Complains numbers are lower than 2008, quotes playstyles that were easier back then as what has ruined it since then, started in 2009.
I started in 2009 and crime is harder now than then.
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You DO realise that everything you mentioned have become less and less of a problem over those years yet “the numbers drop”, as you yourself put it.
Try and explain that.
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Are you surprised?
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Good riddance.
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You chose to pay for it as it was, gankers and all.
The game was far more engaging and fun with all the parts you don’t like.
So why the hell are morons like you still here dragging the game down even further?
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I’d say that’s a rorqual problem more than a safety problem.
And maybe it’s an orca problem in hi-sec now that I’ve said that.
I agree with all of this.
The difference is that i have seen how pvp ticks all of these boxes at once and more.
Pvp is more engaging and less repetitive. It self balances risk/reward in a similar way to the market. New bros can use it to compete with older players. It promotes group play. Specialist professions are enabled from less safety like hauling, mercs, combat wings of corps, competitive mining. Experiences are more emotional.
I don’t give a ■■■■ about easy kills or hard kills. Whilst i can recognise the difference between the two, discussing the morality of kills is irrelevant if not totally counter productive for a pvp sandbox. The fox does not care that it can only hunt chickens and small rodents whilst the lion takes down bison. Everyone has their niche and their place in the food chain. It’s just survival. Shaming the fox for hunting chickens and saying it has to move to africa and join/compete with lions just means there are no foxes and a lot of chicken shits.
And it’s the same for eve. New/weak pvp’rs need to start somewhere and it used to be wardecs, or can flipping…
These players are far more important for player interaction, content creation and by extension player retention than johnny hi-sec who just wants to mine and run abysmal space all day. Or worse, someone who spams corp invites without giving the first crap about the players he takes on.
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A Dunning-Kruger clown buys an FPS game:
- “This game sucks, I keep getting killed by people. I just want to stroll around the maps in peace”
- “People who shoot others in this game must be murderers IRL and also psychopaths”
- “They should remove the shooting from some part of the maps so I can just move around in peace, that’s not too much to ask for is it”
- Continues to pay and play the game, buying all the DLC
- “I’ve been playing for 5 years now and it STILL still hasn’t changed, man you guys are pathetic”
- "See how the online numbers are going down? cAnT yOu SeE thIS iS bEcAusE oF NoT hAViNG nO PVP aREas???
- “You guys must have no understanding at all about how games work. Here’s a professional research I did on the subject proving exactly that (please ignore the typos), clearly not biased at all”
Any normal sane person:
-
“So you started to play a game that is about shooting people even though you don’t like that, you continue to play this game that is about shooting people WHINING about that fact, while lashing out to people who just want to play the game as it was meant to be. Demanding changes to game’s base premise so to spoil is for all those people, because you feel entitled to it”
-
“How much of a narcissist must one be to think that a whole game should change its base premise just because you don’t like it?”
-
“There are tons of games out there that don’t have this but you chose the ONE that does, and then demand it to change to be exactly like all the other?”
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“Why just not accept that this game isn’t for you and move on?”
-
“Are you stupid?”
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Absolutely agree that PvP is the format that EVE needs to focus on and encourage. More and ‘better’ PvE probably wouldn’t hurt EVE, but more and better PvP is pretty much the only avenue for EVE to maintain relevance going into the future.
I’m considerably less ‘agreed’ with this section, To me it feels like you have an overly rosy view of the benefits of PvP in high sec to newer/intermediate players, and not enough admission of something I feel has been proven over and over again: that if ‘easier’ PvP without checks and balances is allowed in high sec, lazy PvPers who really only care about scoring quick kills for an easy ego boost will drive more people out of the game than it retains.
Honestly, I can’t “prove” that, although I feel some data ‘indicates’ it. So really that portion comes down to your gut feeling vs. mine. I’d even say this sort of difference warrants some “chaos era” experimentation on EVE’s part. Maybe they should have a 2-month trial of some new, more accessible WarDec mechanic. Maybe they should mess with structure timers. Maybe they should do more Skills for Kills, or Loot Drop events, or other funky rewards for PvP activity. So long as they are collecting good data from it I’m fine with that.
My own feeling is that players need a more graduated progression from “new player” into PvPer than current systems provide. You feel the older mechanics in EVE provided that, and I feel that EVE has never actually implemented the mechanics that could achieve that. (Which is why I always harp on ‘poor game design’ issues with CCP.)
I think the progression should be something like:
- Watch a Mercenary/Bounty Hunter video while signing up for EVE, that shows a more realistic PvP lifestyle than the usual CCP ‘EVE Cinema’ videos showing things that never actually work in-game.
