Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I will say your desire for missions and mining to be more group-friendly are valid, but I will say my experience with trusting people has been a lot more positive. So my geuss is you're doing something "wrong", at least from my perspective.

some people aren't so lucky or have experiences which while not inherently bad seem to devalue the benefits of group play.

Sounds like you're doing something wrong, yes. There's really no reason not to trust someone you fly with if you understand how the game works. It's even considerably easier now that we have the little green button to keep us from stumbling on any oopsies.

Just use common sense, and you shouldn't have any problems. Don't follow strangers out of high sec, don't turn off your safety or do any stuff that could make you suspect, and so on. Worst that can happen is your buddy warps out and you get stuck tanking a Blockade all by your lonesome for a few seconds.

The game really isn't the problem here. The players are.

-Find a corp you agreed with their gameplay
-Try to join them.
-If fail, back to step 1 / if success enjoy the game with them.

Trust is hard to earn. But the moment you have it, your play time will be enhanced.

If you are seeking end-game group PVE, incursions are the way to go.

In terms of your attitude to trusting people... when you undock in a ship, consider it already lost. If you explode then its not a problem because you were prepared for that and if you don't, well that's an added bonus :)

You do. If you don't look for people you can play with or against, you don't play a MMO in the first place, you play a 15€ a month boring spreadsheet game. Eve is not like go to there make a x here and have a epic adventure with 4 others. Actually eve is much better with social interaction mechanics than other MMOs on the market, the reason for that is that it allows players to openly play against each other that creates a lot of potential for conflict, friendship and playing against/with each other. I was in my first corp very early and I had a lot of fun there. However I also did rip it apart when I left, taking taking 50% of the players with me, after taking a stand against my CEO on behave of the many players in the corp. It took him like 5 years to admit that to me in private convo that he might have been wrong back then. Not the SP in my skill sheet did give me this ability, not a role granted in game but the ability to socialize and playing together with others, raising my voice in her name.

Later in Low Sec the things where a lot more simple, everybody can shoot you, some did steal from you, some did betray you and with others you had some of the most memorable events together, like ending a 4 months long war against a bunch of corps in a 20 vs 20 fight(what was a lot for small corps) a few jumps into low sec and meeting the same people back in 0.0 in your own alliance doing pvp together with them, chatting and comparing your own and her point of view about the events of the last couple of months.

When I turned my back at EvE after the Monocle gate events and started another MMO, it was just mind numbing that there was nothing like team play or playing with/against other players till you reach endgame content(besides LFG, what is more like 5 people grinding on her own and been forced to play together for 20 minutes most of the time) and it took me like 2 weeks after reaching max level to join up with a guild that actually did active pvp and HC raiding, where people where actually playing with each other. It was a pure solo game till this point and the answer from everyone was just "get to max level then you can participate!" and most guilds where only interested in players to fill the guild wallet, while there was close to no interaction and everybody was just farming away solo. Basically the thing you currently do and what probably most high sec corps do that have no real goal or direction where they want to go.



That is a very novice way of looking at eve, the beauty is that you have to work with players at some point to build a corp or anything of importance in eve and that players have so much freedom expressing her feelings towards you, be it doing overtime with you when they come out 10 jumps into low sec to rep a pos for 4h with you after you didn't seen them for 3 months or taking your stuff and shooting you in the face because of your decisions. The eve environment sets the stage for some of the most intense player interaction in any MMO, and while most brag on the forums how much they scam and harass others the true player skill is creating something with others together while they are able to do that to you.

You actually have to play the game together with others if your goal in the game is more than mining in a high sec belt or doing L4s all day. SP/ISK/items/players simply become resources that can be acquired and lost on your way towards that goal. If you don't have that vision on your own, than find somebody that does have it and join him on his way to his goal and experience eve as one of the best MMOs on the market for the multi player aspect of it. While the mechanics behind HC raiding and bigger eve projects are vastly different, the effect on players is pretty similar. The game and other players put a lot of pressure on you as a player what vastly amplifies the feeling of success(far above any solo player game) and failure(being directly addressed by other players you play with, not the game) what gives you the feeling to really archive something with others.



- EvE is a pvp game in it's truest from, and a baseline concept for everything what you do. That doesn't mean you have to shoot each other in the face, but can also mean outdoing somebody in the markets, you crash the market on a certain LP Item what makes other people leave the system and then you build up a LP stock again to cash out once the prices does raise again, doing 5/10 plexes in front of hostile corps in the area by being quicker or mine out belts directly after DT, robbing other people that log in later the ability to do it.

- Is it really so hard to use a calculator?

