Why are unbeatable, inescapable, insta-killing PvE mobs in highsec wrecking new player ships considered good game design?
It isn’t the specific game design that they kill new players. They don’t discriminate and will attack anyone, new or veteran.
It is part of the EVE game design though that the game world is not safe and if a new player learns that early, when they are flying something relatively easy to replace, then that will hold them in good stead later on in the game, because any of us can be attacked at any point, anywhere in space. By NPCs or other players.
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Flies Venture, does some mining, reads that the best way to stay alive is to “Align to” an escape route
Escapes trig mobs when they jump in
Advances to Covetor, uses the same techniques
Loses Covetor to mobs when they jump in the first time
Yeah, it is the specific game design that they kill new players.
“new player” isn’t a thing NPCs know about.
For the Trigs for example, take a quick look through the killboard and you’ll see a lot of older characters being killed in all sorts of ships, not necessarily those characters out specifically to engage the Trigs:
They don’t discriminate for new characters or old. They will engage and kill anyone.
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This isn’t the logical masterpiece you think it is.
“They kill everyone, ergo they aren’t there to kill newbies”
Newbies are included in everyone. They’re designed to kill newbies EVEN HARDER than they kill veterans.
“Even harder” makes no logical sense. If you lose a ship, you lose a ship. That’s not “even harder” for one character over another. Dead is dead.
However, they are not designed specifically to kill new characters. They kill all characters, which yes obviously includes new and old, casual and serious, etc.
Learn the lesson and stop whining like a child. This game doesn’t wrap you in cotton wool and give you as lollypop for participating. Survive or don’t survive and if you come whining like a toddler in the forum and can’t understand the basic game design then good luck to you in the future with whatever you choose to do, because EVE won’t be it for a long time, even though it’s one of the greatest games created.
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When veteran players, with all their resources, skills, and experience, find it difficult to engage with these mobs, and the mobs are designed to go into places new players frequent… Yeah. Even harder.
“Learn the lesson and stop whining like a child. This game doesn’t wrap you in cotton wool and give you as lollypop for participating. Survive or don’t survive and if you come whining like a toddler in the forum and can’t understand the basic game design then good luck to you in the future with whatever you choose to do, because EVE won’t be it for a long time, even though it’s one of the greatest games created.”
Cool, thanks bro. Way to help your game grow and expand by being helpful to new people.
Wow.
I tried to be helpful, but your butthurt won’t let you see the underlying premise if the game, and how that actually is a good thing, because the challenge adds more to the game than if it held your hand. That’s CCP’s design and I am totally for people taking responsibility for themselves.
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This goes both ways. It’s not a one way street and nothing I wrote above was uncivil in intent.
However let me ask the reverse of your question:
How is NPCs agressing ships in highsec not good game design?
If I was to answer that myself, I would say it isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s just the game design and we each take from that what we want. Those that can cope with the lesson learned by losing a ship early, will be all the better prepared in the future, and that’s a overall good thing for the game.
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“Nothing I wrote above was uncivil in intent.”
Excuse me? Seriously, do some introspection.
But let’s get into the nitty gritty, since you asked.
“How is NPCs agressing ships in highsec not good game design?”
This misses a significant portion of the game design. It isn’t plain aggressing ships in highsec. I did a lot of hauling to earn enough money to buy my Covetor because Venture mining is just a pitiful amount of income. My hauler never once saw any of the trig mobs.
But my mining ships have seen plenty of the trig mobs. They aren’t wandering randomly through highsec. They’re not camping out in front of stations or warp gates. They were designed to patrol highsec asteroid fields.
My Venture can get out just fine, but not my mining barge. If they want to end highsec solo mining, this is a great way to do it. It would take a fleet of very expensive ships to protect a mining operation from these mobs.
That’s the game design. Those are the choices the devs made: send 5+ mobs into highsec asteroid belts every 10 minutes and kill every solo/newbie miner they can get their hands on, because they prevent the warp out even if you hit the button the moment they show up.