- Have a specific Tutorial->Career Agent->Combat Academy NPE that better prepares a new player who chose PvP as a career.
- Have Resource Wars as a small scale, solo, then 2-3 size fleet, then 4-5 size fleet, voluntary PvP proving ground.
- Have an improved Faction Wars as the next logical step.
- Provide proper rewards, risks, and consequences for players who’ve now got all the basics of PvP down to decide on a path of high sec piracy, low sec combat, WH delving or Null fleeting.
If that path was set up properly I believe it would result in less “throw the newbies in the shark tank” player attrition and more “grow a new generation of PvPers” for EVE.
Of course, before any of that can happen (your version or mine)… CCP needs people willing to rock the boat, shape a vision of how PvP should work across a range of player abilities and security spaces, and then carry out that vision without screwing things up worse than they already are.
Well hey, if we’re gonna dream, might as well dream big right?
(Edit: I didn’t reply to the Orca/Rorqual points because I have next to no interest in higher end mining, so I don’t have any firm views on what problems they cause in their current incarnation. You may well be spot on with those, I just have no way to evaluate it personally.)
Is incredibly misleading because it doesn’t consider alts. For example, if I have a PvP main, a hauler alt, a scout alt, and three market/industry alts that never undock that would count as only 16% PvP. But in reality, from a player point of view, those six characters are 100% PvP.
And if you look at some of the implications of that data you see a lot more PvP activity than the PvP bar. For example, 25% of players warp in lowsec, 30% warp in nullsec, and 40% join fleets. These are not technically PvP-exclusive events, but they are actions that are significantly skewed towards PvP. This strongly suggests that 15% PvP is a massive under-reporting of actual PvP players.
You’re right. Your level 4 mission should be happening in lowsec, where the rules are very straightforward. But when people like you demand more and more safety you get a game where PvP has to go through convoluted rules instead of a simple match of your ship vs. my ship.
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I feel that the latest wardec changes showed that the people who quit from being killed by ‘lazy’ PvPers are not hanging around even if they aren’t decced/killed.
Thousands of players become immune to decs. A feature that is allegedly ‘clearly having an impact on retention’…and player log ins went down.
What you see as driving players from the game (which i too have witnessed in my wardeccing and decced days), i see as sorting the chaff from the wheat.
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This game becomes fun the moment you understand how it works and when you have found a way to make isk so your character feels like its progressing.
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Lots of people understand it but don’t accept it, even after years of playing and all they do is whine about how bad the game is.
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That wasn’t a debate. That was me pointing out your stupidity.
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Agreed, although my own review of the player numbers around that time would state that as “the player numbers were already on a downward slope, and the wardec changes did not change that slope”. So the downward slope continued due to all the factors that apply to EVE player numbers for the past 2 years, not specifically linked to wardecs.
I can’t say I’ve ever really felt that any of EVE’s Wardec mechanics have hit the right spot. This is outside observation because I’ve only been in a few wars and never as initiator. I can’t look back at any of the various mechanics and think “that was when they got wars right”.
That’s why I’d be happy to see them use Chaos Era to experiment with different Wardec approaches. Maybe do 6 months of 2 months this, 2 months that, 2 months the other thing and see what happens.
Well, either that, or they could just hire a decent game designer and do it right the first time.
(Still dreaming, obviously.)
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I think that the main thing here is that highsec changes do not actually change player numbers significantly, nullsec changes do (because nullsec players are more inclined to create a lot of accounts for farming, for example).
Some things I noticed during the tutorial and that drove me crazy:
- Why do I always have to click on the Agency icon? I should be able to click on the Aura dialog to open it.
- Aura keeps hiding parts of the Agency window where you are supposed to click. That’s particularly bad when you have to open the Agents tab, which was right behind the big Aura box.
- I was surprised that Career Agent missions could not be accepted in space.
- Just like CCP improved the size of the Overview and Chat window, they should also improve the standard size of mail windows.
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You don’t. Press alt+m
She is a minx isn’t she! But just move the windows man. Not hard.
…I actually took 40 seconds of my life I will never ever get back just to reply to this nonsense.
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This topic is so interesting that I still want to add a belated - and lengthy - response, if you allow me. While OP makes many different points, ranging from skill points to nullsec sov, I will stick to the question of SP.
tldr: Skill injecting early on is like pretending to be good and frankly to me that seems like a scam that creates false hope. Skilling up the normal, slow way and making informed decisions is the surer way to get good. Pilot skills and knowledge top everything else.
