EVE General Discussion

I know EvE has been struggling with player retention so I wanted to post my new player experience. I definitely enjoyed my time in Eve and Eve occupies a unique gamespace so I would love to see it continue. These are just my opinions of how I experienced Eve so it is very likely others will disagree with them.

Months subscribed: 2
Other purchases. Dual Character Training and a buddy account.
Total Spent: ~$60
Hours Played: Steam tells me >300 but I think a percentage is time I just left it on in the background.
Typical game genres that I enjoy: RTS, 4X, Strategy, FPS, MOBASs, MMO’s with PVP.

My favorite part about Eve is the planning. I loved planning my character progression in EveMon and I spent hours in EFT building ships. I also enjoyed all the research into the various ways to play. I am sure I have spent over 80 hours reading articles on exploration, wormholes, fleet battles, mining, missioning and other activities in the game. I tend to obsess about games and it was great having so much material to absorb.

Unfortunately, I enjoyed my out of game experience significantly more than my in game. The tactical operation of actually flying a spaceship was dull compared to all the strategy before I stepped into the cockpit. The only decisions I was making in combat was target selection. After that it was just turn on the guns/reppers/miners and wait for something to die/heal/mine. Occasionally I would toggle modules to manage capacitor use but most of my capacitor management was done before I pressed “undock”. There were plenty of ways to express skill and mastery in station, but once in space everything seemed one dimensional. It felt as if my dps, tank, mobility were all set in stone and this meant I was missing one of my biggest motivators in a game; practicing and seeing myself get better. I understand there is skill in piloting, keeping transversal high and managing distance but the piloting controls are so disconnected I didn't really feel in control. I didn't feel there was enough room in the system for me to improve my personal skills to the point where I could outplay pilots with more expensive ships or higher skill points.

I want to be clear, I did not mind getting my ship destroyed and podded. I at least felt like I learned something from those experiences. The anarchy of space is part of what makes Eve the interesting game it is. I just find the second to second piloting of ships lackluster and that is a large part of the game. Even though I made enough ISK in my time to start PLEXing my account I do not enjoy flying spaceships enough to warrant the time investment. I absolutely do not regret the money I spent on the game and I would spend more if CCP made flying more active and enjoyable. I’ll keep an eye on Eve to see how how it changes over the years.

First, nice balanced opinion that is well put .

Secondly, I think your experience in combat matches the experience of many people, especially if you primarily fly frigates where the combat is so quick that it is difficult at first to think at a level above basic tactics.

In that case, ship control largely reduces to "orbit" or "keep at range" in many engagements.

However, combat can be a lot richer than target, choose range, activate modules and wait.

When you fight frequently, those things tend to become almost instinctive and you then start manually piloting and thinking more operationally. Issues around ship position in relation to the opponent, the position of other potential targets and threats, as well as the use of more advanced moves like spiralled approach, slingshotting and optimal ammo selection start to enter your game.

As most people rarely ever truly leave EvE, when you come back in the future, I hope you spend some time to pvp a lot. I think you'll find that your mindset will change too and you'll appreciate that pvp can be engaging and rewarding, even if you get blobbed, hotdropped or otherwise smashed by an opponent.

While player retention without gaps in subscription is the Holy Grail of the game industry, I think CCP knows that its not a pursuit worth spending an inordinate amount of time on. What is important is positive cash flow to pay the bills. To achieve that is much more challenging.

It stands to reason why a large portion of new Eve players don't stick around is the reality that Eve can seem quite a lot like work. All the thinking, planning, tinkering and head scratching can be a chore. And losing a ship that you took hours and hours to get just right is discouraging to say the least.

The really interesting thing about Eve from my experience is that the time played between getting burned out and the time between coming back after a while gets shorter the more it happens. That is, I tried in 2008 and was completely lost. So I quit. I got interested again later that year, and it took longer to get bored and quit again.

Rinse and repeat, and the next thing you know it's 2014 and after quitting and re-upping again at least six or seven times, I'm now so comfortable with the game that I don't give into my frustration and boredom anymore. I simply push through it because I know if I quit again, I'll be back. So why repeat the past.

