How to get more people to play eve

A lot of new explorers skip straight from High/Low-Sec sites to Wormholes and Null-Sec (especially when they realize the drop rate difference, or join a corporation)

If anything, it would free up more sites for experienced players to take.

Solstice
A lot of new players are starved of ISK, and when they try to do something about it they find the farmers you (accurately) describe. This has two effects:

  • They don’t get the ISK they need to be able to “fly only what they can afford to lose”
  • They learn something negative about CCP and “sandbox EVE”

Some stay anyway, but the process filters out players who like PvP but hate grinding.

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… they’re supposed to go out and buy plex to overcompensate …

This is what you get as goalposts and restrictions when the commercial model is rooted entirely in cognitive behaviour but the game design of the actual product faces required social behaviour stimuli.

Don’t make the mistake that CCP considers the present bottlenecks as unwanted or even unwarranted. To a degree they are even correct, a lot of bottlenecks are the domain of perception (which does not make them non-factors, on the contrary).

This is another filter for new players.

If WH exploring or nullSec corps (neither of which are the easy path people so often claim) are the most practical way to get set up in EVE, what’s the rest of it for?

Eve is not for everybody.

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This is what I meant earlier by CCP “hiding behind the sandbox / emergent behavior mantra”.

This has been 90% of CCP’s philosophy of EVE: let the game as it is select players who like it as it is.

It’s worked for a long time. But if it ever became necessary to design EVE’s game-play, who has the experience to do so? CCP?

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Elena!

Consider the past. If what you’re saying was true, this game wouldn’t exist anymore. New players, in the past, had far less ISK handed to them.

You can’t just lump them all together and declare it as truth. Of course there are new players who are, for some personal reason, starved of ISK despite being literally showered with it compared to the new players before them. Recognize the fact that it must be their fault.

You people keep ignoring past, present and the people you are talking about. There must be, de facto, plenty of new players who are not suffering from a lack of ISK, otherwise the game would be long dead already. There must be new players who lose ■■■■ and are willing to work themselves back up again, because that’s how the game is meant to be played. There must be, of course, also new players who, for some reason, lack ISK and fail at getting back up again. It must be their fault, though, because everything else is literally being equal.

All new players are supposed to go through the tutorials. Not doing so is a personal choice, with consequences being lack of skillbooks, lack of ships and lack of ISK they could have made. Should they get an extra hand-out? No! They should do the work required!

What about new players that lose their things for some reason? Well, they lose it because of personal reasons. They might have lost it in a mission, or to a ganker, or whatever. EVE’s not an arcade game. When you lose your ■■■■, work yourself back up. This has worked for over a decade, just fine!

Understand that, what these requests ultimately end with, is new players given enough ISK and SP (because that’s what it leads to: more demand, because someone will declare it’s not enough). You’re turning the game into an arcade game where people log in, do something, then log out again.

You’re ignoring the history of this game, how it progresses, how it changed. Your narrow view on a huge problem is insulting to anyone who actually spent a lot of time learning what is actually going on.

Again, fundamentally, you’re asking for something that will never solve any problems, because someone else will declare that it’s not enough. The only proper solution is to stop spoiling people more and more, because spoiling people by showering them with something only leads to spoiled people who will demand more and more and more.

CCP has tried! CCP has failed! Learn from made mistakes and especially LEARN WHAT MISTAKES WERE BEING MADE!

Your lack of understanding of how people work, your lack of understanding of EVE’s history and your lack of understanding of how EVE changed over time, with all the consequences these changes brought, is what ultimately makes it clear that you have zero understanding of what is going on.

CCP is well aware of this.
You can keep talking all you want.

It doesn’t ■■■■■■■ matter.

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Solstice

You’re describing the past accurately enough.

And if that’s also the future CCP and EVE players (and Pearl Abyss) want, there’s no reason to change anything.

If something is perfect, no change can improve it. In fact even suggesting improvement is possible is axiomatically an unjustified criticism.

