EVE General Discussion

I've been around since 2008, I make billions per day, I can afford to be imprudent if I so choose.

And what you said had nothing at all to do with my post.

I agree with this. Things like the watch list removal, in my opinion, were a huge step backward.

Maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, but other than that what has been removed from high sec pvp? You can still war dec, hell you can still can flip afaik, just no one can mines anymore. Ninja salvaging did get removed IIRC, not sure why. Ganking is more prevalent now with code and what not than it was ever in the past.

I didn't read the myriad posts as I can only say why my own interest dropped. The game moved away from one of the main reasons I like games, that being character development. Now you can just buy all the SP you want (limited only by available finances). This doesn't matter to many people but it did matter to me.

Alongside that one of the posts on the first page pointed out that as you have less time EvE becomes less tenable. Now that you can just buy SP back there is no incentive for players to keep accounts subbed if they won't log in more than a few times a month. The cost of the sub isn't that high in real terms (probably 5 cappucinos a month and I am not going to scare my self with how low a % that is of total consumption :D ). However if you can't log in it is now simply dead money.

Not sure whether the Alpha/Omega clones will help so much with this. Alpha clones may work for players happy to go into low sec/faction warfare in cheap ships but longer term players will be unhappy with the limits they present. Perhaps a better choice would be a lower sub price (25%?) that allows you to fly a designated favourite ship with all your skills on a main character only. This character would have no running training queue, but all skills available (may need to be limited to combat ships to avoid cheap farming).

It's a tricky one, but as another post pointed out MMO use is dropping gradually anyway, it may just be a part of the natural cycle of the game.

In terms of PvP vs PvE I think there's nothing wrong with the current balance in general. The drop in PvP in hisec is most likely because those who don't want to PvP will live there. I have no time for people complaining about it when they are ganked/wardec'd since that is a known part of the game. However what may help bring in more players is to introduce varied PvE mechanics to bring in more players who like this side of the game.

One idea could be a geopolitical aspect, a strategy style side to the game where players can become provincial, state and eventually planetary governers. This would have no problem being tied into the main EvE space game as the combat system would not be involved. Better control and a happier populace would improve the yields of PI for the mudhugging baseliners...sorry, I mean politcal classes. The political groups would need to hire capsuleers to perform spaceborn ops for them from time to time to tie the games together.

Just an idea on a way to bring in another game demographic, which may lead to some of them bleeding into the main game too.

Waffle over...as you were people...

My entire corp quit mostly over the issue of gang links ruining small/solo pvp. We had 50+ active members at our peak. Probably 2-3 of them still play.

I heard about the patch in November that is removing off grid boosting, so I re subbed early to get some isk/extra skills for when the patch comes. the patch might be too late tho, most of my old corp mates I am still in contact with, and most cant be bothered now.

Few of us are returning in November however. We will see how that goes.

I'm sorry this "math" is pure unadulterated bullshit.

It is bullshit because you have assumed that which trying to prove is true.

Your "math" could just as easily be:

F = X + Y - Z

Where Z is some factor or factors that result in players leaving the game. If nerfs to ganking reduces Y and X and Z are the same, then it is possible that F is negative. In fact, what you'd want to look at is something more along the lines of:

F = a*X + b*Y + d*Z

And you'd let the data determine the size and sign of the coefficients (a,b,d). You could do this with a linear regression model, in theory. The big problem is appropriate data.

This may be a contributing factor, I won't deny that. But I think it's hardly the only factor that caused the decline. Any lack of conflict is bad.

I don't think ganking caused a significant amount of players to quit either.....even though having been on the giving end of ganks myself,I know I have caused some players to never show up again. Or rather. shortly after the gank occured they never logged in again, I don't know if I caused it.

Ultimately I believe it boils down to the NPE, CCP has stated themselves that most people quit early on. Most of those probably never engaged in pvp at all. Maybe have Aura give new players a stack of 10 t1 frigates, and the tutorial gives a reward of 5 million isk for every one of those that gets blown up by another capsuleer?

According to the csm minutes the npe is getting a bit of work soon™.
I'll believe it when I see and hate it on sisi

Think this is a problem for most MMOs these days, eves fall in players is not that bad in percentage to how many players playing it.
Think that's because of the universe itself, this game is the only mmo out there that has a ingame mechanic and world plus graphics that fits perfectly for the mmo term. The reason it's so hard to catch new players are because of the skill training time. It's custom in this genre of game that you can max LvL a char in 2 months, maybe shorter, don't really know never cared to try for more than a week in other popular mmos. And compared to this game skill training, the only thing to say is thanks blizz and compaiongs for your junk and making impatient a common trait among gamers.

NPC logistics support should be interesting.

What I am saying is that a lot of content has been removed. Ganking is just one of the affected areas, we have seen some activities entirely destroyed. Ninja salvaging, jetcan piracy and targeted wardecs are now best described as extinct. Your response is exactly what I was talking about, you don't understand that by continually nerfing ganking has had a negetive effect on the very miners you want to protect.

It used to be that miner ganking was focused on profitable targets, if you fitted a good tank on your hulk you would not be ganked. Now its a case of every hulk is a target to the one organisation left doing miner ganking because every miner is now unprofitable. So while miner ganks have collapsed in number the miners are infact less safe in a hulk because the gankers that are left no longer have a reason to target specific barges, they target anyone.

Then we also have the loss of jetcan mining and the pirates jetcan flipping. You no longer see miners willing to jump into a pvp ship to fight pirates because there is no need. You also don't see them making traps for these pirates anymore because, again, due to the changes there is no need for jetcans and thus, no pirates to trap.

And then we move onto the targeted wardecs, which thanks to the removal of the watch list are all but impossible, which means miners that get a war dec are far less likely to have to defend themselves if they move around in the outskirts of highsec.

Now you will probably be thinking "Great! Miners are less likely to be killed!" and you are right, they are far far less likely to be shot at as a miner in 2016 than in 2011. But, that also means as a miner you have a fraction of the content you used to have in 2011, a fraction of the challenges, a far more boring world to play in. The end result is more people quit not only because all of the nerfs to the people who think of themselves as PvP players but also the PvE players, simply because mining is a lot more boring and a lot less social today than 5 years ago.

And this is just a small part of the content we have lost.