Crime & Punishment

PREFACE FOR PERSPECTIVE: I have made (and continue to make) all of my isk PvPing by baiting high-sec mission runners and stealing their ships. I use this isk to fund hellokittyonline's endless rampage in low-sec and PLEX my 3 accounts.

SKILLS MY PROFESSION REQUIRES THAT PVE DOESN'T:

1. People Skills - the socio-path-like ability to talk someone into doing something completely stupid

2. Knowledge of Game Mechanics - pinning a battleship with a frigate while tanking his entire lvl 4 mission (though this is much easier than it sounds... most of the time)

3. Creativity - because only an idiot would fall for that... right?

4. Risk Management - training 3 accounts and making a large initial investment so that you can execute a ridiculous scheme with no guarentee that this scheme will pay-out enough to plex said accounts or even pay for your initial investment.

THE PROBLEM: Far too many players are mindlessly farming NPCs in an all-but-0-risk environment and there is no longer any incentive for those players to enter a risky environment because they can make far too much bank with little-to-no knowledge about combat or game mechanics. Now this in and of itself wouldn't be a problem in your typical MMO but in EvE these actions slowly but surely dilute the sandbox aspect of the game as players are not required to use any creativity, knowledge, or people skills to move forward in the game. One merely has to play by themselves (IN AN MMO) for a few hours a day in order to afford pretty much anything they desire. Furthermore, the longer players have access to the I-Win button(s), the more subscriptions CCP stands to lose by taking it away (ie: balancing their game becomes a conflict of interest).

CCPs STANCE: Has been to continuously bubble-wrap the risk-averse making it increasingly difficult (in extremely superficial ways) for us content-creators to inject risk into their environment. EXAMPLES: Swapping ships with an orca was nerfed because we were killing too many mission runners, EHP of miners was buffed because we were suiciding too many miners, CONCORD was buffed because we were suiciding too many industrials, mission NPCs aggro mechanics were changed because we were stealing too many LEWTS, crimewatch (and the green safety) was added because too many players were dying inadvertently (even though it was already completely avoidable by simply understanding aggro mechanics). Even when CCP decides to throw us PvPers a bone (Faction Welfare) it all-but-immediately devolves into a cloaked, stabbed, farm-fest. Furthermore, when they add content for the PvEers (Incursions) the isk/hr is completely out of hand, liquid, and 100% riskless.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS:

1. NPCs need to be DIFFICULT. Make the NPCs fight like a seasoned PvPer would. Neuts, scrams, webs, transversal, and the utilization of range control. These NPCs should only target the aggressors and they should encourage your average carebear to actually learn how combat works.

2. Remove bounties. Rewards should 100% be in the form of a tangible item in the game that one can trade to another player for that players isk (or even, god-forbid, STEAL). Bounties inflate currency and line the lazy-mans pocket as no processing is required to get the value out of their time.

3. Incentivise risk-taking. Whether it be a risky market endevour or a trip to low-sec for those "o so juicy ores" there needs to be incentives that involve risking an engagement with another player for our lovely sandbox to remain as such. Furthermore, the rewards for said endevours need to fall in line with the risk involved.

4. Remove safety nets. The green safety, gate guns in low sec, warp core stabs on ships already small enough to escape almost anything, all need to go. The idea should be to incentivise knowledge of game mechanics, and player interaction, not solo-farming.

TL;DR - Make players have to learn about the game and its mechanics in order to be successful.

This appears to be an accidental double post. We are on page 2 in GD.

I think balance is the key to a healthy system [no pun intended] ... I look at New Eden as if it were an ecosystem...

Carebears help keep us all in ships that we like to blow up for profit, lulz etc. Eve needs players like this.

Eve also needs a healthy rate of turnover to prevent the market from a glut of unsold stuff which would hurt our Industrial base [read: Carebears]

[shrugs]


Kill it with fire. $$$$ all around.

I believe there are large regions of the game dedicated solely to pvp. Of course, the people that live there might shoot back!

TIL reducing people's ability to farm easy killmails by exploiting newbs = breaking the game.

Let the flames rage! I LIKE where this thread is going.

OP speaks the truth. EVE is not dying, but the balance is definitely shifting towards themepark play over time. Highsec piracy survives as a career choice mainly because the creativity of pirates has been greater than CCPs efforts to nerf us out of existence.

Let's see, I was scanned down 3 times in the first month playing; lost a brutix to a griefer in a lvl 3 learning the hard way that people do actually run heavily skilled pvp fits into missions looking for an easy blap. Most solo griefers would actually avoid a Golem or other missile ship because it's a lot harder to utterly avoid taking hits, whereas against a gunship you can just orbit under their guns with a frigate or cruiser and laugh.

The game is clearly divided into pvp focused areas of null and low, and hisec which while still allowing some pvp opportunities is largely home to, well, all the activities for people that like to take a break from hitting dscan every 30 seconds. How can you argue the security zones are not indicative of intent for pvp? That is literally the ONLY purpose for them, to dictate a varying level and nature of pvp. I swear it's like talking to a brick wall. I've been playing 2 months and this is so obvious. The only reason to try andinitiate pvp in hisec is to grab big, sexy killmails that you'd never get below 0.5. Ever since I've started reading here I've seen a constant stream of griefer tears over any change that incentivizes people to go looking for targets that can shoot back
Every argument you guys make is so full of transparent arrogance and entitlement it is laughable. I'm not going to say you and your kind are bad for the game because the I'd hate to lose the comic relief but damn, learn logic. "You are playing the game wrong because I say so." is not a valid argument.

