Do you think eves population is declining or incresing and why

Communications Center General Discussion
41

When one has played for 16 years…you’re bound to rack up a kill count, but trust me when I say that I don’t PVP much, my numbers are inflated.

Yes PVE exists, no one is denying that. But you seem to place more value on PVE than PVP. Most see PVE as work to get to the exciting PVP part of the game. I’ve been in several groups, in and out of null, low, and high, and most will gravitate towards PVP as it’s more interactive and engaging than PVE. Mining while at work, or using drone boats to “afk” rat are the common activities because people can do other things while doing it. PVP is more engaging, as humans are limited as simple AI are.

You may want to avoid saying things that contradict what you are trying to say then.

42

I’m not placing more value on it. Personally, I find the PvE in EVE to be pretty boring. The only saving grace for it is that it’s somewhat more productive and reliable than the equally-boring PvP in EVE.

Sure, PvP is engaging in short bursts here and there. But add in the wait time, the search time, the reset time if/when you explode, it becomes an overall dull activity with brief flashes of excitement, and little reward. For many playstyles, and many players.

No, sorry. That’s an opinion you’ve formed based on the particular groups you’ve hung around with. I’ve formed a different opinion based on the particular groups I’ve spoken with, that over half of EVE players virtually never willingly engage in PvP at all. But it’s not about opinions.

The data CCP has published has always shown far more PvE activity and many more PvE players than PvP. That’s not me “putting a value” on things. That’s just the reality of the game, as shown by CCP’s data.

As for your misinformation, I’ll just point out that “more PvE than PvP” isn’t the same as “PvE-only” and that “playstyles” doesn’t equal “players”. Maybe you can figure out the rest from there.

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43

Well, there is of course that, the CCP data. How one interprets the data should however not be colored by opinions. Most PvP players engage in PvE - and it takes a lot more time to fund the next ship loss than it takes to lose a ship :smiley: It would be more accurate to say that players in general spend more time on PvE than on PvP activities, which would be a normal expectation as all ships need to be built (a PvE activity), and they need to be bought with ISK (which you get via PvE activity).

However, what confuses me in your discourse is this:

How can one, in all honesty and sense of reality, isolate certain playstyles in a game running on a single shard, with open PvP settings i.e., setting all players up against each other, in a sandbox ? Confrontation would be the rule rather than the “unwanted interference with one’s playstyle”. Sure, it’s pretty invasive when one is not prepared or hardwired into the reality of a highly competitive game. But perhaps that is more a question of not accepting New Eden as a whole - all playstyles and how they will and do interact, with ship loss being a slightly more dramatic outcome.

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44

Nah…your silly sarcasm doesn’t work on me. Especially when you are talking down to someone who unlike you has actually undocked in 7 years. You are not the fount of all knowledge on Eve, you merely pretend to be.

You really think people would come and play Eve if the advert truthfully said ’ Come enjoy the sheer excitement of watching a mining laser for 4 hours ’ ? People don’t choose their ‘playstyles’…they get stuck with them by default through being too timid. Or they then pretend that making ISK is the path to fulfilment…with no idea what they will ever spend that ISK on.

Sitting in dock and spouting when you clearly haven’t engaged in any meaningful PvE or PvP in over 7 years most definitely does impart an illusion of expertise. I cite you as proof. The days when you could factually lecture me on Eve are long part of ancient history.

45

Yup. Most PVP players also do PVE but a PVE player does not engage in PVP. This means that by its very nature a lot of PVE is happening so then going “see there’s more PVE so PVP is meaningless” is disingenuous. Quite a lot of the PVE happens in service of PVP, who knew.

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46

Indeed. Security status loss as a result of PvP forces players to either engage in PvE to regain status, or pay for clone tags that someone else had to PvE. Or to buy some expensive blingy PvP ship, a person does level 4 missions or other such. I do very little PvE…I hate it…but even I have to mine or go ratting now and then to pay for stuff.

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47

It’s precisely what I’d expect from someone who’s sole contribution to PvP in Eve was losing one 3m ISK ship 7 years ago. Meanwhile those who’ve partaken in 2.5 Trillion ISK worth of kills actually influence the Eve economy.

