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I really want to like Eve
dbgager
Member UncommonPosts: 175
Most of this game is fantastic. The Skill based system instead of a level based system is great. As are the player run economy. Massive Universe, great graphics, its all great. I also like complex games and this one is probably one of the most complex. But the actual gameplay of the game is very lacking...it mostly consists of large amounts of travel to complete tasks that take less than a minute to complete ...or just the opposite..large amounts of time completing very boring tasks such as mining.
I realize that the PVP in this game can be very good from what I have read..but in order to compete in PVP requires a large amout of time to reach the level of other players.
As far as PVE goes this type of game is probably much harder to design for. Games like WOW have a lot of control over what players will be doing what quests (level based quests) that allows them to make the quests fun and challenging...Plus the fact that ....how much can you do in a spaceship...you can go somewhere or you can shoot someone...hence the quests are not very exciting.
As far as battle..its not that exciting at this point either. approach...lockon..orbit...fire. and wait. Its pretty much he who has the biggest gun, and/or best defenses (shields, armor, structure) wins (probably more so that most other games) Occasionaly you might have to apply shield boosters. or perhaps warp out of the battle if your overmatched.
LIke I say..I really wish I enjoyed it more...because everything about the game is great except actually playing it at this point.
Comments
Yea I'm feeling exactly the same as you, but what keeps me into it is my drive to gain ISK I guess. Kinda hooked on that, and there are so many ways to try and make money I am having fun with it.
I think in your case you need to decide what primary part of the game you would enjoy and join a corp that runs it. Then you can get into the bigger picture of everything and you'll feel yourself understand the potential further.
I think it just takes patience. Who can blame us for not enjoying jumping from system to system to deliver Dolls to someone then head right on back to the quest-giver? lol
>>>>realize that the PVP in this game can be very good from what I have read..but in order to compete in PVP requires a large amout of time to reach the level of other players.
Not true. This is probablly the biggest Eve misconception. You can be a tackler with a few days experiance just as a start. Even for 1v1 PvP, you can own someone with a few months experience if you understand tactics.
>>>As far as PVE goes this type of game is probably much harder to design for. Games like WOW have a lot of control over what players will be doing what quests (level based quests) that allows them to make the quests fun and challenging...Plus the fact that ....how much can you do in a spaceship...you can go somewhere or you can shoot someone...hence the quests are not very exciting.
PvE is much better in WoW than in EVE. That will never change. That said, I enjoy flying around in my spaceship and shooting rats during missions. But I enjoying minning too. Maybe you have to be a special breed of crazy to enjoy EVE PvE?
>>>As far as battle..its not that exciting at this point either. approach...lockon..orbit...fire. and wait. Its pretty much he who has the biggest gun, and/or best defenses (shields, armor, structure) wins (probably more so that most other games) Occasionaly you might have to apply shield boosters. or perhaps warp out of the battle if your overmatched.
Well in missions, I find it pretty interactive moving to new targets and controlling my drones, but its in PvP where the tactics can get really exciting and complex
EvE's PvE is sub-par. There's no denying it. It's a shame, but there you go. Basically, PvE is supposed to be a thing that you do to support PvP; gameplay wise it's pretty much an afterthought.
However! You can make more ISK and have more fun by introducing an element of PvP into your money making activity. PvP is more than shooting at people, much more.
Did you know that scamming is a perfectly legitimate activity in EvE? If you can trick some other player into giving you his ISKs and/or stuff then the GMs will say good for you and ignore their sad pleas for redress.
Did you realise that trading on the market is a PvP activity? And it's arguably more ruthless and more sophisticated than the combat PvP as well. Plus if you get good at it, it's unimaginably lucrative, and requires a very small SP investment. People also make vast sums in industry but that really does require quite a few level 5 skills to compete with the big boys.
