EVE General Discussion

What's causing the angst between the null-sec care bears and the hi-sec care bears?

1. If/When you apply to a null-sec corp./alliance, nothing less than a DNA and fingerprint sample will suffice. (Full APIs DO NOT protect a corp. or alliance from spahs, I speak from personal knowledge on this subject.)

2. If-When you join a null-sec corp./alliance they think they're doing you a favor.

3. Second full time job.


This is a game, not a job! Like many people, I log into EVE to relax and have a little fun here and there. Not be yelled at over coms about how I've not logged on in a day or two or three or four. RL is RL and RL takes first seat over all else. I'm not some basement dweller w/o a life or college student who's daddy pays the bills.

I'm an adult with real life obligations that takes priority over some zit-ridden teenaged alliance leader who gets hard-ons yelping orders from his mom's basement. If you ask me I thinks it's the first time some players have ever been in a position that resembled authority.

I don't want to hear that I've not killed X number of reds, get my ass to work or I'm going to be kicked from the corp./alliance -or I've not mined XYZ amounts of ABC ores, if I don't get busy I will be kicked from alliance. I'm not your slave nor am I slave to this game.

I play when time permits and usually when it's bad or miserable weather outside.


Some attitude adjusment for the leaders of sov held corps/alliances would go a long way to help some players transition to lo/null sec. I agree that hi-sec players need to change too.

However, you can't blame players if major alliance or corps leaders within said alliances condone victimizing new comers EVERY DAMN opportunity they get. Ever heard: Oh yeah... contract your stuff to one of our corp members and we'll jump that suff down for you. Here's another; Yeah we need a security deposit before we allow you into our corporation because of past experiences. Well, I'm sorry! If you need a security deposit because of past events, you suck as a corp. director. But we all know the real reason, don't we?

YES EVE is a cold, harse place... but you don't have to kill all the greenhorns (or steal from them) as soon as they get out the gate. Invite them into your corp/alliance, let them adjust to the brutal reality, then you take advantage of them if they slip up.

What some of you guys are doing in null sec is no less than what scammers do in Jita, just a different genre. You just excuse it as EVE being a cruel place and new comers ought to HTFU. Don't blame players for not wanting to go where they're likely to get ass ****** every time they let their guard down by members of their alliance or corp.

So... yeah null-sec, you pissed in your corner of the sandbox and now you want to blame the smell of rotten **** on your fellow players in hi-sec.

A fundamental principle of PvP is that it's just as much "fun" being destroyed as it is to destroy.
If this is not true, then why play PvP at all? Oh yeah, that's right: you're *never* going to loose.

In any given engagement, someone is going to be destroyed. They are going to lose their ship and perhaps all their implants as well.
All other factors being equal (which, of course, they're not) you have a 50% probability of being destroyed in any engagement.

There is a personal time-value associated with everything in Eve. Ships cost ISK, fittings cost ISK, implants cost ISK, and skills cost ISK. Furthermore, the better the items are, in terms of quality, the more ISK they cost. Costs increase geometrically in relation to quality.
In real terms, ISKs are therefore analogous to invested player time in real life.

When a ship is destroyed. what is actually lost is the time the player invested in acquiring the ISKs and skills needed to purchase, fit, and fly the ship. Although there is some salvage after the ship is destroyed, most of the value of the ship is lost.
In effect, the value built with the player's time is permanently destroyed -- Not transferred, but destroyed .

PvP is what drives the Eve economy. Large-scale destruction creates markets for replacement items. (Whoopie, the folks in the arms sales business IRL have always known this. War creates profit opportunities.)

Most experienced PvP players will tell you that PvP is ultimately about minimizing one's own risk in relation to what might be gained. In other words, fly cheap ships that can kill expensive ships.
This is strategy for risk mitigation, and it is exactly the same sentiment that drives some players to focus on mining, manufacturing, and PvE mission running -- less risk, more "gain".

