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Kismeteer's Feature Suggestions
Kismeteer's Feature Suggestions
This is just my list of things that I think will help the game.
Over all goal - Make new players less overwhelmed, make some of the more obscure and pointless mechanics less annoying, and make it easier for people to get into the game, getting shooting people, and at the same time get them to the parts of the game that are fun.
Alpha Skills increase
Alpha Skills increase
I have said this elsewhere, but the key is to help new players get into the game faster. Less training to do the day to day shit. I'm fine with not being able to shoot as fast or as hard or as well or as long etc. It's the 'I can't do basic shit' like warp with the fleet. these are all busy work, like the learning skills, required skills almost everyone has to 5.
Ths skinner box does not work if they put a skill in and the increase is tiny. We know people have quit over this.
Give everyone the magic 14, including existing characters. Or just remove the skills. This reduces complexity. The game is complex enough, extra training just to do the fittings everyone else is doing is stupid at this point, 20 years in. A time gated game that punishes new players so severely isn't fair. The days are for alphas, less for omega. All just make a slow game EVEN slower.
CPU and Power Grid management - Stop punishing new players for not starting the game 20 years ago. Let them fit their ship easier, nothing worse than waiting a week just to change your fit. 10 days each.
Capacitor Management, Capacitor Systems Operation - Make people's capacitor standard. 35 days and 11 days respectively.
Mechanics, Hull Upgrades - Extra HP, just standardize this. 11 days and 24 days respectively.
Shield Management, Shield Operation - Extra HP, again just standardize. 35 days
Signature Analysis - Let them target at the same speed as everyone else. I assure you, they'll still be slower. 12 days
Long Range Targeting - Let them locka t the same range as everyone else. 24 days
Navigation, Evasive Maneuvering - Velocity and Agility again, standardize. 11 days and 24 days respectively.
Warp Drive Operations - worthless skill unless you're flying a recon. 12 days.
Spaceship Command - Agility again, standardize. 11 days.
This is 230 days for an alpha character and puts them at 4.97 million skill points, IF you include the omega only ones. This is JUST to break even with an existing player.
If they are alpha never, this is 72 days of training to max all these, and puts them at a significant disadvantage to trained players. 1.55 mil skill points out of the total of 5 mil they can have.
IF they are omega, they can actually train all these, this is 115 days.
Give everyone the upgrade skills that affect fitting.
Advanced Weapon Upgrades - Again, just standardize grid usage for weapons. 65 days.
Shield Upgrades - Maybe the biggest mystery for 'why doesn't this fit for me' for new players. Standardize grid for shields. 24 days.
Weapon Upgrades - Same CPU for everyone, allow new characters to use the same exact fits everyone uses. 24 days.
Electronic Upgrades - Again, standardize CPU usage for Signal amps, co procs. 23 days.
Energy Grid Upgrades - Same CPU for everyone for batteris and PDUs. 23 days.
Mining Upgrades - Just make it so fits get standardized. Maybe too powerful but ... who cares, it's mining. 47 days.
This is 222 days for an alpha character and puts them at 4.8 mil skill points, IGNORING the Magic 14, and include the omega levels. Again, this is JUST to break even with existing players.
If they are alpha never, this is 94 days, total of an extra 2.1 mil sp. again, not including magic 14, and only under the 5 mil sp.
If they are omega, they can actually train all these, this is 111 days. On top of the magic 14.
Rigging skills
Just get rid of them. They used to matter, they shouldn't anymore. The Fitting ones just make people's lives difficult.
Each one is 36 days, if Alphas could train them all.
Total 344 days for an alpha. Or 7.2 mil skill points. Which is insane.
Total 172 days for omega.
Targeting skills - again just punishes new players, making it so they miss out on killmails and generally struggle to target things.
Target Management - Let them lock everyone up. they are overwhelmed anyway. 6 days. easy gimme.
Next, cut the cord on 'get rid of attributes'. Or just set them all to 28 by default for everyone. Which I still have a character with a broken int and low charisma (me_irl).
Remaps are just confusing. It doesn't matter. We have enough complexity to the game.
Setting everyone to 30 for everyone does reward old school players with +5 implants that are skill farming but meh.
If you want to reward people with bonus remaps still, give them like ... 500k sp for each one?
That's my talk. Make the game easier for new players to find a fit they can fly. Let them cookie cutter. Stop the ones and twoies of making it hard for an existing player to come back and figure out 'what ship still fits with these skills'. It's annoying and stupid and just punishes people who return to this game.
tldr: reduce complexity on the hardest things in the game for new players and give them minor things to help them. Don't worry, it's still 36 years of skills.
