I’m an ex-PvPer in a combat-heavy context (lots of hours of actual fighting). I agree that when PvP combat is fun, it’s more memorable and more fun than any structured PvE (except difficult coordinated large group scenarios, but they’re out of scope for an EVE discussion).
On the other hand, I got to the point that when I got into the wrong side of a “rock/paper/scissors” 1-vs-1 and it was an opponent that could simply “turn off” my character, I’d just leave the fight. IMO bad PvP combat is the least interesting activity in any game - but unfortunately it’s just as memorable as good PvP combat.
Note that the issue wasn’t losing - I was probably losing 20-50 fights on average per day (say 10K per year). But even losing is fun if you can participate, and perhaps influence the result in some way.
IMO this is a core issue with EVE PvP combat, and especially relevant for new players. One-sided PvP combat is natural for EVE, so an unprepared player can collect bad memories fast.
It wouldn’t be easy to remove the factors that make one-sided PvP combat natural, but new players could be much better prepared for it. Instead the PVE teaches them nothing. Less than nothing in fact, because they have no practical way to learn all the undocumented tricks.
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We’re probably never going to agree on the factors that cause new players to have difficulty joining social groups …
… but I think you’re right that there are too many “slaver corps”, and too many disorganized or specialized corps who aren’t good for new players even if they’re not looking for slaves.
But the same issues with motive and quality exist in every MMO. An “elite” corp has no use for beginners except as slaves. Why should they spend personal energy teaching strangers?. In other games there are solutions that (in the past) EVE has made impractical e.g.:
New players get together and develop basic skills together with their peers. e.g. It’s fun to lose in PvP combat if it’s with a group of accepting and supporting friends, and it’s fun to improve together
Loosely organized groups who want numbers sometimes, but don’t want to work too hard - they can accept new players without placing any demands on them
As far as I can see, neither model works well in EVE.
CCP has taken one step to help a little with the first, but I doubt they’ve solved the problem yet.
I can’t see the second kind holding together in EVE - it’s not a model that works for PvP combat, and if the group focus is economic, their natural evolution is towards “Elite” or “Slaver”, neither of which is new-player friendly.
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IMO (but I have no evidence of course), if there’s a solution, it’s probably the same as the first part: teach new players PvP Combat, and get them into Combat-centric groups.
There are pre-reqs for this though. I can’t see CCP doing it. And even if they wanted to, a lot of experienced EVE players would object strongly.
Social corps were meant to be the answer. People who want to learn together at their own rate or disorganised casuals that can accept any and all comers.
They’d be immune to corp-theft, awoxing, wardecs but could still roam low sec or do mutual wardecs/duel on a corp level.
But making structures the defining point of a social corp was such a bad idea. Social corps get 90% of the benefits and none of the drawbacks. So obviously the VAST majority of corps choose to be social corps and have alt corps for their structures. Where’s the separation? Hows a noob supposed to know a corp that will be helpful from the huge amounts of tripe there is? (doubly so given how corp adverts are full of lies)
And what about the corps that don’t want the gameplay/obligations of a structure but want to be part of the proper wardec mechanic?
I know the latest change was done to help new players, but I think they chose a solution that had a much wider scope then the problem they were trying to address. It’s a recipe for “unexpected consequences”.
You probably won’t agree with this, but think about it anyway:
IMO “baseline EVE” is fundamentally “unfriendly” to new-players. This isn’t the case for most MMOs - typically a very minor variant on the standard game can be used as a teaching platform.
To me, that suggests that turning the 10K first-timers per week into players can’t start with exposing them to “baseline EVE”. It still has to prepare them for the normal game of course, but some things should be left out or adjusted.
Different aspects of this (what to leave out, what to change, how to package it) have been suggested repeatedly in the forums, but they’re never popular (usually the opposite). But this seems to be a good time to consider different approaches to addressing strategic objectives - perhaps the last real opportunity for a year or two.
Oh yes, and lets look at how the economy of UO turned out after post-Ren. Zero demand because everyone had maxed crafters and could craft endlessly without risk and everyone had their own vendors fully stocked with items nobody needed because no one ever died.
He and his developers failed miserably at the Merry Go Round compared to EQ and then WoW and so it was a Great PvP game turned into a low quality PvE Merry Go Round.
UO Renaissance is the number one lesson developers at EVE should all learn.
People complain that crafting in all those other games is not relevant not realizing it is because there is no risk of PvP.
This again sounds like what social corps were perfect for.
But social corps are now the norm. They are the tool that veterens use to farm in safety with all their alts in a way that new players will never be able to compete with unless they too get multiple accounts dedicated to farming and spend either billions of isk on injectors or years of their life.
Extra safety has not helped new players. Instead it has reduced their options. It has reduced the ways in which new players can compete with old players.
Yeah, like lowering the barriers to pvp rather than raising it. Bring it on!
