Server reset. And I say this as someone who has 10 years into this game. I know many friends who like the new mechanics, but won't play because of the powers that be.

Burn it all. Start from scratch.

I bet that subs would be off the charts.

HS is relatively safe. It is not safe if you want to be a complete idiot.

So did you tell them to fit a solid tank and not to carry more than X amount in cargo? If you did tell them and they still got ganked is that really "them not understanding the game" or is it them ignoring advice and losing as a result?

Sounds like you should help these people out, that you get into the game. If you educate them they won't be bottom feeder food anymore..

what kind of people run away after being killed once? looooooool
like for real? exist people that give up after 1 try?

clearly people not adapt at eve and its law: the jungle law...
better that they've gone

eve is not a mainstream game adapt for all and never will be

It is called learning by doing or trial-and-error. You make a mistake and learn from that mistake. It is a self-correcting process. If you take away that process people cannot learn. They cannot learn that prudence trumps imprudence. It is a good thing when you think about it for awhile.

And for new players the analysis by CCP suggests that when they are killed they tend to stay longer and that it is quite rare, at least for suicide ganks.

Might want to have a chat with your friends if they are getting repeatedly ganked while still new. If it is true, then they are doing something very imprudent...repeatedly.

Exactly. If they are going to be idiots in HS and then get ganked for it and not learn from it, I fail to see how that is my problem and not their problem.

No you are wrong.

First off, new players should not be out there booming around in freighters. If they are they are being very imprudent and foolish and that should not be rewarded. Second, again looking at the CCP presentation new players who are suicide ganked or even killed legally tend to stay longer. There could be a type of selection bias here, but the evidence does not show that shooting new players is bad for retention. Third trial-and-error only works when you let players make errors. Remove the ability to make errors, or reduce the costs of making errors and they either are not a method for learning or they stop being errors.

And interactions with other players is what seems to keep people engaged with the game. Both negative and positive interactions. At least that is my view. Trying to limit negative interactions means you limit interactions and on an arbitrary basis and in a way that may end up rewarding players being imprudent and foolish. Once that kind of protection ends it will likely be bad. A player wondering why his foolishness was not costly and suddenly now is costly? Just make it costly from the beginning.

As for keeping players, if you decide that keeping players at any and all costs is the route to go I think you'll end up being ******. Eventually many of the current players will quite. I'd quite. My guess is Daichi, Jonah, Jenn, Torin, Nana, Cade, Scipio, Shae, Linus and many others would quit. You might keep some new players, but a large portion of the long time paying customers would walk. If HS became "locked at safeties green" I'd have to seriously reconsider my financial support for the game. That is some salty nonsense, it is simply a statement of fact. I like playing a game where no matter where I go or what I do there is an element of danger. Take that away and my interest is largely gone.

Or let me put it this way: the idea of making the game safer appears to be costing CCP many long term players. And it does not seem to be resulting in many new subs/players. In fact, the professional ganking groups that have arisen and the HS terrorists that are CODE. maybe be exacerbating the problem....but that is entirely the result of CCPs own blinkered policies.

Well...

For me the the most natural would be to look at every expired and for long not returned account. To look at his characters, they main area of space (high-sec, low-sec, 0.0, WH), main activity (trading, pvp, pve, whatever), they main connections (to discovery other alts of that player) and their area and activity.

And then using this data choose the most problem area of space and activity based on the biggest loss of active players. Maybe contact some of them in personal using email provided.

It would take a lot of time and effort but will provide the most reliable source for any decisions.

I haven't heard about such studies done by CCP. What they did and what they told in that FanFest (and what is widely using as 'ganking is good' by some forumites) is not even close to real searching for reason of losing players.

As proof (my personal anecdote): i know about many people who left the game for last 7 years. And not one of them left because of ganking nor nerfs to it. Some left because their main activity (PVE in 0.0 and evading PvP) is boring. Some other left because RL reasons. Some left because of high-sec PvP mechanics (OGBs, neutral logi and bumpers, station games).

So yeah, for me all this studi was just FanFest fluff. Made purely to make drunk fans happy.

This is why EVE did better when it was "here is a space ship, **** you". How some of these people can't understand that is beyond me.

