New blood, leaving eve. Not a rant

Communications Center Out Of Pod Experience
1

This is not a rant post, I will not criticize the game negatively, and I have spent about 100 or so bucks on two different omega accounts. Just going to give my point of view, on my likes and dislikes. Not after my money back either. Lets begin.

When I first began eve online, it was after years and years of hearing tales of betrayal, giant fleet fights, trading, the works. It was free to try as an alpha account, so I figured why not. I was pretty disappointed to find out that I could not fly by wire, and extremely overwhelmed by the interface. Granted not a rant again, I understand that the sheer size of the game probably doesn’t allow for that kind of thing, and its not a big deal, but it did turn me off the game when I first started and I did not touch it again for about 5 months.

Deciding to give it another go, I splurged and bought an omega account, and began doing homework, researching everything I could get my hands on from youtube and google. Once again enchanted with the tales of war and betrayal. It took a long while, learning the interface, and ship mods, fitting, etc but gradually I got there, became what I would call a novice.

So here is what I like about the game. Its huge, as far as a sand box goes, I love multiplayer pvp games, It reminds me of star trek, star ocean, star wars, imperium galactica, and of course battlestar galactica. The pvp is pretty smooth, but it is still more or less rock paper scissors, at least… 1v1. The economy is well managed, and the ships look cool, and there are a lot of ships.

And of course, There is the people. The good and the bad.

So why pray tell have I decided not to play anymore? Once again and for the last time, this is not negative criticism.

First, I have been playing games since NES so I would like to think I have a good eye when it comes to where a game is going. I have also taken a good hard look at the history of eve, the wars etc. (great stories btw).

Eve has stagnated. The upset that occurred with a huge player corporation in the last few years where that one guy betrayed everyone, and set up the leader of the corp in more or less a sting operation was probably the first time in some time that someone shook things up and changed the map significantly. There is a balance of power that will not change any time soon. Namely big groups, well established, both politically and economically are not going to domino making room for new growth, new players, new groups. People like to keep the status quo the same, so they will actively move to either assimilate or destroy up and coming threats. Understandably so, that is survival. So, I could have joined a big group, but didn’t, I don’t mind being mentored or learning from someone, but its not much fun being ordered around by a group of people, and if you dis obey coercion and thuggery ensue. (yes, its part of the game play, not complaining). Its just not fun, and I think it would be much to difficult and especially time consuming to put a dent into this status quo. One more thing on the topic of stagnation, before I move on to time consumption. One of the things I enjoy the most about playing games, is finding something someones never done before, finding an exploit, an OP advantage, that forces the game creators to rethink the dynamics of the games structure, forcing it to grow, to change. I don’t see that with eve. Perhaps its because it is so old, was so popular people found all the little loop holes and OP fits. But I’ve been screwing around with this game for a solid few months, playing multiple ships at once, just to keep my mind busy, it doesn’t feel like those holes are there.

Time consumption. Its very time consuming, working high sec to grind for a ship to go to low sec, finding a group that wont stab you in the back for lulz, or actively exploit you for digital ones and zeros, not much fun. Some people like a grind, I don’t. I like new. It takes up way to much time, and would take up way to much time to get to space overlord.

Pay to win. I payed, both accounts, and extra so I could play with ships and fits, and skip the learning skills part. (excessive btw…) Where I a richer man, with zero rats given, I would just pay real cash to crash the markets, or whatever. I understand the money making part of video games, but things have been solidly downhill since this pay to play structure has been implemented in gaming. Yes it works, yes it makes real world corps money, but the games are seriously out of wack. Just my opinion. Paying for isk actually took the fun out of it for me I think, I can only imagine how bored the trill isk account players must get in that box.

