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

[Jonah_Gravenstein]

@Sabus_Narian

It’s a sandbox, you fly the way you want to, people need to understand this.

Indeed they do, and that includes you.

[Herzog_Wolfhammer]

the best part about being solo was doing it around people trying to kill you.

[Lumukanda_Theleraese]

Absolutely.

[Pang_Grohl]

I’m thoroughly amused that people think that there’s such a thing as non-pvp game play in EVE. Or that some action you can take in the EVE universe doesn’t impact other players.

[Theron_Larkis]

Your conclusion is all wrong. What you end up with is a game that only interests a small number of people, that is true. BUT it also means the game has no competitors.

How many player driven open world PVP sandboxes are there that don’t look like they were made for DOS 3.3? Just one. And ALL CCP had to do was cater to the PVP sandbox type players and the game will always have a (cult like) following. Niche marketing works just fine.

It all went wrong when CCP (or its investors) decided to try and be more mainstream because that surely would give a lot of short term profit as that’s all investors and managers are interested in. By the time it all deflated, because old players who joined and stuck around for the niche it was AND the new type players who slowly figured out they hadn’t understood what they were getting in to both got annoyed by it all, those investors and managers would be long gone enjoying the short term profits.

This is what I wrote in 2008, I’ll highlight the important bits:

a while time ago (1-2 years or something can’t remember) all of a sudden there was dev blog which kinda stated "Right this is how we’ve been doing things, this is how we’re going to do things and oh; we have a goal of attaining 300k subscriptions".

First two parts are good, change happens; you’ve been somewhere and now you’re gonna change some stuff. no problem there. But the last part should set off some alarms.

WHY do you want 300k subscribers all of a sudden (where you previously couldn’t give a rats ass about subscription numbers, if the people didn’t fall into the concepts and ideas then you didn’t need/want them anyway). And; HOW FAR are you willing to go and alienate from your previous path and playerbase to make that number happen.

That single number goal means a whole lot; it means that the goals of CCP have changed, it means (possibly) that the people that were adament about those goals trying to stay true to the core have been pushed aside. All of a sudden it went from “lets make a cracking pewpew game” to “moar money!!!”.

There is ofcourse nothing wrong with wanting high profit on investment but from a customer’s point of view I will have my reservations about how much they still have my wellbeing and concerns as a first priority, if I initially was attracted to the game because of it’s niche and different gameplay?

Because to attract more people they will have to look elswhere, and to attract those new people they will have to offer them things they’re accustomed to, that sound familiar and not at all too radical.

In other words; in order to attain their goal they will have to conform to the general public, moving from a niche game and attitude towards a more moderate way of doing things. To oversimplify and exxagerate; they’ll have to make WOW in space (I know, corny but you get my point).

I don’t WANT WOW in space, I want EVE in space. Furthermore; EVE will never be as good as WOW in space as when blizzard would actually attempt to make it themselves. For the simple fact that CCP is unable to work properly on specifics and details. That is the problem that EVE had; overall good ideas and amazing game, but shitty on the details.

So, they’re alienating a part of the older clientele, in favor of new customers (which, if the numbers work out correctly is good for them). Thing is; those new customers want flawless gameplay, proper details and no bugs because they’re used to that as that is what blizzard did SO well with WOW and their other games; it WORKS. EVE cannot provide that.

So, they might get new people short term but it is my opinion that they will be unable to retain them long term.

If you lose focus of your niche marketing you gain more customers short term, but those new customers won’t stay long term because by BEING more mainstream the game suddenly got a lot more competition and those customers flock from one MMO, which they graze/grind till they devoured all the content, to another like locusts. In the mean time the old, alienated customers are not happy either.

The PROBLEM is that CCP was never brave enough to make a choice; be mainstream OR be niche. They kinda sorta try to be both and that means BOTH sides of the player base are unhappy and thus numbers will fall.

The REAL result is that new players have no real idea of what they’re getting in to as CCP is unwilling to market their game properly. And when they inevitably bump into the cold and harsh fact that EVE is, at its core, a brutal PVP sandbox with added on PVE sprinkles they start whining about how unfair things are, how terrible ganking is etc etc.

