Test Server Feedback

It was good to be wrong above. Thank you for the fix CCP.

However, you should never have gotten that bug to TQ. You should have caught the bug in your internal tests, and the player testers would have caught the bug if you had given it to them to test in test server. Different matter is, if you (CCP) had reacted the player input from test server -Your record with 'reacting to test server player input' isn't too great. You should really train couple of more levels of it: To level 3 at the very least.

The truth in the matter is, that most of us players like EVE, and we pay for it (in some form or other). We don't like to see bugs, which make playing the game even less fun. Therefore you (CCP) should not give those bugs to us. Do proper testing, listen and react to player input, do better, and get paid. If you don't, one of these days you might find yourself not getting paid anymore and that would be fun neither for you nor for us. (And it clearly is much less fun for the unemployed than us players - new games to play are more easily found than new jobs to do). Do better and thank you for the game.

Holy droneshields, lots of quote gaps in that post.
My favorite ones were the "it's intended l2p" hordes.

Lower drone agro only means that it happens more rarely. Problem is, the AI either swaps full agro at times, partially based on sig, or mixes up stuff for the glory of Tzeentch.

And the first volley (plus possibly the second by the time you notice and react) is more often than not enough to kill drones.
If a room has lots of longer range destroyers, forcing the signature-side of the story more won't be much help for frigates as well, and drones are also in a tight position if you send them after orbiting frigs.

Plus, if you are in a fleet, you will not see if they are going after your drones or your buddies when they de-aggress you, and what's worse will be totally clueless if they weren't shooting at you at the start.

I still think they should tone down the drone hate to at least help out the people doing lower level missions where there are many more frigs. The level 4 + DED crowds will just have to adapt and hope they come out with a better drone UI soon.

Yes, it is way harder for us than before, and that was this was all about in the first place, a HUGE HUGE nerf to mission icome, maybe all PvE income.

I have said it before, and I will say it again.
If PvE income is a variable income, and sources like moon goo are a static income, who wins with this release?
The moon goo income, the wh income (their AI does not change with this patch), FW income, they all remain the same, while ours goes down.

Any news yet?

My alliance has almost completely given up on killing ratters without having to resort to awoxing gangs. We aren't recruiting new players because we have no activities for them to do on their own anymore, now that they can't go out and solo in destroyers or ninja salvage. We needlessly lose ships, loot, and kills because rats decide to neut, ecm, and primary tacklers. It's an absolute mess and a real downer for small alliances like ours that roam nullsec looking for targets.

I think CCP FoxFour's position previously was to dismiss your points as being invalid? Or something? Honestly I don't recall his exact post / want to dig back and find it. I recall him posting something about being able to land a frigate on a ratting carebear and living long enough to get DPS ships in... so you'd need to adapt. I think the ultimate solution was that you'd have to up-ship?

Also, FoxFour's gone for vacation, so don't hold your breath on a reply this year.

Newbies can't up-ship. We used to have lots of newbie retention by teaching and encouraging new players to solo ratters in Thrashers and mission flip in highsec, neither of which are possible anymore for new players

Old players will almost always be able to adapt but this (unneeded and unwanted) change has basically destroyed two avenues of PVP and income for new players

Sorry, but no.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2158421#post2158421

We were promised specific PVP fixes that were to go live "after Retribution". Retribution has launched, it's time to provide a timeline as to when we can expect these changes.

Sorry, but no.

CCP FoxFour likely isn't in any position to keep those promises. Putting aside the fact that he was involved in half a dozen different project since making that promise, he's not even on that team anymore.

Looking at this whole thing as compared to how things work in "inferior" fantasy MMO's *cough* ...

Those OTHER games have the ability to make some missions so hard as to be next to impossible. You might have to take a well fitted group multiple times in order to get to the end goodies, and that's ok, cause a wipe is just, well, lost time.

Missions in EVE are a little different. Every time we enter a mission we are putting non-refundable assets on the line. Does it mean we should get easy street? Hell no. I do WANT the missions to be frakking annoying and harsh, this is EVE dammit !!! but where do you draw the line?

Missions as they are seem to be a very bad Skinner's Box. They are not being run for shinies, cause there isn't any, they boil down to X loot and Y bounties, and everyone treats them as "just the grind I have to endure to finance my pirate ways".

Give us poor suckers the odd rare loot drop, or odd tough battleship that causes us to ring our mates on the phone in the middle of the night and yell "OMG OMG logon now help me kill this guy!!!".

Currently It's dull, it's dreary, it's EVE Survival predictable. You could write SCRIPTS - [Disclaimer: botting is evil and if you do it you will go to hell] - to run them for you, they are THAT scripted.

I have NEVER had anything wake me up faster at the keyboard when i was dozing off, then when I have misread the odd mission info on EVE Survival, shot the wrong thing, and suddenly I was covered in frigates thinking "THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! ARGGH!" ... I actually like that feeling, and it should happen more often.

Will it happen? Nope, cause such things might screw the economy, or a million other reasons both sides of these debate usually pick, but all I know is that patches on top of patches aren't the answer. You can only patch PONG so many times before you say screw it, and write a 3D tennis game.