The reason I've chosen to embrace the carebear lifestyle

Communications Center General Discussion
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Not long ago I wrote a post entitled “Meaningful Content for a Casual Player.” I had just returned from a couple year hiatus from Eve, as happens so often for so many people, and I was looking for something that would bring the spark back. Eve is such an awesome game. Honestly, my group of friends (in real life) have been looking for an MMO to all get involved in, and while I sadly haven’t been able to convince them to try Eve, I have seen through searching all the other options that there simply isn’t anything else out there like Eve. So this is where I want to be MMO-wise.

But in my previous “meaningful content” thread, I concluded that I wanted to go to PVP because that is where the “meaningful” stuff is. I was gung-ho about it and I really meant what I said. And I still VERY MUCH appreciate the help that so many people gave me, even some going so far as sending me in-game invites to various activities.

But then I tried to do it. As I mentioned in that original post, my personal timetable kept me from joining any organized affairs, but I got fitted up in an incursus of doom (ha) and went looking to flip some missions. And I honestly didn’t care if I got blown out of the sky or not. I just wanted a fight! I wanted some excitement! What I got was . . . so much more boredom than I ever anticipated . . . The first guy I approached fled immediately, leaving behind his MTU. I actually got a thrill out of the fact I scared someone away in my mighty incursus (putting out a whopping 97dps!!!) and it only took me roughly 8 hours blasting away at the MTU to harvest the piddly loot stored within. What excitement this caused faded quickly as most people just picked up their MTU and continued with the mission, ignoring me. I was also actually very surprised to see many mission runners pairing up in the missions and that obviously meant they weren’t viable targets in any case. Others simply convo’d me and essentially asked me if I was lost, offering to hold my hand and tousle my hair a bit while they explained that space was dangerous, you shouldn’t go into mission pockets while flashing suspect because there are mean people out there and if you’re not careful, they’ll blow you up. The ironic thing was that these people were being so nice to me, trying to teach this newb how to not get killed, while I was the one that was just trying to get them to bite a little bit so I could try to kill THEM!! But here’s the thing, and I’m not trying to make a value judgment on regular mission flippers, but I just couldn’t bring myself to be a jerk to them and taunt them and lie to them and all those things to get them to open fire. I just couldn’t do it, it wasn’t in me. So I realized that as exciting as it seemed, mission flipping wasn’t for me. It was time consuming finding targets and switching ships and most people appear to have caught on to the gimmick in any case and won’t just start shooting at you as soon as you loot one of their wrecks, etc.

Then I tried both stealth bombers and pvp astero shenanigans in WH space and its just so boring! Scan, scan, scan . . . find a relic site that hasn’t been run. Make a perch so you can see them come on grid and immediately warp to them. Awesome. Good tactics, but then you wait. and wait. and wait. And they say running missions is boring?? Keep in mind I started all this in the hopes of doing something “meaningful” within an hour or so of play time. And honestly, being as hyped as I was, I generally gave it at least two hours a night, sacrificing sleep that I shouldn’t have sacrificed, in an effort to make something awesome happen. It didn’t.

