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Jester’s Trek: Quote of the Week – I broke EVE
Again, I’m not doing my job with this feature unless I pick this one for QOTW (edited slightly):
It’s me. I broke EvE. TL;DR: I got rich and forced CCP to change their bad game design.
This week’s quote comes from FHC member Postradamus, who was good enough to explain, in detail, why CCP Sreegs was forced to put out this dev blog. As I said on Thursday, there’s nearly always some mechanic within EVE that you can abuse for massive profit, and Postradamus just discovered a new one and took advantage of it.
The full post is definitely worth your time, but as is my custom, I’ll summarize.
According to Postradamus, there is a particular COSMOS mission in a 0.5 system that contains nine rooms. Each of the nine rooms spawns a rat battleship and cruiser on a schedule frequent enough to make 5 million ISK/hour per room. Using drone aggression mechanics, Postradamus worked out a means to AFK farm these nine rooms with a pair of Dominixes per room. Each ship in the pair used sentry drones (repped up by the Domis themselves) at a specific distance from the other ship in the pair to manage aggression and tracking issues. The ships could do their work without human intervention. As a result, using this system, he was making some 29 billion ISK/month AFK farming these nine rooms.
Later, finding the actual work part of the equation boring, he then farmed out the process to nine “renters” and taxed the proceeds. According to him, this went on for about a year during which time he made 9.6 billion ISK/month doing nearly nothing.
It’s a glorious demonstration of EVE emergent game play, and yet another example of the lengths that EVE players will go to to avoid EVE’s sub-par PvE. CCP will “fix” this “abuse”, maybe or maybe not understanding that they’re fixing a symptom of the problem instead of the cause (EVE PvE is boring). Even more amusing is the note in the post indicating that a GM thought he had encountered bots and banned all the accounts involved. CCP only learned how this mechanic worked when Postradamus explained that he was not botting (as such) and how his mechanic worked.
Kudos, Postradamus! And as promised, I’ll be continuing the discussion of the interaction between EVE players and ISK in the next few days.
EVE PVE is supposed to be boring. It's your punishment for losing your ship. If PVE were fun, losses wouldn't matter. And the whole point of EVE is that losses DO matter.
I think the focus is on pushing a player to be interactive with the players around them in order to create a sandbox. If the PvE gets too good, it is detrimental to sandbox play. People will log on and solo PvE, or at best they will create raiding parties and EvE will become another WoW clone.
That or CCP is just to lazy to make the PvE better.
Level 5 missions, sleeper sites, and incursions are all designed to encourage raiding parties.
Level 5 missions were solo-friendly before the nerf and I keep hearing about solo stealth bombers or dual-frigate setups blitzing some of them even now.
W-space and incursions are examples of better PvE design but didn't receive any iteration since day one. That is if I don't count nerfing the shit out of incursions and then patching some of it back as iterations.
Judging from a jumble of ideas most of which weren't developed past the initial design (cosmos, missions, more missions, w-space, epic arcs, incursions and I don't mention other less active aspects like PI or mining) CCP never even figured out what they really want to make of PvE, but doesn't want to retire or update any obsolete content.
Most of the fun found in EVE's PvE is finding the way to avoid PvE as much as possible which doesn't exactly push people towards blowing-shit-up kind of PvP or cooperation past "how would it cost for me to bot this system 23/7?".
You expect some funny gags, easter eggs and huge, animated, furry monsters with lots of slurp, splash, boom, kazoink and wooosh sounds, and a firework of eye-blinding special effects, all wrapped into an epic adventure story told with passion by dramatic, Japanese voice actors. Am I right?
This is EVE and not WoW. EVE is not the fucking PvE wonderland where kids need to be sedated by entertaining the fuck out of their brains.
It is the PvP part of EVE that is meant to entertain and the PvP part does so brilliantly.
Now go and kill yourself.
"Am I right?"
No, you're wrong. Now would you kindly fuck off?
I was right and now you are mad.
Just fucking kill yourself.
[citation needed]
The lack content iterations after inital design seems to be a hallmark of CCP management. Is anyone really surprised when these 'expoit' issues pop up after things are left for so long to stagnate?
Huh? Talking about assbackwards thinking… you are actually talking about making the game less fun to make it better. Quite the winning strategy there hoss any other words of widom?
What's the fun of blowing people up if they don't suffer for it? I think the rage against moon goo is not that 0.0 alliances can get income AFK, because they can't.
It's that they can get income by doing something fun — fighting over the moons.
Pushing 5000 ships killed since Friday in Tribute, but not a single battle report here yet.
btw: I'm not suggesting that they make it less fun. it's already bad enough. If they wanted PVE to be fun, it would be by now. The players don't help either, always turning what could be fun features (new fw, incursions) into mindless grinds for isk.
