Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi, I'm Sol.
This isn't the Project.



The New Player Experience is not about game mechanics.

It's a social engineering problem.




My idea is easy to grasp with quite a few points.


The thing: Rookiecorps add no positive value to the new player experience.


Instead, they ...

• ... add an extra wall in between old players and new players. *
• ... force people to one choice only, which equals zero choices in sum. *
• ... allow griefers to badly influence new players. **
• ... cause confusion to new players who dropped out of their first player corp.
• ... there are too many people giving wrong or biased information.

* Those who want to stay in rookie corp, have no choice of ever joining a player-corp.

** Griefer are also those, who encourage playing in an isolated environment.
They lie to new players about different areas of the game, scaring and thus influencing their future behaviour.

They spread lies about others players, mostly "PvPers" ...
... and subsequentially teach Ignorance about "the game" itself.

"Skill to a battleship ASAP so you can run lvl4s";
"Lowsec is a deathtrap";
"Gankers shoot new players"; etc. etc.



According to your own statistic, dear CCP developer, people who experience any form of social interaction
stay longer in the game. People get formed by their environment. Social interaction, other human beings,
count as environment. The lack of an environment influences just as much.


Some NPC corps already have established groups. Working communities inside NPC corps
are the one from CAS, The Scope and indirectly Scope Works.

NPC corps do not stop people from joining player corps, like rookie corps.







So, I would ...

Abandon rookiecorps as such and give new players a choice in regards to their initial corporation.

Someone said he would rather want to stay in his rookiecorp ...
... which makes perfectly sense I guess ...
... so instead of abandoning the corps themselves ...
... I would add them to the list of NPC corps one can switch to.


Categorise the npc corps not depending on lore (sorry) but on character activity.

I would do that by weeding through all the gigabytes of data ...
... finding out what all the active chars in each npc corp do ingame.

Then have a script that scans through the relevant data and update these it daily.

I would rank it based on percentages. Mining, running missions, trading,
suicide ganking, duels, small gang pvp, etc. etc.

I would not sort the corps by any means, when being displayed in a menu.
Maybe even randomize the order every time it comes up, for everyone.
This is simply to counter the effect of people simply clicking the top corp, because it's there.


It would give the players choices where there were none and remove barriers that were nonsense.


Maybe that even gives you a whole new way of looking at it.



A strong hint that this is the right direction, are ...
... BNI, KARMAFLEET, PANDEMIC HORDE.


Doing what I propose will give you a base to fix your low retention rate.
Throwing people into working social environments is the way to go.

Instead of, like it is now, throwing new players into isolation which
too many of them will never really escape from.


It will most likely already increase your retention rate ...
... depending on choices you make.


The important parts for effective progress, are ...

• ... abolishing rookie corps status.
• ... encouraging existing communities.
• ... encouraging the creation of new communities.
• ... leading people into the communities, but with options.
• ... ending the griefing that costs you new players.

Thank you for letting me help you "fix the game".
I will keep spawning new threads using this as base. :)

I would argue it is about game mechanics...

Eve is a 12 year old (13-14 counting dev time pre-release) game, with a physics/gameplay engine of...

Spherical objects with textures assigned to them, floating in a soupy 3D space, each with different attributes.

_
_
_

If we want new players to stay, we're going to need to build a new game engine. Real 3D objects with more realistic physics, actual destruction/projectiles, etc.

I've said it countless times, and yes I know every time I say this... everyone hates it. Almost everyone disagrees. But the fact is that anyone who starts EVE immediately sees the gameplay, and probably quits because of how dated and boring the gameplay is. EVE is only fun because of it's stats. I'm still here because of that, and the hope it will one day become a better version of what Star Citizen wants to be. But most players are not uber-space-stats nerds, and won't be sucked in and held by the cool items and ships STATS, they want actual action.

EVE's engine is not action. It's spreadsheets.

How about, instead of removing rookie corps, which is meant for rookies: Players can only stay in rookie corps for x amount of days and/or until they reach y amount of skill points.

To have the best, coolest, most amazing space MMO ever. Not just a game that pays the bills. However... another 12 years from now, this game will probably not pay the bills.



Because they're space nerds like me, who enjoy the stats and progression. I'm not saying it's completely un-fun, just not fun to many people.



I believe I'm thinking about what I wish EVE would one day become. Yes Valkryie... combined with EVE, combined with Dust, combined with Incarna... all one game, a seamless 3D world with proper scale, the best physics we can code, etc.



