Grumble Grumble, P2W, Capital Skill Books, Grumble Grumble

Communications Center General Discussion
41

I agree with these points, my issue with it is it also these people that are on the forums shedding tears because “omg how can 1 assault frigate explode my officer fit titan”, which wouldn’t be terrible at all, except CCP seems to listen to them (I guess because new player retention is a thing and you cant enforce a ‘training gate’ to force people to learn, people wouldn’t like that) and that is not the direction I want to see the game continue along.

Having said that, i have no solution for this ‘problem’… else i’d be making my own space mmorpg and raking in the monies… ALL TEH MONIES!!

I believe this comes after you have uninstalled (and possibly biomassed), not sure if the later is a prereq, but am sure it helps! :smiley:

I’d like to expand on this a little, it’s bad because Eve is a complex game (ridiculously and frustratingly so at times), and to ensure player retention the players need to have a decent understanding of these complexities. The ability to buy SP gives people the illusion they have now mastered the game (cause i’m flying a titan!), and this illusion is what is bad for the game, as it leads to people bailing out when ‘bad things happen’ or equally boredom sets in as they’ve nothing left to achieve.

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

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42

I thought the point of the thin end of a wedge was that those opposed wont see the whole change till its right in there.

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43

I did not give them any money out of my pocket since they introduced skill extractors. I was a loyal subscriber for like a decade prior to their introduction.

In my opinion EVE was always P2W because of PLEX, and how that allows you to basically buy everything in the game with your credit card. I understood that this happens anyway and PLEX was a way to battle the gold sellers, so I kinda accepted that as a necessary evil, although I always thought it diminishes the game and dilutes the value of personal achievements.

But obviously that is not where they stopped. Also lets not forget the latest atrocity, when they added actual gambling.

At this point I don’t know what they would have to do to get me to pay them money again. It feels like the point of no return has been passed a long time ago.

I still occasionally play and enjoy some aspects of the game. But it seriously disgusts me that every time I’m logging in, it looks more and more like a store front and less like the awesome space game it used to be.

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44

I had the impression that the purchase of CCP was to own the IP.

So what’s eve echoes? As far as I’m aware that’s not CCP making the game. It’s more like PA using their new rights.

45

I was not going to get into this, but since it relates to another recent decision I’ve made and there’s a thread on the subject that I didn’t start…

First of all, let me clarify that I am a person who forms only personal loyalties. I am not loyal to a brand, or company unless it forms some kind of personal relationship through the expression of its values across my interactions with it.

I used to feel like I knew CCP and had that kind of personal relationship. Like with my friends, I would be variously pleased or displeased by their latest decisions and actions, but I had a solid belief that I knew in general where they are trying to go, even if I don’t like the entire planned route.

Specific changes, then, I tend not to let bother me, or I try to see the bright side of things I otherwise would not care for. After all, those changes were going to be there whether I liked them or not. Might as well use them to my advantage if I can in either case.

What does bother me, though, is what I believe to be a general change in tone that is hard to describe in objective terms. Personalities in CCP that I respect or admire have left the company or fallen silent. For a prominent example, CCP Falcon. I did not like CCP Falcon very much, but he was direct, frank, and to the point. I knew where he stood and he didn’t do doublespeak. I respect this. I have not seen a recent post by CCP Lebowski, who I think did his best to address concerns within his purview quickly.

While I do not particularly dislike CCP Convict or CCP Aurora, I don’t see them as people I know, or as people with their own minds in this context. They are mouthpieces scripted by CCP with little personality of their own that I’ve seen. (I’m sure they are real people outside of this context, but in terms of their job, I get the impression they have little freedom to speak their mind plainly.)

Added to this, CCP has been more secretive of late. Changes come out of left field that neither the general public nor the CSM were aware of. As far as the whole Triglavian saga goes, I admit it is interesting from a certain point of view, but to my knowledge they never offered an objective for capsuleers to fight for. Just a commandment to fight for them and mumble mumble will change. I think people fighting should generally be aware of the stakes, and what they stand to gain or lose without having to guess.

A more minor annoyance is how the game has a cloying feel in its programs. Like it is desparate for my constant attention. Skillpoints every day, campaigns that give prizes that you have to be on top of the game to catch before you miss out. More and more it’s not that I feel like I want to log in, but I’m afraid of what I’ll miss if I don’t. What arbitrary changes CCP might make that will retroactively turn a safe decision into one that might cost me. They have shown me that, as they are now, they are willing to cannibalize anybody not paying attention without taking steps to protect folks from that retroactive penalty. I used to feel that CCP would do right by me whether I was here or not. Not any more.

I know that the EULA I agreed to says CCP can essentially do whatever it wants with whatever space pixels I own. I used to work for someone who correctly pointed out that they are not required by law to give me a break no matter how long my shift is. The lack of a mandate to be a decent person does not excuse a person from the implied obligation to be decent. The legal right to do a thing doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I don’t think that people (or companies) who think otherwise deserve my loyalty.

I believe Eve will survive in some form or another, and that some people will enjoy that form enough to pay for it, but for developer driven narratives, I think I have better options from developers who are more open and honest with their intentions. If NPCs fighting each other is CCP’s new idea of a living universe, I don’t think I want to be a part of it.

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46

Your post is 100% bang on, Qia, but this is the part that I feel is the most significant point. EVE has for the most part always been focussed on the ‘the long game’. Long time to train, long time to take and hold sov, long time to develop your supply/market strategy etc. Even most playstyle satisfaction is focussed on things that take hours to do. (Although that last part is to the games detriment I believe.)

