EVE General Discussion

Then I dont understand what specific context you mention in the previous post , as the one in which you felt I was framing it, but to which you could not agree.

In what context would PvE not benefit from more PvP competition and conflict (whether combat or otherwise)?

Because PVP is like a fire, it needs Oxygen to burn (PVE) and if there isn't enough Oxygen then the fire goes out.

Right now we know that PVP is burning out the PVE because the PVE people are leaving. CCP Fozzie confirms, and the killboard numbers are relatively stable even with lower player counts.

So you want to make the fire burn faster without adding more oxygen? I think we need to make the fire bigger by adding more wood, letting it breath and get the oxygen it needs.

Basically, You bring in more opportunities for PVE, then PVP benefits. Since PVP benefits, it helps make PVE better too.
Its a spiral effect.

CCP over the last year has been doing the Toilet Bowl effect. We need to feed the fire, not make it burn faster.

Yes, I tend to agree. There are some things that need recognition when they are shown to be false.
Its not a big deal to admit a mistake and it maintains a niveau of integrity and culpability in discussion.
We all make mistakes, sooner or later.

I make efforts to recognize when Ive been shown wrong, address it, apologize and correct it.
Its inconvenient, a bit embarassing, but worth it. I dont catch all of them, or even realize them, but I try.

On the otherhand, you've now made it even more bitter a pill to swallow.
Its often best to leave a defeated antagonist a way out with some of their dignity intact, once your point has been made.
Atleast once.
Cornered people get vicious.
If they dont take it the first time, then yeah, unfortunately they have shown themselves to be dishonest.
Theynwill gladly point out your mistakes, but resolutely refuse to admit theirnown, and discussion with them is no longer lateral.

Back to topic:

I dont see why people so vehemently resist the idea of incorporating more player competition and conflict into PvE.

It doesnt have to be combat PvP. Per my example earlier, I stole ice out of a miners cans. He aggressed me, ofc, but nonetheless, I never fired a single shot. Another example I gave is making Ice fields a random sweeping spawn, which would increase player competition (non combat, again).

There are ways to increase player interaction and competition without ships exploding.

I thinknsome of us have become so locked in (false) ideals of what PvP and PvE are, that we have forgotten to think a bit outside the box for ways they can be integrated.

You view PvP and PvE as dichotomous opposites. But they are not.
PvP merely means conflict and competition against other players.
PvE merely means conflict and competition against NPCs.

They are not opposites.
They are two completely different concepts that can and do co-exist in the same activities.

I understand your logic, but I dont think you are understsnding mine.

PvP, in EVE is the universal context within which all PvE occurs.
Isolation of PvE from that is detrimental, and contradicts the universal rule above.

What I am suggesting and trying to formulate to you, is that all PvE MUST involve player conflict and competition, whether combat or otherwise.

You claim that in EVE PvP cannot exist without PvE.
I rebutt, that in EVE no PvE can exist without PvP.

PvP as in player competition and conflict, combat or otherwise.

Lets consider some unthinkable examples:
-Ice/asteroid/gas fields are changed so that an area effect disables any and all weaponry. Worse yet, Ice fields only spawn as Mining Missions, and are inaccessible by other players.
-Mission sites become uninvadable. Nobody else can enter it. Even worse if its also implemented on combat signatures.
-Anoms dissapear from the scanner and become inaccessible deadspace for the benefit of the first arrival.
-Incursion systems everywhere have an immediate and overwhelming CONCORD reaction to all player aggression.
-Explorers are immune to aggression while hacking a site, due to a forcefield projected by the node.

Would these be better for the game and retention?

As to the idea of new missions by another poster, its pouring water into a leaking bucket.
The quantity of missions does not change their essential boredome and repetetiveness.
Nobody reads the mission text more than once.
Invariably, those missions too become a matter of tedious routine.
Whether there are 20 missions, or 200, its a measure that does not remebdy the core problem of this activity, merely extends it.

