EVE General Discussion

Go and take a look at how many copies of X-Rebirth were sold, and how many people are still playing it. Then look me in the eyes tell me there's a correlation.

Only if you are in a terrible ship in a popular area. Move mildly off the beaten path or into a tanked ship and that all becomes irrelevant. Effectively it's a passive mechanic that you can choose to play in a way that requires you do do more for no real benefit.

Of course it is, it's a prime example of a passive mechanic. Click a button and wait for the timer. I'm not saying it could or should be changed, it was just an example of a passive mechanic. My point is that games need a good balance of both which EVE tends to lack.

See mining. Again it's something you can choose to do more actively but at no real benefit to doing it passively. I could play one character and actively run the missions, or I can run 4, MWD away, pop sentries and FOFs and play PS4.

Hauling your PI isn't passive but the mechanic itself is. It would be active if you had to play little minigame to generate your resources, but as it is you set it up, press go and it dripfeeds resources which you can just come back and get whenever you want.

Those are certainly more passive, being that they last for longer times, but consider how meany mechanics in EVE boil down to:
Setup -> Press button -> Wait between minutes and weeks -> Collect results.

A good way to think about it is: how easy it is to multibox? The more accounts you can easily run simultaneously on an activity with a minimal or no loss to per-character efficiency, the less active the mechanic is likely to be.

To look at that you need to concentrate on the early stages of the game (new player retention). Of course there will be other reasons for longer term players, which will be similar reasons to why people leave from other MMOs.

1) EVE doesn't really have good in-game communications.

a) Local is hardly used unless you're in systems like Jita with all the scamming going on.

b) NPC corp. chat is not used often so you tend to lose the sense that EVE is actually an MMO. Now this maybe in part to players giving bounties to anyone that says anything, but I think it's also in partly to do with NPC corps having a lot of alts and there being too many different NPC corps.

c) No global or regional chat.

2) Not easy to find a good corp. to join, made more difficult by corps having so many joining restrictions.

3) There's little in the way of solo content available to new players, PvP isn't really viable very early on. The solo content in this game isn't as good as a lot of other MMOs.

4) Takes too long to train a character up, to a stage where you can actually do something you want to, instead of having to wait months. This is personal preference, but a lot won't see any benefit to waiting when they could be doing something else more fun.

I'm sure there are others.


The 2 main things that keep this game in a healthy kind of state for a niche game are:

a) It's a sandbox.

b) Its more unforgiving reputation.

Am I the only one who was glad to see that the last update didn't really change anything? (Other than a new Ewar effects display.)

If the game is indeed losing subs (and there is a good chance it isn't) , probably the reason is because it keeps changing too fast. Skilling your main character is a long process. You plan months, even years, ahead. Eagerly anticipating what you'll do with those nifty skills you're waiting so long to get.

And then the devs change the game around and those skills quite often become useless (although with equal probability, they may work out to be more useful than expected), and you wonder why you bothered (if you're one of the ones who didn't luck out).

I can totally understand people rage quitting.

A good strategy game is a mix of random and deterministic elements.

If it becomes entirely deterministic, then you can solve the puzzle once and you've solved it forever. There would be no replay value.

If it becomes entirely random, then it loses the "strategy" element. Because no one choice is any better than any other. Only psychics have an advantage. Everyone else is on a level playing field, regardless of effort or wit.

I think Eve is drifting toward the "entirely random" end of the spectrum. Goal posts are jumping all over the place.

The devs need to put a ration on themselves. A "change rate" budget. If players are waiting out a timer on our skills, then the devs need to wait out a timer on goal post changes.

That way the pace at which decisions are made by the player matches the pace at which changes are made to the landscape. If the speeds are mismatched and decisions are slower, then you're always one (or more) step(s) behind no matter what you do. If they're mismatched the other way, you get too fat and lazy. It is a tough balance.

I've been in player corps, maybe I was just unlucky.

But those are issues players face as a new player.

I was also talking about solo PvP specifically, sure you can PvP in a fleet as a newbie, but your role is very limited to start with.

The reason I was talking from a solo perspective, is because that will be the situation a lot of new players will be in, if they don't already know someone in the game.

its not hard to do it yourself, everyone else who stays in this game has no issues finding a good corp that fit the needs of the what they want to do in the game. you are just being lazy asking for people to recommend a corp to you with no other information on what you actually do or want to do.

Thats just rubbish, im not even 100mil sp and can fly any major doctrine ship in any corp i have been in, even at under 8mil sp i was in null using a ceptor to be a scout and provide ewar support for my corp while taking part in bomber and t2 frig fleets. the only thing where sp becomes a requirement in my experience is in wormholes which is completely understandable as you need atleast a t3 and some decent scanning skills

im not insulting you, you are asking a stupid question

One thing quite a few corps do, is make their corps sound better than they actually are. Although you don't find out until you actually join.

It's one thing finding a corp, but it's another finding a good corp.

I've been in a corp. in this game, where there is more than 100 players listed, yet you only ever saw less than 10 of them online. Back in the days I used to spend about 12 - 16 hours each day playing EVE.

wow 3 different battleship doctrines as a new player? what corp has 3 different battleship doctrines with nothing for a low sp player to fly while training into the battleships? you are stupid here, cant be bothered to find a decent corp then tell people you need 100mil sp to be useful in a corp, sorry you dont and those sort of comments are the things which put people off the game because they think they dont have a chance when every player can be useful in a corp with low sp.

Well explain your reasoning then, ive explained new players can jump in ewar frigs, be tackle and scouts with low sp so you tell me how they cant be useful with under 100mil sp and how you cant find a decent corp instead of spouting negativity.

do some research, check killboards, monitor the activity for your timezone, ask questions, dont move stuff to the home system till you are sure activity is pretty good, take part in a fleet before moving to see how they are. you aint tied into a corp you are free to leave whenever you want