Player Features and Ideas Discussion

dont tell forum foreplay about can flipping or hell be real angry...

First of all, EVE ships aren't balanced around 1v1 or 5v5 or 10v10 or whatever "fair" scenario. They are balanced around fleet fights where your options include running away, reshipping, or bringing in reinforcements. This is evidenced by all the additional rules CCP has to add to the AT every year to make it marginally entertaining. Either you would end up with completely unbalanced duels (and the forum shitstorms to go with it), or CCP would have to balance ships around them and in turn break alliance warfare.

Second, any implementation going even a step further than "agreed upon mutual aggression timer" breaks the basis EVE has been built upon, that nowhere in space you are completely safe. Any kind of protection or enforced guarantee of a "fair" fight has the potential to be exploited to no end.

Dueling might sound like fun, but it doesn't really make sense in the big picture of EVE. Imagine a Counter Strike match that is played on an infinite flat plane with only two people starting ten feet from one another. Imagine a LoL game with no creeps, no bases, just two max level heroes dueling against each other. Sure, it has some elements common with the original game, but at the same time it is a completely different experience that just doesn't belong.

+1 for magical love ponies button

You forgot the part where some ships (looking at you, ranis) have the majority of their ehp in structure.

I'm not a PvP'er and I rather abhor "dueling" in most MMOs (well, technically all MMOs since I haven't found one where "dueling" is useful much less fun), but I would like to see some methods implemented for structured PvP that don't rely solely on player interaction. I'm sure that a bunch of the anarchist fruitcakes in this topic are going to bash me for suggesting that, and by calling them the anarchist fruitcakes that they are I probably guaranteed it, but adding options to the game to encourage more and more varied PvP is not a bad thing.

Making suggestions about introducing structured PvP environments and scenarios into the game isn't about taking PvP out of low-sec or null-sec, it isn't about forcing CCP to balance the game or even individual ships around 1v1 combat, and it isn't about keeping people "safe" from the consequences of their actions. It's about getting more people to PvP period. People who don't engage in low or null-sec PvP because either they can't or won't fly in blobs, regardless of whether or not they actually need to, and won't engage in high-sec PvP because war-decs are too free-for-all and "dueling" as-is is usually, in their opinion, a scam. People who might want to engage in a constellation-wide game of laser tag with real lasers and 2-3 5-man fleets without CONCORD or other people interfering. People who might otherwise hide out in high-sec or protected null-sec being carebears until their eyes bleed and they quit EVE because the current "pretty much all or nothing with absolutely no rules ever anywhere" methods of PvP don't provide any real ground for PvP that's midway between intra-corp "practice" PvP and what goes on in the rest of the game.

/shrugs. I probably wouldn't participate in any of that, I'm straight up a carebear, but I still think that seeing structured PvP introduced into the game can't help but be an overall positive influence by encouraging people who currently don't PvP for various reasons to re-evaluate their stance on the subject and perhaps eventually even get into "real" PvP.

Hell, at the very least it could introduce another economic factor into the game. If betting and sponsoring were thrown in as well folks could sponsor small-scale PvP tournaments to look for new recruits, and individuals or groups could engage in structured PvP in a betting-enabled environment to make a portion of the bet money as profit. If they win of course.

Of course I'd also like to see assassination contracts introduced as well where you pay a hefty bribe (say 250m) to CONCORD to look the other way when the contract holder attacks the target along with a standard contract fee for the assassin's work. Place a 500m assassination contract on someone and CONCORD gets their 250m cut and upon completion of the hit the assassin gets 250m. Hell, for that matter just skip the CONCORD permission part and just leave it as "any losses due to CONCORD interference are your responsibility."

More like:

Concord: "Concord police, what is your emergency?"
Victim: "I'm under attack! Please help!"
Concord: "I'm sorry sir, but our logs show no record of you being in combat."
Victim: "My ship blew up!"
Concord: "I'm sorry to hear that sir, but without evidence in the logs, Concord is unable to assist you."
Victim: "Oh god they got my pod too!"
Concord: "Have a good day, sir. Fly safe!"