EVE General Discussion

Balance in EVE is now and will always forever be a necessary subject of player debate.

If you presuppose that EVE is a pvp sandbox, which has been confirmed by CCP, and if then that your goal was to increase overall volume of player-generated content, and thus the quality of the game, to better the game per se, then increased fluidity in the playerbase solves a lot of problems. This shouldn't really be a game where the risk-averse are just victims cultivated for risk-taker target practice anyway.

I'm not advocating for one philosophy's superiority. Exist in the construct how you choose. I believe that with the aforementioned presuppositions that giving players the incentive to build balanced characters at creation (tell them its a pvp sandbox - guns first please) and then tools that bring a pvp balance to industrial engagements would be a first step at reducing risk-aversion overall. I also do not think that safety from crime should mean safety from the universe. Most people in high sec face no real danger except from other players. Missions are routine. The routine is routine. It's too damn routine.

So I also think pve elements need some love. When I go into a forest, there's a reasonable expectation that I won't be axed down by a serial killer, not impossible but unlikely - but there's a plethora of creatures that could end me at every turn. Compared to that, our universe is pretty safe from everything but other players.

To the larger point, reducing risk-aversion in game, in any way, increases the quality of collective gameplay in a pvp sandbox, regardless of how one pvps, imo.

Yonis Kador

Players are given an initial choice to become herbivores (industrialists - producers, little to no offensive capability) or carnivores (pvp'ers - consumers, little to no industrial capacity,) and CCP is then tasked with trying to balance player movements based on that dichotomy. Herd animals almost always find safety in numbers and stay near available resources. And they tend to avoid places where they know they'll be slaughtered. Pack animals track these herds, find individuals separated from groups, and consume their (in this case) podded ships as a resource.

It then seems to me, the question is how do I get a herd of wildebeest to willingly jump into crocodile-infested waters? In nature, the answer is almost always resource availability. But that won't work in the game. If you nerf high sec to the extent necessary to create that kind of migration, the subscription losses would cripple or end EVE.

So I've been working under the hypothesis that the answer may lie in a hybridization of the two.

Put simply, the herbivores have no teeth. They're big marshmallows. If this is a pvp sandbox, then allowing players to choose professions with such minimal pvp capability is creating victims by design. Pvp'ers have no trouble adapting to changes in the pvp sandbox because they're better suited to the environment. But industrialists are allowed (even encouraged) to train defenseless characters. There are no tutorials teaching new players to build balanced characters and the certificates an industrialist may base his training queue upon doesn't include combat skills. CCP should probably place some emphasis on that start to slow the marshmallow inflow, but it won't help the thousands of players like that already in game. A cacaphony of HTFUs isn't going to do it.

At minimum, we need to increase the variation in the pve elements the risk-averse are exposed to on a gradual basis. You've got to H them the F Up yourself in a measured way. Perpetual gankathons wont bring about any kind of paradigm shift - in fact, its probably counterproductive and deepens the divide. Industrialists are going need tools that will allow them to start defending themselves in situations of increasing complexity and risk. There will be those who will say they can already tank, but so can turtles and clams - and neither is migratory. For my proverbial wildebeest to want to cross that crocodile-infested river...

...they need to become pythons.

Yonis Kador

Remember we're talking about 1mth old character.

Please explain to me how someone AFKs a lvl 4 mission?

Because said survey was obviously completed by every single player.

[quote=Herr Hammer Draken]Well I tend to think your wrong on your approach as well. But in the end CCP decides. We do not. And I suspect they will let the game develop and let the players direct it. It is more or less a free market. And the players do influence it a lot. And at the moment IMHO the gankings are making high sec even more profitable than it has ever been. And is also increasing the demand for more industrialists. In fact I bet most null sec players have an alt industrialist in high sec making a killing right now. Maybe so much in fact that they spend more time in high than they do in null. The game shapes its own path with the ebb and flow of the players in it. That included the turn over rate.

I'm not trying to "change the game for myself." I'm debating balance and the dichotomy of risk averse vs risk taking players in a pvp sandbox. Writing about ways to reduce risk aversion and consequently maximizing player-generated content is beneficial to the whole of EVE. It's relative to the game's longevity. I am opinionless on what anyone "should" do. They should do whatever they wish.

Increasing player fluidity increases opportunities in game (at any given time) as a result of that movement causing more player interaction. Player fluidity is analagous with EVE's blood flow. It's a big universe and it benefits from player circulation. Blockages aren't good for the old girl. It leads to consolidation of power.

Currently high sec is EVE's big, fat heart and her arteries are being kept from collapse with gankathons, mineral speculation, and even Incursions. But these things don't really address what causes the viscosity breakdown. They're superflous. The issue is risk aversion. Half the players here spend most of their EVE time in ships with no guns in a pvp sandbox. Usually the only favorable outcome for an industrialist is escape. Of course those players are avoiding you.

I'm not advocating terrorizing players who would rather mine in peace. And I'm not saying they shouldn't have the option. It's my opinion though that depressing a huge player segment increases aversion in game. So as a matter of balance, if we began instructing new players directly about pvp engagement - not how the modules work , how guns first is necessary, its a pvp sandbox - and then also giving all players more ways to engage, less designed tactical avoidance should lead to a less risk averse population. A less risk averse player population should then be beneficial to player fluidity. And that player movement and the increased interactions it facilitates is then beneficial to the overall quantity and quality of player generated content at any given time.

When you write something like gankathons are "increasing the demand for more industrialists," which since mining was down 50 percent in high sec, I find oddly perplexing, is a positive, you submit that increasing the number of risk averse players and risk aversion generally in game is somehow a good thing for the game's quality. And on that I cannot agree. While I do agree the choice of what to do with your time in game is yours to make, that doesn't mean sustained unprovoked engagements or personal, uninterrupted, non-engagement games are either necessarily good for the health of EVE.

Yonis Kador

Bludd,

When you mine minerals, you reduce the amount available to others. That's pvp.

When you manufacture items and sell them on the market, beating the lowest available price, that's pvp.

When you trade items, buying low and selling high, that's pvp too.

Because of the way all we are all interconnected in the single-shard sandbox, every activity you do affects everyone else in some way. When you log in, and do anything but sit in your station, you provide opportunities to other players.

That's pvp.

Combat pvp may seem more overtly pvp-ish to you but all of these activities involve you competing with others.

EvE is a pvp sandbox. There's just no way around that.

YK