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Decline in numbers... starting to turn into RAPID!!!

First post
Author
Salvos Rhoska
#81 - 2015-08-25 17:30:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Guttripper wrote:
Salvos Rhoska wrote:
What form of work in EVE, specifically?

Are you talking about earning enough isk to PLEX?

For me personally, the yearly cost for multiple subscriptions is a non-factor.

The "work" aspect to me varied among the various tasks I was doing at the time. One example that spurred me away was ~playing the market~ aspect. I would create my own personal formulas for buying and selling stuff. So I used to have some off the wall prices going. Some market areas appear to have bots running with them because there were times whenever I would use the broker, almost an exact x amount of time later, there would be a higher or lower price of 0.01. And this was constant if I varied whenever I used the market (real life time differences). After a while, forget it - too much like work to me to go against a computer...



Ok.I see what you mean.

But that wasnt a computer, machine or bot.
That was other players.

As far as I know there is no bot advanced enough available in public access (allowing for the real possibility that IRL markets may have programs that automate buying/selling at certain thresholds) that could work through EVE to achieve that result in an automated fashion.

Some traders just really are that crazy and (as is extremely relevant to trading) operating in the same hours as you.

I understand your frustration, and that you attempted strategies, but I dont see the reaction could be automated.
It was players 0.01ing you, manually.

My gut feel is you were dropping too much product onto the market at once, in a lump, and not staged below the market value enough to cash in quick (if that was your intent). Because of your volume, other players undercut you with less cost, leaving you hanging, so as to take it and run.

I cant say more to it, as I dont know what commodities you mean, or where, or at what time of day.

Im no trading pro, but Id recommend trying another market , another commodity, or another time of day.

Even a random noob arriving at station whenever will usually, obviously, 0.01 you, because they want a quick sale and to fk off back after setting it to whatever they were doing.
Markus Reese
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#82 - 2015-08-25 17:41:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Markus Reese
Primary This Rifter wrote:
It's astonishing to me how many idiots there are in complete denial that there's a problem.


I think there are just many people who weren't here a few years ago? It was probably 2012 (can we get chats for this?) When things I notice started going down. It was when I went less active not long after. Cause being nothing engaging for me in terms of gameplay. That tangents into other ongoing topics so will leave it at that.

When I used to play, log in numbers of 20 thous or more were easily the norm. Weekend peaks of 50k got not infrequent (iirc). However, I would also like to see these numbers applied to other stats. How many of these accounts were alts for farming and hauling? Multiboxing F1 assign cap fleets etc?

An impossible to grasp number would be instead of log in numbers, how many individual people are playing. Ergo the guy running his own mining fleet would still count as one.

Are we less in players or less in alts? For all I know, maybe we have more individual players and a large reduction in multiboxing. At the moment, this is bad for CCP's bottom line but if it means we can make it more of a populated game without sacrificing core Eve. Is that not worth it? Hopefully the changes mean we can get something that we, the players, can proudly promote to draw people back.

I would rather have 50k players creating 60k log ins instead of 35k players creating same number of log ins. That means the game is more enjoyable, meaning we all win (well, those of us who pride on player skill and not API data)

Edit:

Market talk above. What would happen in markets if we put in transasction threshholds?

So anything less 100 isk can have the 0.01 increments. Less 1,000 have 0.1 increments, 10,000 is at 1 isk increments and so forth. Simply put, type in new price, and it rounds it to the appropriate increment level automatically.

This will mean that the pricing game will force more dramatic pricing fluctuations. It would encourage players to develop and plan more lucrative market locations. That can lead to more hubs and what not potentially.

I am going to put this in the features and idea thread.

To quote Lfod Shi

The ratting itself is PvE. Getting away with it is PvP.

Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#83 - 2015-08-25 17:49:18 UTC
Tippia wrote:
AtramLolipop wrote:
Will try to find it, from memory, the last time everyone pointed fingers at HS incursions, this report came out from CCP and it pretty much killed the debate. Although, if i remember correctly, it did highlight some reasons why VG's needed to be changed. Even at it peak HS incursions represented only a minute amount isk that was generated. That might have changed fractionally, in my opinion it is all in proportion.