48

Sure, that’s why I say “more PvE than PvP”, because that’s what the data says. It doesn’t say players, or why they’re doing it, or what the end result is. And sure, the time and game effort to build a ship is much higher than the time and effort to blow up a ship. As always, you start with the data, then draw your own conclusions. Other people will draw different conclusions than I do, but at least I actually start with the data. Not many people here even bother with that.

I’m not isolating playstyles from others. I think perhaps you and Malak have lost the thread of my points here. I was replying to Io Koval, who was commenting that players did not engage in PvP out of fear/hangups and needed to “overcome their mental block” and “not BS themselves” about it in order to “stop failing”.

I simply pointed out that for many players and activities, PvP is a waste of their time. It’s not what they’re there to do. In that case, “not PvPing” doesn’t equate to failure - it equates to making their own choice on how they are spending their time in the game, for their own reasons.

You guys can make all the fuzzy suppositions you want about why players are doing PvE, or what it means to do PvE in “a single shard with open PvP settings”. I’m just talking about what players actually do.

Players spend far more time in EVE doing PvE than PvP. They do that because the PvE is giving them some sense of purpose or achievement in their own terms. Players do less PvP, and always have, because the PvP in EVE does not give them an equivalent sense of purpose or achievement.

This is not a problem of frightened players with hangups unable to overcome their mental blocks. This is a problem with EVE PvP design, mechanics, and outcomes balance.

49

Said the person who couldn’t understand ‘damage resistance’, after 2 years in the game and multiple detailed explanations.

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50

the game was more fun at 5 k players. im fine with open space again.

51

That is the only correct conclusion from the CCP data.

Every player seeks something in a game, of course. Some will enjoy the simplest of things, others will prefer competitiveness, and in EvE some will build empires and exert influence on large numbers of players and the game itself. Whatever each and everyone of them do, the fact remains that they all play in a competitive environment. That cannot be taken out of the equation, whatever the “sense of purpose or achievement”. There is no “splendid isolation” possible in New Eden. If players truly do not want a competitive (including and perhaps foremost the PvP combat) setting to find whatever they are looking for, then EvE is clearly not the game they should play.

Without wanting to get drawn into a disputatious exchange, there is nothing wrong with EvE PvP design etc. Ships have to be built, ships have to be bought, ships have to be blown up. That is the basic essence of a game with an almost exclusively player controlled economy. Some will do more building, some will do more trading, and some will do more of the blowing up.

There are many reasons why many players hesitate to gamble ships in EvE. First and foremost for newer players it is that “losses are real”, losses burn a hole in the wallet when not careful. Teach a new player how to make isk, and most of those reservations will melt away.
Second, there is the small matter of ego. Most people do not truly believe that participating is more important than winning (and rightly so). Losing in a pvp situation easily becomes a matter of hurt pride and sense of self. PvP is a great way to grow out of that limitation, btw. And that is how the food chain comes into being, by accepting one’s own mistakes, learning from them and becoming better and better. Inevitably, that will also lead to some sort of ranking among players, also not unexpected in a competitive environment.
Third, as you say, some players will get more for themselves out of the non-PvP aspects. Some do like mining for entire game sessions. That’s fine, as long as they don’t complain that they have to share the same space with others who are hunting them, that they don’t like the PvP (and have little experience in it), etc etc etc in a game that deliberately and intentionally mixes both focus groups into one sandbox.

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52

And sitting there watching a mining laser for 4 hours isn’t ? Your entire stance reeks of bias…which you then pretend has some ‘data’ support. How is it that PvP is the only activity you single out as being perceived as a waste of time. So much for impartiality in your ‘data’.

How would you know when you’ve rarely ever undocked ? In fact Io is totally correct as I’ve had to overcome those blocks myself. There was a time when I never ventured more than 5 systems from Vittenyn, and after being gate camped on my very first trip to lowsec it was a year before I ever went there again. These days half my chars live in lowsec, and I’ve battled in lowsec and nullsec. A lot of the timidity is still there…but I get a bit braver every day. And I am typical of many who join Eve. I know from my own past experience that a lot of people make do with mining under some illusion that ‘one day’ they will buck up courage and engage in some fighting. All the ‘data’ shows is that many never do.