Pretty much ANY PvE is going to eventually become boring if you do it enough… so stfu and stop asking them to revamp every aspect of the game…CCP has enough stuff to work on with the 'fun' part already
if Pve was fun, people would only do Pve.
So if pvp was fun people would only do pvp and all the carebears would disappear?
Pve is the opposite of fun; but people still prefer to shoot people in the face.
CCP's underdeveloping of the many different game styles in Eve will bite them in the arse IMHO
www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174686/The_sec…
From this earlier Jester blog I'd like to quote a pertinent retort to CCP Unifex's ideas:"
"Key to the bottom-up philosophy of developing EVE has also been the CSM"
This would be a good thing, if the CSM more properly reflected the player base as a whole. But, in fact, it only represents a few minority factions, particularly those who those who live in null sec and those who think PVP is everything. There is no one on the CSM who represents the mission runners, the miners, the solo players, the market traders, the inventors & manufacturers, the non-PVPers (ie. carebears), etc. who still make up the majority of the player base.
"
hey you got that issler dainze?
He is partialy true its why we got a lot of hybrid pvp/pve content in eve in recent years. (w-space, facton warfare) In same time they are adding some group pve. (incrusions) The more interesting thing is that those changes are showing that CCP is refocusing on making other parts than null a viable place to live for those interested in PVP. If we look at current state of 0.0 its actualy quite obvious why and why we propably see more non-null exclusive(or equalizing low or hisec aspects with those of null) content in future. They see that one group of players gained an advantage large enough to cause mass growth (everyone wants to be on winning side) but for such pvp focused game it will means a disaster like on chinese server unless they can provide other means of entertainment for pvpers.
PvE is inherently boring. Unless you find some way to develop true AI you'll always have people becoming bored of PvE simply because once you learn how to manage PvE it becomes little more than a way to make money rather than a way to entertain yourself. Wormholes and Incursions are more fun simply because of the other people that are involved . . . the content itself is boring after you learn how to run it. The only reason Eve exist still is because of the PvP . . . players are dynamic and nearly every engagement is unique. So yes PvP is everything for Eve because it saves Eve from the all too familiar fate of nearly every generic MMO that builds around PvE and give PvP a limited after thought restricted nature.
PvE becomes a cycle of making money to make money faster to make money. Basing Eve around PvE would make it a developer oriented game where the developers would spend countless hours developing new PvE content to give to players who would learn to farm/blitz it in a fraction of the time leaving them bored. That's the problem with PvE at the root. It can take months for developers to develop something that is fun for a matter of days.
"The only reason Eve exist still is because of the PvP"
That's only partially true. Okay maybe mostly but in a funny way.
There are far more pve'ers than pvp'ers in this game. But without pvp industrialists would have no need to build ships, modules and what have you. The guy pimping out his mission ship couldn't do so without those in null pulling in those fancy expensive mods. Then there's the guy looking to blow his expensive mission ship up and steal his shit thus creating more demand for those mods.
There are other several other factors involved but I think I've made my point. Regardless, I expect this comment to get neg repped because so many people refuse to accept the fact that eve is so heavily pve driven.
What is boring to one person is inherently fascinating to another. Case in point: Sports. Some of us find sports to be extremely boring. Others are jumping up and down on their couches because 'their team' scored a whatever.
Some of the best conversations I've ever had in Eve were during mining and mission ops. The player interaction in Eve is what keeps it alive, and pvp is just one part of that.
Eve would not survive as a single player game the way minecraft or other single player games do. But let's not pretend that pvp is the only reason it's alive.
I personally don't consider the act of industry as being PvE . . . as an industrialist building something you're not actually competing against the environment but rather against other industrialist usually to sell your item. This is to some considered market pvp at the end of the day. Now if you don't set up market orders to get the minerals then the act of mining is PvE and I don't know anyone that jumps up and down to go out and mine. Usually what makes mining more fun is either semi afking it or the act of mining with your corp. mates and making it a group activity. Either way the content is boring while the interactions with other players is what makes it fun. Yet again a point against spending more time making Eve more developer driven by concentrating on PvE content rather than finding more ways to make players interact with each other.
If we use the pareto principle here (the 80-20 rule), we could very easily surmise that 20% of the player base (in this case 0.0 players) creates 80% of Eve onlines revenue. You may be stumped, but it is really easy to figure out. People who play in 0.0 alliances play for a longer time. Much longer. A player who missions gets bored and stops playing after 5 months. Where as 0.0 dwelers are playing well past 5 years. That's more than 10 times the income coming from a single 0.0 account vs a hi sec account. Not to mention that most 0.0 dwelers have multiple accounts (many of which make up a large percentage of your hi sec population). You would need 12 hi sec carebears to cover the income that one 0.0 player would generate. And not only do the 0.0 alliances have better longevity, they also keep the game alive by enriching the game with content and community. This means that 5 years down the road there will still be an active thriving game for a new player join.
