Ten years ago, I quit playing Eve because I got disenfranchised with this game. It came after three years of enjoying what Eve had to offer, in High and Low Sec, a bit of Nullsec warring, and a good community of players. I return 10 years later, expecting to see a familiar, yet different landscape. One that would take me sometime to get used to new mechanics and new ways to play the game, and experience New Eden. I kept my hopes low, as I always do, because really any new way to experience the game would be great, in addition to getting back to the relaxing part of gameplay, as well as the more intense parts. And I gotta sayâŚ
Holy â â â â I am disappointed beyond all belief. Like, whats new is really cool. The skins are amazing, the new ships are awesome, the customization updates I see are cool as â â â â . But wheres the real new? The new mechanics, the new way to play? The REALLY new stuff. Where is Dust? Where is the colony sim? Where is the player actually doing stuff in the station that isnât clicking a button and waiting.
So, to that I am going to address the biggest glaring issue: Where are the players going? Well, one big thing in this newer generation of games that I am seeing that players are screaming for is a separation of PvP and PvE. I know an insane number of players that will not play games simply because they canât dictate their pvp time from their pve time. That one subject matter, will prevent any game from flourishing. Why though? Because when I get home from work and wanna log on to my favorite game and just do a bit of botting out, and some micropenised groin slapper comes along and decides thatâs not acceptable, and ruins that fun for me? I donât wanna play your game anymore. One of Fallout 76âs WORST features on launch, was their pvp. It was so bad and broken, that in my large friend group at the time, roughly 10-20 player group, 10 quit immediately because they got â â â â â â with once and decided that was too many times. I agreed with them, but I like pvp so I kept playing personally.
My biggest issue with pvp, is when I canât separate it and have zero choice in WHEN that pvp happens. It makes for a bad experience, and a large amount of players want nothing to do with it. So CCP, youâre gonna have to change some gameplay mechanics, but donât worry I didnât come empty-handed.
High-Security: All major locations in High-Security(Stations, Belts, Planets, Moons, etc.), should have constant patrols in security status 0.8-1.0, slightly less patrols in 0.5.-0.7, and very few patrols in 0.1-0.4. The only patrols in Nullsec should be in those systems where pirates operate, and should not work the same as High-Security patrols, only attacking those with low standing. If a player locks on to another player, they should then be targeted by the local patrol, with the local patrol asking for reinforcements should it be required. Second, players with negative overall standing should, -10 to -1.0, should not be welcome in Secutity status 0.7+, as in attacked on sight, maybe a scaling system like -10 canât be in any High-Security, and like, -1.0 can go anywhere but 1.0 systems. If you want the benefits of society, you should have to be a good citizen.
Low-Security: Systems in Low-Security should have nominal patrols that might help you if youâre lucky, or in very high standing with the local authorities, essentially a VIP. This should still be rare, as it is Low-Security, with the patrols scaling down with each systemâs Security Status.
Null-Security stays the same besides the small change mentioned above, but thatâs more for flavor, because I think seeing a fleet of Guristaâs patroling Gurista space would be a chefs kiss addition.
The above changes, in my opinion with any needed tweaking due to software constraints or whatever, would bring back a missing player base: the casuals. I donât wanna sweat in High-Security anymore. At all. Call me Carebear, pussy, whatever, I do not care. When I wanna PvP I wanna PvP, when I wanna bot out, get high, and do a ton of mining, I wanna do just that.
New Mechanics: Colony, Station, or whatever Simulation with mild, overtime rewards. A new gameplay model, outside of trying Dust again, but on PC this time I hope, could utilize assets already in game. The Livestock brand of items could be gathered and given to your colony to give different bonuses, or as required by the sim to help your colony. A future idea for this, could connect to the Dust portion by allowing you and your corp to set up one together, that you can then participate in ground missions to defend from other players, and NPC factions. The colony sim gameplay could also be expanded in the future to include real-time strategy elements of âplayer donated vehiclesâ from the main games industry setups. EX, I construct a frigate and tank for other gameplay modes, fit them, and then donate them to my personal colony and a frigate and tank unit become available in my colony sim RTS. Some small ideas would be casinoâs to gamble ISK, trading card games ranging from simple to more complicated, some kind of big game hunting, fishing on planets, gacha style collector games with a versus mode, pet collection with maybe something like a zoo simulator(customizable, but not fully furnishable or customizable), mini-games to play with, and against other players, etc.
Player Owned, not corp owned everything: I think everything from a wormholes, to stations should be ownable on the individual player level, without needing a holding corp, or anything else. Now, these individual player owned everythings should be at a lesser value to the individual, but should allow for at least a decent amount of solo, or small group gameplay, like catered to it. More and more players want to play with a small group of people. Further, I think small, unraidable Wormholes, that players can âcustomizeâ to an extant, would be a second idea to attract more casual and solo oriented players. Players should also be able to have an entire fleet of ships, instead of a continued single ship only system. This system should be used in conjuction with my above mentioned Security status changes, as it should not be part of the pvp experience. I feel it would ruin it, though if carefully implemented, it could also expand pvp. Last two things that go hand-in-hand for this category to me: player owned housing of some kind to walk around in as our character, and to fully customize with stuff we both create, and have to receive through achievements, AIR Career programs, and regular gameplay.
Dust: If one of your ideas involves bring back Dust, I would like to ask for several game variants. I would like a COD style Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, etc style of Dust. A Battlefield style of Dust with long term objectives, and vehicle involvement, as well as up to Cruiser ship involvement for bombardments. A Battle Royal style Dust game variant. A survival shooter, Dust game variant. And finally, a PvE looter-shooter style of Dust gameplay. And for those like me who like to explore, some beautiful handcrafted maps from your amazing artists, mixed with platforming mechanics, and action oriented FPS combat, on open-world huge maps would be cool as â â â â .
Ships: I love the new variety of ship styles available, but one thing that made me a bit upset, was that isnât a High-Security Carrier. I know I know, whatever though. I want a carrier in High-Security. Give me THREE wings of fighters active MAX, and Iâll be beyond happy. More customizable ships like the T3 cruiser. T3 is one of my favorite ideas youâve ever had, and I am extremely sad it hasnât been expanded on at all. I DEMAND T3 Frigates, Destroyers, Battlecruisers, and Battleships. Figure it out.
Quality of Life: Some small quality of life changes like in-game windows becoming more transparent the longer you donât interact with them. Faster ways for players who donât like using microphones to access the chat channels would be fantastic. PvP targeting, and PvE targeting being separated so when I am doing both, I donât have to be on adderal to track targets with low skills.
Eve Online, has sliced a small niche of players off the total players in the world, but a long-term MMO like this, requires more gameplay options than currently available. Listed above are some small mechanically changes, and some multi-year projects. I hope you take at least some stuff I have mentioned into consideration for the future.
