What you are describing is goal setting, not the grind. The grind is the activities required to stay entertained while ‘waiting’. As one who knows from experience there’s only so much $$$ you can throw at a training queue before you max out the effectiveness of $$$.
Seems like all anti-p2w people skip over that fact.
I think that you are on to something, they have been building on different systems and the Trig war, abyssals, Dr Who etc show that CCP can deliver interesting content and mechanics. With the Trig War, capsuleers picked their poison when systems like Niarja fell instantly remaking the map in big way. You could say Eve got bigger for some folks, with just one gate. And lots of players got in on it, newbros in the worst fit kitchen sink fleets to blinged out “bittervets” complaining about it, yet they were still in Fleet hitting F1 and snagging that sweet Triglavian lewt, or player lewtz.
Reading into the ongoing lore tea-leaves, I would not be be surprised if border changes between empires became more impactful. (for example, with Yulai conventions suspended in control over a systems Stargate could be up for grabs.)
I mean I’m just mixing hint’s that CCP gave us with my own desire for a smaller universe lol, but yea I agree I loved the triglav invasion personally I think the trigs actually saved us from drifters by closing off a parrallel route directly to us lol hence the closed circuit of pochven but not exactly sure tbh.
To provide proper context for my remarks.
Both of those would be CCP directly altering space, so… no.
But in EVE, there are none. All you have to do is update your skill queue. Then go play other games while you wait.
Careful this chain of thinking lead’s to “leveling” Do mission’s get sp.
No, because I’m not saying that’s good or bad, and I’m not advocating changing it. That’s simply the current conditions in the game. And it’s been like that since launch. If all you want to do is get into caps and supers, all you need to do in-game is keep updating your queue, and occasionally sell off some PLEX to get the ISK for the next skill book (or, eventually, the ships and modules themselves).
Edit: and frankly, from CCP’s pov, that was always a good mechanic for maximizing return on developer manhours. Because it meant that players could / would / did happily spend money just to keep updating their queue, without actually consuming content at all. That’s the perfect result for a developer: ‘we get money, and need to add no new content because they haven’t used any of it, so all of it’s still new for them.’
Dramatic changes to core gameplay will cause at least some players to cancel, and there is no guarantee that anyone will appreciate those changes enough to offset the loss. I am in favor of dramatic change mind you, but i understand the risk.
Sadly, CCP has gone so long sitting on their asses that baby steps might be all they can attempt. So far these proposed faction changes sound like just that. They seem, fir now, to be simply finishing a job that damn well should have been completed a decade ago.
Even changes that are magically perfect and meet universal approval might serve only to spread an already falling playerbase that much thinner – killing off other incomplete game options along the way.
Again, as I said above, I would love to see some kind of dramatic universal changes. I am just not sure it is gonna happen.
That wasn’t true for me, it might be for those that PLEX their hulls or are senior enough within their alliance to be given them, but for me it was a lot more than simply updating skill queues. I needed to develop the account infrastructure to support using supercaps:
A means to generate ISK (I went with rorqs and triple boxing hawks in T5s).
The building of net worth over time using the above to a point where I felt I could risk using supercaps. Many many hours spent mining, ratting and running abyssals. Others may choose to support supercap pursuits via Incusion pilots, dread daytripping, triple boxing burners (yes it’s possible), barghest L5s etc.
Setting up support accounts (dedicated FAX and Recon on different accounts to titan/dread/super).
Researching cap component BPOs up - what a waste of time that was!
Learning how to use cap accounts effectively. I started with Nid ratting, progressed to a hyper Nyx to get comfortable. Daft little bits like how to judge how close to land a rorq next to a rock and stop so you don’t bump off it given how long it takes a rorq to actual reach 0.0 speed (got remarkably precise at that!).
Misc bits like general research and application processes for joining cap and supercap groups, speaking to leadership.
It was all a means to an end of being able to support my wish to be a supercap pilot.
Take away caps or artificially extend the grind to reach them, means I no longer have a reason to go ratting, mining, run abyssals and, eventually in my case, login.
Yes, that’s the point: if all you’re interested in is getting into those ships, all you need to do is throw $$ at the problem at intervals.
Everything else you’re describing might be ‘a means to an end’, but those means constitute additional goals you set along the way. Your reasons for logging in were to do things that weren’t strictly necessary for your end goals, they were just things you decided you wanted to do… even if you later decided they’d been a waste of time.
I’ve no interest in throwing $$ at anything, I’m interested in playing the game, completing the journey without some kind of P2W shortcut.
I did them purely to reach my goal of flying supercaps. Had I not been captivated by PC Gamer articles and the early supercap battles, I simply wouldn’t have bothered with any of it… And it’s the reason why I’m unsubbed now, but still engaged enough to continue posting in the hope of cap indy, scarcity and ratting changes being reverted / iterated upon.
It may not be intentional, but Scarcity and cap indy changes in particular feel like a cheap way to artificially extend the grind to caps, keep players like me on the treadmill paying a sub for longer without needing to actually introduce new art assets / content.
What is it about the content I prefer that you dislike? What do you think makes for “better” content to boost the PCU?
So I guess max effective mining, refining, BPO-BPC research, invention, materials purchasing, building and marketing are just waiting…
Man I’ve had this game all wrong!
They’re things you choose to do. They’re not, as you said, ‘required’. All that’s required is that you login periodically to update your skill queue.
Can we maybe steer things back to the specific FW part of game?
Something I would really like to see is moving campaigns that break up the tedium.
So instead of “the warzone” you could have “The Minmatar invasion of Ammatar” that would last for several months, until it gets a bit stale. Then close the campaign, have some sov change based on results, and then move to a conflict in some other part of space.
Because FW as same old space for same old farming is unengaging, but different battles that matter sound quite fun.
Absolutely. Back to things like the Defiants campaign, only with the addition of what amounts to sovereignty mechanics for the bloody campaign between the Defiants and Minmatar capsuleers, and 24IC and their supporters.
Defiants Campaign or the Amarr-Blood Raider war for the bleaks are both very good models to start with for narrative design.
One thing the Defiants especially offers is the possibility of more than two sides. Since this is ancient history, that campaign was a breakaway Minmatar group invading the Amarr held territory in Devoid. You had three sides, effectively, Pro-Amarr, Pro-Minmatar Republic, Pro-Defiants.
If you were doing that today, you could have allegiance options for the campaign that let players choose between one of the three, and have different goals for each of the three. The relationships could also change as the plot develops, what starts with Minmatar vs Defiants vs Amarr might turn into Minmatar and Defiants vs Amarr. And so on.
One of the biggest problems with current FW is that it’s fundamentally symmetrical, in a universe that is actively asymmetrical. It’s immersion breaking and it gets pretty amazingly boring when it’s been running for a decade. Because the campaign is permanent, this is vital, because otherwise it can’t just last forever. But if you are moving from one campaign to another, with different involved sides and stakes based on situation, you can use the same core mechanisms to create much more engaging and varied content.
That doesn’t undermine that some of us enjoy the journey to caps and are looking for more content in that area so I’m not sure where you’re going with that line of debate.
So much facts in this thread, I love it great response!