You can make a good living running plexes and anomalies. Running them in lo-sec or 0.0 space will introduce a significant element of danger, as well as give you access to very valuable rewards. The plexes themselves are essentially freeform missions with no agents or standings required. The fun comes from not knowing whether you will get an escalation to a further plex (usually with better rewards). Last night a friend of mine and his corpmate got a 5 escalation series, ending with a deadspace overseer kill that dropped an X-type XL Booster worth a couple of billion ISK. Not bad for 1 night's ratting split between 2 guys
As far as your conception of EvE combat PvP.... well I'll try not to be rude, but you're basically very wrong. Dont be fooled by the combat PvE is all I can say; mission rats are nothing like player ships. Any experienced PvP pilot would laugh at the assertion that "the biggest gun on the biggest ship wins". I dont claim to be a particularly good PvPer (after 3 years, my proud boast is that I'm "adequate"), but I'm certainly an experienced one, and I have no problem asserting that bigger does not equal better. Think of each ship as a tool designed to do a job; you can't use a circular saw to do a screwdriver's job, even though the saw is far bigger and more powerful. Personally my favourite ships are all T2 cruisers, and you'll find that most PvP-focused alliances spend a large majority of their combat time in these ships. Battleships and capital ships are specialist tools for specific jobs.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I found in EVE Organised PVP with fair fights takes more skill and you really see all of the combat mechanics come together. However in unfair world PVP it just seems to me he who throws the most money and ships into it wins. I've been watching the Alliance Tournaments and thats the kinda PVP I want in EVE it really makes you want to play EVE more, just the PVP seems to work in the tournaments.
Tournament PVP is very limited and mainly for show off.
Large chunk of factors are missing:
- no tackle
- no warp ins
- no snipe
- no intel
- predictible
etc.
Only reason you want this type of PVP is because you are lazy and affraid to lose your ship.
You are lazy to make en effort into making an engagement happen at a place and time you want.
You are affraid to lose your ship because you are lazy as described above and don't like the idea you can lose your ship as soon as you undock.
Actually..That is another thing that I dislike in this game. The fact that it attracts con men, scammers, and thieves. I have to worry about these kinds of people in real life. I don't need to worry about them in a game. I for one don't participate in those activities in the real world. I would get no satisfaction from doing it in a game.
EvE is a fun game but unless you are a member of a reasonably active corp you are not likely to really get engaged and enjoy the game. Solo work in almost any game can quickly become boring and repetitive and in EvE this is especially true as in addition to being restricted to what you can do you are quite restricted as to where you can do it.
To say that Eve has good or bad PvP is to miss the point that Eve doesn't really encourage single player versus single player but group against group or blob against group. As a solo player you are going to come across gate camps with multiple players who are setup to support each other and to take down most single ships and many smaller groups.
In Eve the purpose of PVP is not honor and not fame but to destroy the enemy, loot their miserable corpse and send a message to stay home to anyone else foolish enough to enter your territory. Though for pirates the goal is to mainly loot and laugh at you.
LOL. Is anyone forcing you do scam or steal? No? Then why would that be a bearing on wether you like the game? or are you saying that you dont like when other people do it? If so, maybe EVE is just too harsh for you,
Either way, Id say you either are not in the right corp or EVE just isnt the game for you.
If you are stating that as your opinion, fair enough, but in reality the average person who plays EVE engages in mostly PvE and PvP is either something they do occasionaly or not at all. Ive talked to many EVE players who have no interested in PvP. There are thousands and thousands of people who do nothing but mine all day.
There are lots of ways to enjoy EVE and this diversity is part of its appeal to me. You can grab 10 random EVE players and watch them and chances are that their play time looks very different from each other.
Well, I hate to say it, but EVE sucks at the beginning. It really picks up once you get into a mid-sized/large corp. Me and three friends actually just started our own and had about 34 members within the first week or two. That's when it got more fun, when the politics and all that good stuff picks up. Although, after a while it gets annoying. 4 months later, we have 3 different corps (one for new players, one for combat pilots, one for indie pilots) in an alliance together and a lot of the game has really picked up. It went from spreadsheets in space to a game for me around the point that the politics, warring, and bigger combat started.
