Response to all the "anti-solo" players out there

Communications Center General Discussion
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As I browse these forums I see a lot of comments and opinions about how Eve was always intended to be a multiplayer game, if you are playing solo you are playing wrong, and similar comments.

Well if Eve was always meant to be a group / corp game then the marketers of the game back when I started playing in '06 or '07 (I cant remember ) did a horrible job selling the game. They sold the game as a sandbox, where you play however you want. They even mentioned solo play or “lone wolf” specifically as a valid play style.

If we were talking about other MMORPGs then yes I’d agree, its designed to funnel you into a group style play at some point. WoW dungeons are for five, Raid groups are 10 or 25, etc. However Eve is, and always was a different animal. That was what made it so attractive to me.

Of course group play is very valid and in a lot of ways likely easier. There are a ton of benefits and players who want to participate in group play should absolutely do so! However, solo play is very possible in Eve, to say otherwise is false in my opinion.

Solo play is more difficult, or at least, slower paced than fleet / group play. You have to defend yourself alone (or with delayed CONCORD) move your valuables without scouts, and in general watch your own back.

Importantly though,

–>solo players should not demand or expect the devs to cater the game to solo play styles, especially at the expense of group play styles.<–

If you’ve chosen to solo play then those the challenges you are taking on.

In summary, group play is certainly a great way to play eve, but solo play has been around since the beginning and is a valid, but challenging, play style as well.

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Yes sir!!

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Play solo all you want, just don’t expect to survive when a TEAM of other players attacks you.

Don’t expect the devs to create ships that do everything in one ship.

It’s not being solo that is the issue, it is expecting to get what teams get when solo.

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But blapping everything is fun.

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Yes it is, join a corp, join FW, be a team player.

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Was gonna edit my post to add more to it but saw you started responding.

That expectation (expecting someone that’s solo to hold their ground against a group) is something I personally dislike since it’s seems to have festered into what some believe an MMO is supposed to be like. Like, a lot of my activities are solo but I always go with others when I want to shake the hornet nest. Plus just makes for a more enjoyable experience.

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Out of my 22 accts (40+ characters) I play solo on probably 3/4 of them. EVE players are mostly a bunch of douchebags that I’d rather kill than team up with.

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Yes, myself as well, but I doubt you would recommend that to a new player and we are not running around asking for a fighter bay on our Orca :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Dont give Sabus any ideas.

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Lol i expect them to not create overpowered ■■■■■■■■

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Play how you want and don’t give a ■■■■ what other people think (as long as it is within the rules).

Solo doesn’t need an explanation thread.

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So is EvE.

If you want to ever do something RELEVANT, and by that, I mean something that will one day make you have at least a little influence that would be visible and tangible for other members of the playerbase, group play is necessary.

Sure, you can exist solo. But you will always “just exist”, and for pretty much every other player, never be more relevant than a Blood raider Rat turning around a random belt.

I mean, it’s fine, it’s possible that you don’t care about having an influence on anything. But the ultimate goal of the gameplay as a whole is technically to make you a part of an everchanging world/map, and that does require some amount of group play.

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But isn’t there also supposed to be an element of skill involved in the game? Tweak what you’ve said a little bit to understand what I mean:

A team of idiots (or cowards or noobs) is not, by default, better than one smart (or brave or veteran) individual. That’s why RPGs have “leveling”, and yes even EVE has leveling. It is to give you an advantage over other players who might otherwise overwhelm you with their superiority.
1000 sheep are not a match for 1 wolf . . . except in our fantasy worlds.

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Except a wolf leading 1000 sheep.:face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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He can lead them wherever he wants. They’re still gonna be dinner and a sweater when all the other wolves find out what he’s got.

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I’ve did both in the different games I’ve played, leading group or following a leader, depending on a lot of criterias, motivation and available free time during the concerned period on top of the list.

However I rarely tend to only follow, I almost always end-up with some responsabilities inside the group, if anything, because once I start a project I tend to be much more invested than the average player in it.

He might, but the whole subject was about “Are they playing the game wrong?”.

And I believe the intent of the game design is closer to my vision than yours, which would lead to the answer that, yes, according to how the game is originally supposed to be played, they are doing it “wrong”.

I don’t know if I’m making myself clear enough, but by this, I don’t mean that they are doing something bad. Playing the game “wrong” only matter proportionnally to what importance you give to the fact of playing it “right”.

It all depend of the original question, and what answer are you looking for precisely.

To me:

->Are they playing the game wrong in the sens of not following the game design as intentend?

I say yes.

->Are they playing the game wrong in the sense of doing something bad that must be avoided?

I say not at all.

Just as a side note, I read a lot of lines about how “solo take more efforts” an “those players are on an other level”, not only from you if I remember well.

I find it kind of funny, because being able to properly work with a group of people usually take much more actual efforts than anything for which the only opinion/strengh/beliefs/whatever you have to take into account are yours.

Following your own desires has never been anything hard to do. After all, you said it yourself, they are working towards goals “that they set for themself”.

Which is kinda ridiculous as a concept, you’ll naturally set goals that only involve a reasonnable amount of efforts and that are actually not that hard to do, and always profitable for you. Anything else would be masochism and that’s probably not the thread to developp it.

But more importantly, other than being relatively easy, because no human naturally torture himself, they are fake and meaningless.

My whole view about this is that I came her to accept challenges fixed by the devs and by the game mechanics, on which I have no control or influence to begin with. “Self fixed goals” are by definition goals that have no value, they might make you happy, but they don’t matter.

I don’t like the feeling of doing something just “Because I have nothing better to do with my time today”, and to me, that’s exactly how “self fixed goals” feels like. “There is no actual real goal for me today, let’s create a fake one to occupy myself!”

Nah. If I reach this point, I don’t loose time by fixing goals myself, I go elsewhere working on real existing goals.

('he, this side point happened to be quite long LMAO)

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This is true for any game that is more than 1v1. Heck when I was younger I’d play some mechwarrior 4 mercenaries online and I would get kicked out of servers for hacking because I just happened to be better than the entire team. Top kill board with zero deaths. Heck the strongest memory by the end of one such match even had my own team mates accusing me of cheating, but the match ended with me in a middle of a fight with another player missing a leg, arm, and various weapons from playing the game right. I just knew how to aim at cockpits.

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This game that was not designed to be played solo was more fun playing solo before CCP started dumbing everything down.

Challenge. That was the point. Not mindless min-maxing.

Low tier cause and effect recognition must be an epidemic or something.

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I’d have to agree there.

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