These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Mini incursions - how to keep newcomers in game

Author
Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#21 - 2014-05-20 10:21:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Alternative Splicing wrote:
Brave Newbies got where they are today by strapping every day old pilot into a tech I Atron and tossing them into a beautiful crucible that was known as Barleguet. There was no waiting, there was only learning how to pvp from day one. The more you coddle and push back the day when you have 'enough' SP/ISK/Ships to go learn PvP, the more and more layers of terrible habits there are to break, and the losses actually costly.

To retain and get new players interested, the last thing we need is solo or hisec stuff - they need a narrative and a purpose that is full of the vitality, one that is created by players and unique, not some canned PvE content. Developing dependence on being fed said canned content is the problem in the first place.

There is one substantional problem to such views - they don't account for the fact, that PvP can also sometimes can become boring. There would nothing bad about changing occupation from time to time, if not for PvE being numbling stupid.

And sometimes it's even crash of illusions concerning nullsecs' clashes and politics that drives people away from all these. There have to be something other that keeps people in game, at least for some time.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#22 - 2014-05-20 10:25:27 UTC
Alternative Splicing wrote:
Brave Newbies got where they are today by strapping every day old pilot into a tech I Atron and tossing them into a beautiful crucible that was known as Barleguet. There was no waiting, there was only learning how to pvp from day one. The more you coddle and push back the day when you have 'enough' SP/ISK/Ships to go learn PvP, the more and more layers of terrible habits there are to break, and the losses actually costly.

To retain and get new players interested, the last thing we need is solo or hisec stuff - they need a narrative and a purpose that is full of the vitality, one that is created by players and unique, not some canned PvE content. Developing dependence on being fed said canned content is the problem in the first place.


I disagree, you need both PvP and PvE as there are groups of players who like both and loathe both in even measures. To expand the player base means catering for as many playstyles as possible and then finding ways to bring those into contact in areas where players can choose to cross from one style to another (whilst those who *never* wish to change style still have a valid place in the sandbox).
Barbara Nichole
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#23 - 2014-05-20 10:58:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Barbara Nichole
There are varying difficulties on sites and even a reduction in general influence (incursion wide difficulty) as the incursions are beaten down. If HQ fleets are too hard try vanguard fleets.

  - remove the cloaked from local; free intel is the real problem, not  "afk" cloaking -

[IMG]http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/DawnFrostbringer/consultsig.jpg[/IMG]

erg cz
Federal Jegerouns
#24 - 2014-05-20 11:07:19 UTC
Alternative Splicing wrote:

To retain and get new players interested, the last thing we need is solo or hisec stuff - they need a narrative and a purpose that is full of the vitality, one that is created by players and unique, not some canned PvE content.


Please do not degrade Eve to some shooter level. There is a big differentce in environment between CoD or WoT and Eve. It is where Eve is a clear winner. And environment is strongly related to PvE content. PvP in Eve is complicated in sense how to get into the fight. Shooter gives you fight almost imidiately and some of them even give you balanced teams, so their PvP is much more entertaining, you do not face strategic cruiser in let say with T1 destroyer. You PvP when you are ready to it and you do not have to sit and wait half of an hour for a valid target. But you also do not have that team spirit as you can have here, in Eve.

I am sure, that Eve has much of unused potential in PvE. And the more people will stay in game because of PvE, the more PvP possibilities will be in game. If someone can not play in team for some reasons, you do not make him start PvP carrier just with limiting his PvE possibilities.
Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#25 - 2014-05-20 13:25:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Alternative Splicing wrote:

To retain and get new players interested, the last thing we need is solo or hisec stuff - they need a narrative and a purpose that is full of the vitality, one that is created by players and unique, not some canned PvE content. Developing dependence on being fed said canned content is the problem in the first place.

Have you eve gave a thought to sources of all those isk you are spending on those atrons and your capitals you are using now in Catch? Or it's just magically pop up one day in corp hangar to be used as replacement for lost ones? There is a full layer of gameplay in eve, which hasn't been attended by developers for years, like mining, or those agent missions. Which serves as sources of isk for game's economy and material for its industry. And claims that all the game needs is a little more PvP is equivalent to saying "Go get those isks and tritanium from those numbingly boring missions/anomalies/rocks that I could mount my shiny mega and find myself some pew-pew while you are at it". Very egoistic point of view, in fact. Or are you propose to transorm Eve in some kind of session MMO like WoT, where all ship just respawn after being blown to bits? No need for industry layer, no need for isk income, lets just sell them via ingame shop like in warthunder.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#26 - 2014-05-20 14:52:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
erg cz wrote:
Danika Princip wrote:



Here's a counter suggestion:

Build into the NPE the idea that 'I'll pvp when I have competitive skills!' is an inherently awful idea. PVE teaches you nothing about PVP, and skills don't matter anything like as much as people think.