The 'safety' people honestly think more safety is the answer. They are making the same kind of mistake modern day parents make, ie "if i keep my child safe enough, they will be ok". What they end up with is a bunch of people who can't function in the adult world and who need their participation trophies to feel special.

I don't think people like that are capable of changing their ways though, when your whole self image is built around "hey, look at what a good person I am, I oppose space tyranny in a video game", there's just no helping it

I can't pretend to have an answer to it and new player retention certainly isn't the only reason for a declining player base - I'm no fan of making highsec significantly safer and nothing is coming to me right now as to how to solve it. One aspect that I know has been a big factor in some of them quitting is the lack of ability to retaliate - I've been asked more than once before, before someone quit, to help them get revenge and I've had to tell them that there is little that they or I can do to meaningfully interdict for instance someone's random alt that is only used purely for catalyst ganking and so on.

Your proposal fails to do what you claim you want. You are asking CCP to do what you canGÇÖt or wonGÇÖt (mostly won't).

In either sense it isn't going to give you what you are trying to accomplish.

If you want a person to have risk...go increase their risk. Risk is not something the game gives, risk is based off of player choices and actions. People do not want to take the actions necessary to impose risk on other players. Gankers can and do avoid the FacPo, but it would be much harder to avoid players. Get a fleet going, get a guy who can do scanning, warp into the gankers and start activating kill rights and kill them. I bet many of them have several kill rights, so if they come back...kill them again.

So go shoot their catalysts. What is the problem? That you can't impose a 5 billion ISK loss on them? Of course not they are not imprudent. In fact they are quite prudent. This is why it is hard to kill them. But they are doing things to make themselves hard to kill. They are taking actions that reduce their risk.

See it yet?

Prudence is good.

Imprudence is bad.

This true in game. This is true out of game.

If somebody is upset because they lost 6 billion ISK worth of cargo...they should be mad, at least in large part, at themselves for taking on so much risk.

No, the mechanics are the environment. See here:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6875713#post6875713



And why is a pilot mining in a retriever when they can mine a procurer. A procurer can fit a pretty massive tank so that it will take several catalysts to burn you down, at least 4 maybe 5 or 6. And how many miners are ganked while watching Netflix or the like? Again player actions. Choosing a retriever, a very gankable ship. Fitting it with not tank. Watching Netflix. All imprudent actions IGÇÖm afraid.

Actions are what make a difference. For the suicide ganker he is taking actions to minimize his risk. He uses a fast aligning ship, he uses safe spots, he uses citadels, he uses cheap ships. He is using the environment to his best advantage whereas their targets, generally, are not.

Edit: Christ I feel like I'm having the same conversation over and over again...some EVE version of Ground Hog Day.

Oh, and according to CCP new players are suicide ganked with a probability of about 1%. So suicide ganking is not a big problem for them.

Wow 10 dudes you know vs. CCP's sample of 80,000.

Yeah, I'm impressed.

http://kotaku.com/eve-player-gets-revenge-on-griefer-four-years-later-1793393532

No, these sale pitches wont work.

Of course, I am dismissive. Using a sample of 10 vs. 80,000. Sure clusters can and do happen. But looking at the cluster and then trying to draw an inference from it strikes me as suffering from the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.

Now the NPE throws all kinds of stuff at you is my understanding....so they have changed that....and look subscriptions are falling.

"Raids" WFT is that?

There was said a lot of their activities, some believe they are discouraging new players from the game, some say they only filter players who would not enjoy eve anyway. Be it as it is, what they are doing is fine by game rules and so they will keep doing that.

This is not WoW or some other MMO. This is EVE. Here the players drive the content. The wars, big and small, the intrigue the plotting the backstabbing, etc. Some of the most fun I have had in game is when the **** really goes against "my side". In those instances there are usually no end to the fleets I can get in and the targets are plentiful. Some of the battles even make the non-gamer news.

And read my last post to Trasch.

I did not come in via Reddit, SA or anything else. I came in because I saw an ad somewhere and thought, "Hey cool." I thought that PvP would be rampant, that as soon as I undocked I'd get shot. It was almost disappointing when I did undock. All these ships in space around the station and nobody shooting anyone.

