Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If that's your idea of fun, you can do this right now by dueling people in a noobship.

The style of play, perhaps.

The four default ships currently available, in some ways offer more, and in other ways offer less.

The current rookie ships can be refit. There is a limited amount here that refitting can accomplish, but by refitting they can overlap market purchased frigate hulls to a small degree.

These ships are technically more powerful, the same way NPC ships are.
By playing smart, you defend against the known damage type, while focusing on the defensive weakness of the ship.
This lets you effectively cancel their threat potential, in a way not possible with player purchased ships.

The pilot of this replacement vessel has been forced to use a ship with a known set of offensive and defensive attributes.
The ships are expected to be balanced with the absolute worst tracking and movement modifiers. (Dev controlled aspect)
The sensors on these will take significantly longer to lock, than other ships in their size class. (Dev controlled aspect)
THAT is what makes them so extremely vulnerable to a smart pilot.

Since they can NEVER choose to fit a point, they can't stop anyone from leaving an encounter when it suits them.

To give new meaning to a common term, these ships are specifically HANDICAPPED, and this makes them harmless to the market.

It is possible that they might be effective, when facing players making bad choices, but they will be less effective than market sourced options.

Losing to a replacement vessel, would be comparable to one of these:
1. Deliberately taking a dive.
2. Royally screwing up, to the point where you would lose respect for the game if you did not lose.
3. Being careless, to the equivalent degree of number 2 above.

I find it less than surprising that someone apparently so familiar with WoW, would be unable to appreciate this.

In other words, you want a hull that is larger than a rookie ship, but even less effective? As I said, you can use rookie ships with T1 fittings right now to have a basically free fight; your current ships as described would be remodeled rookie ships that are even less agile than the frigate size, for a use case that is rarely seen on Tranquility.

If you just want free fights with non-frigate vessels, you can go on Singularity with some friends and pick up whatever you want to try for 1 ISK. I can't see how this idea wouldn't be a waste of programming time.

Your understanding of the concept, is not fully acknowledged by your response.

EVE is pay to play, but it is not, and must not be, pay ISK to play on top of the already established monthly fee.

The interaction is the key determining factor here, not the lack of effectiveness in beating another player.

You may find this surprising, but some players find EVE strikes a chord with their real world habits.
They bring over their caution, as if ISK is something worth real world money, despite the exchange rate being player driven.

Many responsible people don't take their paychecks to a casino. They don't want to gamble, with something they expect to need in other areas.
The same happens in EVE.

Players find their characters have careers, and can eventually earn enough ISK to buy bigger and more powerful ships.
But every ISK spent towards something that won't help them achieve this next goal, is a setback to them.

Put simply, they are avoiding playing with the fake money, because they have the perception it is setting them back in the larger game.

That makes these, ships they can, (pardon the expression): Play with.

If you already PvP through direct ship combat, or spend significant time outside of high sec, you are quite possibly unfit to judge or understand your peers who avoid these things.
You assume we all think alike, so also assume that something which would be worthless to you, would be worthless to them as well.

The sandbox also wants types of play you don't understand or find interesting.
Other players are not comfortable spending significant ISK for these pursuits, but it diminishes the game for everyone if we make this the only path for them towards this.

Let's consider everyone's interests, if you don't mind.

I appreciate you have very specific views about who should and should not PvP, in reference to ability to afford that T1 cruiser with basic fittings.

I tend to be more flexible. I advocate for the ability to interact at levels comfortably below this, which I assure you will be of interest to many players for whom you assume things for.

We have you defining that everyone seems to fit one of two categories:
1. Already PvP, or on the path to it with no problems not easily overcome.
2. No desire to PvP.

While I can accept a good number of players may actually fit into one of these two categories, I am advocating for a third category.
A group that has at times forgotten that this is actually a game, where we want to play and interact with each other.

3. Not willing to compromise a perceived goal of the game, where they must evolve into larger ships through ISK and skills, for the purpose of greater missions, eventual PvP 'Next Week style'*, or simply to impress their buddies.
To them, EVE is a competition where each day you must build on the efforts of the day before, and any efforts such as ISK & time that goes away from that is lost forever.

Next Week style: Next week never comes, like saving something for a rainy day, etc.

You demonstrate my point very well, for which I sincerely thank you.

For you, in your quite understandable logic, there is no issue doing these things.
Nor would there be for any other, who embraced your straightforward approach.

To you, I say, bravo. This game is something you play well, in the intended fashion.

You go so far as to ask who these people are, that have such issues. Very understandable, since you have encountered far bolder souls more often, in your game experience.

I must point out, however, that a significant number of players tend to slip quietly by, unnoticed by their bolder peers such as yourself.

Perhaps they seek to earn your respect, by grinding up and applying to join a corp, perhaps gloriously blasting away in some future battle.
I am sure some of them reach this point, while others keep resetting the goal to bigger and bigger ships before taking that step.

My point, is that we have players who could benefit from this idea.
Not just the ones I outlined, with my descriptions here. Many others, who would toss away an evening here or there in a disposable hull, and in so doing create content for many other players.

I can't fully predict the emergent play that would stem from this seed, but I can say that it would create as much content for other players outside it's immediate impact.

Heck, even gate camps would see a spike in activity, followed by a likely sustained amount of growth before plateauing at a higher level of activity.

It will benefit players at the bottom more than any other, I would expect.
And while I would not promise this would improve retention of players, I do know that some would find renewed interest through this.

because you always need a point to keep someone from warping too....I think not :D

Agree with you completely that there is no way ever that if these ships were in any way useable they wouldn't affect the market. Badly.

• You have people of vast experience from nearly aspect of the game telling you this is a bad idea, even after you've nerfed it into utter uselessness.
• You routinely denounce all examples of why your idea is bad as "unsubstantiated opinions," simply because they have the gall to disagree with you, while treating the drivel you're spewing as gospel truth.
• Your gospel truth drivel demonstrates little understanding behind the core tenets of EvE Online, and even less understanding into the mindset of the average EvE player.
• In eight pages of this thread, not one single person has posted anything resembling support for your bad idea.
• The one person who liked your OP is either your alt, or did so by accident and doesn't realize they can unlike it.
• Your original concept has devolved over time from an upgrade to the current rookie ship into a battleship sized pile of fecal matter worse than a rookie ship.
• There is no period of time in EvE in which you cannot simply rerun the tutorial missions if you've lost everything. These missions pay off with a small pile of isk, more than enough to fit one of the free ships that get handed to you through the course of the tutorial. This makes your "free worthless battleship" entirely pointless.

For the above reasons, and more, it is time to give over on this terribad idea. It was bad when you first posted it, and has only gotten worse as you've nerfed it to try and justify it.

Do they exist?
Yes, they do. Am I obligated to prove this?
No, CCP is quite aware of the player demographics already, and proof of this nature is testimonial in any case.
If you don't take my word for it, what would motivate you to take another's?

As to these other groups not directly benefiting from this, I would remind you that not every idea is for everyone.
I do not expect to directly benefit from this idea myself.

But, since you brought up miners, it does occur to me that having a disposable ship handy for them could be interesting, as something to bait out opponents unafraid to fight a ship with known limits.
More stuff for balance consideration.


Dev balance could modify the terms these are used under:
The mission runners could pay for it with a timed maximum use, such as a limit imposed on ships received over a 24 hour period, not to exceed X.
LP ships could be an aspect, but under such a limited resource they would not expect to be inferior to other market ships.

The devs are free to take inspiration alone, or cherry pick from this idea.