Overall gameplay Issues

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Hello Space pilots o7

My Name is Tirador and im a very enthuisiatsic relativly new player in the World that is Eve.

This Post will be targetting the following points which i think are problematic and feature some solutions i think are reasonable. (Please read everything before you bash me in comments.)

Skill Point System
Local chat
Warping/traveling
Multiboxing
general PVP

To start (you can skip this if you dont care)

My background gaming experience is of a competetive nature. Before i started eve i used to play Counter Strike, Dota, Starcraft, Natural Selection and a few other games that are highly dependant on balance and skill. generally i managed to reach the top% in all of those games, because i enjoy learning and abusing game mechanics, including the mental warfare in those games aswell.

Why is that Important you might ask? This is not about boasting what an 1337 Elite gamer i am, but rather painting a picture that i know whats important for a decently balanced game.

I also played through a few of the X titles (X2 the threat, X3 Terran Conflict) when i felt like relaxing while playing a game. Since im almost 99% sure EVE Online is based off of the X Universe (which isnt a bad thing) i wanted to give EVE a try, to see what it is about. After a little over 2 Months of playing way to much eve, i think i grasped the idea and i very much enjoy the Game by ALOT. EVE in general is an amazing experience. That being said, the least focus (and the biggest issue) i see with EVE is the PVP aspect of the game and here is why.

Actual points start now

Skill Point System
This is without a doubt the biggest Issue i ve with the actual game. While i agree that you shouldnt be able to do everything from the start, i also think waiting literally months just to get the magic 14 up (which are needed for pretty much everything) and then having to wait for up to even YEARS to fly ships, this is the biggest turn down for new players.

Currently, the progress in EVE is way to slow and prevents people from enjoying the game. Plenty of other MMO’s have figured out, that the best way to ensure a player sticks to a game, is by making his playtime worthwhile and connecting his progress to his active playtime via XP Points usually. This concept is great and should be implemented into eve aswell.

If you are like me and want to get into PVP mainly, there is not much sense in doing so unless you have max CPU/MW and at the very least t2 gear.

Just to give you an example, in my 2 months of playtime i spent about the first 6 weeks of it exploring, which made me a total of around 30b, which i almost exclusivly spent on SP and replacing ships i lost, netting me around 13,5m SP so far.

Now you might think, “well, looks like you found a way to get SP faster grinding the game” Well yes, but during those 6 weeks the only kind of PVP experience i ve gotten is killing other defensless explorers, which i dont consider to be PVP and also i didnt gain much actual PVP experience. But the only way to make a decent amount of money as a newbro is exploring, since ratting and mining dont really pay off overall and are also very mundane, boring things to do.

My Idea to fix this, would be to let go of the 20 year old suffering mentality and embrace a new SP system that evolves around XP points, maybe like Skyrim did. Reward people for playing the game, rather than punishing them. This will attract new players aswell, which the game desperatly needs to survive for another 20 years.

Local Chat

This is a feature i absolutly think has no reason to exist in NS space. As of right now, the safest space in New Eden is Nullsec. Simply because everyone instantly has intel 10 systems ahead of your mining/ratting Position, making it almost if not totaly impossible to get a gank off unless the potential target is afk/has a stroke/is dead. They will just dock up the second you come close to their System, or at the very least enter local. This doesnt exclusivly apply to NS, but rather to all Systems with local.

How to fix?
from a lore POV Highsec having local is totally fine, these Systems are 24/7 being monitored and therefore it makes sense they have an active Update on who is in them.

Lowsec? These Systems should have a delayed updated local. There is in generall less security, therefore data might be missing, delay to update of local by 1-2 minutes, so people arent instantly warned and actually have to use D-Scan to not get ganked.

Nullsec? NO LOCAL. It doesnt make sense that local even exists to begin with. WHO is providing this information? My idea would be, Turn off local completly, place npos that can be hacked/or occupied which scan the System on a certain timer and maybe also informs them if there is a fleet of a certain size (for example, it doesnt show a total number but rather 10+ up to 29 players, then 30+ up to 100 players)
This would massivly increase the amount of actual MMO content in null, since it wouldnt consist of only big corps blopping everyone 5:1 the second they see a neut in local. It would also make PVP more attractive for small fleets up to 9, while making nullsec ratters/miners actually lose their Ship more often than once in a blue moon, reducing inflation.

