EVE General Discussion

Of new players who are subbed:

• 50% of them leave (in ~1 month)


• 40% move into "a very isolated playstyle, mining and/or missioning and they stay pretty much to themselves. They don't trade very much, they don't engage in a very diverse range of activities". These players are involved in "theme park" activities, "sticking to missions and leveling up their raven" (CCP's own words). CCP "can see very clearly" that their NPE directs players in this direction. For "many of them that's not a good fit and they end up leaving"


• 10% move into a "wide range of experiences", "training with other players, in corps much more often, they're talking on fleet chats more often, they're on PVP kills more often". "These people tend to stick with us, they love the game and stay with the game for a long time". If CCP can "get other players to have the experiences this group is having, the better off we will be because for them it is really rich and meaningful and it sticks with them all the time".

Source: Fanfest 2014 - New Player Experience Vision



Y'all want to keep telling Kaarous and Scip that they're making stuff up?

Except you are utterly misinterpreting the facts by saying that CCP is saying NPC corps cause problems with play retention.
So yes, Kaarous is making it up.

Are there issues with player retention, undoubtedly. But NPC corps are NOT what cause those problems, and NPC corps have just as much opportunity for socialising as any other corp.

What really causes the main issues are the lack of benefits from socialising in almost any PvE activity. You are punished for trying to be social in most forms of PvE by lower income even.

That's the new player experience you're wanting a change in.

Player corps don't naturally provide direction either.

The core fault is the new player experience.

About this part:

"40% move into "a very isolated playstyle, mining and/or missioning and they stay pretty much to themselves. They don't trade very much, they don't engage in a very diverse range of activities". These players are involved in "theme park" activities, "sticking to missions and leveling up their raven" (CCP's own words). CCP "can see very clearly" that their NPE directs players in this direction. For "many of them that's not a good fit and they end up leaving"

How do we know that "for many of them that's not a good fit"? Maybe for that 40%, solo, isolated play is exactly what they want from a game. They do as much of that play style as Eve has to offer, find they have done all they can do, and move on to some other game.

Maybe, given the entire philosophy on which Eve is written, it only appeals to 10% of the people who try it. If we want more people to stay with Eve, changing the NPE, or corps, or NPC corps is not enough. We need to look deeper, into the basic philosophy of Eve. ( Cold, hard universe, actions have consequences, you are never safe, player driven content with some theme park stuff here and there.)

Or we keep the current philosophy, and accept that 10% of new players will be all Eve ever keeps.

IMO the new player experience has more to do with poor player retention.


ETA: and actually just watched that video clip again and that is EXACTLY what he is talking about. Improving the NPE because they feel that has a lot to do with poor player retention. But I do know there was a comment made by a Dev about NPC corps too. I remember that. I think maybe it was around the same time.

But anyway they are obviously working on the NPE though I haven't tried it out yet. From what little I saw of it in action I am not sure how big a help it would be. What I am hoping they will do next is totally revamp the tutorial missions.

First of all streamline them. Consolidate the Military agents into 1. Consolidate the business and industry agents into 1. There is so much silly overlap. Make the exploration tutorial more detailed. Go into combat sites - this is a whole lucrative playstyle that is similar to missions but I think a bit more interesting and with more exciting rewards (even if the ISK per hour isn't as high as level 3 or 4 blitzting), explain wormholes better (to newbies they are just an annoying and scary thing to uncover)

Encourage player cooperation. Have another epic arc with a boss like Dagan at the end that encourages new players to seek each other out for help because they can't do it alone.

Encourage PvP RIGHT AWAY. One fault in the NPC corps is that if a 2 day old player says they are going into null a chorus of people will warn them they will be doomed. Potentially scaring them off forever. I know that was how it was for me at first and took years to overcome. Have some sort of tutorial where you actually PvP against other newbs. Something where you are given fit frigates and there is some sort of PvP wormhole or zone where you have to complete different PvP objectives. I am sure there are ways it can be abused so it would be need to be implemented carefully but get people right into the action.

Better tutorial on fitting ships. Honestly I found this so confusing when I first started playing that it was actually a pretty serious obstacle. I would lose a ship and rather than try to figure out how to fit a new one I would just log off. The tutorials didn't help at all and in fact taught awful practices (mismatched weapons, mismatched tank, etc.).

There is tons of work to do on the NPE. Hopefully what they are doing now is a good start.

+1

CCP are being disingenuous there. It's not that mining, missioning and leveling up their raven are "not a good fit" for those players, it's that those things are simply not much fun compared to solo PvE activities in other MMOs. The PvPers will naturally gravitate to the sandbox stuff and remain subscribed. The others will get bored staring at rocks/shooting NPCs and leave.

If CCP want those players to remain then they'll have to overhaul PvE. Make solo activities more engaging. Allow players to participate in group PvE combat within hours of character creation, not weeks. "But muh EVE is a PvP game!" So what? That's not an excuse for a subpar PvE experience.

Focusing on the New Player Experience is like putting fresh paint over damp patches. Fix what you're selling before you try to sell it.

Spot on.

Many are interested in EVE simply because they have no other options.
They know what kind of "game" this is, but they still give it a try, thinking maybe they can manage to avoid most of the PvP stuff and play it like an average mmorpg.

As soon as they'll get more options, I think they will not bother the EVE community again.
Until then, they isolate and try to do whatever they want to do.

Have you, Sir, heard about the Blob?

Hardness, harshness, nastiness, villainy, viciousness and more which are usual in that game are the reasons why a lot of us enjoy it.
But there are also the reasons why a lot of newcomers leaves…

That’s Eve’s dilemma!

Thanks a lot for sharing again ... I hope this finally kicks the NPC garbage out of the discussion and we can go back to the core of the problem ... how to make new players experience "This is EvE" with as small barriers as possible, so they can judge if it's the game they want to play (for the rest of their lives ).

To speak for myself, what finally got me in, were the NPSI groups and fleets and all the different play styles associated with them, from small scale frigate size, being part of a large battleship fleet to cloaky ops. Everybody can participate from a few weeks in the game, with no politics, (almost) no drama, no obligations (except TS/Mumble), just x-up and have fun (or not).

I think the best you can do is, take newbies out for a PvP op yourself (if you want to FC) or direct them towards the NPSI groups to fly with them a couple of times ... I'm sure, if they get hooked, they will likely stay, if not, at least they can't complain not being able to experience "This is EvE".