Do we even need to go that far? I think the economy in Echoes is going through Venezuela-levels of inflation right now.
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I hadn’t actually expected I’d have to break it down into baby-talk for the supposedly smartest, most adaptable and swift on the uptake crowd that the PvPers keep telling us they are, but I guess that’s the case. Perhaps if reading comprehension was a combat skill it would go easier…
Destruction, per se, is not a goal. It is not a game feature. It is not a benefit to the economy. The economy isn’t even broken. The only thing broken is the disconnect between wealth-building and meaningful risk in the game.
Destruction in a game like EVE is good when it comes about as a side-effect of proper game design. When it happens because players choose to engage in risky and combative behaviours because the risk/reward, accessibility, and trigger mechanisms make it desirable to participate in. For a larger portion of the playerbase than the current single-digit percentage (your own estimate, by the way).
Destruction is bad for the game when it’s implemented as surprise mechanics changes, super-NPCs who warp in at random, and “hey lets just make everything in stations not safe anymore” initiatives.
One way is about designing the game better. The other way is about ham-handed attempts to “fix” what CCP has broken without even having an actual idea what the core problem is.
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And there might even be a production/destruction cycle for all I know. Production goes down, then destruction follows suit and then production goes back up. If we had a full data set over say a full 10 years we might be able to see something…maybe.
And yeah destructions fine. Blowing stuff up is fun. And yeah, it helps keeps things in balance. IMO. IRL we have depreciation…things wear out or they become obsolete…but we don’t really have those in game. So…destruction.
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You keep saying how destruction is not good, is not the goal, etc. etc., but you keep not presenting an alternative means of addressing the game’s fundamental need for the consumption of the goods and resources produced in it.
It’s like you keep telling us that hot-dogs are really bad for us and that we shouldn’t eat them, but when we tell you that we’re really hungry, we’re met with a blank stare.
“Uh, yeah, uh, risk…game better…people gotta want…choice to fight and stuff…”
What does it all even mean?
Look, I’m going to make it simple for you to make it simple for me and my tiny PvP squirrel brain: do you or do you not think that the outputs of EVE economic activity needs to be consumed? And if the answer is yes, how should it be done in lieu of the destruction on which the economy currently relies?
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Probably. Seems a fair bit of failure in the reverse reading comprehension though, where combat skills seem particularly lacking.
So translating this, it’s basically “I want to also make ISK while ‘pvp’-ing so that i don’t lose anything.”
You know you can just say what you want instead of beating around the bush.
Sorry, you’re correct, you do seem to need extra repetition of things already clearly stated:
In case any of those examples that apparently went completely over your head aren’t clear: destruction for the sake of destruction is a bad idea. Destruction by hamfisted mechanics changes to “make things blow up” is a bad idea.
Destruction as a side effect because the game mechanics support more risk taking and combative behaviours is a good idea, because it encourages players to engage with the game at a deeper level.
Wailing that “all those rubes are bad players because NONE of them will accept even a MODICUM of risk and 50-60% of them engage in mining as their SOLE activity” (all complete and utter BS by the way) won’t change anything. The problem isn’t carebears farming and not taking risk. The problem is that combat is too difficult to find, too unbalanced when you do find it, and generates (on average), losses that you then need to go make up for by going back to PVE grinding.
How do you “fix” it? That’s a topic for a completely different string of threads, and one I’ve addressed many times in many posts over the years. But I’ll give you a pretty good hint on how you don’t fix it: You don’t fix it by making the tools of combat more expensive, more rare, and take even longer to replace. You don’t fix it by blowing up people’s citadels and having “surprise” NPC death-squads warp in on them. You don’t fix it by cheering on CCP as they apparently try to drive the “carebears” out of the game.
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Translation: “I want to make as much isk doing PvP as I do while I PvE. Then I’ll feel secure enough to ‘risk’ my assets in destruction.”
I think you’re being too generous. I’d reword his post as:
“I’m an ISK hoarding scab and PVP is bad because it interferes with ISK hoarding. PVP will only be well designed if it let’s me hoard more ISK…blah, blah, something about the Gila price cycle”
Typical of people unable to look beyond their own walltet.