It was never really a minute amount. It has pretty consistency stood for ⅙ of the injected ISK, and been the second or third largest individual faucet.


Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store. The ISK/LP ratio is correct to burn it all so only those who never bothered using those LP really case an injection of ISK in the game. They could remove that small part if they wanted by giving 0 ISK as payout AND making the whole CONCORD LP store only sell stuff for LP.
Sonya Corvinus
Grant Village
#84 - 2015-08-25 17:55:40 UTC
Markus Reese wrote:


Are we less in players or less in alts? For all I know, maybe we have more individual players and a large reduction in multiboxing. At the moment, this is bad for CCP's bottom line but if it means we can make it more of a populated game without sacrificing core Eve. Is that not worth it? Hopefully the changes mean we can get something that we, the players, can proudly promote to draw people back.


I would be curious about this statistic too.

I have a character that hasn't logged in for three months now just because I don't *have* to log in every 24 hours to play skill queue online.
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#85 - 2015-08-25 17:58:55 UTC
Sonya Corvinus wrote:
Markus Reese wrote:


Are we less in players or less in alts? For all I know, maybe we have more individual players and a large reduction in multiboxing. At the moment, this is bad for CCP's bottom line but if it means we can make it more of a populated game without sacrificing core Eve. Is that not worth it? Hopefully the changes mean we can get something that we, the players, can proudly promote to draw people back.


I would be curious about this statistic too.

I have a character that hasn't logged in for three months now just because I don't *have* to log in every 24 hours to play skill queue online.



i have 2 like that. one of which i currently has no idea what to do with it.

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#86 - 2015-08-25 18:00:13 UTC
AtramLolipop wrote:
Salvos Rhoska wrote:
AtramLolipop wrote:

AND CCP also produced a graph and are report documenting ISK in the economy and it roots... I wonder which graph i'd prefer to look at?



Could you link that, if its not too much trouble?


Will try to find it, from memory, the last time everyone pointed fingers at HS incursions, this report came out from CCP and it pretty much killed the debate. Although, if i remember correctly, it resulted in CCP making some changes to spawn rates as well as the reduction in the number of HS incursions. Even at it peak HS incursions represented only a minute amount isk that was generated. That might have changed fractionally, in my opinion it is all in proportion.



Here

Also, Incursions are such a non-factor given that Blue loot from wormholes blows it away and NPC buy orders on goods make it look like a side hobby of snobs.

Jenn just likes to sensationalize that which he doesn't like

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#87 - 2015-08-25 18:00:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Markus Reese wrote:
I think there are just many people who weren't here a few years ago? It was probably 2012 (can we get chats for this?) When things I notice started going down. It was when I went less active not long after. Cause being nothing engaging for me in terms of gameplay. That tangents into other ongoing topics so will leave it at that.
Weeell… since user count is the only thing we've had to go on ever since they stopped publishing the QENs in 2010, the core of your question really can't be answered.

In terms of player activity, the decline started with Incursion, following the same pattern you see withe PvE content in any other MMO: once the new content has been “consumed” (tried, tested, figured out), most lose interest. Some keep grinding, but the net effect is that you end up with fewer active users than you had before. Then we had Incarna, of course…

After Crucible, things started to look up: development was back where the players wanted it (in fact, the Incursion-Incarna trend broke at the mere news of the new direction in Crucible), and we saw ~2 years of stead growth back to the old numbers, after which it started heading down again.

Frostys Virpio wrote:
Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store.
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.
Umar Umarhabib
Doomheim
#88 - 2015-08-25 18:00:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Umar Umarhabib
Primary This Rifter wrote:
It's astonishing to me how many idiots there are in complete denial that there's a problem.


I agree.

In a sandbox game with player driven economy / content, declining population is even a bigger problem than MMO's with a lot of PvE content.
Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#89 - 2015-08-25 18:01:45 UTC
DaReaper wrote:
Sonya Corvinus wrote:
Markus Reese wrote:


Are we less in players or less in alts? For all I know, maybe we have more individual players and a large reduction in multiboxing. At the moment, this is bad for CCP's bottom line but if it means we can make it more of a populated game without sacrificing core Eve. Is that not worth it? Hopefully the changes mean we can get something that we, the players, can proudly promote to draw people back.


