Why are there no Incentives to PvP in EVE?

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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I’ve been playing Eve for 1 month now. So, I’m very new at this game. However, I have played many other MMOs before and I understand them very well and what makes a game great.

Let me just first off say, I love Eve. This game has so many elements that I love, and even though I’m in the honeymoon phase of it, I can see myself playing this game for a very long time. The way the combat system works is fantastic. Yes, it was a little overwhelming in the beginning learning everything, but the more I learn how much you can do in this game, the more I fall in love with it. I’m also in a great corp now with some really fantastic guys.

I do however have one major complaint… And it’s really just eating me alive inside. I love PvP, always have in every game I played. The fact that when you die in Eve, you lose everything, adds a whole different dimension to PvP and I think that’s why it’s so special here. Getting in those heart thumping fights, having the jitters, not many games out there can get you going like Eve can with the risks involved when you step into Low sec or Null sec/wh space.

However, I’m struggling to find out where the real incentive is to PvP. So far in my first month of Eve, I’ve killed or been a part of killing 31 ships, and lost 25. Most of the time when me or me/buddies kill someone, the loot is hardly anything(less than 5-10mil). Only twice have I gotten a faction item actually worth something in PvP, whereas I’ve lost almost 1 bil in ships. Even the guys in my corp, who are incredible PvPers, admit that PvP is a money losing activity.

So again, I ask, where’s the incentive? I get that it’s fun to rack up your killboard. But honestly, who really looks at that stuff and cares? Not like someone’s going to give me recognition because I have a lot of kills on my killboard. The only reason I PvP nowadays is for the fights and combat, which by the way are fantastic. But I have to come to grips with the realization that whenever I step out to solo or fleet PvP, there’s a very good chance I’m going to lose ships, and lose ISK. Not only that, but every day I’m losing security status and soon I will be a pirate. Once that happens, it’s going to cost me even MORE ISK to get my sec status back to normal, or I could pay haulers HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of ISK to haul me stuff to Low sec. PvP is very expensive!

I have a few solutions I think could fix this issue. I wanted to get you guys input on it.

  1. PvP craftable gear

How about this, every time a player is killed in PvP, in their cargo there is a small chance that a (new) craftable item could appear. This item could be crafted into PvP gear, which would be like faction gear, but better. This would be essentially the best gear in the game. The industrialists could learn the blueprints for crafting it as well, so everybody wins.

  1. In game RECOGNIZABLE achievements for certain Killboard accomplishments

Right now the only way to tell if someone is decent at PvP is to go to zkillboard and check. Why not have special titles before a players name or an award on their portrait or something so we can tell them apart from everyone else? Or how about a special tattoo they can put on their face in their portrait. Just anything to let others know you’re a PvPer and that you are actually decent at it. I mean you could do it any number of ways. For instance, player #1 has a 4:1 kill/death ratio. That’s pretty good, but I’d never know it unless I looked it up. There should be something recognizable, in game, to where I can see it and give him the recognition or at least the respect he deserves. It doesn’t have to be just K:D ratio. You could do it for kill count. Every 1000 kills give them an achievement/reward.

I had some other ideas too but honestly these are the best two. I think with changes and more incentives a lot of high sec only players would be willing to come and play in PvP as well. It would be a great thing for the game. Let me know you guys thoughts!

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The incentive to Pvp is to destroy the other ship. There is no need for any other incentive. Victory over your enemy is the highest achievement a capsuleer can obtain. True warriors need nothing else.

The kill marks on your ship is all you need.

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Yeah, this is sort of a problem with Eve. Eve Online wasn’t designed as a fleet combat simulator or arcade game, but a virtual world where your gear had meaning and resource control and collection matter. Somewhere along the way the developers seemed to have lost the thread of this and moved the game more toward that meaningless arcade game where fights are just for fun. Still, a lot of players play this game to gather and build so they are constrained at what they can do without complete making resources meaningless and killing that side of the game.

