EVE General Discussion

TL;DR: sinking minerals is key for the economy and I challenge the asumption that PvP is the main source of such destruction, then suggest a way to obtain hard data on the real weight of player activity in order to asess who plays a larger role to keep the wheels of economy turning, either PvPrs or PvErs.

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting to get rid of PvP.

I am sure you hear this a zillion times: "PvP is necessary to destroy stuff. Without destroying stuff, EVE economy would be destroyed; EVE economy is about the cycle of creation and destruction and PvP keeps that wheel turning"

Yet, is that accurate? Is PvP the only end, or the principal end of the life cycle of minerals? Or are there other ways in which minerals are deleted from the game? Maybe ways that consume more minerals, even?

Minerals in EVE are one of the key faucet-to-sink cycles. Minerals are spawned for free each day, then they are gathered and manufactured into stuff, then that stuff is destroyed and the minerals are deleted from the system, thus leaving room for more minerals to be spawned and gathered.

Yet it's easy to dismiss that ships are not the only thing being destroyed, and that PvP is not the only way in which minerals are destroyed.

See, CCP kindly provided numbers about how many HP trade players each day. It turns that players inlfict 385 million HP of damage to other players each day, and 24,000 million HP of damage are inflicted onto NPCs.

Care to think for a moment HOW is inflicted that damage?

Clue: yesterday I spent ~1,500 cruise missiles running "Dread pirate Scarlet".

And yes. Missiles (as all ammunition) are made of... minerals. You may think that's a platitude. May also think that the amount of minerals spent building ammunition is neglectable, but, is it?

Now, this point can't be developed further without some data from CCP. Maybe they don't even have the data. The numbers we need are:

- amount of minerals required to build 1 HP of player stuff (call it "construction cost of P or CP")
- amount of minerals required to build 1 HP of NPC stuff (call it "construction cost of N or CN")
- amount of minerals required to destroy 1 HP of player stuff (call it "destruction cost of P or DP")
- amount of minerals required to destroy 1 HP of NPC stuff (call it "destruction cost of N or DN")

We know that the amount of minerals needed to create 1 HP of NPC sutff is zero (CN = 0).

So the whole balance of EVE's minerals is:

(minerals spawned) - ((CP+CN)-(DP+DN)) = 0

Now, maybe most of DP (destruction of player stuff) comes from PvP (that's a guess), but without hard data, it's difficult to know what's the weight of each factor.

What we know for sure, is that CCP can easily balance DP and DN by increasing the mineral cost of destroying NPCs in case that the mineral cost of destroying players shrinked. Many ways would be open, like:

- more mineral cost for building ammo
- making expirable the currently "unlimited" ammo (T1 laser crystals, drones)
- implementing "wear and tear" so modules and ships needed repair/replacement
- buffing HP of NPCs (that would ruffle some feathers, though)

Now, I am not asking to get rid of PvP, but to check its actual weight in the economy.

But, best comes the last. Because with FozzieSov players will not be destroying structures. And those are 4,600 million HP/day that will no longer be inflicted, and that will have an impact in the (CP-DP) part of the equation. If structures are not being created nor destroyed, mineral consumption will diminish.

It will be interesting to see how that affects the mineral market. Because in case that it haves little effect, that will prove without a doubt (and for lack of better data) that destroying player sutff is not that much relevant in the life cycle of minerals and thus that it's PvE, and not PvP, what keeps the creation-destruction wheel turning.

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting to get rid of PvP. But maybe CCP should start looking at the role of PvE in the economy with different eyes... or just start looking at it AT ALL.

Context is your friend, Solecist. We're talking about how minerals are destroyed.

Wow, what a very elaborate troll topic.

So tl;dr: buff mining by increasing the mineral build cost of consumables like ammunition, cap boosters, deployables, etc?

No. If I wanted to buff mining by doubling the high end mineral requirements of all blueprints and buffing the amount of low end minerals in high end ores, I would call myself CCP Fozzie.

And then, the jury would be out on whether I was naive enough to think that the issue with nullsec mining it's risk/reward, or cynical enough to agree that nullsec is never going to be self-sufficient unless CCP keeps gifting them free minerals for their effort.

Except IMO it's at a risk of losing PvE to other games whose developers take it more seriously than CCP, specially after exploiting a limited niche for 12 years.

What you call "more seriously" is nothing more than "better manipulation".

People are being literally manipulated into playing,
baited at their best point ... their superiority complex.

You know exactly what I am talking about. It's the thing that makes you rage and hate real people
who shoot down players in a game that allows people to do so. Because these real people show you
that your superiority is nothing else but an illusion and once you got ganked your whole imaginary world collapses.

I had this covered over and over again, it's getting boring.....



The reason why PvE in other games is better ...
... is because it serves the purpose of keeping people there.

It's not comparable to EVE at all.

In EVE you aren't a hero.
You are a worthless piece of trash.
No amount of NPC bashing will fix that.



If you need that, then there are lots of other games who cater to your superiority complex.

It is not. There is little long-term satisfaction in gathering resources in safety, doing a bunch of clicks and building something that you can never really lose. The risk of loss is what makes gathering or building anything meaningful and give those things actual value and this is not present in most other games. Those that don't realize this and leave Eve will quickly learn there is no satisfaction in building worthless things that every other player is doing in complete safety and come back to Eve where there is a single universe and your actions actually matter.

That said there is room to make PvE better in this game, but CCP knows that they are selling a PvP-centric game so they are right to focus on getting that house in order before spend too much effort on refreshing PvE gameplay.

Exactly.
All the other games serve no other purpose than feeding the egos of those who play it.

That's your "better PvE" in a nutshell.

Just what did I just read??

I could inflict 2k HP of damage and destroy billions of isk

Fit/modules cost
Loot cost
Ships cost

I can't believe you aren't trolling.


Also,


I spend 15 minutes at 1k DPS to run a level 4 mission (rough average)
I spend about 120 missiles per minute (ham tengu) (just an example)

That is close to 1 million damage done (900k) with 1800 missiles.
Adding 45% resistances (rough average again), I inflict 495.000 HP with 1800 missiles.

Considering more than half of pve damage is done with drones and also lasers, we get 12.000.000.000 HP left for your ammo.

12.000.000.000 / 495.000 = 24.242 missions at 1800 missiles = 45 million missiles


Now how much 45million missiles is worth of minerals compared to trillions of isks that are lost in PvP!

Yes because economy is not just about your minerals, in fact the most expensive stuff isn't even made out minerals, it is found.

Holy non sense thread, I'm sorry but go take your meds.