EVE General Discussion

As a financial business model game. Eve is pretty darn good. The corp interface and mechanics need work to allow more flexibility in business models and internal security. If you had this, I think talent could be managed better, medals were nice, adjustable automatic pay options could be a source of motivation. At its core Eve was designed while Iceland ramped up its financial models and I think that is its strength that they have abandoned.

The game when I came in was corp against corp, not rogue band of drunks against noobs with tinfoil armor. Ships turn out to be huge motivators for noobs but I agree that gameplay where the loss is only about 30 seconds. The large alliance battles look fun but there is too much time investment to become part of them so the noob is left with the task of either starting his own corp with zero experience or trying to pvp solo in a moa or some other dream ship.

I hang with ordinary people, none of them do financial modeling, a few still like to hang at the Starbucks doing calc for fun. Those guys won't even get on the internet let alone associate with rogues like us. everybody I know trys to stay as far away as they can from people like us.

Actually I'm the same way, when the sign on number are to high, I go to the coffee shop. Any sane business man know, risk does not equal reward. Managing risk, making it as low as possible is one of the keys to higher profits. Flying ships in heavy traffic is a drag.

@ CCP DEV - Mittani is not the Emperor of EVE. John Turbefield is. And Eh gahds, my eyes burn...



Although I appreciate your sentiment - I think you have to get off the gate, so to speak.


Fights can happen at Stations, Outposts, POCOs, Ihubs, POS', etc.

Interdiction at the Gate is common in those situations, but that's just a natural consequence of a choke point. People move around, they tend to find each other at positions that are the most common points of interaction - the gates.

You interact with the most people on the road or on the sidewalk in real life.

And really, what makes a gate any less interesting than fighting at any other object. Other objects... well.. just sit there. Also, the important part is the other side of a gate is concealed, so people can ambush unsuspecting ships the easiest - directional scan makes most ambushes challenging without a cov ops because they can see you on scan - and it's pretty hard to catch an unwilling target in EVE already. You can dock, you can warp, you can safe spot, you can do a lot of things to get away if you're a smart pilot.

So not only is it a choke point, it's a chokepoint with immediate tactical advantage to negate the nature of easy escape in EVE. Not fighting at a stargate just doesn't make sense, tactically.

Excluding null sec sov structures since they're not omnipresent across all EVE landscapes, Belts and Planets are rarely used "celestials". Belts only have rats and are generally not visited by PVP groups unnecessarily (or meet at top belt for a fight) - and Planets (without POCOS) have no interest to PVP groups either.

So, in EVE, you're either hunting the unwilling - (mission runners, explorers, etc) - fighting over "something valuable" - or just "looking for a fight".

If you're just "looking for a fight" - you're probably going to fight on a gate the most often - because other people "looking for a fight" are going to be on that gate.

If you're hunting for mission runners and explorers, you're most likely to find them on the site, or perhaps on a gate moving to that site.

If you're fighting over something valuable, you're going to fight on the way to that "valuable", aka the gate, or at that "valuable" thing.

So, how do you propose attracting people "looking for a fight" off of gates, if they need to go through gates to "look for a fight"?

Well, again, system population is very low on average in low and null - and because you can see everyone in local it makes it easy to just scratch off and say "I'm going to the next system" and then that leaves the system empty for the next person coming up behind saying "this system is empty, I'm going to the next system", etc.


The only thing that will fix this is, ironically, removal of local channel as we know it today - increasing local population so people looking for a fight and people not looking for a fight can co-habitate in a 2 fold manner :

#1 The people not looking for a fight don't know that they're being hunted just by glancing at local
#2 The people looking for a fight can't know that they have to move to the next system so quickly - meaning that they linger longer for the next person looking for a fight to come along.


I've seen this happen with some guilds - where people log on, check the ventrilo and guild chat, and then say "Noone is playing, I'm going to log off and play another game" Their total time in game is 2 minutes. And immediately RIGHT AFTER another person logs on and does the same thing.

5-10 people will log on and log off never stopping to stay long enough to meet up with their friend. 20 people aren't going to automagically appear in a system. They need to gather, sometimes slowly. And the same thing needs to happen if you want to get PVP off the gates.

This is why so many people prefer playing singleplayer games or multiplayer games where you just hop in and can immediately do stuff that you've paid for, why should paying customers have to wait several days sometimes weeks just to gain access to the content? All this is designed to do is to force players who want to progress within the game to pay more money, the wise ones either hook up with some trustworthy people and gather ISK for the next PLEX or they quit.

MMORPGs are a dying business model and it shows more and more with each new one that comes out, no ones going to pay subscription fees for a multiplayer game that not only isn't balanced, but also forces them to subscribe a month before they can do anything interesting. I really do think that EVE's only saving grace for the most part has been the fact that PLEX can be bought with ISK so it means people don't necessarily have to pay with real money anymore though the downside is now you have people who just spend real money on ISK to win through the use of these ISK bought PLEX.

If CCP want this business model to continue, they have to show they're genuinely willing to use the subscription fees that players give them for creating great gameplay content and fixing problems, they really showed how their money was being used when one of the devs was trying to make a metaphor about buying $1000 pants and thinking it was applicable as a game metaphor.