I dispute your whole notion of ‘chosen’ paths in Eve. For many…the ‘choice’ is made for them by their own limitations.

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53

So you keep going off on waffling ideology statements like this:

and

My points aren’t about whether EVE is ‘competitive’ in nature (news flash for ya: so are most games), or about whether each individual player “accepts New Eden as a whole”. You keep trying to refute data and evidence-based observations with fuzzy philosophy.

I’ll try to break this down as simply as possible. I won’t bother linking the sources of all these because if you don’t understand this, you have a lot of research of your own to do:

  • People are intrinsically wired to focus on things that represent some sort of gain for themselves.
  • People are intrinsically wired to avoid things that represent some sort of loss or cost to themselves, lacking some sort of commensurate gain to offset the potential risk.
  • People play games to create for themselves some feeling of satisfaction. That satisfaction can be derived from multiple sources, but most often by simulating the feeling that they have gained something of some type of value. This works even when the activity frequently does not generate a gain but offers only the reasonable potential for a gain of some significance.
  • People tend to avoid risks of unknown quantities, particularly when the gains appear to be minimal.

So when you say

you’re dead wrong. You could say “hey look it doesn’t matter how it’s designed, everyone ‘consents to PvP’ when they undock so the design is perfectly good”.

People are economic creatures. They’re pretty good at it, overall. They can do the internal math of this activity vs. that activity and come up with answer: “Activity A is more rewarding for me than Activity B”.

Sure, people are concerned about loss. Sure, people are wary of the unknown. Sure, people are a little too focused on a sure gain - they’re literally wired that way. Sure, people often need to be taught a new way to visualize something in order to evaluate whether it’s worth participating in.

Most players MMORPG mostly for the PvE experience. It’s been that way in MMORPGs forever and still is. For conflict fans, they generally do FPS or Moba or Battle Royale or combat simulators. And most MMORPGs have had a very hard time integrating their PvE side with their PvP side. As a MMORPG with a supposedly PvP focus, EVE has to go even farther to try to make this work. That’s where the problems lie.

The NPE doesn’t even mention PvP. Most EVE ads show extremely idealized PvP. PvP is disincentivized in multiple ways. PvP is a lossy process, more is lost than gained. PvP essentially has no upside for a loser or learner, not even the illusion of gaining “reputation” or some other immaterial gain. EVE lacks any effective “onboarding” process to introduce newer players to PvP. Heck, the NPE literally tells them to go make lots of ISK, and hey, mining is a great way to do it!

PvP is a losing proposition for most players, with little offer of gain of any sort (rep, ego, standings, benefits, material or otherwise). So they avoid it. It’s not fear, it’s not “refusing to recognize the totality of EVE”, it’s simple math.

These are the areas where EVE PvP mechanics fall short. There’s only “nothing wrong with it” to players who’ve fallen into a comfortable PvP rut over the years and don’t want something to come along and shake up their routine.

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54

How are any of the like… last dozen posts in here doing anything to further the discussion over the declining population, or how player driven content could be used to stop the new player signups from being a revolving door?

We’ve got like 4 people going back and forth pointing fingers that the other person’s content is boring, and yall don’t see a problem with this?

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55

How come it never takes more than two posts from you before you turn to that old, comfortable blanket tactic of the ad hominem ? Is it frustration at not being lauded for being right ?

No, dear. I refute your interpretation of the data, the data aren’t broken down into “players who only”. On the contrary, they do show that just about everyone is involved in pve, just not to what degree. Failing to comprehend that important nuance doesn’t make you right, but manipulative.

What you forgot to add was that many pvp shy-people hate to lose, they hate to fail, to be outsmarted, to have a lack of knowledge, hate to invest time and effort, and especially in EvE to understand that even with a lot of brain power and knowledge/experience it is still a rock / paper / scissors game. They do love to cherry pick. Newsflash: all they hate doing is exactly what is required to be a real EvE player.