Huh? No, stop right there.
We keep telling you that destruction is important for the sake of consumption, and not for the sake of anything else, let alone itself.
We’ve told you many times already that no matter how easy you make it to find combat, or how much you try to reward it, a subset of players will still categorically avoid it. Your notion that these people will suddenly start taking risks is wishful thinking, and nothing more.
Not what was asked. Get back to us when you’re actually willing to answer what was asked.
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IIRC one of the people in this thread is an actual economist…
The dictionary troll may be along later to accuse me of committing a fallacy, to them I say “Deal with it”
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Here’s me frowning so hard I may have to use a hot iron to get rid of the wrinkle. Also read your other posts in this thread. The open question is, how would YOU fix it, what are YOUR ideas on what needs to happen, in light of YOUR opinion.
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So i just skimmed this, but like every discussion , lots of good stuff goes un-talked about and misunderstood because of the personalities involved. Combine that with how horrible communication over the internet with people you can’t see is and it get worse.
The OP has some points. When I started in 2007, the ‘culture’ of CCP towards EVE seemed to be “here’s a spaceship, go ■■■■ yourself”.
And we did. I live in Omist starting in 2009, there were anoms and site but no ever respawning combat and mining anoms . If you couldn’t get in game right after downtime to make isk, you had to scrape by on belt rats and asteroids and natural respawning anoms that were hit or miss. Richer/older players had lvl 4 mission running and/or high sec mining alts to make isk with.
Yet we fought tooth and nail to keep our space and to take Insmother, Detorid and the Rest from the Russians. The game mechanics didn’t support war, having to own 50.1% of the POSes in a system to take it was a crazy terrible sov system, all for space that was harder to make isk in for most people than high sec was.
30 mil isk per hour was high income. Mission running ravens were king. The game was worse than every way than it is now, but it was a better game.
CCP seems to be making the mistake in thinking they can go back to something like that. But I don’t think we can. Gamers have changed, gaming has changed, making “classic EVE” would probably be like every other “classic” thing out there, something that is followed by a small group of rabid fans and no one else.
No one here will admit it, but CCP did kind of get EVE to a kind of equilibrium at times the last few years with production and destruction and wealth making and loss. And since then they have been trying to improve it. It’s what humans do, we improve things, like how we take all those nasty, useless forests and valleys and streams and turn them into the ultimate sign of human progress… Strip Malls.
EVE used to be a forest, now it’s a strip mall, and no one on this forum wants to admit that in the past they themselves applauded the changes that CCP made that turned it into what it is now. Now everyone is arguing about the best way to fix it, and most of those ideas are every bit as bad as the ones CCP implemented that got us here.
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I agree, but I never applauded the changes CCP made.
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One thing lacking, imho, are “seasonal” effects in the game design. I hate to refer to our own RL world, but we see natural cyclical changes all the time. We adapt to them, plan for them, exploit them and then get ready for the next “season”.
Even within our gaming audience we see seasonal participation as people change their behaviour throughout the year. Summer, winter, spring and fall.
If the game environment had “seasons” this might be something that promotes more competition (and likewise more teaming-up). You don’t plan on farming during the winter months do you? No, you would be out trying to conquer at this time, or fending off those invading yours.
CCP has introduced significant, even catastrophic, events to try and shake things up, and I applaud the effort that they are at least trying. But as human beings, we like to be able to plan and carry out our endeavors with some cyclical routines. We are wired for it.
There is a place for the ‘instant gratification’ players in any mmo, but I don’t think anyone would deny that Eve can be much deeper than just that for the many.
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I concur. Jenn’s post is good, but everyone shouldn’t be lumped into the same category like that. I was there arguing against war nerfs, supercap proliferation, high-sec incursion farming, etc.
Now you hit my pet peeve.
In fairness with null players. I don’t know what’s their thinking. An enemy ship in-front of their keepstar. Is He an idiot or is it a trap or this kind of encounter may escalate in a record breaking war.? I really admire their patience not to break their formation just to deal with this mocking solo player.
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They aren’t Brave after all. 