EVE General Discussion

This is an old debate. Since the game was released there has been the division in the playerbase, with the risk-loving combat PvPers seeing hi-sec as something akin to an abomination, and asking repeatedly for nerfs. It increased with the buffs of missions a couple of years in, and pretty much has been a steady argument over the course of the game.

In my time in EVE since 2004 (not continuous, but continuous enough until early 2007 and then very on and off), I've done hi, lo and null, PvP, empire wars, nullsec wars, FW, trading, some industry/POSing, and -- gasp -- even some mining at the beginning. What I've noticed is that different players have very, very different appetites for risk, and also the same players often have very different appetites for risk at different times in their playing careers. It's not so much about risk vs. reward, it's about risk aversion full stop. High Sec is there for people who are relatively risk averse as players, or who are in a risk averse phase of their playing career -- i.e., full on carebears, or people in a carebear phase.

If you nerf rewards in high sec, it won't result in the carebears being "properly incentivized" to go to low sec or null. They don't want to get blown up at least not regularly, no matter what the rewards are. They will most likely just leave EVE. Now I know many low sec and null players would likely say "good riddance, EVE would be better without the carebears so it can be more hardcore" and so on, but, again, this is a *very* old debate. CCP has been listening to this demand (nerf hisec!) for years and years and has not done it. The main reason for that is that there are a large number of players who either are primarily carebears or who are part-time carebears, by choice, and who like it that way. There are more of these kind of players, in my observation over the years, than there are folks who pew-pew in null and ISK farm in hi. Hi-sec has always been by a very, very large margin the most crowded area of space -- because there are a lot of players who like to play in a relatively risk averse environment (not really safe, you still are subject to being suicide sniped and so on).

So while it's very interesting to me personally to see the same arguments and many of the same ideas being brought forth year after year, I think the bottom line is that hi is never going to be as radically nerfed as some of the null crowd would like simply because CCP doesn't want to lose a lot of the players who are risk averse and yet still like and play (and pay to play) EVE. It's easy to be an idealist and say that it would be best for the game to nerf this or that into the ground and so on, but in reality it would not be good for the game to lose a good amount of the carebear subs -- for everyone, in terms of development of the game.

CCP has always walked a tightrope here, carefully observing what its own statistics say about what the players are actually doing, and in what numbers, and tweaking things accordingly. And they've also closely observed what has *not* enticed players into lo and null -- and nothing much, to be honest, has worked at all for that. That's not because of risk vs reward, it's simply due to risk aversion among players, and that isn't really very easily changed by changing risk vs reward.

Wait, did they nerf anomalies again?

My corp left our null alliance because we didn't have the time to dedicate to the game (thankfully, 'twas also a few months before that alliance failscaded). Now we have fun with Wormhole folk. But I hadn't heard about any kind of anomaly nerf?

Me, I like high and low sec (and C1s and C2s) because I often leave EVE for days or weeks at a time, though I keep coming back. Forcing me to go to null sec and have to spend more time in game even when my free time is limited might make the game more fun for others, but would sound suspiciously like unpaid, unsalaried work to me.

I'd move back to null if I didn't have to fly a drake :[
#1 reason for leaving.

I'd move back to a Drake as long as I didnt have to go to null.

I stopped flying Drakes because it was bad mmm..k to have a sebo. By the time you got lock and hit the SOB he was dead. DAMN arty canes!!

You don't want one of 13 too?

The skewed relation of industry players to PVP players is also something that is at its core a result of our game mechanics.
Take a look at various PVP groups:

1) sucessfull 0.0 alliances - in general 95% PVP players and 5% Alts with jumpfreighters that do logistics and moon-mining.

2) Low-Sec groups - majority of "pirate" groups has not even remotely anything do to with industry, a few lowsec cartels make money with POCOs (which were a great step into the right direction btw) and moon mining.

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Now imagine the following scene happening in a scenario where both "professions" were much more intertwined, it's not really a suggestion on how change the game but rather an example about what could be possible.


Scenario: Highsec is not the core with lowsec around it, but rather a shattered conglomerate of various isles and safe constellations with lowsec everywhere inbetween. Let's also assume transporting goods in a jumpfreighter was much more expensive.
Now look at a pirate cartel/alliance/whatever like the normal ones that exist in EVE now that has a reasonable control over its home area.
They do what they'd normally do, hang around there, be NBSI and kill every hauler that tries to move between the isles, so far, so bad (economy wise). However they soon figure out that, with their supremacy over the area, they could as well use their own freighters to haul goods from one isle to another, and because there are no other supply lines, this is actually worth doing...

And poof, suddenly you have a ton of industry activity, though in this case logistics, in the hands of a bunch of gatecampers. They might even get a few guys with freighter skills trained into the corp.

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What I wanted to say is, in the current EVE there is not much room for a collaboration between PVE/Industry players and PVP players, if this collaboration would be necessary (for nullsec-alliances) and/or profitable (for lowsec-groups) then the attitudes of people from both sides would change, up to a point where you would be hard pressed to distinguish them.





P.S: Also: buff 0.0 industry (slots, margins....), give veldspar-mining-capital, nerf cynos, nerf logistics (especially mineral compression)

+1

Best response to this I've read in 2 years.

I think we meant different kinds of compression.
What I meant was the ease of transporting "mineral value" through New Eden.

And it should be nerfed (but only AFTER 0.0 industry has been buffed) by raising the volume of all items to a value that is equal or preferably higher than the volume of the minerals used in production - Raw minerals should be the purest and most efficient way to move mineral value.
Additionally, you could raise the volume of all minerals by about 25% but I doubt whether that is also necessary.

You can make better isk/hour with L4s, but it's still less than what you can earn in 0.0 by several magnitudes.

Ooooh -
Do you do that too?
Myrms, Drakes, Gilas, Ishtars, Ravens, Rattlesnakes, and both shield and armor Domis - if you're reduced to running missions, it's fun to mix it up!