Well fair dos. I too would prefer destruction from players. However, since that isn’t going to happen…
It is at least amusing that before trigs, when players were responsible for the vast majority of destruction, some players were asking for NPC’s with ‘more teeth’.
It’s a funny world ain’t it?
Point #1 on my CSM16 platform is that PVE needs to transition toward resembling PVP (AI, PVP fits and fleet compositions, logi + ewar, etc), even if it just means the stats are scaled back in lower-level PVE. For example, entry-level rats in L1 missions might have 5% of the stats of diamond rats (I’m guesstimating), and would have a few high-quality rats rather than hordes of dumb-as-brick rats - players can still use low-cost low-SP ignorantly-fitted and poorly-piloted ships (they are newbs, after all), but at least they would be able to face PVP-level AI and observe their tactics even if they don’t pose a threat at that low level since the enemy is only equipped with pea-shooters and are paper-thin using superficial reps/logi/ewar. (By contrast, the last time I completed the NPE the final mission had you solo kill a capital ship in a ■■■■-fitted frigate - really???) Belt rats would likewise exhibit intelligence and fleet tactics even if they continue to be toothless in terms of being a threat to a Corvette or Venture. It’s the exposure that matters. Players climbing up the difficulty ladder of PVE will already have been exposed to top-tier AI early on, so the only thing that scales are the stats, fleet sizes, and number of fleets (esp. in proceduraly generated content), but the AI remains the same: top-tier PVP-level.
Ideally, there would be no distinction between “PVE fits” and “PVP fits” - all fits would be PVP fits. By accustoming players to PVP doing PVE, they will be better prepared to PVP when it comes to them, and they will be more amenable to proactively engaging in PVP since their PVE experience will have prepared them to a far better extent than existing PVE does now. This is particularly true when the PVP competence of some rats + rat fleets may meet or exceed that of a considerable chunk of players in terms of fits, compositions, and (artificial) intelligence - until those players get better, that is. If you can learn to beat the AI of a given tier, you can beat a considerable chunk of actual players of the same or lower tiers of PVP competence.
I completely understand your frustration. I confess that I am also a little puzzled by people who know what EVE is like, know what’s at risk, come back after a considerable absence then just throw expensive ships together and fly out into the black without checking anything?
D-Scan would have shown you new NPCs you hadn’t seen before, at which point you should have started researching on changes. Agency would have shown you. Asking other players in help would have given you a heads up.
Yes, it’s frustrating to get surprise-nuked by NPCs. No, you can’t just come back to EVE after a long absence, fly a half billion ISK ship out into the wild black yonder, and assume nothing new will happen or that your skills and reaction time are still sharp enough to dodge anything you run in to that you didn’t bother to search, scan, or ask about.
Oh well, at least you didn’t lose multiple Golems like the other guy who did the same thing. Hope things improve for you.
dscam is for people
You’re out of line, young man!
no im not
im controlling myself to not rant to much here
the sandbox is dead
RIP
edit:
i get more mad wen players believe stupid things than wen CCP do stupid things
vox populi vox dei
I think you need a hug 
*
* that is supposed to be a hug emoji, not a boob-grab emoji
yeah i need some cuddle 
I’ll give you a ■■■■-fest of cuddles if you vote for me for CSM16 
cant do it
ill be voting for me 
I think it is funny how CCP kept making mining and industrial ships harder and harder to gank - to the point that a huge portion of the gankers just quit the game. Rather than reversing that and trying to get more gankers in the game, CCP fixed it with surprise wtfbbqpwn NPCs.
Something is wrong with this “solution.”
Imagine being so bad at EVE you don’t even manage to mine in Highsec…
But I agree that this NPC ■■■■ is kinda dumb. It should be up to the players to explode the miners
Look at the trend:
The new ESS will have a unique set of on-grid rules to encourage good fights and avoid troll-like tactics. The ESS rule set, which affects a 75km radius around the structure, contains the following:
“Troll-like” tactics. Same wording as “Bot-like”. I wonder if it’s the same person who designs these? Anyway, this is in NULSEC. Whoever brings a superior force there, usually wins. Some of these perfectly legit mechanics are now regarded as “troll-like” by CCP. And regarded as “non-good-fights”.
====================
Think about it, look at the direction CCP is taking. I wonder what else is going to be frowned up in a couple of years from now.
