EVE is not a PVP Game. EVE is an Economy Game

Communications Center General Discussion
21

No. Those estimates way overstate the non-PvP side because they don’t account for alts or PvP players doing non-PvP things between PvP fights.

So if you aren’t designing and balancing a game that has an economy and a life cycle that supports 2/3 of your customers engaging in primarily “economic/growth behaviours” and only 20% of your players engaging in actually destroying player assets, then your game is going to get out of whack.

So what you’re saying is that CCP needs to massively nerf mining and industry and PvE?

Also, note the difference between player count and player importance. PvE-only players are largely expendable. They add very little to the game besides potentially $15/month to CCP and their contributions are easily replaced if they leave. A healthy population of PvP players is required to make EVE function at all, and losing too many of those players would be a death sentence for EVE.

Also also, note the difference between player count and player retention. PvP players have far better long term retention numbers than PvE-only players and that makes them way more important. 10 established PvP veterans committed to playing EVE until the servers go down are way more valuable than 100 PvE-only players on alpha accounts, 95 of whom will get bored and quit within a month.

22

That’s a real design issue, and it affects a lot of games. The motivation for most players in that market space is to build wealth and become more “powerful”. In many games they become more powerful by levelling up. In Eve, wealth building and assuring you have enough resources to do anything you want is a common approach.

Since the PvP-combat in EVE is “asymmetrical” (people rarely engage in fair fights), then the primary combat mode is surprise attack, ambush/gank, or overwhelm. You can’t really make yourself “the most powerful” simply by pumping up your ship or your stats or even your PvP skills. You can improve your odds yes, but you will still fall prey to fights you can’t win. So lacking “maximum power build” status, people end up developing “maximum wealth and resources” instead.

So to balance all that wealth building, empire building (null sov), and hoarding, you need a buttload of destruction. Which everyone talks about, but CCP does not understand, so it never gets done.

You can’t make a ton of destruction by targeting the assets of wealthbuilders. Because they are playing specifically to build wealth. Nuke their assets and they will simply play elsewhere.

You can’t feed all the non-combat oriented players to combat players to ‘spark destruction’. This is known as “eating your seed corn”. You get a one-time benefit from it and then after that’s done you’re left with nothing.

The only way to encourage enough destruction to balance the harvest/build/wealth cycle is to make destruction itself rewarding. It also has to be entertaining/engaging, and accessible. The article I linked in the previous post shows that PvP in EVE is a net loss activity. Thus, people are encouraged to develop mass wealth resources to even consider regularly engaging in PvP. (Note these are general trends for the player base. Anecdotes about “I PvP and I don’t care about my losses” aren’t pertinent to the design issue.)

If EVE wants to balance the production/destruction cycle, they need to limit the stupendous amounts of production coming out of null (particularly bounty/commodity farming and supermining ops). And they need to create a combat/PvP system that is inherently rewarding and more interesting. Right now, EVE combat is slow, clumsy, not very visually stimulating, hard to find, mostly unfair, and it’s a net loss for most participants. (Other than the high sec gankers of course, but they aren’t really even PvP players. They’re simply wealth parasites.)

4 Likes
23

Exactly. You can’t take one isolated example of a person mining a rock out of context and ignore the fact that the nullsec space they’re mining in was claimed by PvP, PvP forces protect them from PvP enemies while they mine, PvP destruction creates the demand that gives them a reason to mine, etc. Nor does the fact that the miner might be very bad at economic PvP and not bother competing with other players on the market make it turn into PvP.

24

Disagree. EVE is a zero sum game, if you somehow slaughter and drive off all of the non-combat players then demand exceeds supply and prices go up until more players are tempted to do non-combat activities and you have prey again. There will always be mining/industry/etc, the only question is whether those activities will be done by risk-averse farmers who demand the ability to opt out of PvP or by PvP players playing a game of competitive capitalism.

25

Combat in isolation is a net loss in any game that has resources. Even non-pvp games.

When i attack an enemy in age of empires i lose units. It’s a net loss activity. Starcraft is the same. Command and conquer. Even non-strategy games like Freelancer. I consume ammo. It’s a net loss activity.

But after a particular skirmish the victor is in a better position to acquire more resources and build an even bigger army (or ship whatever) with which to attack again…and again, consuming more and more resources, progressing further and further until someone wins the match or the player wins the game.

Once you understand that conflict in eve is not just the 1 or 2 minutes you spend shooting eachother but in fact includes the choices made during the build up to the fight and the benefits received after the fight, you’ll understand that pvp in eve isn’t a net loss activity. It’s actually how the game progresses.

26

Lol, obvious troll is obvious!

Good Sir, I believe you have spelt ‘troll’ incorrectly! :slight_smile:

This guy gets it!

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

1 Like
28

EvE Online is an environment.

29

Thank you for writing this.

I believe many of the comments prove your point that people think about this issue in a very one dimensional way. It’s sad that people who scream pvp over and over into the mirror can’t step back and realize that there are many non-pvp interconnecting aspects of this game, and that if those non-pvp aspects were improved it would also benefit them by improving their pvp experience.

High, Low, and Null security space are all important. PvE missions and non combat isk generation is important. Exploration, regardless of whether it brings you in conflict with another player (pvp) or you never see anyone else (pve). Cooperative contracts and non-pvp market interactions make the game go around.