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Telthalion Rohircil - Guardian - Elemandir - Lord of The Rings Online
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== RIP == Torey - Commando - Orion - Tabula Rasa == RIP ==
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Jordaniel Torey - Navy Megathron, Active Armor Tank - Tranquility - EVE Online
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Torey Scott - Rifleman - Fallen Earth
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but I know World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
I like it that there is the freedom to do these things, since it makes my choice to not do them have some meaning.
In most games being "Evil" basically means that you get different coloured armour, or maybe a different set of spells.
In EvE, the bad guys look exactly like everyone else and use exactly the same equipment, but they actually do bad things. The bad guys in EvE are not created by CCP, they're players. This means that you're infinitely more emotionally involved; you really care about the bad guy, because he's done something real. You haven't just watched some cut-scene for your motivation.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
If you are stating that as your opinion, fair enough, but in reality the average person who plays EVE engages in mostly PvE and PvP is either something they do occasionaly or not at all. Ive talked to many EVE players who have no interested in PvP. There are thousands and thousands of people who do nothing but mine all day.
There are lots of ways to enjoy EVE and this diversity is part of its appeal to me. You can grab 10 random EVE players and watch them and chances are that their play time looks very different from each other.
It's OK to prefer PvE to PvP, although in EvE everything is at least a little bit PvP. But really, it would be very hard to convince me that EvE's PvP isn't very lacking. I'm not saying that people dont enjoy it, but I will flatly assert that it could be a hell of a lot better. The NPCs are boring, unchallenging and utterly predictable. Sleepers were a step in the right direction, but even they are basically scripted. And mining... sure people mine in pursuit of their goals, but come on now, no-one could possibly deny that the actual activity of mining is brain-numbingly boring.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I enjoy them but I agree they could be much more interesting. Im not holding my breath though.
I deny it. Minning is my 2nd favorite thing to do in EVE after PvP combat.
Believe it or not, enjoyment of the various EVE facets in subjective.
I enjoy them but I agree they could be much more interesting. Im not holding my breath though.
I deny it. Minning is my 2nd favorite thing to do in EVE after PvP combat.
Believe it or not, enjoyment of the various EVE facets in subjective.
Well I cant contradict your personal experience, but I'm honestly surprised. Do you enjoy the actually activity of mining itself - watching a rock until it disappears? You dont think it could be improved by adding some element of player skill, like keeping your lasers focused on veins of minerals, optimising your lasers from wide focus to narow focus depending on the shape and orientation of mineral veins, avoiding cracking a 'roid into smaller pieces, etc? I'm just spinning a few off-the-cuff ideas here, but surely there's a lot that can be done to make mining a little more fun.
When I did mining it was either in the context of an alliance op, so that it was fun despite the fact that we were mining - a good chance to take it easy on a Sunday, chat, talk about alliance direction and so forth while making a stockpile for our ship replacement fund, or when I was dreadfully hungover and could only tolerate the very least demanding activity.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I just like the asthetics of it. I find it relaxing. Kinda like fishing. Im doing it right now infact. Its something a miner could never explain.
Beyond its intrinsic fun, I also like the utility of being able to multitask when I do it. I can get some RL work done, watch a movie or run missions while minning. I consider those mining times free ISK. If Im mining with more than 1 char then it takes more attention, but mining with 1 char in high sec cab be a semi-afk activity.
Most peopke agree with you and think minning is the most boring thing you can do in EVE, but a few of us weirdos like it and find it relaxing and fun.
I think that would be great as a new type of mining introduced to the game but not as a replacement to the current mechanics for the reasons I listed above.
While the activity itself might be dull, what people fancy is the gathering.
They like collecting things and enjoy their possesion.
What makes mining truly dumb are people mining veldspar in high sec for ISK.
