So you double down on it, even when I explained how interpreting zkillboard could lead to misleading conclusions?
You cannot make a ‘factual description’ of one’s full activities with zkillboard alone, let alone with only a look at the last page, it has massive information gaps and the little information it has is easily misinterpreted as you just did.
For example I were to look at the last and only page of your zkillboard I would think you do not play the game at all!
Believing such a conclusion would be pretty stupid though, and insisting that such a conclusion is ‘short and factual’ is dishonest, and only done when people try to provoke a reaction.
EVE has plenty of PvP styles, you may just have to try find fights to get to know them.
One versus many, many versus one, ambushes, fleet battles, bombing, smartbombing, gate camps, sniping, brawling, faction warfare PvP, Pochven, LS or null sec PvP are all different, as are the various forms of PvP that happen in HS very different because of the different rules of engagement that either allow use of expensive ships or the most cost-effective PvP ships. And I probably missed a bunch, as I too didn’t play in all parts of the game yet.
EVE’s PvP is incredibly varied with many different objectives, different situations and dozens of different ships in the game that exist for PvP alone.
You just won’t encounter most of them if the only situations where you see PvP is when it’s done to you.
Sorry dude, I see that you’re annoyed and unwilling to let go, so this’ll be the last thing I have to say about it. I’m not trying to pick a fight on this, you can have any last word you like.
I didn’t ‘interpret’ anything. Nor did I draw any conclusions. I stick to the facts wherever possible. The facts I stated are simply accurate reporting: “travelling with a group of 30-70 ships and finding one or two small targets per hour to destroy”.
If you drew negative inferences from a completely neutral description of your own activity, that’s on you. It doesn’t seem ‘negative’ to me, just not particularly rewarding or entertaining. But if that’s the niche that works for you, then fine, go with it. Just realize that’s not going to interest the majority of gamers.
Again, I never implied I was making a factual description of your ‘full’ activities. I said your playstyle “involves”, not “is exclusively limited to”. I don’t understand why you’re jumping to these conclusions? You’re usually a much more reasoning poster. But whatever, maybe it was a bad day. No worries.
Well, only if you assume that every playstyle must involve PvP. Or that nobody uses alts. Or that using alts (a playstyle you apparently ‘respect’) is somehow illegitimate.
You know that much of EVE is players trying to provoke a reaction, right? You know that the forums are more lively when people are reacting and replying, rather than browsing in apathy? It’s hard to tell here, but you seem to think that posting in a manner so as to ‘provoke a reaction’ is a bad thing?
You know that’s like half the forums, right?
Well, you’re trying your hardest to imply that I am. Which is fine I guess, you’re entitled to your opinion. Although given the various posts we’ve exchanged, read or liked from each other over the years, I’m pretty sure you know the answer already.
Guess you’re just trying to provoke a reaction?
I have, multiple times. Long periods of boredom punctuated by very brief periods of entertainment, over too quickly, and to no particular gain. In my case, at least, since I’m not trying to defend my corner of Farmville.
I completely understand if others feel differently about it, especially those who’ve taken the time and effort to make it profitable rather than a waste of time.
To return to the ‘honesty’ question, feel free to point out any statement I’ve made anywhere about game activity, EVE play, or PvPing, that is factually incorrect or where my supposed lack of PvP experience has led me to make an incorrect statement.
I’ll do my best to correct any gaps in my understanding you can find. Little hint though, going down the road you’re trying to of stating that no, PvP really is awesome and cool and varied and a great part of EVE isn’t it. And going off on a rant about how your life in Null is so much more than just popping the occasional frigate or cruiser with 50 friends yadda yadda isn’t it either.
Because I said nothing that conflicts with either of those things. Those are just strawmen you tossed out because you’re feeling a bit pissy for some reason.
The overwhelming majority of players I met over the last 15 years didn’t came for the PvP part and those who stayed did so despite the PvP part.
