Proving of Kybernauts for Glorification in the Flow Unfolds

Abyssal_Hawk · July 8, 2020, 9:57am

Time to bring all the discussion back on topic.

I have just tried it on SISI, and must say that I like it. But, it is not much better or different than the old arenas. These old arenas were originally requested by players, as they wanted pvp encounters in the abyss. There was a DEV Blog on that in 2018 I think. I didn’t do a lot of Abyssal PVP on TQ right now, but I still like the idea of these new arenas. I used to go into the old arenas with a cheap vexor Navy just to grab extra loot and getting the potential of a shiny PVE Gila kill, but in the few arenas I did in March, I never had someone enter. Could have been due to the Ddos thingy. But I planned to get myself an Ikitursa or cheap Deimos and go for actual fights rather than just extra stuff.

I am speaking for all those who love the current Arena and meta. Introducing something completely different and independantly of the old proving grounds don’t justify to take them away. I hope that this is getting discussed between CCP and the CSM. There must be a way to make both old and new arenas coexist with each other. Especially since they are completely Independent of each other.

I have read @Sniper_Bros15 and @Gustav_Mannfred points and they Sound good. As Sniper said, there were quite a lot of ways to improve the current proving grounds, and I remember having seen a lot of Posts regarding that on reddit and the forums here. I don’t remember exactly what the points were, but mostly stuff like increasing value of loot or making the proving conduit spawn regardless of the amount of characters in the abyss and so on.

I know, not many did abyssal PVP, but I doubt that it actually had to do with the PVE part or the solved meta ect. Also, Looking at zkill and Abysra indicates that the activity is slowly increasing . I wish CCP would also publish some data on the amount of kills happening and active players doing current abyssal PVP. And remember the skiller in the abyss Event, there the killboard just exploded. All we have is the data on the ships used, not on the amount of players taking the proving gate or amount of ships destroyed.

I really hope, that CCP thinks again about it. Removing an aspect of the game, or content that is gaining popularity, even though it happens slowly, is a very bad idea. I did not read every single post in here, since a lot of posts have nothing to do with the arenas at all, but I did not see any good argument against leaving existing arenas alone.

Lets talk about the new filaments and Arenas after trying it out: They look nice, especially the new scene above the lava planet. Wish, that if CCP keeps the old proving grounds(and they hopefully do so!), they get that scene too, but with the old arenaboundarys, that flashes when someone enters.
The idea to participate in the arena with friends is nice too. This lowers the barrier to entry quite a bit, especially for newer players. However, loot could be a bit better, especially when the idea is that more than 1 Player goes in there. but I hope that is just so because it is not finished yet.

Hawk

Alterus · July 8, 2020, 3:11pm

No, I refuse to accept arguments without evidence to support them. When CCP first introduced nerfs to wardecs in 2012, they justified them by the need to protect small PVE corps. Then they changed the fee system to favor large alliances and make deccing small corps easier. There is a history of dishonesty around these topics, so I think skepticism is warranted.

As for toxicity, I would argue that the highsec PVE corps that advertise themselves as ‘new player friendly’ and don’t do anything to actually help new players find their way in the game, tell them that they shouldn’t go to low or null, that it’s ok to make real life threats against PVP players, and that mining in highsec is the best way to make money for doing other things are far more toxic than the most aggressive tear collecting wardeccer.

I think they had a reason to nerf wardecs, I just don’t think it was the one they gave us. I don’t know what that reason is, because CCP never published their study. If that study truly shows that wardecs were making people quit left and right, why not publish those findings? Why invent the misleading ‘corp activity’ metric instead when they could say ‘x% of players quit because of wardecs’? Just because someone has a ‘CSM’ beside their name and has talked to the developers doesn’t mean that what they say is automatically accurate/true, or even that they fully understand the context and ramifications of what the developers told them. If it turns out that there really is hard evidence behind the assertion that wardecs were making significant numbers of players quit, I’ll gladly admit I was wrong.

bluelysian · July 8, 2020, 4:43pm

I dont think quitting game is enough reasoning either… Else all factions and groups can easily use this on CCP as leverage… oh… did they do it already ? what happened in nul sec black out really ?? All i remember the man sitting near by my as CEO in nuls sec giving thumbs down everyday when he is leavin game also along with dozens of members stop playing for days… some quit the game ( of course temporarily )… and other aliances havent reacted much differently