Warping/Traveling

My issue with wapring is, that it pretty much only allows for PVP at gates. 90% of the time, pvp happens at a gate, because there is literally no other way to catch someone, because warping removes to possibility to do so. u go from a-b, no risk. (yes bubbles, but also only happens at a gate.)

This also limits the game ALOT. Just think about the amount of content we would have, if People actually had to travel and for example, hire guards to safely reach their destination.

What do? warping seems to be the EVE version of speeding up the game in the X series.

Now, ofc you cant just do that, since its a multiplayer game, BUT you could shrink systems.
The solution would be to REMOVE warping from the average Ship, while also shrinking the total system size, so its reasonable enough to travel without warping. Just think about the amount of content we would have IF you can catch some big haulers. They would hire people to protect them, we can shoot them, if we win we have a loot pinata, nice.

Add actual content to the systems, so its reasonable for more than 5-10 players to actively do something while they are in a system. as of right now, content in one system is done way to quick and leaves no desire to stay for longer then a few minutes, unless you are alone in there. Make traveling in EVE an adventure. (shuttles for example could be an exception, they can still warp, but have no cargo at all) so you can still reasonably switch systems. maybe set up jump bridges in HS and even LS.

Multiboxing

This is a quick one, remove it. no other reason for multiboxing to exist than CCP needing money. A problem that solves itself once they attract more new players. Multiboxing activly removes the MULTIPLAYER aspect in eve, and pretty much everyone that has been playing for more than a few years has up to 35 accounts (the most i ve seen so far atleast) which is just ridicoulus.

having an account simply to exist as a cloaked eye in WH space for example, to warn you when someone jumps in REMOVES content and is by definition effectivly cheating imo.

Remove it, stop supporting it, its very unhealthy for the game.

General PVP

This is another big one. im gonna say something very controversial, but deep down most of you will already know it - EVE PVP doesnt take actual Skill. it does require “some” skill, but fights are usually decided by rock paper scissors, leaving little to NO counterplay. While some might say, well yes this is how this game works, its very frustrating to play this way.

as i mentioned at the start i LOVE competetive games, EVE is not one of them. pvp usually consists of 1.more numbers 2. better skills 3. getting “lucky” to not being forced to fight something u cant manage.

with those 3 points alone there are a few issues already, let me elaborate.

1.Numbers. lets say you do a small ESS fleet with 8 cruisers, i ve had it happen most of the time the “natives” just drop the same amount of marauders on you. very boring, no fun to fight since its unwinnable. (not being salty here, just stating the obvious)

you could, for example, introduce certain battlefields (like FW spots) in nullsec. some may only allow for 1v1’s up to a certain ship type, others may allow “teams” for example u can choose team a or team b which both have a capacity for up to 2/5/10 player. This would allow for actual GOOD fights, instead of perma blopping people that just wanna have fun in PVP without joining a big corp and being a “F1 monkey”, which imo is the most boring thing.

  1. better skills (we already talked about it, bad design by default)

  2. if you enter null (which should be a lategame pvp funzone) enemys will, as mentioned before, have intel and just pick ships you have almost no chance of winning with increased numbers.

Very boring pvp design for everyone.

in general, eve pvp is way to costly for anyone without a decently setup up afk multibox farm. Since even if you manage to magically get a good fight in null, they ll just send reinforcements until you lose, making it very unrealistic to get out with the loot you earned, effectivly rendering good pvp plays with always a negative isk value, not a good design.

Nullsec corps have by default an unfathomable amount of isk, so they dont really care if they lose like 1k cruiser, they ll just replace it by afk “players” aka botters. in general, nullsec corps lose way to little, but i ll prob make another post about the enirety of nullsec.

This is all for now, please let me know what you think
Fly safe o7

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So the thing abour our skillpoints that sets us apart from other games since 2003 is they train real time
So while most games you get XP as you play, our SP still gains while you are asleep or at work etc.

The magic 14. Not meant to be trained all at once
You should train these in between training ship skills so you can be more proficient in a ship you are currently flying or want to fly. The 14 should not be a train first situation otherwise you get posts like this.

