EVE General Discussion

Dear OP,

if you do not give us a more precise definition of the following words:
- "skill"
- "knowledge"
- "hardcore"
it is impossible even only to start reasoning about the logical fallacy of propositions that include such words.

regards

I really hope I'm not the only one to get that...

People in this game think they are superior to all other gamers because it's there only way to rationalize being the nerds to what normal people think are nerds.

Not to mention a healthy dose of impossible learning curve makes those who don't quit feel superior, although it's to be debated on what sticking around long enough to know what the hell your supposed to do means for your mental health.

There are 2 types of Eve player, those that suck and me

That get sucked?

Goddamn it spank your going to break the internetz if you keep making sense like this...

Nope. not the only one.

Even if the 'largest body of fresh water in the world' is only accurate if you're going by surface area. it's not by volume

I'm sorry to burst your superiority bubble, but the largest body of fresh water in the world is lake Baikal in Russia.

I have to disagree with some of that.

Time investment in this game can be minimal, if you go with the Pay2Win route, which EVE allows. The process is quite simple - buy PLEX, sell for ISK, buy a ready-made character and ships. Boom, you're now at "endgame", or as close to it as a sandbox game allows. Your time investment is just the time it takes to sell the PLEXes and the time it takes CCP to transfer the character to your account. Your investment is money, but that's pretty much a given for a Pay2Win scheme.

As a corollary of Pay2Win, there can never be any serious competition, simply because the playing field is not even. If I sink a couple of thousand dollars into this game, someone who doesn't really can't compete with me in any way, shape or form. My buying power, starting capital, etc., will be vastly superior to his. I can throw enough cash to crush anything he can throw at me, hire mercs, buy safe passage, whatever. This also makes any personal goals much more easily attainable.

None of this is possible in most other MMOs which are not Pay2Win and where you can't buy a finished character. Also competition tends to be on a much more level playing field, where it is the player's individual skills that dictate the outcome much more than the ship he flies, the fittings, or the character skill points. In "the game that shall not be named", for example, the peak of competitive PvP happens in a closed arena where team sizes are always even, and gear/weapons are virtually the same. As a result, it is individual player's skill and teamwork and communication that win matches, not vast numerical advantage, character advantage (SP), ship/armaments (tied with how much money you can toss at the game), etc.

Imagine watching the Olympics, say a tennis match. Only one team is 16 big healthy men with a racket in each hand. And the other team is one 11-year-old with a ping-pong paddle. That's a fair representation of "competition" in EVE. It also makes for one heck of a boring match to watch. It'll be quick, and victory will be very one-sided and predictable. There are exceptions, of course, but the majority of "conflicts" can be described this way.

I'll grant you that if the player sticks to the "standard" model, that is doesn't use Pay2Win features, EVE does require a significant time investment. However, that is a misnomer in itself - EVE training continues while you are logged off, not playing, etc. Compare that to most other MMOs where it takes a considerable play time investment to get anywhere. It's not uncommon for an MMO to have roughly 200 hrs of content for the player to go through, and that's usually on just one class, out of many. If you want another class, you start over at level 1. In many ways, EVE is actually FASTER than an average MMO, because you can have a character that can use 3 turret types (for example) much faster than leveling 3 characters of different classes in another MMO (600+ hrs). Considering you have to be actively PLAYING the game, not just waiting for 25 days to go by. These 600+ hrs would have to be spent by you, at the keyboard, performing tasks requiring at least some brain power. As opposed to just queuing a skill and logging off for a month like in EVE.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE EVE's leveling system (though I can't help but wish it was about 25% quicker, at least for the initial 3 months in the game). But I wouldn't call it a time investment. Real-time investment? Yes. Playtime investment is MUCH more demanding, at least in my opinion.

And in some MMOs there's even a skill test involved. For example, some items only come from specific events, which the player has to complete, and which are very hard to do. If the player lacks the skills (player skills, not character skills), the player would never be able to achieve his goal, unless he works hard and improves his skills enough. Off the top of my head, I've seen 2 MMOs where there were things you had to do alone, and they were brutally hard. And when you saw a player with an item that was rewarded for this hard task, you knew that player had a certain level of skill - you couldn't buy or trade that item or character like you can in EVE, the only (legal) way to obtain it was to do it yourself.

Further, people often bring up that knowledge EVE requires is significant. And again, I have to disagree. EVE does have a lot of stuff you need to know, but most of it is due to poorly designed game mechanics. Such as aggression timers, session change timers, etc. Plus a lot of information that is easy to find in other MMOs, in EVE is difficult to find at all. But the number of "abilities", or rather modules, in EVE is comparatively tiny to other MMOs. Most MMOs have 6-12 classes, with 20-50 unique abilities. And you need to know them all, what they do, their cooldowns, etc., to counter them in real time. It takes months and months of training to be any good. At highly competitive level, you have to be aware what a class will likely do, even though specializations introduce a huge unknown into the equation, so you have to adapt very quick. And in team setting, it gets even more difficult as different classes synergize differently. Finally, a lot of is is objective based, where in EVE most of combat boils down to killing the competition.

Bottom line, EVE is different. But I don't see it as vastly superior. I also don't see it as vastly inferior. It just is. Take it for what it is.

Two words Dunning Kruger