Remember the "dedicated balance team" ccp promised last summer? CSM member reveals ccp ***canned it

Communications Center General Discussion
468

To bring it mostly back to topic - Essentially what MM is saying - though of course, I disagree with grouping being the emergent game play.

Many of the old-school MMO’s just about required groups just in order to progress. EQ1 and FFXI quickly come to mind as examples. Soloing was an afterthought in the design.

But gamers are gamers. If there is a possibility - a loophole that makes something possible even if unintended - then someone will find a way, and that way will be transmitted to others. Much faster now than back in the day due to You-tube and the like.

EvE was designed with the group in mind. Much like the Gen 1 MMO’s (which EvE is early Gen 2), the design focus was on group content. The only real areas of solo content was the tutorial and (maybe) crafting in these games. But times changed, you can solo EQ1 and even FFXI now by design. The soloing is intended to give players some way to catch-up due to the ‘linear’ and level-based design. The games have introduced instant parties (mercs and trusts) and some of the gear is disproportionate to its level, allowing a modern geared low-level character to perform much better than the same character in original gear.

However, even if tools for soloing were added to these games, the focus of the game itself is still on end-game content requiring a group in order to progress. And the older the game, the greater the social aspect - people are just hanging about mingling with other people. This is also supported by weird seasonal events that may have a solo aspect to parts of it, but will be focused on groups.

Modern games are starting to buck this trend; EvE isn’t a modern game.

EvE has no true end-game. It’s a different kettle of fish from most.
Without other players, the economy collapses entirely - there are no NPC’s to sell most items to.
There’s no real need to ‘catch-up’ to participate in battles. Make an Alpha and within the day you too can experience the wonders of TIDI. Just strap a point onto a T1 frig, and join the fun. You don’t even really need to be invited…

There are some developments and decisions that do support solo play. The tutorial is decent, Multi-boxing is allowed, etc. But EvE will thrive or die by the groups.

Therefore, the design focus needs to be on group content.
I have no problem having some soloable content, but new stuff should not be solely designed for the solo player. Group play needs to be kept in mind at all times. Especially when, in EvE especially, a group will take soloable content and take it to new unintended places just by being a group.

Anyway, this is starting to veer again, but the concept of balance in a PVP game… not a solo thing.

–Gadget plays well with others (sometimes)

3 Likes
469

A balance team-play framework can be part of an open sand box. No one should be forced to play anything in an sand box. An open sand box should provide more gameplay options to allow players to choose what they want to play.

1 Like
470

There’s already some randomness things left to chance in many missions that are already flown and nobody seems too upset about it at all. I think the most famous one is Dread Pirate Scarlet. Last I checked, that mission is as beatable as any other. Most other missions have some elements that are left to chance. Do the elite frigates spawn this time? Do they web? Do they scram? Does the cruiser use the EWAR? Sometimes; not always.

Also, as someone already pointed out, you can bring in random within a set range of sliders and have it work. Or random from within an established list. It’s still different every time, and definitely workable if you know how your own ship works and can leverage it’s strengths. Let’s say spawn [A] can be between 3-5 cruisers. Or, if you want it to be a list, spawn [A] can be (two elite cruisers, two normal cruisers) or (three elite cruisers) or (four normal cruisers and four normal frigates), etc. If you elect to pull sets from a list (probably the easiest route to take), you can easily balance each grouping to have a range of EHP and DPS that you want from that part of the mission. Even a little bit of a shake-up of missions would go a very long way.

I play an RTS called “Sins of a Solar Empire” and you can randomly generate a map using various sliders and established values, and the maps are different, interesting, and fun each time. Like, this isn’t trailblazer territory in the slightest. Most players should be very familiar with the concept and probably experienced it to some degree within this very game, as well as most others.

I also played a game called “Sub Command”, which had a mission editor where you can script random groups within a set. That gave the same mission massive replayability if you set it up right the first time. And that game is probably as old as EVE.

Trying to bring in random scripted parts of missions would be a massive undertaking on CCP’s part, however. Don’t forget that. There would be a lot of work re-writing missions into partitions and lists, getting the server to cook up a mission from each piece possible and assembling it for the player, debugging to make sure it worked properly, etc. I think it’s about trying to convince CCP that players would be happier, with better retention, if missions weren’t mostly static and bland. Convince them it’s worth their while to do it.