It’s like making a car function. Maybe you like fancy rims and wheels and a shiny paint job, but if you take out the carburetor or the oil filter you’ll soon find that your car stops working, and you’ll have to consider that the things that you think are the most important might not be as high and mighty as you first thought.

It doesn’t mean everything is perfectly balanced and everything is fine. Changes can and will be made, some of those changes will be mistakes, and others will be improvements. People don’t give CCP enough credit for seeing these things, in part due to history, sometimes because CCP doesn’t always play honestly with their players, and possibly due to the the competing forces at work within CCP itself (they have players, and investors, and a product, held together my individual developers over a long period of time).

It’s not your fault that other people don’t understand that markets are a form of cooperation and agreement, but then they’ve been taught that games are played against people and not with people. It’s really their loss.

Cooperation sits besides competition. Creation next to destruction. Neither is superior, both are important. Using the language of an economy simulation is a good description here.

Don’t let the naysayers, like the ones in this thread, bring you down. Hold the line and know that you are right, and the message is good, and tell others when they are willing to listen.

2 Likes
30

Name three in-game “non-pvp” aspects.

31

I’m more old school, PvP = combat between 2 or more players.

The rest of it, is just fluff.

2 Likes
32

Lots of words about how this isn’t a PvP game but a market PvP game.

Why not both

34

Three “non-pvp” aspects:

  1. construction (ships, components, etc)
  2. mission running
  3. mining ore
  4. running corporations
  5. market exchange
  6. shipping
  7. exploration
  8. community engagement
  9. site seeing
  10. planetary interactions
  11. killing belt pirates

Oh, wait, that’s like totally more than three… It’s like they are everywhere in this game if you just take a moment to look.

The usual rebuttal at this point is that all of those things are players against other players, and are therefore pvp. The problem is that argument, while it feels good to the person who considers themselves a “pvp’er”, is that it is thin and false. Each and every one of those activities can be done either alone or cooperatively, without any interaction with others.

The argument at hand here isn’t that pvp is not present, it’s not an argument that pvp is good or bad, it’s that the underlying core behavior is a “non-pvp” based activity. That you need to change your perspective when you want to consider what it means to make improvements and changes and suggestions relating to these things. That you have to step back and accept that pvp is a secondary interaction, if it exists at all during the activity (many times it does not).

If all you say is that “EVE is a PvP game”, it looses so much richness that the game is. It makes your audience smaller. It makes the community poorer. It scares people away who might otherwise subscribe and bring their own content to the game, and by doing so allow the developers to expand their universe, to add features, and to make your game play more enjoyable. Both non-pvp and pvp.

But to do those things you need to expand your world and your mind and stop screaming “pvpvpvpvpvp” over and over and over. It’s silly, it’s been going on since forever, and it’s not true.

3 Likes
35

And as it is a player driven Economy…

Even the market is PvP

So yeah, EVE IS a PvP game

36

{citation needed}

How do you exchange things on the market without interacting with other players when each exchange is an interaction? How do you do community engagement without interacting with the community?

37
  • construction (ships, components, etc)
    Did you magically get the base materials for said construction? NOPE. You got it directly though player interaction or without direct interaction (ie gank in HS, or a quiet/blue system elsewhere)
  • mission running
    LOL…really?
  • mining ore
    LOL…really?
  • running corporations
    If you are a solo corp then sure else you are deal with other plater.
  • market exchange
  • shipping
    LOL…really?
  • exploration
    LOL…really?
  • community engagement
    Yes, talking to other players is not really PvP I guess unless it’s psy-ops or a con…err so NOPE really.
  • site seeing
  • planetary interactions
    LOL…really?
  • killing belt pirates
    LOL…really?

Oh wait, that’s like maybe 0.5 examples and you totally missed the ONE that everyone agrees on: Project Discovery which would have given you about 1.5 examples.

YOU don’t get to choose when something becomes PvP in Eve…When you are belting or exploring or ratting, are you REALLY not mashing D-scan? REALLY? If you say no then you are ■■■■ player or a liar. If you are then you void your own examples as you are literally watching-out for other players.

This is WHY Eve is small…because it is so brutal and free of hand-holding. Almost everything one does effects or can be effected by others…it’s why Eve is so great but it’s also it’s greatest limiter as you can’t just mine, explore, rat or do any of those other examples without eventually having PvP forced on you…hint, PvP is always on!

You keep saying “expand you world” yet you are just lying to yourself…It’s silly, it’s been going on since forever, and it’s not true. Please stop or go play X4.

1 Like
38

I’ve lost more from market PVP than from combat. If you lose money to fees and taxes in some market showdown due to someone else actions, it’s PVP and it’s the same isk sink explosions create. Repeat after me, if your losses can be put on semeone else actions, wether in combat or else, it’s:

P.V.P.

1 Like
39

I read all but can’t figure out what’s the point of all of this :thinking:

2 Likes
40

Soon economy game more then ever.

41

His point was made in the first sentence

He just wants to start arguments.

Of course that sentence shows not only that he wants to “set off” people, but he equates those he wishes to argue with with the titular characters from the 1970 Black Sabbath hit.

In this song, the War Pigs are generals and politicians (framed as the 1% in modern terms) who create a conflict for their own benefit which not only causes the suffering of all who are not they, but also is the catalyst for the Biblical apocalypse.

3 Likes
42

Economies are inherently PvP. Your assumption is that PvP only means blowing ships up. It doesn’t. I just means “player versus player.”

Good analysis, however, except that you started with the conclusion and then built your argument from there.