The game is WORSE for trying to add more PVE, being less brutal and more mainstream. Look at the facts: PVE has been buffed over and over for more than a decade now, PVP has been nerfed over and over for more than a decade now.

The decline is the RESULT of being more mainstream, not in spite of it.

[Loutro_Fift]

And yet I’m happy. Funny that.

Solo forever. Forever solo.

[Theron_Larkis]

I mostly play solo these days, mostly PVP related. I was replying to someone who stated that the game is in decline because “PVP is bad”.

You can solo just fine in EVE if you’re not lazy, stupid or don’t have silly demands.

[Kezrai_Charzai]

@Theron_Larkis

Your conclusion is all wrong. What you end up with is a game that only interests a small number of people, that is true. BUT it also means the game has no competitors.

Sorry, I understand that your reading comprehension is a bit iffy, and you like to make unwarranted assumptions, but you were so busy jumping to conclusions you entirely missed the point.

@Theron_Larkis

I mostly play solo these days, mostly PVP related. I was replying to someone who stated that the game is in decline because “PVP is bad”.

Feel free to point out anywhere I said that. Again, take a little more time to read and understand things before you jump on your hobby-horse and make your typical knee-jerk errors in your reply.

Here’s a few points for you to review until you understand them (emphasis added for the hard of reading):

@Kezrai_Charzai

The takeaway is that if your niche has too many overlapping “this design choice throws away X% of our potential players” features, and not enough “this design choice retains players” features… then you end up with a game that loses population rapidly after the initial growth phase.

EVE has spent too long trying to force players into various specific playstyles that CCP thinks bring in the most money, and nowhere near enough effort making the game appealing to more players - PVE and PVP styles both.

@Kezrai_Charzai

A viable mixed PvE/PvP MMO has to support solo and group play, short and long range strategies, PvE and PvP, empire building and empire dismantling, and various levels of small-to-mid scale combat. Because of EVE’s design specifically, it also has to support mid-to-epic level combat, which adds to the design complexity.

Most of the rest of your post and your quoted old one are reasonably on point, however. You just miss a few details. Like, you can be a niche game, and cater to a niche market - if you are willing to remain a small, ‘niche’ company. CCP didn’t take that path. They tried to be a big company, and they needed the big numbers to do it. Hence the other point: “CCP trying to force players into the playstyles that bring in the most money”. And ruining their game by doing so.

The other factor you missed out on is that a PvP-focused game only lasts and stays competitive, so long as the PvP is somewhat balanced, at least not wildly unfair to new players, and accessible. If PvP is your central niche, but new players quickly find that the PvP is rigged against them and they are just cannon fodder for the crowd that has 3 years and more ahead of them in the game, then eventually word gets around that the game is a sucker bet for new players.

That word started to go around for EVE in about 2008, possibly even earlier. I can confirm it for '08 because '07/'08 was when I started playing and I was already seeing reports that EVE was just a gankers noobtrap when I started. Not saying there was a lot of it or it was the primary perception, but it was there. It was one of the reasons I started playing. As time went on that perception simply got worse. Check threads on “Is EVE good to play? Should I start playing EVE Online?” and see how many of them advise you’ll get ganked.

Not saying it is an accurate perception, or a common event, or that ganking = doom. Just saying it’s a common perception, it’s supportable by facts, and that means fewer new players.

“EVE is balanced poorly for retaining new players in its’ niche” does not translate to “PvP is bad”.

[Theron_Larkis]

@Kezrai_Charzai

Feel free to point out anywhere I said that.

• All of your bullet points conveniently aim at “PVP is bad”, your agenda
• your conclusion is “niche pvp games” lose players, “rapidly after the initial growth phase”

Yet the facts show that EVE started bloating after CCP stopped the PVP focus and started making the game more easy mode, with more PVE opportunities. And then started LOSING them again, just as predicted in 2008.

They stopped publishing sub numbers but from the PCU we can see that online numbers are pretty much the same as pre 2010 and while a bunch of those will be f2p and it will ofcourse have a bunch of more PVE focussed players we wouldn’t have had if the game wouldn’t have focussed more on PVE, we also LOST players who focussed more on the PVP sandbox part of the game.

For sake of argument lets state that those two groups cancel each other out and then we come to the conclusion that nothing was really lost other than the bloating hype around 2011 (post Incarnage and CCP promising to be better).