The guys repeating all day long here at the forums stuff like “everything is PvP!”, “EVE is 100% PvP!” and all that stuff always were a vocal minority. And CCP knows that very well. Thats why they nerfed ganking, implemented the safety-settings, largely removed canflipping and so on… They do know that the overwhelming majority of their paying customers don’t want a 100% PvP and walking on their toes on 100% attention all the time when playing the game.
Yes, in their statements and official postings they try to keep the image of this dark and harsh universe where people would battle each other all day long. But they absolutely know that thats not where their money comes from and thats not what people are actually doing or coming for. It’s just better to present yourself as tough and challenging instead of admitting in every blog, interview or trailer that 90% of the people in this game spend most of the time grinding ISK or resources to build or buy stuff for the sake of getting richer and building up their sandcastles, whatever vision they have.
The actual reality that I have seen for myself is that many players end up finding PvE boring…and I have seen numerous people even say so. As a means to making ISK the question often becomes ’ to what end ?’
PvP is the only thing that provides sufficient variability to become an end in itself. You simply won’t get that from endless repetitive missions. No-one really cares if someone has done 15,000 level 4 missions. There is no record of it anywhere, no leader board, and no-one even knows if you’ve made a gazillion ISK out of it. And it is simply not worth paying a subscription for every month…when with that level of nobody having the faintest idea of one’s ‘success’ one might just as well play an offline NPC game like Homeworld.
PvP is the only thing that makes a subscription worthwhile. An EVE without PvP would simply not be worth logging into.
And getting bored stiff in a repetitive ISK grind that goes absolutely nowhere yet which they are paying for. The endless need of CCP to quickly think up more ‘content’…in an alleged sandbox of all things…only serves to illustrate the vicious cycle of boredom needing to be alleviated. I mean, you go on about what ‘CCP knows’…well I’d think that THE main thing that ‘CCP knows’ is that most people leave the game through sheer boredom rather than anything else.
The trouble is one just doesn’t get a swathe of ‘I’m bored..I’m leaving’ posts because they don’t generate the drama of ‘someone ganked my 7 pence worth of Venture and I’m leaving’ type posts.
This is PVP you don’t do voluntarily but others make you do. I think this should be a different category.
Personally i don’t need any ISK. Being Alpha-clone my characters do not have an access to nice stuff. And there’s no need for any form of periodical payments.
But currently one of my characters does everything on its own (he has no access to money of account - this is my decision) and operates in low-sec. Means that he needs some safety money bag in case stuff gets destroyed. Other than that i don’t spend much time making money. Everything is purely for fun.
I PvE once or twice a week at most.
Me and some corpmates maintain a C5 bearhole. I’ll run sites early in the week if they’re available and I have time. I also have a PI chain running in the background which I don’t tend to as often as I ‘should’ (i think all my extractors need a reset actually). I’ll also huff gas, run reactions and various other industry related enterprises as they’re available. I rarely go hunting down-chain for gas sites these days (which explains why I have so mu C540 and C320 piling up).
In my time in EVE I’ve earned ISK in any number of ways. I started as the resident newbro and EVE Journalist at themittani dot com (the precursor to today’s Imperium News Network). This activity earned me a very pretty penny for a pennyless newbro.
In my time in EVE, I’ve spun Havens in a VNI, salvaged/looted other people’s sites, dabbled in market trading (which bored me to tears). run lvl4 burner missions, hunted down DED sites and farmed escalations, smuggled boosters around (back when facpo frowned upon such activities, probed out wormhole chains for my alliance at the time (who paid me for good connections).
These days, i krab my bearhole when it’s convenient, loot the wrecks of my enemies and sell my Nanite Paste. It’s not much, but it’s an honest income.
And then, every once in a while I’ll get into a ‘Krabbing Mood’ and go nuts running C5 sites. I’ll krab my bearhole and any dead-end connections we get. But only during the week. I never krab on weekends. I’ve learned my lesson about that.
I’m not clear why you think you have a monopoly on perceiving what interests the majority of gamers.
Not least because of the uncanny ability of humans to persuade themselves some mind numbing activity is exciting. And one should ask the question of everyone…’ Is this what you really wanted ?’ I think a lot of people simply make do with certain activities, just for the sake of being able to say ’ I play EVE’.
