Player Features and Ideas Discussion

These recent (now locked) posts about 'Middle Sec' got me thinking about the problem of people transitioning into lowsec as a stepping-stone to null/w-space. I won't go into great detail on why it's a problem (see linked posts if interested) but essentially, if new players are afraid of sub-0.5 then they miss out on much of the content and thus don't play Eve for as long.

To be clear, I am not suggesting (and wouldn't advocate for) a mid-sec.

However, as a relative noob, who has already made the transition to null and w-space, I have a raw perspective of the problem, and some alternate suggestions that might spark more ideas from the community.

For starters, I was lured away from High-sec by the promise of better return on work (mining, PI, exprolation yeilds, etc.) and the opportunity for a 'trial-by-fire' to get better at Eve. I tried low-sec for a few days and decided to skip it altogether. I quickly realized, travelling around in low, that there's not really a point (for a new player, at least.) Concord won't protect you, Security Status doesn't really matter, kill rights don't really matter, and you have to deal with egregious gatecamps*. If I still have to deal with gatecamps and the only real difference is that null has MWD bubbles, then I'll just go out to null where the rewards are even better. So I did.

While I'm sure many other players have had this experience and done what I did, many more are scarred back into staying in High-sec. They don't see Low-sec as an in between, but don't make that larger leap at all.



So I'm suggesting to make Concord still matter (in a relevant way) in lowsec+. Have them respond to some level of aggression that lets the newcomers feel somewhat protected, but still allows for pirate-y activities and forces them to learn to defend themselves. At the moment, on a practical level, lowsec dosen't really come across as 'low' or 'sec' at all.

1. Concord responds (slower then the 30sec of 0.5) to aggression near the gates and stations. Thus, when newcomers want to actually make use of the expanded resources they must foray into danger. Suicide ganking is even more possible than in High, do to the even slower response, but there's a better measure of safety when trying out low sec, and just moving around to where the content is that they seek.
2. As above, but Concord responds at gates only. Travel through Low Sec, to Content, is no longer prohibitive to...the more "cautiously inclined" but actually doing anything in lowsec has the same risks as it does today.

3.Concord (or a different lore-police) could deploy player-tier, killable, ships to aid the attacked, scaled with system security rating. Repercussions are the same and it's not an for-sure death for the agressor, but players still have some help when attacked, and aggressors have to work a bit harder for their kills.

4. Concord responds as in high sec, but only to pod kills. This is sort of a false-security, but it could help the newcomers feel more secure.

Alternatively, I see the point of gate-camping as a play style to make the travelers need to be cautious in-game, but it exists in null to mostly the same extent (practically speaking) and low is supposed to be a stepping stone. Maybe we should just start a corp who hunts gate camps as a way to make their game-play harder. Anyone in?

In the end, I think that Low-sec should come across as a lower security version of high-sec, not just null-sec without bubbles and with little numbers by the aggressor's name that don't matter.

Thoughts?

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*Some of you might think that I'm whining about the type of play that I personally don't like. Please spare the forum of the clutter. I've moved on, and to worse gate camps, and MWD camps in the middle of a system, and I've already learned to deal with them in-game. These suggestions aren't to remove the play-style, just to move it back to a place so low-sec becomes a reasonable advancement from high-sec.

+This could be lore-describable as them having limited resources to extend protection, but not enough to fully patrol low-sec.

EVE developed in a way that is counter-intuitive as difficulty levels would suggest. You would think that nullsec and w-space are the 'hardest' spaces to go to and lowsec a middle-thing but it's quite the opposite sometimes.

PVP wise nullsec is currently safer than highsec, lowsec is now what nullsec was intended for and w-space is sometimes more than nullsec.
There is constant pvp in lowsec with the faction warfare but the deep you go the less pvp you get and in nullsec they either run 2827374 regions before you can see anyone or they need 500 titans and supers to kill one frigate, just to be safe and in w-space they watch you in cloaky ships for 200 years or until they have enough guardians to drop 43859278526452 tech 3 yolo-cruisers on you or they warp of the second you appear on d-scan.

I do not think there is a problem with the way space is setup. There are a number of people making sweeping generalizations about space, which just are not true in my experience.

The problem is one of population density. The higher the population density, the more potential enemies there are hidden in the crowd.

High sec is incredibly safe - as long as you avoid the people! There are some very nice out of the way corners where you do not see very many folks at all. Of course the Amarr-Jita corridor is dangerous - that's where the people are at! All those crowds of neutrals in which suicide bombers can hide!

