EVE General Discussion

From personal experience, I can confidently state that you're utterly wrong.

Right. I should be falling on my knees blessing the alliance overlords for even allowing me to play. How dare I think about me during my playtime in Eve.

Your attitude is the VERY REASON I stay away from you. This entitlement that players some how owe you their obedience, time, and worship. I choose to play the way I play and it drives you nuts.For the life of me I simply cannot understand this behavior.

Let me guess - every single corp you tried to join was just full of assholes?

Make it a scale -10 to 0 to 10, as in

-10 = overjoyed that we have nothing in common
0 = who cares, what else is on
10 = furious that you're not doing what I'm doing

and it'll be a poll worth responding to.

I'm -3 to 0, somewhere in there.

Ignoring the dozen pages of the exact 'sound and fury, signifying nothing' that Sugar talks about in her blog...

Given the reigns, I'd be looking to 'danger-ify' High Sec.

Honestly, I don't think most people who live in High Sec are necessarily married to the idea. Instead, they just see it as the most logical place to be. Several people in the thread have touched on how earnings in High Sec are largely (perceived as) risk free. I would want to change that.

Why is it High Sec?

High sec has a special mechanical difference that separates it from the other areas of space. Crimewatch technically still exists in lowsec, but CONCORD is special just to high security space. It's an omnipotent, infallible security force. The only downside is that it is entirely reactive.

And it's important to have it. Solo/small group players don't have the resources to form a big fleet to chase off somebody threatening their missions/PI/belt/whatever. So the AI steps in and provides a way for players to operate below the level of blue-alliance.

I think that defines who should be in High Sec space though. Players that haven't found their footing in EVE yet, players who are super casual about the 'hobby', or just don't fit in with corporate life for whatever reason. But players who are in those big groups, or just confident of their abilities, shouldn't have much reason to stick around as High Sec doesn't actually add anything for them mechanically.

Transitioning to non-High Sec

What High Sec does really badly though is prepare people for life outside CONCORD's bubble. While under their protection, the rules of safety change dramatically. Avoiding ganks becomes a game of managing your EHP-to-Wreck Value ratio. As long as you're unprofitable enough you're basically fine, no matter what your actual fit or flying style is.

Which of course completely stops working the moment you leave the Tama gate. Without the watchful eye of your AI security force, suddenly the math behind being safe changes and you find yourself helpless. This is a poor way to have that transition happen. New players aren't prepped for the 'outside world', and the very fits being flown are alien to the way the rest of the game works.

So my goal would be to introduce an element of chaos, of uncertainty. Take the income/loss ratio of High Sec from 100M : 0.0M to something more representative of more "dangerous" space.

CODE CODE

The gankers of High Sec certainly present some amount of risk. But for most people flying, that risk is essentially 0. In theory, wardec happy corps can enforce an element of risk but as they are constantly whining about, the wardecs are relatively easy to avoid.

So my "TL:DR" is this - create an AI CODE. Virtual gankers acting as an indiscriminate ISK sink in High Sec. They don't care of your ship isn't worth the gank. They don't care what corp you're in, or how bling your incursion fit is. Their purpose in life is to hunt people down and loot their wreck.

Make them look like player ships, with all the bells and whistles that we do (similar to Burners).

Teach players that:
A) High Sec isn't death free. Because Robo-CODE is coming for you.
B) Fit and fly like you need to fight off/run from a gank. Because Robo-CODE is coming for you.
C) Want to escape Robo-CODE? Get out of High Sec space.

This is probably true, and we are back where we started. Highsec is far too safe and/or far too lucrative thus it is where most players, including those happy to live in nullsec, are playing. The concentration of players and ISK/resource generation activities is much greater in highsec because of this imbalance, so it follows that so would the concentration of potential targets.

Unless there are some major changes in directions, highsec will continue to increase in player activity, including criminal ganking activity, while nullsec will fall deeper into stagnation and neglect. Tweaking the mechanics of suicide ganking is not going to change this overall trend.

You know all of this of course. When you set the incentives such that living in highsec is the only rational choice for generating resources, then most players are going to choose to live in highsec even if they are comfortable elsewhere. The hunters will follow the prey and thus ganking will continue to increase. None of this is surprising or unpredictable.

I hope you consider running for CSM again this year. You were ranked quite highly on my ballot last time because you demonstrated clearly that you understand the importance of risk vs. reward in shaping player behaviour unlike most of the field.

Isn't it interesting how they always fall back on this tired old lie?

What high sec, any sec for that matter, needs, is more uncertainty.
I believe that Eve design has slacked in adressing the uncertainty and unpredictability core drive of it's player base. Uncertainty fuels engagement,engagement fuels drama, drama made Eve great.


It's hard to cater to the achiever, that wants to be able to set out his/hers max opportunity and achievement path, and also cater to the explorer/winner that (former most of them) absolutely requires uncertainty to factor into play outcomes.


Things like the API, the awesome blue loot in sleepers, predictable win doctrines (for PVE especially) and the way to big reach one has within this huge galaxy make gameplay predictable and controllable in the long run, to the game's detriment.

Eve once was inspired by ultima online. That game died not because of safety, but because of predictability. Once nothing is left to discover, to suprise your enemy or friend alike with, everyone left is an achiever and no drama remains.

Why should people playing in highsec, have any interest to move outside of highsec?

The problem with highsec is not that people don't go to where retention is better. The problem is that what they do doesn't retains them because it is arguably of lower quality than the rest of the game.

Players play highsec because it's highsec, not because it's poor quality content. The solution is not to herd or push or kick them to high quality content, but improve the quality of highsec content.

Remove sec loss in lowsec. Lowsec is actually nosec, there's no security at all and no authorities to see you. It would allow for much more PVP to happen without having to worry about the null bullcrap aka the fun type of PVP. Maybe keep the sec loss for podding people to balance it.