The worst drawback of this game, as in any MMOG is its players community.
In their largest percentage is the same usual and unimaginative community we would meet in any other game, just happy with the little crumbs and pieces thrown at them at random times or when player base is shrinking and serves as as a bait.
Mostly would have no choice but to be hostile at new players demanding new features etc etc.
The games developer like every game dev. corporation doesn't like to do too much work, they, like everyone else, just like a steady flow of money from their project without having to put too much of an effort in to it. Largest percentage of the player base, most for their own reasons are just happy with whatever there is, because for the majority of them must be a relevantly safe pass time, a habit like opening the TV at a regular hour and watching your favorite episodes. The challenging non-boring crowd with the attractive ideas will soon tune out of such projects as soon they realize the game elements won't support their play styles. The regular unimaginative dude will become the main player element.
Obviously all of the above have nothing to do with a sandbox player driven environment where challenge and risk is the primary drive force behind game mechanics.
In these terms EVE have failed. Not unlike every other game that has promised things and has also failed in the same respect. There is also a whole line of future anounced games that, surprise surprise, will fail in the same respect. It is no mystery why this happens.
If the developer of any game does not hold a strong vision from the beginning of their project about at which direction their project can go, must go, should go, in respect of driving and especially forcing the player immersion to new heights of involvement, eg the game mechanics forcing players to do something out of the ordinary at occasions in order to brake the rut and occasional grind by lending to them a system that introduces new levels of immersion in a sandbox player driven game world.
Any game can claim to be a sandbox and that it primarily is player driven, but players themselves, the same ordinary boring fellow we meet from across the street, at our jobs, at our everyday choires cannot be held responsible if the content and the player vs player interaction he is free to create has complete lack of imagination and of intuition.
Developers must be artists of human interaction. Imagine script writers and directors. Players are there to play, they are not profesionals of show business or experts of human interaction.
The potential of boredom in the EVE Online "sandbox" "player driven" universe was foreseeable from the beginning.
The clunky interface, the dead end gaming engine (no abilities for upgrade, just add on's that may or may not work after years of repetitive trials and errors), along with the developers limited imagination and complete dismissal of the chance they would have to produce meaningful player interaction, since they obviously lacked any insight at human interaction, as it would be initially expected.and for the above reasons this gaming project didn't lend anything new and exciting in the MMO gaming world.
IMO do not expect anything imaginative to come out of the shadows any time soon since game developing companies are like regular businesses more afraid now than ever to put their money and time on the line to produce an outcome for a communicative genre that is so little researched in regards of human versus human interaction.
I cannot really blame any developer for that.
Game engines, programing languages and graphic capabilities may have evolved over the years, but developers or more precisely the science or the art that should be present behind purposeful human interactions in player versus player driven environments has not evolved a bit.
In fact is almost non existent.
EVE Online couldnt't help but to fall in the same category.
Though it's nothing a clever developer or a team of experts with enough imagination and driving vision cannot nail down and produce the first paradigm of this much wanted feature, which does not even has a name yet.
Player driven environments are lacking this one vital element hence the player experience in them seems incomplete from many perspectives. On the other hand single player games do not claim to do any of that. In their regarding terms single player games seldomly fail to deliver what they promise.
MMOGs and especially sandbox Player vs Player interaction environments are a completely different chapter and should be viewed as such from developers.
[THE POST HAS BEEN EDITED, please re read]
I just like the asthetics of it. I find it relaxing. Kinda like fishing. Im doing it right now infact. Its something a miner could never explain.
Beyond its intrinsic fun, I also like the utility of being able to multitask when I do it. I can get some RL work done, watch a movie or run missions while minning. I consider those mining times free ISK. If Im mining with more than 1 char then it takes more attention, but mining with 1 char in high sec cab be a semi-afk activity.
Most peopke agree with you and think minning is the most boring thing you can do in EVE, but a few of us weirdos like it and find it relaxing and fun.
