@Pingu_Long I’m right there with you on this one. I’ve also been playing EVE on-and-off for over a decade, and coming back recently has felt… weird. It’s the same game, but the rough edges have gotten sharper while the things that should have improved seem frozen in time.
Your shuttle experience sums it up perfectly. Getting blown up in a 3.7m isk trashcan while you’re literally carrying nothing of value except the chance of implant drops feels absurd. And yeah—crime always works flawlessly in EVE. Punishment? Not so much. The idea that you’d have to throw 100m+ (and maybe Omega) to even attempt to punish a guy in a disposable gank setup is exactly the imbalance that pushes casual players right back out the airlock.
It’s wild that the entire ship class built for cheap, fast travel is basically unviable. Shuttles should be the safest thing in high-sec short of a pod, but instead they’re just free killmails for people multiboxing a dozen throwaway accounts. Same with the Leopard—one of the coolest, most stylish travel hulls in the game, and you can’t realistically use it because a Thrasher can nuke it out of spite. Hard to get excited about new ships or visual updates when the oldest pain points still go untouched.
Your point about travel time is spot on too. When a simple 15-minute move turns into an hour of spamming warp, staring at the screen like a zombie, and checking zKill and the map every jump just to stay alive… yeah, that’s not fun. People love to say “that’s EVE,” but there’s a difference between challenge and tedium. High-sec shouldn’t feel like crossing a minefield blindfolded just to run some missions.
And the exploration frigate model? Honestly, I laughed when I saw your screenshot because I had the exact same reaction recently. CCP has reworked so many ships beautifully over the years, and then you hop into certain old hulls and it’s like stepping into 2006. When you’re already frustrated, being greeted by a “joy killer” model is just insult to injury.
Everything you described hits a bigger point: the game keeps adding flashy new things, but some of the fundamentals that define the minute-to-minute experience still feel neglected. Travel safety, ship viability, consistency in visual quality, high-sec ecosystem balance… these aren’t minor details. They’re what make players want to log in—or log out for another couple of years.
You’re definitely not alone in feeling pushed toward another break. A lot of returning players are running into the same “I love the idea of EVE, but the reality is just draining” wall. And when a game actively punishes you for trying to chill, relax, or explore casually, that’s a game design problem—not a player problem.
I hope CCP eventually revisits some of these long-standing issues, because the core of EVE is still amazing. But right now? I completely get your frustration.