- If you know what you do the payouts of missions are not outdated, they are just over farmed and it takes a lot of understanding of the mechanics to make good ISK with them. Incursions are build around group content so are higher level WH sites or L5 missions(the L5s are mostly multi boxed).

Since I did run out of characters, every MMO got solo player content, to suit people that want to play it solo, while the option to sometimes interact with others(this is actually the vast majority of the player base of MMOs). However the same games also have content that allows and encourages to play together and people that moan about this is not accessible to them and could be better are often simply not willing to spend all the effort to really participate in it.

Just take LFR as example, it is the same content like real raiding. However it doesn't require team play because it is not punishing enough with mistakes the players do, it doesn't give you the feeling of success because it is plain easy to archive(some people join and press not a single button outside of rolling the dice for gear) and it doesn't encourage playing together because most people that do it are not interested it it and also not welcome in real guilds that do real raids that require team play. It is a game element build on the request of players that had the best intentions and hoped that somehow magically the ability to join up with random players will create the same experience for them without any effort invested as other players have that spend up to 40-60h a week on it, working hard to improve and having serious discussions about where they need to improve as players with other members.

Eve is a fantastic game when you look at the multi player content, it doesn't start at max level, it doesn't require a endless grind to participate, it is mostly driven by the actions of players instead of something the game gives you as content, it doesn't force you to do the same thing over and over again on multiple chars just because you where unlucky with drops and it got the much lower entry level for player skill to participate(while you need a very very good understanding of UI builds, key binding, how to gear up fast, stacking mechanics and understanding of what kind of gear you need before you can participate in other games).

In eve if you want to, you can participate at day 1, while you might be not able to fly a super capital for your alliance, you can scout, you can tackle, you can help with the hauling, do the busy work with bookmarks, you can fly a ok pvp ship very soon and you can play together with others.

If you just look for something where you can have some interaction with others in rather casual pve, just join one of the Inc channels and x up for a fleet and while you can be casual about it, you can also become a FC or a key player in smaller channels very quick to experience what it really means to not only play with a few people but becoming somebody they relay on. While it is a bit like LFR, it suffers a lot less problems than LFR has, simply because it is moderated by players that can chose to include you or not and will replace you with another player if they decide your actions as player or person are inappropriate.

I would second what the OP said.

Especially mining and missioning should be much more rewarded when in a group. The couple of % extra are just not enough bearing in mind the time effort and especially the added danger that was discussed here. Danger of making a corp, fleet and interacting. Maybe thats why so many are soloing in high-sec...or making a corp just for themselves and their own alts...and perhaps a very trusted real life friend.

I know what many will say...EVE is dangerous. Yes...but there should be more incentive for group play, ALSO and specifically in high-sec.

Sorry. Again I got ahead of myself, and trying not to repeat things from other post I have made.

The mission system as I see it is old and needs to rise anew. The populating each others mission options would go hand in hand with a new mission grade system. Like the DED Complexes */10
Players would know that 1/10 or even a 3/10 could be soloed rather easy. But once you start hitting 4/10s+ your looking at needing much more than a single ship. You'd need logistics, long range gunners, short range guns, small and big ships. It would have to be hard enough change in action that multi boxing would not be an option.

Lets take the damsel mission. Current level four is easy if you farm it from range.
Under the new formate you'd have multiple ways to complete it.

1: Hard burn the station with a fleet of long range ships to prevent the spawns. It would have like a 1-2 minute max window for effect.
2: Just kill everything as it comes (extra random rats coming to visit the brothel as well)
3: Some other option CCP builds into the map.

Another mission - The Blockade lvl 4

1: Destroy the Jump gate, kill the rats. fewer waves. NPC agent would be like - "Well not how we planned it, but w/e"
2: Standard kill'm all
3: Some other option.

People where thinking that Incs are like this a couple of years ago, till others did break down the mechanics and designed standard fleet doctrines to do the sites. Do you even know what level of organisation it needs to do something like this? How long it would take to find random people that have the ships you need that don't know how to fly and fit her ships and if it would be actually difficult how high are the odds that you could archive this with random people without wiping the hole fleet? If not, you can get a picture of it by FCing Incs, because something like this would probably also need same level of communication and FCing Incs do.

Btw Incs are very often multi boxed, even people that don't IS box the hole fleet often use multiple chars on grid to keep fleets running and as somebody that dual or tipple boxes L4, WH and Incs, pve content gets a lot easier by multi boxing it on your own instead of playing it with random people that are slow, shoot the wrong targets or do a lot of mistakes(like triggering spaws at the wrong time, don't move, or fit the wrong mods) and if you design content hard in any way shape or form for a multi boxer you can bet that it becomes plain impossible to do with some random guys.