Back in 2020, CCP released one of the most well-liked features in the video game’s history: The Abyssal Proving Grounds. The proving grounds were meant to create an equal playing field where capsuleers could fight immediately, rather than spending hours gating from region to region looking for a fight—only to get outmatched, outblobbed, or outgunned. Capsuleers could earn lucrative rewards, with the best pilots of the season being granted exclusive skins. All the while, it provided an outlet for capsuleers to get into combat quickly with the guarantee of a relatively even fight, whether it be 5v5, 3v3, or 1v1.
Since 2023, however, this feature has been on an indefinite hiatus. So what happened? Why was this beloved event thrown into the garbage?
For one, many players are vehemently opposed to the idea of instanced PVP. The proving grounds took pilots out of K- or J- space and put them into an inaccessible Abyssal region. This meant that while these capsuleers were fighting each other, the rest of the universe could not interfere. Purists argue that this lack of wider consequence turns EVE into a generic lobby-shooter, stripping away the ‘butterfly effect’ that makes New Eden unique. In K-Space, if you lose a fight, it impacts your corporation’s territory or assets. In the Proving Grounds, the only loss is the ship and the pod.
There are good points on both sides of this argument. Taking players out of space is rarely a good thing. On the other hand, would these players have been in space anyway? I’m not so sure.
Life is full of time sinks with varying priorities. For us, one of them is EVE Online. However, as the average age of the EVE population increases, the time available for gaming decreases. Did we have players that spent hours in the Abyss to get exclusive rewards? Yes. Were those players removed from hunting ratters? Maybe. But I am inclined to believe that the vast majority of capsuleers participating in the proving grounds were those with limited time who still wanted to play the game that day. I believe this because I was one of them.
When I first started playing EVE, I was unemployed. It gave me a lot of time to run fleets and do what I wanted. But as I righted my life, I realized I didn’t have that time anymore. When I got a new job, I made it a priority. I tried to stay active, but everything happened while I was at work or getting ready for bed. For me, the proving grounds were a way to play EVE, enjoy the spaceship game I love, and not spend hours roaming empty space trying to find a single unicorn of a kill that ends up being a Vexor Navy Issue AFK on a finished site.
Beyond the philosophical debate, there were mechanical failures. The level of collusion between capsuleers was rampant. The leaderboard was rife with win-trading and queue-syncing against alts. What created the conditions for this corruption? Simple greed. When you create a system that provides exclusive, limited-run rewards to the top participants, gaming the system becomes incredibly lucrative.
But it wasn’t just malice that killed the fun; it was often the players’ own efficiency. EVE players are masters of optimization. Within hours of a new event launching, the ‘perfect’ ship fit would be mathematically solved and shared. If you didn’t fly that specific meta, you lost. This turned dynamic dogfights into stale mirror matches, causing casual players to lose interest after the first day, which likely tanked the participation metrics CCP uses to justify development time.
THE SOLUTION: THE NEW PROVING GROUNDS
To bring the proving grounds back to EVE Online, we need to solve three specific problems: the stale meta (and associated dev overhead), collusion, and the removal of players from the sandbox.
SOLVING STALE META: DRAFT/RENTAL SYSTEM
Proving grounds were meant to prove you are the best pilot, not the richest. In the new proving grounds, we bring back skill by introducing a Draft Mode.
Rather than players bringing their own ships, they pay an entry fee (ISK sink) and select from random, pre-fitted ships provided by the game (such as a brawler, kiter, disruptor, or logistics). The fits are standardized T2 fits with no abyssal modules, no high-grade implants, and—most importantly—no pay-to-win. A checkbox allows an Alpha account to purchase Alpha-variants of these ships, ensuring the event is inclusive.
This works because the proving grounds become exclusively about piloting ability. Because the options are random and the fits are fixed, you cannot optimize the fun out of the game. You have to fly what you are dealt. Furthermore, once the database of fits is made, the server can rotate them automatically without a human developer needing to flip a switch. This greatly reduces developer overhead, meaning the feature becomes sustainable even with lower participation.
SOLVING COLLUSION: THE BLIND LP STORE
The primary driver for win-trading was the exclusivity of the rewards—skins that are now worth billions. The best way to remove win-trading is to democratize the reward structure.
Rather than having a “Top 100” leaderboard, switch the incentivization to a Proving Grounds Loyalty Point (LP) store. Every match grants LP, with a bonus for winning, but a baseline for losing to encourage participation. As a capsuleer earns LP, they climb seasonal ranks (Platinum, Gold, Silver). The points earned can be used to purchase special items in a new Abyssal LP store, including proving-grounds-specific boosters, skins, and cosmetics.
To put the final nail in the coffin for collusion, all names and corp tickers are hidden in the lobby and during the match, appearing only as “Red Pilot” or “Blue Pilot.” This works because while the rewards are still lucrative, they are accessible to anyone who grinds enough matches. This decreases the incentive to cheat, while anonymity makes it nearly impossible to coordinate a win-trade with an alt.
SOLVING THE SANDBOX: THE SUSPECT EXIT
Finally, we must address the concerns of the sandbox purists. While the fight itself must remain instanced to ensure a level playing field, the aftermath does not.
In the new proving grounds, when a player wins a match, they are not deposited instantly in safety. They are ejected back at their entry spot in space with a “Proving Grounds Cache” in their cargo. This cache contains the rewards for winning, but holding it gives the pilot a Suspect Timer for 5 minutes.
This is the ultimate compromise. The casual player gets their 15 minutes of uninterrupted, fair combat inside the instance. But the hunter gets a target. If a hunter scans down a proving grounds trace with combat probes, they know a winner is going to pop out with loot, and that winner will be vulnerable. This reintegrates the “Risk vs. Reward” philosophy of EVE. You won the duel… now, can you get the loot home?
EVE Online is often celebrated for its cruelty, its vastness, and its complexity. But complexity shouldn’t mean inaccessibility. The death of the Abyssal Proving Grounds wasn’t a failure of the concept; it was a failure of the execution. By succumbing to stale metas, unchecked collusion, and development bottlenecks, the feature lost its soul.
But the demand for it hasn’t gone away. The players who need this feature—the veterans with careers, families, and limited windows of time—are still here. We still love this game, and we still want to experience that heart-pounding adrenaline shake that only EVE combat can provide.
The proposal laid out here offers a sustainable path forward. The draft system removes the development overhead and ensures skill is the only metric that matters. The LP store destroys the incentive for corruption and democratizes rewards. And the suspect exit ensures that even instanced content feeds back into the glorious, dangerous ecosystem of the Sandbox.
We aren’t asking for a safe space. We aren’t asking for easy ISK. We are simply asking for the opportunity to undock, fight, and prove our skill without needing a four-hour window to find a target. The Proving Grounds can be the perfect bridge between the casual and the hardcore, provided CCP is willing to build it right.
It’s time to reopen the gates. Let us fight.