It seems like OP just wanted to vent and whine instead of actually get help.
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Yep, pretty much seems the direction CCP have been moving in, in recent times.
A while back there was a lot of requests within the community for more fleet based, team based content for highsec. Traditionally, the only real group play required in highsec was Sansha incursions, and that wasn’t accessible to new players at all. It is part of the game played by a very small section of the community in very high cost ships.
So more recently, CCP have been introducing content aimed at encouraging group play. This builds in part of previous research CCP conducted that highlighted the types of game play (they used the term “meaningful gameplay”) that correlated with people sticking with the game longer term.
That included many aspects of game play in other areas of space, based around group play.
So recent content like NPC mining defense fleets, trig invasions and newer Trig sites for example, are all aimed at providing more opportunities for group based play.
Tha’s the game design. It isn’t about killing new players. It’s about CCP responding the community requests for more fleet based opportunities and all of the other affects which come with that.
So, if you can’t move to a different location to get away from them, then finding a group to join and taking advantage of the collective strength may be the best option. There are public fleets that provide command boosts, and that only helps your mining yields at the same time.
So I can understand being upset about losing a ship. It’s happened to all of us, but your emotions are showing in your posts, and if you think I’m being uncivil, then that isn’t my intent. Survive or don’t survive, but it isn’t bad game design. It’s what the community asked for.
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They wont care how old or new your character is. If it’s their, they will try to kill it.
They are not targeting anyone in particular. Just what is there.
Depends on what you think is “expensive”.
If you want to be truly safe and feel protected, go back into your starting system. (The one with the career agents.) But as soon as you leave that, you have to deal with the game like everyone else.
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I’m not upset about losing a ship. I’m bothered by the fact that “group up or die no matter what kind of countermeasures you attempt to adopt” is considered good game design.
In most games, “counterplay” is considered good game design. This is why in MOBA games, the hardest-hitting abilities will have some kind of skill applied, such as aiming, travel time for the ability to land, and actions taken by targets able to counter either the cast of the ability, avoiding the impact of it, or absorbing it in some way.
A fleet of NPCs jumping in and instantly killing you, even if you’ve taken the actions to counter things like that, has no counterplay. All you can do is group up. That is not good game design.
If CCP wants me to stop being a solo player, then I guess I’m out. Thanks for being as abrasive as the EVE community was reputed to be while I figured that out.
No problems. In that respect, you seem to fit in perfectly too.
Which is the answer that was obvious from your question. You didn’t come here to actually ask a question, just to put your view. That’s also pretty normal in the forum, but your reaction to a counter view seems pretty much like the loss has upset you. Just the way it seems.
Hey, I mean, if you’re considered “empathetic” by EVE standards, as evidenced by the prominent tag on your profile, good on you. But you waltzed in here insulting my intellect and emotional capacity as step one, throwing your judgment around instead of asking questions and, I don’t know, being empathetic. 
The name of the badges is just a name. That just means I’ve hit a certain number of likes, which a lot of forum regulars will do eventually. That’s literally all it means.
The forum software doesn’t have an intelligence that analyses everyone’s posts.
So I wouldn’t put too much weight to those tags, although I am pretty empathetic to people that ask genuine questions, rather than just come here to rant. Unfortunately, nothing in this thread was about asking a genuine question and understanding the responses. It is just a rant thread.
I don’t think so. I have no interest in measuring your intellect and couldn’t do so based on a single thread even if I wanted to.
I also don’t know what your emotional capacity is, and that seems like something that changes for all of us on different days depending on what’s going on. Some days we can cope with things fine, and other days things will get on our nerves that normally wouldn’t. I wouldn’t judge you about that.
But good luck to you. I hope you find what you want in EVE, and if so, that will include loss unless you are well enough prepared to avoid it (which can be very rewarding gameplay too).
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