I would be curious about this statistic too.

I have a character that hasn't logged in for three months now just because I don't *have* to log in every 24 hours to play skill queue online.



i have 2 like that. one of which i currently has no idea what to do with it.



The last info we have on this is the May 2015 financial reports from CCP before they bought up their bonds and went dark again.

It showed about parity in loss of average online users and income from subscriptions. So roughly 80-90% of the drop in player online counts translated into subscription loss.

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#90 - 2015-08-25 18:04:08 UTC
Tippia wrote:
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.



Wrong again. Bounties have no counter. Missions, Incursions, trading all have sinks that help balance the faucet.

Bounties from ratting and missions are 100% facuet. LP from Missions are huge sinks. There is no sinks from Null ratting.

Even blue loot has sinks in the form of taxes on transactions (NPC Buy Orders)... but these are relatively small.

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#91 - 2015-08-25 18:05:09 UTC
Tippia wrote:


Frostys Virpio wrote:
Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store.
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.


You get 1k isk for every LP you get which is the price you pay to use them in the LP store. Most ratting is done without ESS so there isn't nearly enough LP generated to burn all that ISK.
Salvos Rhoska
#92 - 2015-08-25 18:06:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Markus Reese wrote:


I would rather have 50k players creating 60k log ins instead of 35k players creating same number of log ins. That means the game is more enjoyable, meaning we all win (well, those of us who pride on player skill and not API data)

Edit:

Market talk above. What would happen in markets if we put in transasction threshholds?

So anything less 100 isk can have the 0.01 increments. Less 1,000 have 0.1 increments, 10,000 is at 1 isk increments and so forth. Simply put, type in new price, and it rounds it to the appropriate increment level automatically.

This will mean that the pricing game will force more dramatic pricing fluctuations. It would encourage players to develop and plan more lucrative market locations. That can lead to more hubs and what not potentially.

I am going to put this in the features and idea thread. Will link shortly.


1) I agree. More players on less accounts (as in people reducing account number and focusing on the remaining fewer) promotes community and real interaction.
The more accounts people have concurrently, the less their interdependancy is on other actual players.

2) The isk increments of your threshold suggestion are so small, that it pragmatically matters not at all.
Basically it amounts only to an automated system which moves the decimal point along, for the same result as now.
Even at enormous volumes of units, I dont think it would make any real difference.
Even if the increment was increased to far larger margins, this would result in disenfranchisement of other traders, on a "first come, first served" basis, and lead to utter domination of hubs on commodities by whomever gets their first with enough volume, whom then set the price against which everyone else has to take a substantial loss in order to compete. Not good.

My counter suggestion, is increasing trading taxes nominally without recourse through skilling.
Especially and crucially in HS, which anyways is unduly safe for transit of product once within, and from within, CONCORD ensured expanse.
This is the one BEST place to house an isk sink, and work the market against inflation.
Why?
Because before any market sourced product is destroyed, it has to pass through this system, unless sourced locally directly from manufacturers or procurers. Everything else, including especially insured ships, have to overcome this first, inorder to recoup cost. Even combat sourced modules would be cheaper as bought directly from the procurer, than from the market, IF you know the guy who has them.

Production by yourself, or in corp/alliance, takes a huge jump in fiscal sense, locally and "within the family", as it is not subject to the trader tax. Corps can and will reimburse the difference. Better to you, than to an NPC.

This is especially relevant o HS markets, where thr biggest and most numerous traders lie, in safety.
Trading tax, especially in HS, should be raised so as to promote dissemination of product, sourcing and production elsewhere theoughout the EVE universe. Jita is convenient, but also, exploited, and to the detriment of the trading game because of essential monopoly. Yes, the market there works. But it would be even better, for everyone, and thr game, if trading was dispersed throughout it.

And ohshit, Im drunk posting again...
Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#93 - 2015-08-25 18:08:34 UTC
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Tippia wrote:


Frostys Virpio wrote:
Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store.
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.


You get 1k isk for every LP you get which is the price you pay to use them in the LP store. Most ratting is done without ESS so there isn't nearly enough LP generated to burn all that ISK.