IMO, whatever is done for new players, including how they can group together, should not be available for experienced players.
And since experienced can (and certainly will) simulate new players, whatever technique is used to isolate new-players from everyone else has to be robust against infiltration.
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IMO “safety” isn’t exactly what new players need. TBH the people who talk about safety most in the forums are so unreliable, I never know when they’re being serious and when they’re just making stuff up.
I think we agree about what they do need though: is related to the competitive nature of EVE. As far as I can see CCP have always ignored (or been in denial about) the issues this generates. In principle I think it would be easy to address in the game as a whole, but I’m not sure if it’s practical.
It would be easy enough for a subset of players that’s equivalent in terms of capability to new players though (i.e. real new players plus the inevitable fakes). I don’t know about affordable of course - but losing 97% of the new players that log in every month isn’t cheap either.
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I don’t agree with the implication of you last sentence, though I’m in favor of the result.
For experienced players there are no barriers to PvP combat in today’s EVE. There’s plenty of CONCORD-free space, and plenty of players. Players in lowSec, WH, nullSec don’t fight because they don’t want to.
Players who flock to highSec so they can attack PvE specialists have effectively unlimited access to PvP combat. But they have conditions: they don’t want to lose their ships; if they do risk their ships they only fight if they expect to make a profit …
EVE’s “PVP problem” isn’t the game - it’s the players. The solution would be to make PvP combat interesting and fun for both sides. It was possible once. After so long it may not be easy now, but I don’t believe it’s impossible.
Equipping new players with the income, skills, and organization to cause problems for the “PvE-combat” players in highSec would be a start.
As a “semi-new” player, I have come to realize that PVP is what makes Eve work. Without PVP industrialist carebears such as myself would have nothing to do. PVP has also forced me to become a better capsuleer.
That said, I do not like PVP. I do not want to PVP. I want PVP to stay as far away from me as possible. I am perfectly happy to shoot asteroids, run combat anomalies, and do missions for the time being while building my own little empire of stuff. Being the man behind the curtain who provides the raw materials for players to blow each other up has a certain appeal to me. But why not PVP? Because I feel that new players are at a serious disadvantage to older players with tens of millions of skill points, OP specialized PVP ships, and fat wallets. I want my character to grow in skills, isk, and assets before moving on to bigger and better things. I feel that PVP at this stage of the game is counter productive to me for many reasons, probably the main one is because it precludes the use of those skill training implants in the event a capsuleer gets podded.
When I first started Eve, I thought this would be a “fun” game exploring New Eden. I had no idea that essentially I was a little bleeding minnow being thrown into a 10 acre lake stocked with thousands of piranhas.
… most gamers like to be to the winning side of PvP combat, and most people aren’t too unhappy to lose around 50% of balanced fights - more while they’re getting started.
But balanced PvP combat is rare in EVE, and for many players, the kinds of one-sided PvP they’re exposed to is the boring kind I described earlier. And then there’s bumping - a perfect example of a tedious mechanism that “turns off” the opponent.
There are a few kinds of PvP combat in EVE that could be fun, but they’re just niches.
For me there’s not enough going to make active PvP combat a goal in EVE. Not because I don’t like PvP combat - it’s been my focus in every other MMO I’ve played. But because I’m not interested in being on either side of one-sided combat, nor of an “umbrella corporation’s” “avoidance by intimidation” tactics.
Something for you to reflect on: the attitude your post demonstrates is a better reason for new “mainstream PvP combat” players to leave EVE than any number of PvP combat losses, no matter how expensive (in terms of income) or boring.
EVE has free-fire PvP, but very little actual PvP combat, and most of that is one-sided. At best it doesn’t have much to attract a combat PvP gamer. The “bittervet narrative” tops it off: “pseudo-PVPer” players (who are actually just farmers) pretending to be “tough”. It’s funny, especially for people who’ve done a lot of actual PvP fighting, but it’s hardly something to aspire to.
I think you’re 100% correct about the “competition issue”.
For new players EVE is something like the turtles you see on TV nature programs sometimes: lots of little ones hatch well up on the beach, travel through a gauntlet of voracious predators on their way to the water, and a few percent get through and have a chance to live.
It may be natural, but the selection process is random: the ones that get through are not smarter or tougher: they’re just lucky. I suppose even among turtles the “hundtredth idiot” principle applies though: they probably think they’re smarter and tougher, and boast about it to each other while getting a free ride on the EAC
Removing the “Free For All PvP” aspect of EVE would break the game, but smoothing the way a bit for new players would help a lot. Part of that has to be to take account that every aspect of the game is competitive, so (naturally) new players are always at a disadvantage.
There are always dimwits claiming this is “character building”, or a useful motivation to get organized in larger groups. But it comes from the most risk-averse community in gaming. When the people telling you to “HTFU” are rabbits pretending to be honey badgers, it’s hard to take them seriously