Anyway, my rant is all about CCP's certain knowledge that this is the only game like it and, if you like it a little, you most likely be a lifer sooner or later. If you don't, you'll eventually give up and leave for good.

If CCP understands even a little of the psychology of that dynamic, they'll have no problem with cash flow anytime soon.

You don't 'step into a cockpit' in EVE. In this game, you are the CAPTAIN of a ship, not it's pilot. You are Captain Kirk, not Mr Sulu, Picard not Wesley Crusher or Data, Adama not nameless Colonial Helmsman guy.

If 'piloting' is important to you then you will probably be happier with EVE:Valkyrie, Star Citizen or Elite:Dangerous when they are released.

Looks like you ran into the bugaboo that will permeate the advanced, high-tech life; boredom. It makes sense, right? If you have digital processing, solenoid slapping machines doing everything for you, there's nothing for you to do. Nobody's really worked out the math on that. I know the psychiatric portion of the show won't kick in until we start seeing the "results of living in abject boredom." (I'm actually writing a novel about this very thing!)

It makes me wonder if all this modernity might not be a bad idea, for the most part. For instance, when we stopped going down to the river to fetch our water, and walk back with it in the morning, along with that we stopped encountering our fellow human beings, spending time with them and making them a part of our existence. Now we live vicariously through images on flat screens - also digitally generated.

Even with movies (speaking of living with images), with computer generated graphics went the genius of managing to "get that on film." Directors used to have to be pretty ingenious to capture some things on film. Now? Just draw it in. What is this idiotic, singer aid-device now, the "auto-tuner?" Talk about overusing something that shouldn't exist in the first place.

I'm no Luddite (meaning I won't go running through town destroying your machines), but I'm not a slave to comfort and convenience either. I'd rather my life have a little texture, color and action. Sometimes this means getting off my behind and going OUTSIDE! (Imagine that!) I even traded in my gas-powered mower for a reel mower. It's even better for the grass. It's especially better on the ears, and it doesn't spew gas fumes and choking smoke around.

Come to think of it, the improvements in our lives haven't really improved much at all. All they've done, for the most part, is change our lives. (I've also noticed as I've gotten older, more and more people are bored with their lives.) SO, why WOULDN'T a "high-tech" spaceship game have (incidentally) the same thing?

Interesting...more interesting than...plastic.

Technology can also be used for good.

AS said above EVE combat CAN be satisfying.

Yes, sometimes it's over in seconds with an insta-gank but other times you can be in a fight that seems to flow forever, even in frigates, with every small piloting decision making a difference to the end result. Those are the combats you'll remember and the ones that make EVE combat more than just satisfying.

I experienced the same thing, now I absolutely adore Eve. I've experienced corp theft, betrayal, suicide ganking, sov eviction all the drama, the "negative" parts of Eve, which to be honest I don't see them as totally negative experiences at all anymore. I can no longer burn out, I get tired of something or I need to take a step back, so I just go do something else in Eve for a while since the possibilities are endless.

As for the gameplay part, it may seem shallow, none engaging and boring, but once you really get your teeth into Eve you see more in what's going on than an outsider would. Whenever I'm doing something in Eve, for example fleet pvp, and my friends come over and end up watching, I find myself saying "I know this is boring for you to watch, but this is intense for me and there's so much more going on than you may realize".

I can’t disagree with any of your points. There has to be more “meat” to the in ship experience than I saw or Eve would not be as popular as it is. In my two months of playing I got into some PvP, but most of it was organized by other players. While that amount of time is short for the majority of current Eve players, two months is a significant time investment for someone who is not sure they want to pay for the game. I felt like my player agency was lacking and the path to mastery was unclear. It is difficult for me to justify investing more time in the hopes I will like it eventually.

I think Eve is a very interesting game and parts of it are brilliant. I am just trying to help the developers by explaining my feelings. It is very possible I am not their target audience in which case they can ignore me completely.

And to a certain extent I agree with you.

I love EVE PVP, but it's sometimes in spite of the interface, not because of it.