These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE General Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

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

First post
Author
Zozoll Neblyn
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1441 - 2015-09-06 03:35:09 UTC
So long as you are always forced to choose between staying blue and going Awox or leaving the alliance entirely, the perfect unity of the mega alliances will always be unbreakable.

Add more choices and things might get more chaotic, and we might start seeing interesting results.

Perhaps a few subfactions might emerge among the Goons who conspire to overthrow the overlords? Or break off and become their own swarms? They might even ally with an outside alliance to achieve their goals.

Then outside alliances would be relevant again.

Alavaria Fera wrote:
Adamai wrote:
are you aware the game is playable to people if they join one of the power blocks

I'm glad to know it's playable... I mean the highsec lifestyle or the moa interceptor gang are both great as well but yeah

I definitely love my life as a block


That's because you're the type of player who likes to just push an "I win" button.

I'm glad the game works for you.
Luckytania
Bullets of Justice
#1442 - 2015-09-06 04:41:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Luckytania
Tippia wrote:
...
The ship skill tiercide effort is the only thing that I can think of that remotely matches the “good for new players, bad for vets” description, but again in practice, it was a case of making things more intuitive rather than just easier. The ship prerequisites make far more sense now, and while there are a couple of instances here and there where you can get into a ship sooner than you could before, the thing about ships is that just having the skill itself is not enough — you need all the surrounding support stuff to make it not horrible. So in the end, those changes are so utterly minute that they don't actually make the effort any less in any meaningful way. Rather, it's an impression that you could have picked a different skill path (when the Orca got new prereqs, this was a common complaint)
...

Tiercide and ship balancing effort / impacts. I am surprised after reading this thread neither of those were referenced more often.

I did see "Eve is real" quoted. I'm pretty dang sure some of the advertising verbiage which was persuasive to me to start playing was "persistent universe".

Well, I did not find it very persistent when I starting logging on and finding that parts were starting to fall off my goran ship as it was sitting in the hangar. Or if everything was still mounted that a fit which worked last time I undocked would no longer allow all modules to be powered up after I was out in space.

What I would have found persistent was a change such that the original / old production models could no longer be manufactured and any and all balancing impacts took effect only to the new units (name_of_whatever MarkII) coming off the manufacturing line.


  • Yes, that would take more time for ship re-balancing to fully take effect since it requires attrition as all the old ones get destroyed in normal usage.

  • Yes, the market values of some 'original' models would have gone through the roof. Arguably an 'unfair' profit bonanza for the owners of those "golden oldies".

  • Yes, there would have, in some cases, been an 'unfair' advantage from having / using an old production run unit. (Which combined with inflated collector's model pricing would make them more gank attractive.)

  • Yes, there would have been a substantial 'price' to pay in complexity for CCP code and database implementation.


To all those complaints my response would essentially be to players "Suck it up. Eve isn't about fair." and to CCP "Suck it up. There are consequences to your actions."

But then Eve would have been a persistent universe.

Tippia wrote:
those changes are so utterly minute

Most observably they were not, to my game play. In the final analysis as to how the game functions, I can agree. How the changes were implemented, however, was abysmal.


Perhaps, if ship re-balancing has now reached a new stability point, this will all fade away. But to be on-topic, that truly is one of the reasons I haven't been bothering to log on much this last year.
Zihao
Doomheim
#1443 - 2015-09-06 05:05:46 UTC
I take it from that Firefly-inspire rant there were some ships that were changed in ways you believe hurt old players? Can you elaborate in a more technical way? Feel free to retain the Malcom Reynolds persona.
Luckytania
Bullets of Justice
#1444 - 2015-09-06 05:12:02 UTC
Tippia wrote:
If a player doesn't enjoy PvP dynamics, then he will not like EVE very much. By saying right out that EVE is a PvP game, he knows what to expect. That is a lot better than dangling some elusive “PvE content” (much less the contradictory “competitive PvE”) in front of him, because at the end of the day, the core PvP aspects that come inherent with that content will eventually make him miserable. So that's helpful from the very get-go in filtering the kind of player that might be interested in EVE.

I 100% agree with this.