So then I figured I’d split the difference. If I went out into nullsec to do some exploring myself, I could actually DO SOMETHING and yet be “interacting meaningfully” with the people who would like to kill me. Over the course of 3 days and probably 6-7 hours of total play time, I managed to scan my way through a chain of wormholes and plop myself into gurista pirate nullsec and navigate through two different constellations . . . I evaded a few bubble camps by using the age-old cloak/MWD trick and felt minor satisfaction as I saw a bunch of frigates zooming around trying to decloak me . . . but then I went along my way. And it wasn’t a merry way, it was a tedious, boring, frustrating way. Systems filled with navy vexors ratting so I don’t dare stop long enough to scan anything or system after system that was empty of both players and cosmic signatures. nothing. nothing. nothing. Over that 6-7 hour total play time, what with finding my way to nullsec in the first place, dodging nullbears, etc, I finally found another hole that would take me home with a whopping 140 million isk in my hold. Well, at least its something. And then I find this WH system that looks like its been untouched for days. I do my scans, nothing happening. Theres only a few citadels that show no activity. Nothing on dscan, no probes, the system is full of signatures. I find a relic site. I do the relic site. A proteus uncloaks in the relic site. I blow up in the relic site. Sigh. I was spamming dscan, doing everything I should have as best I could. I missed him. I died. And honestly I didn’t give two hoots about the lossmail. I didn’t care at all about losing the ship. I didn’t even care about losing 140 million isk. What I cared about was the fact that even GETTING the 140 million isk was such an experience of frustration and tedium and now, I didn’t even have the isk to show for it. Yes, you can say, “Should have been more vigilant as you did that relic site, you should have been able to get away.” Ok, sure. But how can you stay at 110% vigilance when everything until that point has just been tedium and boredom? And in any case, if it had been fun GETTING the 140 million isk, it wouldn’t have been that much of a bummer to LOSE it, because at least I had the FUN experience of GAINING it. But as it was, I had nothing. No isk. No fun experience. Nothing. Just a weekend of wasted time being subjected to, I’ll say it once again, tedium, frustration and boredom.

And that’s why I think I’ll be embracing the carebear lifestyle as my “meaningful” content. Because I can actually make progress in something. I can have a much more stable expectation of being ahead of the game today as compared to yesterday. I think it has to do with an element of control. And I don’t mean controlling “threats,” but rather controlling the experience itself. After all, this is a game and when I sit down to play a game its because I’m looking for a particular experience.

Again, please don’t say I’m simply mad because I lost a ship. Look at my killboard, I’ve lost a TON of a ships. What makes me frustrated is that there was no fun at any point of that experience at all, not in gaining the isk, not in losing the isk, etc, which made losing the ship “meh.” I didn’t even try to run with my capsule because I was just going to self-destruct to get home anyway, might as well let the other guy feel an actual moment of happiness when he blows me up.

I think that many carebear activites are beneficial for a player like me not because it keeps us “safe,” (after all, I was honestly out there looking for fights) but because it limits the dependence on random chance. “Just keep at it, eventually you’ll find that big score” is just not that alluring to me. Depending on the RNG gods to drop something in your lap is not compelling to me.

Anyway, this post is way too long as it is and it’s purpose is just as much to help me sort out my own thoughts as anything else, anyway.

Conclusion: Sometimes carebears are carebears because they don’t want to fight. Space is scary. BUT SOMETIMES people are carebears because they don’t want to be at the mercy of the RNG gods (you know what i mean, basic randomness, chance, waiting around forever for something to happen and you have no control over whether it does or not, etc). I want to ACCOMPLISH something in my limited time in game. And I think the carebear life is probably the best mode in which to actually do that.

If I have missed something, then by all means, enlighten me. I want to learn.

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No, Eve has changed. I wouldn’t have fared any better and I’ve got years of “griefing” under my belt.

I also don’t lie or insult.

Backs hen that style of play was more relevant, there were a lot of people doing it. I could lot in and get a fight against another highsec fighter in 10 or 15 minutes almost any time of day.

It frequently started with can baiting on station, but there were a lot of ways it could start. Sometimes you would try and pick a fight with a war fleet, or you would be stealing stuff in the belts hoping someone got mad enough to chase you.

There was no need to insult, a substantial portion of your “griefing” opportunities were actually traps.

Now, that can miner really is a miner. That mission guy is probably a bot.

They won’t fight. If they do, they don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

So no, I can’t give you great advice because, as one of highsec senior scallawags… I’m not doing any better than you are.

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ITT:
image
j/k :smiley:

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“Hello… my name is Barney… and I’m in an abusive relationship… with a woman named Eve…”

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Good post. Sorry to read that you didn’t have much fun or satisfaction for most of it. I can relate somewhat. I thought that FW was going to be my source of fun, but it didn’t turnout so. Then I thought maybe piracy, but no again. For similar reasons to your own. So I left those dreams behind and started pursuing ISK in easier ways, and then I found what is fun for me. But I do miss the types of learning opportunities in PvP.