Fun. losing it all adds a significant adrenaline and emotional attachment factor to the game, no doubt. Day z, unturned, etc… great games, great heart thumping games, and this brings me to my last point, and full circle. Other sandbox games, have a reset, a wipe etc (something that will never and rightly so never happen in eve). When I log into rust, or unturned, etc… I expect to lose, absolutely everything, either a system crash, raided, or the wipe, I know I am going to lose it all. Its the journey that makes it fun, its the experience, the, that was new factor. I don’t get that with this game. Joining a mega corp, to me, its just “power overwhelming”. Loses its fun after an hour or so.

So. So long eve, so long player base, I wish I had played opening day, from the beginning of the journey, and I realize I have not given any suggestions or constructive criticism, so… having never been freighter ganked and noticing the forums today in regards to suicide fleets here is my solution.

Increase the hit to the security status when a player attacks or kills another player in highsec. People who suicide gank are of course going to defend themselves and their opinions, but several posters where correct, the risk reward equation is way off… and its probably the last loop hole eve will ever see for players to exploit. shrug I always just run cargo’d out throw away ships named scanner to get around those blockades lol. Really a no brainer.

ADIOS IM BURNING MY ISK

5 Likes
2

It’s clear you don’t understand this game at all. And going by your killboard 0 and 12 record, all with really, really bad fits I think it’s fair to say this point is a fact.

But good news, it’s not to late for you. You seem to realize that the social aspect in eve is important. But you only mention the bigger groups in game, again correctly grasping the negatives of being in such large groups. Yet you seem to fail to recognize that eve quite literally also has hundreds of smaller, competent, and quite more relaxed groups of players. In fact, you could even say wormhole space was designed purely to encourage small but tight nit groups. Frankly, if you don’t at least try playing eve in a good Corp, you really haven’t played the game at all. Same goes for 1v1 pvp, it’s a pale shadow of the real thing.

2 Likes
3

if you have to say it’s not a rant more than once it’s probably a rant.

Sounds like you paid, but never won. There is a saying goes something like: it’s about the journey not the destination. Sounds like you tried to skip the journey, the time taken to learn skills is also time taken to learn how to use those skills, buying SP isn’t always a straight forward gain.

3 Likes
4

The way I read it, you have several personal preferences that are at odds with enjoying the game. The very 1st thing I notice is your criticism of the game’s movement/control system. It seems like you have a preconceived notion of how it should be, and when it didn’t match up with that notion, you were dispensation. People who like EVE tend to be the kinds who enter into things without such notions.

Another thing I notice is that you seem to care about progression and ‘keeping/catching up’ (I get this from you saying you wish you’d played from the beginning). Normal MMO makers take such feeling into account and accommodate them with faster leveling and in some cases making the best loot available in some shop or something.

EVE has always been an ‘anti-mmo’ MMO in this regard. There is no need to catch up because by specializing and learning the game you can be the equal of any other player given enough time and experience. And there are so many quick ways to make money in this game, the wealth of the old entrenched powers amounts to next to nothing.

“New powers” rise all the time. There was now Brave Newbies when I started playing and lots of the old groups are gone. The biggest group now (Goons) made a nmae for itself by trashing the established powers of the day, and there is zero reason this can’t be done again, well, except that no one wants to try because people nowadays are so afraid of failing at something.

I’m sorry you didn’t like EVE, and EVE isn’t perfect, but there is a reason people are still playing it.

3 Likes
5

Playing and enjoying the matured EvE needs some self discipline and proper goal setting IMO… and this strict anti-P2W and anti-out-of-game-shortcuts. If something can be solved with money, more alts, joining the biggest blob but kills the good feeling of accomplishment and gradual progress, don‘t throw money at it, don‘t do it. The only person who can really ruin your game is you.

… and making a fool of yourself by echoing the anti-ganker stereotype in your last paragraph does not help your narrative.

