"EVE is unique" and "EVE is not for all" they say. Many people (like Rohan just now) leave EVE without criticizing it. Just finding it "not for their taste". The pro-EVE players claim that EVE is PvP and PvP is not for everyone. They might even hint that the leavers are carebears who just can't stand competition.
It's not true. There are many-many successful PvP games like Counterstrike, League of Legends, World of Tanks and all the real life sports. People play that, despite they have only PvP content and the average player loses half of the time. Many of these games have consequences for losing, like dropping in ladder position, repair costs, or just being defeated front of thousands of spectators including their whole family. Still they keep playing.
Jester pointed me to the right direction. In his post he practically calls a player idiot for trying to fight back. In another post he ridicules another one for not staying docked for a month (which is funny since he criticized a CSM member for suggesting the same).
The solution is that in the mentioned PvP games there are battles between (approximately or on average) equal opponents. You can win by playing better. Obviously you'll lose several times, but you are rarely obliterated. In EVE it's the norm. I'd say that besides battles that take place at reinforced stations and the recent Nulli-PL battles there aren't any battles in EVE. There are only ganks: fights where one side has absolutely no chance to win. This is so obvious to veteran players that they openly call someone idiot who tries to fight. The proper action is watching intel channels, D-scan, watching local or simply staying docked: run and hide.
I'd say this is what makes players feel uneasy about EVE. Not the defeats, they have that in much larger quantities in other games. The hopelessness of their situation that gets to them. There was nothing they could do to win. They could only run.
To make it worse, there isn't even a power-ranking which would give them the hope that they can get out of the ganked situation if they play good enough or long enough. PL titan was killed by "FW noobs". Goonswarm was wardecced by "highsec bears" during Burn Jita. Garmon was ganked by a PL squad when he was exploiting with webs. Not even the largest, most experienced, rich or famed is safe.
If everyone is ganked, who ganks them? The answer is surprisingly: "everyone who cares to". In EVE the players take turns. When they farm ISK by mining, hauling, doing missions or ratting, they are victims. They can only run and hide. When they are out with a PvP ship, preferably in a large fleet, they are the gankers. Granted, they can bump into an even larger gankfleet but otherwise they are the top predators: all the farmers are their prey. Due to the large power difference of PvP and PvE ships, combined with the no limits on fleet size, even the dumbest "carebears" can massacre the best player when their roam catches him ratting.
This is the unique charm of EVE too. No matter how much you suck, if you go out on a roam, you'll get kills. The difference between the best and the worst PvP-er is merely in their ISK efficiency.
It's not a bug to be fixed, it is the unique EVE. Play it if you like it and don't if you don't. There are two kinds of personalities that can like EVE: one is the lolganker who just wants kills and tears at any cost (even if he is ganked more than he gank or if he can only sustain his play by PLEX). The other is the strategist who plays the big picture, considers being ganked merely and ISK loss and enjoys the growth. Of course I'm not saying that every player belong to these groups. There are many others, but they are like the competitive arena PvP-ers in WoW. Their money is welcomed by the developers, but they aren't the focus and won't get much support.
For the above reasons I have doubts now that The One Empire can be made. I'm afraid that CCP would somehow sabotate it, just like Blizzard did when I started winning Wintergrasp by kicking bad players. While neither one was impossible or against the current rules, they were against the will of the target audience. In WoW it's the "casual player" who want to "have fun" without doing any effort. Kicking him for sucking was telling him: "make effort or no fun for you". Most of them would go away from WoW PvP if my model would become widespread. In EVE, I'm afraid there aren't 400K strategists. Most of the players are lolgankers who just want to experience beating a helpless, chance-less human being. The One Empire would tell them "act as a disciplined soldier or go back to highsec", which would make them leave. CCP would do something about it to protect the bottom line.
Does it mean that you can't do anything to be safer? Of course not. To be relatively safe, all you have to do is playing better than the average target, and it's not hard. For haulers simply "don't autopilot" is enough, as my transport interceptors proved it. Not because it would be hard for a good pirate team to catch them, but because no one will bother to do so when they can gank two dozen autopiloting untanked T1 industrials with 500M+ on the Perimiter gate in the same time.
I think this is the reason nullsec is so deserted. The optimal gameplay for getting and keeping sov is simply incompatible with the will of the target audience. They don't want fleet battles against a prepared enemy, they want gank-roams. Maybe CCP should change the sov mechanics to something like this:
EVE Business report: Wednesday morning 32.5B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt)
Don't forget to join the goblinworks channel to discuss trading and industrial ideas and laugh on the morons of the day (50-80 people on peak hours).
It's not true. There are many-many successful PvP games like Counterstrike, League of Legends, World of Tanks and all the real life sports. People play that, despite they have only PvP content and the average player loses half of the time. Many of these games have consequences for losing, like dropping in ladder position, repair costs, or just being defeated front of thousands of spectators including their whole family. Still they keep playing.
