Player Features and Ideas Discussion

PREFACE FOR PERSPECTIVE: I have made (and continue to make) all of my isk PvPing by baiting high-sec mission runners and stealing their ships. I use this isk to fund hellokittyonline's endless rampage in low-sec and PLEX my 3 accounts.

SKILLS MY PROFESSION REQUIRES THAT PVE DOESN'T:

1. People Skills - the socio-path-like ability to talk someone into doing something completely stupid

2. Knowledge of Game Mechanics - pinning a battleship with a frigate while tanking his entire lvl 4 mission (though this is much easier than it sounds... most of the time)

3. Creativity - because only an idiot would fall for that... right?

4. Risk Management - training 3 accounts and making a large initial investment so that you can execute a ridiculous scheme with no guarentee that this scheme will pay-out enough to plex said accounts or even pay for your initial investment.

THE PROBLEM: Far too many players are mindlessly farming NPCs in an all-but-0-risk environment and there is no longer any incentive for those players to enter a risky environment because they can make far too much bank with little-to-no knowledge about combat or game mechanics. Now this in and of itself wouldn't be a problem in your typical MMO but in EvE these actions slowly but surely dilute the sandbox aspect of the game as players are not required to use any creativity, knowledge, or people skills to move forward in the game. One merely has to play by themselves (IN AN MMO) for a few hours a day in order to afford pretty much anything they desire. Furthermore, the longer players have access to the I-Win button(s), the more subscriptions CCP stands to lose by taking it away (ie: balancing their game becomes a conflict of interest).

CCPs STANCE: Has been to continuously bubble-wrap the risk-averse making it increasingly difficult (in extremely superficial ways) for us content-creators to inject risk into their environment. EXAMPLES: Swapping ships with an orca was nerfed because we were killing too many mission runners, EHP of miners was buffed because we were suiciding too many miners, CONCORD was buffed because we were suiciding too many industrials, mission NPCs aggro mechanics were changed because we were stealing too many LEWTS, crimewatch (and the green safety) was added because too many players were dying inadvertently (even though it was already completely avoidable by simply understanding aggro mechanics). Even when CCP decides to throw us PvPers a bone (Faction Welfare) it all-but-immediately devolves into a cloaked, stabbed, farm-fest. Furthermore, when they add content for the PvEers (Incursions) the isk/hr is completely out of hand, liquid, and 100% riskless.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

1. NPCs need to be DIFFICULT. Make the NPCs fight like a seasoned PvPer would. Neuts, scrams, webs, transversal, and the utilization of range control. These NPCs should only target the aggressors and they should encourage your average carebear to actually learn how combat works.

2. Remove bounties. Rewards should 100% be in the form of a tangible item in the game that one can trade to another player for that players isk (or even, god-forbid, STEAL). Bounties inflate currency and line the lazy-mans pocket as no processing is required to get the value out of their time.

3. Incentivise risk-taking. Whether it be a risky market endevour or a trip to low-sec for those "o so juicy ores" there needs to be incentives that involve risking an engagement with another player for our lovely sandbox to remain as such. Furthermore, the rewards for said endevours need to fall in line with the risk involved.

4. Remove safety nets. The green safety, gate guns in low sec, warp core stabs on ships already small enough to escape almost anything, all need to go. The idea should be to incentivise knowledge of game mechanics, and player interaction, not solo-farming.

TL;DR - Make players have to learn about the game and its mechanics in order to be successful.

Pointing at bots and suggesting their indicative of anything is a strawman. One that the Master of the Mega uses often. While it is true that during the FanFest 2013 Security presentation, a graph showing the vast majority of bots operating in HighSec were found in Caldari Space and most notably in The Forge, it makes no direct correlation to any disparity in income. It is quite possible that the majority operate in Caldari and specifically The Forge due to it's proximity to

On bots according to CCP the second most botted activity is mission running, given that both low and null mission systems are sparcely populated at best that means there is only one place they can be.

Why not?

There are far too many coincidences here for it to be anything else. The lack of bots found by ccp as well as players not finding bots in null that often. That CCP have found that the second most botted activity also just happens to be running missions in high which have been shown to earn more isk than belt ratting or running anoms.

The evidence is somewhat overwhelming.