First, an open door to kick in. The first thing a new player should be aware of (besides this being a relentless all-pvp MMO) is that it will always be about making choices. That is where the problems start, most people are understandably unable to oversee or absorb the possibilities. “What do I do now” after the tutorials is a very common question. It takes time to find the information, it takes time to know what the right questions to ask are.
The training system as it is at this moment forces players to take the time to think long and hard about future choices. One could say the training system trains the mindset of the player, adjusts expectations. That is its main merit, in my opinion. Flatly refusing that training system is doing yourself a disfavour.
What needs facilitating is a way to make those choices, by providing better information. “Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose” is golden rule #1 in Eve, has been for almost two decades, and for good reason.
One does not simply crawl into the biggest hull and happily go fighting. It takes a lot of understanding and studying, Eve experience of battlefield aspects, ship characteristics and roles, and pilot skills.
Skill levels themselves are merely passkeys to ships and modules. The only guarantee that skill points give you is that your losses will be a lot more painful and costly if you fly above your pilot skills - which is what you suggest new players should be allowed to do.
Skill levels take longer the further you progress. Again, this has the added benefit that you weigh that time (or SP) effort versus its effect, and after a while you get better at estimating its importance, you are forced to learn making informed decisions. Skill points matter much less than Eve experience.
It is true that more experienced Eve players have a distinct advantage over newcomers. How could that be any different except by preventing both sides to have encounters ? Is it a bad thing ? Only if you terribly mind losing ships until you get good enough as a pilot. Losing a ship is not “unfair”. It usually means the other pilot knows more than you do at that moment, for instance that you shouldn’t attack his Dramiel with your Merlin. Knowing when not to fight may not be glamorous, but it saves money and salt.
It’s like the kid being beaten by his dad in chess. If the kid only hates losing he will stop playing. If the kid hates losing but starts to study he will grow and one day perhaps beat his dad in chess. That is Eve in a nutshell, whether you do your pvp on a battlefield, on the market or in an asteroid belt.
I would even go one step further and say that by making access to big shiny hulls easier for newbies you’d be chasing them out of the game even faster, because it would not pay off at all and deepen the frustration.
So what are possibilities ? I think they already exist, here’s an example from my personal field of interest.
What if I tell you that I can put any (omega) rookie into a functional stealth bomber in under 30 days from a totally fresh character (by last calculation), shooting torpedoes even in wormhole space, handling dscan and bookmarking like a pro, and be extremely dangerous ? A real specialty like so many others in the game. A few days more and he’d be dropping bombs as well, 12 days later and he’d be flying all four racial hulls. But would that rookie be succesful ? Probably not at first, but he would have fun, if flying that ship is his cup of tea, and maybe he acquires the taste of the hunt. Is an sb a shiny ship ? Not really, but who loves that style of combat and hunting is in for a real treat with lots of opportunities to get into the thick of the action anywhere.
Do fresh rookies even know about stealth bombers and how easy they are to get into ? No, and there is the real problem.
Ironically, in the time it takes you to scrape enough isk to buy a skill injector I can skill a few pilots into decent specialty ships of the smaller sizes. If your aim is to fly a shiny black ops battleship, that’s another story (and not even a happy one), true. And why on earth would anyone want to fly a super or a titan right off the bat ? I’ve seen rookies come and go, who buy plex, skill inject and buy the shiny battleship, full of eagerness and expectations. A week later and they are gone, with nothing to show for their investment. Bringing back expectations to realistic levels is a challenge but would also help retention.
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Tbh, the game actually telling new players when they do something right.
No, I dont mean participation medals you cynical old gits, I mean telling them exactly how close to doom then just skirted, how well the shot hit (more clearly than now) and a proper post battle diagnosis replay, that sort of thing.
I dunno, or just say “Jump in and learn as you go”
Actually ■■■■■■■ say it CCP
Is it possible for you to actually engage with your new players on any level?
Worst kulaks of all tbh
That’s part of the reason I’ve been in Rookie channel all these years. Teach, encourage, interact. Granted most of the “newbies” are alts pretending to be new and most people aren’t worth the effort because they’re lazy, stupid or act like a child.
But every once in a while you run into one that’s worth helping and “saving”. The ones who might become “proper” EVE players later on (whatever that means). It’s my hope that showing those folks a different/better side of EVE by interacting with them in a meaningful way (better than massive clown corps who just wanted standardized foot soldiers, better than the zero knowledge grind idiots and most certainly better than the NPE) might keep them from uninstalling before they even got in to it all.
We need less lazies, we need less idiots, we need less group thinking non-effort content consumers.
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