1 Like
471

I would argue that emergence is not necessarily tied to group play (as in one group playing against another group) but that emergence is primarily (only?) occurs when you have a group of players interacting (both cooperatively and competitively). This has, IMO, always been a central feature/aspect of EVE and to bring it back to the topic…the Traditional Players, they don’t really fit in that well. They play in a way where their level of interaction is much less than the other category of players.

472

The pve part of this discussion is and has been the entire problem the entire time I’ve played EVE. People who don’t actually know what they want thinking that they do know, and then constantly talking about it. So when CCP looks for feedback, they get a totally false impression (I saw that at the last PVE round table I participated in, people thought the “Mining Fleets” were good content…they aren’t).

People say they want better AI, ‘procedural’ this and random that. And yes, for years people have talked about how “PVE should be more like PVP because it sucks that my PVE ship can withstand PVP” (the mental mistake made by those people revolves around the idea that “If I just had a pvp ship I would have lived”, but they are lying to themselves, they still would have died).

CCP has been responding to these unrealistic PVE player demands since 2009 starting with incursions where the “pve community” shouted “give us group content!!!”.

  • Result: Most players quickly ignored to go right back to solo mission running for less income than they cold have made incursion running.

The vocal pve community says “give me a challenge instead of these weak NPCs”.

  • Result: CCP responds with Burners and Drifters and null sec officer spawns that can kill carriers (before they were ush overs) and all kinds of things like that.

Now those same PVE players are asking for “procedurally generated content”.

  • Guaranteed future result : Within a week of launching any content that cannot be farmed or is random or 'procedural", the people on this forum will be right back to running missions, anomalies and old style “predictable” exploration/PVE content while acting like they didn’t ask for procedural PVE at all and complaining that “CCP doesn’t do anything for PVE players”, right before they ask for yet another change to PVE that they will spend on week on before abandoning.

It’s a screwed up circular PVE player thought cycle. It’s caused by the fact that the many PVE players don’t like to think of themselves as people who are comfortable running the same content over and over and they think that “better pve” will make them happy, when in fact it won’t.

Here is an article from 2016 talking about CCP’s pve focus. You can see my response in the comment section. http://massivelyop.com/2016/05/15/eve-evolved-ccp-games-on-the-future-of-eve-onlines-pve/

2 Likes
473

Balance is a tightrope walk. A series of countless adjustments, some subtle some overt that must be done in rapid succession. As of late the balance in Eve is more like a giant pendulum with sweeping prolonged changes that continue for an extended time just be be nerfed to the dirt.

474

When it comes to PvE, variety is the key. You gotta remember that there are a lot of people that do not play exclusively one or the other (pve / pvp), but tend to rather sort of focus on one or the other at times and this focus swings back and forth as new content is available, be it PvE or PvP throughout months or sometimes even years. I am one of those players. I like to play as the mood strikes me not as someone else is trying to push me to. If I’m in a mood to go to FW I will do just that, if I’m in the mood for NS, I will do just that, if I’m in the mood for just chilling and doing some missions / DED sites while BSing on TS all day on some weekends, I will do just that. But when I’m in the mood for one and I’m being pushed to do the other, then often times that leaves a sour taste in me to the point that I would rather just log and go play something else altogether, then come back another day when the activity I actually want to do is what I will be doing.

A lot of what you listed is good stuff but there is a longterm accessibility problem with it. Incursions got simply old and a bit stale, so less people doing them and joining them is problematic now both from fleet availability standpoint as well as individual player training (ability to fly ceirtain fits at all level 5s). Same thing applies pretty much to the other content.

Burner missions are actually really good and I wish CCP could and would expand on them, make Battleship burners, but they would really need to do a battleship balance pass first for that.

Mining sucks altogether, fleets or no fleets. It sucks because its mining and the gameplay of it itself is just either boring to tears (the actual mining) or filled with grief (being ganked). It lacks any sort of actually fun and exciting gameplay component for the miners. No matter what CCP impliments here, unless they add some components to it that makes the act of repetetive longterm mining actually fun and exciting, it will fail.

