say it was the injectors and just simple evolution by people like Kusion pushing what was possible as a solo player with multiboxing.

Oh and there was also the hyper-dunking nerf. One of the most fragile and easy to disrupt ganking methods, but CCP somehow removed it anyway. Maybe that pushed some over the edge to go for actual multiboxing back then.

I only gank miners with two alts, so I can only speak from what I hear from others and experienced in the freighter fleets we used to have (could not do that anymore because of RL commitments at some point).

This is the information contained in the OP’s linked article. This is the information contained in the larger discussion of UO that I linked a little later (the post-mortem with the devs).

Games are an ecosystem. They have a life cycle. Gamers need to come in, participate in the game, learn how the game works, decide it’s good for them and stay.

Parasites preying on people in the safer zones does not lead to good publicity, does not lead to new players getting interested in the game, does not create good buzz among the gaming community. Once word gets around that’s how EVE mechanics work, players leave. Then the ganking gets boring and infrequent, and even PvPers start to leave.

Every parasite in the game loses the game more players than it retains. Many more.

There is no endless source of naive victims to prey upon. People in the game leave, people not in don’t sign up, people who sign up get clued in fairly shortly and decide ‘not for me’. Hence the nose-diving player population, despite opening the game up to free play.

Again, however, this is a minimal problem in the overall context of EVE. It’s a negative against long term growth and retention but it isn’t actually the source of EVE’s problems.

As for your question “who wins”, if the easy prey in safespace stops being available, then these pretend-PvPers have to leave their nice safe high-sec zones and fight real PvPers.

And that, of course, is exactly what they’re terrified of.

1 Like

“Everyone who enjoys a different playstyle than me is a Parasite”

“Everyone who is different than me…”

“If there are more of us, then you must change”

You are not supposed to be posting Donald.

Check out how safe hi-sec is guys. “Noone ganks any more” said gankers on this forum (They hope CCP won’t turn attention their way).

Just 2 guys suicide ganking stuff that goes down the sivala pipe with anything worth over 200m, using cheap cruisers and battlecruisers.

Hi-sec has never been safer!

I wonder how many people auto pilot down these routes only to find they are suicide ganked along the way. Doesn’t matter if you’re an elitist with no life who thinks people shouldn’t be using auto pilot. To normal people who have real lives to think about, it’s a very handy feature. It’s a feature and many players use it. If they are ganked and quit the game? EVE didn’t need those subscriptions anyway. Right gankers?

As i’ve said previously, gone are the days where it’s dangerous only if you take a packed freighter or industrial out in hi-sec. These days gankers are hungry for targets and they now go for all kinds of ship types, even ones that don’t yield profit.

This is a major problem for EVE. Ganking the pipes is too easy and too profitable. The number of gankers has grown while the number of sheep has diminished. Which is why gankers go for many kinds of target now, even if not profitable. I wonder how many players this has cost the game over the years.

Learn to read with actual comprehension. It’ll open new worlds for you.

Really, you guys need to stop fighting the pretend-carebears in your head, and reaping pretend-tears, and pretending that I’m somebody who’s apparently been banned or something (my account is likely 10 years older than whoever ‘Balos’ is).

I get that you can’t handle rational discourse. I get that you’re terrified the game may take your safe comfortable niche away and make you fight against real PvPers. I get that you’re lazy and you don’t want to leave high sec for a little pew pew and you just keep asking CCP to somehow magically provide fat weak prey for you in high sec.

The way to deal with these issues is by addressing them and finding better ways to design the game. Pretending isn’t going to fix anything.

I can help with that.

Back in ye old days people didn’t need to suffer from what is pretty much equivalent to a 15min death sentence when they stole from a can. They got flagged for legal combat (aka no CONCORD intervention) with the whole corp that owned the can, exception being of course NPC corps.

Back in ye old days there was no protection button both meant to protect people from making mistakes and deterring them from “breaking out of the norm” by, for example, trying stealing ore from a jetcan miner. The same “stealing from a jetcan miner” which has been called “brilliant” (due to it being unforeseen player behaviour) by former CCP devs, by the way.

Back in the slightly older days there were 2 million ISK wardecs a new player could start as soon as he was able to afford and the game still worked perfectly fine and grew, year after year, until CCP started listening to the people who naturally dropped out due to not being competitive enough.

CrimeWatch 2.0 marked the end of the era of competitiveness, where the strong willed and smart were able to flourish and those who lacked either one, or both of these traits either improved or perished. CrimeWatch 2.0 also marked the beginning of the state the game is in now, differently explained in an interview by a dev, calling it “expanding the fanbase”, which I more appropriately call “mainstreaming”.

If there was a single paragraph describing literally all of those who complain about gankers, bumpers, wars, people who mine “their roids” and whatever, it is:

These people are not competitive at all and they never will be. Naturally they must complain and beg to higher forces (CCP in this case) to protect them from the “evil” people who do nothing wrong but simply being better. Their nonsensical belief in their stagnant, deadlocked, mediocre wannabe individuality goes so deep, there is no room for self improvement at all.

2 Likes

Here we go.

So you’re suggesting anti-social behaviour/ganking is too hard now. Been all downhill since they very mildly nerfed it. EVE would still have 500k subs if only criminal behaviour wasn’t mildly nerfed.

I have another theory. They didn’t go anywhere near far enough and as a result unchecked ganking has severely harmed the subscriber count. You can’t travel through hi-sec without high risk of being blown up by some jackass. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a freighter, empty or not doesn’t matter, 250k ehp batteship, doesn’t matter. Cheap t1 battleship, doesn’t matter. Battlecruiser. Doesn’t matter. All of these ships are ganked nowadays when going through hisec.

I see they target a lot of newbies in industrial ships, which even with a cargo of just 50m get blown up because they’re so easy to gank.

If you use the game feature known as autopilot you are highly likely to be targetted too.