Introducing The Winter Expansion - EVE Online: Lifeblood

[Arrendis]

@Jin_taan

I’m not getting why group PvE is something that can’t work on a casual basis when it does in other areas of the game.

Oh, that’s easy, Jin’taan: because ‘in other areas of the game’, we’re already organized and have a number of social connections. FW has the militias. Lowsec has the corps and alliances. NS has groups like Provi, Horde, Goons… we have an easy time organizing group PvE because we’re already attracting the people who want to do things with other people.

The folks in HS who’d most need a ‘group finder’ need one because they don’t want to play in groups. Plenty of people in HS do want to. And they already do. They’d also the HS players most likely to migrate the J-space, or to low-sec, run mining fleets, etc etc. They’re already hooked into the meta of ‘most of the content in the game is stuff you do while chilling with friends’. It’s the other HS players who need more content.

[Buoytender_Bob]

Well stated!

[DeMichael_Crimson]

Gotta say I’m really sick and tired of seeing Low sec, Null sec and W-hole players constantly inferring they know what High sec players want.

How about staying in your own backyard and stop trying to change our backyard into a duplicate of your own.

[Jin_taan]

I’m not opposed to the idea of giving more mission content to solo players, but it becomes a question of priority. Is dev time better spent making a mission for hisec players who’s average time spent in the game is minimal (1~ y on average) or on the people who stay here and build the communities that last a decade? If it is, how much content needs to be added? How successful has previous solo content (like burners) been on increasing people’s engagement with PvE? How much does giving players a prince to save as well as a princess really change the games fundamental PvE problems of being about 10 years out of date and not really having the option to change without modifying the core systems of the game? These are the deeper questions that I don’t see people asking when it comes to the “New Solo Content” that people perceive a need for.

That said, the points you made on needing a group finder are 100% valid, and sidles up right along with the need for “Social Groups” in EVE, to allow people to interact with each other and share channels and feel like a group without the need for the risks or benefits that corporations provide. But that’s a long term “roadmap” style vision for me.

[Yiole_Gionglao]

@Arrendis

The folks in HS who’d most need a ‘group finder’ need one because they don’t want to play in groups. Plenty of people in HS do want to. And they already do. They’d also the HS players most likely to migrate the J-space, or to low-sec, run mining fleets, etc etc. They’re already hooked into the meta of ‘most of the content in the game is stuff you do while chilling with friends’. It’s the other HS players who need more content.

Yeah, the ‘other’ ‘80% of highsec, 67% of the game, 95% of new players’ HS players. A completely neglectable tiny bunch, you see.

[Buoytender_Bob]

I’m saddened that a CSM member thinks CCP development are unable to put in place a random mission generator, a technology
/programming that has been used in MMOS for over a decade. That doesn’the change the core of EVE, nor force anyone to play in that style. My solo play is full of group activities outside of missions, but CCP’ shouldn’t spend their small development resources duplicating an already existing mechanic/gameplay at the cost of introducing new content in a field left generally alone for over a decade.

[Querns]

@Yiole_Gionglao

Yeah, the ‘other’ ‘80% of highsec, 67% of the game, 95% of new players’ HS players. A completely neglectable tiny bunch, you see.

These are interesting numbers. Got a source for them?

[Arrendis]

Well, again, most of us do things in a variety of areas of the game, and don’t want them homogenized.

[Jin_taan]

@Yiole_Gionglao

Yeah, the ‘other’ ‘80% of highsec, 67% of the game, 95% of new players’ HS players. A completely neglectable tiny bunch, you see.

That 67% is oft-repeated but ill founded. It was 67% of characters, not players. I suspect a percentage of that is almost assuredly alts, but yes, the majority of overall players (or close to it) do reside in Hisec.

[Yiole_Gionglao]

You know, there is nothing wrong with missions. Only that it’s been the same missions for 13 years and none new has been added since 2010.