Sigh.

I will attempt to discuss this with you despite your one sided approach. I used to be like you. I used to think EVE should be PVE allowable. It took someone wardeccing my carebear alliance to show me that EVE is much more fun when you shoot things other than red crosses and watch your wallet inflate.

First, I am not telling you how to play the game. Im telling you that your perceptions are incorrect. Lets go down your points one by one.



From your post, I am going to interpret that you rushed right into flying large classes of ships before mastering both the fitting skills required for them or the knowledge of how to properly pilot smaller classes. So yes, losing a crud fit brutix (likely faction fitted to accommodate for lack of T2 training skills, thus expensive) would have been an easy kill. (Also expensive, thus attractive!) There is NO WAY you should be flying a BC within your first month. Core skills are everything!

Your understanding of missiles is incorrect. While they do indeed always hit their target (as long as flight time is sufficient), the damage application is very diminished if not using the CORRECT missile for the job. A golem (typically using large missiles) will hit an assault frigate for about 1/10th of the total damage. You will not kill an AF with a large missile boat.



Well Kreskin, after being in game for two months, I wouldnt expect you to understand this. Each sector (Hi, Low, Null, WH) has its own specific set of mechanics. Things that work, things that dont (bubbles, bombs, gate guns, station guns, neutral reppers, ect.) The entire game is PVP focused, and HISEC is NOT a safe zone. After you get your feet wet, and learn how to play the real game, you will understand. But until you have understanding of what mechanics do what, please refrain from telling others how right you are after two months of play.

Seriously, the reason gankers go after these targets (like your brutix), is because they drop expensive mods, funding their career as pirates / criminals / mercs / whatever. When you come here into the hornets nest and post about how you hate them and blah blah, it just makes the kill all the more sweeter, and youll then attract the attention of the crews that dont care if your dropping loot or not, and will locate you, probe you down, and blap you on principle alone.

Sorry for wall of text, and its my hope that youll attempt to digest it rather than dissmiss as pro-ganker propaganda.

I disagree with this point specifically, since I think that gate/station guns are a key part of what makes low sec different than null.

But otherwise, I like a lot of this stuff! CCP should listen!

There is more PvP going on in certain hisec systems than it is in HED-GP and Asakai. Jita has seen more PvP than half the null overall. There is no need to do anything to the most active PvP area such as hisec, except moving those butthurt ilite peeveepeeers to low/null where they belong.


You just described L5 missions. But you see, there is a reason nobody does those anymore - it's the fact it is in low-sec, where no amount of combat skills would let you survive a band of griefers, you can avoid losing a ship, but you can't complete the mission in time.


All hail yet another let's-pwn-the-market-internet-commie of all-market-areas-but-mine variety.
Stop worrying about the market, if there's too much ISK, bling starts costing more of it, and the guy who must do literally nothing to get it (the ganker) gets more with every bear. You must praise the inflation, not defend against it.



Just saying, L5 pay about 8x to 10x more than L4. But the risk difference is too wide - you lose your mission ship roughly once per 40 missions on L4 (unless you do ****** corp in a safer spot, in which case it evens out with less reward), and roughly 1 ship per 2 L5 missions. 10x payout against 20x risk is a poor incentive, shall I take it you want to buff L5?


Removing safety nets for people should work both ways - remove choke points from fearbears (aka gakners). Spawn ship in any place 10000km from the gate - no need for gate guns. Remove ways from bigger ships to effortlessly instalock a smaller ship, and you can take away stabs from it. The idea itself, however, has extremely poor basis and hypocrisy-based, since while you claim to wish for people to learn "game mechanics", your suggestions only serve to make them learn extremely niche, locked out of newer players by the half-decade worth of skillpoints wall, insignificantly small area of combat pvp, which currently is zero-fun, skillpoint-based zero-incentive non-profit poorly balanced and needless activity. It's not "game mechanics" you are crying about, but only a small niche part of them.
Stop trying to make people play your game. Go shoot someone who actually wants to shoot. You got shot? HTFU.

More than making NPC's difficult, forcing players to fleet up for content and using ship restricted gates in more pve content would be a positive. Currently the pve mindset is to get into the biggest ship that you have the support skills for. This should be discouraged to force players to down ship for a challenge. The best designed pve in this game currently is probably the pirate mission arcs, or wormhole sites because of the ship/mass restrictions on them. The content is actually scaled to be at least a bit challenging. I would like to especially see more difficult frigate/destroyer pve content.
I have mixed feelings on this. I assume you're talking about npc bounties, Making it possible for nefarious types to steal bounties would probably be a nice boon to hunting mission runners/explorers, but it seems like an annoying unnecessary hoop for pve players to jump through to get rewards.

I personally would like to see low sec made a little bit safer (don't murder me please!) and have more rewards for solo play in low and npc null. There's a massive jump in risk in going from 0.5 to 0.4 but very little reward. Changes to make 0.5 and 0.6 security space more risky would also be welcome. This would probably require a fairly drastic change to sec mechanics though.


Safety is fabulous, penalizing players for mis-clicking on their overview is stupid. Gate guns are fine, just don't fight on the gate if they're an issue. Warp disruption mechanics need a complete rework badly, its far too binary.