Same goes for low sec - there are some parts where there is enough population to make it dangerous. Other parts not so much. I spent some weeks hunting belts in low sec on an alt account - in some parts I went hours without seeing a soul.

Yes, 0.0 can feel very safe, if the area you are in has a low population density. If you see someone who is not blue or green in 0.0, the assumption is that they are going to kill you. So, you act accordingly. If you assume that the next gate has an instalocking bubble camp on it, you act accordingly.

Over the last couple of years, I've lived in all over 0.0.

1. Tenal (good roaming action from neighbors in Venal and Cobalt Edge). The safest space I have lived in during the past two years. We still got a healthy dose of PVP coming to us. If it did not come for us, we went looking for it in CE.
2. Delve - great local content from Pasta/Pizza. Always something going on. Unfortunately a lot of that content was AFK-cloaky hotdropping, but it kept you on your toes. And, if you went looking for a small gang fight, they would definitely bring it. Excellent neighbors.
3. Fountain - the NPC Fountain dwellers made life interesting pretty much around the clock. I do not think anyone was at all bored. Once again - excellent neighbors.

Prior to that, I lived in Malpais. When I was there I sometimes went days without seeing a neutral. If I had not been solely interested in ratting for a Supercapital, I would never have stayed there.

That is one reason I have consistently advocated for adding more NPC constellations, particularly to the East. Those little islands bring so much vitality and death to a region. It's really good for Eve.

Tbh CCP were looking at something like that, although they intended to relegate the job to gate guns. Their idea was to escalate damage they deal over time until it takes a triage level of reps to tank them.

They didn't go through. Consensus was, indeed, that nobody effectively cares about low instead of those who are there to pick a few fights, and that change would ruin low for them while others would rather still go elsewhere. And honestly, it's not really a bad idea, if there is a space suitable for one activity or another, then you can just go there. Eventually CCP just added a couple of things to do in lowsec besides fighting and decided to be done with it for a while.

So there's that.

They should start people in rookie systems which are low sec, then bar other people joining those systems/limit it to rookie hulls and push them out from there.

So the only people able to shoot you are other rookies.

Would set a much better tone.

I think that low sec could do with changes but to be honest whatever CCP do I really don’t think it would make much difference.
While allot say leave it alone we like it that way its only because they are at the top of the food chain and a frightened at anything that gives your victims a fighting chance.

This was my experience of Low sec for my first account character
60 days in game I attempted to make the move to low. I lasted 20 seconds and my pod another 3 seconds.
A week later I tried again this time I lasted 2 mins.
Two weeks later this time I actually got to dock in a low sec station but was Alpha killed when I undocked to set up a book mark.

After that I when back to Hi and did stuff there as there was no point of going to low. Later when I had more experience I travelled into null sec but again there’s not much to do for a lone casual player apart from getting blown up repeatedly. So I stayed in hi sec and developed my game there. And that’s the problem Low sec is so dangerous that unless your there to fight or passing through it’s not worth going there.

Get a mission in low sec. Check the map for kills in the last 30 mins and even if is low enough to go then more often than not there’s someone who probes you down and keeps attacking your PvE fitted ship. Well all know the systems with cosmos missions are heavily camped so again why bother. Low sec is inhabited by high skill/experience players with PvP ships hunting low skill new players trying to move their game along. We all know that you happy the way things are as you never attack anyone who got a chance of actually fighting back.

A smother transition to Low is less interesting. FOR WHO!!

To me low sec is the worst aspects of Hi and Null in one package. They are the bottleneck to null and a deterrent for new players to access better content.
Eve is not broken
Low and null is not broken.
Eve at this time is the product of the people who play it and outside of Hi sec it can best be summed up by this well known quote!
“No we are not trying to break the game, we just trying to break your game.”

The sand box has no rules, but neither dose Somalia.
Where would you prefer to live.

I understand where you’re coming from but not everyone who plays eve primary aim is to destroy as many ships as possible. There are some of us who enjoy the building and creative opportunities that eve have but hi sec can only take you so far.

I have never been encouraged by being attacked by 2-4 larger heavily armed ships to do anything other than explode!

Train proper ships and learn proper Tactics! But that’s the option only if I want to go pick a fight. There’s no way a mining barge is going to out fight a Naga.
Picking up you PI in your industrial then smash that 5 ship gate camp on the way to high sec!