Most skills for PvE are usefull in PvP. I do not mean experience. I mean in-game skills. If you can not fit proper modules, all your experience can do is prevent you from going into fight you can not win. So you are limited in PvP for quite a big degree.

Anyway, I do not see "counter suggestion" in your post. Half of newcomers leaves Eve after their first month in game and I believe CCP can do something about it without additional payload on hardware. Better suggestions?


u dnt have to fit 'proper' modules to PvP.

if u can fit a T1 ab, scram, and web u are PvP worthy. thats what so many of u seem to miss.

Corraidhin Farsaidh wrote:
Daichi Yamato wrote:

where in may lie the problem. the same statistics ur referring to said 10% of players dived straight into PvP and had more fun, got on more kill mails and went on to bigger and better things.


Doesn't that mean that 90% of players had more fun doing something else??? Fun is subjective anyway, many people loathe PvP and enjoy the simple act of building stuff from scratch...even if that isn't the most profitable thing they could do its what they enjoy.


this is true. but those werent my words. im paraphrasing CCP Rise

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#27 - 2014-05-20 15:01:43 UTC
erg cz wrote:


I am sure, that Eve has much of unused potential in PvE. And the more people will stay in game because of PvE, the more PvP possibilities will be in game. If someone can not play in team for some reasons, you do not make him start PvP carrier just with limiting his PvE possibilities.


yes it does. but why put so much work into it when all players do is say 'well now ive completed the game, what now'.

what u'd have to do is what blizzard do and spend thousands of hours constantly updating PvE to stop these players getting bored. just take a look at how much diablo 3 changed in a year. skills have been over hauled, monsters have been added and entirely removed, dungeons had to be constantly added and removed, item generators are constantly updated, bosses were overhauled, recipes for weapons are constantly added, little side quests are being added and now theres an entire new expansion.

the work level required to keep the content fresh just so PvE players can have five more minutes of fun is huge. and players still get bored and move on.

with eve, the multiplayer is the content. players build it, players adapt, the meta changes.

dont rely on PvE for ur entertainment. get a T1 frig and get out there.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2014-05-20 15:37:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Daichi Yamato wrote:


yes it does. but why put so much work into it when all players do is say 'well now ive completed the game, what now'.

what u'd have to do is what blizzard do and spend thousands of hours constantly updating PvE to stop these players getting bored.

No, you just account for past mistakes and do it properly this time. With random contents of missions, significant hassles to multiboxing and botting, scalability in both difficulty level and profits according to size of group. There is no need to add a new arc per week, but it have to stop being so boring and frustrating as it is. Because it won't go anywhere. You still need it to fill your wallet, or even if you are hard boiled pvp cowboy, your potential victims need. There is no reason make ingame lives of all those people more miserable than they should be by circumstances placed upon us all by game's concept. PvE must be redesigned to a decent level, and you can leave it lay after this for another several years.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#29 - 2014-05-20 15:48:33 UTC
yeah...diablo 3 has random spawns, random dungeons, scalable difficulty with rewards. so does EVE.
and ppl still get bored, its still a grind.

PvE can be overhauled yeah, it can be improved with some greater unpredictability yeah, and id like that somewhere down the line.

but if u think it will always be fresh u are wrong. if u think it will cure stagnation u are wrong. ppl will still run it so many times that every possible outcome has been completed a thousand times. incursions were exciting for all of 5 minutes before they were clocked and exploited for farming. so are sleeper sites.

bottom line, dnt rely on PvE for ur entertainment.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#30 - 2014-05-20 15:55:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Daichi Yamato wrote:
yeah...diablo 3 has random spawns, random dungeons, scalable difficulty with rewards. so does EVE.
and ppl still get bored, its still a grind.

PvE can be overhauled yeah, it can be improved with some greater unpredictability yeah, and id like that somewhere down the line.

What exactly do you want to propose then? Just give away some isk to players each month? Or sell ingame money for plexes like in pay-to-wins? We have to rely on PvE as on source of income. If someone restricts himself to PvE only and gets bored - it's his problems. Why all other players should suffer the horrifically dumb experience of fund raising by shooting red croses? It's not ideal and won't be, but it shouldn't be THAT bad. If you can just clean pocket of almost any mission while staying at one spot and healing yourself with an alt - it's not just bad mechanics, it's horrible, even browser casual games offer more challenging experinece.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#31 - 2014-05-20 16:10:01 UTC
what are u blathering about? i just said i'd like it to be improved upon. just as long as u realise it will eventually be farmable.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Velicitia
XS Tech
#32 - 2014-05-20 16:42:18 UTC
Ray Kyonhe wrote:
Daichi Yamato wrote:
yeah...diablo 3 has random spawns, random dungeons, scalable difficulty with rewards. so does EVE.
and ppl still get bored, its still a grind.