Eve Online assessment
Eve Online assessment
First of all, I apologize for the length, I know I write like I get paid per word like old school scifi authors. It's the editing for brevity that I struggle with.
Confidence is lost when the game does something confusing or asks players to do things that have not been explained thus far. A great example is that the player is encouraged to buy a weapon that uses ammo, but the game does not explain how to load the ammo into the ship. The game does not explain that there are different income levels in eve, and says things that are outright lies, such as 'mining is a great way to make money'.
Confidence is regained once the player secures objectives and rewards. These are often not even the normal ACP points or the Career Agent completions, but thresholds that the player achieves, such as their first 10 million isk.Or they get back that first full venture load of a better quality ore.
Players search externally from the game as soon as the in-game experience fails to provide them with the 'next step' in the process. We see this constantly in the eveo discord and in the rookie chat. They get confused about what to do next. They are unaware of the differences between Fenris Creation Employees, Game Masters, and ISD because the game does not explain it. Players want to do the 'best' next step. Stop being like 'oh you could use any number of ... ' No, stop give them the 'best'. The Heron is the BEST explorer because of the extra mid. heh
Players leaving the game are somewhat unknown to almost everyone but you, but they just stop doing what they were doing.
So what were they working on just before they quit? If you don't have an agent that cannot figure that out, vibe build one.
The strongest reason, I suspect, is that they are not happy with 'the grind'.
They are doing the grind because of the EXTREMELY high cost of this game to brand new players. $20 a month is an INSANE amount, the range shouldn't be 'somewhere between $20 and $6 a month'.
Or they are going to 'wait to use the next step', which is a couple days, and then they just log off. Forever.
I think the only thing that keeps players here is positive interaction with other players. Once they get involved in a corporation, it's much easier for them to have a purpose or a reason or support. Because of the erosion of the in-game player base, there are fewer 'forever homes' for brand new players. Smaller blocks struggle to deal with massive numbers of new players.
But honestly, they know the difference between the haves (Massive income, all the SP, every fancy ship under the sun) and the have nots ("I just need to get a pioneer, and whoops I just lost it to a gank.")
You can say 'experience shows that losing a ship actually increases play time.' I think this is a flawed study. For the first ship, maybe. The second ship? Less so. The fourth? Strong reason to quit. We see people flame out on the eveo discord constantly.
Current support is a struggle.
Because the game has too many mechanics to deal with, and reliance on an overly complicated wiki system that is frankly somewhat of a mess.
Why can't there be a GM always online in Rookie Chat, with ISD (or even an AI) filtering their requests. I know their time is limited, but there should be a GM always able to do some things. Or rely on ISD to complete the challenges presented to them, maybe by enhancing their power. Or it just a way for them to jump the queue and be like 'reset this guys mission'.
The 'next steps' are ALWAYS confusing. And sadly, the tutorial says their next step is high sec mining. Which is the literal worst income in the entire game. Players don't want to be told 'you can do anything in eve', They want to be told 'this is the best thing for you to do next, till you reach x level'.
Scanning tutorial just needs to be revamped because it's too easy. It's too easy to just put it over the center. Same thing with the hacking tutorial. Bring the videos from the Agency / Help Section to the fore to show people mechanics of positioning probes.
Or just open up the Help Section on a topic when they get confused, like a 'help me' button. And then just make the links to guides on those topics. Gather data, inside the application, of what information is missing. People do this all the time in Call Trees in businesses 'why are you calling' and 'What were you trying to do today'. I think even just the simplest of queries from your customers can show you QUICKLY what is going wrong. It's not surveying if they have a button 'this is what confused me today' button to press. And you REACT to it.
Support tickets are languishing. The NPE has a 'get veldspar' mission that I submitted a bug report on, because Exordium only has Veldspar Grade-0. Which is not the same thing. The overview bug is still going on, and getting people killed because the second overview is tied to the dscan. Or just change dscan to use the PRIMARY overview, not the 'last one picked'.
The overview is currently trash and constantly requires a BRAND NEW VERSION to be installed when a single thing is added.
Fix the starting skills to be all 'bangers', not 'Shield upgrades 5' nonsense. https://www.wckg.net/home/feature-suggestions has a write up. This helps everyone, yes, but just get it done, stop making people grind stupid skills that EVERYONE has to do. The magic 14 is DUMB like the learning skills and uses MOST of the 5 mil sp cap.