I'm sure probably the majority of this thread would classify me as a care bear. (Even though I and/or one of my alts do have a few kills on the board.) Fight when I have to. Fight when there's a reason. Well, sometimes even used to go roaming looking for trouble. Pirate

However, when I started it was a closed universe. If you wanted / needed to buy something you had to earn your ISK. I liked the idea that a war could not be waged unless the parties each had a sufficient economy in place to support the expense. Something which drew me into the game - TANSTAFL. "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

Part of the frisson to properly being a "care bear" is fully internalizing the standard phrase "Don't undock in what you're not prepared to lose." I've spent many an hour in roid and ice belts - but always with one eye over my shoulder. And always with an acute awareness of "How tilted is this fit to ISK/hour versus defense?".

And always with an awareness that eventually, no matter how safe you try to be, someday "they're gonna get you." Lol

IMO, PLEX is a plaque on the game. I've encountered far too many people who just drop real world money to buy 'whatever' because they don't want to pay the dues / earn it by playing the game to do what they just "I wanna! Now!".

I've seen several comments in this thread about the need to "add more risk" to 'PvE' to make it more exiting. I tend to agree. But only on a level playing field.

If you want to gank, fine. But you better make a profit or you won't be doing it long. Or you better be prepared to haul that Veldspar, boy, to pay for your next gank attempt. ("No money for gas, no driving Papa's car this weekend.")
Luckytania
Bullets of Justice
#1445 - 2015-09-06 05:22:22 UTC
Zihao wrote:
I take it from that Firefly-inspire rant there were some ships that were changed in ways you believe hurt old players? Can you elaborate in a more technical way? Feel free to retain the Malcom Reynolds persona.

Actually, no, that wasn't part of my intended point at all.

As I thought I made fairly plain: " In the final analysis as to how the game functions, I can agree. "

My rant was all about *how* it was done. With no statements about what I might, or might not, have felt was done for the better or worse.

"Persistent" was my point.

In a 'persistent' world, when I leave the car in the garage on Friday night I don't have to check that all the parts are still bolted on Monday morning when I need to take it out to do some work.

But I fully understand that it probably won't be possible to have in dash GPS on my 1956 Chevy. Have to buy a new model to get the new features. (Or, perhaps a better analogy, my early 1970's Corvette doesn't become gelded into a lower powered 1980's model.)

What I *own*, what is physically in the garage, does not change its characteristics while I am not watching.
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#1446 - 2015-09-06 05:30:07 UTC
Except for game balance things HAVE to change. Since otherwise the oldies get all the advantages. Not just 90% of them like they did due to the mineral changes.
So, HTFU, deal with it. Every MMO changes for balance. And CCP didn't just delete the OP items so be glad.
Luckytania
Bullets of Justice
#1447 - 2015-09-06 05:39:42 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
Except for game balance things HAVE to change. Since otherwise the oldies get all the advantages.

Seems to me I addressed that frame of, almost, thought.

Nevyn Auscent wrote:
So, HTFU, deal with it. ... so be glad.

What a productive response to a thread discussing a declining player base. Roll
Malt Zedong
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#1448 - 2015-09-06 05:43:22 UTC
It is very different to dislike pvp and to dislike the pvpers.

WorldTradersGuild.Com [WTG] - We are here for the long haul.

Zihao
Doomheim
#1449 - 2015-09-06 06:34:18 UTC
Luckytania wrote:
Zihao wrote:
I take it from that Firefly-inspire rant there were some ships that were changed in ways you believe hurt old players? Can you elaborate in a more technical way? Feel free to retain the Malcom Reynolds persona.

Actually, no, that wasn't part of my intended point at all.

As I thought I made fairly plain: " In the final analysis as to how the game functions, I can agree. "

My rant was all about *how* it was done. With no statements about what I might, or might not, have felt was done for the better or worse.

"Persistent" was my point.

In a 'persistent' world, when I leave the car in the garage on Friday night I don't have to check that all the parts are still bolted on Monday morning when I need to take it out to do some work.

But I fully understand that it probably won't be possible to have in dash GPS on my 1956 Chevy. Have to buy a new model to get the new features. (Or, perhaps a better analogy, my early 1970's Corvette doesn't become gelded into a lower powered 1980's model.)

What I *own*, what is physically in the garage, does not change its characteristics while I am not watching.


