People want instant gratification how many people actually read the mission briefing before heading out? Then they find out it was a recon mission and they get blown up, if you start putting help icons everywhere they feel like they are on a leash and quit. I think it’s more of a mindset than something that can be solved in game you can keep the game as is or dumb it down till it becomes something like candy crush.
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I see all of these suggestions, but does anyone have an idea of how they would be implemented? I mean the actual details of putting their idea into practice, like if you have an idea to improve the UI then what would you make the UI look like?
Dammit, I’m not coherent enough. Too sleepy…
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Personally I think we should become a bit more flexible in accepted game play.
Hi Sec used to be safer.
Null Sec used to be more mysterious.
Low Sec used to be more of a wild-land.
Players had less concern about how others played it for the most part. Now so many want to force accepted game-play on others.
Ergo, few actually stick with the game. 
But as I mentioned before, too many feel the E-Peen and are willing to ride it down in flames in the name of whatever, so we are all probably wasting our time thinking of ways to fix it.
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Eve online the movie
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Out of all the MMOs I’ve played I can honestly say this game has been the most expensive and by far the least fun.
I’ve played on and off since 2005 and I think things started going down hill around the time of Hulkageddon. They could quite easily call this game Gankers online. Problem with ganking which must be very lucrative as so many do it now is the fun is all one sided.
I was logging in just for the free stuff a few days ago, then decided to uninstall the game even though I still have a 8 months of sub left. Even if things improved I doubt I’d stay with this game now.
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I think the main issue is the time you have to put in to play this game.
Most people prefer quick action…
EVE should be less timer and more activity focused.
Even travelling long diatances could be cut short with some massive isk sink mechanic,
I would pay 20 mil to get those 40 jumps done quicker.
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Too many people being dishonest here…
That’d be a good place to start actually. Stop kidding yourselves.
This is true for mining. However, in every other part of the game little has changed in regards to the utility of multi-boxing. Way back before 2010 there were tails of the scary russians multi-boxing six ships each during fleets and using alts for scouting and logi during wardecs was a staple in high-sec.
You’re absolutely right about player interaction and working together though. Players work together when working together makes sense. E.g if things are difficult, complex or dangerous or there is otherwise some extra benefit (payout or safety) for working together. A long time ago working together was pretty necessary in eve because it was hard, dangerous and complex.
Eve however has taken the game in the opposite direction for the past half decade (at least). Eve is getting easier. It’s getting less complex. It’s getting less dangerous. And aside from incursions CCP haven’t managed to successfully implement sustainable group pve.
So, reaching out to other players is no longer necessary. In fact many players are now in a corp by themselves. So why interact with others when you don’t need to? Especially with the mentality of current generation.
The only other group activity in the game is pvp. But that’s been nerfed…a lot.
The risk of wardecs meant loosely affiliated groups would enter treaties/defensive pacts with eachother. This meant literally entering a chat with or writing a mail to strangers and saying something a long the lines of ‘if we get decced, can you come help us. And if you get decced, we’ll help you’. And that was just the beginning of communication. But with the current state of decs, why bother? You can be immune to wardecs whilst still enjoying 99% of perks involved with being in a corp.
Tldr
In the same way that technology like the car means we exercise less or that instant messaging means we talk less.
Making the game easier means we ask for help less.
It was safer how?
You talk about gameplay being forced on people, but somehow i don’t think you’re talking about pvp players (i.e. the core players) paying ever increasing costs to play the game they want to play.
Instead i think you’re talking about the bears who have joined a pvp game but don’t want to pvp. Like joining a fortnight match but not wanting to get shot…
And when ccp have tried to change the game to be more attractive to these players, you get a game that neither side find engaging. Then the players cry for more nerfs to pvp.
So you’re right about riding it down in flames. You’ve just got the wrong end of the stick.
This^^^
We’ve been talking about expectation management for years. Which is why I was disappointed by this:
The closest mention of the ‘essential core concept of eve’ (fulltime pvp in a sandbox environment) was the use of the term ‘relative safety’ when referring to empire space.
The Butterfly Effect trailer did it better.
