EVE Online's Dark Age

 The EVE of Old is Gone - And That's (Probably) Okay

EVE is a dark and harsh world, you're supposed to feel a bit worried and slightly angry when you log in, you're not supposed to feel like you're logging in to a happy, happy, fluffy, fluffy lala land filled with fun and adventures, that's what hello kitty online is for. - CCP Wrangler, 2007

I started my first character in EVE in 2009. In 2011, I created Xuixien and got serious about the game. It has now been over a decade, and I am still here. I've been active every year since 2009, even if only for a few months. I've done it all - except cap ships and SOV. EVE Online is a game that I'm passionate about. There's no other game like it, or at least no game like it that has been so successful, and I have many fond memories of my time flying around New Eden. But the EVE Online of today is not the EVE Online I fell in love with so long ago. It's changed. It's currently in the middle of a Dark Age.

Since I've lived in New Eden CCP has been making the game "more accessible" easier. Some of these quality of life changes were good and necessary, such as making important game information available through the client (I didn't even know about career agents until 2011). Others were not. Players starting their EVE Online careers today or who have only been playing for a couple of years will never know the struggle that life in New Eden used to be - and  consequently how engaging and meaningful it all felt.

Back then you couldn't use your credit card to get SP from CCP or get SP simply for logging in. You didn't get free SP during a tutorial and there were no referral links that offered 1 million SP. None of that existed. Everyone started on the same level playing field and everyone had to go through the same trial of fire. EVE Online required patience. Characters started with 50k~ SP and very low training speed. While I believe the formulation for SP is unchanged from Ye Days of Olde (Primary + (Secondy/2) * 60), characters used to have single digit attributes and had to train "learning skills" to improve them. This all had real consequences as far as player retention was concerned.

I mentioned that I started EVE in 2009, but didn't get serious until I created Xuixien in 2011. That's because "learning skills" were removed right about that time, and everyone was just given the maximum attribute points. This was one of the good and necessary changes. Then a few years later, during the Vanguard expansion, CCP decided to start all characters with about 400k SP. This was a questionable, but probably good change. New characters created today start with max training speed with proper remap and don't have to wait a month before they can start flying ships effectively. Some changes like this become necessary after an MMO has been around for a long enough period of time; there simply needs to be some kind of catch up mechanism or easing of the New Player Experience.

There were other pain points as well. While mining barges have been out for so long that nobody can remember EVE Online without them, for at least 2 years after EVE Online was released people mined in cruisers using those little frigate sized Miner I's and Miner II's. On unbonused hulls, with unbonused cargo bays. And even though mining barges were released around 2005/2006, they weren't as good as they are now and were still a rarity due to the BPOs being insanely expensive (for the time). This made the hulls inordinately expensive and so, even as late as 2012/2013, I remember most of the miners I encountered were in Scythes or Tempests. Or in Hoarders with a single Miner II.

And I haven't even gotten into upgrading your clone.

So that's what it was like to start in EVE back in the day. 50k SP. 810 SP/hour *if* you knew how to minmax. 10k ISK. Here's a Rookie ship. Fuck you. If we think of EVE Online, the game itself and the experience of the game, as a civilization going through the life cycle that all civilizations do, then the years between 2003-2009 were the "Heroic Age" of EVE Online. It's a time remembered through mythology and stories; an age of pioneers breaking new ground and experimenting with gaming during a period where nobody really understood how the game worked and life was very, very difficult. EVE Online went through a Golden Age shortly after, and has now been in a Dark Age for the past 5 or so years. EVE Online is due for a Renaissance.

 New Eden Faded as CCP Appealed to New Players Younger Gamers

Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of 'new players', that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players. - Malcanis

MMOs either experience growth or they experience stagnation and hemorrhage. Players are constantly leaving for various reasons, and need to be replaced. One of the reasons players leave is simply aging out of the demographic. As people start new periods of their lives, their priorities shift, and gaming takes a back seat. EVE Online is no different. The the average age of EVE players is increasing and dwindling after the early 30's. In CCP Quant's video you can see the distribution take a downward slope through the 30's as people are starting families and getting more serious with their careers, or just moving onto other things. In short: EVE's playerbase is getting older and leaving. 

We see that during EVE's 'Golden Age', a period of about 5 years, the bulk of the playerbase was in their late 20's/early 30's: right in that sweet spot post-graduation but before getting married or taking on heavier work responsibilities. This was the most populated and active time during EVE Online. Of course, a univariate analysis never has the explanatory strength of a multivariate analysis. Several very good changes coincided with player age; the removal of "learning skills", the Faction Warfare revamp, removal of clone grades, and CCP Rise joining the team to rebalance ships (starting with the smaller ships that newbies would fly first!), resulting in unprecedented player retention and activity levels.