PvE can be overhauled yeah, it can be improved with some greater unpredictability yeah, and id like that somewhere down the line.

What exactly do you want to propose then? Just give away some isk to players each month? Or sell ingame money for plexes like in pay-to-wins? We have to rely on PvE as on source of income. If someone restricts himself to PvE only and gets bored - it's his problems. Why all other players should suffer the horrifically dumb experience of fund raising by shooting red croses? It's not ideal and won't be, but it shouldn't be THAT bad. If you can just clean pocket of almost any mission while staying at one spot and healing yourself with an alt - it's not just bad mechanics, it's horrible, even browser casual games offer more challenging experinece.


The only "important" thing PVE does is create ISK out of thin air (via rat bounties and mission rewards). If this stopped right now today, then the markets would carry on for a good long while, until sales tax swallowed all the ISK available in the game ... but when we're talking taxes of a few million ... and wallets that reach into the trillions ... it'll take a while.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#33 - 2014-05-20 16:48:30 UTC
And skill books, and LP stores.

then everyone will be ganking their ships for insurance money and selling minerals and PI mats to NPC buy orders.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Gospadin
Bastard Children of Poinen
#34 - 2014-05-20 17:00:51 UTC
Alternative Splicing wrote:
Brave Newbies got where they are today by strapping every day old pilot into a tech I Atron and tossing them into a beautiful crucible that was known as Barleguet. There was no waiting, there was only learning how to pvp from day one. The more you coddle and push back the day when you have 'enough' SP/ISK/Ships to go learn PvP, the more and more layers of terrible habits there are to break, and the losses actually costly.

To retain and get new players interested, the last thing we need is solo or hisec stuff - they need a narrative and a purpose that is full of the vitality, one that is created by players and unique, not some canned PvE content. Developing dependence on being fed said canned content is the problem in the first place.


I disagree. The content creating people (BNI in your example) don't live in hisec, and don't generally interact with new players at all. New accounts have no ability to discern scam corporations from actually helpful ones, and every time someone gets screwed over a week into their first month's subscription, they just quit and walk away, no real investment lost.

I would agree with your point if new players had the tools available to filter which paths are likely to lead to good outcomes (selecting a corp to join, etc.) but I don't think they do. As such, I believe some kind of bridge auto-generated content would help retain new players.

If nothing else, the static PVE is awful. Same exact spawn ordering, same exact triggers, same exact loot every time.

I think there should be PVE available everywhere, and mission scaling mission rewards and difficulty. Let players be forced to group for the "best" hisec PVE rewards, and the social bonds they start forming there will keep them engaged with eve and get them to the endgame.

When lowsec PVE pays 2x highsec, and Null pays 2x lowsec, PVP people will get their fights they're looking for. As it is now, outside of FW there's no low/null PVE thus now bridge content. It's either "get lucky and find a good corp" or else unsub.
Alternative Splicing
Captain Content and The Contenteers
#35 - 2014-05-20 19:14:44 UTC
Gospadin wrote:
I disagree. The content creating people (BNI in your example) don't live in hisec, and don't generally interact with new players at all.


Wait, what?
The entire point of the original brave newbies was new player interaction and engagement. Of course they don't live in hi-sec; the only content being generated there was, and still is, wardecs and suicide ganking. I'm absolutely sure that if you looked at the average retention rates of new accounts which joined BNI in the Barleguet era, vs new accounts which leveled a raven or retriever, you'd see that goals and activities with a social component many times more engaging. Soloing anything in predictable, boring old Hisec will only engage a player so long.

erg cz wrote:
Please do not degrade Eve to some shooter level.

Wait, what?
I rather enjoy that EvE is so very complex and takes a long time to learn properly. I do not want to see a dumbing down as you describe at all. Getting your hands dirty early, however, is a great way to get your foot in the door and start seeing all the possibilities out there; many times so over just grinding missions and waiting that 'one day' when you will venture forth into low-sec.