ISD could easily take the player requests they are seeing and put a 'tick mark, saw this problem' type entry. They know the problems people see. This could be a regular FC person doing this fielding of questions from the public, so they KNOW the game.
How long have players been asking 'How do I load my ammo'. How long have players been asking 'How do I earn omega'. How long have missions been broken as soon as a player 'quits' or tries to reset it because the veldspar isn't there. How long have players been asking 'Where is the item i bought'.
The NPE should have been revamped. You failed to do so, for whatever reason, with Exordium. I know code is hard, but this is an ongoing issue for years and years now. If you cannot make MINOR changes in text, such as the 'veldspar' requirement, inside a week, what are you guys doing?
Make your coders play eve online. That's it. Make them join a large organization in Null, WH or Low Sec, and make them SWITCH, or start a new character and try again. The T20 days are over, but this is an overreaction, you have fewer employees who know why players struggle.
Your people in your partner program are leaving up BAD information for their subscribers. Multiple videos have incorrect information and should be taken down, especially around abyssal content.
Yes, the Fenris Creations twitch streamers take the expensive things out that they lose quickly because of the way Eve works, but you realize how DEADLY boring it would be for them to EARN those ships themselves. A single barghest would take them how long to earn back?
I requested my guide get added to the motd of the rookie chat. But was shot down because it was 'created for my group'. Yes, my group of players who fly in null sec, which is 35% of your customer base. heh #2589604 is the ticket id. And we have a year old guide in there as well, that gives few direct answers and does a lot of hand waving. Feel free to pepsi challenge my wiki style versus the others. Nothing stops you from having a corporate version of a wiki either, I know that the current one is very closed off, https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us, and is very unfriendly to new players.
Here's a great example that just happened in rookie help right now:
[14:44:21] Freddy Bella > <url=showinfo:58919>Interdiction Nullifier I</url> what does this do
[14:45:10] ISD Ritenuto > <url=showinfo:1373//2116964316>Freddy Bella</url> https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Interdiction_Nullifier
However, when you go the Interdiction nullfier page in eve uni, it doesn't actually SAY how to use it. https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Interdiction_Nullifier It doesn't point out that the 'warp drive active', that's when the math is done where people will land. But we're reliant on all these wiki pages that isd uses EXCLUSIVELY, and they are flawed flawed pages in a lot of ways.
I think the strongest choice eve could make is simplifying. 'now easier'. lean into the things that are good. remove the parts that don't add much. that's why I encourage removing all fitting skills, remove attributes, tieracide more weapons, and stop introducing new mechanics. don't want people using far jump bridges to go too far? just limit where people can jump to, 1 region from home. there, simple, one region, no capacitor, simple.
could do 10 ly if you wanted, easy to compute because it's the jf distance.
but just stop with adding mechanics on mechanics. people have too much to worry about just not dying
Ansiblex reduction ideas.
Ansiblex reduction ideas.
I've stated this repeatedly in the Force Projection Discussion.
Implementation
Implementation
Why are we spending months of dev time when it could be an anchoring thing. 'You cannot anchor beyond x light years from capital'. Done. 'you cannot link beyond back to your home region.' Done. No capacitor, no other nonsense. Maybe acls will be a thing for cynos and FCs but meh.
Why not fix the overview. Which is still broken and used by every player in the game.
General Casual Player Impacts
General Casual Player Impacts
Smaller groups means fewer casual players in null sec.
Fewer casual players means less players over all because they don't have a place to play casually.
More empty space means less PVP, less supply, more people just quitting because there's nothing to do.
Once ESS starts getting stole, nobody shows up, those players might move or quit or do something else. Less content in space again.
Big groups have to shrink
Big groups have to shrink
When big groups shrink, they lose the casual players. More groups move to higher requirements or worse, vouch only.
Big groups cannot grow tall, so they have to take fewer players.
Fewer players means fewer players in space.
Small groups will step in?
Small groups will step in?
Small groups struggle to take on new and returning vet players if they are struggling. There's just fewer people to help them.
They might be able to take care of them better because it will create mentorships, but all the people talking in the entire Force Projection Discussion channel don't shepard new players themselves.
It's unlikely to fill the gap in the number of new players the game gets.
Big fights will not be that affected
Big fights will not be that affected
People will still travel for the fights. It might take them an extra 4 to 8 jumps. but they will still show up. that won't change anything.
People will still be shy on using their big toys. Sub cap response won't be that affected and capital response not changed other than moving cynos quickly. Cyno beacons will fill the gap on that.
