Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Meh. There's only so far you can take the whole "Eve is Real" thing, and comparing it to real military situations is going a bit far (though I'll admit some people treat it that way). In real life, the guys beside you know that their life depends on yours. In Eve, the guy you're fighting next to today could steal all your stuff and biomass tomorrow. Consequences aren't exactly on the same scale.

Truth is, people have their own reasons for sticking together. For some it's conflict, for some it's cooperation, for some it's convenience. For others it's something completely different.

The sample I am using here is a small PvE corp. While many players are part of the big corps and alliances that can afford hiring mercenary support, the smaller corps are not part of alliances in this circumstance.
Alliances want bang for their ISK, and smaller corps fall short of this category, (often below 10 active players, possibly as many as 20 accounts between them).

Very many players fit this profile, since high sec offers security for these small fish to survive in. Being war decced under current mechanics can even be planned for by having a second corp shell on stand by to jump over to. For the backup plan an NPC corp reliably shakes off that feeling of open season.

Put simply, they simply have no positive reason to stay in the corp if it has the negative of the war dec. The corp means a convenient way to group and organize to them, in many cases, since that is all they are willing to put into it.

The corps with wallets sufficient to afford billion ISK investments or contracts already have some motivation to stick together. And while this would give them more, they are generally already past the threshold of staying together if war decced.

Of course I am interested in a solution that works on many levels, but I can't set the bar above the needs of this sample corp to do that. It's better to have something that helps more a little bit instead of just catering to the big fish.

In various posts you and I, Nikk, have covered some very poignant details about PvE.

In hisec, a PvE player corp can do nothing of value besides setup a POS. This POS has only two possible purposes: defense during a war dec, and research, neither of which make it particularly valuable.

NPC corps, on the other hand, have a rather insignificant tax by comparison, and no corporate hangar or POS options, but completely make the player immune to war dec's and awox. Plus, they often have much larger chat channels and social groups to associate with.

So I feel we both agree that when it comes to hisec PvE corps versus NPC corps, NPC corps win. Not only on the factor of war decs, but also corp killers, with very little reward otherwise that cannot be worked around (30days for a research job is not terribly long, run a POS on an alt account or hire a corp to run your BPO's, contracts or trades to move gear between characters).



So then we cover the nature of the player that chooses a PvE corp versus an active ship-to-ship combat corp. You have those specifically focused on one form of gameplay, like missions, mining, or industry. You have casual gamers who only play a few hours a week. You have anti-social types who don't trust others and don't want to risk large groups and deal with the drama. And then you have those who are simply against ship-to-ship pvp.

The focused gamers, of which I am one, realize that it's smarter to play in hisec for many reasons. My mission fit ships aren't setup for pvp. My mining ops don't have to bail everytime a neutral comes into system (though as security, I still keep watch for suspicious characters in local). I can use top of the line mining barges and expensive marauder mission fits, with only a little threat.

The casual gamer, of which I am also, only get to log in an hour here or there. Which means that money making and playtime have to fight for attention. My pirate or faction warfare alts, or my old 0.0 accounts, require so much more time investment. Most fleets stay out for hours on a run. So I log in, do some missions or mine, and when I get more than a few hours in a row, switch to an alt or go off with a conglomeration group to play.

The anti-social types, of which I know I am, don't want to be a small fry in some big, nameless corp or alliance. In 0.0 I felt like a cog who keeps the wheels spinning. I understood how practical and organized they had to be, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed being the bottom, and later middle, rungs. And the drama. Not something I enjoy. So I stay in hisec, which requires less dedication and cooperation.

As far as the anti-pvp types? I am not. I have spoken of them in this post already. Safe to say, they don't stay very long in EvE and don't actually enjoy the game for what it is. They aren't going to be coaxed or cajoaled into fighting, they'll just quit. Quit the corp. Quit player corps altogether. The quit the game. And since I vehemently resist any suggestions made to change EvE into a UO clone with safe space and pvp flags? I feel these players are my enemy in the war for the heart and soul of this game, and I have no respect for them.



So we have the fight to give players a reason to choose other than NPC corps. Now we argue, can we make it valuable to not only contribute to a corporation, but also stick with them during a war dec?

My goal is not to make a bunch of players grab bad ships and fits and charge out and die. That isn't smart at all for the hisec player. Without wanting to pvp and the experience (which this *could* provide, but overwhelming odds normally follow hisec wars), we're still having our team be the prey that others 'line killboards' with.

No, my goal is to make the corporation more successful, to bring in more players, to make them want to grow just a wee bit and ally themselves. A corp that is less than 10 players, as long as it's not made up entirely of 2-month old players (which they almost invariably are), can make the pittance that mercenary corps ask to declare a war. These are PvPers who, when they have no business, declare war on likely looking targets. If they had business?

But as I mentioned, several things go against this. Greed, namely. Those players play for themselves, not for others, and the idea of paying others really irks them. Also ignorance. As they generally don't understand how easy it is, or cheap, to get other players to fight for you. And finally, it's passionate disgust, because many hisec players would rather quit the game entirely than support the gamestyle of a 'leet kiddie who picks on others', or whatever insult they've built up.




TL, DR? You can give people reason to stick with their corp. We've both done that. You can give them things to fight over. Did that too. But let's not try to make players who aren't geared for pvp fight. Lets try to support educating them on emergent gameplay and making, however temporary, allies in this game world.

And even if you do that, there are those who you have those who can't be helped. I argue not to worry about them. They are quitters, and will quit EvE eventually, anyway.

You may have just created an interesting spin on null sec PvE vs PvP issues.

The cloaked guy spotting for his buddies can probably land DPS on grid before that can be taken down, meaning it is a target for that scenario too.

I think that could be really interesting... they can get there ships safe, but the bonus will be lost if not defended!

+1

A good line of thought, but I want to draw extra attention to one part of the OP.

Tying the bonuses to being in fleet/on grid etc is essential. Games like WoW and GW2 have used guild wide bonus as incentives for players to join them, and all that ever did is make people join huge invite spamming guilds with no community just for the bonuses. Essentially it created power creep without doing anything at all for it's intended purpose.

It's very important that any bonuses be directly related to player activity, and not passive corp-wide things.

There are many reasons why EvE Corps are nothing like real life ones.

The one that comes to mind for this topic:

Why do we join large corporations?

In real life we do it to get paid, plain and simple. Large companies can do things that individuals cannot.

In Eve there is currently no reason to join up as you can independently do everything a Corporation does. Buy orders, sell orders, contracts, hauling, killing etc.

We need a simple, hands off interface to 'pay' members with. I will put out some more details on the F&I soon but the basics are as follows:

Corporation made market ( rented in stations )
Free space market ( Anchored at POS )

This market will be very much the same as the regular one save for the following details:

- Set availability for buy / sell to only corp mates or by standings
- Taxed based on the owner of the station +/- Corp tax
- Limited in size ( will mess with buy orders I think )

The goal would be to set up a system where you can make buy orders for various things and 'pay' your corp-mates and/or blues for bringing in materials. Mining would pay out for ore / minerals. PvP would pay out for modules and salvage.
Right now it is cumbersome to set up contracts for corporate trading / pay as well as the many other ways it is currently done.

Adding the Corp / standing restriction to the regular market would be a first step but will not go far enough.

I would love to set up a buy order, restricted to my corp, for all the materials to build a run of ships. When the buy orders are filled the ships can be made right there, and sold back to the corp members without having to hand out any roles or them needing access to the blueprints. Above all, it is very hands off!

TL;DR

Let Corporations have private markets.
POS based market hubs.
Check F&I soon for more details.