So I am (or was) the new player you are describing while you were not. This fact is at least a little bit ironic. You sit there typing out, "No, new players they can't make it on their own, look at me." And I say, "Yes, they can look at me." You didn't go through the experience you describe whereas I did and made it.

Do I want the game to borrow from WoW? No. My guess it will simply result in new players putting off finding a good corp/alliance and then leaving the game.

What do people want to see removed? Freighter ganking, suicide ganking in general, prohibit low sec status people from HS...

Just some of the things that have been lost/removed and things people often complain about. And just off the top of my head. I'm sure there is more.

And yes, there has always been trade hub camping. Going to trade hubs to look for targets if you don't have the standings to use locator agents is a good alternative strategy. It is not a 0, 1 thing here. But we have certainly moved more towards 1 (trade hub camping). How many 2, 3, 4,...small number war dec corps are there now? IDK, but it doesn't seem like many.

And look, the stagnation/decline could be both removal of HS content and the overall direction of MMOs. They are not mutually exclusive hypotheses.

Even in this video you have:
- person peacefully mining rocks (and nobody suicides him)
- person quietly exploring (and nobody kills him)
- one fleet attacks another (both sides came especially to fight)
- 3rd party - yes, here is something "unusual" but again: these guys attack already fighting groups

All in all not that 'rampant' PvP. I would say more: this video tells that people do DIFFERENT things, mining, exploring, trading, fighting. Far from what Teckos is trying to say.

@Teckos Pech

You are a wise man.

Eve is a huge social experiment.

To me it seems the playerbase has been very steady
except for the Alpha-peak.
Maybe everybody is overreacting on Eves death.

We have unfortunately seen many examples of game
developers that during success hires too many
people and then when "normality" sets in the downhill
starts (lookin at you too Rovio)

Eve may be in a rut.

I am not convinced it is dieing right now.

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

However it could be true that Alpha clones are not doing anything for the growth of the game.

Alpha's are restricted to never being more than an alpha unless they pay...so they have no great goals to accomplish or look forward to.

It might do better if there is a Beta clone option, and perhaps a Ceta clone option (where you pay a samller subscription), and then the full Omega option (monthly subscription).

Voice comms mostly became a thing when large group cooperative game play became a thing because people realized it's much easier to tell someone to do something than it is to type. Typing a command to someone else essentially mean you stop doing your own job because you would still need your hands for that and usually take more time than just saying the exact same word. Any competitive group will want to have better communication. Why some people would rather stay in the "stone age" of comms and still type stuff is a mystery to me.

I don't think alpha accounts have anything to do with it. There's an impression amongst some gamers that the older players are entrenched and nobody could "catch up" to them... I obviously don't believe this but that's the prevailing impression. I think CCP should speed up training for lower SP accounts. Something like <10 mil SP gets you an 10x multiplier. 10-30mil SP = 8x training multiplier, etc...

I'm just over 200 mil SP. I actually wish skills weren't even a thing. 'If you can buy it you can fly it' is my attitude.

I'd say voice communications are faster when you need confirmation that the other person understands what you're telling them or need feedback... but they tend not to be quicker when you are simply providing information. If I need to tell my wife that I'm on my way to pick our son up... a text is faster than a phone call. If I need to check if she wants me to pick up dinner... and if so from where... and what she wants to order... yeah, you call.

Saying: "Primary is ship A, secondary is ship B" doesn't require feedback. Broadcasting for reps doesn't either. The benefit from voice only comes from not having to stop controlling your ship to type... not from anything inherently beneficial from using voice to communicate. Not only that... if my wife was asking me something at the moment a voice command came in I miss it permanently... while a text command is still there for me to read a second later when I look back at my screen.

Interesting that the OP happily ignores the fact that, comparing to the same time last year, we had 6k characters more online in the recent weekend that there were in the corresponding weekend a year ago. 6k characters is around 15% increase - this is not negligible.

All of the proposed ideas are terrible, for the reasons elaborated above.