I think that would be great as a new type of mining introduced to the game but not as a replacement to the current mechanics for the reasons I listed above.
well it just goes to show the eve has something for everyone - even weirdos like you!
CCP could intro the new mining minigame thing as part of a mining buff. Players could have the option to mine as they do now or fit a new midslot mod that shows up the high density mineral veins, giving the option to efficiently get the best ore with new focused mining lasers while ignoring the low value chaff. So you'd have a trade off between using strip miners to just gobble up everything, with a lower but fixed production rate, or play a mining minigame to cherry pick the good stuff out, taking less time but also meaning that some of the potential value of a rock is missed (the strippers can still hoover up the low-value spoil)
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Yay! Time for 'experts' of trial evaluation period!
All take cover!
Um you know that the "clunky outdated EvE Engine" has been upgraded to a new engine at least twice, right? We're playing something like EvE III or EvE IV now, it's just that CCP seamlessly transitioned the existing persistent world to the new engine. There are update patches to the eve client every few weeks, an expansion every 8 months or so, server upgrades every 6-12 months, etc etc.
You can accuse CCP of many things, but not of failing to continually put a lot of effort into the game.
That's the only point of your post I can answer, since it's the only concrete thing you said. The rest is just vague handwaving meaningless polysyllaballic garble, like a desconstructionist review of a descontructionist critique. EvE has "no meaningful player interaction?" lolwut? have you even played it? (And by played I dont mean "ran missions in empire for 3 months then quit"). EvE is nothing but "meaningful player interaction".
Give me liberty or give me lasers
In terms of the game becoming more "challenging" for the original poster here is a few things you could try out.
I suppose you want challenge in the combat department of the game.
First is know how.
Secondary is resources.
Since you already set as a miner, have an income, buy a large list of blueprints of relevant to ships (preferably, frigates and cruisers tech 1), modules and items to produce anything you can require for constant PvP.
First make a thorough list of what you should acquire. it takes a bit of time. The list can grow out of proportions really fast so, choose a combating strategy that will help you narrow down the list of elements you will have to produce to accommodate your PvP experience. Then the harder part awaits you and this one is to find empty manufacturing and or researching slots. if not you can always plan ahead and chain your manufacturing and research jobs at relevant slots, not far located from your main habitat area, but after you have made a thorough plan of what you should produce and research and why. (Plan ahead)
After you have set in those respective departments, become affiliated with an in-game player corporation "EVE University" (acceptance is for free) and also can pay some tuition for combat classes at the corporation of "Agony Empire". Both corps will be able to introduce you to the combat properties of EVE with much insight. Even old players after a long time of game-play have switched to this path in order to be well acquainted with the paper,rock scissors combat game mechanics.For the first corporation be prepared to either wait out a lot of constant wars, or if you have your modules and ship cache ready follow team instructions to the letter. (I hope EVE-Uni have not been disbanded and continue operations as usual) For the second you have to wait a bit and have some money ready for acceptance. If you are in a haste, search forums for relevant corporations that are willing to teach combat and pay attention that these are known corporations that have built their reputation upon helping other newer players.
Next step is gather a group of similar philosophy individuals get to know each other, meet over any ventrilo or teamspeak channels have some discussions and head towards low sec systems. Low security systems are different than null security systems since much more willing targets (to blow you up) frequent the low sec space in search for potential easy pickings. Null sec is for settling, low sec is for becoming acquainted with PvP. (Plan ahead) Secs from 0.4 to 0.1 leading from high sec to high sec or from high sec to null sec, is usually where all the action is. Do not fire against a target in a 0.5 and above (0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 to 1.0) unless fired upon. Do not use burst modules unless you tested them and know exactly what you are doing with them in any High sec. from 1.0 to 0.5. Even when in 0.4 and to 0.2 pay attention to location and alliances if you feel you need to. If you do not want to piss off the wrong people (local alliance, or local system frequenters) then always use a scout to do your thing anonymously to draw attention away from your main combat char. Also train a scout and have him/her nearby. (Plan ahead)
Improvise a strategy and pay special attention to ship bonuses (even from tech I frigates to tech I cruisers) and place each pilot with each setup and ship to an according role. Build an attack or defense group, or both (if you are many and fell your naumbers are efficient to asign different strategies at each group) and assign different ships, modules at different and suitable roles. you would be surprised at the world of difference that a strategy like that will make.Be able to surprise the opponent. Some people have been known for taking down even tech II cruisers with only combat gear available a small team of tech I industrial ships with surprise fittings of common tech modules. (Plan ahead)
Then have two or three things in mind, it is vital.
