However difficult it is, it’s not the point. It’s all the same every time. You farm difficult rats to get all of the possible rewards in the activity.
Imagine you got all the parts for T3 production from C5-6 combat sites, they are difficult too, why bother with salvaging, data/relics hacking, huffing fullerenes, industry, etc. Imagine you killed all the Sleepers, Drifter escalation, then the last rat dropped the single wreck with every type of loot for T3 production, and you only had to farm enough sites.
Lost my Abyssal Phantasm yesterday, it was t3 only, 3 Leshaks pack, 2 of them were neuting, oh well. Still not saying something wrong with the Abyss because its difficult, I know I wasn’t prepared for that. But packs like that show that some ships just don’t work. To keep running Abyss I need to switch to another ship. 64% run Abyss in Gilas. I don’t like drones, I don’t like missiles, I don’t like Gila. I wont run the Abyss in a ship I don’t like. Simple as that. (I’m not asking them make Phantasm work)
No, it isn’t all the same every time and you know it.
You then brought the Abyss up and everything else you’ve said doesn’t exist. Or say what else is there? All you have is a fabrication, which makes your discussion into a rant. We are then not allowed to rant on the forums. So you’ve got to put some meat on the table here when you want to discuss something.
Everyone calls EVE a Sandbox game. Most of new PVE activities in the last 5 years are themepark in my opinion. Lets discuss. That could be my OP really, all the rest I wrote are just examples. I may be wrong. You don’t agree with me about the Abyss. Please present your case how I’m wrong.
Someone told you they feel every different pack is different. But they still use the same ship, don’t they? There are sig bloom clouds and automata structures you can use in some cases. But other than that how does using the same ship over and over makes a difference?
Indeed, that’s an opinion. For a discussion do you need something a bit stronger, like, an actual argument. One just doesn’t discuss opinions.
Say, if I wanted to have 265.75mm railguns can I have them? … No. Doesn’t this make railguns themepark items? Because if it was a real sandbox game then I could have railguns of any length or diameter. That’s my opinion.
Let’s all just have a discussion, but please don’t bring any arguments.
If an opinion repeatedly corresponds to reality among many people isn’t it when it becomes a fact?
It is my opinion but it is also a fact that some PVE activities I listed are not popular. It is also a fact that they are examples of themepark gameplay according to the definition I presented.
But you keep calling my arguments non-arguments, and myself a sucker, without presenting your arguments or even opinion on listed activities or what’s a themepark.
Being sarcartic and not presenting your opinion does not help. At this point I’d like to hear your definition of themepark/sandbox if you think my isn’t good.
I see enough diversity in ships/weapons to call EVE as a whole a sandbox game. And it’s not even items themselves but professions they produce. You’re still killing rats whether you use 250mm, 265mm or 261,3mm gun. But It, in my opinion, does not automatically make every PVE activity sandbox, which is by the way not necessarily a bad thing. Both kinds of gameplay can be entertaining and fun. And I repeat I didn’t say themepark was a bad thing at all.
Also you dismissed and didn’t comment my WH analogy. Just like the Abyss Wormholes when they were introduced were a decently difficult content, C5-6 still are. In order to build a T3 ship you had to do combat sites for salvage, data and relic sites, gas sites, etc, which are totally different activities, you run them in totally different ships. It requires lots of player interaction. A perfect example of sandbox gameplay.
The Abyss on the contrary only requires farming enough of the same sites. You don’t switch ships, you don’t switch mods. If 64% use Gila they even use essentially the same tactics. Thus themepark. And what you do the same thing the same way over and over until you get all the books, BPCs and enough resources. Which as I said is not necessarily a bad thing, some people find themepark farming entertaining. I do sometimes.
And so my reason to start this topic was to point out this sandbox/themepark gameplay differences and to discuss it.
It only becomes sandbox when interfered on by another player, and its the sandbox rules that make that possible.
I have a diagram but cant post it atm.
Basically all PvE “floats” in the EVE aquarium above the surface of the sandbox. In some cases, the sand is stacked higher below the surface, reducing the distance/separation for a player to interfere in someone elses PvE.
It helps to think of EVE not as a sandbox per se, but rather an aquarium filled with water (thus subject to hydraulic pressure and fluid dynamics), with a topographically diverse sandy bottom, and a (mostly) flat surface at the top.
All PvE “floats” on the surface, and players interfering in it approach from below, like a shark approaching/attracted to a splashing surfer, or someone trying to keep afloat in a life-ring.
Hmm… it just struck me that my WH analogy is not quite correct, or not correct at all.
It’s not the Abyss vs Wormhole, but more likely its the Abyss vs Fortification Frontier Stronghold, i.e. the same single combat site in W-space but with random spawns every time.
But its even worse this way that you get every type of loot out of it.
As you can see, all PvE reticles/activities (green) “floats” above the underlying universal PvP sandbox surface reticle, and are permeated by PvP (red).
I portray the PvE as reticles, rather than simple rings, because they are infact all targets/opportunities for PvP.
The problem with Abyss sites, potentially, is you can spam them, anywhere. You dont need to spend time finding them, you just need a stack of filaments. This is particularly good for deep/secured Player NS systems, with nigh zero chance of player aggression.
Un/fortunately, filament drops are inconsistent and haphazard. I advocated for, and still do, for 1 (only one) guaranteed filament drop from completion of pocket, to the next tier pocket.
The drop rate of L1 filaments from exploration seems to be largely ok as is now.
And it’s still only an opinion what you have. You want to polarize, like calling some people black and others white, and then have a discussion on them. Only here are you trying to do it with a game and to call parts of it a themepark and a sandbox. It’s not funny nor original what you do. Only dumb people do it and they do it so they can judge one as good and the other as bad.
Just play the game. Don’t rant about it. It has content for everyone and you’re not supposed to like it all.
The issue that is at root here is the sandbox is only intact as long as no resources can be injected into the sandbox from a non-sandbox location. Abyss sites are instanced areas, the sandbox is by definition a single large instance.
Given all that EVE is pretty big and the impact of these solo sites will take a long time to be felt. Maybe in a year people doing small fw plexes will start to cry about “mut ships” dominating.
But that is not it, the real horror is this is just a toe in the water.
When we have 100 Ship Fleet Abyss and BIS across the board comes from these instances just like any other crappy wow knockoff, then it will be obvious why the principle is so important.
