Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello,

As a new player I have had a real time since I began a few months ago earning a living and keeping in PvP ships besides basic T1 Frigates. I have tried several different methods recommended to me by Corp mates, Youtube tutorials, and this forum board. I've moved from Relic and Data hunting in Sansha space, to running C5's in a Stratios for blue loot and data/relic sites I can 'ninja' run, to now highsec anomoly running for DED escalations in highsec/lowsec. All of these, one after the other, have proved to be a general waste of time and not much return for my effort and time spent in these activities. Long time players in my corp have also stopped doing any PvE activities at all and rested on their 'banks' earned in previous years and sometimes buying Plex to supplement their income from station trading. As a new player I dont yet have a bank or infrastructure, or even the skills, necessary to efficiently Station trade across regions or even in Jita or Amarr.

Loot has become worth even less and rarer and harder to obtain, this trend started even before I began my journey in EvE I am told. I think the community, market, and especially newer players would greatly benefit from some kind of 'Buff' or control system put in place for the loot/reward system in this game. For new players in particular station trading and other guaranteed isk making methods are not available for months or years due to skills and needing enough isk to even start these activities. I think this game would greatly benefit from a 'Base' amount guaranteed to drop from a wreck, data site, relic site, or any other RNG based loot delivery system. I get that the valuable drops need to be rare, otherwise they lose their value in the monetary and personal feeling of reward sense. But grinding for hours to find that relic site or get that DED escalations spawn only to open the can or wreck and get nothing is unacceptable to me. And it keeps happening over and over with no reward or incentive to keep me going, spending time on activities other than the funner parts of the game I am trying to simply fund.

I think there needs to be some sort of control in place that keeps this from happening, some guaranteed return for grinding activities exists in any other MMO I have ever played except this one. And it's a bit crazy because losing one ship can be so much more devastating in this game than losing a fight in any other I have ever played. Which is why the PvP is so great, but at the same time if I can never undock expensive ships because I can't afford to replace it in a reasonable amount of time then it hurts the gameplay for everyone.

Again I think there needs to be a general boost in the amount and value of the loot that is available to drop, and also a guaranteed (say 5-10% of the max value loot available) that is definitely going to be obtained from an activity given the amount of time it takes to do it. Then the RNG kicks in for the really good drops and keeps things even and incentive there so that the activity eventually 'evens out' by getting a great drop fast while slow periods you are at least seeing some return, not NO return.

I'd love to hear any opinions or any other methods you guys recommend to earn my living, I don't need much to keep in fighting/fleet ships but a skill injector or ship skin purchase every so often would go a long way to improve my enjoyment of this game. I soon plan on starting station trading after purchasing a second account to train my trading alt to the required skills so hopefully that will help things. But in general I dont think players should be forced to buy Plex or turn to afk activities to fund their EvE life. We already have jobs in the real world we don't need second ones online. I play EvE to PvP and Fleet with my friends and corp but more and more I find myself grinding day after day with my available playtime just to earn enough to spend one or two days PvPing. If this trend continues as much as I love EvE and its gameply and community there are too many other games I can play and immediately get to the fun 'meat' of the game and not have to spend time in activities I don't enjoy just to earn my way into the fun parts.


Thanks for reading, I've already mailed a GM who referred it to the Dev team so hopefully we see some changes soon.
-Dane Ge

Edit: Just for more context over the past few weeks running DED escalations I have not once received the Adaptive Invulnerability Field which is the most valuable Gurista loot drop. Only once out of about 40 sites have I gotten a wreck worth $400 million from a 5/10 and only about 6 times out of 50 or so 4/10's have I gotten anything other than the Overseer Personal Effect. I realize this just may be bad luck but thats my point, it should not be possible to spend so much time and effort for so little return. Complete RNG for ALL the loot can leave situations like this happening, whereas RNG for the better loot at least means I make some return on my investment, not a possibility for none.

FINAL EDIT: TOPIC CLOSED ILL GO **** MYSELF THANKS

I appreciate that but I'm not asking for a major change or even an increase in the valuable drops. What I'm suggesting is a small 'For Sure' amount you will walk away from from each site or wreck. That way theres not long stretches of nothing but long stretches of small return and then the big valuable drops make up for it. But complete randomness for even the smallest of loot leaves chance for no return and the loot you can get is even rarer and less valuable than ever before.

Also I love this game like I said, I have no problem with grinding for my money until I can afford other ways of making it but grinding for no money in any MMO is unacceptable.

Edit: also thanks for getting the typical 'go play other games' response out of the way right out front :). Thanks for making a newbro feel welcome mate

I do not think you understand economics OP.

If more loot drops, supply of that loot increases, which makes the value go down.
If less loot drops, supply of that loot decreases, which makes the value go up.

If the value of certain kinds of loot is low despite being rare... then a few things could be at fault;
- the item is "useless" compared to other, cheaper mods
- you are over estimating how "rare" the item is (hint; it isn't rare)
- you are not looking for the item at the right place of time (hint: someone may have gotten to it before you!)


As for "guaranteed" income... no. EVE does not guarantee that. Ever. Even station traders do not always make profit.
Mind you... the closest you can get is running missions and mining... but even with this you run the risk of interference from others.

Stop using expensive ships?

Not that long ago i was telling another new player making the same silly mistake; fly cheap if you aren't space rich. An hours work doing level 4's mission will get you a cruiser with money to spare.

Think about it. If expensive ships were easy to get and we were all as entitled to fly them as you think we should be, what would be the point in expensive ships? They'd just be normal ships.

This wouldn't significantly increase earnings. If you buff loot drops the value of what's dropped plummets. For an example of this in action look at the cost of Meta 4 Medium and Small Blasters, both of which are dropped by the Serpentis event Battlecruisers. Just this increase in supply has caused their price to noticeably fall in the last month.

For really rare drops like Faction Loot the value is *entirely* based on rarity and the price other players are willing to pay. What you're asking for is not only unreasonable but impossible. If you want a steady income then run missions or do Incursions.



"referred to the dev team" does not mean that anything is actually going to change. Mostly it's probably something to make you feel better. If you haven't noticed there are a *ton* of ideas posted every day in various places, and most of them are, like this one, poorly thought out and not worth implementing. They get thrown in a pile of feedback that's aggregated but nothing specific generally comes of any of them.

lol I specifically addressed this in my initial post. I said I know an increase in the same loot being dropped would lower the value, but they could offer a wider variety of loot or even introduce new items like the Overseer Personal Effects that have some use or can be broken down for building materials that offer more value than currently given. Or even just a bounty reward for completing the site.

It's like no one read my initial post. I specifically stated that I know this would happen if the SAME loot is increased in how much it drops. What they could do is offer a wider variety of modules available from each site, or introduce new items like the Overseer Personal Effects which have market value as they are used for industry or can be broken down for building materials. Or they could simply offer a bounty reward for completing the site, DED or Relic/Data or even anomolies instead of just the rat bounties.

The value of most of the loot is defined by the value of the minerals, you get, if you refine the loot. If you increase the amount of loot dropping, you also increase the mineral supply ("gun mining"), which decreases the value of the minerals and impacts the income of the miners.

This is only true if the highest incomes change actually.
If incomes between professions are instead more equitable actually what happens is the economy gets healthier overall because everyone is able to spend money rather than just a few people who are sitting on top of the food chain.

But seriously, please define what you consider to be an acceptable amount of isk per hour from nullsec ratting.