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Why are people leaving? and wjhat can we do about it?
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SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#81 - 2014-06-10 21:28:17 UTC  |  Edited by: SurrenderMonkey
Ved Riru wrote:


And there is another guideline that anyone can grasp after a few days of playing: you cannot play the game successfully with one char. Either get an alt or get into a corp. That one is just another alt.


Good job figuring out that this is a multiplayer game! Lol

You're largely incorrect, though. I've spent the VAST majority of my time playing solo, and the two "alts" on my account have less than a million SP between them. It's entirely possible, though it is the harder road.

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#82 - 2014-06-10 21:43:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
So by the OP's thinking, we should think of ways to stop that 50% from joining. If those players who leave never joined in the first place, then this game would have a 100% retention rate.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#83 - 2014-06-10 22:39:26 UTC
Ved Riru wrote:
SurrenderMonkey wrote:
Seriously, am I the only person who watched the ******* presentation? They didn't say, "Yeah, a lot of people leave and boy, we're just completely baffled as to why! Please go start a bunch of threads with your own pointless theories so we can get to the bottom of this truly elusive mystery!" They actually identified the "why" in the presentation.


No, you are not alone. I've watched the Eve Keynote, Eve Economy, Eve Manufacturing and god were they boring! I may have watched some other presentations, too. CCP people may be good developers but making a presentation before an audience takes a lot of skill. It needs practice. I for one don't have the skills.

But posting in these threads I pursue my own agenda. In any thread that is fit for that.
I started playing 1.5 months ago or so. Got like 5 chars now. They are fun to play. Economy, ISK, PLEX and all. There is one thing that ruins it all: BLOODY SLOW LEVELLING.

It goes like this.
1a."Wow, that's a cool ship! I want to fly that!"
Or
1b. "WTF, I am getting slaughtered by this mission's NPCs. Maybe I should get a bigger ship? ISIS? No, that's for newbies! Market window will tell me everything!"

2. "Let's see! Now I need these and these skills to fly this thing. Okay. Training window..."
*Comes back later after several days*

3. "May the fun begin! Now I can fly this ship. Time to fit it properly".

4a. *Goes to Eve University Wiki to look up proper fits*
-These fits are primarily for PvP, newb!
- Hmm, okay.

4b. *Goes to BattleClinic*
"Here is a nice fit! Says low skills, L3 missions. Must be the one I need"
*Buys lots of Tier I modules*
"Damn, I cannot fit them. Says I need Weapon Upgrades 3, Electronics Upgrades 4, Emission Control 5, and a bunch of other stuff. I am short of powergrid and CPU. Hmm. Let's install some micro core reactors and that's it. Okay. For now. Training window..."

5. *Comes back a week or two later*
"Now may the fun begin! Take that, rats! Hmm why am I doing such low DPS? Hmm"
*Studies description of weapons, ships, modules, all kinds of wikis, looks up youtube guides which are often out of date*
"Looks like I need Sharpshooter IV, Gunnery V, Medium Rail Specialization III, and... How much time is it going to take, EveMon? 279 days to be a proper pilot? To hell with that! This game sucks!"

So I am trying to get my voice heard. Trying to say that the game could be better for some people if the skill point acquisition was much faster. And no, I am totally not trying to guess why people don't stick with the game. I am just throwing wild guesses and see what sticks. Just trudging uphill face full of snow in the form of accusations that non-Eve players are dumb, 14-year-old who have a way with someone else's mother and stuff like that..

PS: I love how entire post disappears when I click preview Oops

BY that same arguement, lets just remove skills in general, hell, lets go a step further, all ships can be flown if you can buy them, and you never lose them. that'd soften up the game for the "naive nooblet".

the learning experience is part fo the game, people who just sit down and use Evemon or online links to tell them how to play ARE THE PEOPLE WHO LEAVE FOR A REASON.

the people who stay are the people who JOIN A PLAYER CORPORATION, ran by COMPETENT VETS, who will be kind and teach them, that way they have social connections making up for their lack of skillpoints, that can help them get a leg up util they are old enough to start helping people themselves.


Literally the only thing scaring off new players is the difficulty in getting setup with a kind vet looking to help, since all the newbies get ushered into these 4-5 man corporations of all noobs who have no clue what theya re doing except for the CEO whos played 5 years and has never left highsec or pvp'ed (the kind of CEO who says "dont play during a wardec, drop to NPC corp, be coward").

