For one, I am in minmil, for two - I farm anti-amarr missions… the combination of two means staying above -5 is already a challenge… staying above -2 is borderline impossibility.
It’s always been like this.
then you can do epics (soe and amarr) with an alt and share rewards. This way you will share faction standing gain at the end.
Risk-aversion’s always been there, but the degree at which it plays at, and the sheer ammount of risk-aversive styles of gameplay overall, if you’d only take a few trip around null and ls, is considerably higher.
I’d say 2 out of 10 of pvp encounters to be worth your time now (ie without OP fucktards and Blobs getting in the way), compared to 6 or 7 out of 10 before, pre 2011.
A lot less flew bling or big ships at that time so I remember fights being a lot more evenly balanced across the board.
Now, anyone can pop a Carrier alt or any kind of personal alt army, anywhere, anytime, and just take a giant ■■■■ down your neck, for no effort.
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Most people are not “risk averse”, just “smart” not to fight what usually ends up in a blob.
Small fights have not been the same as in early on in Eve.
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Oh yeah. I definitely agree here.
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Constantly warping off and avoiding fights until you have that 100% and/or OP chance over your opponent, is not smart, it’s just hiding yourself to the fact you’re too dumb about the game and just logging in only for easy poppings, or find someone else to lead you through them like a sheep.
Going in to a fight knowing you have 50/50 chances or less, and that you’ll have to rely on your smarts to survive tight, yea that, is “smart” gameplay, and you’re giving your opponents something to chew on as well.
So like I said, “smart”, is a rarity in engagements nowadays yea, and early Eve fights had a LOT more to have fun around with, indeed…
People now have all the ships and isk they could ever need, but are also even more frail of mind and scared to lose their ■■■■ and being made a fool of.
It’s funny but at the same time kinda makes me sick to watch a guy bling out a ship thinking he’ll have the OP advantage, only to to watch him burn in a few miliseconds by another dude with the exact same mindset as him, but only with a bigger blinged out ship/army …
People deceiving themselves thinking this as fun gameplay, is also a fun one to watch, only for a fool, which Eve has become, a fool’s game at best.
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Its interesting that the complaint about “risk-adverse” really popped up not long after some players really pushed game-play to be more FPS-like during the Privateer empire wars.
I’ve always felt that crowd was trying to force a round peg into a square hole since the game has always been more about managing risk than carefree FPS, for which being “risk-adverse” is a natural by product.
Blob warfare and hot-drop o’clock just made it far more common than it used to be.
Very few actually liked being “the target” on a regular basis. The real costs of ship replacement has always been too high to support a that style of game play.
I’d suggest that this points to the fact that this game has always tried to be too much to too many and never delivered on any of it, which has left a very disappointed player base overall.
CCP should have been more careful about which type of emergent game-play they actively supported.
This has been a great example of game design without focus, or a “rudder” of any kind.
A meandering mess to be honest.
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I really like all these posts. They tell a story I’ve seen unfold over the past 10 years.
One of the symptoms I see most clearly is in Capital ship proliferation. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!
From a game design point of view, they have been made more and more accessible, more and more generalized. They used to be a tool, for Sov holding. Extremely useful as a force-multiplier. They where extremely cumbersome, useless for the vast majority of PVP stuff, except PVP on the largest scales and Null-sec gravitas. Titans especially.
These days? I’ve seen Titans casually gate-camp low-sec. I’ve been hot-dropped by Titans and other caps, while flying in small Cruiser fleets in Low-Sec. Everyone and their dogs have Capitals on stand-by. They no longer have restrictions in their use and movement in Low-sec.
“The game changes, so what? Adapt to survive.” - I hear many say. I think @Elena_Laskova captures this predicament perfectly.
Taking capitals in Low-Sec as a case study, how does its changes affect Player interactions when comparing it to the rest of the game-design?
Eve Online used to be a heavily lore based game, and even though many people back in the day probably never noticed it much, the lore created a solid environment to develop game-mechanics within. With the Capital ship example, I imagine the mindset in pre-2012 Eve development was something like this:
“Should capitals be allowed in Low sec?”
“Hmm… Well. They are intended Sovereignty enforcement tools. And Low-Sec is Empire Sov. So I don’t think it makes much sense that the Empires would allow Capsuleers to have more military power than themselves in their space”
“I guess you are right. Stupid idea”
Today? More something like this.
“Should capitals be allowed in Low-Sec?”
“Hmm… Would make for more cut throat PVP in Low… Maybe a big Cap-Fight… More PVP nevertheless, With bigger badder ships. I love it!”
“I’m glad you like it”
…
*EDIT 2: *
I want to add that capitals in Low make risk averse decisions much more sensible. You know that you can be hit wit overwhelming force, at any time, for any reason. So why risk doing stuff in Low?
…
Anyway. Conclusion time… Well. Obviously. Proliferation of Dead-space modules and capitals is just exacerbate what else i talk about here.
The concentration of wealth to people that use excessive alts/plexing/botting, and whatever 1 man army like “enhancement”, of gameplay methods, is high, and it is tipping the game into something, that doesn’t seem so fair.
All this works to raise the bar for being able to match pvp-ers, at a low, and even intermediate level. At the same time, general ship stats, in the sub-cap department, has become more similar between factions than ever, limiting tactical specialization available in T1 sub-caps.
I could write a book, listing stuff like this. Things, that by themselves doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but as a whole start to point at a more fundamental issue with EVE Online in its current form.
It has lost its focus. It has lost touch with some of the original underpinning game-design philosophy.
The game focused primarily on Community building, small gang, small groups doing their thing and those who got big, moved to Null, where themselves became the “Capsuleer Empires”.
Today, lore doesn’t seem to mean much for game development, other than to make new factions and ships (Hopefully this Abyssal expansion will prove me wrong).
On the PVP-/E’ers being risk-averse thing, I see it more as a symptom of trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator, while compromising on the underlying game-design philosophy. This makes the game more accessible, but over time, it drifts into an area where it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. It slowly creates a million different opinions on what direction the game should take, and CCP wants to appeal to everything. Again,over time, creating the situation @Elena_Laskova captured so neatly in her reply.
And sadly… It is a trend I have seen a lot of game-franchises take the past 15 years. “Mainstreamification” i call it. How it affects the game-design is dependent on the game. Some franchises are improved by it, refined by it. Others… Not so much. Battlefield used to be actual 32 vs. 32 team battles. Then EA bought the development studio, and immediately online combat became 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 vs. 5 + 5 + 5 + 5.
A huge change in how online combat was. The organised teams in the earlier games was a underpinning design idea that got watered down. The result? More mainstream appeal, less original game-design. Pure economics. More money, less art.
I don’t know if I’m making much sense, but I hope you find some of it interesting. In any case, for EVE to regain its appeal, CCP need to take a conscious decision re-work the game-design philosophy from the ground up in a progressive manner. I hope it will happen, but I have my doubts.
Fly safe all o7
Edit:
I concur, sir.
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Really good analysis
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