[2020] Proving Grounds Gameplay Policy Update

Hi everyone,

It was very exciting for us to discover how players would engage with the new Proving Grounds feature introduced in the Zenith quadrant. Thanks to your enthusiastic participation we learned a lot in terms of what formats are most appealing, at what cadence we should hold events and the duration they should run for. This information is being incorporated into the Proving Grounds events for the Phoenix quadrant.

We have also heard your feedback about some metagame issues surrounding the Proving Grounds.

Unlike tightly controlled tournament matches held in an isolated and supervised environment, the Proving Grounds take place in the greater sandbox of New Eden where - just as with everything else - players are typically free to use their ingenuity or deviousness to gain the upper hand over their rivals, albeit within certain boundries of conduct.

With this in mind we have decided to bring the Proving Grounds further within those boundries somewhat in order to address the metagame issues which have been raised and could detract from players’ enjoyment of the feature or create a sense of futility.

Effective immediately, the following policies will apply to the Proving Grounds:

1. Players may not attack competitors in space with the intent of using the capsuleer logoff timer to prevent them from entering the Proving Grounds. Of course this does not apply to regular PvP where the intent is to engage someone in combat. Queuing for a match does not make you immune from having spaceship violence visited upon you.

2. Players may not spam alt accounts into the Proving Grounds in an attempt match up against themselves or their friends and obtain easy wins.

Our Player Experience Team will investigate reports of violations of these rules and have the means to identify the real owners of the accounts used for this purpose.

If you are being harassed while trying to access the Proving Grounds (eg. aggressed by a disposable rookie ship to give you a timer) or match against suspicious opponents you think may have been queueing only to provide fodder for another player (eg. unfit ships, ships immediately flying out of the arena) please report them by submitting a ticket under the category of Gameplay Support → Rules & Policies → EULA & Terms of Service.

While we respect the sandbox nature of EVE Online we have heard that certain unconstructive behaviours perpetrated by a small number of people are impacting the fun and progress of other players using this feature.

We hope you enjoyed partaking in the Proving Grounds last quarter and we are looking forward to seeing which of the upcoming events will get your blood pumping the most. Good luck seeking glorification on the leaderboards in Phoenix!

First of all you’re being a bit mean and you’re hurting my feelings.

Second of all this is in no way to coddle “incompetent” players. The literal best ever, most skilled PvPer in the history of EVE Online could be queuing for match, get aggro’d by someone in a rookie ship and have to go dock up for 15 minutes.

That same player could get into the arena and be faced with an opponent in an unfit ship which was only queuing to feed someone else. It’d get blown up in about 30 seconds and then the competent player would then still have to wait for their next match having not had a good fight.

Neither of these scenarios have anything to do whatsoever with protecting low skilled players and that should be completely apparent. If anything the second scenario would be a gift to an unskilled player since they’d get a free kill.

That would be an ex post facto application of the rules. There was nothing in the original Proving Grounds posts and explanation that banned this kind of behavior, so coming in after the fact and banning it would not be fair. Banning it moving forward is the right thing to do.

Everybody recognizes that Cable’s win has a pretty significant asterisk next to it, and going forward that kind of thing is not going to fly, and those who engage in that behavior will be dealt with appropriately.

We might do up a cool infographic with an overview of the main stats, but I think any super granular data like that would be kept for internal study.

You’re being deliberately obtuse.

The point of the proving grounds is to let folks do a legit one v. one or small group v. small group experience. If folks are gaming that to make it easier for them to win, then they are taking away from the experience other folks are having with this specific kind of content. There are plenty of places in EVE where doing that kind of metagaming is perfectly fine, expected and even encouraged. But that’s not what was expected here.

Sometimes folks want a one v. one at the sun that is actually a one v. one at the sun. CCP is trying to provide that kind of experience. There’s nothing wrong with that - it’s just another kind of gameplay.

We saw players demonstrating over and over, with logs and the like, over the last six months how Cable and others were colluding. If the players can figure it out, the GMs can figure it out.

Do they brain-wipe all forum posters? I thought it was only Sol. Surely you can see how dumb it is to make a “you can’t stop all murders so just make murder legal” argument.