I bought like 6 months of Omega a couple months ago but I don’t think I’ve logged in for a couple weeks now. I was asking myself, what I should play tonight and then I was like Eve? Nah.
Although there’s probably a couple causes of my burnout feeling, my main gripe is the same across all activities: I feel as if this game doesn’t respect my time. In any other game these days, you get notified when a fight is ready to happen, or in some asynchronous games you even get a long time to respond (I’m currently playing a 4x game called Solium Infernum). But in Eve you put in some eyedrops and stare at dscan for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 45 minutes at a time. Missing the jump by even a few seconds can get you popped, it can get your entire fleet popped, and this is extra frustrating when you’re already competing against multiboxers, people dropping billions on their ship or just massive disparities in numbers to begin with.
I know that people are attached to the active dscan gameplay but I continue to believe that the devs can do better with the passive parts. Surely there is some way to keep the active gameplay elements of dscan in without making people stare at a little window while they manually pulse the button for literally as long as they are willing to do it for. The fact that this is a core part of all aspects of gameplay makes everything else in the game feel like a waste of time. Considering that I literally can’t think of a single other game on the market that has a mechanic like this, it’s really just bizarre. The game begins to feel like some kind of bizarre punishment and not even a game. As bots continue to proliferate and literally no one else runs their game in this way, I don’t see how Eve can expect to remain attractive to a normal gamer who learns how this kind of core mechanic works. I’ve had to conclude that Eve is not even really trying to appeal to normal gamers at this point, but only to multiboxing credit card scripters and actual autists who like staring at the little window looking for text for 45 minutes at a time.
Anyways I’ve certainly had some fun with the game but the time investment to gameplay return just doesn’t mesh with my life, to the point where I’d rather waste the money I put in than continue logging in to stare at the little window for hours at a time.
Thanks Princess Aiko, I am a huge fan. I want to be clear that I don’t dislike the game. I actually very much like the game – when I feel like I’m actually playing.
Auto-repeating d-scan combined with filters which is already possible and a sound that plays if it picks up something is a big boost in QoL for gankers among others. So ganking counter-measures should be introduced at the same time.
In that case I would like to propose high slot modules that protect against ship and cargo scanners respectively. Haulers usually have a few high slots that aren’t being used anyway.
How should the modules work? I lean toward them being active modules that can auto-repeat like any other module. If they are not activated you can be scanned.
This type of module will boost trade in high-sec and lead haulers to carry bigger more valuable loads. Newbies will still be flying without them and veterans will forget to turn it on sooner or later and will pay the price then. So yea that’s how you do it. But lets see.
All I can say is make friends who form up fleets, then you’ll get notified when a fight is ready to happen. Or throw down a structure, then you’ll get an asynchronous notification that a fight will happen when it gets reinforced. Toss together some guys and defend it. Otherwise D-Scan is just a tool in the toolbox of hunting, feel free to ship into a T3D or combat faction exploration ship and combat probe people down who flee you instead (eg: have heard w/ hyperspatial polarized blaster imicus navy can be fun).
The power disparities are what they are, just gotta live with them and dodge or outplay them.
imo, we should get a passive dscan that updates just like the overview does. Not change the current one, just another one. Or, failing that, a check box in the current dscan to auto cycle repeatedly.
Having to punch v (or spacebar for those of you who have upgraded) is just mindless tedium.
Auto DScan does not address any of the OPs core complaints. You can reread the whole first post pretending it exists and it would not meaningfully change the meaning and intent.
Not just D-Scan watching, unfortunately - EVE is riddled with boring time-sinks. Travelling multiple jumps, scanning multiple sites, mining, manufacturing, etc. etc. Even a lot of the fighting is pretty slim on action.
EVE’s style of “wait, wait, waaaait for it, okay play a bit, now back to waiting” has it’s fans I guess, but I agree that essentially it doesn’t respect player time investment at the level other games do. CCP has also been kind of notorious over the years of expecting players to put EVE as a high priority in their life and schedule around it.
However there are people who apparently enjoy that, although fewer of them every year. If it weren’t for multi-accounts and Alpha accounts the EVE numbers would be looking pretty grim compared to earlier years. Still, the game is pretty enough that I log in for my half-hour or so a week, and look around. And then I work out how long it will take me to do anything very productive, and I log back out and move on to a game where I can get twice the action in half the time.
I don’t think “EVE Forever” is going to hold up all that well once the aging playerbase starts to burn out and they’re not retaining many new players. Hopefully someone else will come along with a space MMO with a better tempo.
I agree there’s more to it than just that, but it would help alleviate it a bit.
Also, to those who think passive dscan would mean less kills. I’m fairly certain that’s incorrect. People would be less attentive toward it since they’re not hitting the button all the time, and would likely have a lower reaction time. Not everyone, but I think the average reaction speed would decrease. Especially if passive dscan was a button you’d press that would only make it automatic for 30 minutes.
If you’re plexing alone, it can be a tiresome process. It’s no wonder bfs were immediately popular when they arrived, and it wasn’t just for the reward. That was certainly a big part of it, but it does feel a lot more engaging than sitting on the beacon and waiting for the timer to expire.
Some of the op’s complaints are just due to the nature of the game being an open world MMO, and those wont change. MMO’s with real time objectives that can pop off at any time (because other people have agency too) is a much different beast than a single player experience that caters to the player.
Well to be fair, the people of New Eden are pretty skittish on automation due to the rogue drones. That doesn’t stop the forward march of it, but there is a lot of pushback.
It does seem like auto dscan should be allowable though.
My understanding of why it isn’t currently in the game, has to do with technical constraints, but in 2024 we’re likely beyond that point where those concerns are relevant. And even if there’s issues there, a limited auto dscan (press a button and it’s active for 30-60 minutes) would mitigate most of the potential issues.
Almost every activity in EVE could be automated. Killing NPC pirates, mining, ganking, transportation, travel, trading… in a far future it would all be automated (and today too: many of these things already are botted).
The problem is that once everything is automated, there is no more gameplay. It’s just a pretty screensaver at that point.
EVE is a game because it has many actions that either require a time sink to create artificial value to the activity or require meaningful choices made by players about when to engage or what ammo to use, which technically all could be automated but isn’t automated because this is a game.
The negative responses to the idea of automating D-scan just reinforce the hidebound nature of a vocal minority of the Eve player base. Some are just so wedded to the ideas of the past that they refuse to see how the outdated parts of the game are holding it back.
CCP really needs to focus on reworking many of the core aspects of the game to bring them up to more suitable standards for an evolving, dynamic and younger player base. I suspect the reason they don’t is because it would take a great deal of work and the nature of the antique codebase they have to work with.
Combat is 90% boredom, 10% sheer terror. So I’ve been told anyway. I still remember the chill that ran up my spine the 1st time someone said, “Goons are coming.” (And “not for horses”, lol) Thats when you know you have to put your money where your mouth is. We won. Don’t ask me how, but we did. I felt on top of the world after that fight and never looked back…
I rather enjoy d-scan as it is. That way when someone flies in thinking they have another snowflake to pop, they only find my ion trail. Sometimes I even let them get to visual range 1st. (If I have the time)
D-scan is the local chat in a worm hole. (Had to spell out wh for the snowflakes)