Why, God, why did I click on that?

EvE is what you make it. If all you want is instant gratification it's not the game for you. Sadly a lot of people come in with the wrong idea.

Let's do it this way:

People who watched Baywatch, SNG, and "Dancing", tend to be wow players.

The people who watched Firefly and Stargate (but not that Atlantis spinoff, I mean, c'mon) are SWTOR and LOTR players.

The guys watching Lexx, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, and MST3K are the ones playing eve.

Generalizations yes - but I refer to things where everything is up front, simple to comprehend, easy for reward (entertainment in this case) versus having to figure things out for yourself and get the fat end of a baseball bat up yours without loob in the meantime.

Came expecting neked pics of Jamyl 1

To the OP's point though, this games combat is tied to its nav system and the Nav system here is like 2 other games I can remember playing. Lineage 2 and Runescape. Click a spot, move to it. In EVE we have limited clickable points known in other games as hooks but you Nav to the hook by clicking it and confirming or warping. In combat it's all orbit at optimal or run to optimal in an attempt to orbital at Optimal.

Unless combat is taken off the nav build it can't be made "better". I don't see how CCP can do that without pulling the proverbial NGE and gutting its vet base. It is not in CCP's intrest to revamp EVE to bring in new subs. The game is too old.

EVE 2?
I dont know why they never. It's the logical step.

i'd suggest then that CCP should change the gameplay in such a way that those ppl that are frustratedly leaving will only speak highly about eve and how awesome the game is/was.

That could end in a WIN:WIN situation.

Quoted for truth.

Mittens proving that there is something whiter than snow.



@OP - If you're looking for something different in combat, try small skirmish or solo fights. Just turning on your mods and orbiting is a quick recipe for getting blown up, especially in even or "under shipped" fights.

Are you [insert any intelligence pejorative]?

Where did I even suggest that I gate camp?

I hate to be rude but you are making false comments about me, so you dont get the benefit of the doubt.

ITT: People who complain about PVP being boring because they are blobbing.

Here's a wake up call people, PVP in eve is extremely boring in fleets larger than 5 people, because guess what? There is no strategy involved at all, all you do is press F1 and hope your buffer holds long enough to win you the fight.

You have two options,

1: Fly bloody logi in your fleets because guess what? That actually requires thinking and while maybe not fun (imo) it sure is not boring.

2: Stop being a scrub coward and go solo or duo pvp. Becuase guess what? It's fun.

Solo pvp is not just press a couple buttons and win or lose while spending 90% of your time on the gate. If you pick your ship correctly it's not at all a terrible situation where you can't engage 70% of what you come across and the other 30% runs from you. Half the game is fitting your ship in a novel way to surprise your opponent, as well as being able to bait him into a fight. If you don't like mind games, and you don't like following orders in a fleet, well then I don't really know what the hell you'll like.

If you want to be successful in solo pvp, you have to be able to manual pilot, manage your modules effectively, make appropriate decisions in fights depending on who you're fighting, and this is fun because you're in control.

In my opinion the best part is the satisfaction you get out of killing somebody and both of you knowing that you are the better player and they are trash, but that's just me. However, I think that a large number of people play this game for that sort of opportunity and some don't understand that the way to achieve that is not by playing in groups but by going out on your own.

I really think the big issue here is that CCP along with the general playerbase seems to tout the idea that everybody has to join a corp/alliance and play in groups to be successful (this is well shown in most of their PVE content, WH's, Incursions, 0.0 Plexes...). But while I agree that having people to play with and socialize with is one of the big draws to MMO's, I think most of what makes eve fun is wasted this why by completeing avoiding the possibility of playing alone.

(Of course I don't mean playing alone 100% of the time, but I think that it's an avenue that is very fun and one that most people don't explore because they either haven't even considered it, or they are too fearful of losing their ****, even if the loss is miniscule).

And to this end I think that the second big issue outside of CCP promoting team gameplay over solo gameplay, is that the general vet playerbase has turned the game into one where the only viable option if you're not a great player or particularly enterprising is to join a large corp or alliance. The reason I say this is because solo pvp is very dead currently (dead in comparison to what it could be, I mean), and largely I would say this is because of blobs/large gangs being ratio-wise more common to encounter than somebody else that you can actually engage and have a semi-fair fight with. The attitude that so many people have that losing your ship is so much of an issue that you can't ever take it out without backup is killing this game on more levels than simply plain solo pvp.

I think this is a tragedy and honestly I don't really think it can be fixed without a dramatic playerbase attitude change (which won't happen), or significant gameplay changes to severely limited the benefits of being in a group as opposed to being solo (which again won't happen).

A step in the right direction might be to make solo pvp much more accessible for lower level players, and although I'm on the whole against contrived mechanics like this, I think it would be a good idea to have a section of space where new players are forced to be sent into at the end of their tutorial (or as part of a PVP tutorial) that is a 0.0 section of space, but where only players under 15 days can go. Or something else along these lines--but an area where only low-skilled players are allowed who have no affiliation with a corp or alliance yet, simply to introduce them to honest solo pvp in an environment where they're not immediately put at a severe disadvantage due to a lack of SP, ISK, and friends to back them up.