6

I’m someone who also like to find exploits, always manage to do so :cloud_with_lightning:

I can tell you there are really juicy ones when it comes to fleet battles, which can have huge impacts, which in eve has an interesting infinite chain reaction on global scale, for solo pvp, I never did that, but might be exploits as well although I’m pretty sure it’s more difficult than for larger fleet complexity - to balance all trillion different configurations :cold_sweat:

Before you burn out of eve online I should suggest to join our corporation pandemic horde, it’s the best corporation in new eden to have a good time with, certain entities in new eden are so mad of how much fun we have they start using amateur psychological warfare to make people feel as bad as they are, that’s the only downside. :bird:

Currently the goons are finally invading our space it’s hilarious, you should join in the boat, you’ll have a great time you wont regret :rage:

2 Likes
7

“EvE too easy so I quit”

Uh huh. Sure thing, man.

2 Likes
8

He does have a point when he says he wishes he played from day one, man, Eve is complete crap compared to the days where low sec was actually scary and had some of the best players in it. Miss the days when the Raven was the toy to get for low sec solo pvp. Now you fly anything larger than a destroyer in low sec, you got a horde of noobs following you around.

1 Like
9

Have you considered making your ISK in low sec? If you know how to survive there it’s a great place to make ISK. If you don’t know how to survive there, the best way to learn is by living there.

1 Like
10

Ahahahahaha…you’d need to be rather rich to crash even a single market as they are typically fairly thick and in doing so you’d kinda waste a chunk of your fortune to…crash a game market? Okay whatever.

Why should anyone take you even seriously after this?

2 Likes
11

I love long posts, but I also want a TLDR at the bottom.

12

Paying for things with real money is definitely a double edged sword. I think you can ruin the EVE experience if you’re not careful.

Someone private messaged me the other day to ask my advice on buying large skill injectors. He ended up buying several and injecting his way to content that should have taken him far longer to access. He immediately seemed to regret it and said ‘I feel like the game is just pay to win now’.

:thinking:

13

This game attracts new players with its possibilities. Examples of wars and betrayals, think of what YOU can do. So yes, if you take a shortcut to get to the end (paying for ISK), it’ll ruin the attractiveness of the game for you.

EVE does have hard caps, but they are so far away, and they are attainable (if you spend 10+ years training, or spend thousands of dollars). The message that this system is supposed to deliver to you is “stop yourself” at “good enough”.

Anybody can throw a bigger ship at a smaller enemy and win, that’s not an accomplishment. So many people have this plan (I’ll just train until I’m ready to fly THIS ship), but it’s not attainable because there’s always a bigger ship, or if not, a bigger coalition that can jump on you when you undock. The guy who undocks in his frigate from day 1, tutorial not even finished, skills … screw the skills, and manages to kill someone, explore wormholes, find himself in null, etc., that guy gets the game. This game is about the tactics, and the social interaction with others, it’s not about how to fly the ships, really, much like chess is not about how to move the pieces.

So, TLDR of what you did wrong:

  • paid for ISK - this is ok in moderation, maybe get a few boring support skills out of the way or avoid grinding, but if you sink thousands into the game you’re irresponsible

  • stayed in high-sec - high-sec is a newbie zone, poorest rewards, biggest concentration of mindless drones who insist on grinding ISK in the worst possible area, so they can sit in station and dream of how great they’ll suddenly and magically be on October 17, 2019, when they’re finally ready to undock.

  • entitled to high quality “content” - them big wars only happen once in a while because they are expensive for all sides; people do fly and lose the 5 billion ISK supers. I can tell you that in its infancy, and even at its peak, we’d get maybe a war in the summer, and another war by someone else in the winter, with periods of recuperating in between. And the smaller skirmishes don’t get publicized, especially not here, but if you head over to Reddit you’ll see they’re every month or so. But ultimately, those big alliances play for themselves, not to put on a show for you, so if you want a show you’ll have to join them, and create a show with your own ships in the pile.

  • exploits - do not play for finding exploits. Seriously, you’ll get banned. If you enjoy finding exploits, head over to the test servers and put in the work to find exploits, every time they push out a patch, and report said exploits. But don’t mix gameplay with exploits because you will get banned.

Otherwise, you’re making the right decision; if you don’t enjoy the game don’t play it.