I myself don’t see CCP doing anything they didn’t do long before PA came along, but they have certainly turned the game away from learning how the game mechanics work, deciding your niche, and developing a long term strategy - and moved it towards “surprise of the week” and “log in daily” mechanics in a desperate attempt to prop up short-term activity in the game.

Few people are willing to commit long-term to a game where they no longer feel they can trust the direction the devs will be going in next month, much less next year. CCP will coast for a while on the old core players but I really don’t see “Age of Chaos” and “yanking the rug out from under players” as helping to retain players (new or old) for the long term.

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47

I don’t mind any of the specific changes that have been made. I just think that changes that alter the consequences of a decision retroactively should exist only if the change is necessary, and no provision can reasonably be made to protect a person from increased risk they could not consent to at the time the decision was made.

My opinion is that CCP does not pass the ‘reasonable provisions’ test.

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48

I find myself thinking more and more about the best way to secure my assets if I ever take another long break. I simply cannot leave a monstrous pile of all my assets in Jita 4-4. My previous thinking was that putting stuff in the cargohold of a jump freighter (that I am piloting), inside of an NPC station was the way to go. But now that entire highsec systems can just >poof< go to Trigsec, where you aren’t even allowed to fit your ship while docked . . . uh . . . maybe I just reprocess and sell everything before I take a break, and keep all my wealth in my PLEX wallet?

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49

Were I in your place, I would consider two points:

  1. For the time being, there is unlikely to be any immediate danger to your assets in NPC stations.
  2. The Triglavian saga has not fully played out yet, so the final state of space is not known for certain.

I think the decision would be best deferred until more information about what CCP is willing to do with permanence is known.

50

And your scenario is pure speculation on your part. You’ve spent a ton of words arguing what could be happening in this hypothetical situation but done nothing to prove that it is in fact how CCP is doing it.

They’re just skipping time. That’s not an advantage!

Nonsense. Skipping time is absolutely an advantage. If two players start at the same time then all else being equal the one who RMTs additional SP will have significant advantages over the one who doesn’t. That is textbook P2W.

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52

we must keep in mind that eve online is not a pay to win game

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53

Great post!

I would emphasize that CCP’s new policy of keeping development plans secret, even from the CSM, adds to the general feeling of the game being unstable. Sure, they are damned if they inform the CSM and it “somehow” leaks out and is taken advantage of by certain groups, but to not inform player experts and fail to catch design flaws or imbalances until after they are introduced into the game, causes far more harm than a “possible” leak.

This lack of communication with the players through the CSM also extends to the general player population. Many of the problems,confusion, and anger everyone is seeing is that CCP has implemented a muted or limited communication protocol with its customers. Discord or Reddit sees enough activity, but in here the history is far more spotty. It’s sad that we see more of Mike and Brisc than any CCP developer. Their growing trend to introduce more fundamental change of gameplay with less warning and even less after implementation explanation is disconcerting. The old CCP would be out there not only preventing customer fires, but also actively interacting for at least a week aftetrwards, clearing up confusion and making sure problems were acknowledged and addressed.

I agree, players are feeling more and more that they must log in not to enjoy the game, but so that they don’t miss one time events/prizes or the information they gather from fellow pilots that a CCP dev revealed on Discord or Reddit. Strange times of Chaos indeed.

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54

today i learned that subscription based games are “P2W” apparently.

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55

Chess is pay to win, too - you have to buy a chessboard.

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56

look some guys have a fetish of having 100 alts and all the skills in the game
but i argue that to have 100% of the fun you only have to have 1 char and a modest set of skills that you can acquire by normal means in normal gameplay
so not pay to win
if you want to gorge yourself in skills , cover your body in honey , put a big candle up your $##… well , its your fault
dont blame the game

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59

That’d technically just be referred to as “pay to play” because buying the chessboard doesn’t give you an objective in-game advantage over someone who does not buy a chessboard.

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61

I’m sure it’s been brought up before, but I have confidence that with all the other “modern AAA MMORPG” changes that are being implemented, someone in PA has the end goal of doing away with the CSM all together, and views it with disdain.

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62

That is completely missing the point though. A player could grind for months for that ISK and then get dunked an lose it all. How things play out has nothing to do with the fact that you can skip the grind with the credit card, which is what the actual issue is that people recognize as P2W.

Yes, and people judge by what they see in other titles in the industry. If you for a second forget the whole history about how Omega, Alpha, PLEX and the slow ticking skill system came to be and look at it from the perspective of a new player it looks kinda over the top P2W. With players who pay having massive advantages and basically everything in the game purchasable right away to absolutely horrendous prices.

But obviously that whole point is usually kinda lost to established players as they somehow have a hard time switching perspective or are so invested in the game that no criticism is considered anyway.

64

Except there’s also the case where someone who does know what they’re doing buys extra power and wins. Don’t pretend that the only RMTing is by clueless newbies.

P2W isn’t real. It is just an idea most people have that buying something someone else didn’t somehow helps them win.

Utter nonsense. P2W is absolutely real and buys indisputable advantages. If two players start at the same time then all else being equal the one who RMTs will have significant advantages over the one who doesn’t. That is textbook P2W.

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65

This reminds me of the guys who want to get into some hobby, so they buy all the best stuff. Like some watercolor hobbyist that buys $400 in watercolors. Meanwhile, the actual artist is out painting with one $10 brush, a waterbottle from the recycle bin, and five tubes of paint.

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