EVE General Discussion

I've done a little bit of solo, nothing major, mostly frigates.

Two of the biggest pitfalls of a solo player are that many times, people playing by themselves have a sense of entitlement, i.e. being upset after a dishonored 1v1, or getting frustrated with enemy e-war, and feeling like you'll never accomplish anything and that you're just wasting your time.

As for the first point, its important to remember that Eve is indeed a sandbox, and no matter how frustrated you become, nobody will ever be obligated to play the game the way you want them to because that is how it is fundamentally designed. Everybody gets a little irritated at times, especially when you lose a close fight. The important thing is that even if you do end up smacking them a little, that you learn from it and better yourself as a pilot, and as a person by improving your attitude and picking better fights.

In regards to feeling like you're wasting your time, I believe it's up to the player to decide if that's true for themselves. If you're not having fun, there's no reason to keep doing it. There are plenty of corporations out there with more relaxed CTA or otherwise mandatory fleet policies which are perfect places to still get experience in fleets, but have some more reliable territory to practice flying solo, picking fights, and the like.

Don't let what you think is the "cool" way to play burden you into something you don't want to be doing. That said, if you are having trouble with fits, there are a massive variety of resources available to help you. I would check the killboards of known solo pilots and see what kinds of things they're flying, it might give you a starting point for something to try. Additionally, always remember that you shouldn't fly what you can't afford to lose.

Best of luck!

So I have been playing for about 10 days now. All solo. And for now, I am fine with this for several reasons.

1. I am getting into EVE at my own pace. I am not a "jump into the deep end and learn to swim when I sart drowning" kind of guy. I like to ease into things. I can figure out what it is in New Eden that I want to do, without the pressures of a Corp trying to push me in their preferred direction.

2. I am flying around in hisec. I don't expect to see many people around to group up here anyway. So I haven't really had the opportunity to team up yet.

3. My initial choice of profession (exploration) kinda lends itself to a lot of solo play.

4. I am very deliberate when choosing to be social. Asking questions in help chat is an exception. This is why it is always hard for me to find a guild in my games.

5. Perhaps most importantly, I just plain flat out don't trust a single one of you. I have read and heard the horror stories of people getting scammed, ransomed, podded for no reason and all sorts of other nastiness. If it happens to me, it happens. But my guard is waaaaay up.

Me too. Solo losec exploration, avoid pirates, interacting with random people on your journey, that is what eve is for me.

I think sometimes CCP doesn't get that for a lot of people it's a time thing. Sometimes I can only play for an hour or two a week due to work and RL interests. Waiting around for fleets etc is simply not an option for me 90% of the time and I'm guessing for a lot of others as well.

Incentivising group play simply won't work on me, no matter how big the incentive, and making it obvious that you are losing out for being solo in certain situations is a huge mistake in game design.

Alt player.

It's not what you state is the tip off, it's how you state it...complete with cultural nuances.

Recently I've noticed a bit more emphasis on the forums about players who play eve 'solo'. From my impression from the forums people tend to dislike soloers (I've read 'eve is a multiplayer game, go back to...' quite a few times lately) so I'm interested to get a bit of a feedback as to what people do and don't like about soloers or solo activities in the game.

*Skip to below for tl;dr*

I'll start off by saying that I definitely have a vested interest in the topic. I am what I think most people would consider a solo player in eve. I pretty rarely group up with other people to accomplish things and having recently moved out to low sec spend most of my time running sites, ratting and generally managing PI on my own.

To me this doesn't mean I have no interaction with other players. I'm not playing a single player game. I'm duking it out on my own in a world full of other pilots that might be able to help me, that I might be able to benefit from or (more likely) are out to get me if I give them a chance. This makes my 'solo' experience far more exciting than anything any single player game could ever give me.

I'm a bit too much of a risk averse carebear at the moment to really get into PvP, but I love the excitement of getting chased around lowsec trying to dodge pirates etc. The way I'm on edge when hauling stuff the few jumps back to high sec. I love raiding WHs knowing that there's a good chance I could die to another enterprising pilot who knows their dscan well enough to drop probes right on me and land on me before I know whats going on. To me the 'solo' experience is so much enriched by the fact that other people are out there.

*tl;dr*

I understand that 'eve is a multiplayer game', and the best way to thrive is to join forces with others. But I like that even if it might not be the 'best' way to go, I can carve out my own piece of eve on my own if I want in a world that is affected by others.

So what are people's main objections to people like myself playing solo?

Your posts make it obvious all your EVE characters are alts of WoW character. Just saying.

No, it was not aimed to you, but to Ace, who posts about WoW. Her alt comment was so weird that I felt temptation to make that comment.

What makes it weird is how it has no bearing whatsoever on the topic or points presented.