The other day someone posted on the Eve Facebook Group yet another post questioning the current conditions surrounding the solo play-style inside of Eve Online. This topic is perpetual in the Eve community. Much like Alliance Logos on ships used to be. It comes around like the phases of the moon. Solo is dead. Long live solo.
We talk about this a LOT inside of Stay Frosty. 51% of all Stay Frosty kills are solo kills (95,700 so far!) So we know a thing or two about this subject. So I'm going to be brutally honest here today and give you the unvarnished truth about the current state of solo inside of Eve Online. Like most things in Eve these days there is good news and there is bad news. But first, some hot water in your face to wake you up.
Solo is not supposed to be easy. In fact, it is supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. And everyone cannot do it. And it gets harder and more challenging to do it every single time CCP adds more ships to the game, buffs or nerfs something, adds new mods, or essentially changes anything at all about the landscape inside of New Eden. That just adds more complexity to an already over-stuffed and complex universe. Flying solo inside of Eve is frustrating, annoying, and full of failures. You will die. You will get blobbed, trapped, baited, and otherwise make mistakes. You'll miss more than you catch. People will run away from you, even when they outclass your ship. They will turtle up together for safety. They will do whatever they can to avoid being caught. That is your reality.
Awesome huh? That is why solo is so great. It is challenging and when it works there is (in my opinion) nothing else like it. When a plan comes together and a hard-fought battle swings your way at the last second - damn. Boom. It should be hard. That is what makes success so much sweeter when it happens. If it was easy it wouldn't be any fun. It'd just be shooting fish in a barrel.
Now, right now is the most challenging time ever for solo. Eve has never been more complex. And it only continues to get worse as time continues to add more and more to the game. So many new ships, so many new things to remember, so many more options when it comes to plausible ship fits - it can be overwhelming to try and master the field in front of you. Which is why so many players choose to find work-arounds to all that hard work and find easier means to rack up kills. Which has always been the response to challenges over the past twenty years of Eve Online. That will never change. But again, after awhile, those shortcuts always get boring. When you are flying solo however, the greatest fight is still the next one. Or the one after that. Solo pilots are adrenaline junkies always looking for the next fix.
And either that sounds incredibly fun to you or it doesn't. Personally I enjoy doing many different things inside of Eve. Some players only fly solo. Just like some players only fly in big fleets. Some of us like to mix it up. There are no right answers to how you play Eve Online. There is only the right way for YOU to play Eve Online. The rest of us are just out here trying to make it work for us.
Solo is hard. It is supposed to be. That is the entire point of it.
If you can't deal with that reality, then find something else to do.