What's rigid continuity have at all to do with the specific item you quoted previously about changes negatively impacting veteran players in particular? It's not as though all veteran players have a massive stock of old depreciated assets and it's entirely possible for a new player to get his hands on a whole lot of something right before a change to the game impacts its utility. Perhaps you have an anecdotal example in mind?
Mir Jana
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#1450 - 2015-09-06 06:39:22 UTC
Well, from my perspective, following things do need a slight change to keep people from leaving or at least to keep people interested in playing EVE.

EVE-wise:

1) Risk vs reward - increase the risk and lower the rewards. Even if I rat in empire space with a 60m sp toon, I can make 100m per day just from the faction spawns and anomaly loot. Im not even considering the incursions as I never ran them and consider it being a foul stench which kinda ruined the beauty of hi sec.

2) Moons need to deplete resources - Alliances claim space and hold it, increasing in numbers during the time of stagnation. "Re-spawnable" moons call for more drastic action like uproot and conquest.

3) Kill the damn jump bridges - It was fun as hell when you had roams in 0.0 space to kill the parties which tried to move from one system to another. Carriers did the hauling. Not to mention that if you were a leech ratter, you could make tons of isk AND you would only claim that isk if you managed to bring it to hi sec for sales.

4) Exploration - this needs to be redone as you can make insane amounts of isk with no risk at all.

5) Missions in hi sec - you cannot make as much money as you used to, but you can still make a nice batch of isk. However you would maybe have to alter the amount of times you do a mission rather then decrease the drop rates, as done in one of the previous patches. Limit mission types in form of allowing 1 mission every 24 hours. So you don't get extravaganza 2-3 times per day. Once you do all the missions for that single day, you have to wait 24 hours before going for the next mission set.

6) Limit losses in hi sec to haulers - was more fond of the low sec bs camping and low sec piracy then this hi sec gankerton stuff. Not fun, its just stale. Sooner or later, it will come to a point where catalysts will start to pop empty haulers just for the sake of tears. Limit it by not allowing

7) Dont disclose stuff you introduce to EVE - whats the point of saying "Hey people, we are giving you this and that, its ******* hard and awesome, but heres how you can properly solo it...."

Player wise:

1) Figure out if you wanna be a CEO or follower - cant be both

2) Be nice to people who are in your corp - why all the screaming and yelling??? I understand you, CEO or FC, were molested as children or are unhappy with your current RL situation, but no need to take it out on your corp mates. I understand the hormones are kicking off for the younger studs, but a 25-40 year old fellow dont appreciate it if you, the 18 year old hairless dude, yells at him on ts.

3) Full API checks aint worth it - we now have illegal fire, we had the ability to limit hanger thefts, there are out of game websites where you can check up the character involved in the recruitment process. So no point in asking for an API as chances are 50/50 that the newcomer is a spy. Corporation asks for disclosure of assets, skills and contacts and in 99% we really dont want others digging up through our garbage. Either dont ask for it or CEO has to disclose his full api as well. The Full Monty from both sides. "You want to trust me? Well, I want to trust you." :)

4) Corp access - You will get robbed, whether you like it or not. Either will you lose assets, which can be compensated with more play or you will lose members/quality gameplay, simply because you decided not to put out. However, you can get to decide what are you willing to let the thief take. Same principle like in pvp. Hand out what you are willing to lose.

5) If miners wanna mine in 0.0, then dont force them into pvp. Unless sov is under attack (which aint happened on a global scale since BoB died). Same goes for ratters. Most corps charge their guys 5-15%.

6) Overall recruitment attitude - Why lie about your corp? Dont sell your corp as something it aint. If you are small, you dont offer much but saying you do will only get you a 100m sp player who will get pissed off and leave after a few days.

Those would be some of my points, confident that they dont agree with the views of most :)
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#1451 - 2015-09-06 06:53:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Kinete Jenius wrote:
Yeah the "summer of rage" over the internal greed is good memo and all the other stuff surely had nothing to do with the number drop during Incarna (which came months after the 3rd and last incursion release patch).
What makes you think that?

Quote:
Nope the problem clearly was only that damned PVE you want nerfed/removed so badly.
Who are you even talking to?

Quote:
For having been killed by a PVE expansion eve had awesome numbers on average till 2014.
Exactly, so the sharp decline from Incursion can't really be attributed to the game hitting its peak and having chewed through all its customer base.