How many more people would be into PvP if they were not stuck in a self deprecating ‘I’m just a miner’ rut ? Did they really join EVE in the first place to spend hours staring at a mining laser ?
That’s not surprising - there’s entire swaths of reasoning you’re not clear on.
As for determining what interests the majority of gamers, I only need look at the literally millions of players who actually enjoy real combat against other players. So they play, you know, actual combat games like LoL, PUBG, World of Tanks, Overwatch etc.
Where the people they shoot at are actually armed and capable of defending themselves.
And then there’s the entire genre of MMORPGs, where more millions of players like to log in and spend their leisure time in a social world without trying to kill each other. Where PvP is a tiny sideshow at best. You know, those big names, like WoW, FFXx, Minecraft, etc.?
And then of course, there’s the tiny niche games that either died off or have a small audience of players. The ones where people who don’t socialize well, but can’t face real combat either, go so they can spend hours camping for defenseless targets to shoot so they can collect a few tears and feel good about themselves.
So yeah, I get my ‘perceptions’ from observing the real world and having the critical thinking skills to differentiate reality from ignorance. That’s what helps me avoid saying stupid stuff like this:
Or this:
Despite massive evidence to the contrary.
But it’s hard for some people to let go of their own tiny view of the world to see the bigger picture, I guess. That’s okay though… it just makes the rest of us look that much smarter.
Ah yes, because fighting other players in EVE isn’t as real as those others.
I have played various of those ‘real’ PvP games and find the PvP in EVE a lot more real and impactful than in any of those shooters or MOBAs where you just respawn upon death and get a mostly inconsequential ‘you won’ or ‘you lost’ screen after some time after which you can start all over again.
Give me EVE PvP at any time over that, thanks. With real losses, real impact and a real persistent world in which the fights happen.
I respect many playstyles in EVE, but I laugh at people who look down upon other playstyles out of some superiority complex. Is calling it ‘not real’ a coping mechanism to explain to yourself why you don’t participate in PvP, Kezrai?
You know you can also just say you don’t like it and that dislike is why you don’t take part in it - that’s fine! Many people in this thread have shown not to participate in PvP and that’s totally a valid playstyle too.
Those players have clear preferences and seem honest about it. You on the other hand are trying to convince yourself and others that the reason you don’t take part in PvP is because ‘it is not real’.
You haven’t convinced me. Be honest, did you manage to convinced yourself? How ‘not real’ does it feel when you lose a ship in PvP and need to buy and import another fit?
Sigh. Looks like we’re back to ad hominem being the only weapon in your arsenal.
I see what you did there. That sort of comment holds about as much validity as the CIA getting a remote viewer to ‘look at’ the Ark Of The Covenant in some dark vault in the Middle East ( apparently a ‘true’ story ).
Seems to be a ‘real world’ in which you provide as much actual data to support your beliefs as that CIA psychic.
Actually, the part you missed there wasn’t the world ‘real’. It was the word combat.
As opposed to ganking targets that can’t shoot back. Or gatecamping. Or spending an hour or so trying to find someone in a situation where they’re weak enough that a win is all but guaranteed. Or steamrolling a frigate or a citadel with a hundred packmates.
Yes, and I’ve already pointed out that EVE has its own ways of appealing to a certain niche audience, which this does. And I also keep pointing out why it’s a niche interest, because it simply doesn’t appeal to most gamers. The evidence for this is both obvious and overwhelming.
Yes, it is fine. I’ve pointed out many times that for me, EVE PvP is generally too slow, too boring, and too one-sided to be interesting. For me. And that’s why I don’t participate in it in general. And that’s why most players don’t participate in it, even among EVE’s own niche base. It’s just not very rewarding except to a certain tiny segment of players. As said, a niche of a niche.
You interpret factual, numbers-based observations as being biased and/or implying that I “look down on” those who engage in EVE PvP. To be clear, there are certain things I do look down upon: shooting unarmed targets and then swaggering about declaring oneself to be an ‘elite PvPer’ is one of them. Shooting other players with the primary intent of causing anger and frustration (‘salt mining’) is another.