In particular the repeated references to player interactions, freedoms and decisions being the basis for content…you know, player driven.
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So much truth here.
EVE’s problem isn’t low initial retention rate, that’s an inevitable side effect of being a game that isn’t an instant gratification WoW clone and you can’t change that without destroying EVE. You are always going to have new players who expect a WoW clone or CoD in space and quit immediately when they realize their mistake.
What is killing EVE is that it is becoming stagnant and boring. EVE is becoming less about overcoming difficult PvP challenges and building something with other players and more about mindless PvE farming with some token zero-stakes PvP between risk-averse coalitions. There’s so much less to dream about, only a tedious grind until you too can multibox capitals in your private nullsec farm with a timezone-tanked station that nobody is masochistic enough to attack. Alliance warfare is broken, FW is broken, highsec conflict is broken, and the only thing we get is more skins and some PvE instances designed to ensure even more private PvE farming.
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+1 for this part in particular.
The game lost it’s way by trying to cater to casual farmers typical of other MMO’s. It cannot be done without compromising the core aspects of eve. The market has clearly suffered from a glut of farming. And no casual farmer is interested in non-consensual pvp.
Whatever happened to:
‘Forget what you know about other MMO’s. Eve is not other MMO’s.’?
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Actually it’s more like “too many people looking at EVE through a distorted lens of their own wishful thinking”.
The PvPers seem to have this view of ‘the glory days’ when everyone was tough, the farmers were all getting shot down, everyone was working together to fight, um, other people who were working together.
The ‘old vets’ talk about ‘the new generation’ of gamers like they are somehow casual noobs who can’t play anything but a twitch game. News flash for ya: EVE’s only been out for 16 years. That’s less than one generation. All the old guys you started out with? They’re still gaming - just not in EVE. All the kids who were just wee young’uns when you started playing? They’re not playing EVE either.
All the ‘casual farmers’ and ‘WoW transplants’ were here since day 1, and complaining in the forums since day 1. There were no ‘glory days’. There is only selective memory.
Players work together when they need other players in order to accomplish their goal, and other players are available to work with. Once half the player base can watch a Youtube video on how to achieve all their goals solo… that’s pretty much the end of player cooperation right there. The game didn’t change so much as matured, and people simply optimized the way they do things. For most people, being able to do whatever they want without having to wait for 3 buddies to get their shyt together is more optimal.
Nah, you’re still singing the same wrong song here. The bears have always been here. Keep in mind it’s a “player run economy”. PvP doesn’t build the modules or the ships. There have always been 3-4 times as many PvErs as PvPers. CCP didn’t cave to whiners - they’ve made their lack of listening to the player base famous. CCP caved to the desire to analyze who paid the most subs and what those people were doing, and catered to the maximum-revenue player. And those people aren’t, for the most part, PvPers. They’re empire builders - whether solo or alliance.
My God, that video is horrible! It has to be the snooziest snoozefest of a ‘Hey our game is cool!’ video I’ve ever seen. The pacing is slow, the voice-over is soporific, the music is bland, there is no action. Only a company as out of touch with players as CCP is could think that’s a good intro to their game.
Actually ‘Causality’ did it best (for that particular set of points):
EVE Online: Causality
Still, in my opinion, videos that highlight super-rare occurrences that might happen a handful of times a year as “core gameplay” are managing player expectations badly. As well as glossing over glaring flaws in their game design.
Incorrect. EVE is badly designed and always has been. You can make EVE better without turning it into a WOW clone, or destroying it.
Also incorrect. EVE was designed stagnant and boring. It was fortunately designed large enough, and complex enough, and non-intuitive enough, that a great many players spent a lot of time and effort figuring out how to maximize the things humans always do - conquer territory, eliminate risks, exploit to the max. EVE seemed interesting and dynamic while there were a lot of players making a lot of mistakes and breaking a lot of new ground as they spread out into all the niches of the game. Once those niches were grabbed, the lack of actual dynamic gameplay became the status quo.