There is more to Eve than the endless PvP.
Also I would just like to say that there is very little PvP in Eve there is

Pvp

PPPvP

PPPPPPPPPPPvpppppppppppp

And then there is PL-PvP which is PvP until they cap drop you!

PVP is the only purpose of this game. In all its possible manifestations.

And proper tactics matter everywhere. To stick to your mining barge example: If you fly a Retriever in Low sec, you are not using proper tactics. A Procuror or Skiff are the only ships to be used in Non-High sec (unless you live in High sec-like Null sec like Deklein ). These ships can deal with a lot of punishment and can fend off and even destroy certain ships on their own. Getting killed by a Naga in Low sec is also demonstration of unsuitable tactics. If you see that kind of stuff coming on scan or on grid, you warp off to your station. If you see neutral coming into system, you start aligning to your station or POS. you have to use intel channels to know what's flying around your area and potentially already know what the neutral that came into your system is flying or who he's flying with.
Or your other example of PI in low sec: If you use a non-cloaky to do this kind of stuff in hostile Low sec, you are also not employing proper tactics. Simple as that. These activities are also not meant for new players beyond getting them killed to teach them these lessons. If you do PI in Low sec, you do it with a cloaky hauler and make sure that the system is clear or all neutrals docked in station. You also do not bring that stuff out of your deep low sec system with that hauler and instead use a JF or maybe a WH for that, or at the very least you do not use the most popular exit from that low sec and instead some more remote, less well known border point.

I live by the motto of "No destruction without reason". I do not need to kill stuff on an hourly basis, but recognize that not many people are as civilized and use EVE to live out their inner demons. That's the point of this game and I live around them, provide them with as little windage as possible, but also mock their failed attempts at including me in their medieval stunts. I have had a Invention/Research POS in Low sec at one point, which never got attacked as it was in an area with low traffic, low moon value. In other words: another proper tactic at avoiding PVP that you can learn from other people.

All in all: You are right, the PVP focus is not suitable for everyone. But there are ways to go around that and minimize your PVP exposure a lot, while still being able to build a lot of awesome stuff and accumulate a lot of wealth. The only thing this kind of person needs to do is to use proper ways to achieve that. What this OP suggests, however, is the exact opposite of that. But you cannot expect better from this kind of corp. vOv

So why lie about other players and their playstyle and play such a victim when you have an area to play in already?

As for your quote, here's the vid so you can hear the whole question and answer in context and, most importantly, the cheer from EvE players.

What youre calling a bottleneck to players, is in fact the gateway to what the rest of the EvE player base is looking for.

Thanks for the vid link its been a while since I have seen that.

Then again it’s still a relevant quote directed at players who probably deserves it the most although in its original context not that accurate.

As for not being a bottleneck rather a gateway then we should look at what a bottleneck is.

Please excuse this crude definition “A narrowing through which things must travel to reach their destination.”

Well there are few links to Nil and nearly all have to go through low sec. So it is a restricted access point.

A gateway yes well it could be but it’s more like the gatehouse of a castle with murder holes portcullis and boiling oil ready to rain down on you if the keepers think you don’t belong there.

Low sec is as closed as Null to new players who chose not to belong to the local thugs!

If PvP is the only reason for eve then why bother with all the industry and exploration. PvP could be done on Singularity allot better. I now have the experience to take those types of precautions you have suggested but that is now back then I never had the skills or isk to invest in high end ships. I have also lost a Procurer and 2 Ventures in null before I gave up as I was losing more than I made and constantly had to warp and dock all the time. Even surviving is no good if you’re never able to mine or collect your PI. Show up in a Skiff and they will hunt you all day for a kill.

RIvr luzade “No Destruction without Reason” is a good ideology but most out there it is more like “The reason for you Destruction is your so **** and we could point you with our interceptor and you couldn’t tank our cruisers”. While you may pop a newbie one or twice before ignoring them most will sit there and kill anyone not blue to them. Just look in local to see the abuse and scorn someone gets for not being able to avoid being killed by experts.
Using a J freighter is not an option for allot on new players or just too expensive.
Try to grasp that while you look at things from your perspective it’s the situation that new players are in. Most are moving to a new area and have no contacts where they’re going. They have not got skills for T2 ships or the time to spend hours charting a slightly less risky route out to hi sec of which there are very few.