1 Like
14

Hey OP great write-up in my opinion. I share your views in a lot of ways - especially the pay for ISK thing with PLEX. I personally won’t buy PLEX or use alts, because for myself that would break the game for me. I play on the same server as everyone else though so of course I have to play against people with multiple accounts and credit cards but I never felt at any real disadvantage. The game is more fun for me to play that way and I wouldn’t talk down to anyone else who chooses the multiple account route.

The game is also stagnant for myself but I may have finally hit my peak and simply plateau’d as far as who I am in game and what I can do with just one account/character.

The time it takes to play this game is probably my biggest complaint but that’s really just the reality in my work:life balance right now. Eve’s amazing and changed my life - so glad you got to try it and thanks for playing with us if you’re really all done.

1 Like
15

Something that I find rather offputting about your assessment is the focus entirely on null coalitions. Null is…special. It marches to the beat of its own drum. Highsec may be a carebear haven, but high and low especially are constantly evolving. The nature of the bears is slowly changing while the methods and tactics of griefers further evolve. Lowsec meta also has changed with time.

If you’re looking to join a nullsec bloc you will be bossed around somewhat and you’ll find things relatively stagnant. But at least the groups I fly with are constantly experimenting and trying new things. Small groups are constantly upsetting the established systems and finding new ways to create content.

16

Just wanted to sign in and say thank you again for the invite to horde, I really hope you guys take the initiative and control the frame with goon swarm, its obvious as an outsider to the conflict that there is heavy social dynamics at work in their organization (manipulative psychological warfare). It would be impressive if it didn’t feel like they where malicious at the heart of the orginization. They seem very interested in eliciting negative emotional reactions.

Eve online, one of the best social proof advertisement campaigns I have personally witnessed btw.

Other posters, yes my fits sucked thats why I died, not why I am leaving.

To sum it up. Leaving because its a giant time vacuum. People aren’t wrong when they say eve is like having a second job. And I would imagine considering the brilliant display of advertisement, social proof commercials on youtube etc, that the mechanics of the game have been specifically engineered to be a time suck. First saw that happening with world of warcraft as it progressed through the years. Not knocking it, brilliant display of social understanding. I just don’t have the time to spend on it.

And, its NOT an easy game loool. I took the last month and a half off to explore the bottom rung of the game, high sec = about 10-20 mill an hour speed running sites and clearing data, about the same for class one wormholes and mining (boring btw), and from my research your looking at about 60 mill an hour the next rung up, and after planetary interaction etc the numbers jump significantly, but thats about 300+ hours of gameplay if you are solo to that point. Now if you join an established corp already, you can plex yourself reasonably fast, but is it really worth spending that much time in game vrs an hour at a real world job? Not in my opinion. The real fun is in pvp, and this style of pvp isn’t for me :smiley: glad you like it tho.

On the topic of rich, If I where a multi millionaire sci fi fan just out for the troll, I would start by flooding the market with plex (dont knock it, google what someone paid for brit spears used chewing gum. Just thinking about it tho, any kind of real world competition in the gaming industry could even engage in economic warfare by attacking eve s market in this manner. kind of like when suicide fleets gank haulers and control the ship building industry :smiley:

Anyhoot, no thanks. I had recently spent a bill or so on multiple astero strats, and some battleships, as well as a tier 3 destroyers. (multiple ships, for easy re shipping) So I might log in just to blow stuff up, I have about 3 weeks left to burn that isk.

But there is not a snow balls chance in hell I am going to grind sleeper sites and null sec looking for profit to replace losses. Way to slow… and to put it in perspective I took three months off to completely explore world of warcraft and managed to monopolize a corner of the market, and hit just about every raid dungeon at the time etc. (dont ask… took a year in the gym to work that one off)

good hunting peeps. I look forward to hearing about goonswarms demise and or victory.

17

image
learningcurve.jpg800×777 49.1 KB

is all I got out of this.

