EVE General Discussion

The harshness of Eve does work against itself . This is because earning ISK takes time; buying game assets takes time; logistics takes time; setting up fits takes time.

What happens when nobody else wants to grind anything?

And here's the day I 100% agree to Jenn aSide on something PvE. CCP doesn't knows PvE players and their attempts to develop PvE just keep showing and telling this essential truth.

Hi Jenn, thankyou for your post. It is a little off topic, but I think its valuable to answer it.

TL;DR: All new PvE content won't be PvP-like.

I understand where your coming from. Sometimes, you just want to watch Netflix, or chat with your mates, and only half pay attention while running some Sanctums, or running The Blockade.
And yes, much of our new content has had a considerably higher difficulty cap than previous content. I can assure you we recognize the value of both.

We understand the importance of 'low engagement content', and we believe we can deliver that while staying true to our push for player-like-NPCs. We can use a couple of different strategies at lowering their power level. Low skills, poor tactics, bad fittings, providing you with allies or handicapping them in other ways.

Additionally, there is the question of Mastery. I've spoken about this at round-tables at Fanfest and EVE Vegas. Players have Mastered content, for example, the Mission system. They've spent the time to find the right ships, skills, fits and tactics to optimize that content. Changing that content has a cost, it reduces or removes the investment someone has made in mastering a system. This is a large part of what attracts many people to EVE Online, complex systems to master. This doesn't mean we'll never change missions, or any other system, but we do recognize the cost it has. And sometimes, this Master is just kinda bad...its not optimization and player skill, its just figuring out the game system (i.e. mission blitzing).

Lastly, no matter how hard we try, I doubt we'll ever get to the standards of player flown ships. Theoretically, its possible, but we can't have a super computer to run every NPC in the game :) And, there is just mental difference between knowing their is another person controlling the ship your killing (or getting killed by) than a computer.


Much of the push for adding the Mining Ops, and Blood Raider Shipyards has less to do with the specific PvE content and much more to do with the tools we're creating. How NPC's chose their targets and maneuver around the battlefield. NPCs respecting EWar resistances, or being effected by sensor dampeners and energy neutralizers. NPC's using capacitor when they activate a webifier or repairer.
We're creating these tools at the highest possible difficulty level, trying to replicate PvP as much as possible. Ensuring these tools are rock solid. But these tools will be very useful for lower-intensity PvE as well. A Rifter fit with Civilian autocannons still needs to find the right range to orbit its target at, and respond appropriately when you use a Tracking Disruptor on it. We're striving for internally consistent PvE.

We want to provide a variety of PvE and PvPvE (which is probably where the Blood Raider Shipyards fall) for EVE Online. Casual, High Risk-High Reward, Group Based, Solo, and everything in between.