If CCP can funnel noobs to GOOD corps with helpful vets, longterm retention will hit likely 80%+, just "getting skillpoints faster" doesnt help the noob it HURTS them, because all of a sudden they have all these skillpoints thinking they ready for "that nice T2 ship" and end up losing way mroe isk than necessary for a simple noobie mistake in gameplay.
w3ak3stl1nk
Hedion University
#84 - 2014-06-10 23:48:30 UTC
Eve is awesome. The choice to leave is just as important as staying. Without choice Eve would suck.

Is that my two cents or yours?
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#85 - 2014-06-11 03:53:51 UTC
Egravant Alduin wrote:

I might be wrong I might be correct but anyone can express his opinion.If I was that wrong EVE should have 200ks+ and not 20-50ks for a 10+ year game.Still I think it's a good game but can be improved to be top.



Eve is a niche game. Niche games succeed by being.....niche. they don't have subs on the 100's of thousands. They succeed by keeping a core base that pays the bills and extra money for r&d here and there.

That core base...likes the niche part. OP whined about scamming. I happen to like it. Just as an observer, cba to find time to spam local all night to find suckers. I saw last night an old classic I have not seen for a while. The cheap charon contract. I went ooh please let this be what I think it is. And it was...carbon in the contract. I find this scam kind of comforting...have seen to for many years. Sort of like seeing that old sign at home area you don't see if away for years. See the sign and go well things may change but at least some things the same lol.

For potential gankers I have had surprisingly great convo's. With one I chatted them up going "so...does a 3 year old char baiting in a crappy frigate actually sucker miners to attacK?".

He goes yep.

I go well this not your lucky day....but out of curiosity can I know what I would be ganked with if an idiot who gave you kill rights?

Turned into a good couple minute convo about ship/fits he put up. Not all gankers are anti-social psychopaths. Only when they sense they will get tears do they go full bore I find. No tears, no fun. Live and learn that lesson.
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#86 - 2014-06-11 08:50:23 UTC
Someone said a while back that Eve is for old-school gamers. I would agree to an extent, I have never played any other MMO and grew up playing old-style arcade games and pencil and paper RPG's. The 50% leave statistic is most likely those poeple/kids who've grown up with more recent games. Most wouldn't even know the concept of a 'Game Over' screen and starting again from scratch since you died.

Eve retains %50 of people because it only appeals to %50 of people. Do we really want to change a game to retain more people who don't like the basic foundations of the game i.e. progression that takes time and thought, the possibility of making mistakes and paying for it (beyond restarting from the last save point), the freedom to be 'good', 'bad', or anywhere inbetween.

Do I think that the retention could be increased? Probably with improved PvE, and then target the PvE-centric crowd to entice more of them to losec/null. How many more would be retained? Probably not that many more, Eve takes thought and punishes mistakes and most modern gamers don't like that. Stay true to the core of the game and draw in more people through better gameplay, not through comprimise and watering down the current foundation of Eve.
Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#87 - 2014-06-11 09:10:52 UTC
Ved Riru wrote:

And there is another guideline that anyone can grasp after a few days of playing: you cannot play the game successfully with one char. Either get an alt or get into a corp.

You contradict yoursleff here. It seems you still can to "play the game successfully with one char" - you just have to join some corp. It could even be an intentional desing decision. And before you say that it's bad thing to force anyone to collective gameplay - you have still option to "play the game successfully" while not doing so, just need to pay for another account. Pretty fair, if you ask me.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link
Anthar Thebess
#88 - 2014-06-11 09:39:37 UTC
Take into consideration that many of those players after a while is bored in higsec , want to move to nullsec and they get only one option : RENT or GTFO.
Most of the sov holding alliances don't want them as they don't have :
- skills
- kills
- proper TZ
For many people selling them self and becoming a renter is not a valid thing - if they don't sell them self in RL they will not do the same in game.

Stop discrimination, help in a fight against terrorists

Show your support to The Cause!
Ray Kyonhe
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#89 - 2014-06-11 09:56:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Ray Kyonhe
Anthar Thebess wrote:
many of those players after a while is bored in higsec , want to move to nullsec and they get only one option : RENT or GTFO.

