EVE General Discussion

I don't really feel like this is accurate.

Level 4 missions haven't substantially changed. Ganking has changed a *little* but mostly to keep balance about where it's always been, more or less.

High Sec mining has dropped relative to pretty much everything else due to inflation and buffs to Null and Low.

High Sec exploration is easier now but consequently pays significantly worse on average.

The only thing that's *really* changed high sec much in the last 5 years is Incursions, and the income from those has been pretty steady and drastically lower overall than rat bounties and other sources of income, and pretty much anything out in Null is consistently higher income for less work and logistics.

Also a respectable level of High Sec income is needed to allow people to get out into Low and Null in the first place. Otherwise the only feasible options a player has for getting enough to do something like buy their first Carrier, or recover from a stinging loss, are to join a group that's already out in Null. If for whatever reason that's not an option if there weren't any good High Sec income options they'd be pretty stuck.



Yes, but this wouldn't really nerf Null PvE options, just affect Null PvP and do so fairly evenly across the board.



The whole Null income thing has been a fairly recent development though, as indicated by the MER graphs, and it has been an issue with Null incomes skyrocketing not any real changes in other areas of the game changing to produce this issue. On top of that there's some question as to whether or not there's actually an issue here. Since the tax changes with Citadel the ISK supply in the economy has remained fairly stable despite the increase from ratting. This suggests that the income levels in Null are sustainable at present levels.

The mineral market issue was its own thing, separate from the income from carrier ratting. The issue with the Rorqual was it drew a ton of people into mining who hadn't mined previously much if at all, and that combined with the huge yields of the Rorqual creates a massive mineral surplus that flooded the market.

So the problem there wasn't so much that the Rewards in general were too good, it's that the mineral production was massive outpacing consumption and what the market could soak.

That last sentence is just kind of fluff. It's a great high level idea, but what would have to be done to actually *do* that is a massive pile of work and it's questionable if the high level statements there are even actually achievable. It's like someone saying "Make Low Sec more attractive and active!" or "Make an amazing game that'll sell a billion copies!" Sure, that's a great idea... how?

The problem with Low isn't that the rewards are bad, though they could use a bit of tweaking, it's that the perceived risk is very high and the tools for risk mitigation are pretty skant compared to High and Null. The problem then is if you actually decrease risk in Low then you'll get complaints, and any change simply in perceived risk as opposed to actual risk will just as likely fool the Low dwellers as anyone who might pop in to create content.

Why should it? Lower rewards means lower rewards. LP included. Or rather since the content will require a team, the LP will have to be shared anyway.

Soloing level 5s should not be possible unless you are in a large capital ship period. No exceptions. That will balance the content better than it is now.

L5s weren't designed to be run in capitals or the acceleration gates would allow them. The fact that some L5 missions are directly warpable to is merely a happy coincidence for capitals. And no one would run L5s with embedded rooms in capitals because you'd essentially be trapping yourself without an option to quckly align out.

Agreed.

However, what would you define as reducing risk as opposed to reducing perceived risk?

Myself, I'd consider any use of "defensive" NPC's, be it improved gate guns, police, Concord Light etc. to be unacceptable as this is attempting to make Low sec safer by direct manipulation of the base mechanics that define it. Perceived risk is trickier, that's entirely subjective, and largely dependent on the knowledge of the individual.

That's why I tend towards manipulating the PvE content itself to allow for a different approach to participation.
If low sec PvE was geared towards more "survivable" ships, preferably PvP fit ships, then it could serve to act as an encouragement to bring "fresh Blood" into low as well as reward those who spend a fair bit of their time in low sec already.
More people spending more time in low sec= more possibility of random PvP for those that want it. How successful it is depends on skill and luck, much as it does now.

I think it's almost impossible to change perceived risk without also changing real risk, at least slightly. The trick is for the actual change in real risk to be small in exchange for a greater change in perceived risk.

For example I think the lack of local in Wormholes makes a lot of people feel safer than they actually are. Similarly people who aren't used to getting ganked through a wormhole, or don't understand their spawn mechanics, may feel safer out in an isolated null system than is actually the case.

In general I like this general approach, lowering the barrier to entry to Low Sec content and thus asking people to risk less for the rewards being offered, and consequently hopefully bringing more people out into Low Sec. If you told me I could spend a few hours tooling around Low in a T2 fit T1 Cruiser hull to farm A and B-type Deadspace modules I'd absolutely pick that over spending tens of hours running missions, ratting, or something similar in High or Null.