As far as no local on null. Lol. They tried that and a lot of f1 monkeys left the game. Look up EVE Blackout

Im not a pvp’er but i do know that you cant compare eve to x titles because eve wasnt made to be competitive pvp. No fairness no handholding no. Its meant to be brutal and unfair and see who has the biggest or most powerful. The players are who makes the content while devs give the tools and the sand.

Multiboxing…yea thats not going away. When you want to have a mining op that you need 10 ppl to mine a moon rock but you cant get 5 of your fleetmates to be online, multiboxing takes care of that.

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Magic 14 isn’t “needed” for everything… they’re useful to have. People read about the Magic 14 and get the wrong idea, I think. You don’t need to have them first : they’re solid useful skills that will generally always come in handy. The idea is, if you don’t have something else you want to train right now, stick some Magic 14 in the training queue until you have something higher priority to train.

To some extent, yes it may be a turnoff to think “Wow, it might be a year or more before I can properly fly dreadnoughts!” That said, the long-training ships and skills aren’t anything a new player should aim for/could handle anyway. They simply won’t have the EVE knowledge to do so, and it will just be an expensive killmail. And new players can be effective very soon in ships with shorter training times.

Most MMOs have significant “grind” time, whether for the skill tree or meta gear or other important game features. It’s more of an MMO thing, not an FPS thing. EVE has “time spent training” as opposed to “time spent grinding in game”, and even counts your off-line time, so it’s an interesting different take on the ‘grind’. There are also various ways to speed it up.

This has merit, and is why most games use “instant gratification” methods. They know that levelling up, getting loot drops and big glowy “achievement” announcements ring those Pavlovian bells for gamers and bring them back drooling for more. I can appreciate that CCP went with a more cerebral and less ‘visceral’ approach to game rewards. However it’s true that if you want the widest audience, you have to shoot for the lowest common denominator.

But CCP has never sought the widest audience, and is somewhat committed to their unique approach even if it means fewer players and less dollars.

This requires context: If you mean “want to get into PvP and be modestly competitive” then yes. But it also means you’ll still be outclassed as a newer PvPer and your killmails will just be more expensive.

If you mean “I want to start learning the ropes and tricks of PvP with cheap disposable ships and gaining hands-on experience and muscle memory” (which you really should), then no this isn’t true. You can be doing PvP in under a week in disposable T1 frigates and learning valuable personal skills while letting your SP train up.

I don’t have time for more right now, you’re off on the Local and Multi-box issues but you’ll find out why after more time in the game. General, small-scale PvP, you’re a bit off but yes, it’s too mechanistic; and only really appeals in the long run to a very limited audience. But I’d say you’re thinking of PvP in tactical terms, and EVE PvP is probably more about thinking strategic terms. It’s again the cerebral vs. visceral approach.

And yes, EVE PvP ‘costs’ generally outweigh the ‘rewards’, but that’s a whole different discussion.

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I do kind of wish the Devs would chill on the Rank V requirement for skills. Make 3~4 the upper limit, and leave V for mastery.

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I have Alpha accounts flying 800 DPS battlecruisers on just 2 million SP…all within weeks.

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We rotate alpha accounts flying gilas or what not on the soe arcs within a few days of creation. Hardly no m14. I think one of us got the arc down to 2 hrs but not with a gila

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Thought I’d give an actual example…this is a 2.5 month old Alpha…thats like 10 weeks. Would be ( in fact is for some of my chars ) just 5 weeks for an Omega. So it really doesn’t take years to get into something with lots of DPS, good tracking, warp disruptor…etc etc. An Omega can get this fitting to almost 1000 DPS within 2 months.

gnosis_800_DPS
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Thanks for the example, im sitting in my loki. But thats not my point…

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According to the developers, Eve Online evolved from the classic computer game Elite, which itself was based on concepts from the science-fiction role-playing game Traveller

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The closest thing to Eve when it came out was probably Homeworld…which used a very similar ‘grid’ system. Gosh…some of the stations in Homeworld even look like Amarr stations.

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A wiki suggests that elite inspired gta and the x games as well. Interesting

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of course not…
Your point is moan about how EvE is not like other SINGLE player games.

This is an MMO, and its unique compared to most others, for several reasons.

