well, you also have to keep in mind, that when the old arenas were released, the proving condiut never really spawned in US TZ, making it hardly available there. So, how can something that isnt available 24/7 become popular? In summer 2019, the proving gate only spawned for 1-2h per day due to a bug, which CCP took 4 months to fix. So, the reason that old arena did not get that attention it deserved was CCP’s fault in responding to player feedback and fixing their stuff.
The Frig FFA was very popular btw…
And how can it be a problem with having both when one of them is only available at specific times CCP decides, while the other is permanently available. I dont think they will cannibalize each other. Also, the proving filaments focus on cheaper ships, making them easy accessible for new players. The old required a bit more isk, but even 500m Deimoses were viable and killed a lot of bling ikis. So players that dont want to spend billions will always do the events, sometimes there are players looking for something different then the cruiser 1v1.
Not really, from the 10 events we had, there were some more popular such as the Cruiser 2v2 or the frig free for all, some that were less popular, like the slicer 3v3 or noob ship 5v5.
Sure, with the old arena it was something different. But after the surgical strike patch, activity increased massively and the Deimos became a viable option among the Ikitursa, Cerb and Orthrus.
P.S.
Ressource wars, FOB’s and COSMOS missions also dont have that much population to run it, and CCP does anything to fix them and keeping them in game. For example, CCP took away bountys in COSMOS sites to combat botting.
I can confirm, doing them in Summer 2019 was a Nightmare! Gate stopped spawning at exactly 13:00 Evetime back then. But even before US TZ had issues accessing the proving gate. CCP got randomly aware on that issue after I posted it in the August 2019 feedback thread. And it was known a long time ago: Abyssal PVP Gate spawn rate and stalemating
Here I made a collection of a lot of posts and threads on the forums about the issues the old proving grounds had such as gate spawn issues or stalemating. Surprisingly, nothing of these points did come up in the dev blog for these filaments. I wonder where these points such as solved meta or direct access have been brought up. It would take me wonder what was exactly going on in CCP’s mind when they thought about removing them entirely. I mean, these events could have existed among the old content without any issues, especially since these events occour like 1-2 times per month.
Also, meta in faction warfare is stale for years now. Garmurs and Comets rule in novice plexes. And CCP still decides to keep that in game. Although, FW in general needs a rework to make it more attractive and more pvp focused. I wonder, why did CCP remove the old proving grounds that had stale meta, while keeping a lot of other features such as FW, or missions/ratting in game, that had stale meta for years now? I even observed the same thing in these new provings too, after a day, meta is solved and people almost only use the ships that are known to be good. For example in the crimson proving ground the Kestrel was very dominant, followed by the Tristan and then the Punisher. Or in the Cruiser 2v2 event the Caracal and Stabber was dominant.
I miss it so badly. I’ve logged in like 4 times since they removed it. I just feel lonely playing eve now, i’m trying to enjoy it, but i don’t. When Sniperbro left and I lost a friend, and he was the best abyssal PVPer. No one cares about the new stuff.