Seriously … I truly dont believe this kind of reasoning either … CCP has probably some other reasons for these kind of nerfs…

I dont know how many new players enter game buy shitloads of PLEX . And 3. day of the game inject themselves and and drop an engineering facility into space then wardecked. COme to rookie channel or spread salt and threaten with rage quit… Oh its not fair… those people are baad baad people Why they dont let him play the game and let him beee!!! …What kind of game is that… some of them couldnt comprehend this is not something they can make it happen with only ISK but they need to learn mechanics …

New players dies at station undocks while hauling their all weeks effort from exploration …Station undocks !! Even CCP introduce miraculously 0 sec insta locker It is not possible to kill anyone at Station undocks ! how many new player knows that mechanic ??? how they learn ?? most important … DO they learn … So me of the rookies were soo enraged… i couldnt even achieve to explain mechanics to them … they just shut down and left… but what i also observe most of them was very young kids… well… … One of them was my brother… Damn worst type ( lot of respect also) … kinda player wants to figure out everything self and doesnt accept any guidiance or input… He made all shitty mistakes… and he flooooooded our discord channel with salt so much we had to kick him out of server !

There is different security lvl high sec from 1.0 to 0.5 low sec … null sec… People having hard time to understand its … Sec is bound to mechanics . Mechanics that limits and frees different type of PVP actions …CRIME WATCH is there not for prevent PVP its there for punish criminal actions which is not succeeded ( like you you be muppet and failed the suicide gang ) IF criminal action succeeded loosing ships is just a result of well calculated operation naturally expected min. lvl casualty maximum profit ) Its perspective…

Most of new player losses can be easily prevented by learning basic PVP mechanics and some techniques and tactics… Many losses can be prevent by calculating value carrying in ship / amount of isk agressor need to apply damage to breake the ship… All over… still some casualty naturally expected no matter how much you are carefull…

About wardecks… i remember when my husband living in high sec pocket in low sec… they had been get wardecked over and over by shadow cartel…I had been sometimes visit the system just to screw light out of them … then miraculously… a "null sec "aliance begin to come to them with very nice offers and flowers and chocolates …

SO … some of these constant wardecks actually serving a purpose Wink Wink smile smile… i dont know how many stabile high sec corps herded by null sec aliances that way …

May be that can be something CCP havent mentioned but happening behind the curtains ?? and May be CCP cared about the habitat in high sec some degree??? We dont know really …

But what i know is EVE online is not kind of game every soul can handle…
Its is fricking PVP game and high sec is not PVP safe isolated area like many other games provided PVP safe sanctuarys.

Psychologhy and preperation of new players from the moment they join this game … very important… because human being react much more heavy and severe towards things when they get caught unexpectedly panthies down… No matter they will engage Mining PI exploration… doesnt matter really … FIRST thing players need to learn is NOT how to hack the ■■■■… But learning HOW TO SURVIVE and every player must now the PVP mechanics up to some degree… and learn first how to survive …

A miner who doesnt know anything about PVP is nothing more than an ostrich burying his head into sands in NEW EDEN …

MB_ThePhotographer · July 8, 2020, 10:21pm

I would have to agree.

You mean back when the numbers were at their highest and growing?

Gustav_Mannfred · July 9, 2020, 6:59am

what I did in the past days, was collecting data from the Player made leaderboard, Abysra. On that graph you see the estimated total amount of kills during a month.

however, these are just estimations and not real or official values, some players tend to unlink their killboards, so that these kills dont show up on zkill and Abysra. But I agree, CCP should publish these statistics too. But my estimated data confirms what @Abyssal_Hawk says. Activity during this year doubled since January, and it is still inreasing, especially in late US TZ. I posted that on reddit too, but it resulted in a huge shitstorm so that I had to delete that post there. Seems like reddit folks aren’t that open for Abyssal PVP related things. They even said that Abyssal PVP is just noob bullying, which is not true. Or they say that all good Abyssal PVPers are whining etc. We just want to continue doing what we enjoy, and if these people don’t like it, they dont have to do it, thats easy. If they enjoy the new filaments more, than they can do these filaments, and if I or the other Abyssal PVPers enjoy the old system, we want to do the old system. That is how EVE works as a sandbox game.

Looking again at zkill or Abysra or these estimated statistics, this also falsifys the theory that no “new” people want to try out Abyssal PVP, what some people said on Torvald Uruz stream. In the past week, at least 3 new people tried Abyssal PVP and got more than 1 kill.