But something went wrong during this Golden Age: CCP didn't seem to realize there was a Golden Age happening. They failed to notice the changing ecology and opportunity map, and remained worried about newbie retention. They also got greedy, implementing changes in the game that promoted micro-transactions and the purchase of PLEX: multiple pilot training (for cash), cosmetics (for cash), skill extractors (for cash). CCP also started to implement changes meant to appeal to a younger generation of gamers, who not only have different gaming tastes, but different gaming expectations. CCP had to decide on maintaining the integrity of what EVE Online is to retain their dwindling veteran population, while also modernizing EVE Online to appeal to young, fresh players.

And thus CCP added catch-up mechanisms (for cash), implemented some game mechanics to replace trust and diligence (friendly fire turned off, certain scams banned or restricted, revamping of corp roles and access) and other game mechanics to improve safety (making mining barges tankier, 'Crimewatch', etc). The playerbase generally did not like the changes which, because of Malcanis' Law, didn't actually help new players that much but instead just increased the overall wealth and power of veterans, making it even harder for newbies to catch up unless they used real life money. It also made the game easier (read: less engaging, more boring) for newbies and veterans, which caused veterans to leave and didn't solve the problem of new player retention.

When we take into account the fine line CCP had to walk - maintaining EVE as EVE, appealing to veterans and new players alike - the changes that CCP has made over the past years, many of which were at cross-purposes, make sense. But every time CCP nerfed EVE, long-term players quit, and CCP still had a newbie retention problem. Whenever CCP tried to appeal to the mass market, New Eden became a little less New Eden, and newbie retention was still a problem. CCP would nerf the game a bit in the name of the "New Player Experience", lose older players, and then nerf the game again to keep appealing to newbies who would only stick around for a week. It created a vicious cycle because EVE, as a niche game, will necessarily always have player retention problems.

The result of all the changes and nerfs was an EVE Online that is completely different from what it was a decade ago. While players are richer than they've ever been due to changes meant to help newbies, as far as EVE as the game and the experience of the game - the past few years have been a Dark Age, a period of stagnation and poverty. Some have said that these changes are necessary to keep EVE competitive in a modern market. But EVE Online was never competitive, and never will be: EVE Online is unique, and offers a niche gaming experience. The appeal of EVE Online has always been that it wasn't easy and wealth was hard to come by. It's basic psychology; players had things to strive for. Now they don't.

Some more psychology: Most people seek safety, ease, and comfort. Human beings will expend inordinate amounts of energy in order to create the conditions of safety, ease, and comfort. And then they will disengage and languish in ennui once challenge and suffering have been eliminated. Dostoevsky wrote about this in Notes from Underground. Humans desire ease and comfort, but it's not good for us psychologically or spiritually. Humans require adversity to overcome and suffering to provide meaning to life. CCP needs to change it's philosophy. CCP needs to make EVE Online hard again, and introduce forces of nature that are constantly threatening to poison, starve, and maim the player base.

The Rebirth of EVE Online?

CCP seems to be finally getting it's act together and making sense of the decades of statistical data available to them. I believe we are seeing the early stages of an EVE Online Renaissance that will revitalize the game and perhaps even increase the playerbase (in the long run), and that this will involve giving the playerbase what they need (challenge, adversity, loss) rather than what they want (ease and prosperity). The earliest inklings of this new age were the economic changes meant to siphon wealth out of the game and balance ISK faucets with ISK sinks. 'Scarcity' and resource distribution is another telltale sign. EVE Online is on it's way to becoming harder, more engaging, and less bloated. Players will be poorer - but they will be having more meaningful play experiences. Before CCP gets to where it's going, it needs to bleed the game dry; deplete material stockpiles, deplete wallets, deplete capital fleets.

CEO Hellmar, probably the oldest oldbro in the game, has decided to start taking a more active role in game development. Some of the philosophy he has put forth has been interesting. He has elucidated many ideas over Twitch that think will be beneficial to the game. One idea was increasing the risk and difficulty of "high end", lucrative gameplay available to older pilots with more skillpoints, and making it increasingly difficulty to run "high end" gameplay solo (ie, multiboxed). There's no reason that EVE Online can't offer the gaming experiences and playstyle that new generations of gamers have come to expect, with a sliding scale of risk/effort vs reward that has been broken for a number of years now. In a future article I will outline some ideas that come to my mind.