Almost exsistentioanl question arouse: rent or not to rent? Big smile
Well, for the first, they don't need to have property here from the start to fight wars, you know, many started by doing so, united with other nomadic ppl like themselves and cut a piece of turf in the end.
For the second, they could just joined some other null corp, make a career, get followers, split from it (or take a CEO rights over) and inherit some piece of space.
As a third, they could went to some npc null space with ease, many do so.
Fourth, they could resorted to ninja plexing in someone's other space, with mobile refits it's now even easier to pull then before.
Five, they could even forgot about nulls and hit lows/WHs - what's wrong with it, still more intresting than highsec mindless ratting.

So, even such a lowy careeber as me can see five solid possibilities to live beyond highs for anyone.

Survey/voting system inbuilt to the game client: link_Reforming corp and taxation system: link_New PvE content (reward collective gameplay): link
Velicitia
XS Tech
#90 - 2014-06-11 10:50:31 UTC
Kaerakh wrote:
ShahFluffers wrote:

- realize that bigger and more expensive is not always better and, infact, has diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness.

Every mission runner or mining corporation will tell you otherwise, which self perpetuates the myth and continues to misinform new players continuously.


Just because they're saying it doesn't make it right.

Really, the worst "griefers" this game has are those "Mission Running and Mining" carebears who perpetuate this ****.



Kaerakh wrote:

ShahFluffers wrote:
- learn to specialize rather than generalize

Yes and no, in the beginning this is true, but later on generalizing can be helpful depending on the activities you're involved with.
ShahFluffers wrote:
- understand the value of working with others to compensate for your own shortcomings rather than "I need max skills to be effective!"



Yes, "later on" you can generalize.

It's kinda like [insert MMO here] in that sense. You start out playing a L1 [insert class here], and will take your new hero up to level 20 (for example). Only AFTER you've "perfected" this character (or gotten stuck in a boring-as-all-hell grindfest somewhere in the "middle ground", because everyone's either a nubbins or a L80) will you restart a new class.

We (vets, bitter or not) already know the mantra of "bigger is not better" and "specialize before generalize" (caveat - you can "generalize" with L1 anything to at least try it out).

Perhaps something like this needs to be reinforced in the tutorials ... or worked in such that it kinda explains things better.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Jenn aSide
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#91 - 2014-06-11 12:22:57 UTC
This thread is another case of "whatever it is i don't like the most, that is the cause of all the world's problems". Note to OP: starting a thread with an obviously false and fallacious premise is a good way for your idea to go nowhere.

The 50% of people who leave after trying the game are being smart, they know that EVE isn't something they would like and rather than trying to fit a square peg (their entertainment preferences) into a round hole (EVE Online) they go and play a game they actually like.

Those people aren't the problem, the problem is the people who for various reasons don't 'gel' with the game, don't like the game for what and how it is, but who keep playing the game because "in the future maybe it will be awesome" or "I like space ships so i'll play this spaceship gamer i don't like till something better comes along".

If anything, the question should be how we can make that 50% that leave into 60% so that we don't get more and more threads like this on the forums Twisted
Jenn aSide
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#92 - 2014-06-11 12:28:47 UTC
Anthar Thebess wrote:
Take into consideration that many of those players after a while is bored in higsec , want to move to nullsec and they get only one option : RENT or GTFO.


Erm, 'Rent of GTFO" is technically 2 options.

And it's a lie. You don't have to do either.

EVE has ships with jump drives (Carriers, Black ops) that can jump into any space not covered by a cyno jammer (aka null most space). EVE also has quicker to train T3 ships that can fly into null safely, find a nice empty spot, use a mobile depot and reconfigure to do almost anything.

The game now has a mining ship that can warp cloaked.

The game also has "npc null" where people can live without ever being evicted and using the above mentioned ships, a player can 'raid' sov null for kills, loot and/or Ore to his hearts content.

Saying you have to "rent of gtfo" is like saying "I can't afford a mansion so I will be homeless" while ignoring the fact that you could pitch a tent for much much less money.
Hakaari Inkuran
State War Academy
Caldari State
#93 - 2014-06-11 15:03:56 UTC
Kaerakh wrote:

This is something that is a huge hurdle for anyone coming from a traditional MMO. Traditional MMOs ingrain the idea that you're supposed to be this invincible hero feed you victory after victory. Players who start playing EVE generally come from this background and start treating EVE like one of those MMOs.

