So I fit a incursus for alpha pvp after been bored out of my mind doing pve stuff, flew around some low sec stuff for a bit until I landed on a a gate and the guy there exploded me with 2 Imperial Navy Large EMP smartbombs and killed my ship and capsule, I looked up the cost of them in market and they sell for 128 to 144 million each. So he spent almost half a billion to blow up my 2 million isk ship, it seems I had no chance of doing anything to avoid the death or engage in any type of combat with them.
This game’s play style seems to be “Tons of time been bored while trying to find something fun to do and then been killed by some kind of mechanic you can’t easily avoid”, ie a warp bubble or a smartbomb or been countered by the rock paper scissors system. Am I missing something?
Just wanted to add I can’t see any point playing again, if I am just going to go out and fly around for 20 30 minutes been bored and then instantly killed.
You can very easily avoid smart bombers, as smartbombs have a very limited range and can only be fired once before you are able to jump (if you land at zero on the gate).
Hence if you do not approach the gate from the exact angle he expects you, the bombs won’t hit, means take a reroute of your warp via a nearby celestial or bookmark. They are sitting in pipes where people tend to warp straight gate to gate.
Second, smartbombs do not do much damage, a well buffer tanked frigate can easily survive a volley … though I assume your Incursus was active tank. Then your option is care.
EDIT: under normal circumstances you are not able to kill a smartbomber in a frigate, they are full of stabs, usually have backup, and anyway too much tank.
EDIT2: to second what was said above, solo PvP is EvE in ultra hard mode with an even steeper learning curve. Try find a group to fly with, then smartbombers will run from you
From what I have seen of the game it’s not “hard” as I think of hard, the “skill” in the game seems to come from knowing what counters what and learning what to avoid and to a certain extent the training skill barrier, any kind of personal skill beyond that knowledge seems very limited, ie you don’t need fast reactions or good aim or high awareness of abilities that someone used so you can counter with your own ability.
It does however seem boring, ie it takes a long time to even equip your ship fly to a system to try and find some pvp, and I understand that my idea of boring isn’t your idea, however looking at Eve online and the amount of players it has I think my idea of boring is more common than yours
I think people quit not because it’s hard but because it’s boring and to become involved in anything interesting means you have to spend an inordinate amount of time been bored first. For example if you wanted to go out and have some fun pvp where you had fair fights how long would it take you to find a such a fight?
I think even Eve players find it boring, I have been watching streams of Eve and a lot of them complain that to actually get interesting FAIR fights is very difficult as, unless you are guaranteed a win, most people won’t fight. So the streamers fly around for ages not actually doing anything interesting, and sometimes even engage in fights they will certainly lose to entertain the viewers
What can be done to change it I don’t know, I imagine that the majority of the Eve player base are old school players and are very resistant to change and the amount of new players that start and remain is probably not very high. The Eve developers want to keep the old players happy but ultimately that won’t increase the population base. The old population base is probably enough to keep the game for a long time yet so maybe that’s not a bad thing and players like me are better off playing a game that we find more enjoyable.
Your analysis is accurate. Honestly it doesn’t make sense to explain why EvE is a great and unique game. You have to come to that conclusion on your own, or not. For me it took about 6 months until I understood … and amusingly it all started with solo PvP where I managed to kill much older players in stronger ships with my noob Tristan.
EDIT: about fights in EvE … there is a saying, if you find yourself in a fair fight you did a mistake.
Eve is a sandbox. If you expect the game to entertain you, you will be disappointed. The developers give us a few basic tools then it is up to us to entertain each other.
Eve is a social game. Pretty much everything worth doing involves interaction with other players - sometimes cooperative, often competitive.
Eve does not have “levels” to separate new players from veterans. Protection from predators is provided by your community - if you don’t join a community the learning curve is brutal.
Eventually you get past the basic mechanics of the game and start playing it strategically - like chess. You’re looking for patterns and planning several moves ahead. Whether you play for the combat simulation, the political simulation, the economic simulation or some combination, once you discover that aspect of the game, you’ll probably be here until they turn off the servers.
“What can be done to change it I don’t know, I imagine that the majority of the Eve player base are old school players and are very resistant to change and the amount of new players that start and remain is probably not very high. The Eve developers want to keep the old players happy but ultimately that won’t increase the population base. The old population base is probably enough to keep the game for a long time yet so maybe that’s not a bad thing and players like me are better off playing a game that we find more enjoyable.”
This^^^
That’s pretty much the whole tamale. I’ve only been playing about six months or so, but I’ve never seen an MMO with a group of players that are SO resistant to change. Perhaps because the learning curve is so steep, they don’t want to have to invest in new skills or methods. Perhaps it’s because most of the game consists of veterans. Not sure.
I’ve tried to get several friends to play. All of them have run into one or more griefers who just put them off the game.
I’m not talking about gankers, every pvp has them. I think any experienced MMO player knows that.
What’s different here, is players who come into a mission to steal the loot, or just seem to go out of their way to find some method to ruin another players game. The game mechanics almost encourage bad behavior. There is certainly no punishment for it. If you are more experience, or have a faster, better ship, you can come in and dominate a new player in a weaker one. So people do.
The Agency missions, especially the first one which seemed intended for new players, was a perfect example.
It seems to me, the problem lies with the culture of “that’s just the game”, and an unwillingness to change. Even though CCP tries, they’re walking a tightrope so as not to offend older players who hate change.
I think if EVE really is dying, it’s the player core that’s killing it. I’ve met a few really nice folks, but the jerks seem to be the vast majority.
