EVE General Discussion

Reading through the GD forums on any given day must be enough to give EvE's devs a headache. I feel like I've seen many of these topics hundreds of times.

Should we nerf high sec? Should we buff low sec? Is EvE dying? Blame the Goons! I hate these changes so goodbye forever. Would crocodile-infested moats surrounding hubs be beneficial to gameplay? On and on...

One particular phrase that's caught my attention lately is the term "boiling the frog." It is the idea that, to get players attacking each other with more frequency, subtle gameplay changes must be made encouraging combat pvp. Some forum posters have accused CCP of using Retribution to nerf mission income in conjunction with the implementation of the bounty system as a first step in this frog boiling process.

There's probably some validity to those claims.

Soundwave has been quoted as saying one of the most important elements he plans to (understandably) focus on is "maximizing human interaction." And, virtually all recent expansions have attempted to do just this - change the way players interact. With Incursion, well, incursions were introduced providing a new npc platform for fleet ops. Inferno attempted to overhaul the wardec system and FW, again giving players new ways to "interact." And now with Retribution, the bounty system has incentivized pvp combat. Most other changes in the past 4-5 expansions either supported these combat opportunities with new ships (T3 BC, new destroyers) and graphical updates (missile effects, turret animations) or supported them with updates to killmails, the mercenary marketplace, etc. In short, EvE's players have more ways to kill each other than ever before. Frogs aren't just being boiled - they're being fried, sauteed, and fricasseed.

So when I see miners and mission runners complain in the forums "Hey! What about us?" I can't help but notice that their pleas mostly fall on deaf ears. And I get it. 1.) Blowing up ships is good for the economy. And fun. 2.) Solo activities contribute least to the quality of pgc. So those activities aren't getting prioritized.

But in a mmo where trading and mining are sponsored professions and mission-running is part of the game's tutorial, these activities can't just be ignored forever either.

I view EvE as one big organism with a pulmonary system inhaling new players and exhaling old ones and a circulatory system driving players around its extremities. High sec is EvE's big, fat clogged heart.

If the goal is to improve the health of EvE by focusing on her circulatory system, leading to increased player interaction, which directly affects the quality of pgc - then the solution is to decrease risk-aversion. Militiarizing the populace might not even be the best solution to accomplish this goal. Who wants to be a bank robber in a world where every teller is armed? It's "a" solution and it might work, but it's also a wannabe gangster vision for the game.

Why don't more players venture into low sec on their own? Are they afraid of combat? No, I don't think so. They're afraid of loss. Loss of isk, loss of sp, and loss of a huge time investment. It's ironic that EvE's greatest gameplay attributes are the player-driven economy and it's cutthroat, capitalistic nature. And yet its that same capitalistic accumulation of wealth that largely impedes its own goals. Pvp is fun but not the greatest primary source of income. So what to do?

If you want more players to circulate through low sec or explore null sec, I'd suggest removing as much risk as possible, short of making those areas safe. Maybe shift implant bonuses to trainable skills so that players aren't afraid of losing an expensive investment. Maybe start players with an extra clone or make podding have no sp loss. Create low sec missions that sometimes reward players with rare ships or missions that can only be accepted by a fleet. Revamp the tutorials from the ground up, emphasizing there that combat skills must be a priority and make the time needed to upgrade ships scale in a way that promotes retention. Maybe a noob combat academy where upon graduation, players are deemed officers and automatically able to fly frigates, cruisers and destroyers. How about a bonus of some sort for players who join a corp with x members and remain members for x days? Nerf the ehp of and instead weaponize mining barges. (Why anyone thought making the most solitary activity in the game more safe was a good idea is beyond me.) Vary npc spawns in missions and high-sec belts. Add triggers that spawn more npcs in high-sec belt spawns.

I can do this all day.

There are tons of ways to increase player confidence and thus circulation beside militarizing the populace. Keep the new content coming but the availability of weapons was never an issue. Yet, if done in conjunction with a campaign to reduce risk-aversion, low sec will be invaded and the quality of pgc will be better than ever.

It just seems to me that there's no need to boil the frog. CCP has already bountied, wardecced, and ganked the frog. They've turned the frog into the Terminator.

All they need to do now is give the frog less of a reason to fear death.

Yonis Kador

boiling the frog! sounds like one of those global warming gloom and doom, give us your money or everyone will die videos

FYI the thing with the frog...it does not work

Even I think this is a horrible idea.

Only idiots base their logic entirely on false analogies. It's our duty to laugh them out of the place.

It's clear that they'll regain all the failquitter bitter vets with the Dark Vampire game thingy... you're being too harsh on CCP.

I love me a good strawman.

You're working off of several very false assumptions:

• "new excuses for them to shoot each other" doesn't engender cooperation -- yes, it does. In fact, PvP is so group-friendly that it is often bemoaned that solo pilots or very small gangs have too hard a time.
• I get that you're hinting at PvE collaborative activities, but Eve is (as it is always advertised) a sandbox about conflict and emergent behavior. PvE does neither of those, so it tends to be "second class".
• PvP is only done by "free ship replacement" groups -- Really? Have you ever been part of a typical PvP corp and seen how little is actually replaced for free? "Free ship replacement" is usually a program to make people more comfortable flying "certain death" ships like interdictors, logistics, etc.
• Ship replacement is paid for by botting, plus an accusation that nullsec(?) is full of mining bots -- Have you seen CCP's fanfest presentation about where botting happens? Because it's certainly not in PvP territory; it's too dangerous there.
• Newbies get ganked and bankrupted because a couple million ISK is a lot for them. If they flew appropriate ships for their wallets/experience, they wouldn't be ganked. A newbie in a destroyer or cruiser gets no attention at all; who would want to gank that? A newbie who PLEX'd himself up and is flying a several hundred million ISK ship will get ganked into the ground.
• They quit because of this. As above, I doubt this is the reason newbies quit. Lack of new player retention is unfortunate, but the solution is better education and management, not dumbing down the game.
• CCP is sacrificing the young to feed the old. If "the young" are hisec players who have often been playing for years and years, who insist that they should make obnoxious amounts of ISK without any risk of loss, then yeah, you're right. If "the young" are genuine new players, that assertion makes no sense.

Believe it or not, there are already things to do that do not fall into the extremes of hisec all-day grinding (which turns you into a bot), or nullsec grinding/megablobbing (which turns you into a tool). By diversifying methods of player conflict, CCP is trying to make this be even more true -- the opposite direction of a braindead blob-fest that your doomsday strawman points to.

Eve is not Farmville. Amassing wealth and assets without conflict with others is not -- and should never be -- an option.

Hi,

I've just cleaned up the more unfriendly and off-topic comments; please remember that racial epithets, even in jest are considered very seriously.

When solo players stop making money for CCP you will see everything in EVE require teamwork.

With the new NPC AI, L4 missions are surprisingly easy for low-skilled groups to attempt. No longer do you have to worry about trigger order, or correct ways to aggress each group. You just shoot stuff, and aggro will go to the person doing the most damage. Kinda, sorta.