Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The kind of issues I see with these changes is that the game has been running 10 years. All the "tricks" that can be extracted from the mechanics have been already found, and are been milked non stop.

If you did this, it would have zero effect on the large established organizations, that are already making a ton of money in null, and usually just come to hisec to suicide gank blingy ships and overloaded freighters. With this move, they will start making even more isk, and now with no ships lost to CONCORD.

I only see Red/Black Frog gaining a ton more freighter and escort pilots and making a killing in the new economy, doing all the heavy lifting for everyone.

It's not that I mind the general idea, but unless CCP brings out an expansion called Scorched Universe, I don't see it happening.

Thinly veiled "i dont want my ship to be destroyed while suicide ganking freightes" thread. It already is zero risk game, you want everything to be handed to you on a plate?

First of all, the points you are making are based on the way traffic moves in empire right now. Sure if they put lowsec between the empires and traffic moves like it does today with all high sec in between empires, then yeah i could see this catastrophe you guys are imagining. But that's not what would happen. Traffic would change. Each empire would have it's own local traffic of moving things from the edge of the empire to the trade hub and back. But this won't dump a ton of targets into the lap of everyone in null and low sec. This will only change the dynamic between low and high sec. Suicide ganking may or may not change it will definitely not get any worse because of this change. If you fly a freighter into lowsec, whether it's now or it's in a future with this change then you're putting it at significant risk.

This change doesn't make high sec less safe. This change doesn't make low sec more dangerous. This change doesn't force anyone to go into lowsec or engage in any non-consensual pvp. All this change does is create a boarder between the empires. A neutral zone where the systems are contested. This could be the future site of FW and this could create a great area to have Roleplay events.

Red/Black Frog seem to already be working at their maximum capacity. I don't know if they'd be able to support the entirety of EVE. And on another point, Logistics is very effort heavy. I'm not sure if you've done any living outside of high sec but getting stuff you need there and stuff you need to sell out is not as easy as auto-piloting to (insert local trade hub here). Doing logistics can be extremely profitable in those hard to reach areas. However such profitability doesn't exist in high sec because of the lack of effort required to auto pilot a freighter. By separating the empires with low sec, we will add back that effort to hauling and once again make it profitable.

Another point about the JF logistics is that they require Fuel. And the more JF's there are hauling things between empires the more fuel they're going to use. And the more Fuel they use, the more demand there will be on fuel. And when you have a high demand and a limited resource you end up with an increase in price. And as that price increases the cost to jump stuff will increase and the amount of isk you have to make to profit from JF hauling increases too. This will happen until an equilibrium is found between the cost and profit of JF hauling and this will leave a window of unforeseeable profitability for hauling gate to gate. Adding PoSs and such to the overhead will affect this too. (Remember Jump and PoS fuel are not free!!!)

Now about those escort pilots making some money. How about that, creating an entire new profession in EVE. This would be one of the greatest results that could come of a change like this. This is one of, if not the reason for this thread. To create a new dynamic where something like that is possible.

Since facts is a theme. People don't unsub because of (insert mechanic change here). They unsub because mechanics DON'T change.

The argument that players will unsub because of some game change is invalid.
http://jestertrek.com/eve/blog/2013/eve-players-exp-2013-2.png
As you can see here, after every major content expansion there is a rise in player subscription activity. However after a while that will start to decrease again until the next major content expansion. So, as you can see, when things change player subs increase. When changes are not made (especially after a major content-void expansion) then player subs decrease.

I'll start with this incredible load of bullcrap.

Flying a freighter in lowsec is no risk. Certain death is called certain because it leaves nothing to chance, and there is no room for risky gambles, because nothing is a gamble. It's suicide, it always were, and it always would be.


This change doesn't make hisec less unsafe, it just destroys it completely and replaces it with 4 little unsafe hisecs.
The lowsec is not a risk because it can be avoided. If it cannot be avoided, it's certain death. It lowers the risk and destroy the reward, along with hisec.
"We don't force you to go to lowsec, just stay in your little pocket and lose 90% of your profits, NOBODY IS FORCING YOU!" (c) You.
"Let's do the future FW! We can start by obliterating hisec." (c) You.


Cyno to station, pick up stuff, jump bridge, jump bridge, cyno to blue-camped lowsec near designated trade hub, done. Time: 7 minutes. EFFORT.
You have to spend twice more time pushing 7 gates in empire to the hub. And you can be actually ganked there, a possibility unimaginable for low/null jump drive LOLogistics. And nope, profitability is just about as much as doing anything else, because if it were profitable, anyone would be doing it, considering how ridiculously little effort and risk it is.