All isk you "GET" from the LP store is a transaction between players and has no net effect on Isk in the game.

LP is 100% Sink as every isk spent to convert into products is eaten by CCP and every Isk gained from sale of products is a lateral isk transaction.

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#94 - 2015-08-25 18:10:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Market McSelling Alt wrote:
Wrong again. Bounties have no counter.
Again?! LMAO No. You really are desperate, aren't you? Lol

Top tip: “again” only counts if there are at least two errors. So far, there are zero.

Because yes they do, partly due to how a large portion of bounties are tied to LP, and partly because you can't actually get those bounties without sinking a lot of ISK. That's just how the game inherently works: you can't create ISK without destroying ISK (or vice versa). It's just that, in no case are they balanced 1:1 (because that would be bad for the economy).

Frostys Virpio wrote:
You get 1k isk for every LP you get which is the price you pay to use them in the LP store. Most ratting is done without ESS so there isn't nearly enough LP generated to burn all that ISK.
Sure, but that still doesn't let you disentangle the monolithic “LP Store” item we have available. Agent rewards are designed pretty much the same, but with some added fuzziness due to sec level, but as you point out, we don't know who does what with their cash. So the best we can do if we want to look at the faucet-sink balance is to lump all the related activities together, which defeats the purpose of what we're trying to do.
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#95 - 2015-08-25 18:11:11 UTC
Market McSelling Alt wrote:
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Tippia wrote:


Frostys Virpio wrote:
Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store.
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.


You get 1k isk for every LP you get which is the price you pay to use them in the LP store. Most ratting is done without ESS so there isn't nearly enough LP generated to burn all that ISK.



All isk you "GET" from the LP store is a transaction between players and has no net effect on Isk in the game.

LP is 100% Sink as every isk spent to convert into products is eaten by CCP and every Isk gained from sale of products is a lateral isk transaction.


No it's not 100% sink because you get the ISK to burn on the LP store attached to those LP. It's close to neutral but probably a tiny faucet because you more than likely have people with un-used LP in their wallet while the ISK paid-out after each site can be used anyway.

You get both the LP and the ISK to make the purchase on the LP store for sites completion. It should be even and then generate a small sink with transaction taxes but I'm pretty sure the taxes don't cover all the LP that never got used.
Markus Reese
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#96 - 2015-08-25 18:12:42 UTC
Salvos Rhoska wrote:


And ohshit, Im drunk posting again...


Oh, that makes excellent sense actually (the stuff I took out). It does bring up an interesting concept. Somebody playing the hardcore 0.01 isk game. If changing that little bit each time somebody changes order, well suddenly you are losing isk on the deal because you ate up your profit margin on brokerage taxes. Hit on a pretty sweet area of focus actually. If changes to orders take time (potentially taken off market for short period of time) then will need to be a much more savvy trader. Forecasting where you think the price is heading, how much undercut, etc.

To quote Lfod Shi

The ratting itself is PvE. Getting away with it is PvP.

Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#97 - 2015-08-25 18:13:36 UTC
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Market McSelling Alt wrote:
Frostys Virpio wrote:
Tippia wrote:


Frostys Virpio wrote:
Incursion is a smaller faucet than "advertised" by the graph since most player would burn the ISK on the LP store.
That doesn't actually make it a smaller faucet. At best, it makes it one that has some counter-balancing, but then, they all do… Since we have no way of disentangling missions and incursions (and ESS, hah!), the best we can do it treat them as a unity of “LP-based ratting”, which makes it too broad a category to really be useful.


You get 1k isk for every LP you get which is the price you pay to use them in the LP store. Most ratting is done without ESS so there isn't nearly enough LP generated to burn all that ISK.



All isk you "GET" from the LP store is a transaction between players and has no net effect on Isk in the game.

LP is 100% Sink as every isk spent to convert into products is eaten by CCP and every Isk gained from sale of products is a lateral isk transaction.


No it's not 100% sink because you get the ISK to burn on the LP store attached to those LP. It's close to neutral but probably a tiny faucet because you more than likely have people with un-used LP in their wallet while the ISK paid-out after each site can be used anyway.