I understand that ISK has to come from somewhere, but it is a means to an end, not an end of itself, and there are many ways where social skills (Not one ones you put SP into) can give you easy access to it. I am not opposed to improving PvE stuff, just that it should always be second rung to other content creation tools, because it is inherently self limiting. Bottom line, players who become engaged in the world around them stay, players who tire of the one way communication there is with red crosses leave.
Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#36 - 2014-05-20 19:43:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Velicitia wrote:

The only "important" thing PVE does is create ISK out of thin air (via rat bounties and mission rewards). If this stopped right now today, then the markets would carry on for a good long while, until sales tax swallowed all the ISK available in the game ... but when we're talking taxes of a few million ... and wallets that reach into the trillions ... it'll take a while.

You are totally forgetfull about those billions and billions of isks on accounts those banned or those leaving Eve for eternity/for a long time. Those frozen assets won't contribute to game's economy at all. Especially taking into account that many such veterans often hardly find a reason to spend them in eve. What they supposedly will buy? Another titan or two? If they don't run some null aliance, than what for? In eve you can't buy a planet for yourself and start to rule here as its sole diety and/or dictator. You can't invest or grant them to some bold scientific research or create some seedy paradise known as the place when most wicked desires comes true. In short, most of the things you would be able to do while being a billionare IRL are not represented in Eve universe, or represented quite badly. But at the same time only selected few will decide to part with their wealth without a reason. Or would risk to RMT it. So those money those Rockfellers have being accumulated for years can be striked out from spreadsheets in many cases.

Thats why a constant influx of fresh isks are needed. And it's mostly defferent forms of PvE that provide it for you.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#37 - 2014-05-20 19:57:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Quote:
You can't invest or grant them to some bold scientific research or create some seedy paradise known as the place when most wicked desires comes true. In short, most of the things you would be able to do while being a billionare IRL are not represented in Eve universe, or represented quite badly. But at the same time only selected few will decide to part with their wealth without a reason. Or would risk to RMT it. So those money those Rockfellers have being accumulated for years can be striked out from spreadsheets in many cases.

And thats, btw, the reason I think ability to customize the world of EVE through installation of unique structures and some kind of terraforming or even landing and changing the face of some planet would create an excellent vent out for those assets laying undisturbed for years by just selling all the tools needed via npc orders with ridiculously high cost. For many insanely rich people ingame It should be rather boring and trivial to just set their flag in some copy-paste solar system after all these years. But adorning it in your colors and imprinting it with your pesronality is a totally different thing.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link

Loki Feiht
Warcrows
Sedition.
#38 - 2014-05-21 11:36:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Loki Feiht
A lot of losses in Eve are from people running PvE content.
The more interesting and engaging the content, the easier it is to maneuver players into areas of lower security space.
The more alive the game world, the more interesting it becomes and the longer players remain.
Good dynamics within that content can enable more PvP and drive group play. (Choices/flags/non ISK rewards)

More NPC - Randomly Generated Modular Content thread https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=220858

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#39 - 2014-05-21 12:04:39 UTC
Loki Feiht wrote:
A lot of losses in Eve are from people running PvE content.
The more interesting and engaging the content, the easier it is to maneuver players into areas of lower security space.
The more alive the game world, the more interesting it becomes and the longer players remain.
Good dynamics within that content can enable more PvP and drive group play. (Choices/flags/non ISK rewards)


i dnt agree with this.

there is already more interesting and engaging content outside of hi-sec. But most players that only play EVE for its PvE do not go to low sec or WH's no matter the rewards. this is very much because of the increased exposure to other players. There are some who will, but the majority of ppl who run the PvE in these areas are players that PvP, but run sites for isks.

the game world is alive, the players along side u are very much alive, and the players that interact with each other do stay in the game longer.

Im all for making PvE more fun and engaging for everyone. But its not going to push solo players into group play, and its not going to push ppl into lower sec systems than they already dnt go to.

What has been successful in getting solo players to play in groups is having a proactive corp. What has been successful to push ppl into lower sec systems is having ur friends take u there and support u.

TL:DR
Get some friends, get some T1 frigs and go **** someone off. Create some content.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#40 - 2014-05-22 17:45:03 UTC
erg cz wrote:
I read somewhere, that, according to CCP statistic, 50 % of new accounts stop playing after their first month.
The number is only so high because most new accounts are alts made for the purpose of farming passive income. The fact of the matter is that most of the people who try EVE just aren't going to like it.

But as to your idea, why not buff scout incursion sites rather than adding new content? It will help get new players out to where the older players are playing.

I thin it'd be nice to actually see some type added between scout and vanguard. The new class could have just one system per incursion.

Scout could be balanced for running in fast ships, with some travel distance as part of the objective to help newer players compete better since their tank and damage are going to be pathetic.

The new type could be just basically a stepping stone to vanguards but with a much lower SP and hull cost prerequisite. It could be effectively run in a group of 5 tech I cruisers/battlecruisers and could pay out half as much per site as vanguard.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."