Done some calculations, and found that current Red Frog costs more than jump fuel over the same distances, but that doesn't matter.
What does matter, however, is that power blocks will monopolize cross-empire bridges from nearest null entries quicker than goons taking back their words about non-aggression once moon rebalance hit Tranquility.


Blobbers will easily break any escort. Mercs can only harass nullsec blobbers from hisec, entering low is as suicidal for them as it is for a freighter.

So, in short:
1) blue donut, major buff - a new market easily exploitable with blobs.
2) haulers, traders - unsubbing or paying for cyno rights to blobbers and hauling for marginal profit, if any.
3) industrials - forced to join blue donut and work for free, or just work for free. I think they choose unsub.
4) mercs - screwed with hisec destruction.
5) hisec - destroyed.

Good job.

This doesn't force anyone to do anything. If you don't want to go into low sec, then you don't go to another empire's space. You aren't FORCED to go there.

If you are going to knock this idea because it forces people to go into low sec, then you should also be getting rid of high sec missions that force you to low sec to complete. Or high sec pockets you can't get to without going through low sec. Or hell, keep going. I want to go to ORE controlled space, but don't want to be forced into 0.0. I don't want to be forced to go to low sec to do lvl 5's, so put them in high sec. I don't want to be forced into 0.0 to mine high value ores, so put them in high sec. I want to see the eve gate, but I don't want to be forced to go to low sec to see it. Etc. etc. etc.

Nothing in this idea FORCES a player to do anything. The player always has a choice, and they can simply choose to stay within the confines of a single empire if they choose to never enter low sec.

How would the neutral zone between each empire be built? Would there be a security loss involved if you engage a player from another race?

How about if you engage a player from your own race? Shouldn't such an engagement lead to a severe security loss where you would have to remain in the neutral zone for a certain amount of time until the security loss was revoked and your security status returned to status that it was before you engaged the opposite race player or a permanent security loss for engaging a player from your own race?

Neutral Zone would be rather different from low sector and null space because you wouldn't even be allowed to go into low or null let alone high sector space if you have been tagged as having a neutral zone violation.

It doesn't force players to do anything but it does arbitrarily take away large chunks of profit from those in hi-sec who's business relies on stability and hand it straight to the larger lo-sec groups who would monopolize and control the trade routes. The idea that there is still a long route around hisec would still destroy profit margins. It is *effectively* forcing players to use losec routes to maintain profitability whilst providing the losec folks with more big juicy targets for free.

Saying a business player can choose between very real risk of massive loss from freighter destruction or guaranteed huge loss from tripling the hauling route is really no choice at all. To get more players to go to losec means giving them reason to go and the means to do so in a way that they believe they can have a fair chance with. I know that it isn't as scary getting into losec as many believe but that is the problem. Large numbers of players probably avoid going into losec due to the perception that you get bounced at the first gate (which can of course happen)

That is the reasoning behind my suggestion for a new set of missions that cyno the player into the mission site in deep space. It would get people past the initial fear of jumping into low and still leave them having to navigate their own way out safely. Once players get used to operating in lo and losing ships more often they will begin to go back to losec by choice. In fact when they crave a combat fix hisec simply wouldn't cut it anymore most likely.

The key is getting players past the initial block to jumping in and effectively forcing them to do so by separating hisec into enclaves. Marginalizing new players and eisting indy players would do nothing to help the game overall.

Yes it does. They would no longer be able to fly from point A to point B as they do now without entering lowsec; A and B being in different empires.

That's what forced means. They would have to either do the activity at much greater risk, with no demostrable increase in reward,, or cease that activity. Claiming they aren't bein "forced" is semantic pedantry of the worst sort trying to catch someone in a technical linguistic error to divert attention from the real issue.
That issue is that this is just a thinly veiled "I want it to be easier to blow stuff up" with no indication at all of how reward would increase for this much larger risk. Freighters and to a lesser extent T1 haulers would he of suddenly far less use.

People throw terms around like "emergent gameplay", but as usual for the playerbase that just means "bbuff my playstyle and sccrew someone else because loaded language annd ad hom fallacy." These arguments,, usually heavily referencing the ursine, ignore that much of this highsec activity is alts funding the activity of low/null.

For this idea to be viable it would need to be of clear benefit to the highsec character affected,, in proportion to risk. It isnt, and probably cannot be made so, and is thus DOA.

Currently for trader characters they make much of their profits by hauling goods bought cheaply where one empire has an excess to another empire where there is a dearth. They often use isk per jump as a measure of profitability and tripling the jumps basically cuts the profitability to a third since time is money. The argument here is that they can keep making that profit by going through losec to get there but suddenly requiring the very real risk of doing so to keep making the same profit? Traders simply won't bother and the market will destabilize.