So as said, your conclusion of “niche PVP games lose players” (because it fits your narrative) isn’t actually supported by facts.

[Kezrai_Charzai]

Clearly, understanding more than half of a sentence at a time is beyond you. You should work on that. Spend less time tweeting and more time reading novels, perhaps.

@Theron_Larkis

All of your bullet points conveniently aim at “PVP is bad”, your agenda

Quoting someone else’s imagined ‘agenda’ is what low quality debaters do when they have no actual facts or points to back them up, so they conjure up an imagined background ‘agenda’ to support their strawman arguments.

‘All the bullet points’ aim at ‘PvP is niche’, or more accurately (if you read the whole thing), “PvP focus in a PvE/PvP mixed MMO narrows your potential audience”.

EVE actually also never ‘stopped the PvP focus’. The PvP is still there, it’s still everywhere, it’s still Concorded in high sec just like always. All they did was remove a couple easy, cheap ways for weak PvP players to gank easy targets in high sec. Such as making mining ships more capable and removing the need to jetcan. They’ve even upped the capabilities of the easiest gank-ships over time.

@Theron_Larkis

So as said, your conclusion of “niche PVP games lose players” (because it fits your narrative) isn’t actually supported by facts.

Again, reading comprehension FTW. Try reading this one (emphasis added to help you focus):

@Kezrai_Charzai

if your niche has too many overlapping “this design choice throws away X% of our potential players” features, and not enough “this design choice retains players” features… then you end up with a game that loses population rapidly after the initial growth phase.

PvP choices can be made that retain players, they’re just tougher in a mixed PvE/PvP MMO environment. And they don’t really cater to the crowd that needs to have asymmetric PvP where they can ensure wins by attacking younger, weaker, non-combat capable or outnumbered targets.

That is EVE’s actual niche, and the niche that supports all the PvP trolls who seek easy wins by ensuring they attack targets that have less than 10% chance of successfully fighting back. EVE isn’t and never has been a ‘PvP focused’ game. EVE is a PvE oriented game where the PvP primarily focuses on players who need to have an overwhelming advantage before they will engage in PvP. (And please, don’t try the tired old “everything in EVE is PvP” dodge - we’re talking player combat here.)

If EVE really was PvP focused, they’d have a better retention rate. Instead they opted for the lame ‘griefing/PKing’ approach to PvP to attract that crowd.

@Theron_Larkis

So as said, your conclusion of “niche PVP games lose players” (because it fits your narrative) isn’t actually supported by facts.

Wow, you’re really out of touch here huh? You can make up all the twists and spins you like: EVE has lost players pretty steadily since the initial growth (and plateau) phase. That’s the fact. If you compare actual subbed players back then to the free-and-bot population now, the player losses are even more shocking.

Pretending that EVE would have performed differently if they had ‘focused on PvP’ is a supposition, not a fact.

[Theron_Larkis]

@Kezrai_Charzai

EVE isn’t and never has been a ‘PvP focused’ game. EVE is a PvE oriented game where the PvP primarily focuses on players who need to have an overwhelming advantage before they will engage in PvP.

I’m just going to ignore the clown stuff and focus on that quote right there. Which shows how very little understanding you actually have and THAT is why you act as you do.

YOU are part of the group of players who ended up in a game they didn’t understand or want. Partly because CCP refused to market EVE for what it is (as stated earlier) and partially because of cluelesness. And that is why you keep whining about terrible PVPers, gankers et al.

You want the game to change to what you think it should be, but what the game isn’t. Had it already been that way then one could argue that EVE is a PVE game with added PVP, but since that’s not the case you’re wrong. QED.

[Xeux]

@Kezrai_Charzai

You can be a niche game, and cater to a niche market - if you are willing to remain a small, ‘niche’ company. CCP didn’t take that path.

That sums up the whole situation. Company presidents all think that trees (companies) can grow to the moon - especially with their leadership (aka meddling).

[Kezrai_Charzai]

@Theron_Larkis

I’m just going to ignore the clown stuff and focus on that quote right there.

I think by ‘clown stuff’ you must mean “facts you can’t refute, so you’re just going to pretend they were nonsense”.