Missions are a perfectly fine content, they’re just too few and haven’t been expanded for too long. If that was ever adressed (maybe as DMC asks, building mission chains which could be completed one step at a time), more discussion could happen.

You know, there was one thing that I enjoyed while it lasted… entosing abandoned Jove observatories. I lost a lot more money (and ships) to the Drifters than what the Antykitheras were worth, but I did just for FUN. That kept me subscribed until CCP trainwrecked the Drifter arch with group content outside of highsec, and topped with a broken Incursion AI that forced the eventual removal of the Incursions.

[Yiole_Gionglao]

It was 25% of “traditionals”, 30% of "professionals"and 12% of “socials” who never, if ever, engage in PvP and never, if ever, leave HS.

[Jin_taan]

Social PvE =/= Leaving Hisec or PvP

[Arrendis]

@Jin_taan

I’m not opposed to the idea of giving more mission content to solo players, but it becomes a question of priority. Is dev time better spent making a mission for hisec players who’s average time spent in the game is minimal (1~ y on average) or on the people who stay here and build the communities that last a decade?

Right, I get that… but that’s where it’s been. Ship rebalances tend to happen around ‘how is this ship being used in the meta?’ Cloaking changes sure weren’t about solo play. Jump fatigue? Phasing out POSes? Absolutely all of the new structure work that’s come with that? Siphons? Even burner missions are things that primarily happen in LS/NS.

So… what exactly was the last new content HS—especially solo HS—really got?

@Jin_taan

That said, the points you made on needing a group finder are 100% valid, and sidles up right along with the need for “Social Groups” in EVE, to allow people to interact with each other and share channels and feel like a group without the need for the risks or benefits that corporations provide.

Right, sure, there’s a need for that…

… but not everyone wants that. There’s a lot of people who don’t login to interact with other people. I’m not going to claim ‘I know this is typical for EVE players’, but reading the people on this thread who are saying ‘I want solo stuff’… I can’t help but think about the fact that when I do PvE… if it’s in EVE, I’m ratting, solo. I’m not in comms. I’m not talking to people. I have to put up with fleet comms, I don’t want to deal with the idiots when I don’t have to. If it’s in other MMOs… it’s always been solo. At most, I’ll duo with people on the epic storyline in LotRO, or maybe do an instance in WoW, but those times are rare.

There’s no way, especially looking at the feedback real players are giving right here, that there isn’t a sizeable amount of that in EVE’s highsec playerbase. And right now, they’re saying… to quote Kevin Smith from J&SBSB, “When, Lord, when? When’s it gonna be my time?”

[Yiole_Gionglao]

Also the roughly 60-70% of “carebears” from the old CCP-created Spanish Chat channel. It was quite revealing to know how much noise made the nullsec/PvP guys (it was a lively chat after all), compared to the horde of quiet highsec guys minding our business.

Ah, excuse me: certainly players log in their alts into chat channels too, right?

[Jin_taan]

@Arrendis

There’s no way, especially looking at the feedback real players are giving right here, that there isn’t a sizeable amount of that in EVE’s highsec playerbase. And right now, they’re saying… to quote Kevin Smith from J&SBSB, “When, Lord, when? When’s it gonna be my time?”

The answer to that was 2010 & 2016/7. Solo players had burner missions added, which could be done solo and provided a challenge - but most people chose not to engage with the content because it required a skillset they didn’t wish to engage with. Then we had the Jove Observatory content, which people in this thread have said they liked - although they felt the move to social PvE in it ruined this as they don’t want to interact with people. Then we had the bringing in of more solo based PvE events, where you could go to sites in any system and see if you got a drop, which were specifically designed as solo content and have been continuing apace through this year.

Is what you want really just more missions, when the last time more missions were added (burners), they were thoroughly rebuffed by the missioning community?