You get both the LP and the ISK to make the purchase on the LP store for sites completion. It should be even and then generate a small sink with transaction taxes but I'm pretty sure the taxes don't cover all the LP that never got used.



No you don't . You "get" no isk from LP that isn't given from other players. Bounties are not "tied" to LP, they are a faucet with many sources in a different category.

If CCP broke down Mission Bounty from Other Bounty, then maybe we could try and go down that road, but they didn't. Therefore all Isk spent to make LP worth something is a Sink and all isk from the LP produced products is a lateral move between players. Period

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#98 - 2015-08-25 18:15:18 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Market McSelling Alt wrote:
Wrong again. Bounties have no counter.
Again?! LMAO No. You really are desperate, aren't you? Lol

Top tip: “again” only counts if there are at least two errors. So far, there are zero.

Because yes they do, partly due to how a large portion of bounties are tied to LP, and partly because you can't actually get those bounties without sinking a lot of ISK. That's just how the game inherently works: you can't create ISK without destroying ISK (or vice versa). It's just that, in no case are they balanced 1:1 (because that would be bad for the economy).


My Ishtar + drones was a flat investement that paid itself over and again and it destroy 0 ISK to get more ISK paid in the form of bounties. Should CCP check my account for hacking or I'm missing something that destroy my ISK to generate ISK?

Bounties are not tied to LP. Mission completion are, FW kills are, CONCORD incursion payout are but raw bounties are not unless you happen to rat under an ESS and those aren't exactly used all that much from what I see.

Kill rat ----> collect bounties on the next 20 minutes marks.
Market McSelling Alt
Doomheim
#99 - 2015-08-25 18:16:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Market McSelling Alt
Tippia wrote:
Market McSelling Alt wrote:
Wrong again. Bounties have no counter.
Again?! LMAO No. You really are desperate, aren't you? Lol

Top tip: “again” only counts if there are at least two errors. So far, there are zero.

Because yes they do, partly due to how a large portion of bounties are tied to LP, and partly because you can't actually get those bounties without sinking a lot of ISK. That's just how the game inherently works: you can't create ISK without destroying ISK (or vice versa). It's just that, in no case are they balanced 1:1 (because that would be bad for the economy).



You just said everything has a counter. I said Rat Bounty does not. I am correct, you are not.

Spin it anyway you want. Bounty itself has no counter. It is isk deposited from CCP on high into your account with no further action needed from you. If you get LP and the subsequent sinks from turning in the mission, it has nothing to do with the bounty that you received from CCP. Plenty of missions are not turned in, doesn't erase the rat bounties. Plenty of missions are run without a single shot, that doesn't increase the LP isk sink.

You can't attach the two. Bounties have no sinks. LP, Blue Loot, Salvage, Loot all do. What you said was wrong.

Edit: I was too slow, Frosty up there said it perfectly.

CCP Quant: Of all those who logon in Eve, 1.5% do Incursions, 13.8% PVP and 19.2% run Missions while 22.4% mine.

40.7% Join a fleet. The idea that Eve is a PVP game is false, the social fabric is in Missions and Mining.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#100 - 2015-08-25 18:20:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Frostys Virpio wrote:
My Ishtar + drones was a flat investement that paid itself over and again and it destroy 0 ISK to get more ISK paid in the form of bounties. Should CCP check my account for hacking or I'm missing something that destroy my ISK to generate ISK?
Just because it is small does not mean you can just ignore it — you had to sink ISK to get that ISK. Again, that's just how the game is set up.

Quote:
Bounties are not tied to LP. Mission completion are, FW kills are, CONCORD incursion payout are but raw bounties are not unless you happen to rat under an ESS and those aren't exactly used all that much from what I see.
There is a portion of bounties that are only affected by the market fees (same as blue loot, which is another huge faucet), yes, but that still leaves a portion that comes from activities where the cash you earn is supposed to be fed into an LP store.

Market McSelling Alt wrote:
You just said everything has a counter. I said Rat Bounty does not.
And you are wrong: rat bounties have the same sink as everything else does. In fact, if there is one faucet I'd say has no corresponding sink, it's NPC goods, but even then it's only on the technicality that the trade does both at once and it ends up as an indivisible net faucet.