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i think you didnt read my post then, since i am complaining about the LACK of multiplayer in eve.

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Being 100% serious here… You can swipe the credit card to buy literally SP from CCP in the form of their packs. Also, if you “leave” EVE online and comeback you get “exclusive” offers to buy tons of SP also (40+mil in many cases). Finally, you can also swipe the credit card to buy tons of plex (sell that for ISK) and buy tons of Large Skill Point injectors. This is how CCP makes a good portion of their money.

Do you want instant gratification or to slow train (with good training implants) and wait a little longer. Most t1 stuff all the way to BS is pretty easy to get into. CCP hands out 500k SP every event they do.

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There is plenty of multiplayer on eve, the thing is though instead of relying on others folks would rather use multiboxing. Unless you can get in with small gangs for pvp.

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why do you all solely focus on the SP portion of the game? as mentioned, im sitting at 13.5m currently without paying real money.

  1. It doesnt change the fact, that the SP system is outdated and leaves alot to desire for actual improvement through gameplay

  2. It still takes to long. There is almost no game which gives “instant gratification” that would be a very short term thing, like a few weeks. no one is complaining about not having access withhin weeks, its more about YEARS, which isnt realistic.

As i mentioned earlier, one of the biggest reasons for a lack of new players is the SP system, since you are competing with guys that have been playing for years. I dont think its healthy for a game to reward someone for simply paying 24 months omega, never playing the game, coming back and having millions of SP not activly playing the game.

Time spent in a game, should give you rewards, simple as that. Hence why the current SP system is stopping the game from attracting new players, its not a secret since its probably the biggest thing people complain about.

But thats only one point of my thread, there are also others, so please dont solely focus on that.

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A rather absurd suggestion. We’re talking about 1000s of metres per second vs 1000 times the speed of light. Warp speed is around 100 million times faster than sub-warp speed. So if you reduced the size of Oipo ( for example…one of the largest systems in Eve ) so a sub-warp hauler could do it in a minute, a ship doing warp would do it in a millionth of a second or so.

Sub-warp ships are doing a few miles per second at most. Fast warp ships are doing the distance from the Sun to Jupiter in one second.

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I was simply responding to OP.

Years for what?! Titans? Supercaps LOL?

All sub cap ships I know for a FACT do NOT take years to train lol

Outdated? What’s wrong with it? You train the skills you need and shift attributes to suit your skill plan and get +4 +5 implants to train? Pretty simple really. Alot of my 80mil SP was slow trained.

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Youre going to get folks breaking down different points.

Your sp argument has no merit. You need to train your sp differently to get what you want. A huge shiny ship like a battleship should take a while to get into.

Eve has a learning curve. Learning how to fly the ships, fit the ships, not lose the ships, all while learning skills that sp doesnt award

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The assessment I read is kind of expected from someone coming with the outlined gaming background and this short time of playing. I think you grasped the main difference between “competitive” games with matchmaking and EvE as a free for all sandbox experience.

EvE PvP happens a lot on the strategic level how you engage where and whom, and focus on situational awareness, and plotting plans. It has an incredible amount of freedom to carve out your own niche and approach things how you like. It’s different, and IMO its a core strength, as it makes the game very inclusive (age, hardware) and cheat safe.

A couple of more concrete replies to your points.

You don’t need to wait for your skills to train for solo PvP, just fly with other groups until you learned the ropes and skills to survive. When I started I spent a lot of time in Bombers Bar, Spectre and other fleets.

If you don’t like nullsec (like me), don’t live there, nobody dictates you where and how you spend your time in EvE. Embrace lowsec, explore Prochven, Thera or other wormholes (if you don’t like local). There is a place for everybody, and you can be everywhere at once, no need to have a fixed home.

No other way than catching people at gates? Most of my solo kills are not on gates. :wink: Become a good combat prober, bubbler, and know how to use acceleration gate mechanics and you don’t need to camp gates.

EvE PvP as per the freedom and strategic nature of it is of course unfair, but is it bad? No, it’s challenging. And I’m saying this as somebody playing only one char. Getting away with things needs skill, knowledge, and friends if you need them. Random example, did you know that you can just dump your loot in any citadel from outside and let it transport via asset safety to the closest lowsec for a 15% fee?

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