I have no problem with citadels, citadels transison and so. I know it is important to finish them as much I knew it was important to change sov mechanics but it seems nothing is baking anything else. It’s two years of nothing engaging otherwise than install citadel->tweak citadel, CSM asking if some changes can be made answers is mostly: “no”, “we have no plan to do that”, “maybe in the future”. What’s the point of having a bridge between playerbase and development team then? Where is the roadmap after citadels, because all I see are citadels all over again.
RW are totally CCP fault. I hope those sites didn’t take many development hours. When I read in the minutes, what was the idea behind them I know it would not end well from the start. It occured to me that instead you tweak or revamp current content you keep to discover the wheel all the time. The high expectations about so called “hisec expansion” fade really quick. CCP has problem to identify what kind players playing the game. For whom were FOBs and RW?
RW was intended as a group activity for new players with the hope that older players could use them to play with younger players and train them. That obviously didn’t work out and we own that.
Examples of tools would be AI, environment tech etc. Things that can help create features that are less predictable and more reactive to what players do.
@CCP_Guard, when you say AI do you mean of individual entities such as rat’s or more on the path of a hivemind type of thing where pve sites change rat configuration every time a group of player’s run the site(incrusion’s, Ded’s, Anom’s) and alter their strategy to counter the player’s, making the sites more challenging and fun each time it’s run. A lot of players could do some sites in their sleep because they know where every rat will be because they have run the same site a few hundred times xD I understand that it is no small feat thou. If people start using 100mn ab’s to sig tank the rat’s then more frig’s with scram/web spawn the next time, if people sit at 0 and just pew then neut rat’s spawn the next time, if the neut rats can’t kill the ship becuase its passive tanked then they switch to heavier dps and or maybe more ewar to force players to come at them lol, It could be quite fun.
P.S. Why do I feel you want to answer but you don’t want to spoil any surprises .^ _ ^
At this stage the team is also speaking to monetization about selling the accelerators for PLEX. They are currently sitting on this fence, but the community backlash is a concern, as well as taking away from the value of events.
community is concern you want to monetize everything…
Less predictability hasn’t really been a big success. How about, instead of focusing on the random/less predictable aspect, the teams concentrate on fun, enjoyable things? And even there you have lots of work to do because even the FOB are only run by a handful of people:Blood Raiders Stronghold | Ship | zKillboard
What about more missions, missions that don’t necessitate alts (please don’t give me the “play with friends”!), more actual exploration involving existing features of the game (landmarks, natural phenomena, for instance) and so on? You spent lots of time on RW and FOB that could have been spent on introducing 5 new missions instead, or new anomalies for null sec. There are so many things that you can do, which do not required new AI, complicated reinventions of the wheel, but which would reach lots of players.
Correct me if I am wrong, but Dread Pirate Scarlet was well received by the players. and lots of people run it every day.
We occasionally run level 4s with new players (CAS starter corp), often setting restrictions on ourselves like being all frigate. buzzkill is actually kinda fun that way, but it tanks rewards.
I’m making a personal push to run some fobs this weekend with new players, but it gives you an idea how low the overall enthusiasm is, when only 1 person in a whole starter corp is vocally attempting to get any interest in them - and there is no drive coming from new players themselves to run them.
The fundamental reason that we didn’t do this with resource wars is that simaltaneously you released a permanent increase in the mining characters needed elsewhere (via moon mining), and resource wars seemed to have bad rewards often laced with a negative LP value trap.
Had for example, resource wars output boosters that raised my moon mining output by 10% (with the game designed around this), then my interest in it might have been very different.
The old player and new player retention in that sort of activity is nil - over a 10 year career, I was entertained by the introduction of dread pirate scarlet mission for 40 minutes for example.
CCP does have to advance the state of pve gameplay, even if that effort is hard, and there is no user manual for them to follow.
My oldest character is 10 years old, I’ve run gurista and serpentis anomolies to death, making a supersanctum wouldn’t change it. Most of the reason I wanted to change scenery was to see the another races DED sites.
I’m really getting a feeling that the higher-ups in management really are the reason things have been strange for EVE in recent times - not like it’s directly said anywhere, but the whole summit minutes sort of steer me in that direction.
I know much of the talk about it is just worrying and fear-mongering, but if the upper business side of CCP wants to steer EVE in the direction of “all those other games that make TONS of money”, I really would feel reasonable in being worried for the future of this game. EVE has been steadily chugging along for a decade-and-a-half without the design philosophy that EA-style development seems to prioritize: bringing in as much cash as possible before the game dies, just to do the same thing all over again with the next game.
