EVE General Discussion

Sure.

To be clear: I have nothing against cautious, careful PVP-ing and trying to maximise kills per loss.

It's a valid playstyle as any other. But it is, in fact a playstyle. A player's choice. Game mechanics (including insurance) won't change that!


To your point: if you're always winning fights, you're not really risking. There's no way around it. Because in EVE you can choose your fights.

Say you're a really really good PVPer. You know your sh*t, you're always on the ball, you put countless hours into perfecting your game.

So do you always win fights?

Well, it depends. Yes you're better than most other players. You'd beat them all in a 1v1 with same ships/fits. But EVE isn't about 1v1 battles. If you want a challenge, you can still go pick 1v10s, with competent players. Have fun, keep the adrenaline pumping, and yes - most probably lose several ships.

On the other hand, even if you're bad at PVP, you can always limit yourself to 10v1 ganks and win.


TL;DR: taking risks or not is a personal choice, more insurance won't change that much, and my hunch is that the OP's choice is - and always will be - risk-averse PVP.

Wat. That isn't even close to the discussion. You're now referring to one specific case, and not talking in general terms like everyone else here. I assure you, plenty of people don't even enter places like highsec or lowsec and have those "crazy efficient" records. That's hardly stepping down a league to fight people who can't fight back. It's just a mark of someone who carefully considers when to engage, and doesn't leave openings for others to take advantage of. An aware, cautious player.

"Risk" is a concept hard to grasp. CCP mostly fails to get it, for an instance.

"Risk" is what makes you stop doing a thing. Every player haves a threshold for it. And that threshold, contrary to what most stupid in the game believe (with CCP ahead of them), haves nothing to do with "reward". Among other things, because "reward" is also what a player defines as what makes him to do something.

A developer may think that adding better rewards to a mechanic will increase the risks being taken by the individuals engaging into that activity. But that's wrong. It's horribly wrong. Increasing the rewards for a increased risk will attract a different kind of player -not the players doing that thing with the old rweward/risk ratio.

Upping the risk for a higher reward essentially evicts players from a niche and opens it to a different kind of players. That is, in case that those players are not already doing something more satisfactory than the proposed new activity.

Take Drifter missions. Who are running them? Mission runners? Or people who never ran a mission before?

According to CCP, they've added more content for mission runners; yet according to mission runners, CCP has done **** for them, but has given a new toy to some other guys who already where doing something else.

So the net effect of Drifter missions is: mission runners still quit for lack of new content (fit to their risk/reward balance), and some people who was doing something different now will run Drifter missions occasionally as it suits to their already set risk/reward ratio. So all in all, CCP losses players even while adding new content for the wrong players.

The usual HTFU explanation is "meh, we didn't want those players!". But nothing could be wronger in the land where TQ activity is down to 2007 levels and shrinking despite the massive stimuli package being applied.

CCP should start taking their players at face value. Some people just want to shoot red crosses and get bacon. "Some" as in "25% of their subscribers and 40% of the players they're losing in the first month".

They're not "risk averse". They are paying customers who are paying for a risk/reward ratio and don't give a rat's ass of anybody else's speculations and fantasizing about that. And either CCP starts giving ALL players a reason to stay subbed, or they're gonna be in big trouble.

Because as much as the new release pace keeps players interested, it also adds salt to the injury of players who get nothing...

Aware, cautious, risk-averse. It's just semantics. And it's ok to be 'aware', no problem with that.

My point is simply: if you're 'aware' now, you'll be just as 'aware' with higher insurance payouts.

You'll take the same fights you take today, and avoid the same fights you avoid today.


And as today, you will only engage PVEers or PVPers that have more balls - sorry, are less 'aware' - than you. Because if everyone was highly 'aware', there wouldn't be many fights, would there?

I agree with your general point. As long as EVE doesn't lose it's fundamental roots, I'm happy if there are more and more career paths and content to attract all kinds of players.

But I really don't get this point on missions. I don't mission, but I'm assuming these new missions are more challenging than the usual ones.

What else could CCP do add new content to missions??? Make you rescue a dude sometimes instead of a damsel???

What would be a simple catch-all term for that sort of player. Hmm, maybe "risk averse"?

Look, I don't know how it works in null, but here's how it works in lowsec.