Spawning gear or increasing PvP drops directly undermines the industrial side of the game. PvP achievements or stats are completely able to be gamed by collusion with your opponents. Ideally, you should be fighting over valuable objectives and prizes but CCP has had trouble getting this to really work although it looks more to me they just gave up on this years ago.

It’s probably impossible to directly reward PvP in a sandbox game like Eve. The closest they have come to rewarding PvP s by bending the core concept of the game and restricting player freedom like in Abyssal arenas or maybe Faction Warfare. Even here the biggest problem is players ignoring PvP and farming the rewards.

So I have no answer, but until the player-driven economy collapses and these players leave, CCP can’t really do much more than they have to reward PvP. After that, then sure, they can just flood the game with everything and not worry about collusion and farming and people can have all the “gud fights” they want.

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I am against spawning anything from nothing like magic. In pvp you get what was fitted to the ship if the Loot Fairy allows it.

The problem though many of the PVP fights tends to take place between those that want to and those that do not. Most players have no interest in EVE other than PVE and Industry and will reluctantly try PVP if forced to. I also strongly believe your first (and mine) for PVP should not dictate game changes that forces others into PVP.

You are correct though, there really is no incentive for people that prefer PVE and Industry to PVP. But that is ok. It creates a weird balance in eve where those that want PVP will always be able to find it no matter the outcome.

I do believe though it is your corps responsibility to create that thirst and hunger for PVP. Rewards medals can all be done by a proactive corp management structure. Imagine telling all you new alpha players… here is cruisers fitted for free. come lets go PVP. You will have people jump at that everytime.

I am Kane, and I approve of the stuff I said above. Dont mistake my character age with my experience in EVE PVP.

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To quote Tom Sizemore from the movie Heat, “…the action is the juice.”

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nah players would just farm those on their friends/alts.

if you want profit from pvp check out suicide ganking, or some other method of hunting whales.

and maybe it’s not immediately profitable but showing up and taking someone else’s space can be very profitable long term.

1 Like
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These feelings are the incentive. Your narrow, materialistic view of the world doesn’t need a change of the game, it needs you to acknowledge that these feelings are what makes it worth it. Your post makes it sound like you’re just trying ■■■■■■■■ us.

Only weak minds need this to feel accomplished. They already have 1000 kills at this point. If that doesn’t make them feel like they’ve accomplished something, then they should see a psychologist, because what they want isn’t playing, they want someone to tell them how awesome they are.

The problem isn’t the game.
The problem is you.

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I need incentives to log in let alone play

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future Corp recruiters always check these and if you as you say are a PVP pilot then they mean a lot.

fight in null, no security penalties there, it’s great to see a new player get to grips with PVP and the loss of ships, dont’ fly what you can’t afford to lose and you’re good.

just make sure you make isk as much as you PVP, also combat in Wh’s is an option for you, isk can be made from PVP, just hitting the right targets can fix that. i wish you luck :slight_smile: you seem to have it all in hand and doing the right things.

but i do have to say, if your combat has actual meaning as in you are fighting to hold space or control of an area then the incentive is there in itself. best of luck to ya anyways o7

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I’m confused because, i thought the incentive to PvP was the adrenaline rush, the explosions, the salt, the killmails and ofcourse the most important reward, those sweet sweet frozen corpses

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What you are noticing is a problem that virtually everyone is noticing in EVE, a recent lack of conflict drivers.
Desire and Greed spark Interest, Interest sparks Belligerence, and Belligerence sparks PvP.

If you have nothing that is desirable and profitable to obtain, you won’t have meaningful PvP.
There was a desire for Empire-building in the early days of EVE from what I see, but this has been solved now and if you want that there are dozens of groups who have already done it and are doing it better than most could.
As in profit, the recent changes made the profits dependent on mining, a very good thing for the miners and industrialists, as the rise of Delve shows and the recent shift inside Snuffed Out in low-sec also shows, but for PvPers, there is less things profitable to contest like passive moons if you just PvP and nothing else.