@Abyssal_Hawk really says all about old provings. The reason no one did it was not because of solved meta etc, it was most likely due to the proving gate spawning issues in summer 2019, which I and some other people brought up multiple times. And before March 2020, proving gate was never really available in late US/AU TZ. And now as it seems to be available regardless of the amount of characters in Abyss, we see the effect almost immediately. And in summer 2019, it was even so that the gate was only available for 2h per day, which has most likely driven away a lot of people from Abyssal PVP and resulted in what it is now. It should have already been clear at the beginning, that proving gate should always spawn, no matter how many people are in the Abyss. If someone wants to PVP, then he will ofc take the PVP gate, even though only like 10 people are in Abyss.

bluelysian · July 9, 2020, 11:52am

current abbys prrooving grounds , Kill percentage .

Ikitursa prooving grounds …

PVE fitted ships shoots at each other. And poor blinged deimos orthrus cerberus and Gila pilots… try their chance against blinged ikitursa …

Graphic seem so … correct me the points i am wrong please

Gustav_Mannfred · July 9, 2020, 12:59pm

I know, it is so, but keep in mind piloting skills matter too, here are just a few examples of cheap ships killing shiny ikitursas:

You see, these ships are capable of killing a blinged Ikitursa.
And I once lost an 8bil Cerb to a 200 mil Curse: Cerberus | Gustav Mannfred | Killmail | zKillboard ended up getting really salty.

The graphic tells that half of the kills happen with Ikis, but they still have hard counters, especially since the Surgical Strike patch, which brought the Deimos back to the “good” Abyssal PVP ships. What matters in the end, is tactic and piloting skills, what I said earlier. That explains how a 300 mil ship can blap a 5b+ ship. And an Ikitursa can be killed easily with anything that can turn off the disintegrator, before the damage gets too high. Example is an Orthrus with a tracking distruptor. The ships in the graph are just popular, because any other ship isnt that good at all. Still, the Sacrilege is also able to kill an Ikitursa if it doesnt pay attention to its reactive hardner. But a Zealot, or Ishtar for example, is not able to ever break a blinged Ikitursa. Eagle, Muninn are not good at solo pvp anyways. Vagabond is meh. The Vigilant could still be viable against an Ikitursa, but never seen one after the Surgical Strike patch.

Zhalyd_Lyehin · July 9, 2020, 4:07pm

I demand a mentioning of the most contributing characters in an invasion once it is concluded, similar to the mentioning of the characters who gained the most LP from an Incursion.

It should tell the top chars for damage dealt to each faction and the top chars for LP gained.

Ramona_McCandless · July 10, 2020, 7:05am

Arent Curses 250+ for the hull alone?

Gustav_Mannfred · July 10, 2020, 7:21am

ohh well, seems like they went up in price, but the fit of that curse was very cheap, like 350 mil for fit + hull or so. It was something with dual guidance distruptors and an ancillary armor rep.

Found his fit: https://zkillboard.com/kill/81050231/

Dantelion_Shinoni · July 10, 2020, 8:42am

I strongly encourage CCP to consider going for the larger team sizes rather than the smaller ones.

The nature of PvP in EVE is such that the less ships you have, the less balanced encounters you can have. ECM and such hard counters are destructive in a 1v1 scenario, however once you get to 3v3 or 5v5, counters can be used in the form of a single or several pilots to counter and aleviate hard counters like ECM or Cap Warfare.

2v2 is going to be a mess unless you allow more ships into the allowed list, 1v1 will be… interesting to say the least, but this one is symbolic as a format so there is some ground to having it.

Just consider that half of PvP outside the Abyss is selecting your fights by either hard countering the target (slide a scram kiter against a brawler) or running away from ships that are bad engagements for you.

In the Abyss you can do neither.

There has to be a balancing factor and that balancing factor can be the team size.

Sylvia_Kildare · July 10, 2020, 4:12pm

What do you think most of the “Other” wedge of that pie chart consists of?

I’m gonna guess Curse and Ishtar?

TheCorrupted · July 10, 2020, 4:58pm

CCP you bunch of newbs ! Don’t replace content !! Add content !! That is not even close of the current proving conduit. And its F cheap! Keep that existing proving conduit!

Fraenir_Nightstalker · July 10, 2020, 6:40pm

Your being a salty crybaby. None of this prevents people from doing that.

