Cara Forelli
Green Skull LLC
574
   |
Posted - 2014.09.17 15:19:00 -
[1] - Quote
If you think about it, CCP has added quite a lot of PVE content in the last few years. Wormholes were originally designed with PVE in mind, incursions were added to add variety to PVE, and very recently burner missions were added. All of these types of PVE cater to groups in particular, because like Ralph said player interaction is statistically proven to promote long-term game play.
However, players always ruin these good intentions by "figuring it out". Optimization of your ship has always been one of my favorite parts of PVP. So many ways to fit it for so many different situations, learning your strengths and weaknesses, testing them against unpredictable opponents. To me it's what makes the game great and keeps me coming back. There's always something new to try. With PVE though, it's all done for you already. Everyone knows the easiest way to do level 4s is a sniping ship. Everyone knows exactly how many invulns you need on your blinged out incursion BS and how many capitals to warp in at a time in a C5 capital escalation. If you don't know these things, they are a short google search away, because really, who wants to lose a ship to PVE when the answers are so readily available?
In my mind it's not really a "problem" or something that can be "fixed". The new burner missions are a good example. They "act like" player combat, but CCP has to make them very challenging to be interesting at all. Which leads to a few set ships with predetermined fits that should be used (figured out on the test server of course, because who wants to lose a ship to PVE?) To me this is less interesting than if the missions where significantly easier and I could experiment with different ships and fits to accomplish them.
Now many people disagree, but in my mind PVE is just a necesary evil. You need isk. Missions provides a reliable fallback in case riskier isk making endeavors fail. However, trying to make it more interesting is near impossible (as evidenced by the fact that they keep adding new PVE types and people still find all of them boring), and to me rather feels like a waste of resources that could be better spent improving the real game (testing your wit against real thinking opponents!).
Just my 0.02 isk and not something everyone will agree with. But I think you'll find many similar opinions, at least among the consistent long-term players.
www.ensignyooch.wordpress.com
New player with questions? Just want to chat? Join my public channel in game:-áHouse Forelli |