Just wondering, what is your opinion on the Proving Grounds? Should CCP bring them back?
I mean, the infrastructure with the filament and leaderboard is still there (go to Neocom → Activities → The Proving Grounds). Would basically just require to start new events and done it is.
Instanced PVP and PVE should not be a thing in EVE.
I don’t often agree with you, but on this we share an opinion.
No, instanced PvP should not be brought back.
Instanced PvP has no place in EVE.
It is true that Proving Grounds added an easily accessibly option for quick small scale and 1v1 fights to EVE. However this kind of content already can be found in EVE in faction warfare space.
CCP has put effort in updating that part of space so players can find 1v1s in an organic setting as part of the unpredictable and unscripted open universe. Unlike Proving Grounds this content does not require CCP to babysit the content to create new events for the 10 people competing on the leaderboard every other week.
Yes, they need to come back.
I’d like to see them back, but in a different and more accessible design than before.
They have brought EVE attention and media presence through videos and streams that could attract viewers. Much more viewers than regular EVE content.
And what EVE needs the most is fresh or returning players that can bring more life into the game. Much more important than repetitive mantras about ‘EVE is this…’ and ‘Thisandthat has no place in EVE’. As long as player-interaction is part of it, anything can be designed to be a longterm benefit for the game.
Noooo…….no un-sandboxy stuff in our alleged sandbox.
Absolutely they should come back.
I’m in EvE for the fights, and theres plenty to be had.
Unfortunately in nullsec these days that devolves into hunting for 3 hours and either finding some muppet to gank who didn’t pay attention and should’ve lived had they paid attention, or getting completely and utterly shut down by bringing 3:1 numbers just in recons + equal numbers of logi + whatever other dps was left.
Not much good “fighting” to go around there in null, esp. if you have a life outside the cluster and kinda ask to get results from a play time window 1-2 hrs long 1-2 times a week.
So yes, proving grounds was a way to get a bunch of sparring.
It doesnt really take away anything from the sandbox either, if you don’t like to partake in it by all means keep camping your bubble or bringing a spread of 10 recons to a solo vagabond in an ess.
Don’t expect the rest of new eden to go “yea i’ll happily feed into that”. Guess what, those of us smart enough to spot those traps wont give you any content either, so saying it detracts from the sandbox is unfounded.
Give the sandbox more options, incl the sparring ring which proving grounds ultimately is.
Well, it can be found there theoretically. In practice, you have Frat with twenty people on side A, twenty people on side B, and if you try to do any of the sites they’ll summon people from the other side in mass to shoot you.
Not to mention the typical low sec players who will send an interceptor fitted for pure speed/tank who’s only job is to hold a solo plex player in place long enough to get dog piled by the rest of their fleet.
There is an alternative way I could see the Proving Grounds as a good addition to EVE.
Give it a location in the universe and make it always available.
My main problems with the old proving grounds are in the first place how it’s instanced teleported content disconnects it from the rest of the universe, and in the second place how it’s temporary nature makes participating annoying for players who don’t have the entire weekend to figure out the meta, theorycraft a fit and then repetitively do fights. This also requires ongoing CCP efforts to keep these events running.
If I’d like to hop on, do a couple of 1v1s and a couppe of days later again, the event is gone or I need a new fit.
As it is now these events are not for players who casually play a session every now and then. And it’s disconnect from the universe makes it feel out of place too.
If CCP could fix those issues I’d be much more welcoming of the 1v1 nature of instanced fights.
Example suggestion:
As result of this change players can at any time travel to that system for ‘fair 1v1 fights’ at any day instead of just every other weekend. As an evergreen activity it wouldn’t need new CCP work either once it is correctly set up.
Giving it a physical location enables the open world aspects this game is known for, including transportation contracts of ships and fits to the proving grounds system, space shenanigans of ambushing rival players who won fights as well as an inevitable enthousiastic group of players who forcefully try to ensure players can run proving grounds without getting killed.
In other words, it adds a lot of the sandbox elements that proving grounds currently are missing.
Instanced PvP has no place in EVE.
Nope.
Those that say that instanced PVP is bad in EVE, what is the problem with that exactly?
They somehow believe that the players inside would be ‘inaccessible’ for normal pvp like roams, camps, hotdrops or whatever. They are preaching a dogma without thinking about the long-term consequences.
Which is nonsense of course, since those players fighting in there wouldn’t just be roaming around being easy targets for everyone else to catch in the same time they do fight in the Proving Grounds. Because you can’t just create the ships and modules you use for fighting in the PGs out of thin air. You have to buy them from the market, you have to make ISK some way to fund it.
I believe the absolute opposite is true: Proving Grounds attract a new kind of audience. People who are looking for fast-paced combat and a challenge system that enable for somewhat fair starting conditions. You can see it in the AT and in all kind of twitch-streams or YT-videos where those “Tournaments” in EVE get far more attention than most other EVE content.
Those aren’t nessessarily the same players that are already there, it can lure new players into the game, which then need to find income sources to fund their Proving Ground challenges. They will make relations to other players, being shown all the other features of the game and at some point no longer just be here for the Proving Grounds but will begin to participate in the “open” game world as well, forming PvP groups, wanting bigger battles, maybe even settling down somewhere, claming space, challenging others in the open world. Offering them the Proving Grounds is just the “snack” to get them attracted to the game and it’s great universe. And it hurts no one, it brings EVE attention, more players, more income, more future.
Do you know any such players who actually have done all that? What are the ‘‘long-term consequences’’ of not having PG in the game?
Having your characters walk around in stations and play house with each other would attract a new kind of audience as well. Does not mean we should do that just to get people who are just into that.
If you find yourself in a fair fight in EVE, you’re doing it wrong…
It’s a stupid old meme that doesn’t apply for people looking for a tournament like competition. Else go to the AT competitors, telling them how wrong they play the game. 
Coming to EVE because of a more or less single aspect? Yes! Gankers for example.
For PG: not by name, since I never participated in that. But logic dictates that a tournament like competitin option would attract many players, because you can see the viewer counts for general EVE streams and compare them vs PG or AT streams. And most successful other games have some kind of competition mode because the devs realize that this kind of gameplay attracts many players.
It’s just a matter of resource costs. If having WiS would eat almost no dev time or increased server load, absolutely go for it. Let players meet on stations., gamble for ISK, play sim combat against each other… great stuff. Unfortunatly it does eat too much development resources to come up with a good design here. PG does not.
Yes, and it should be housed in Zarzak. I think thats what it’s called. With an ingame betting system
I don’t think so, maybe a fight is “randomly” fair?