Anyway, I hope you find lots of fun in your new career path, and something that keeps you hooked.

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Hey, my alt was one of those missioners who patted you on the head. I figured you were lying, but it was a crappy mission for loot. Haha. There are null sec corps that hunt those botting VNI’s you saw lots of. Lots of evil targets for you to hunt down if you get in with one. Otherwise, yes missions can be tedium. But you can crazy them up. Do them in low/null, do them in a BC. Don’t pigeonhole yourself into one. Can find a corp to tag along for FW from time to time, that understands you may drop when you don’t wanna be FW.

High-sec care bearing can get a bad rap. But it has its fun. But if you’re looking for more, there’s more too. Do it all! You’re an immortal, cerebral processor, surrounded by goo. The universe is your oyster. Let’s hope you’re not allergic to shellfish

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Ha! It’s a small galaxy, after all! And I don’t remember ACTUALLY lying… certainly a covering of true motives, buuuuut… :slight_smile: I knew you didn’t want to tangle with my newbie incursus of doom, in any case. It was just too intimidating!

Anyway, not sure which encounter your alt was from, but since basically everyone I actually ended up convo-ing was pretty nice and quite helpful, I’ll say, “thanks for that!”

And that actually was the best part of this whole experience- talking to other players in game. And I really did learn quite a bit from the information and advice given by a number of my … marks. :-). And in any case, I wasn’t really “acting” like a clueless newb, I basically AM a clueless newb in these matters! Everyone was just being too nice to the newb to suit the newb’s own purposes!!

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I think you need to pair up with someone who can help you learn. You can go to fw space and not be in a militia.

Working with someone can be a huge aid in the learning curve.

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Eve is not for you, bye!

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image

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Way to resist that low hanging fruit, friend :slight_smile:

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You’re not a carebear. A carebear would never write such a post, so please don’t insult yourself like this.

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Of course you aren’t wrong. Eve has always been a slow game, but it has been made harder and harder to find or generating meaningful and interesting content in recent years. It also doesn’t help that making content harder to create has decreased activity, in a feed-back loop that just makes the problem worse.

But I will point out you haven’t really solved your problem. Retreating to safe, predictable, resource gathering or industry may appeal to your urge to see your wallet balance creep up or hangers slowly fill, but really isn’t meaningful. No one cares but you if you run some infinite mission or collect some of the vast, respawning ore. You have made very little impact on the game universe and you will likely find rather quickly your hoarding unsatisfying and unfulfilling.

You can find and create meaning even in carebear land, but it will require you to either be part of a large, economy influencing, industrial effort, or through building a corporation with others around you to do something. No, accumulating ISK isn’t something, but creating an industrial operation or taking control of a resource might be. Too bad CCP hasn’t spent much time adding such objectives to the game.

In any case, I think retreating into solo PvE because it ‘feels’ like progress is a trap and you won’t last very long at it before you wonder at the purposelessness of it all. I won’t presume to speak for everyone, and I am sure there are a few who love it, but given it has no real meaning or impact on the game universe, you have to really love the content itself to stay with it for a while. If it is the rewards that draw you and their implied sense of progress, you will quickly tire of them I predict.

Then you are back at square one. It’s not totally your fault - CCP has made a wonderful sandbox for us to build and fight with pretty spaceships, but they haven’t done the greatest job in giving us reasons to fight. However, we are also competing so that means sometimes you are going to lose and not only “waste” your time with nothing to show for it, but actually lose some of your assets. If you are uncomfortable with that, well then you probably were never going to find success in your efforts given your loss-aversion or at least need for continual progress.

In any case, Eve is a wonderful game because it can support all types of players, even those with limited time or who don’t want to fight. There are safer things to do, and more dangerous things to do, and things with immediate payoffs while others take years to come to fruition. I hope you can find your place somewhere in there.