In a way this could also be considered a change in perceived risk, in that the risk of losing your ship doesn't really change (if anything you're more likely to lose a T1 Cruiser hull than something more expensive), but because you're being asked to risk less the trade-off seems more worthwhile.



He's not talking about PvPing for money, he's talking about being able to take a PvP fitted or generally cheaper ship to do PvE content and still being able to do the content reasonably effectively.

Right now most low-sec site runners use specialized fits that are very hard to catch and minimize risk by spending very little time doing each site, and these fittings bear basically no resemblance to a PvP fit. They won't have a point, webs, or any of the normal PvP fittings.

If you can bring a PvP fitted ship to do PvE then you feel safer and can generally spend less on a ship for doing the sites, instead of using a .5-1.5b site running T3C.

It's not so much about making PvP profitable, that's not the main goal of most PvP activities in Low sec, it's about making the PvE content more accessible imo.

I ratted my sec back up from -10 before tags were a thing. I did this in low sec in PvP fit ships. It was boring as hell for the most part, but completely possible. I did surprise more than one "pirate" who thought I'd be an easy kill as a ratter, which was the point. Now, it would of been a lot quicker to use a dedicated PvE fit ship, but far less safe, and this was just standard belt ratting (with a lot of system jumps thrown in for more efficient BS farming). Bear in mind I was doing this exclusively to raise sec, not make isk....in the time taken I would of made significantly more isk doing missions in HS....and that's the crux of the issue for me.

Now I'm no expert, so am willing to defer to those with more experience, but just how efficient is it to run the higher-end PvE sites in a PvP ship? Furthermore, just how expensive would those ships need to be to give a reliable return on the time spent to make it a preferable option over HS incursion/ missioning?

I honestly believe that LS could benefit from PvE activities that a more accessible (read: safer) by virtue of being designed around ships that are themselves inherently "safer" to fly...PvP fit frigs, dessies and cruisers for example. The rewards would be weighted to allow these ship types to out-earn their counterparts in HS by a significant margin, preferably in content that allows for a relatively low exposure time.

Data/ relic sites are an example of what I would consider to be almost ideal. The exposure time is low ( only really exposed on gates and while performing a hack), and the rewards can be relatively decent. However the time lost while probing etc. leads to pretty low efficiency and there is a rather large amount of RNG thrown in for good measure. Subsequently it requires rather a considerable time investment.....time that could be earning a player far more in HS.

TLDR: It's not the mechanics of Low sec that really need a change, it's the mechanics/ rewards of the PvE content.

That's actually more or less exactly what happens in k-space. When you enter a system you're registered on the local broadcast node and everyone on the node is visible to everyone else on that node. It's part of the Capsule tech and therefore not under player control. In WHs the supporting infrastructure doesn't exist (because waaaaay beyond the gate network) so there's no local.

From a gameplay perspective it makes it easier to find people and thus create content.

Whether or not that's still valid or necessary is, I want to stress, a topic for another thread, it's been done to death.



An experienced prober can actually run sites pretty quickly, and almost anything in Low is going to be at least a little RNG dependent. The site rewards, especially for combat sites, area already fantastic, the problem is basically what you're describing. They either require expensive and very hard to catch PvE ships to run or a significant group which is inherently inefficient.

I'm not personally aware of anyone who runs Low sites in a PvP fitted ship. That's not to say they don't exist, just that it's not a common profession and is fairly niche all things considered.

I posted by ideas for improving low sec in the war dec thread in this post.

Copy-pasta for easier reference:



As a high sec care bear myself, I would love to enter low sec if it was worthwhile and I wasn't 100% sure I would be blown up immediately without being able to fight back. High sec is more fun because I can fly battleships and I can undock without a fleet behind me. Low sec is for cruisers and below. And even then, you have to have PVP fit at all times. That's super restrictive and boring IMO. Also, where's the isk to compensate for the free-for-all destruction I have to endure as a visitor or hell, even a resident?

It would be foolish to take a mission ship into low sec. You'd be easily found and gunned down if you even make it through the gate camps because you don't have a fit for PVP, you have a fit for damage high sustained damage.

I could fit for PVP but then the same missions would take longer for me to do and I still would easily lose my battleship to a frigate who tackles me until his buddies come to share the kill mail.

You basically need a fleet with you if you're in anything that's too large because you are a juicier target and easier to tackle.

Supercapitals, jump freighters and cynos are the problem in null-sec. You either go small or you go broke because you can't compete against the larger null-sec alliances. Removing all their toys from low-sec is the first step. Nerfing high-sec Incursions and Burners to deny a lucrative and risk-free income source for null-sec alts is the second. After that, with a few tweaks the problems will largely take care of themselves.