There's a pretty good argument that asserts that the game itself is inherently flawed. The evidence of this is that there are not more players after so many years and that there are fewer new players joining (at least in the North America and European markets)
I believe that the game's developers have striven for a "middle ground" where there are accommodations for a wide range of interests and attitudes towards the MMORPG experience.
In striving for a wider appeal, however, the game may have no real market focus because, neither those who want a PvE -style game or those who want a PvP-style game are completely satisfied.

Game marketing is a bet.
I don't know all of the stats, but I strongly suspect that the market for PvP-style players is much bigger than that for casual players. On the other hand, it's also unclear (at least to me) if the more competitive PvP player is also going to be more motivated to stick with any game over time. (Which is what CCP wants.)
I suspect that CCP has people on the payroll who's job it is to figure this kind of stuff out.

If the bet should be on accommodating PvP players, one thought to get folks to play PvP is to restructure the game to eliminate the excessive rewards for production and drastically reduce the risk (of personally wasted RL time and effort) associated with PvP.
In short, if you really want to promote PvP, the game should be more based on strategy and tactics, and less about ISKs, expensive toys, or SPs.


Three changes:

1. Make everything in the game T1 only. Get rid of all of the T2, T3, and faction ships and modules altogether. Nothing should be so expensive that it will require years of running missions, mining, manufacturing, and so forth, to acquire it, or years of training to fit it or fly it. In effect, give everybody access to the same basic fighting tools, then PvP will begin to really begin to mean something.

2. Get rid of skill books and training altogether. Players don't actually learn anything by purchasing and "studying" skill books. It's just an artificial barrier that prevents all players from using the best equipment (they can afford to purchase) and it gives "older" players a game advantage because they can fit/use items that younger players can't.

In principle, a complete noob with the necessary knowledge of strategy and tactics should be able to compete effectively in PvP right off of the bat. -- provided, of course, that he or she can get the money to buy ships. And this is where running missions, mining, and working with your corporation will still be incentivized.

3. Get rid of high-sec space altogether. Everything is either low-sec or null sec. There is no safe space in Eve. Shooting players in low-sec would have standings consequences, but other than that, anything goes.

With these changes, you will have an environment that would be better suited for PvP-focused play. No really expensive toys or skill books to buy will mean a reduced focus/rewards for earning ISKs. No long wait to get the necessary skills will mean that new players can ramp up as quickly as they can absorb the necessary PvP skills and knowledge.
Nobody will have an unfair advantage over other players because of years of playing, too much money, ability to fly a better ship, etc..

For the record, however, I would drop my subscription if these changes were implemented. There are plenty of first person shooter on-line games out there that offer opportunities for PvP. My view is that if PvP is your thing, go play a game where you can shoot your enemy in the face, not just a flashing red indicator on your overhead display.

-TZ

All I hear from one side is we have fun and want to make it more fun for every one else. The other side goes on and on about egos, bad experiences in 0.0 alliances and that if there was no risk there would be more PVP because they have nothing to lose.

Listen, this game could be so much better, but instead of improving it and making it better you want to take away risk, social aspects of a multiplayer game and even worse, separate PVE and PVP.

Find another game!

If you only do 10m ISK / h at any given time, you've failed at eve.

Well hmmm
10m ISK /hr.
When you just started out playing?
HAHAAH.
Pass the pipe baby. You've had your limit.

You must be a newbie if you don't understand how easy it is to rip out 1billion in less than 5 hours.

Ah yes. And then there's that.

The problem is that nobody is willing to risk being blown up (except in suicide ganks) and so won't fight anything they don't have superior numbers and ship types against. Some say that this is "winning" "strategy" and "doing it right". And while this may indeed win you your fights, it makes things boring. Would you rather have 2 minutes of shooting every how in which you watch that little red bar fill up in seconds? Or would you rather have multiple fights every hour even though you might lose every once in a while?

This is the reason why there is not enough blowing up in the economy, because people simply aren't willing to risk being the one that gets blown up. So they stake their claims and blow up the odd stray that wanders in, waiting for "the other guys" to wander into their trap. Meanwhile, the other guys are also doing the same thing and waiting for them to wander in. Neither wants to be the one that loses the fight.