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I just wanted to say, terrific post OP.

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Interesting post, it certainly replicates to some degree how I’ve been feeling about eve lately myself. I think @Black_Pedro has summed it up quite well too.

For me Eve is a selection of quite boring activities sown together and the element of danger that was there that back in the day that would be provided in high sec at least by @Ghost_O_Mo and others that adopted that play style has largely gone has made the game dull.

Today’s eve seems to be largely people that don’t want to PVP but also object to any form of PVP upon them also, they basically want eve as a single player game, or toxic people that insult you both in game and in the forums. Or they are botters that have found an easy in with the introduction of Alpha Clones.

Updates to the game these days seem to be only about making it safer, or rubbish events like this Guardian Gala, or adding more skins to the game and bug fixes. Some element of danger needs to be brought back, even in high sec.

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Good post. EVE can be played any way you want to, really. I have a friend who just logs in to mine sometimes with her alpha clone, she finds it relaxing.

Anyway, about PVP, if you wanna give it another go any time, try solo PVP in lowsec. You don’t have to be in any FW corp or enlisted, you can just pirate. That’s what I do mostly in EVE, because of the rush of 1v1 frigate/destroyer/cruiser fights. It’s even better when it’s like 1v3, you alone versus everyone :smiley:

I have an alt character that I use to do industry and PI stuff. I actually really like PI, I liked even back when it when it required more mouseclicks to do things haha. With my main, I sometimes go do missions or exploration.

That’s the beauty of this game, you can do what you want and you’re not restricted to only one playstyle.

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I totally take your point here, and this is one of the weird things about EVE- you get these odd mashups on not only play styles, but the fact that different things appeal to people in different ways.

I’ll be the first to call myself out as a total care bear in what I do- PVE, industry, exploration, etc. I absolutely do WHs and LS, but I’m not there looking for fights. I’ll gladly put up a fight if somebody comes at me, but that’s not the main reason I’m there. If somebody blows me up, that’s totally cool- it’s part of the game.

I know this is going to annoy a lot of people, but I like to build things and help people- kicking somebody’s sandcastle is just not my thing. If a new player is in system who is mining, I’ll grab some ore while I boost them and offer advice if they want it. I build stuff so I can give it away to friends and new players. That’s stuff that I find meaningful and compelling, and I guess I look at it as possibly helping some of these newer players get into the kind of PVP activities that a lot of others enjoy but I don’t have any real interest in.

I mean, sometimes I’m looking for some intense action where I can focus and do something exciting. But honestly, a lot of the time I’m logged on to chill and unwind after a long day and I just want to mess with industry or mining. And that’s what I love about EVE- I can switch between action and the space equivalent of playing solitaire and it’s still in the same world and related.

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Fixed.

Highsec is the most dynamic of all spaces →
The more potentially interacting entities, the more dynamic the system as a whole →
Highsec has the highest amount of un-connected entities crammed into the same space.

The proper term eludes me right now. :smiley:

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There are no different play styles. There are only activities. It is not correct to assume that ones choice of activity defines his individuality. We’re humans, not ants. This is a made-up thing coming from carebears, and it roots in the fact that they believe that PvPers do not do any PvE, because they, as PvErs, do not do any PvP.

That’s wrong. PvPers do PvE. There’s even those who mine.
Therefore calling different in-game activities different “play styles” is wrong.

Please avoid using carebear terminology which has no base in either virtual, or actual reality.

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I’d disagree with that, just in the sense that somebody can approach the same activity different ways. For for example, some like to do L4s in a safe, predictable way, others like to go in with weird kamikaze fits just to shake things up and get the blood flowing. Like the post that you guys were on recently about the hauling and taking chances because it was fun. I think that’s cool and different from what a lot of other people would do. Those are different styles for the same activities.

Indeed.

I don’t believe that and did not intend to imply that.

I take your point, but how a given player approaches them is a “style”. Do what you like, how you like. To the point of my post, that’s why I enjoy the game.