Jester pointed me to the right direction. In his post he practically calls a player idiot for trying to fight back. In another post he ridicules another one for not staying docked for a month (which is funny since he criticized a CSM member for suggesting the same).
The solution is that in the mentioned PvP games there are battles between (approximately or on average) equal opponents. You can win by playing better. Obviously you'll lose several times, but you are rarely obliterated. In EVE it's the norm. I'd say that besides battles that take place at reinforced stations and the recent Nulli-PL battles there aren't any battles in EVE. There are only ganks: fights where one side has absolutely no chance to win. This is so obvious to veteran players that they openly call someone idiot who tries to fight. The proper action is watching intel channels, D-scan, watching local or simply staying docked: run and hide.
I'd say this is what makes players feel uneasy about EVE. Not the defeats, they have that in much larger quantities in other games. The hopelessness of their situation that gets to them. There was nothing they could do to win. They could only run.
To make it worse, there isn't even a power-ranking which would give them the hope that they can get out of the ganked situation if they play good enough or long enough. PL titan was killed by "FW noobs". Goonswarm was wardecced by "highsec bears" during Burn Jita. Garmon was ganked by a PL squad when he was exploiting with webs. Not even the largest, most experienced, rich or famed is safe.
If everyone is ganked, who ganks them? The answer is surprisingly: "everyone who cares to". In EVE the players take turns. When they farm ISK by mining, hauling, doing missions or ratting, they are victims. They can only run and hide. When they are out with a PvP ship, preferably in a large fleet, they are the gankers. Granted, they can bump into an even larger gankfleet but otherwise they are the top predators: all the farmers are their prey. Due to the large power difference of PvP and PvE ships, combined with the no limits on fleet size, even the dumbest "carebears" can massacre the best player when their roam catches him ratting.
This is the unique charm of EVE too. No matter how much you suck, if you go out on a roam, you'll get kills. The difference between the best and the worst PvP-er is merely in their ISK efficiency.
It's not a bug to be fixed, it is the unique EVE. Play it if you like it and don't if you don't. There are two kinds of personalities that can like EVE: one is the lolganker who just wants kills and tears at any cost (even if he is ganked more than he gank or if he can only sustain his play by PLEX). The other is the strategist who plays the big picture, considers being ganked merely and ISK loss and enjoys the growth. Of course I'm not saying that every player belong to these groups. There are many others, but they are like the competitive arena PvP-ers in WoW. Their money is welcomed by the developers, but they aren't the focus and won't get much support.
For the above reasons I have doubts now that The One Empire can be made. I'm afraid that CCP would somehow sabotate it, just like Blizzard did when I started winning Wintergrasp by kicking bad players. While neither one was impossible or against the current rules, they were against the will of the target audience. In WoW it's the "casual player" who want to "have fun" without doing any effort. Kicking him for sucking was telling him: "make effort or no fun for you". Most of them would go away from WoW PvP if my model would become widespread. In EVE, I'm afraid there aren't 400K strategists. Most of the players are lolgankers who just want to experience beating a helpless, chance-less human being. The One Empire would tell them "act as a disciplined soldier or go back to highsec", which would make them leave. CCP would do something about it to protect the bottom line.
Does it mean that you can't do anything to be safer? Of course not. To be relatively safe, all you have to do is playing better than the average target, and it's not hard. For haulers simply "don't autopilot" is enough, as my transport interceptors proved it. Not because it would be hard for a good pirate team to catch them, but because no one will bother to do so when they can gank two dozen autopiloting untanked T1 industrials with 500M+ on the Perimiter gate in the same time.
I think this is the reason nullsec is so deserted. The optimal gameplay for getting and keeping sov is simply incompatible with the will of the target audience. They don't want fleet battles against a prepared enemy, they want gank-roams. Maybe CCP should change the sov mechanics to something like this:
- All mining towers and stations are NPC operated and indestructible.
- The system starts with no sov holder, the system is NPC null and the moon goo belongs to no one, no cyno jammer is present.
- In "NPC null" state, the sov-number is calculated as the ratio of ISK destroyed (not looted) in kills by your alliance. If your alliance destroyed 32% of ISK in the system in the last 30 days, you have 32% sov points.
- (after 30 days of data available) if your alliance is over 30% and has 10% more than the second highest you become the sov holder. You get the moon goo, you control the station and can erect a cyno jammer. The sov number resets.
- If the sov is held by an alliance, the sov number is calculated as "ISK destroyed by owners vs ISK destroyed by everyone else against the owners (not on randoms) in the system in the last 30 days".
- (after the 30 days grace period) if the sov number goes below 50%, you lose sov and NPC null state returns.
EVE Business report: Wednesday morning 32.5B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt)
Don't forget to join the goblinworks channel to discuss trading and industrial ideas and laugh on the morons of the day (50-80 people on peak hours).
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