EVE General Discussion

As a previous poster pointed out, you appear to have misunderstood what the survey was all about.

Dunno what you are talking about, many lvl4s are already in low-sec. Do you actually play EVE?

The Agents aren't in low-sec, true (apart from a very few) but there are many lvl4 Agents who give missions in nearby low-sec space, and one already has to accept a high risk/reward ratio to do them (cat and mouse with the pies who live there). When I'm feeling bold and adventurous, I do them, 2 of my JCs are in such areas.

It was more evident when we had "Agent Quality" and no Agent Finder. In those days, to get the best missions you had to actively look for them - check some websites and do some calculations - and inevitably the best-paying missions - again, not the agents who gave them, but the missions themselves - were in low-sec.

And there have always been even a few lvl4 agents in low-sec too - again, in ultra-low-sec (0.2) systems that are heavily camped.

This gives a nice spread I think. It's good to have a "safe" mission hub to fall back to, but it's also good to have the option of excitement and a bit higher reward when you're up for it.

I'm guessing that it's a combination of both. There's probably a set population of risk-averse players who "nest" in high-sec among this huge new player rotation scheme. There's too many characters there for either to be an absolute. It's obvious to me though that by design, the game creates the dynamic we're writing about. As a lifelong student of human behavior and biology, I'm constantly drawing parallels between this gaming universe and our own. Many of my suggestions for improvement are, in fact, inspired by the natural world.

Players are given an initial choice to become herbivores (industrialists - producers, little to no offensive capability) or carnivores (pvp'ers - consumers, little to no industrial capacity,) and CCP is then tasked with trying to balance player movements based on that dichotomy. Herd animals almost always find safety in numbers and stay near available resources. And they tend to avoid places where they know they'll be slaughtered. Pack animals track these herds, find individuals separated from groups, and consume their (in this case) podded ships as a resource.

It then seems to me, the question is how do I get a herd of wildebeest to willingly jump into crocodile-infested waters? In nature, the answer is almost always resource availability. But that won't work in the game. If you nerf high sec to the extent necessary to create that kind of migration, the subscription losses would cripple or end EVE.

So I've been working under the hypothesis that the answer may lie in a hybridization of the two.

Put simply, the herbivores have no teeth. They're big marshmallows. If this is a pvp sandbox, then allowing players to choose professions with such minimal pvp capability is creating victims by design. Pvp'ers have no trouble adapting to changes in the pvp sandbox because they're better suited to the environment. But industrialists are allowed (even encouraged) to train defenseless characters. There are no tutorials teaching new players to build balanced characters and the certificates an industrialist may base his training queue upon doesn't include combat skills. CCP should probably place some emphasis on that start to slow the marshmallow inflow, but it won't help the thousands of players like that already in game. A cacaphony of HTFUs isn't going to do it.

At minimum, we need to increase the variation in the pve elements the risk-averse are exposed to on a gradual basis. You've got to H them the F Up yourself in a measured way. Perpetual gankathons wont bring about any kind of paradigm shift - in fact, its probably counterproductive and deepens the divide. Industrialists are going need tools that will allow them to start defending themselves in situations of increasing complexity and risk. There will be those who will say they can already tank, but so can turtles and clams - and neither is migratory. For my proverbial wildebeest to want to cross that crocodile-infested river...

...they need to become pythons.

Yonis Kador

Some people actually have to worry about PVP while they PVE.

Badasses abound, apparently.

I'm not sure why I hate myself for saying it, but DMC might have something here.

But I'd like to see an addition of overview/scanner filters for known entities, if this were implemented.

If by neglected you mean CONCORD deaths no longer pay out insurance, Incursions were tweaked to be more in balance with the rest of Eve (to eliminate virtual entitlement syndrome), high-sec minerals were given a direct buff in value by the drone region nerf, and Destroyers were given an unmodified RoF.

The latter comes in super handy in both Level 1 and Level 2 missions!

I had a level 2 agent that would send me continuously into low sec. I have since moved because I can not financially handle being podded multiple times a week. Holding D and mashing my mouse doesn't seem to get my pod away fast enough. So chalk one reason up for why some people don't want to go to low sec, if I stayed I'd end up doing level 1 missions in a Ibis, with no implants until I could get a Kestrel, then finally another caracal. Then rinse and repeat over and over. I'll return to low sec later, once I have a better padded wallet. Hopefully to successfully return some favors.

Nothing I can do against 6+ man gate camps, at least managed to escape a few gangs dropping into my missions. Thank you D Scan.

So what could CCP do that would keep me around low sec? Make it so I could afford greater losses? Not really. That would unbalance low sec to null sec I would think. Although from what I understand null sec is safer, so that means low sec has the highest risks. Should that also mean low sec has the most PVE profit? Following the logic of risk vs reward of course.

Regardless it would have to be something good in order to keep people like myself around for longer than just quick pop ins.

Single account, under 10m SP, small corp consisting of only RL friends.

Yes.

You know there's something fundamentally wrong when the only way people can think of to promote the "best" part of the game is to make everything else suck more.