1 Like
475

There seems to be something amiss here.

Cards on the table - I don’t run incursions. This is because CCP doesn’t deliver information about the game to players; other players deliver information and resources, etc. My understanding is that incursions are typically run in very high-end, expensive vessels to compete for a very limited stock of sites. And the nullseccers are on the forums frequently bellyaching about all the people running incursions and actually making a decent living in highsec as opposed to nullsec.

I say all this as context for my question. Seeing as that incursions seem to have a high bar for entry, have a reputation for being very tight on disciplines (save for the dedicated starting groups), and are apparently being run so often that it bothers nullseccers, I’m wondering how you deem them to be a failure in the context of your statement? They are a group activity, with a finite number of sites and payouts available. They are difficult to get into and move around to keep up with.

Of course most people went back to solo mission running. To do incursions you needed a group of people to organize, high-end modules to compete effectively, and there’s only a handful that can be done at any given time. Verses missions which players can work out on their own and support as many people as can dock at any given station with an agent.

I mean, I notice your posts because you’re a forum regular for many years. I give your posts some merit by your name alone, but damn it seems awfully crazy to say “Well CCP failed to give PvE’rs good group content because CCP gave PvE’rs good group content”.

Burners seem to be largely successful by the same light. Niche high-end PvE content needing a lot of prep work and it’s not for everyone, but available to anyone interested (plus you can do it solo, so you don’t have to wait for a group to form). They are missions restricted to smaller-class ships than missioners tend to run; of course they’re niche. But they still seem to be successful in their implementation.

Maybe I’m just not understanding your point correctly. Maybe you could clarify a bit?

1 Like
476

I think you answered yourself.

Difficult activities in expensive fits in a game with the motto “Dont fly whatyou cant afford to lose.”

3 Likes
477

That’s because our brains evolved as pattern-matching engines, to predict danger or opportunity in our surroundings. We have a tendency to see patterns even when they’re not there. As for procedurally generated content not being what people want…

Minecraft begs to differ.

oh, and btw:

aaronson
aaronson951×684 222 KB

Go with syncopated drum rhythms and change between 7-8 of them as you hum the tune to a completely different piece of music. :wink:

3 Likes
478

comment this Jenn, then back to your anomaly.

you participate in pve round table and we still got this ■■■■? What were your arguments? Buff anoms instead?

2 Likes
479

What do you mean back to my anom, I never left… As for your idea, it’s pointless, all it will do is cause frustration and people warp in and get hung up on random crap spawned around cans, all in the name of ‘immersion’

EVE is not a good game for that kind of immersion. Elite:Dangerous (for all its blandness) is better for that.

As far as the roundtable on Teamspeak is concerned.,What I didn’t see where ANY of you people who constantly complain about what needs to happen with PVE. You care enough to post literal books worth of posts about this stuff on a forum CCP largely ignores but not enough to talk to people like Jin’taan who actually has access to CCP?

the same thing that happened in this thread happened in that roundtable, a lot of fanciful ideas that if implemented would hold people’s interest for maybe a week before people stopped doing them (like FOBs and RW) and no real discussion about the PVE that people actually do (missions, anoms, exploration).

I think it’s just human nature, people always want “new+shiney” and think that the stuff that actually exists sucks.

My children were like that when they were small, happy on Christmas morning to get new crap and within 3 days they were right back to riding their old skate boards or playing with their old dolls while that new crap started to collect dust in a corner. Eventually, I stopped spending my money on that crap and just did things like buy new clothes for the dolls or memberships to the fancy members only skate park down the street… In other words I figured out what my kids actually did instead of listening to what they said they wanted.

2 Likes
480

Ah, and devs have a lot of access to playerbase too. Every day. Does not help either.

2 Likes
481

And posting on the forums does?

482

I think its a deadlock resulting from bad management for many years already. Its really hard to tell what could help in current situation.

1 Like
483

Answered myself what? I asked Jenn about her thought processes behind her opinion. As a third party to that, you can’t imply that me asking a question is what she was silently thinking unless you’re about to profess to being a psychic.