From a business perspective, that might work for things like yearly reskinned FPS games and Battlefront (not even opening that can of worms), but a game as unique as EVE has become really should be handled more delicately. (throw more of that into Nova, I’m sure it would work there lol)
But with all that said, I’ve loved EVE for the 6 years I’ve been playing it, I love it now, & I’m sure I’ll continue to love it - heck, I’m sincerely hoping I can end up working at CCP in the future so I can help it continue to be loved~~
It’s also really fun to see Sort suggest that stuff with the Drifter ship and modules - I’m certainly of the same opinion there - I’m actively working on a whole lineup right now, actually
Most people still hang out in high sec, mining, trading and running missions. I contest your claims because I very much like to run missions every now and then even after 6 years. When it comes to your retention, that’s your issue. I am still engaged every time I run a DED Blockade or a Minmatar The Assault, for instance, because in big parts because I don’t use super blinged, super effective tools to run these missions, which means I have to pay attention to my ship and modules and can’t just activate weapons or drones and walk away.
Everything that CCP has planned lately aims for fleet activity and hideous player interaction, which is fine if it pays well, but it should never replace activities that you can do on your own. Running missions and just shooting something is an activity that you can run on your own, and that many people do. Neither Burners nor FOBs nor RW or anything with the new AI is something that you can run on your own. You can’t even mine on your own anymore if a FOB spawns in your system. Everything requires that you have to wait, have to ask, have to consider, have to pay attention, have to organize your own time with that of others. This is stupid and does not make the game any more enjoyable. When you can do that sometimes, these compromises are acceptable and can be enjoyable for a limited period of time, but not every single thing you want to do.
More missions (and turn off the god damn Anomic spam!), more anoms (I am not talking about super sanctums necessarily. More anoms with NPC behavior like in the Forlorn Hubs or Gas Havens would already go a long way to create more engagement and challenges without introducing any new AI), more exploration are easy to create.
I agree, there should be some form of protection but with the introduction of injectors there is no such thing as a 'new players", I’ve killed fully fitted Rattlesnakes on one day characters. There is just no way to differ anymore.
The idea of only war dec structure owning corp/alliances is terrible, here is a list of some of the issues we already have with the war system from my experience as a merc.
Cloaky warp trick
Corp hopping or dropping
Neutral orca scooping
Reduced scan res
No watch list
New Agency feature is utter rubbish for finding locate
Now with all these issues someone wants to include that we can only shoot people with structures? Come on… we may aswell all just become gankers.
I just came back to the game. Now they want to do that crap to wardecs it is already nerfed to crap. It is CCP nerfs that has created these Trade Hub camping issue in the first place. Bring back watchlist, limit wars to 3 per corp and suddenly you have focused wardecs again.
absolutely none of what you enjoy precludes CCP from making new multiplayer content in a multiplayer game. All that is being pointed out here, is CCP will not make any more money, nor will they ‘save’ EVE if they put resources into new level 4 missions. You aren’t contesting anything, all you are doing is completely missing the point.
They make certainly more money from something that people use and that is rewarding than from something that no one uses and which is not rewarding (enough for the efforts). Furthermore, considering how “packed” CCP’s schedule seems to be (judging by the minutes), focusing on the multiplayer PVE rubbish, they are very much precluded from creating new things that I enjoy.
That’s kinda of a double-edged sword. They need things that have high re-play-ability, and when things get predictable, they quickly become dull (you know, the specifically-not-fun-and-enjoyable thing). Sure, there’s plenty of things we enjoy that are totally predictable, but trying to find that sweet spot where CCP can reliably hit dopamine release in their players without stimulating 3 of the 5 senses… that’s tough, and I’m not gonna pretend I’ve got any kind of magic bullet, either. The best suggestion I can think of is a meet-in-the-middle type thing: predictability within a wider range, so things stay fresh without being nuts (or, from the other side, so players can feel comfortable without getting bored).
So, crazy idea for both an ISK sink and a way for new/PvE-focused players to protect themselves without being safe (because we all know, nobody in New Eden is safe if they’re undocked): take the AI for the ‘reinforcements’ for NPC mining fleets, and apply that to a retainable NPC security force.
Ideally, as The Agency moves into having things like the ‘player corps can set up missions in it’ that’s discussed in the minutes, pirate-hunter corps could put their advertisements in there, as well. I mean, long-term, the solution to groups of players that want to pad their killboards is getting other players to shoot them, right? If the bounty system isn’t doing it (and let’s face it, we know it’s not), then maybe improved visibility for ‘you can hire people to shoot those jerks for you’ might help.
I’ve been arguing and explained several times over the last 2 years that tying wardecs to structures is a bad idea to any CSM that would listen. I failed apparently.
I even put up a fortizar doing wardecs for 6 months without any of my wartargets even looking at it. Eventually the blue merc donut gave it a try, and with that I made my point.
I’m very happy to see wardecs getting some focus, but I’m very afraid of the result.
it is already nerfed to crap. It is CCP nerfs that has created these Trade Hub camping issue in the first place. Bring back watchlist, limit wars to 3 per corp and suddenly you have focused wardecs again.