[Arrendis]

So the answer to ‘when was the last time solo HS got some dev time?’ is the Jove Observatories… which we know was an event that happened across all of EVE, not just HS, and the other short-term events like Purity of the Throne, the Agency, etc, where the response has been ‘uhm, ok, that was underwhelming’… and which were also active in all of k-space? (Except Purity, which was still high and low). And before that… with 2 major expansions a year, mind… seven years ago? So it’s been roughly half the life of the game?

And you’re saying that’s totally fair? Really? I mean, dude, I’m obviously more concerned with things in null than in high, but keeping every part of the ecosystem working does actually matter, you know?

Some of them want more missions. Some of them want more missions that aren’t necessarily ‘Lets make this totally something incredibly hard that by the way, you should group up with a buddy to do these’, which is the case with burners. They just want new missions, so they’re not watching the same damned episodes of Futurama again when they go out missioning. Procedural mission generation can’t be that insane a goal, even in EVE. It’s literally ‘here’s the random encounter tables for this part of space’ with like 3-5 additional layers of recursion to make it more complex.

Some of them want more interesting missions, maybe more storyline chains. Some even want to feel like their missions matter, just a little bit, to the setting. And really, I don’t think that’s at all unreasonable, but I don’t expect that to happen. If that happened, then jeez, we might have to address the fact that we’ve killed over 200,000,000 Blood Raider ships in Delve in the last 12 months, and many times more than that among the Guristas in the years we were up in Deklein et al. Exactly how many lives will the pirates throw away without killing a single ship? You really have to wonder, at some point, you know?

Mostly, though? They want to feel like they’re not being told ‘Jesus H. Christ, we gave you something seven years ago, and you got some of what everyone got last year. Why isn’t that enough for you people?!?’. They want to be treated like they’re paying customers, too.

[Frostys_Virpio]

@Jin_taan

Is what you want really just more missions, when the last time more missions were added (burners), they were thoroughly rebuffed by the missioning community?

Those burners are nothing like the mission they had before. If I am a wine drinker and I ask for more alcohol, you can take a bet with beer (burner missions) or you can make a safe try with more wine (same type of mission they already had).

Also, burner are pretty terrible if you are looking for something chill to do. Manual piloting + heat management to land a critical scram and web is not everyone’s cup of tea.

[Sgt_Ocker]

Jin’taan
They’re literally adding two new PvE options in hisec this patch though.

Pirate Forward Operating Bases is one, what is the second?

You surely can’t be referring to the new agency event as it wouldn’t be "new " content, just another addition to some so far poorly added thing Devs just can’t seem to make worth doing. Faction warfare style game play in highsec is doomed to failure.

What is being added for the average (solo) player - Lets see, pretty much nothing…

Time and again Devs show just how little they understand their player base and our (LOL) guiding light the CSM should just be left go the way of all other dinosaurs.

[Yiole_Gionglao]

Burners were not missions. They were PvP-like PvE. I guess it’s unironical that (in my experience) they are run and liked mostly by PvP pilots…

Personally, I considered what losses would I sustain until I mastered them, how long I would stop doing what I enjoyed doing, and what would be the potential reward if it all went right, and dismissed them.

I also took part in Operation Frostline, it went nice and initially I enjoyed it, but jumping around and chasing sites for 30-40 systems each-bloody-night grew tiresome by the end of the event.

[Arcanith_Lionheart]

Would like to see more of those mission chains that rarely sprout up that involve grabbing an item and placing it elsewhere, or maybe those weird ones that I ended up enjoying like keeping an eye to transport ships near this isolated station and you got to kill the “suspicious” transport ship. You know, missions that does not just involve killing, cause there are tons of them already.

I like reading the missions on what they offer, so new missions would give a spice on what is going on. Not like they contribute much to the lore anyway since most of them is basically “We got this problem, go solve it.”

One of the things I would definitely agree with.
Have the rats warp in while doing missions rather than that spontaneous spawn. I can understand the insta-spawn if its hidden or docked or whatever, but some missions could have them warp in, just like that Lucky Clash agency mission whenever you warped in the rat warps in.