The game is not really all that different than it was 10 years ago. Crimewatch, jetcans, Rorquals and jump freighters definitely changed the meta but it would have ended up pretty close to this even without those. It’s less that CCP altered the way the game works, and more that player strategies simply matured to the state of maximum reward for minimum risk that they always gravitate toward. And every type of player (carebears, PvPers, casuals) who did not enjoy that direction has either left the game, or become bitter that ‘their game’ was ruined by .
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A generation in life is different to a generation of gaming.
Or try releasing the original Mario today.
Like i said, stop kidding yourselves.
Yep i remember. Though i think you’ve forgotten.
‘wow is that way =>’
Or
‘go back to wow’
Or
‘you could play wow instead of eve and the average intelligence of both games will increase’.
There’s that selective memory you’re worried about.
Videos of eve, eve survival guide and eve uni all existed over a decade ago.
You’ve misunderstood that part.
Carebear does not mean industrial player. And pvp player does not mean non-industrial player.
You can be an industrial player, and seek to avoid pvp. That’s fine.
The problem is when people join a game centred around pvp and demand it should be changed because they don’t like pvp. That’s cancerous.
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There is a lot of truth in this. CCP seemed to start doing that a lot about 10-12 years ago IIRC.
Most of the players I flew with left the game because we found it harder and harder to live and roam in Null as a small Corp who didn’t want to be bothered with the issues that come with being in a larger group. Living out of a small POS was quite fun to be honest.
About a third of our guys preferred industry but would form up when we really needed them or the occasional pipe gate camp.
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No, sorry, you offer your biased, fact-free opinions, and when it’s pointed out you’re wrong, you change the definitions.
A generation in game design is one thing. Probably 3-6 years. A generation in gaming equipment is about the CPUs, the GPUs, the controllers - about 2-3 years. However you were referring to ‘the mentality of the current generation’, which is people. People come in people-generations, which is currently accorded to be 29-30 years.
Mario is 37 years old - more than a generation. EVE is 16 years old - half a generation. All that ‘generation’ of players that started EVE are still gaming. All those people who pushed EVE above 50k concurrent players years ago - they’re still gaming. They just aren’t gaming in EVE.
That’s due to bad long-term game design, not to some mysterious evolution in ‘generational mentality’ over the span of the last 10 years.
Again you try to change your original point to sound correct. You said the game was ruined by bears who didn’t want to PvP joining. I said they’ve always been here. Then you try to point out that you ‘remembered’ them and I forgot? Being an argument-weasel just to try and appear less wrong doesn’t help. If you can’t stand appearing wrong, check your facts before spouting nonsense.
Wow, you’re really being thick today. Yes, videos existed. What didn’t originally exist was detailed instructional videos and blogs showing how to do virtually every aspect of EVE on your own or with alts. And guess what? Right about the time that great mass of “How to EVE” videos/guides became prevalent was around the time EVE started to become a solo-farm/AFK game and player interaction went downhill.
Really? Because it seemed pretty clear:
Once again you fall back on pretending your point was the opposite of your point. The bears have always been here, they’ve always been mining, they’ve always been hauling, they’ve always been complaining about non-consensual PvP and they’ve always been the majority of players who actually produce all the things the game needs.
CCP never listened to the ‘demands’ of carebears. They analyzed their bottom line and checked some metrics and said “Hey these non-PvP guys are paying us way more money than these PvP guys. In fact it looks like these weakass PvPers who hang out in high sec and gank productive players are actually costing us money. We have to do something about that!”
No, what’s cancerous is the ganker who requires hundreds of victims per year to support his entertainment. That’s long slow death to a game’s player population. What’s cancerous is advertising your game as a ganker’s/griefer’s/scammer’s paradise for over a decade and then wondering why players leave the game. What’s cancerous is building a game around the PvP element but then designing the game to actively discourage PvP.
It’s not ‘bad players’ and ‘bad mentality’. It’s bad game design. Players stuck with it back in the day because their options and choices were limited and the game hadn’t matured. Once new options became available, and the nature of the core game became clearer - players voted with their feet.
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Yes, exactly. CCP found Null players paid them more, so they pushed everyone to Null. Players in big corps and alliances paid them more, so they pushed everyone to join big corps and alliances. Players in capital ships paid them more, so they made capital ships the one-stop solution to every need in the game.