Just to be constructive, but still realistic. I would add a couple of things.

Remember that CCP is a commercial company dealing with a struggling economy like Iceland's one. So - despite public declarations - what CCP wants first of all is EVE to be profitabile for them. So it makes perfectly sense that they keep telling you that they want the "big PVP dreamland", but then - to survive - they must look first at numbers. And raw numbers imply leaving highsec mission running "enough safe" for carebears, since - like it or not - mission runners are a substantial part of the real money income of CCP.

That being the focal point, you should notice some other things:

1) CCP saw that shifting lvl 5 missions in low meant one thing: no more lvl 5 missission running. But lvl 5 mission were the very high-end of PVE, hardly soloable in some specific iper pimped faction ship, taking forever to complete the mission. In other words: loosing missions that were not affordable for the mass of mission runners did not impact on the gameplay of the large basis of the mission runners community.

2) Apply the same pattern of 1) to Lvl 4 missioning, which is the backbone of ISK making for almost all the PVE oriented players (and this goes even for some PVPers that make on mission running alts the ISK they spend on their "badass pirate" in low-sec). As I said: apply the pattern and conclude that it's reasonable to expect the outcome would be very different: a huge negative impact on mission running community, then - eventually - a potential loss for CCP.

3) null sec dwellers sell their high valuabe (faction, officer) loot to high sec carebears that use them to solo lvl 4 missions. No one with a mind would ever fit anymore such a loot for mission running in low sec.. So, shifting lvl 4 missions in low sec, will affect in a negative way even null sec players.

4) fact is that players actually have just now the "total sandbox" where they can show bravery or skill: it's called 0.0. Is null sec so boring that there are not enough targets? Of course not: the real point is that in nullsec there there are not enough DEFENSELESS targets. So - basically - asking to shift lvl 4 missions in low is not adding "more sandbox" but just adding "easy mode preys" for a particular subclass of PVPers consisting in the ones who like only to fight preys that can hardly fight back. Why don't these guys go pew pew in null then? They'd be shocked about the number of null-sec carebears they will find ratting, plexing and mining in belts! Oh wait ... but down there there are big bad alliances and a lot of real PVPers! So it's too dangerous attacking someone that can invoke a revenge! Of course I understand the point of pirates, but they should therefore undestand the point of carebears too. thay both want to avoid risks that thay deem to be excessive. So, why should CCP prefer pirates' point and not carebears' one?

5) In the end: goons did not ask CCP to oblige miners to go to low sec, they proclaimed hulkageddon forever in high sec. Pirates are asking CCP to shift lvl 4 mission running in low sec. Why don't pirates just organize a "runnageddon" (for sure uber PVPers know parfectly that - except maybe for a super tanked rattlesnake - they can burn a PVE fitted battleship quite easily with a torp-raven ganksquad). Too much ISK needed? Well, a really pimped PVE mission running ship could be worth much more than a torp raven ganksquad. So, once more : pirates don't want to waste ISK in a anti missioner gank squad (and once more I understand their point), but carebears do not want to lose their ISK invested in a pimped PVE ship (and so pirates should understand their point too). So, where is the real difference between pirates and carebears, except that they have different playstyles?

Summarizing: shifting all lvl 4 missions in low sec would be good only for one particular class of players: the pirates that do not have enough bravery/isk/organization to roam in null sec and/or to suicide gank missioners in high sec. Is it enough to induce CCP to risk a substanital quit from mission runner community?

The answer depends on another question: there are now more lvl 4 mission runners or more pirates in EVE?

"Realistic" would require an objective view on things, based on facts and not your personal lack of knowledge and prejudices.



I encourage you to present some numbers that would support your claim that hisec mission-runners are any more substantial than other groups. Furthermore, catering to PVE-types costs more resources than to real players- carebears demand new content, where as EVE players create content for themselves and others. This is inherent to the nature of the bear, they want canned entertainment without challenge, EVE players only need the framework and basic ruleset and they will entertain themselves.

Consider the dull, Playstation-generation TV kid and the creative, extrovert kid who goes out into the forest with pals and builds a tree cabin to play Robin Hood there. Which one is cheaper?

And your first mistake: there is no "mission running community". Mission running in hisec is commonly performed by bots.



What else do these PVE-types do besides hoard ISK?



People use faction, deadspace an officer gear in PVP, sleeper site running and low/null exploration. You must understand that not everybody is as scared as the bear.



This is a common fallacy. Understand this now: killing PVE-fit ships is not meaningful for combat-oriented players. Sure, why not pop a pimp bear ship for the loots, but the killmails people write reports, the ones that create fame and reputation are exclusively real combat ones.

The reason why many avoid null is because of the blobs, don't try to project your personal fears on EVE players.

Us, the players, would like to see carebears try the low/null/wh lifestyle and see how much more fun it is. This is why it makes sense to move the high-income activities out of the hisec- an area that does not promote teamwork.



Shifting lvl 4s to low security would be good for the bears. They would see that it's not so scary as they think, and that working together negates the risks, and maybe they would even realize how much more rewarding it is to chase and fight other human players instead of idiotic NPCs.