3 Likes
18

I think you ‘drank the kool aid’ were gsf are concerned- not a criticism, but a lot of people coming from other games don’t realy get what people mean when they say ‘playing the meta’ or ‘gsf excel at metagaming’.

manipulative psychological warfare is how null blocs do propaganda, its part of war, all war
sometimes one thinks one has a true grasp of an entities motives and that elicits an emotional response
which may have been the point of the propaganda all along.

otherwise, I do wish eve came with a warning label
’you can pay to jump through your skill que, but you will miss valuable lessons along the way, as well as a sense of accomplishment, and it wont make you win, just frustrated’

How could you win eve? Well if you don’t enjoy one way is to uninstall it I guess-
Some say The Mittani won eve- but that is just propaganda grrrrrr gons evil gons

but what about wormhole corps who have their own politics- you could give them a go
or signal cartel- be one of the good guys and map out space
or low sec piracy
OR Faction Warfare where you can make 100mil + an hour, doing PVP solo or in fleets, without having to worry about null entities at all- though the militia have their own version of psy ops and propoganda
or join Horde
or even Karmafleet and realise the difference between propaganda and reality?

The game will only stagnate when we lose players who realise they CAN change things-
so you aren’t going to form the next GSF?

Weren’t they a bunch of noobs in shitfit frigates who destroyed the most elite PVP alliance in the game BOB, and the story goes, it was because a BOB director realised he was having more fun on his goon spai alt than his BOB character, and thus…

14 years of stories on the internet and youtube videos and wizard hats,
If you don’t enjoy don’t play,
but don’t let your feelings about the state of Null or the behaviour of Null entities put you off, until you at least try Null.

My advice, and nothing worse than unasked for advice, is don’t stagnate in highsec, you wont make money there unless you like trade and industry or get into incursions and you wont have the skills for that

contact Diablo in game and join Horde (or Karmafleet) and just give it one more go
I don’t know if HORDE have SRP, but if you join a corp with SRP in NUL you will make plenty of isk, get help replacing your ships, ,and get a chance to learn the game.

You wont have to spend too much time, really the grind is a lie in eve, its the MMO where you can skip the grind a bit by being good or making friends, and just log on for pings and try out some fleets?

Honest, if its not for you why would you do it, but I get the impression you DO like aspects of it and maybe eve has not revealed herself fully yet, maybe give her one more try?

Also there are smaller corps in these large blocs that will take you, and you shouldn’t be ‘bossed about’, if you don’t like how you are dealt with you can leave, but you will have to learn how to behave on combat coms or you will just get exploded and your mates exploded.

TLDR:
Go on, have another go, help Diablo kill gons that (allegedly don’t want to be sued for defamation by anyone) might be spamming their corp mail, or join evil gons and get help learning how to afk rat safely or mine for big isk while assisting your fellows in the odd fleet.
Or wormholes------

Or if you want solo only its a v. hard game then, you will need more diplomacy skills and a thick skin, and to be able to make a lot of isk without relying on grinding.

even my TLDR are too long, sorry, even more time sink

1 Like
19

This was moved from General Discussion to Out of Pod Experiences

20

It is well known that Eve is a demanding game. It truly is not for everyone. Some might say it’s not for anyone…but that’s for another time.

I didn’t think your post was a rant. Actually a pretty well thought out opinion I’d say. But here’s the thing. Many of the gripes you pointed out were, in fact, some of the reasons I still play after all this time. I actually LIKE sitting in my Retriever in a belt for hours on end mining. I actually like status quo. I know that many others do too. Weird isn’t it. But no different than people who run quests in WOW over and over again with characters that they run up to level 60 or so and bump off, just to do it all again (guilty).

Eve is whatever you want. I like it as a time sink. A place to go veg out ratting in .6, mining in .9, selling stuff I manufactured, doing a lame agent mission and watching ships come and go in Dodixie. I don’t get into much else…intentionally.

Good luck wherever you go. Glad you tried Eve and discovered it wasn’t for you. Better than those who spend a small fortune trying to get into games that they find out they’re really not good at.

2 Likes