[Updated] Improving PVP for new players

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Eve is not some easy game where you can just have things handed to you, or to be left alone in peace. While Eve is a MMO it is more like a simulation. You have to put in effort/time/energy to acquire your assets. These assets are not guaranteed safety, nothing is. The only thing that is guaranteed in Eve is that there is always someone willing to take advantage of you for their betterment (much like real life).
However, like in real life, there are ways to help prevent/reduce the chances of that happening. You just have to learn what works best for you and adapt to the Eve world (again much like you must adapt to real life situations.)

Stellaris is a fun game, but what sets it apart from Eve in the respect that you feel like you haven’t wasted your time is because the amount of time/effort you need to produce results in Stellaris is miniscule compared to Eve.

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Nah bro. We don’t care :smiley: HTFU :smiley:

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i doubt the devs care since you are screaming about wanting to change the core game of EVE.

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The devs just want to show up to work, deal with their jerk boss for a few hours, and collect their paycheck. They don’t have time to worry about “the game.”

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Eve often felt like I wasn’t playing a game, but working in the game so I could enjoy the game at some unspecified date.

I have real problems in my life. My life isn’t so easy that I need more loss stress in my games. I don’t need the threat of being held and murdered with no possibility of escape in any of my games. I can just walk to a car after midnight and get the same feeling I get when I play EVE.

HTFU - Highly true formal update? Thanks, @Gix_Firebrand. You seem like a nice person who’s life isn’t dominated by loneliness and pain.

As I previously mentioned, I appreciate the engagement, but this feedback is for the devs. I appreciate all the Socratic dialogue opportunities, though.

128

Finding your place in Eve might be challenging. However, you might fit in with some smaller nullsec groups, trying to do industry and mining. The group could provide you with the type of security you desire, in exchange for the type of effort you are talking about.

Eve is not a good solo game.

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129

I meant what I said about starting new players in NS being a possible solution. Right now, it feels like I never got to see the real game because of the terrible expectations starting characters in HS gives new players like me.

I was never even given the opportunity to go find what I wanted in NS. No missions guide you there, nothing in the game tells you you will need to do a literal Zoom interview for some NS corps. EVE has a lack of basic respect for my time as a user. Every menu and selection seems more complicated than it has to be. QOL and UX makes getting information in the game feel like trying to use a Blackberry to browse the internet in 2007. The game substitutes gotcha moments based around the difficulty of navigating the UI for actual gameplay difficulty. Did you forget to bring in your drones before warping? You lose. Did you remember to cycle your mining lasers? You lose.

If we are simulating sci-fi life. I would spend a few dozen hours making a weak AI to manage my drones and never think about my drones again.

EVE feels like a forerunner to Farmville and other mobile games, in that you have to constantly click on a bunch of different things at different rhythms in the UI. Instead of a colorful cartoon display giving dopamine feedback like candy crush, all the constant clicking in EVE is a frenzied attempt to prevent loss. To prevent your time in the game being wasted on an unprofitable task or having your time become someone’s content.

That piles way too much cortisol on the dopamine loop when I am mining and I want to enjoy my time.

I don’t need everything spoonfed, but how is a new player supposed to get to NS if that is the gameplay I might theoretically enjoy? Especially when they are taught EVE is about HS life? If the culture shock of “700 hours of HS, visits LS a few times” ends my engagement with the whole game, how am I supposed to ever get to the endgame in NS? Most of my playtime is ratting and mining in fleets. If I was steeped in PVP from day one, maybe I wouldn’t experience only ambush PVP when I’m in a civilian ship. Where were the play on ramps to this gameplay? Non-existant.

This whole thread lists a series of games that have more engaging gameplay than EVE.

In most games, I click or press a button because it feels good. In Dark Souls, League of Legends, or CS:GO, it feels good to overcome the difficulty of another player’s skill. I have feedback on why I’ve lost. In EVE, I push buttons because I don’t want to feel bad. I don’t feel successful when I fight as hard as I can to stay in the same place. Real life has enough red queen races that EVE just feels like an annoying extension of real life with all the annoyances and none of the creature comforts.

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There’s a lot that isn’t just presented to you… you have to find things out. It’s up to each NS corp to determine how they want to get new members. CCP leaves a lot of stuff for US to find or get info about.

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I’m suggesting other alternatives, in the interest of being flexible:

Make dying more fun, or at least less unfun

Showing me my toon’s naked corpse means different things to me than it might to you. I’d prefer a Team Fortress 2 style rocket gib of my character model. The imagery just means different things to different people and it might be a blindspot. It really fucks up my time playing. Is this a hill everyone wants to die on? Why are my boobs always out and totally untouched? A real simulation would just display a text box describing how a power failure caused your clone to flash liquefy under inertial pressures of space combat. Can my clone wear less sexy or long underwear? Disable the cutscene? Not a deal breaker, just listing a pain point.