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Right now CCP/PA is taking an old subscription only game and trying to band aid it with F2P, simplified mechanics, and “live services”. Ensuring pretty much no one is happy with the result.

So, here’s what they need to do. Scrap the current iteration and remake it from the ground up to attract the MMO players of 2020 and not the near extinct dinosaurs from 2003. Then they could also make it back into the cold harsh universe that it used to be.

You can certainly have a hardcore game that people want to spend time in. Just not this game, at this time in history.

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Well, there is always some retard citing the number of players in Fortnite or Overwatch as if that is relevant to EVE. (Also note that CCP did try unsuccessfully to build a shooter, so there is that too.)

The biggest failure of the EVE new player experience is that it doesn’t teach players that loosing ships can be fun as long as you occasionally also kill other people. Due to the way killboards count the kills it is almost impossible to stay killboard negative.

There are multiple alliances in nullsec that hand out free ships and other stuff to new players, so lack of ISK is not really a good reason not to play.

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The only difference in raising the abysmal High/Low-Sec drop rates, will be that players can learn progressively about the game, without starting in instant death zones.

Do not confuse this, with giving more ISK to players. It is not. It would not giving more ISK to newer players. It would be allowing them the freedom to learn/play the game at the rate they are content with.

Raising the drop rates for High-Sec / Low-Sec sites will barely make any difference in the drop prices. If anything, it would raise the prices. Experienced players will still all go to Null-Sec, as it would be the fastest way to progress.

Instead of telling players you must go to death zones to earn any decent amount of ISK, they would instead have the choice to expend risk for more reward. People like choices. Even if they have the choice and they make a bad choice, people are happier with more options.

The original question was what would entice newer players to join. This would help keep newer players. Solstice is more than entitled to his opinion on how to play the game. Players can choose how they want to play though, and don’t have to listen.

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Your facts are very wrong. I do low sec relic sites all the time, 50-75 mil are very common in certain regions. Perhaps you need to continue your research.

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I can tell you the expected value of every site in the game, for every faction, for every level.

You would earn up to 4x as much running Null-Sec.

Congratulations on your anecdotal experience of incredibly erratic drop rates, and getting very lucky.

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I am not lucky, I have run thousands of relic sites in certain areas of low sec. It is no trouble to get 50-75 mil for a higher level relic site. Your “expected” values are wrong.

What were the names of the sites?

What were the levels?

What were the factions?

Assuming you’ve been playing for a year, this makes you one of the “farmers” that are between new players and improved income.

Of course EVE is perfect, but if it wasn’t, and one dared to comment, it might be this:

  • It makes sense for players to earn ISK in the most efficient way they can find
  • Less capable and/or skilled players will be less efficient
  • Minimally capable and skilled/experienced players will have the lowest income

The more efficient players are simply playing well, doing what works best for them. This can’t be criticized.

But what if there are beginners who have good reason to be concerned that they don’t earn enough ISK? Burn them or help them?

EVE says “burn”. EVE players say “burn”.

I honestly have no idea about names, but levels were 4-5 and sometimes a very lucky 3. Find relic site, run relic site, collect loot, pretty simple.

Also, if I included the names, that would give you an idea of the regions. :wink:

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In low sec everything is up for grabs. I run sites in a very specific, very quiet pocket. Sometimes, my income rises very nicely when some poor explorer enters my domain, and is on the wrong end of my guns. :laughing:

I think Tipa’s idea is the best one. Depleting resources are the best way to shake up EvE, especially null sec. Force them to move around and search for what they need, not just have it spawn every 15 minutes or so in x system. I have suggested that ice belts should be made into cosmic sigs and have them spawn in various locations.

The downside would be that messing with resources would turn the markets inside out, but that may be what’s needed to get some excitement back in the game.

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This is a good thing. Eve needs to have an apocalypse, and then we need to get back on our feet.

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