Player Features and Ideas Discussion

"The video idea is more of a way to improve existing player retention," is a baseless assumption? Motivation is pretty consistent across the whole industry. That's why there are other-game examples for the videos. The motivation philosophies are based on very simple, but established ideas.

..On an analogy in the thread, if I heard all about how deep chess is, but played it, receiving only a few pieces -- that's (foremost) not what I'd come for. A new player doesn't have to know what a capital does. It's huge. It's within the most-locked set of classes, so it's probably effective. ..It's the same with general stats and ship performance. There are a lot of methods of increasing effectiveness through SP, and fresh subs are brought very non-fluidly through progression. They can't even do anything about getting better stats. That's also unexpected with any MMO experience. In other words, it's nothing about niche play, because expectations aren't about niches, but non-linearity.


On moon goo,
It's more than just prices which could develop content. The trend of more accessibility is that more t2 ships and modules are in demand, less risk aversion comes from feeling like the tier-on-tier engagement is fair (that they can win), and if there really is more demand for and content with T2s.. there's the possibility of no supply at all.

There really is no great example of how unrestricted play effects T2 economies. At least with my corp, there are no T2s flown, because (for example) most of our engagements are outnumbered. Most of our engagements are "outnumbered", because most pilots looking for fresh corps are those with basically no SP. Yet, cost is plausibly a non-issue, as a lot of fresh pilots head straight for BSs; but again, if the ship seems inefficient, that ship probably won't be flown. There's no motivation in even playing the game for ISK, if there's no valid reason to spend it; and it probably seems repetitive farming for the same ship, for no progression. Feel free to describe any of these problems' causes or solutions. Some posts mention increased ISK income with increased ship tiers and techs, and that seems true. It's also more risk because of align speed and signature radius (and that not every pilot has hoards of empty null systems for farming). That's plausibly lots of null and WH traffic? That's perfect. That's reduced stabilized, FW farming? That's magnificent.


Negative feelings for subbing are never because "they've subbed before". Is that a worthy statement? Sure.. the price is "increasing", and if there's very little value coming from that sub -- "2M SP? That's tiny!"

Maybe the point is that the specific quote isn't really a sunk cost idea at all, because the criticism isn't that he feels like subbing only because he's already spent money on the game. If that were true, you'd basically be telling him to unsub. He's providing the idea that if the sub seems worth cancelling, he's finding it a problem with the progression system and how little gameplay and dynamism comes from it. There's a very strong notion of gathering in-game money and spending it, and the game can benefit from allowing that.

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Edit:

It comes up that the rebuttal for slightly "increased" retention, from more interesting progression, is possibly nulled out after they experience all of the ships. Honestly, then they've probably found content and a corp, yeah? If they're involved with capital engagements and fleets, that's exactly what's said would develop that deep interest in the game that comes with sustain. The game's selling a lot more than ships.

For somebody who writes so many words you, quite literally, say...nothing. That entire first paragraph of yours is a huge helping of non-sequitur. It literally does not follow from what I wrote. So, I'll just ignore it.

Oh for god's sake stop with the stupid chess analogy, this is an MMO, not a two player game with perfect information that is, IIRC, solvable via backwards induction. It is only slightly less dumb than trying to use checkers as an analogy.

I don't even know what you are trying to say with regards to moon goo. Looks like you are trying to hand wave aside the issue of moon goo and T2 manufacturing, but given the rambling and incoherent nature of that section...v0v

Regarding sunk costs and SP, that money is already spent and unrecoverable. If you paid for 5 years and trained that whole time, those expenditures are sunk--i.e. you cannot recover them (not in RL money), so the fact that you have been playing for 5 years should not be part of your decision making process.

The amount of SP has nothing to do with it.

I am not telling anyone to maintain their sub or to unsub. I'm saying that make the decision based on how one views that game today. Nothing more, nothing less.

I never said anything suggesting otherwise. Yet the statement was about fresh new players, not vets themeparking towards Golems then out of game. And further, that doesn't in any way actually address the point of exasperating the issue of ship cost with instant access to everything and no manner of progression.

Realistically, if we're simply talking the "leveling their ravens" route the idea of removing SP is like shooting yourself in the foot as that final hold is eliminated from the start. The ONLY thing that then remains is isk grinding since character development is eliminated. I can't think E've's case is helped by having character progression to it's most advanced aspects reduced to the cost of PLEX.

Yet brave, who you mentioned, seemed to do just fine with those same limitations. That pretty much places the issue squarely back on you. If they aren't playing it's not because of the ships or skills, it's because they don't properly understand how effective they can be due to ideas about the skill system like your own, and vets holding those same views not allowing them to experience that usefulness. The thing you seem to keep missing is that having every skill maxed doesn't fundamentally change the game. It just opens up more tools to do the exact same things slightly more effectively.

They have a non-linear experience in both the skill system itself as well as the game as a whole so it's a non issue with respect to the topic at hand. And yes, skills are situationally effective, which lends to their use as a strategic element of the game. That's pretty much their point, to allow for strategic specialization and enhancement and provide interest in the game on an additional level.

Oh, and CCP Rises idea...would almost certainly fall within the purview of Malcanis' Law: i.e. it would in no way benefit new players and almost surely benefit only older more established players (e.g. I'd have a great character for running NS anoms).

So, while CCP Rise is clearly thinking outside the box, I have to reject his idea on the basis of game balance. And it goes without saying your idea, Mara Rinn's idea and Areasia's too.

Bad ideas are just bad. So is dogmatism--i.e. you, Areasia and anyone thinking like you who refuse to even consider the contrary view point.

"Billions of ISK", "vets leveling their Golem" -- where is any of this implied? If new players are "leveling up their Raven" for the first sub or so, that still counts as part of the NPE. The original challenge on the idea of fresh characters in BSs is as follows:

Would you like to reiterate?


That's already how it is.


The NPE videos claim that the NPE is "not really like B-R or EVE stories at all.. They're there for these emergent, unpredictable, interactive experiences. Instead, what they find is this linear, predictable, reward-based, isolated systems." I, and apparently plenty of scientific studies, can tell you why its helpful fixing this, but it doesn't seem like you have an interesting or accurate argument to start.


EVE's a pretty simple experience. A fresh player can't be shown what it's like playing well if they're limited to T1 ammo and frigates.

Also, freedom benefiting veterans is fine. They're already benefited by an insurmountable "achievement" over fresh subs. Making power and effectiveness correlative with "money paid" cheapens the experience and the sandbox feature list. We're talking about motivation. If newbies can achieve something, the idea is that they will. If they can't, the idea is that they unsub. Why wouldn't the true sandbox be the best design?

And every one who plexs can get a 51 day perfect mining alt per plex.

I have my doubts and it would be an enormous gamble to take with the market place based an a huge assumption.


rebalance the meta stuff? All of it? That's huge change and again a huge gamble. Also tearing the heart out of the meta 4 market would destroy the income of combat anomaly runners etc who make most of their profit from them. That wouldn't be a death knell on the meta 4 market, more of an assassination.


Other games may well do things differently but guess what? That's why different people like different games. Changing the skill mechanism changes and affects every single part of Eve directly or indirectly. Doing so would almost certainly drive the current player base away immediately. Do you really think enough new players would instantly sign up to keep that number of subscriptions running?

For the good of your own heart, don't google "Teiricide".

Or market equilibrium.

Time is a commodity. Just like money.

Actually, I'd say that time is a more valuable commodity than ISK. And that's working exactly as intended.

And no new player knows enough nor has the ISK to take advantage of CCP Rise's idea. The players that do, will be the veterans.