So lets unpack this. Folks could try Eve for free previously with all sorts of promotions where you could get a 30 day trial. They tried it and very much like a cupcake frosted with liverwurst decided Eve was not for them. So CCP makes it so you play play a slightly crippled version of Eve for free but for longer and the liver cake still seems to be unpopular. Who would have guessed!

Could it be that there is a limited number of people that like their cupcakes combined with their liver based lunch items? That might be where an answer can be found.

So what would make that mythical Eve that matches the player base of other games like WoW have achieved? I'd argue you couldn't still have "Eve" and be WoW. What would you have to change in Eve to get WEvE? (WoW/Eve)

- Dumb it down. I would have to be a lot more simple.
- Add more rinse and repeat PVE
- Make it "easier" to relate to. Understanding that you are your ship and not some sort of Elf wandering around a Forrest seems to be a leap too far for the simpler minds.
- remove any actual risk.
- get rid of all elements that allow "immoral" activities like scamming or ganking. You know all the stuff that makes Eve what Eve is.
- add lots of pointless bling! Give your characters "unique" hats and silly clothes.
- add pets because of the puppies and bunnies!
- make things in the game that sort of map to the real world. Let you bake a holiday pie, collect Christmas presents or something Halloween themed!
- make PvP consensual


So basically remove everything that makes Eve special.

Another thing I find interesting about Eve is it is true that the game has reached the point where a lot of low hanging fruit is gone. Big alliances have sowed up a lot of the valuable stuff in Eve. But I think you have to view that as forcing you to adapt. The game gets harder the longer you stay in it which is good. I does mean you learn new approaches and look for new opportunities. Doing the same thing will not always produce the same results. I think that is not such a bad thing. Those other games can keep their elves and holiday baking!

This is nonsense even from a factual level.

According to EVE Offline statistics, the current 24 high is 35,434 on Wednesday. The high of the week was PCU of 42,395. By contrast the maximum prior to Ascension was pushing 29k at most. To get even above 35k PCU you have to go all the way back to June and the infamous WWB.

That means our new normal was the most active time in the year leading up to ascension.

That is all without a strong advertisement push.
That is all without a complete NPE.
That is all without a new lore portal/website.
That is all without a new AI that creates realistic encounters of all kinds.

_Pretty sure_ this claim is unfounded, but time will tell.

The Only way to fix the issue, is to address the extreme SP advantage vets have over new players. The only way to do so is to either launch a additional server along side tranq and see how low sp players react aka if they flock to it, or completely wipe the main.

Luckily though, the majority don't support stupid ideas like cloak fuel...

This thread delivers!

#Tears #Butthurtcarebears #OscarsSoWhine

I like these suggestions.

Highsec ISK is what kept me there for so long actually. Moving out of starting areas is a standard MMO convention.

Local is scary after living in wormholes.

has anyone considered a "pre-sear" (guildwars) type of area? Where new players are created, and can live up until a certain SP threshold? At any time they can cross through the new eden wormhole and join the main server.

same here, ingame since 2009.

seriously, reset everything. delete all skillpoints, all chars, all corps, all alliances, all blueprints, all citadels, every single isk and asset in the game. respawn all stations, belts (they should be random anyway), moons, agents, everything. re-link the stargates to create a new universe. open servers. boom. eve's persistence has reached a problematic status.

in this regard, refineries is a much needed and far too late coming patch. should have happened earlier.
may i add another killer change to it: make BPOs decay over time.

addendum:
why not introduce cycles/intervals to the game. every x years a reset happens. adjust skill training time/skill and bpo costs/etc accordingly. allow dual-char training on one account by default. it would focus the game onto what it really is, a fierce competetion, who can reach, settle and hold the outer edge of space first, starting from zero.

If this was to happen there would be no big upheaval like you suggest, the former owners would simply have agreed diplomatic agreements that they move back in and re-establish and the status quo would be preserved, all you're suggesting is CCP making the game more irritating for those groups which generate publicity and headlines. You'd also be dooming the game to guaranteed lull periods - who is going to commit to a war over the resources in the region next door knowing it would all be reset next month? For that matter, who is going to bother logging in to mine or rat or adjust market orders knowing that everything is going to be deleted and zeroed soon anyway?