Always plan ahead. (Cannot stress this enough)
If it seems like a trap, it probably is.
Always choose your opponent (Pay special attention to this) and if you aim for more precission and you can bother also your suroundings.
My evaluation period was the open beta.
Anyone can search youtube and find EVE videos from 2003 and from 2009 and notice the difference.. (there is not much change of difference there except some of the graphics) I am not talking of cinematic promotional videos that can be mistaken for Star Wars and unfortunately are about of similar irrelevance about the actual EVE online game style. (A FULL SEVEN YEARS and not much changed..)
Game engine has changed..indeed has changed names and final distribution numbers. Nothing else changed. right click, open menu.
Either you people are affiliated with the company (in this case go back and design something instead of spending time on forums, like what you promised us) or you are common players able to play free because the original game company for the fear of losing subscriptions let you have it your way with some exploitable game mechanics that let you earn in game money without having to do much and pay your real life game accounts from that.
All of that have nothing to do with the notion that MMOG games and especially sandbox styled ones with Player vs Player interaction and game driven content DO NOT DELIVER. All tools are simply not there. This was my point.
You can go back getting paid doing nothing or playing for free for what I care.
Peace!
How about my EVE guide? (I hear crickets chirping..)
Sure, not much has changed except null sec, sovereintgy, POSes, T2, factional warfare, capital ships, invention, reactions, scanning etc....
[b]null sec[/b], (was always there)
[b]sovereintgy[/b], (was always there from player self enforced rules and pacts)
[b]POSes[/b], (another way to grind and not addressing the problem of the economy limitations the severe lack of intuition old and boring game model has introduced)
[b]T2[/b], (Tech II, was according to the game devs "almost there" from since the game launch)
[b]factional warfare[/b], (grosly unsupported feature which btw players liked and also gave the regular average joe the pirate or common griefer something else to think about while ganking)
[b]capital ships[/b], (more grind, can't web them can't scrammble them only take them out with even more expensive fleets of ships or even bigger ships that require, suprise surpise, even more grind. UNIMAGINATIVE GRINDFEST at its finest)
[b]invention[/b], (just one thing of the list of looooong promises that game devs failed to deliver, it too failed to deliver for what was originally promised)
[b]reactions[/b], (ok, so what?)
[b]scanning [/b] etc.... (?)
Scanning was always there wasn't it?. lol
Although there is one addition you failed to mention and I am suprised. The biggest game changed since the beggining and that is Wormhole space. of course game devs put ridiculous limitations of use of that kind of space and ridiculously overpowered NPCs.
Fortunately several characteristics like total invisibility of other players inside unless they speak at local or scanned down or appear near you made it more challenging but what a surprise...only a small number of the old population liked it while new players somehow liked it, old babies also never liked the inclusion of the feature of the factional warfare which btw the game devs catering to the demands of these same old player cry babies have not updated yet its features since now only 1 race holds sovereignity over all high sec systems and there is nothing left to do for factional warfare to actually participate in. Really balanced eh?
To summarize. FAIL.
Agreed.
This is what happens when someone talks about something he has no clue of.
You can start learning from here:EVE expansions and get a general idea how the game evolved:
From there you can step to patch notes and dev blogs to get into details. Playing the game actualy would not hurt too.