Most other games may have their “pvp mode”. This isn’t a “most games”. This is EvE. It’s tough, you will meet your own limitations, some will sooner than others, and everyone does at some point. That is the Law, lol. How far you get in this game is entirely linked to your capabilities.

And here is EvE, a strange old game that differs from everything else, with a reputation of being elitist, which kills its young and hopeful.

Enjoy our learning curve. Goodbye and thanks for dropping by if you didn’t make it through. Respect if you clawed your way up, now you’re an EvE player - per definition someone who only complains about CCP, never about other players, play styles, or the game itself.

And that is why the population will more or less be stable. The game doesn’t just take everyone in.

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56

I can see why you don’t like anyone responding with ’ So spending 4 hours a day watching a mining laser is offering reputation, ego, etc, etc ?’ . You are so anti-PvP obsessed…which is your own personal bias and nothing to do with any ‘data’…that you are blind to any other activity being just as much a ‘waste of time’.

57

It’s really not an ad hominem to point out that you’re making opinion-based statements on ideological stances towards the philosophy or ‘meaning’ of PvP in EVE. As opposed to referring to published data on what people really do.

I’m not sure how you can misinterpret the published data, or call it “manipulative” to take it into account. CCP has published tons of data showing to “what degree” people engage in PvE, and to “what degree” their actions result in destruction (PvP). CCP has had multiple presentations showing to “what degree” logins result in PvP or PvE. Zkillboard shows very clearly that only a very small fraction of logins result in a PvP encounter.

Really? Did you miss this part, or are you just intentionally misrepresenting it?

Then you start getting elitist:

So in a sandbox game advertised as “players can choose their own path from countless options”, the only real way to play is to PvP. Well, at least you’re not biased or anything!

So I know there’s a crowd that likes to think EVE is really special and different, and that someone sticking with EVE or learning to PvP in it makes them real tough guys. It isn’t, and it doesn’t. Combat and PvP are just as engaging and just as tricky, if not more so, in DotA 2 or MWO or WoT or even Diablo. The only real difference is that most of those games have a faster, more tactical combat system. And EVE is more like a “strategic” combat simulator where most PvPers spend their time and energy figuring ways to engage at little to no risk to themselves.

But that’s the problem. The population really isn’t stable. That’s why CCP had to go Alpha. That’s why CCP had to sell the company. That’s why CCP is pushing it’s players for more “P2W” (that thing you hate, remember?) with multi-boxing, SP for sale, higher sub fees and more marketing. That’s why CCP had to move to daily login events and “free Omega time/free Plex” giveaways.

If it weren’t for alphas, bots and multiboxers, the EVE population would likely be down to about 10k players online. Which is by no means, “stable”. It can get better, and it needs to get better.

Not sure why “EVE has design problems and should improve” triggers such strong reactions among some (mostly older) players, but there it is. Change is scary, I guess.

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58

I hear you on that, and I was looking at some of the posts to decide whether they were a derail that should stop, or not.

The thing is, if EVE is advertised as a PvP-oriented game, or as a MMORPG where “players can choose their own path”, then the difference between what CCP advertises and what EVE delivers is significant.

What players read about EVE on social media while they’re downloading the game is significant. (EVE loses half it’s players between the time they sign up for an account and before they ever even log in.)

What players are introduced to in the NPE and whether or not they’re effectively steered towards interesting content or social groups or player corps is significant.

And while I hear your point, the topic isn’t “the declining population”, it’s “is it declining or increasing and why”. So I do think discussions on what may be broken in EVE, and what affects players leaving or joining the game, is relevant.

59

You hit the nail precisely on the head…and I have even seen that in action. Many people who hate PvP hate it because they simply can’t do it. I do not believe anyone joins Eve solely to be a miner and spend hour upon boring hour watching a mining laser. Rather, they see the glossy space battles…want some of that…but end up as a miner by default ( and not choice ) because the PvP path is hard, involves failure, and is not for the timid.

It’s not hard to see why such people get doubly irate when they get ganked by people who can do PvP.

60

Exactly.