Quote:
I could also match up the drops to the releases of popular games that were free or highly popular but that clearly couldn't have any effect right?
They did have an effect, most notably the dip that happened right before the release of Crucible, and which put a dent in what looked like a cautious recovery in response to the promises of a refocused dev effort. It happens almost every year. The neat thing about those dips is that they're so easily identifiable with their fairly consistent two-week long inverted ski-jump shape.
Zihao
Doomheim
#1452 - 2015-09-06 07:04:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Zihao
Mir Jana wrote:

Those would be some of my points, confident that they dont agree with the views of most :)


That succinct description of exploration as risk-free and lucrative leads me to believe you've never taken part in it. :)
Mir Jana
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#1453 - 2015-09-06 07:27:15 UTC
went to providence, scanned down relics, made a fortune on salvage and sansha tower bpcs
Zihao
Doomheim
#1454 - 2015-09-06 07:29:31 UTC
Ah yes, Providence. A region recently known far and wide for it's lack of risk. Lol
Mir Jana
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#1455 - 2015-09-06 07:34:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Mir Jana
ok, lemme rephrase :)

went to Curse, done relics, made a fortune on domination bpcs
went to Deklein, done relics and 6/10s, made a fortune on dread bpcs and faction loot

at this point, if I go to walmart and have my laptop with me, with EVE active and running, I probably will get a true sansha bpc at the cashier desk.... ... :S
Zihao
Doomheim
#1456 - 2015-09-06 07:43:25 UTC
Clearly you should write a guide to this. You've found a way to beat the RNG and simultaneously avoid any risk in some of the most dangerous regions of the game.
Zozoll Neblyn
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1457 - 2015-09-06 12:10:14 UTC
Luckytania wrote:

Tiercide and ship balancing effort / impacts. I am surprised after reading this thread neither of those were referenced more often.

I did see "Eve is real" quoted. I'm pretty dang sure some of the advertising verbiage which was persuasive to me to start playing was "persistent universe".

Well, I did not find it very persistent when I starting logging on and finding that parts were starting to fall off my goran ship as it was sitting in the hangar. Or if everything was still mounted that a fit which worked last time I undocked would no longer allow all modules to be powered up after I was out in space.

What I would have found persistent was a change such that the original / old production models could no longer be manufactured and any and all balancing impacts took effect only to the new units (name_of_whatever MarkII) coming off the manufacturing line.


Yeah. That does kind of break the immersion. Makes it all feel less real.

Same goes for Jump Fatigue. There is no in game explanation for why the physics of space itself changed everywhere, and all at once.


Quote:



Perhaps, if ship re-balancing has now reached a new stability point, this will all fade away. But to be on-topic, that truly is one of the reasons I haven't been bothering to log on much this last year.


I wish that ship rebalancing didn't always take the form of a nerf.
VaL Iscariot
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#1458 - 2015-09-06 13:08:48 UTC
maybe OP should follow the trend and unsub. Can i have your stuff?
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#1459 - 2015-09-06 15:08:48 UTC
Zozoll Neblyn wrote:
So long as you are always forced to choose between staying blue and going Awox or leaving the alliance entirely, the perfect unity of the mega alliances will always be unbreakable.

Add more choices and things might get more chaotic, and we might start seeing interesting results.

Perhaps a few subfactions might emerge among the Goons who conspire to overthrow the overlords? Or break off and become their own swarms? They might even ally with an outside alliance to achieve their goals.

Then outside alliances would be relevant again.

Yeah that's what they said about siphons.

Zozoll Neblyn wrote:
That's because you're the type of player who likes to just push an "I win" button.

I'm glad the game works for you.

I can't brag too much, Boat does a lot of button pushing that is more important. But at least if the bomb goes off I can get on killmails.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?

Markus Reese
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#1460 - 2015-09-06 17:10:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Markus Reese
For major changes, (talking the above persistence), I actually would have liked ship revisions. Only current on market, old in contracts. BPs and in productions get auto revised. Yeah, sucks a bit more for database potentially, but boy would it be fun. The YC114 year of drake or something. Would be pretty neat.... Rofl... Even keep old model. I would love to fly zombie moa still.

The bits about breaking alliances and blues, best way for that is with a better infrastructure plan. More active maintenance and resource zoning a bit more valued?

To quote Lfod Shi

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