Which is sad, because I love playing this game.
Hoooooo, here I really want to stand in and defend EVE Online!!! I think it may just not be your style of game, but I am about one year in now and love it like mad. But it is extremely difficult to learn, and I am still soloing with great pleasure. For me the awesomeness of EVE is that you can practically survive through all, if you really study, learn and practice all the secrets. But if you want instant gratification, point, click and shoot, you probably be better of looking for some simpler game or entertainment.
I started playing with a friend and he has already quit, not because of griefers however, it was more it took us hours to do anything. for example I decided to do some gas mining in wormholes so he came along to kill the rats for me, it took us at least an hour or two to find a fit online for his omen and then to fly around different stations buying the stuff for the best price. Then I had to find a wormhole scan it down then once int he wormhole scan down a gas site and fly to it then harvest the gas for 20 minutes until the rats spawned and then he killed them and I then mined for another 20 or so minutes to fill up hold, made about 6 million ISK each from about 4 hours of rather mundane game play. He tried the sisters of eve arc and some other pve stuff and has quit.
Yes it is just as slow as in real life, everything has to be planned, learned and prepared, like in our normal real life. I just simply told myself that I am going to enjoy each click of the entire process, and after 50 times you will have some more routines and it will go faster. Either you join a corp and get help from them to learn fast, or fly alone and be prepared to do tons of research for each next step.
It’s true that the game isn’t for everyone, and yes it can be boring, but it also can be fun. You have to try a few things and see what you enjoy and mix it up a bit… search for “eve careers” and check out to graph/picture, something my grab you… solo though is super hard.
Probably you are in different systems to me, I never met anyone like that (in fact I like looting sites after the missioner left it untidy). I know all the scum in Jita or Dodixie and our special friends from CODE, but there’s ways to find out where to avoid them. And most EvE players are quite social when it comes to direct chat or ask for help. And all that “bad behaviour” is like in real life. Deal with it, then you live happy. Hate and loath it and always think about how unfair life/EvE is, and your amount of fun is limited.
Your death could have been countered by awareness of the abilities the smartbomber used and how to counter them. In fact, SB range is short enough that it’s possible to scram-kite a smartbomber in a frigate and drive them off (you won’t kill them, they’re usually stabbed, or tanked enough that they can wait out timers and jump the gate they were camping.)
There were 2 Machariel Battleships on the gate, not sure I could kite both of them in an incursus, I don’t think there was any way I was getting through that gate, the only option would have been to fly back. Looking at the two guys killboards it seems that all they do is sit on that gate 24/7 and kill people coming through or arriving at, it leads to a 0.5 system so they get a lot of easy kills. Sitting at a gate all day long dropping smartbombs seems about as much fun and skill as mining veldspar, it does seem that Eve encourages safe boring playstyle, do the thing with the lowest possible risk for yourself, I think that’s a problem for the way the game plays.
I spent 4 hours yesterday flying around wormholes in a exploration ship and found nothing I could do, every single site was one with rats in it, I thought you could find relic and data sites without rats in wormholes, but I went to 4 wormholes and nothing. Also scanning is a really tedious thing too, scanning down 10 anomalies in every wormhole is not interesting gameplay.
Yesterday’s tally: 1) fly around for an hour in a frigate and get instakilled
2) fly around wormholes for 4 hours and find nothing to do
Fun = 0
boredom = 1
I really am trying to like this game, I mined some gas in wormholes, tried to find some PVP, tried exploration in wormholes, I have spent probably a hundred hours over the last month the only thing that earnt me any isk was sitting in a venture semi afk mining rocks or gas that’s not something that is going to keep me playing the game.
Only wormholes of class 3 and lower contain pirate data/relic sites you can run without a combat ship, and holes originating from crowded regions are likely harvested empty, and if not people are waiting there to kill you.
I was exploring a lot before I moved on to manufacturing and trade as ISK source and I didn’t scan in wormholes for sites but used them to get into remote null and lowsec regions for “relic runs” sometimes with hacking only fit, sometimes with combat fit to kill and loot other explorers. https://www.eve-scout.com is something you should get familiar with.
EDIT: again, if you want to go solo for now it’s a long bumpy but IMO also satisfying road, you need a high frustration tolerance, and the spirit to see opportunities in challenges not obstacles.
EDIT: … adding an example, when I was ganked unprepared in my travel ceptor (bad instawarp spot after the grid size change), I plotted a plan to get my loss back with harvesting killright pays from the gankers which included double wrapped Tritanium packages in a shuttle … and it worked and I made more than my ceptor was worth.
Try finding a Faction Warfare corp. You’ll be able to engage in small gang, solo pvp and earn some isk/LP while your at it.
There are many FW groups out there who will welcome someone who is prepared to go look for fights.
FW is a good way to learn some of the “niceties” of PVP in Eve.
Eve is not hard, yes it can be boring but it is also exciting, frustrating, fun and will bring up every emotion you have as you find your way to glory and defeat.
Just wanted to say I appreciate all the civil and constructive replies so far.
I think the game has a lot of potential but I really feel like it needs aspects that don’t take as much time to do and are fun too. I enjoyed the newbie “The Agency” line for the destroyer and industrial ship for example, if they could make some more scripted events every month that might be a start to helping retain newer players.
Actually they do. Next in line will probably be the annual Crimson Harvest around Halloween. Which is one of the communities’ favorites (though or because it has a strong competitive and “unfair” PvP aspect).