They’ve consistently ignored “what is good for the game?” to chase “what is good for the quarterly profit numbers?”. Yes, they’re a business, they should be focused on profit - but smart businesses also realize you need a quality product if you still want to be in business 10 years later.
In the profit chasing process, they became a bloated, inefficient company who can’t understand their own code, can’t update their engine, can’t launch new products that go anywhere, can’t make major changes to their game design, can’t communicate with their player base. Hell, they can’t even QA test basic new features before they release them to see if they work!
PA needs to yank the reins in on CCP and force some accountability and rational game design. Hilmar & Co. have been living in a little space-bubble for way too long and need a serious wake-up call.
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You realise that generation in reference to time is not something that occurs in nature…someone made up a loose definition.
And are you saying the expectation of games today is the same it was 16 years ago? Or have perceptions changed?
So maybe not the original mario, but lets say another game from 2003ish. If released today you think it would have the same reaction as it did back then?
Yeah. You’ve inferred that i said carebears only joined since 2012/3 or something. I never said that and it was never what i meant.
What i was saying was that bears got what they asked for around 2012/3 when ccp gave in and nerfed core gameplay. This then opened the door for more bears that asked for more nerfs, causing a downward spiral in gameplay removal. And now, as someone put it, they’re riding it down in flames…still asking for nerfs. Still demanding that pvp players be forced to change their play.
My quotes were the general perception of such players at the time. These phrases were not uncommon when a bear cried about being ganked and demanded that high-sec should be safe. But it’s also acknowledgment that bears existed at the time…something i never denied.
Read posts before replying. Or quote my facts that are inaccurate.
They did though. Eve survival guide is just that. As are youtube vids. Do a freaking google search,
Anything to demonstrate that?
When you have to strawman to make an argument.
This would be the decade that eve’s playerbase grew every year?
And anyways;
I thought they weren’t managing expectations?
I thought players were quitting before they even logged in?
I thought players were leaving before they got ganked or scammed?
Funny how players that were killed illegally ended up being the ones that stuck around longer. Or when wardecs were nerfed and the game’s activity went down instead of up. That must really confuse you.
Pvp players seeking a sandbox that want to play a pvp sandbox…crazy!
Yet ccp had to compromise core gameplay before people started leaving in significant numbers 
So which is it?
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- Do nothing and keep only the current player base.
- Make the game attractive to the average 2020 gamer. Boosts player base at the cost of the current players all leaving.
Pick one. You sure as ■■■■ can’t have both.
They haven’t chased profits, they’ve used EVE as a source of funding for a veritable train of (failed) game projects. They just always expected EVE to fade away as their next big success came online. Why invest it an asset you (think) you’re going to retire?
But now they’ve learned their lesson… just kidding. How’s the new FPS coming, anyway?
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This is utter nonsense. There are two possible responses to ganking/scamming/etc:
- Learn the counters (keeping ship value low enough to not be profitable to gank, choosing your routes carefully, etc) and use them, and turn ganking to an advantage. Sell new ships to the people who lose stuff to suicide ganks, sell new ganking ships to the people doing the killing, and enjoy higher profits thanks to the competition getting killed before they can get to the market.
or
- Declare yourself a helpless perma-victim and go whine on the forums about how unfair PvP is and how CCP needs to make a 100% safe PvE farming game because “farmers pay the bills”.
EVE used to be a game where the first group was the target audience and EVE grew and thrived. I don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that since CCP started listening to the second group more the game has declined into a stagnant mess of boring gameplay and active player counts propped up by inane log-in reward schemes.
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This really isn’t completely true. I’ve met 3 different new players this year and they’ve stayed with the game for a few months now. I know 3 isn’t a lot, but I don’t really go out of my way to meet people.
There can be a balance. The game might tilt in a direction you don’t like, but I hope CCP tries for some kind of balance.
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Those quoted statements are not mutually exclusive. I also think they are generally accurate based upon what I heard Dev talk about at fan fests and the changes to the game during that period.