If FOB rats are supposedly PvP-level equivalents…
Can I also have a 76km warp to arbitrary locations that breaks lock please?
Okay…
Death/lost progression is a common mechanic in video game design. However, implementation can have a huge effect on how players feel about and respond to it. For example, if players feel like the death/ship loss/whatever is their fault, and the amount of lost progression doesn’t feel excessive, players tend to be fine with it. They’ll dust themselves off, maybe learn a thing or two, and get right back into it. A good example of this would be Super Meatboy. It’s a challenging game that players tend to die a lot in. But, the deaths always feel like it’s the players fault, the amount of lost progress is low, and the game throws you right back into the action without a bunch of BS (no prolonged death animations, loading screens, having to rewatch unskippable cutscenes, etcetera).
When a game handles progression loss poorly, however, it becomes a frustrating experience that can turn players off of a game. For example, Mighty No. 9 caught a lot of flack for what people felt like were cheap deaths (i.e. unavoidable damage and leaps of faith with insta-gib spikes). A lot of it was reminiscent of the cheap deaths of old school video game design, where the only way you could know about and avoid certain hazards was to have died to them. Of course, old school designers used to do this in order to help arcade cabinets suck up quarters, or to artificially inflate the playtime of games that had to fit within like 11 and half kilobytes of storage. Back then, it served a meaningful purpose for game devs, and was pretty much par for the course. Today, however, it’s pretty much bad video game design, and it just frustrates players. I mean, it’s one thing to die because it’s your fault. It’s another to die due to bugs or bad game design.
Now, Eve is a game with a particularly harsh death mechanic. Which is, in my opinion, a good move, because it raises the tension and excitement. Victories, defeats, close calls, exploring new areas and content -it all becomes way more exciting than it otherwise would be (see the combat shakes). HOWEVER, because of the particularly harsh death mechanic, the devs have to be extra careful to make sure the deaths seem fair to players. Big progression losses and cheap deaths are kind of like blowjobs and my mom. Both can be good things on their own, but make an absolutely terrible pairing -because she uses way too much teeth… I mean… because, she’s my mom, and that’s disgusting.
"I Wanna Be the Guy" has plenty of cheap deaths, but the game has frequent save spots, and the cheap deaths are so egregious that it somehow wraps around and becomes humorous and charming.
Which finally brings us to FOB’s. I learned about their danger through community knowledge, and newbros will typically learn their lesson by paying a small penalty (they fly cheap ships). And once you know about them, they are easily avoided. However, I can certainly sympathize with returning players that get a nasty surprise. They make a decision based upon their understanding of the rewards and risks, then get blindsided with what feels like a cheap punch. Personally, I think Archer has a good point with some kind of warning. I mean, the devs felt justified to put in warnings for things like incursions, trig systems, jumping into lowsec. Why do those justifications not hold true for FOB’s as well?
While I do believe that ship loss is a normal and expected thing in Eve Online, I don’t consider destruction under any circumstances to be good. This is, of course, an extreme example, but we can both probably agree that dying to things like to exploits, cheaters, and DC’s feels terrible.
Anyway, I could go on. But this is already a wall of text.
Have you considered the paradox that without any knowledge, EvE is super-dangerous for your wallet/stock/implant farm, but once you have it, you are pretty much set to not lose anything until you risk it on purpose? And that the rewards for that are basically just more stuff to risk losing?
Is this why the game play itself is not designed to be fun in of itself? Will CCP move to make my alpha ninjing and scanning even more tedious? This reporter says… probably.
There is little sense in having weak NPCs except for pleasing weak players.
That’s why we can see weak NPCs everywhere, in every game.
Weak NPCs translates into weak players feeling strong.
Strong NPCs translates into weak players, who can only compete with weak NPCs, feeling their own reality.
Thus, when the NPCs grow stronger, the playerbase grows stronger either because the current players learn to adapt, because more capable players (willing to fight stronger NPCs) join, or because of weak players leaving to different games with weak NPCs more suitable for their needs … or a combination of these.
I’d been flying around belts in low sec for 2 weeks in anything from Frigs, T2 cruisers and Battlecruisers. But as soon as I bring out a T2 fitted Skiff in high sec, that happens, so sure, top mechianic 10/10.
As of T1 Abyssals weren’t Alpha-friendly enough that T0s were introduced 
Be glad you didn’t try the Abyssal sites then lol