Instead of showing me essentially how I would look in a ditch on earth as the victim of a serial killer… Kick me back to character design with some options on the new clone depending on the home station.

Consider a system where station owners can install clone modules that let you buy something at respawn that makes you feel like you are making an immediate gameplay adjustment.

Let players form insurance firms with contracts.

Give a small non-stackable temporary learning bonus for any skill that your killer had that was learned higher than your own. Learn from your mistakes bonus. So getting killed by someone with all the skills actually let’s you catch up.

Make players feel like they have some chance of beating anyone at PvP by pitting them against other new players doing dumb things. This let’s new players form their own communities. I quit EVE after no one I knew in real life said they would play with me, after I described my gameplay experiences.

Add a manual piloting tutorial and explain traversal with a basic visual representation in game. I learned the basics of gameplay AFTER I had gotten tired of losing all the time and left FW.

Opaque design isn’t difficulty and EVE feels like an empty piñata.

All PVE content is solved.

All PVP is inaccessible to someone who is starting at the bottom of the violence pyramid.

Add mechanical challenges to gameplay with immediate corrective feedback.

Give your voice actors some work:

Give me more voice cues and information.

“Warning, there have been 8 craft lost and 4 capsuleer deaths in the last hour in most dangerous system on this route.”

“Warning, this craft loadout has been killed within 5 jumps of here in the past hour.”

Give me a couple in universe propaganda videos explaining the big factions. Let NS corps make their own, post them to the client. (Within reason, Goons)

The lore is not exactly…visually immersive. The lack of outfits and interesting options makes the sea of square-headed sunglasses pvp capsuleers all with the same clothes and face seem more like an NPC faction than a group of real humans. I don’t blame them, there aren’t that many cool cosmetic options. Even then, most people won’t be able to see the work you put into your avatar. Nothing feels good about character design in EVE after you’ve made 1-2 characters, because they all wear the same 20 outfits with reskinned color pallets.

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You want to do anything else besides accepting the game the way it is and has been for nearly 2 decades.

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A game that most of the playerbase feels is headed in a negative direction and has had increasing trouble keeping players. Yes.

The devs have asked for feedback as they try to pivot the game into losing fewer people than the last 7 years and hopefully growing again.

I am describing pain points and potential solutions, even bad ones. I am about fixing problems, not complaining without contributing or attacking anyone. If I were a dev, I would want to know the factors that contributed to every customer that leaves the game, bro.

I don’t want to ruin anyone’s time, I want to find common ground to make EVE the best game it can be.

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My life isn’t :smiley: Thankee for noticing!

We don’t care about your real life problems. I’d suggest Stardew.

LOL you could do this yourself. But you won’t :smiley:

Oh. You mean Youtube :smiley:

You can literally do this. You just suck at the game bruv :smiley:

You can. Its called the EVE Online Store :smiley:

So you can’t read good and that’s our problem?

Oh. So Youtube. Got it. You know there is an in-game browser too right? Jebus you fail so hard at this game.

No one cares :smiley: More shooty shooty, less doing unmentionable things in public to your avatar :smiley:

Nah. You wanna ruin the game. How about you undock out of Averon? I can halp :smiley:

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that hasn’t worked in years my friend.

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I will immediately start a campaign to rectify that.

Honestly, in-game browser would help miners be more attentive :smiley:

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Check my last login date. I want CCP devs to know why I stopped playing more than I ever want to login again. I’m pretty stubborn: My only engagement with EVE is this thread and discussing my impressions of EVE. You can be rude and attack, but fam, that is honestly a waste of your time, because it means you’re just bumping my ideas, ensuring more people read them, increasing their algorithmic weight. If I stand next to a screeching chimp, no matter how bad my ideas are, those are the only ideas anyone hears.

Why not try to meet me halfway?

Because if you’re so invested in other people’s suggestions, I’d wager you’re so addicted, you’d be forced to play in whatever changes CCP adopted. Your thoughtful opinion would be more productive than your scorn, speaking from a place of compassion.

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It would take months if not a year for them to do what you want. No. Better yet ■■■■ no. And this is coming from someone who avoids pvp. It’s needed in the game, I been on the receiving end of losing my ship, it ■■■■■■■ happens. Ccp will never implement your ideas. Eve will officially be dead at that point. So many core elements are tied to pvp.

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Meet me at the sun in Averon, I’ll explain there :smiley:

Uh I mean they own the game son. And if they changed it in a way I didn’t like? I’d simply leave. No dramatic attention seeking post :smiley:

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I truly think you underestimate how good you make other people look when they’re standing next to you.

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So if I make them look good, I must look even better cause it rubs off on them right?

Thankee :smiley:

So you gonna meet up w/ me at the sun so I can tell you EVE secrets or

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I am making suggestions to update the PvP to make it attract new people in a productive way.