Net negative.
Net negative.
Fewer newbies. Fewer players. More mechanics. You still get blobbed. Just a bad change.
Partner and advertising program
Partner and advertising program
From https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1vm8ixd/fccp_statement_regarding_loru/
It's frustrating how streamers are treated with kid gloves in the modern environment. But I understand why. And they could improve it.
I have a new player guide that is one of the most popular on the search engines, I would guess because it uses zero AI and zero ads. (Full disclosure: other than the one thing that pays me money, markee dragon codes.) I also maintain kisover and Z-S, two of the most popular overviews. I have been chasing partner for a year and a half now, mainly so I could get access to early overview views (which are not in chaos leaks). Also, so I could get free skins to give away to newbies. I work with a lot of newbies in the eveo discord in #new-player-questions, do a weekly stream (not on monetized platforms) of helping players, last week was for eve uni, and rookie help.
I get around 4k visitors a month, mainly for my newbie and returning vet content. Sorry, this is just how many players are coming to eve, I most likely cannot grow past that. it's just the reality I find myself in.
If you search Google, on my screen today, it shows in order: two loru videos (87k views, 102k views) and a games done casual video (335k views) then eve academy, a Reddit set of questions, then me, followed by eve uni newbie guide.
So the youtube algorithm benefits Eve Online because then those same customers see other eve content on their streams if they watch one of these videos. I know why it is so valuable to Fenris and YouTube as a whole. What's is worse is that these videos take so much time. I know reading is hard but it takes about 10 minutes to skim my text guide. My videos tend to be an hour. And retention from a complex topic, like exploration, might be very low overall because people learn from doing and not watching.
My sadness on these videos is that they sometimes include bad information. They need to be completely reshot to take changes into account. If a video needs to be reshot, the old one should come down, but it doesn't. They just leave up old videos that have click bait titles and pictures. Maybe they do a new video, maybe not, whatever. I have old videos on the UI that I totally need to reshoot, for instance.
The creator is paid dollars by YouTube (sometimes). Paid in dollars by twitch (sometimes). By Fenris in dollars for using their Referral link. In dollars by a patreon they might have. In isk by using their recruiter link. By in game gifts from Fenris and friendly players. They are motivated to create edgy and incorrect titles to get views, however they can.
Aceface and Loru were always bad at this. Provide content that might get views, accuracy be damned. The abyssal content stuff was a particularly egregious era. Lots of bad ship fits and advice. and it was always done by cherry picked rooms and situations. often with free ships from Fenris or on sisi back in the day.
I understand, I do, but it never sat right with me on how this was doled out. Fenris gives the creator stuff. I am pretty sure they gave, gratis, a streamer a barbacoa. They then promise to give away that ship on stream or contest, usually involving engagement/actívity that pays them dollars. I know some self finance, "I will send 1 bil isk to those who say xyz", which is like 200 Plex so easy to spend dollars to get in game currency. But all good for eve online advertising.
This event went beyond that. Send me dollars and I will send you something. Don't specify. It got people engaged alright. Thousands of dollars sent. And clearly beyond the line of engagement, fairness, and how things work.
I appreciate that people are taking responsibility in general, but it is a poor excuse in general at an advertising budget.
One minor detour. Have Fenris create videos, based on creator ideas, on topics that are important to eve. They used to be really good at this. Look at I Was There and Butterfly Effect. Why can't we have modern versions of this, maybe made by a creator and posted on the Fenris account. Or an interview with a famous player, how did you end up here, and what content got you to be famous. Most are very humble, bar a few exceptions like myself. No profit motive other than they maybe later see their other content. Or maybe just maybe make more advertising videos.
But in the end, Fenris has to be honest with their creator team and the community. We get volunteers with little power in the rookie chat in game. (ISD mission reset now!) Fenris isn't in rookie chat other than a rare GM appearance. We get rare glimpses of engagement from the company in social media. We get almost zero on discord or the eve forums. (Shout out Fenris Stroopwafle for being a real one! His team takes launcher discord messages seriously.)
We are a tiny community. Every single person who read this rant on their phone has tried to get their friends to try eve. And no one has been successful other than a few rare cases. The game is just hard to get into.
When you have bad content practices, bad publicity like this, paid content confusion, a constant steam of new complicated mechanics, and an INSANE initial month price, it makes sense though. We get what we deserve when we run things like this.
So let's be better. That's it. Ran out ink. See everyone in space, hopefully killing something big.
-Kismeteer
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