The core problem in ALL PvE in EVE, is insufficient player competition and conflict.
Adding more PvE of that nature fixes nothing.
Changing that PvE to include more player competition, however, fixes those issues and creates immeasurable content.

There is no rational reason, for why PvE should not involve player competition and conflict.
Why should PvE players not have the same thrill and excitement of player competition as combat players?
Depriving them of that relegates them to tedium and boredom in the absence of exactly that which makes a PvP MMO that exists in a shared sandbox so exciting and dynamic. Other players competing with them.

Its a huge disservice to them, and the game overall.
Sure, they could then farm with impugnity, no risk, no competition. Farmville in spaceships.
But if they want to do that, it raises the question whether there isnt some other game more suited to their preferences.

If people played as much as they whined on forums about stuff, Eve would be in a better place.

Just sayin'.

/me zoidbergs out as the flames speed toward him

It's not, at least not from a world engine perspective. PvE's role in all of that is to faucet ISK into the economy, but it is not alone in this. There are already a pretty significant faucet attached to pure combat, and there's nothing that actually prevents it and other forms of PvP to provide all the ISK the world needs.

Sure, in the current implementation, PvP makes PvE possible and PvE makes PvP possible, but of the two, the PvE part is far easier to outright remove from the mechanics and still have a game left. If you want to see what the opposite looks like, just log in to Sisi and play for a bit — it quickly becomes utterly meaningless.

Isk Faucet from Pure Combat?!

Do tell?

Insurance you say? It doesn't cover modules, and in most cases doesn't cover the build costs of the ship either.

SiSi you say? Yeah, that is exactly what this game would look like if you took PVE out and have PVP all the time. You have PVP without consequence and everyone blows up everyone.

Many people apparently hold the belief, right or wrong that the game is Good Enough to play but not Good Enough to pay for.

Which is why Plex is so popular among us.

Except there is entire games build around PVE only... maybe not the crap kind Eve offers. But your circular argumentative style is shinning here again.

No, PVP can't provide everything the game needs, someone still has to make the ships to be lost, make the ammo to be shot and there actually needs to be a reason to undock besides "lets 1v1 at the sun"

Otherwise, see SiSi. It is a PVPers dream, no need to ever mine or rat, just shoot stuff.

Ideological soulmates then.



The motivation underlies everything. Bad motivation and bad thinking practices = Crap Ideas, and that's what we see here (the idea that "more PVE" in a game crammed full of PVE is the solution to any problem, it's idiotic). At the end of the day, what matters is the person sitting at the computer. If you feel insulted by the truth, you should talk to people who beleive in telling the truth, now should you?



As for PVE, look at Low Sec, CCP has spent years cramming PVE content in there (bringing high sec sites to low, adding new rewards to DED sites, clone soldiers, ghost sites, exclusive lvl 5s , FW pve and more) and it changed nothing, it didn't make low sec a more popular place to be, it just enriched the people already there and willing to take the risk.

CCP has done this for the whole game in general since I started in 2007 we've gotten sooo much PVE, new AI, new rewards and so forth. And yet most people who pve are doing old pve (regular missions, regular anomalies and exploration sites) and much of the new stuff goes unused or underused (YOU YOURSELF list the incursion communities as "a few hundred people").

I mean, how much historical evidence do you need to figure out that PVE is a non-issue? People either like EVE style PVE (like me, meaning they are probably engineer types who like to find way to build better mousetraps), or they don't and are deluding themselves that CCP can provide them some kind of 'meaningful npc content' despite years of evidence that CCP can't provide meaningful npc content.

That last bit is the important part. If CCP hasn't made good pve content in 12 years of EVE according to yall (I disagree, DED complexes are fun to me), what makes you think they are going to magically acquire the ability now? Most of you types don't even like Drifters. What makes you think they won't muff it up like Incarna? If you are concerned with EVE's survival, how could you possibly advocate wanton recklessness like that (ie devoting resources to something that are historically not good at)?