Gevlon Goblin wrote:We heard in the fanfest presentation that only 10% of the paying players turn to "diverse play", 50% quits soon and 40% are just "leveling up their Raven". Obviously I cannot offer a serious fix for that, as addressing this issue needs complete, strategic level changes.
However I can offer a simple band-aid that will not fix the problem, but slows the bleeding of players. How? It doesn't take that much time to level up that Raven into a faction-fit Golem. After that, the solo player either quits or keeps upgrading the ship stupidly until he gets ganked and quits.
My suggestion is giving him something that takes a year or more to get: a supercarrier or titan.
These supers would be modifications and reskins of the original ones, called "Imperial issue Avatar" for example. Their largest modification would be no jump drive. Since supers can't take gates, this would lock them to the system they are built in. They would lose EWAR immunity, so their PvP value would be zero (an Ibis could tackle and disable one, literally), they would be exclusively a large status symbol for PvE players. While they would have some PvE use, it would be totally cost-ineffective, so the owner couldn't print ISK.
The highsec supercarriers (beside losing their jump ability and EWAR immunity) would be modified to be able to use normal drones, making them an extremely expensive mission boat. Since they can't dock, the user would need an alt to pick up and return the mission, making this a very dumb - but stylish - way of missioning.
The highsec titans would gain the ability to fit strip miners and a 100000 m3 ore bay. Their mining bonuses would be equal to the Mackinaw, so their 6 turrets would let them mine like 3 Macks. As a Leviathan has no turret hardpoints, it would get Rorqual-equal bonuses for mining links. Since they can't dock, they are bound to a second hauler account and they could only mine in one system, so they wouldn't make anyone rich. But hey, look at me, I'm mining in a titan!
These ships would make a solo PvE player busy and happy for a year or more until he gets it. He will probably quit after that, but EVE still won X month of subscription. And hey, some of them might even do something dumb like getting into limited engagement or keep it in a wardeccable corp. Or better: he learns that there is more in EVE than leveling your Raven.
They could be built like outposts. A pilot drops an "egg", a structure launched for himself which can only be attacked in war like POCOs, (you can't wardec an NPC corp) and has multi-million HP. Then he freights the capital components and BPC into its hold and starts building. After a month, the build is complete, he flies there in a pod, clicks "activate ship" and he is in his very new super.