I hate to break it to you, but PvE players just come and go. You can see it in the spike trend of all the other MMO;s
I forgot to mention that I am responding to why the CSM is so skewed towards 0.0 alliances and why CCP actually listens to them.
The above aren't the only factors though. Player involvement is probably the big factor in 0.0 alliances making so up so much of the CSM. If players just want to log on and mine or mission or do a few trades, they just won't spend the time to make their voice count in the community. Just look at modern governments as an example. The average joe worker (hi sec carebare) isn't involved in his government so the greedy evil rich corporation leaders (0.0 alliance leaders) get all the leverage in government decisions.
The only way the pareto principle works is that 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers ( again mostly NULL SEC complainers )
I'm willing to bet if Dr E's chart here d35dgn2pdc8wsn.cloudfront.net/wp-content/u… was extended for characters over 20 million SP you'd still see a vast majority living in HI SEC
Except 80% of complaints are always from high sec and not nullsec, you yourself massively complaining upon the incursion changes, miners complaining about the lack of hulk ehp whenever hulkageddon rolled around, now hulk owners complaining that the hulk is now useless and the mackinaw wins all (2-3 threads on the front page of GD alone).
The funniest thing is its nearly always the high sec bears that are most vocal on the forums but arent vocal when it matters and voting comes around, by the logic on the chart shown high sec'ers should have no problem voting someone in to represent them…
But i forget that they've unsubbed after 5 months of playing…
The mining barge changes were needed. Why they did not give the Hulk the "maximum cargo" role the Mackinaw now has been given will forever be a mystery.
Now everyone buys a Mackinaw and its price jumped to 270m ISKs (with peak at 320m ISKs), while the Hulk's price has crashed from 260m ISKs down to 180m ISKs.
It is as if an earthquake has shook the sandbox. I just hope CCP will one day learn how to change the game with only the smallest impact on the markets. It is ridiculous how the Mackinaw and Hulk suddenly change in popularity and hundreds of billions of ISKs change hands because of the game change.
It stands in direct contrast to CCP's tech nerf, which apparently was triggered by the Goons shaking up the market with a completely valid game play, conquering space and to create a cartel. There it is seen as being too powerful, only big CCP is allowed to fuck with the markets…
Hulk gets to keep yield because that's what has always been expected of it. Why couldn't the tech on the skiff and mack to make strip miners work better have been put on the hulk too? (Because they need to cap how much a miner can pull into the system per hour….) Oh hey, there's the reason for the smaller ore bay… Capping the most efficient one so you have to do more stuff to keep it there… Like get an Rorqual, Orca, or other Hauler to help. Oh look, more accounts…. $$$
What??
I need a translation for your comment. I suck at nerd talk! *lol*
Its called a trade-off. Look into it sometime.
The afk miners are using macks. Me, I'm setting up 12 hulks on 4 accounts. 4 are rigged for ice mining, 4 for deep core mining and 4 to just rip regular rocks.
Hulks still mine the most per volume. Macks are for the solo or slowboat (semi-afk) miners, Hulks for large fleet ops or for those looking to squeeze every last ore out of their time. Macks run in the background, Hulks foreground.
Skiff = Tank
Mack = Solo/slowboat
Hulk = Fleet
It is irrelevant for the fact that the popularities has switched.
Remember, it was not yield alone that made the Hulk attractive. It was his ability to hold around 18k m3 of ore with cargo rigs and expanders. Now the Mackinaw can hold twice as much, hast got a stronger tank and can mine almost as good as a Hulk. You can now fit 3x MLU IIs to it, which many miners will do (and thereby ignore the more reasonable combination of 1x DCU II with 2x MLU II).
When you have 2 or more accounts and do not want to pay too much attention to a mining character, then the Mackinaw just beats anything there was before, because it requires much less attention. If I am not wrong, I still haven't tried the new Mackinaw yet, then I should be able to mine ice for an entire hour without interruption.
I am probably wrong with my math, because this is really sick afk mining.
"There is no one on the CSM who represents the mission runners, the miners, the solo players, the market traders, the inventors & manufacturers, the non-PVPers (ie. carebears), etc. who still make up the majority of the player base."
There's Kelduum. He's a massive carebear. But from all accounts, he's a useless tit who does nothing but listen in on Skype. If you read the CSM Report, he barely speaks up at all on any issue. And then he didn't even bother to help write the report. He would be perfect to represent those interests, but he seems to be more interested in using his CSM tag to further his Space King profile among his ignorant E-Uni scrubs.