We fly anything from solo to small gang to small (doctrine) fleets usually less than 30 people. Frigates to battleships and, occasionally, caps.

To get fights we upship, downship, fight in FW plexes (that limit both the size of ships that can enter and the possibility to cyno-in or even warp-in), vary the logi-to-dps and ewar-to-dps ratio, etc. etc.

When I'm solo, I often engage 1v many. Sometimes I win, sometimes I get a few shots then run, sometimes I pop (often ). Whatever happens, a couple of people (including me) had more fun than ship-spinning.

And from my experience I can say this with 100% certainty: assuming a minimum of competence, an aggressive (aka risk-taking) FC and pilots will ALWAYS get more kills than a cautious FC/group that hesitates. Sure, lose some, but kill much more (number-wise and - even more so - ISK-wise).


So that's why I get a little worked up when another 'suggestion to counter risk aversion' comes up. Because all you need is already in the game. Just get out there and fight, ffs!!!

Risk aversion isn't a bad thing. Risk aversion is the normal thing to do. We do it all the time in game and out of game.

for me there's three elements to this - it's not a simple thing at all.

1) there's the view of the angry that those not willing to fight (to either encounter them or assist them) is because they think others are cowards and not wanting to fight. May be true, might not be. But this first category are those people. Where there's a fair fight and they're able and 'avaialbe', then, yes, they're risk adverse.

2) Being risk adverse when a gang of 100 enter system and you have 10 people, ... is the age old problem in that many fight in eve( if not all bar a few) are heavily out-balanced. To the degree that you know in advance who will win, so what's the point. Ergo, there is no 'risk' just 'certainty'. and all you're going to do is prove you were right. THis isn't risk adverse, though many will think it is. It's actually suicide adverse.

3) Thene there's the percieved risk adverse when people just can't be bothered, at that point in time, or generally, to go through the hassle of picking a ship, undocking, hunting, or concentrating about attacking at that time ... these people are just wrong place wrong time for a fight. They'#re not risk adverse, they're lethargic, or just caught at a bad time.

point 2) is around 90%, point 3 is around 50% (yes, overlap with point 2), and point 1) I rekon is around 20%, again overlap.

just in my experience ... and I've been around alot.

Consider...

Not everyone has SRP, there are many not in alliances with good SRP's.
Alliance SRP doesn't always cover a fight, nor will fight even happen, when a sanctioned FC isn't on to approve it.
Alliance SRP typically doesn't cover 1 v 1 or small gang shenanigans.
PVE players aren't forced to run PVP alts to fund their PVE, yet pure-PVP players are 'forced' to have PVE alts to fund a pure-PVP career, or forced to inject real $ into their accounts to replace lost ships, above and beyond monthly subscription. That, or they go risk-averse and avoid losses (and edge-case fights) like the plague.
Etcetera. Etcetera...

So, whether its insurance, bounties, better salvage drops..whatever, ideally we would have a mechanism that incentivizes pure-PVP pilots to...pvp more. When I observe daily risk aversion in others (and myself!) to bringing a fight in that middle-ground of 'i'm not sure we will win/lose, and I just lost a Navy Mega yesterday...so I am just going to undock a crappy T1 today..or not at all...', I think thats a problem for a spaceship combat came who markets itself in 95% of all youtube videos based on rawr! spaceship combat.

The 'loss is good' zealots will say 'working as intended', and in many ways I agree loss should be 'felt', but I would rather be inspired to undock another Navy Mega and fight again, than count my shekels in angst over the first loss. I would rather other pilots do the same, culminating in a general mindshift in risk-averse EVE pvp to one that is more truly 'come at me bro!', in good ships, not T1 crap, all the time.

Thats the paradox for people smarter than I to figure out. How do we get a middle ground between the Elite:Dangerous model of *true* PVP YOLO (and 95% replacement coverage), and the risk-averse high-ISK-loss based model we have in EVE?

I think addressing the ISK lost part of the equation is a big part of it.

I also think if we don't seek change, and said middle ground is not sought, then PVP'ers need to shut the hell up about constantly bemoaning risk-aversion in other pilots, and focus on just making strategic PVP goals more compelling. I'm not sure Fozzie SOV alone will do that.

F