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I know these threads get made a lot, but I just wanted to throw out there what - as a newish player - has frustrated me. These ideas may be downright awful, but I've considered them for a while, and I'd love some discussion/opinions. I'm not trying to solve any of these problems, so any of the suggestions you'll see here are just to get conversations going; my goal with this post is to just point out issues.
No, I'm not a bitter vet, and I haven't seen the game in the way the older, more experienced players have. I do go to nullsec and I am in a corp, but I have never been part of those giant battles you see in videos. If these ideas run counter to how the old guard of eve think things should be, then blame my naivety.
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Player Strength
New players have no at-a-glance idea how to tell if an opposing player is a threat to them and in what way. In many MMOs, you know another player's strengths/playstyle based off their level and class. ZKillboard is not an accurate representation either (though I think some of the stats they have would be useful to display in-game). This knowledge would help newbros - even those that want to take risks - learn to avoid fights that are obviously not in their favor.
If new players are always encouraged to run away and hide in high sec or they take risks and get blown up against clearly superior forces, then are you all really getting "good fights?" Nah, you're padding killboards and feeling superior, which I get feels good for you, but it doesn't feel good for new players that have no idea how to counter-play or even how outgunned they are when you show up in system.
To add to this, new players leave the game because they get into a fight which isn't fair to begin with (remote reps, T2 frig vs. T1, blobs vs. a lone newbro), so they learn to stay in high sec. They go back to PvE both to get isk to afford getting blown up and to learn how to survive longer. The mission grinding eats at their soul (because it is the most boring PvE interactions in any game tbh), and then they leave.
- Visual Cues and Interface
Isn't eve big on making sure everyone has the same visual experience, so they don't allow modding and all that? Okay then, Overview settings. Standardize this. The spreadsheet overview is an archaic thing that needs to die a horrible death, and eve needs huge visualization updates so every player at-a-glance knows what's going on around them, what they need to pay attention to. Is there simply too much to pay attention to? Can this be improved somehow?
- Finding People
In my first week, I wanted to join a fleet and feel useful, because mission grinding was killing me. Fleet finder was empty, and I couldn't figure out why. Then I asked around, got a fleet invite, and was immediately killed while in high sec due to war mechanics or something. Not fun, and I didn't understand why it happened at the time.
It shouldn't be so hard to safely find and add new people to fleets. The fleet window should be full of safe fleets that people can join. The game should feel alive with groups of people working toward a common goal.
- Ambience and Liveness
Yeah yeah, it's space; a void with huge distances between one planet and the next. And while that's fine for reality, it doesn't make for an engaging MMO that depends on a sense of "liveness" and community. Every asteroid belt, planet, star, etc. are sort of its own bubble. You can't hear what's going on nearby. You don't have any immediate sense of fights breaking out in your own system (though there are exceptions to this, like incursions and FW control). My meaning here is more audio/visual cues.
- Aimlessness
Eve starts at what most MMOs would categorize the "end-game," which I'd argue is where most people drop MMOs. Reason being is that they have to make their own fun; there are no more quests for them to do. Because eve uniquely starts here, players need it made clear what careers they can do (and make them actually possible to do; looking at you bounty hunting) and a clear path on how to make that happen. People are terrible at actualizing their own desires. They need help.
- Life After Death
The loop for PvP in most MMOs is travel to fight, fight, die, fight, die, ..., and then win/lose. Eve's loop is travel to fight, fight, die, travel back to fight, fight, die, ..., and then win/lose. The travel time kills the immediate re-entrance back into PvP. Yes, it's by design, but maybe it's bad design. Maybe you should be able to get back into a ship you have fitted elsewhere warped into the same system where you died. Something to reduce the time back into "content" without screwing up conflicts that depend on numbers.
- Safe Havens outside of Corps
Even in games with a lot of PvP, there are usually sides or teams established that can't hurt each other in the corp/guild/faction/etc. This creates safety even if you're in an unsafe place. The one parallel eve has for this is Faction Warfare. There need to be more havens like that, so people can explore out to various edge of space and always have safe places - still in some pockets of that dangerous space - to come back to.
Yes, I get that alliances are supposed to do this, but is it achieving what it was meant to? What about others that want to explore out there and can't because they're not in your player-defined alliance? How can they explore without joining? WH out there, pray they don't die immediately, and when they do, get shot back into HS/LS space so they must travel all over again to explore?
- Gate Guns
These are laughable. They harm new players because they don't know about them or accidentally aggress them, and older players abuse the mechanics to their benefit. Replace these with something better for protection if that is indeed their intent (gate guns are meme-status bad atm).
There are probably a billion others, but these are the ones that jump out at me. I think better visual/audio cues and eve career guidance are the two most important. Very interested to hear your thoughts.
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