In the meantime, what do you think? Do you agree that EVE Online had a 'Heroic Age', a 'Golden Age', and is now currently in a 'Dark Age'? Do you think CCP is going to take the game in the right direction and revitalize New Eden?

 

The Miner Who Dares - Wins.

I wrote this post to be accessible to the average HiSec player, with a mind for income balanced by safety. To this end, I have chosen the Procurer as the benchmark mining barge. The Procurer is the safest barge to mine in, boasting the highest EHP of the Tech1 barges and, critically, the fastest align time. The information in this piece is of course applicable to exhumers, but that might be perhaps too daring for most. For those who don't want to risk the 25m~ for a Procurer, Ventures work well, too.

Update 03/07/2021: Living in Amarr space, I did not realize that the other three empires had access to Plagioclase. This changes the formulation somewhat; however, a Hulk with perfect boosts will yield about 27.9m/hr mining Plagioclase. The same setup will yield 52.6m/hr from Jaspet. Also note: Minmatar space seems to have a high prevalence of Stellar Observatories, which increase mining speed by 10%. I have encountered a few of these in Amarr space. They spawn in LowSec.

Absolutely beautiful.

A Changed Opportunity Map

Players have been decrying the resource distribution balance pass that CCP implemented in September of 2020. This change, which came just a few short months after moon minerals were nerfed, locked HiSec miners to Tritanium, Pyerite, and Mexallon. HiSec miners, while understandably upset as they watch their income per hour plummet after two major nerfs in a year, have in large part failed to catch up to the changing ecosystem and are still operating under a false belief: that mining in LowSec still isn't worth the risk. The opportunity map has changed under their noses, and in this article I will show that not only is LowSec worth the risk, but is now the place to mine for the average Empire player.

These changes are good for EVE. In days gone by, mining was in a very strange place - particularly when it came to LowSec. The profitability of mining in LowSec vs HiSec dependS on a number of variables. On paper it was setup-for-setup slightly more profitable to mine in LowSec than it was in HiSec. However, for risk averse miners (read: most HiSec miners), it was mostly too risky to bring barges beyond the CONCORD umbrella, and Orcas were out of the question. This limited these miners to using Ventures, most likely without even Porpoise boosts. After accounting for travel time, lack of hauler, lack of boosts, and safety measures, LowSec actually was either less profitable than mining with a solo barge in HiSec, or not profitable enough to justify the added overhead. Thus, LowSec ores remained an underutilized resource except in rare or exceptional cases. If you were going to mine outside of HiSec you might as well join a SOV entity - and make more ISK in NullSec than you ever could in LowSec.

With the mineral redistribution of 'Scarcity', however, this has changed. In the past, every mineral needed for production could be found in NullSec. Lower end minerals (such as Tritanium) were always in high demand, which made HiSec mining viable. LowSec was the odd man out, as it offered nothing that couldn't be found in NullSec. If you were seeking mid range minerals, NullSec was safer under a SOV umbrella, and offered a denser distribution. If you were mining for low end minerals, HiSec was just safer, period. Now all three areas of space must be utilized in order to supply the New Eden economy with the materials it needs. In other words: now there is demand for LowSec mining.

While HiSec mining does not seem very viable at the moment, this may just be a reflection of the abundance of Tritanium stockpiles. As those deplete, it's possible that HiSec mining may start to approach viability over time. In the interim, consider venturing into LowSec.

You Should Dare to Mine LowSec

This research was conducted utilizing IPH and typical mining setups, with attention paid to time-to-replacement for any losses (only factoring in the cost of hulls, for simplicity). For multiboxers, time-to-replacement is divided by the number of mining toons. If TTR is 100 hours, but you have 3 mining toons, the TTR is 33.33 hours. All values are also in compressed ores:

HiSec: Procurer (T1 Strips): Orca

• Veldspar: 9.4m/hr
• Pyoxeres: 8.2m/hr
• Scordite: 7.9m/hr
• Time to Replace - Procurer: 3.2 hours. Orca: 117 hours.
• Low yield, low loss probability.

HiSec: Hulk (T2 Strips): Orca

• Veldspar: 23.1m/hr
• Pyroxeres: 20.8m/hr
• Scordite: 19.7m/hr
• Time to Replace - Hulk: 10.8 hours. Orca: 47.6 hours.
• Moderate yield, moderate to high loss probability.

LowSec: Venture (T2 Miners): Boostless

• Dark Ochre: 22.5m/hr
• Gneiss: 16.4m/hr
• Jaspet: 15.1m/hr
• Hemorphite: 13m/hr
• Time to Replace - Venture: 0.013 hours.
• Moderate yield, low to moderate loss probability.