You appear to miss my point. I'll try to explain it again... EVE gameplay (even the shooting) does not feel like action to many people. So they will not continue playing. So they will not be "hopping in" anything or doing anything, they will be unsubbing.

to many it already is albeit still needing balancing, I can't stand the over realistic space sims or else i'd be playing Elite Dangerous. The soupy spheres in space is good for those that aren't looking for a superficial piece of eye candy with no depth.




i'm not a space nerd overly concerned with stats/progression. Active skill queue, and pre made fits/instructional eve vids from the internet, nothing else is really matters.





two words: Server Ticks. All in one game will never happen.





again, flawed logic. You don't get to decide what "doesn't feel like action" is. Having pvpers drop in on you as you scramble to get into warp is plenty of action for me at least. I won't deny if you were excepting Starfox the mmo, this isn't going to go well, but to assume a lot of people would have your exact opinion/rationale and make it justification for your own desires isn't right.

Yes, it's clear you are fine with this dated Spheres in Space engine. I feel sorry for you. I think most people would rather have a more realistic game. (Over-realistic? Is this an oxy-moron? How can something be over-realistic?) Just because something has a better physics engine and better graphics doesn't mean it has to be superficial, eye-candy, or lack depth. Those are assumptions on your part.




Okay dude I think you're grasping at straws here just to argue. You may not be "overly" concerned with stats and progression, but you're at least concerned enough to enjoy your skill queue progressing, and seeing the stats of your "Sphere" go up with different fittings and ships.




Okay I'm going to have to get mean here. Are you dense? We need a new game engine to allow all of these "worlds" to be together in one game. For you to say "it will never happen" is just you being an argumentative little girl, stomping your feet and crying NO NO NO its IMPOSSIBLE. It's not impossible to have that game. Star Citizen is currently trying. In the near future it will probably not only be possible, it will be the norm. Hell, in 10 or 20 years time we might have The Matrix, where our brains plug in and we play games in a truly simulated reality.

Are you a secret CCP employee, who's job is to go around spreading the idea that EVE can never change, so they don't have to make the investment of building a new game?



NO dude it's not "flawed logic". It's a statement of fact. I did not say "ALL PEOPLE THINK EVE IS BORING"... or.. "ALL PEOPLE THINK EVE HAS NO ACTION".... I said "to many people". I'm not assuming people share my opinion based on nothing, I'm stating that it's true based on the fact that many people say so, and the fact that the game is not growing much, if at all. Again... I said "TO MANY PEOPLE". Not "to all people."

For you to argue that EVE's gameplay engine is not simple, dated (see: old), and that MOST gamers don't find it appealing... is factually wrong. Do NOT reply stating otherwise, I will literally blow my brains out and you will be responsible for an innocent person's suicide.

If people hate spreadsheets why does every other mmo add them back in with add ons. Eves engine is fine. Eves game play is fine. Eves npe is where it isn't fine as eve still makes new players do the 'lvl 1' grind in a worl of lvl 100s. It may not be as skill restricted. But it is isk restricted. What you can afford to lose is based on how fast you earn. And newbies do not earn at all on most people's scale. Bring up the 'minimum wage' of eve without changing the high end incomes and you improve the 'action' players see.

On the subject of rookie corps I have to agree but not for the 'care bear hate' people (mainly you eve) are trying to peddle in this thread.
The problem with rookie corps are actually that you can't form a community in a rookie Corp of people with experience easily. Because anyone who has ever tried a player Corp doesn't return to the rookie Corp but to one of the background npcs corps.
Obviously alts exist. But it means the npc corps are where communities get formed much easier as you can go try things. You can use a jump clone service Corp and return. You can jump into a fw Corp and return if it's not for you.

Still don't think your solution is right. The three background corps are fine. And npc corps should be general not specialised so players can talk to people from all walks of life for advice. But getting rid of rookie corps so people aren't afraid to join a player Corp because they permanently lose friends is a good thing.

Rookie corps are.not the only npc corps that exist.
Get rid of the rookie ones. Leave the ones you end up in when you quit a player Corp. And use those for new characters also.
Keeps a turning.over pool of players between corps available for different view points and experiences. Keeps a safe place for them to return to if they need a quiet haven. And means they always come back to the same social group.

Ah. You were going on about trying.to categorize by activity and stuff. Which has no reliance on reflecting available knowledge of players passing through or past activities. So it sounded like you wanted a bunch of specialist corps and the like.