We get it. You don't like Kelduum and E-Uni. Give it a fucking rest.
Useless tits need attention brought to their lack of effort. I've called out Darius III as well.
Your little crusade against Kelduum started long before he ever thought about running for csm. Don't try to pretend otherwise.
Facts are still facts. He's a useless tit.
So Poetic Stanziel says it's a fact makes it a fact. What an interesting concept. Even stranger yet your bias plays no part in those facts.
As long as we're making up facts let me put one out.
Fact : Poetic Stanziel got assraped one by one by every member of E-Uni and that is why he hates them.
Fact: you need a girlfriend, one that knows how to fuck the stupid out of you.
I Cannot say that I disagree…
It is one thing when a kid engages in the school's debate club. It is another when it is on the Internet and in the shape of a fake university with fake professors represented by fake students in a fake universe.
Frankly, anyone in EVE who does not feel like shooting stuff has to be a retard, but maybe this is only me, John Douche.
And dont forget that they are saying , " we are freelance community , no bounds" . The funny thing is all TEST and Goon recruiters are 23/7 recruiting from E-Uni. So what do you expect from Goon-Uni, they are all the clowns for mitani
and now mitani out of the CSM he needs puupets to represent him and here your beloved "Kelduum" comes into the play.
"The funny thing is all TEST and Goon recruiters are 23/7 recruiting from E-Uni"
Recruitment scamming is not the same thing as recruiting.
I for one don't find blowing up the stuff I build to be that entertaining. Whether it's something I made or something someone else built, someone still put in an effort to make sure that ship or whatever entered the universe. And I respect that.
Yes, I understand that ships need to explode to keep the economy churning… So let those who don't care about all the effort go ahead and blow themselves up. I'll be waiting with another *insert ship name here* on the market…
Then you still need to get there. You do not build ships to have them blown up, but you build them to blow up the ships of others.
so hes acting exactly like you'd expect a carebear to act.
Spoken like a truly ignorant PvPer. I know huge alliance FCs that value and understand the 'carebear' side of the game. Not saying every pvper is like this, and in reality it's usually just the thoughts of lowly grunts. High ranking pilots/FCs typically don't make say such crap.
It's funny, you forgot Selene! He was the executor of Mercenary Coalition and is now part of Pandemic Legion, and what is he pushing? Industry! A damn PvPer pushing for changes to industry…….
how come nobody ganked them afk dominixes?
Because few people give a damn about cosmos, Dominixes are too difficult to gank and some complexes are located in very inconvenient places.
MWDing BSs could have bumped them to hell and back and out of range for it to rep the sentries. Once the sentries die is it a question of how well the Dominix tanks the NPCs. It might not be enough to kill the Domi, but no sentries means no ISKs.
You are right about the COSMOS stuff, but the problem really is, or was, that there is only a few of these rooms and it can only be done by one player at a time. So you are looking at a very small problem compared to the amounts of ISK and material generated by botters.
Still, it found attention by CCP, which is possibly the real news here.
Why did you not kill yourself? Life is too good or what?
what an idiot, this is not about missions.
right after the news came out i petitioned myself asking if missioning that way would be illegal, and the answer was "no the message was explicit about plexes, and as long as you dont do it 24/7 your fine doing it in missions.
funny how people always claim they are responsible for shit when they are not.
It might appear shocking and impossible to believe for some, but nobody other than CCP gives a shit for some epic retard who made AFK ratting into a science.
That he is now acting all smug for receiving some attention by CCP is what makes it so epically retarded. It is likely his only achievement in his entire EVE career so far.
"clever use of game mechanic"
Pro tip: try pouring some olive oil on your hand next time you masturbate.
good thing , ban all those afk fags
and yeah , there is plenty stuff where you dont have to be afk , like mission lvl5 , incursions , etc etc
The thing that makes me laugh is that we were doing this on empire alts for years. Nobody even considered that it was an exploit, we just thought that CCP were bad at making games.
The thing that makes me laugh is that it's pretty much the same thing as goon exploiting FW, but hurting the entire economy by actually creating isk, and you dont see many people asking for the removal of the outlaw isk, or even a ban to the perpetrators.
I guess exploits are ok as long as it's not goons.
(My point here is that variety is the spice of life. I find people who do nothing but pvp to be rather dull… All they talk about is kill reports and stats and how *pimp* this or that fit is…)
29 bil in a month? Goonies made 5 trillion in a month, this isn't "breaking Eve"
I find it really amusing that sitting in a sentry domi in a site is abuse but afk mining with the 25k m3 ore hold of the retreiver isnt
The solution is the legal bot.We use a bots in Stain for now.