LowSec: Venture (T2 Miners): Porpoise

• Dark Ochre: 28.5m/hr
• Gneiss: 21.7m/hr
• Jaspet: 20.1m/hr
• Hemorphite: 17.3m/hr
• Time to Replace - Venture: 0.01 hours. Porpoise: 3.5 hours.
• High yield, low to moderate loss probability.

LowSec: Procurer (T1 Strips): Porpoise

• Dark Ochre: 51.8m/hr
• Gneiss: 39.5m/hr
• Jaspet: 36.6m/hr
• Hemorphite: 31.5m/hr
• Time to Replace - Procurer: 0.58 hours. Porpoise: 1.93 hours.
• High yield, low to moderate loss probability.

While it might seem that mining with Orca boosted Hulks in HiSec is an attractive option, keep in mind that this is the maximum profit per hour of HiSec mining per ship and that Hulks, which are currently selling for 250m in Jita, are prime gank targets. I never see Hulks in HiSec anymore - I only included it for the purposes of theory crafting. Most of the ships I encounter are solo Retrievers or Procurers boosted by Orcas. Also keep in mind that this was all calculated with every relevant skill at level V (you may not have Exhumers V), and that the same Hulk/Orca setup operating in LowSec would yield 68.8m/hr mining Jaspet and 97.4m/hr mining Dark Ochre. LowSec is more profitable, by far, setup-for-setup. Hands down. This was not the case a few years ago. This is unequivcally the case today: February 2021.

There are of course some variables still at play. There is not a tremendous amount of Jaspet in the LowSec belts, so you might want to start your day cleaning out the Jaspet and then heading back to HiSec. Also, Dark Ochre and Gneiss are only available in anomalies. These may or may not be spawned where you are - but if they are, the "Average" deposit contains over a billion ISK worth of ore after compression. (update 03/11/2021: Crokite is also available, and is competitive in price to Dark Ochre. Because the prices are so close I did not update the prices to include Crokite. Note that 1 rock of Crystaline Crokite contains about 1 billion ISK worth of compressed ore.)

In my opinion there seems to be no contest: If you're willing to take a bit of risk, mining in Procurers with Porpoise boosts is the best route to take vs Procurers with Orca in HiSec. Feeding a Porpoise with mining barges will prove to be a bit of a pain for multiboxers, as two Strip Miner I cycles will fill the fleet hangar, and the Porpoise will be constantly warping to station to empty the ore bay. In my opinion the ISK is worth the effort. This micromanagement issue also has the benefit of keeping your attention on the EVE client, which means watching local, thus increasing your safety margin. If neutrals do appear in local, Porpoises and Procurers align relatively fast.

Implementation

It's rather simple to put this theory into practice. You don't even need to join a corporation or rent a system or get permission. Procurers and Porpoises are quite capable of ninja mining - assuming you're not jumping blind into systems and have done at least a modicum of due diligence to research the area. You can take on as much risk (Porpoise + Procurer) or as little risk (Ventures only) as you want. No matter what you decide, you will be making considerably more ISK than you would mining in HiSec for the same amount of assets on field - as long as you're willing to take a small risk and put in the additional effort.

I'm not going to give my game away completely, nor will I give you a complete safety guide to mining in LowSec. What I'll give you is a general idea of what to look for: A 0.5 system that contains a public Athanor with compression and an NPC station. A bordering LowSec system/s that also has an NPC station. Compressed ore is not only much easier to transport, but it's a value added product. Simply warping to an Athanor and clicking "compress" is enough to vastly increase the value of your product. Optionally, you can anchor your own Athanor in a 0.5 system next to where you will be mining, although this will add overhead.

You're also looking for systems with lots of belts. The more belts, the lower the chances that a hostile will land on you by chance after jumping in, and the more time it will take for a hunter to find you. More belts also means there will be more Jaspet and Hemorphite for you to mine, and you won't have to resort to Kernite and Pyroxeres. Make bookmarks in every belt that are as far away from the warp-in beacon as possible while still being in range of the asteroids.

The rest is relatively simple: mine the ore and stash it in an NPC station. After each mining session, use a hauler to bring the ore to the nearby 0.5 system, compress it, and then store the compressed product in the 0.5 NPC station. When you're ready, haul the compressed ore to a trade hub to sell, or to a refinery to prepare it for production. Be careful hauling compressed ore. Compressing ore allows you to transport extraordinary amounts of wealth without even realizing it, painting a target on your back. Use cloaky haulers as available.

The mineral distribution pass was a step in the right direction, returning EVE to it's original ethos: He who dares, wins. Now that you've read this, you have no right to whine if you're not willing to dare.