And so is a ‘carebear’ reacting to a standard part of the game with rage and abuse. In all these cases, it’s not so much the activity, it’s the attitude and mindset behind them I disapprove of.
Actually I’ve always been 100% clear on what I think about EVE PvP. You’re trying your very hardest to build a strawman to argue against so you can ‘convince yourself’. You’re also jumping to a lot of unwarranted conclusions for apparently personal reasons.
It’s odd that a frank discussion of the realities of EVE PvP vs. that of other games, or it’s niche appeal, should trigger you so thoroughly. Especially since you’re not normally one of the rabid “rah rah PvP forevah!” types around here. But whatever, get it all off your chest man. I’m fine with it.
Well TBH, I almost never risk a ship without already having it’s replacement purchased and fitted and ready to go in a nearby station. For anything I actually use, I put offers up ahead of time and buy 5 or 6 (or more) of them at below-average prices. Then I fit several at once because it’s easier to do it all in one go.
If I lose a ship, I fly about 4 jumps away and grab its’ duplicate off the rack. It’s about as ‘impactful’ as respawning on the other side of the map. But hey, if you find it a lot more difficult than that, that’s cool too. Maybe you should give my method a try, and then maybe you wouldn’t feel the need to travel with 50 other guys to shoot a frigate.
… and you say you do not look down upon PvP in EVE?
You’re right that I’m usually not one of the “PvP forever” kinds of guys here on the forums. Maybe it’s less surprising I kept responding to your posts if I explain that the thing that triggered me to respond to your posts is not the anti-PvP sentiment, it’s the dishonesty.
You say you don’t look down upon PvP but in the same thread you look down upon all sorts of PvP and even repeatedly try to make fun of a a certain type of kills you found on my zkillboard. That kind of dishonesty.
Not that I care what you think about my zkillboard, but I wanted to point out you’re a hypocrite.
I have nothing against people who do PvE (or PvP), I just dislike hypocrites.
Look, Gerard, you’re responsible for how you interpret things, not me. You call stating facts “looking down on”. I call it describing a situation, and then stating why it doesn’t appeal to most players. How much PvE appeals to players vs PvP in EVE is the point of the thread, after all.
Let me try to phrase this in ways that won’t continue to trigger whatever this irritation you’re feeling is.
EVE sets up the conditions of PvP in certain ways. The first and most important of these is that if you lose, you lose your investment in your ship, and possibly your pod. ISK as well as time as well as the interruption of whatever you’re currently doing. This is what is claimed to make EVE PvP feel “impactful”, and compared to some other games, that’s in part what it achieves.
What it mostly achieves though, is the creation of the widespread attitude that players really don’t want to be on the losing end of PvP. So they do everything they can to avoid it. They either attack unarmed targets, attack people who aren’t likely to fight back successfully, or attack in overwhelming numbers. Or only fight when and where they’re able to summon in backup.
These are all valid playstyles in EVE, they all make perfectly good sense, and they all carry their own behavioral patterns that create, in total, the sum of “EVE PvP”.
However, those patterns are clearly not appealing to the majority of gamers. They’re not even appealing to the majority of EVE gamers, who supposedly are more of that mindset. This is a demonstrable fact. It’s not an opinion, it’s not an assumption, it’s not something I need to ‘convince myself’ of.
If EVE style combat was more interesting to gamers, then it wouldn’t be the tiny niche in the market that is.
That’s the point I’m making, but you feel butthurt by that for whatever reason, and so you’re trying to build strawman arguments for dishonesty and disapproval where none actually exist.
I’ve said what I disapprove of, I stated what the facts are, and I’ve been a heck of a lot more honest about them than you have. You’re just arguing from hurt feelings. Sheesh.
And then while I was typing, you had to go and add that. Oh well, I’m done here. Obviously this isn’t something you’re prepared to deal rationally with. Please accept my apologies for whatever triggered you, and carry on with your day.