While I mentioned barriers to entry, my post outlined how I was under the impression incursions were not just successful, but very successful as far as EvE goes. That position is the opposite of Jenn’s opinion on the subject. It is more than a little bit crazy to quote me and say, “Yes, that’s exactly what the person with the opposite opinion was thinking”. You’ve created a nonsense loop of “Jenn thinks incursions are a PvE failure because they’re run quite often in expensive fits yet despite this barrier to entry there’s no shortage of people doing this all the time”.

You also quoted references I made to two completely different activities and grouped them together with a response that fits neither. Those running incursions don’t often suffer losses and they more than make enough to cover those losses, so quoting the “don’t fly…” motto is a non sequitur. It doesn’t even apply to the burner missions since they don’t require blingy anything to complete (last I checked).

Jenn said that “players went back to missions”. To that end, I remarked that there’s a finite about of sites to be done anyway. Everybody can’t do incursions because there’s not enough content for all of them to participate. As far as I am aware, it wasn’t intended as a replacement for missions; just another thing to do for the individuals craving even tougher content. Saying everybody doesn’t do incursions so it’s a failure is akin to saying everybody doesn’t do sleeper sites so they’re a failure. If only a limited number spawn and that’s part of the feature, you can’t cite it as being a failure for actually completely fulfilling it’s intended role and purpose.

An entire community built up around incursions. So how are they a failure of group PvE?

1 Like
484

why would I talk to Jin? Despite his great input to other aspects of the game he was in the CSM that helped with RW design. Community constantly asking CCP to improve pve experince. Spamming ideas to Jin won’t help with it. CCP has no roundmap to improve it. The way they see it is spamming events from time to time.

that’s exactly what I want to do? Improve existing content. As you mentioned few post earlier community don’t know what they want, so CCP should stick to existing content or expanding existing content.

That’s what my ideas do. You just so bitter you fail to see it. Why you was in the pve roundtable in the first place? You have no desire to expand pve at all.

One question: Do you explore much Jenn?

1 Like
485

This is why I am honest with what players actually want from PvE: short commitment, certain reward and flexible strategies.

PvE players love them jiggsaw puzzles, not brainteasers(?).

Jiggsaw puzzle: short ocmmtiemnt, can be made literally one piece at a time. Certain reward, you know you’ll get the pciture and what it will look like (most of the time). And flexible strategy: you never assemble it the same way, and there are lots of different ways to assemble a jiggsaw puzzle (FAI, there are two major strategies: pick a piece and find its location vs look for a piece that belongs to a location. And trust me, they’re controversial… :grin: ).

Brainteaser: it requires a long(-ish) commitemnt, figuring solutions and ways to solve it takes a lot of reflexion. The reward is uncertain, most attempts will fail to solve it. And there’s no flexibility at all: can only be solved in one and exactly one way, and once resolved, there’s no point to do it again.

CCP has committed to brainteasers with the foreseable result that they’re are mostly ignored unless they’re a profitable grind. And some of the latest brainteaser aren’t even profitable.

Whereas, I will repeat it again, addding more jiggsaw puzzles (dungeon style PvE, go-there-and-kill-ten-rats) would feed content to a new generation of PvErs… and CCP and EVE damn need that extra population.

People run missions and mission-like content. Predictable, rewarding and boring unless the player challenges himself to minmax them… which could take weeks when new ships and weapons and skills where involved.

No random wanted. No AI needed. No challenge will be accepted and defeats barely will be tolerated. We must be able to get in and sweep the floor with those puny NPCs once we figure how. You CCP just let us then figure another way to minmax it and once we become old friends with our 20 millions for 20 minutes of work, give us another one. And another. And another. Because it’s the bloody reason why you CCP even get a single cent from us.

4 Likes
486

flexible strategy

Good stuff.

But there is use for randomity too, just look at diablo from blizzard, there was always randomity there.

give us another one. And another. And another.

Differentiation in a pool is giving you another one that is different, and novelty is good, there should be need for flexible strategy in the system.
What would make you try strategies if not something slightly different?

1 Like
487

“Its not immersive enough”
“They are all the same”
“They arent interesting”
“There should be more, we should do them easily and they should give good isk”

One of these kids is not like the others.

1 Like