FW used to also be a good conflict driver and had that balance of accessibility and complexity, unfortunately the effect of citadels on the zone ruined the accessibility. And entities at the size to be good at FW now would gain more by being in Null… So no desire for anyone to contest that space.

So yeah, there is just a clear diminution in Conflict Drivers for PvPers, CCP wanted to involve miners and industrialists more in conflict, but they forgot to give those who only want to shoot more reasons to undock and contest someone’s space.

As for your solutions, your intentions are commendable but the implementation is probably the worst way to go about it.

You can already loot the “gears” of the ships you destroy, some kind of PvP-only components dropping without a context would be weird.

Bragging rights that everyone can have and that can be easily gamed are dangerous. Your achievements would have to be tied to objectives otherwise someone could just dock out an alt and explode it a thousand times to gain the title of “Legendary PvPer” (and some actually do that already).

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There’s too many empty people, who feel nothing inside, so they blame the world instead and find reasons for why the world is wrong and how it’s definitely not them.

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It was always so.
Basically people who are thinking of doing classic PvP ships fights (not those explorers and high sec carebears) dont fit their ships in expensive mods usually, so the loot isnt so good when you fight PvP-ers. PvP in itself is an adrenaline inducing activity so I would say that this adrenaline is the reward, there is also a question of bragging rights, and the fact you are winning and that feeling that is also a reward in itself.

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As soon as i finished reading both of these…my thoughts were like
1.) WoW battlegrounds, FFIVX pvp arena’s, and such where PvP gear matters and can only be obtained there.
2.) The above idea would be so broken in EvE, as there is no separation between PvP and PvE areas, they are one and the same.
3.) Goons did it in FW, and that is why LP from PvP kills (if that still happens) is garbage now, imagaine Goons gaming this, or Code…or me…
4.) Hell no

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Thanks to CCP we’re flooded with morons who treat EVE like an arcade game.

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The incentive is fun. It’s a video game.

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Exactly, but what is money? Money (in-game and out of game) is the representation of wealth that you get for work.

The decision is yours: Do you live to work or do you work to live?

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This guy gets it.

It’s about the challenge of the fight. It’s about that 1v1 frigate fight that comes down to the last shot and leaving you with 3% structure. It’s about taking a frigate into a fight against a cruiser or battleship that it’s not supposed to win, but comes out on top. It’s about some of the convos after the fight, asking questions about the fight itself. It’s about the “gf” in local, even if you lost, but put up a good, tough fight. It’s about the heart racing adrenaline rush of the fight.

Those are the incentives to solo or small gang pvp. To me, those are the only incentives that matter.

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The reality of EvE pvp is it as turned to total zerg warfare.

Anyone that has ever dealed with a game that has gone this direction knows that this is not good long term, not for anyone, not pvpers, or anyone else.

The actual kill is now more important to most people than the act of killing. People don’t want to kill for fun, they are looking for a mark on a killboard. Further more the community is so broken it holds no regard over 500 people killing one guy or you 1v1 soloing him. They both are viewed equally, which they should not. It is not quantity over quality, which in turn will give you neither.

Low sec is dead, not just a little dead, like really dead. Who exactly do you believe inhabited this place? Casuals?

It is obvious from a top down overview that Nulls view has ruined pvp in EvE. It needs to be changed, either with or without their consent.

I wish just for a minute the Null groups would acknowledge the damage they have done to the game overall and the major changes that are needed to move it back to a pvp friendly game. But control is more important than fun and this is what you get. So hey you harvest what you reap right? Good luck with your unfulfilling pvp, it wont get better from here. You cant make someone enjoy an unfulfilling fight, a unfulfilling experience or a unfulfilling life, which is all Null has become.

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I wrote multiple times about anti blob weapons. Better than bombs, something that actually hurts also titans considerably.

Like a “nanite induced rot” N.I.R. bomb, or “mutaplasmid induced rot” M.I.R. bomb (mir being also triglavian for peace hehe), and good platform for that would be a triglavian ship of entirely new class, cruiser bomber. Weapon would damage ships over time for percentage of their HP.