Which is one of the greatest tragedies of the genre. I don't mind one bit that people in general leave this game if their expectation is easy victories quoted above, good riddance. I only hope more people stay than leave.
Ved Riru
#94 - 2014-06-11 17:14:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Ved Riru
Hakaari Inkuran wrote:
Kaerakh wrote:

This is something that is a huge hurdle for anyone coming from a traditional MMO. Traditional MMOs ingrain the idea that you're supposed to be this invincible hero feed you victory after victory. Players who start playing EVE generally come from this background and start treating EVE like one of those MMOs.

Which is one of the greatest tragedies of the genre. I don't mind one bit that people in general leave this game if their expectation is easy victories quoted above, good riddance. I only hope more people stay than leave.

I don't think many people want easy victories. But a game should be a choice of interesting decisions. Not waiting around due to lack of information or due to artificial time constraints. There is always room for improvement. And those who preach that the current state of the game is fine and good riddance to gamers, who happen to like different playstyles, I say: may the summer of rage be repeated!

There are multiple truths in every fact. I protect my truths with a passion.
Hakaari Inkuran
State War Academy
Caldari State
#95 - 2014-06-11 18:42:06 UTC
People who engaged in the protests in the summer of rage are not even remotely the same crowd who leave the game because PVE is boring and they never find the interesting parts of EVE.
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#96 - 2014-06-11 18:50:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Corraidhin Farsaidh
There are those who like PvE and those who don't. Those that don't stay in Eve don't find anything they like whether it be in PvE *or* PvP. It's just not the game for them and that's fine. What do people think is an acceptable level of people staying longer than a month? How many poeple do you think were still playing GTA V after a month? Or just moved on to the next game.

Eve is a very different beast to most games and will have a veery different group of players because of this.
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#97 - 2014-06-11 18:51:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
Ved Riru wrote:
I say: may the summer of rage be repeated!


u mean the summer of rage that came about because the devs started trying to mimic other games?

i mean the very article u've linked talks about how after that 'rage' the devs realised the best thing to do was take the game back to its roots and focusing on what makes the game unique. Thus crucible, which may be the best received expansion to date.

Roll

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Kaerakh
Obscure Joke Implied
#98 - 2014-06-11 19:25:34 UTC
Velicitia wrote:
Kaerakh wrote:
ShahFluffers wrote:

- realize that bigger and more expensive is not always better and, infact, has diminishing returns in terms of effectiveness.

Every mission runner or mining corporation will tell you otherwise, which self perpetuates the myth and continues to misinform new players continuously.


Just because they're saying it doesn't make it right.

Really, the worst "griefers" this game has are those "Mission Running and Mining" carebears who perpetuate this ****.


You're actually just reiterating what I just said. I never said they were right. I'm pretty sure I said it was wrong by calling it misinformation. Blink
I agree completely though that highsec carebears and to a lesser extent nullsec nullbears are very detrimental to the new player experience. More should be done to discourage and educate people that their way is quite the dead end.

Schrodinger's Hot Dropper

The Fate of Forum Alts

Guaranteed Success
Iain Cariaba
#99 - 2014-06-11 19:30:09 UTC
We go back to the old joke:

What happens when an EVE player quits to play WoW?

The average IQ of both games increases.

Seriously though, if you need your gaming experience spoon fed to you like other MMOs, then perhaps this isn't the game for you. Personally, I've told a couple of my friends who wanted to try EVE not to because the sandbox, open pvp world isn't what they want in a game.
In-Game Tools Please
Doomheim
#100 - 2014-06-11 21:45:47 UTC
A lot (perhaps most) leave due to ignorance. They do some PVE, they get bored, they move on without realizing the true nature of the game.

Of those that do, many find themselves victimized and trolled by elitists and neckbeards alike. CCP promotes the viscous social culture of EVE both directly and indirectly. A lot (perhaps most) of these players leave too, despite recognizing the potential of the game.

Funny thing is a lot of players who leave might not ever realize this is why. They just feel bored and move on. Motivations will do that to you. And motivations lack when you feel you are playing against a bunch of man-children.