I think youâre missing the point. Not sure if you started reading at the top or not: Iâm not talking about shortcuts, or impatient, no-effort jumps to advanced skills.
My issue with EVE, from a game design perspective, is that too much of the progression in the game is passive, involving overly-long waiting periods, and encouraging to much of a âset it up and come back in 3 monthsâ type design.
What it lacks in many places is players advancing their progression by active means - by actively engaging with the game. Keep the skill system, fine, sure. Some people like it just the way it is. But add in the ability to speed things up by taking a more hands-on approach to the game.
Your stance is âif people want my level of SP, they can pay for as long as I did and wait for them to pile upâ. But that doesnât really cut it, and even someone choosing to do that today will always be behind. You may know, and I may know, that the feeling of âbeing behindâ isnât actually the barrier it might seem⌠but that isnât so clear to a new player.
It also isnât clear to an active gamer who wants to get in there and earn advancement by the strength of their own actions. Not by some slowly ticking timegate CCP has thrown up between them and their goal.
If the path to that advancement lies in doing some exploration, some PvP, some fleet actions, some anomalies, some wormhole diving⌠then not only is the player being encouraged to play more, but theyâre more likely to discover the activity that âclicksâ with them, rather than sitting in HS doing the same thing over and over until they quit from boredom.
But this has always been a falsehood as well. From multiple accounts, to character bazaar, to trading time cards for ISK - thereâs always been plenty of shortcuts. Most of them âpay to progressâ. Thatâs another part of the problem - EVE looks pretty P2W from certain viewpoints, and it doesnât even have the saving grace of other games that you can also âplay to progressâ.
I should have been more clear - plenty of players saw the need for it and practically begged CCP for it for years. They just werenât the vets whoâre fiercely trying to gatekeep every advantage they have over newer players.
The entire point is to get players doing more things, and more variety of things, in-game. This actually leads to more revenue in a multitude of ways:
- Newer players play more and longer, bumping numbers.
- Older players spend time exploring different playstyles, perhaps re-sparking their interest.
- Players whoâve abandoned the game may come back to see what the new system is (if itâs advertised, and significant enough to grab attention).
- Alpha players run out of their trainable skills faster, at which point they find if they want to keep progressing, they need to sub.
- Players whoâve developed more than one interest in the game are likely to pay more and stay longer.
- If some of the initiatives require fleet and corp interactions to hit the higher rewards, more players may form the social bonds that are the real binding force in a game.
So I guess my question would be, what part of encouraging players to be more active in different playstyles is abhorrent to you? What part of giving both new and vet players reasons to play longer, at more different activities, is going to âdoomâ EVE? If skill points really arenât that important, how is trading more player activity in the game for a mere few million SP going to wreck âeverything EVE is all aboutâ?
