Can we set up some rules for the proving grounds because at this point they have become a joke that no one wants to play. I recommend the following changes.
Collusion or fight fixing is against the rules, make this a ban-able offense with a few day ban at first, then longer bans if they continue. If you do this you should be stripped from the leaderboard and lose all previous rewards from proving grounds. Any game with competitive PVP like this would instantly ban players who do this type of thing.
Don’t count previous wins players have earned for the total win value that counts in the end. Implement these rules and tell everyone the win count starts at 0 from the new rules going forward. This is a disgrace some players were allowed to collude and use bling fits to get hundred of win advantages which they now get to keep towards the main total when other players can’t ever possibly catch them now.
Make stream sniping illegal. I saw many players stream sniping others by building a counter to fight them and then queueing right when they que. Ban-able offense if proven and stripping of rewards.
PS: The battlecruiser 2v2 is going to fail. No one is going to buy 100M+ battlecruisers to queue into players like Cable who are going to basically win at all costs and ruin the game for everyone.
The whole implementation of this system has been a disgrace, please fix it or delete it.
Fortunately, EVE offers the ability to purchase PLEX, which you can consume, or trade to other players for ISK, making it possible for you to participate in your favorite e-sport quickly, easily, and conveniently!
I always find it amusing when people fall for CCP’s sales promotions they disguise as “new game features” which unfailingly demonstrate there’s no longer anyone on staff with the slightest inkling of how to design a game.
The proving grounds just need to be deleted, expunged from the historical record, the bodies buried in unmarked graves, and this dark time in history never spoken of again.
Seriously though these should never have been implemented. The fact they were implemented at the expense of half-assing the Triglavian invasion is even worse.
And here we have the battle arena whiners, as expected. I agree to what was said above, delete arenas from EvE, problem solved. In the meantime I applaud everyone making it for others as unfair and unfun as possible. The less people using it the better for EvE.
Fixing this properly is going to take way more effort thank the few hundred people using the feature merit, and actually is probably impossible given how the rest of Eve works. I kinda hope CCP keep fiddling around with this and finds some interesting combination of knobs that makes an event hat has minimal impact on the real game but still scratches the itch left by the loss of the AT. However, it’s a total pipe dream to think CCP can shoehorn Eve’s PvP into the arena-style players are used to.
I think it is safe to say, the Proving Grounds are the Poochie of Eve Online:
Far be it from me to gloat at another’s downfall, but I have a feeling that no children are gonna be crying when this puppy is put to sleep.
Given the history of the alliance tournament, I think it was naive to expect anything other than the outcome we’ve seen.
On the question of should it be deleted? I am of two minds regarding this.
Yes, it should, as I feel it should never have been implemented to begin with; and,
No. Let it stand as it, and have it become an intermittent event, as the collusion and use of alts showcase EVE as it is, and as it was designed.
EVE Online was not from its inception meant to be “fair”. If the designers had wanted “fair” the game would have been coded differently. What the designers did, imo, was give each player a choice, or rather the possibility of a series of choices, and to a degree provided consequences for choices as well as allowing fellow players to exact consequences of their own.
As it stands now, the proving grounds demonstrate what EVE is, and was, more eloquently than any FAQ.
So, the remaining question, in my mind, is: does CCP want to publically be this honest about the game?
All information on the game touches on these aspects of the game; but this event puts EVE’s stance on player choice up front and center stage, in all it’s glory.
This hasn’t really been true for almost a decade now. If someone wrongs you, what can you do? Can you declare war on them? Not unless they allow you to. Can you infiltrate their organization and assassinate them? No, Awoxing has been removed a long, long time ago. Can you bait them somehow? No, we have trigger safeties and timers.
The possibility for revenge has been patched out of the game a long, long time ago.
One of my main concerns about this feature is that CCP will inevitably start balancing ships and tuning the game around it or with this feature in mind. It happens in every game that adds some sort of niche feature like this. You either must tune and balance it, or it becomes a steaming pile of crap.
