EVE General Discussion

I do not want to +1 a discussion. I want to +1 actual results.

Here's to hoping I can +1 something!

You don't know what devs or employees were hired for for what jobs. You dont know what resources were allocated to what tasks and in what timeframe.

In short, you have as much right to tell CCP management how to do their job as I have to tell you to do yours.

Clearly taking an (un) official poll on the eve online forums - where bashing CCP is the 'cool thing to do' - will give you true to life opinions of the vast majority of players. +1!

I'm a fairly new player (about 6 months in). Here's the thing that completely blows my mind about this game: the utter lack of regular balance tweaks and fixes. It's insane. If necessary, every patch should contain small, iterative tweaks of ship and race balance. I don't want to just hurf blurf about how easy this must be; frankly, I have no idea whether it's trivially easy or excessively difficult. But here's the thing - it doesn't friggin matter how hard it is, because it's absolutely imperative that such things are done. Period. Gallente, Hybrids, Dramiel, POSes, the SCAP absurdity - these are things that a dedicated, competent MMO producer consistently and frequently works on to ensure a quality game experience for it's paying customers. Yet CCP has ignored these issues for, in some cases, years.

As a new player, there's really one thing that's kept me coming back - the POTENTIAL of this game, and the universe in which it exists. That's it. As is, the game feels stale, staid, broken and boring. But my god, how good this game could (and should!) be. And that's the conundrum for the playerbase. Most everyone acknowledges these problems (with the exception of the truly dedicated fanbois), but it's so hard to leave because there's nothing else out there quite like Eve. As CCP has come to realize, however, it's getting easier and easier to do so for a lot of people.

The CSM statement makes it sound like nearly the sole focus should be on bugfixes and rebalances. I can't agree with that. While I agree CCP's direction has been a bit off, and I do like more FiS for sure, I feel new features is what makes an MMO worth continuing to play years after I started. The same old gets boring.

One thing that needs alot of attention is the FiS UI.

The directional scanner is a pain in the ass (click..click..click.) Constant clicking just to stay updated with whats around you.
The overload buttons on modules are sadistically small.
The overview though functional still has alot to be desired.
And the hot key system just doesn't make sense, I think this is one of the few games I feel more comfortable clicking
everything than hitting hot keys.

The feed back to the user on combat information is terrible. Being a pod pilot you'd think you'd know why you're guns
aren't hitting.

Need more feedback on ranges, tracking, speeds. I know as you pvp more you just start to realize whats happening,
but new players end up scratching there heads wondering why something is happening.
You shouldn't have to guess, It should be more instantly apparent that you're guns aren't tracking, there kitting you out
of range ect..


The UI is my special pet peeve. I think the thing that bothers me the most though is the dscan.
Any thing that requires constant clicking is just not good design.

I resub'd one account just to be able to like/+1 the CSM statement. I don't think that what they are saying is never do anything new again, but fix what's broken now first before adding any new stuff in that, if we are honest about CCP, will have lots of new broken bits when it's introduced. It's the current broken bits, real game breaking bugs, that are holding my enjoyment level down to somewhere between luke-warm and freezing. I'd like it to be on boil again.

I think most people realize that CCP as a company MUST split its resources between its various high profile projects (DUST, WOD, EVE). There really isn't any realistic debate about that.

What is debatable is:

1: What percentage of CCP resources needs to be devoted to each of these projects.
2: Of the resources devoted to EVE, how should those resources be split between Iteration on existing content, new shiney, bug fixes, and Incarna development. Eventually the Incarna content will fall neatly within the other categories, but not yet.

No matter how they divy resources up, not everyone is going to be happy. I can live with that as long as there is a realistic, or at least well reasoned and explained, division of resources.

I want them to meet their production goals for their other products.
I want them to take the final steps in making Incarna content fun and entertaining for (most) everyone.
I just don't want EVE to be largely ignored in the process.

Our 18 month wait is about up. I hope that CCP is roughly on track with their predictions that now would be the time when the horn of plenty disgorges its developer resource goodies in our direction again.

I'd also really like the enough planning to go into this effort to make these projects fit into two or more categories above.

As a random example, if when redistributing resources in high, null, and WH space (in accordance with a hopefully very, very well researched plan) if you also had the rest of the solar systems in New Eden follow the "special effects" rules that they do in WH space you would thrill and challenge most every player in the EVE universe. This one addition would breath new life in to PVP of all levels, and put new and interesting challenges out there for people more interested in PVE activities.

Don't stop at killing two birds with one stone, aim to kill the whole flock.

I know, I know, much easier said than done... but it's a worthy goal to shoot for.

I hate and take offense to the lazy statement. I'm anything but lazy with dscan. And any time anyone defends the way it works either with you're lazy, or the servers simply cannot handle the traffic is simply defending a system because they are used to the way it works. There must be a way to have the dscan update, keep some skill involved in using it, but remove the horrendous amount of clicking it requires. And don't defend it with "server load", I'm sure the developers can figure something out. They have the overview for gods sake, yes I know thats "on grid". But if you had to press a button to update overview for the last upteen years you'd probably defend that as well with "it takes skillz".

Giving +1 to this was really a no brainer...
Anyways few comments to CCP about the subjects are in place...


In other words Incarna should be completed as side project without deadline. It will be good when it is ready and it will be ready when it is ready. You had awesome tech demo years ago but binned it and wanted to be more :awesome:. Instead you ended up having :failsome: on your hands. Don't repeat your mistakes - finish it this time and keep focus on content.


***) Crowdsourcing has many items on top 10 which support this.

If you start listening to players and focusing on tasks what crowdsourcing results are about, more people start voting and getting involved. There is not many - if any - games where players can directly give concrete feedback, suggestions and wishes about future of the game. This is something special and :awesome: what EvE has. Use it for you benefit. Advertise, get people involved. Dedicated players stay and bring more people to the game. This is your win road for steady growth and keeps Eve fun and innovative for years to come. It IS that easy.



I would keep weight on word "should" on this and put even more weight to crowdsourcing above. If people want some totally new feature, obviously it should override this. However I would like to remind about content being more important than graphics. Updating graphics is rather easy and can be done 5 times but updating core content should be done well on 1st go.


People who play the game daily are the ones who notice these things. They are also the ones you're trying to keep in the game.



If players get a game they want, they would have to be really stupid to leave. Obviously there has to be few inviduals who fall to this category, but majority will thank you. It is all about getting them involved and providing what they want.

This game is totally different than any other mmorpg. Playerbase is more involved and value different things than average teenager. Premade solutions from some other game haven't been working in Eve very well. Being innovative is good thing, but gotta do it with terms of the actual product and the people who are using it to have fun.

There...
You may disagree and I may be wrong. We're all humans afterall.
-grey