Archer_en_Tilavine · July 10, 2020, 6:41pm

Hey! Salt Foambreaker is not a… well, the point is that this will lower open-world engagement to lower levels than the stupid-low levels they already are.

Zhalyd_Lyehin · July 10, 2020, 7:51pm

The response from Triglavian Collective invasion units has reportedly included frequent use of orbital bombardment, and heavy suborbital and surface weapons.

This should be visible from space. Scorched spots on the planet, blacked out cities on the night side and so on.

Ololosha_Jouhinen · July 11, 2020, 5:58am

I read here several posts in this topic about the current arena, here is my unnecessary opinion:

To remove arenas from the abyss, this is a mistake, you need to add and modernize content, and not remove it.
Ikitursa is absolutely unbalanced, I, as a person who killed ikitursa on Orthrus (probably from those 8 percent, 6% are kills made by me), it is very difficult to kill another ikitursa, Orthrus should not make mistakes, and ikitursa should make a mistake, or be cheap. If ikitursa has kinetic resistance, ortrus in 95 percent of cases will not be able to kill ikitursa even after the resistance drops.
The victory of Ikitursa against another ikitursa depends on chance by 70 percent, and on the remaining 30 from electronics modules, as an example neutralizers and burstjams, neutralizers in 100 percent of cases help to easily kill ikitursa with burstjams, but at the same time, burstjams make it easy to killing another ikitursa without protection from him.
A patch with a drop in resistors has aggravated the situation even more; now ikitursa fly even more often with a closed resist in kinetics, but at the same time they also have a chance against another ikitursa, because earlier it was required to have two entropic syncs in order to be able to kill another ikitursa. The popularity of deimos is imaginary, the ship as it was useless and remained.

Despite all of the above, I still consider it a mistake to remove the current arenas. In my opinion, they require refinement, not removal. Obviously, you don’t need to rebalance the ships specifically for the arena, but it may be that Ikitursa is imbalanced not only in the arena and requires processing. Therefore, it is worth changing something in the arena itself, for example, increasing its radius, or making it possible to use the border to kill the enemy, but now it does too much damage from the very beginning, and it’s very difficult to use against enemy there without dying, I managed to it’s only a couple of times (Ikitursa can now use the border to kill enemy drones, but there are practically no other ships). But these are nothing more than examples; I do not insist on these changes.

The only thing I insist on is that the developers before making decisions, at least like a week in the arena in popular fits against each other (in expensive and not so much) and against other players, and understand this from their experience, how to try to kite a Cerberus on an Orthrus, when Cerb shoots at full radius arenas and has more than 1000 dps of the tank, or try on a Gila to kill ikitursa worth 2-2.5kkk. And judging by the patch, they don’t understand how and what works in that type of content in their own game.

Abyssal_Hawk · July 11, 2020, 7:42am

You say it right XD

I dont know if either CSM or CCP is still reading this thread, as most of the discussion has gone offtopic. I have contacted Torvald Uruz yesterday and it ended up beeing not successful at all(I Always thought that he likes “classic” Abyssal PVP so much lol)
I have contacted several of the decent abyssal pvpers and none, really, NONE was happy when they heard that pvp gate is getting taken away.

So if either DEV or CSM is still following this thread, then please try your best to preserve the old Arenas. There is NO GOOD REASNON to take them away. Look at Gustav Mannfred’s chart, look at zkill etc. Maybe even update your abyssal pvp kill chart reflecting the time from the surgical strike patch until today.

Everyone knows only few people do them, but there are a lot of other activities that are done by a few Players: Level 5 Missions, Forward operating bases, NPC Hauler fleet Hunting, Ressource wars, Nullsec Cosmos Missions, FW Missions. And none of them has been removed by CCP, so why does Abyssal PVP have to be different in that matter? Why not try to make it more popular, for example by increasing rewards?

Dantelion_Shinoni · July 11, 2020, 8:34am

The answer is not to change everything because of the Ikitursa, but to introduce decent and viables alternatives to the Ikitursa.

How comes the EDENCOM lines doesn’t have counters to Triglavians ships?? What about more counters to HAC small-squad PvP viability? What about more weaknesses added to them to make them easier to counter?

That’s the questions that should be asked, not how to change the entire Abyss for e-ve-ry-one!

Dravick_Afterthought · July 11, 2020, 8:42am

Insist away, if it makes you feel better - I can’t envisage the Devs saying “OMG Ololosha insists, so we must absolutely do it his way !”