Here’s the real ‘clown stuff’: A newbie char (6 months old) jumping on the forums to talk big about PvP, which he’s never really done, except to gank a newbie pilot in a T1 cheapfit cruiser using his Tech II Ishtar. Talking big from his one-person carebear social corp, non-war eligible. (You and Salt Foambreaker should get along great, assuming you can do as much PI as he does.)

@Theron_Larkis

YOU are part of the group of players who ended up in a game they didn’t understand or want.

Actually I’ve been in EVE for about 12 years now and never had a problem doing anything I wanted in it. My primary issue with EVE is that there simply isn’t much I want to do in it, because most activities require far too much investment of my time and resources for a gain of far too little entertainment. EVE has all the underpinnings of a great game - which CCP has never capitalized on.

@Theron_Larkis

You want the game to change to what you think it should be, but what the game isn’t. Had it already been that way then one could argue that EVE is a PVE game with added PVP, but since that’s not the case you’re wrong. QED.

If I had my way I’d simply change EVE to a more interesting game where both PvP and PvE are more enjoyable and less bottable, grindy, repetitive and boring. You miss these details because of your poor reading comprehension and some primitive debating skills, one of which is to state an opinion as a fact without any supporting argument, and then stick a ‘QED’ on the end of it to pretend you said something meaningful.

Here’s the simple facts (do read it over several times - that may help you understand):

EVE is a mostly PvE game, with some PvP tacked on to drive the PvE and spice things up a little. This is because PvP interactions are relatively short engagements which frequently lead to the destruction of someone’s ship, modules and cargo. Since EVE is a player-run economy, virtually everything destroyed in that brief encounter was created by another player. Which means time spent on the markets, time spent in manufacturing, time spent shipping, time spent mining the resources. Every successful PvP encounter, normally measured in minutes, requires that players spent hours in various PvE activities in order to enable that encounter and replace the losses.

In fact, the MERs show that players do far more than replace the PvP losses: they consistently produce much more material and resources than are consumed in PvP. That resource production is, and always has been, and mathematically must be, a greater portion of the EVE experience than PvP is. QED.

(Kindly observe how, when you make a point, and support it with facts and examples, and complete the reasoning, you can go ahead and stick a ‘QED’ on it.

When you do it your way, you’re just being a clown.)

[Theron_Larkis]

@Kezrai_Charzai

EVE is a mostly PvE game, with some PvP tacked on to drive the PvE and spice things up a little. This is because PvP interactions are relatively short engagements which frequently lead to the destruction of someone’s ship, modules and cargo.

I’m going to, again, ignore all the clown stuff and focus on this because it, again, showcases how little you understand.

PVP isn’t just pewpew, it’s player versus player competition in whatever way.

• pewpew
• the market, buyers trying to buy stuff at the best prices and locations. Sellers competing with other sellers and perhaps even market manipulation
• miners getting the best locations to mine the resources they need, out mining and outdoing other miners. competing with them
• producers deciding what to build, where to sell it and at what price. Competing with other producers
• mission runners picking the best corp with the best agents and the best LP store, competing with other mission runners trying to maximise their LP conversion
• PI where you want to compete with others for the best locations to maximise your profits
• exploration where you’re competing with other explorers to get the best and most sites

etc etc etc.

If after 12 years of playing, as you yourself put it, you STILL don’t have the faintest clue on what PVP means and what EVE is then I’ll just restate what I said earlier: YOU are one of the players who didn’t have the first clue of what kind of game they got in to and you lack the capability to learn/realise this even after 12 years of playing…

[Kezrai_Charzai]

Oh, that poor, poor reading comprehension. It comes back to bite you so many times.

@Kezrai_Charzai

(And please, don’t try the tired old “everything in EVE is PvP” dodge - we’re talking player combat here.)

Perhaps another try at a high school diploma would work to your benefit in the long run.

[Theron_Larkis]

it’s not a dodge, it’s a fact. The fact that you THINK it’s a dodge is just more proof of how little you understand. So yeah, QED.

[Rexxar_Santaro]

Interesting… Can be multiboxing considered a multiplayer gameplay, @Tak_Goden? Or it is a single player. Looks like there is a single player behind those toons, but they act like a fleet, a corporation of characters which are doing same things each of them as an individual player will do particularly.

[Zoiie]

Eve is a sandbox, do whatever you like, usually being the biggest ■■■■ in the game is what many desire

Those that have multiboxing and command many ships in order to take out a single soloer, does look lame, but that’s their choice, just not really skillful, more a case of, those with the most ships win, not the biggest

[Antaria_Wildsun]

Yes, yes, and yes! This is where I am and want to be.

Playing solo I realize the odds against me, and revel in defeating group think players on my own. These victories are few and far between because of the nature of the content, but it is so damn satisfying when it occurs. Even against coordinated newbros.

Im not after ships or buff that make me as powerful as a group, I just don’t want my game play to be of no consideration or merit as it has been with most patches. The loss of the contact list and the structure changes have been particularly painful. Yes, I want to hunt PVE people using those tools and that is every bit as valid as idiots mass swarming any other target, except I have no backup, no margin for error, and no ship replacement program (ugh, those people are a joke).

What I would love to see is the devs stop ignoring fringe players and stop making idiotic patches that vastly hurt our game play. They removed the contact list with real time updates because the clowns in nullsec can’t handle people knowing that they are online while doing massive damage to actual hunters, and now that patch is irrelevant because virtually everyone has a Titan or super cap. Undo that patch and you will see some real WH action. This newest patch won’t do a damn thing towards that.

[Tintallei_Sharan]

Sorry for the 4 days delay in the answer, I was thinking about an answer and then was grabbed into other threads on the forum and kinda forgot this one, and then somehow I remembered it again.

@z0ra_Berg

Psychotik Monk was a well respected, widely known player. He was the one to make awoxing and “safari” a big thing and did plenty of other shenanigans creating news. Safari is basically reverse awoxing. You invite people into your corp and then kill them, and or steal their stuff. He created a community of many, many people, doing all kinds of things to keep the game interesting for those who never see any social influence otherwise.

Haha, sounds like a lot of potential for fun indeed. However, it doesn’t really look like “solo” as I understand it, there seem to be a lot of interaction with other players, and I mean other interactions than pewpewing them?

@z0ra_Berg

Commander Kane, formerly known as Cannibal Kane, was once named “End Boss of Highsec”, because he single handedly wrecked whole groups, all by himself, and he never even used a fitting tool to fit his ships. That was long before “ghost fitting” was implemented in the game.

That’s pretty badass.

@z0ra_Berg

That’s impact. Social impact. The only one that truly matters. Everything else comes second at best, because without all the social aspects, big or small, there would be no game worth playing. "

Fair enough. That really make sense, since your “impact” somehow as to be aknowledged by other people to be called an “impact”.

@z0ra_Berg

That’s only second to social impact, because without people there is no “controlling the map”.

Not sure that I get this one. Well yes, sure, without people there is no controlling the map, but if you control it, you do already have people?

Yeah, I don’t think I get what you mean here.

@z0ra_Berg

Not only that, the majority of players do not even care about what’s going on in nullsec, as they play in the other three “parts”.

To be fair I wasn’t only speaking about the Null-sec SOV system, but about “showing your influence on the map” as a whole, which also mean make your presence known in a part of High-sec, influencing the faction Warfare system in Low, and since I often see people speaking about “evicting” corps from a Wormhole, I’m guessing there is also a way to know which Wormhole belongs to who.

Basically I’m speaking about the entire map of Eve, I was never specifically targeting Null part of this map in my original statement.

@z0ra_Berg

So you might have the opinion that “controlling the map” provides the most valueable impact, but not only is it not true on a general level,

I could be wrong to think it is the most “valueable”, but it is the most visible and the easier to aknowledge. It is also the more “official” one, and by that I mean the one that is recognized by the game mechanics.

I guess what we considere to be the most “valueable” is subjective, and I do admit this thread did show me some possible impacts that I didn’t think about.

@z0ra_Berg

but if you reduce it strictly to “value” in terms of “monetary value” then you really have no idea about this game at all.

Nah, I never talked about “monetary value”, I have no clue about this right now, clearly in term of economy I DO have no idea about this game at all. For now, as long as my activity generate more ISK than it cost me, I’m fine with it.