Player Features and Ideas Discussion

no. In low/null you need friends, not NPCs.

Nerf CONCORD, make people not rely on them so much, and you'll see them venturing farther out.

But no-one in low/null sec want to be friends. They either kill me or chase me back...

Over to Nikk

I agree with you on the player interactivity. If you want someone to do something you will have to make them want it themselves. I doubt a nerf to condcord will have the desired effect. One that could maybe work would be to add concord rats.

However I don't think it is only the mechanics of the game that is to blame. It is also to, some degree, the players currently living there themselves too. Take me for instance. One dream I have had for a long time is to be a travelling merchant. Going from system to system, selling and buying. With todays mentality that dream will sadly remain as sutch, a dream.

If the players living there could look beyond the easy killmail, it might open up the possibilities for more players coming out.

And that's why a lot of the playerbase like the game so much, it doesn't hold your hand or pander to those who feel they need to be protected. Long may this vision of EVE continue since it is what made the game what it is before so many players from other MMOs came here and found it wasn't as safe as they would like it.

If people wish to play solo, fine, but I like the social aspect of working with a small team and making more of the resources we have.

Ok, the point of this thread is how to address our interest in drawing more players from high sec, into low or null sec.
My own point is that perception of those in high sec is the key.



And they will. Always.
Right now these solo types are teaming up with Concord, or one of the four primary races they start the game with.

If we want them in places beyond high sec, we need to get them possibly as a group. (Solo Player plus NPC support)



No. A large part of the game is indeed centered on PvP, but not all of it, and certainly not all the parts in high sec. If you want more people to come live in the other areas, they want some of their goodies. Count on it.



And to make everyone happier, in particular players wanting to see more activity in low and null sec, you need more of your player base traveling there.
They won't do it, except on their terms. Meet these, or give up all hope of them trying this.

Partially true. The source of all ISK in the game (out-side of the small Insurance ISK faucet) comes from Player vs Environment, which means solo play or Player WITH Player interaction. The market itself and PvP conflict in the game are enabled by the game's design, but initiated solely by players.

On another note, part of the high-population in high-sec includes the Indy/ISK making alts of low-sec/null-sec players. For them, their alts are in high-sec for a reason. Additionally, a lot of the solo-playing multi-account players stay in high-sec so that they can continue their style of play. For instance, those folks that own a trio or more of accounts for solo mining ops. Another major portion of high-sec players are folks that are leaf-eaters- they prefer non-combat PvP play. Then, there are of course the population of new players. Finally, there are the war-dec/gankers that like to take out weak/easy targets.

Getting folks into null-sec is likely going to require a great deal of propaganda, initiated by null-sec alliances. If Indy/non-combat folks knew the relative safety they could have under a null-sec alliance (for instance, if they were deep in their alliance space in an alliance that is NBSI), they would likely have no issues with moving there. And I would think that most alliances would have no issues with folks that rat and print ISK for the alliance's use. But generally, getting into one of those alliances takes a great deal of time investment. For instance, joining the Goons or Dreddit requires at least three months of active history on SomethingAwful or Reddit.

Bottomline, a good chunk of folks in high-sec are there to engage in PvE and/or "non-combat" PvP, meaning, they are fine fighting it out on the market, but not in their ships. If you want those folks to move to null-sec, you'd have to find a way to accommodate their playing style. Otherwise, they are quite happy with care-bearing it up in high-sec, as it provides the only environment that they know of that allows them to do nearly all of what they want to do.

Posting in another thread where the OP's definition of "balance" is "let me do whatever I want, but stop everyone else from doing what they want to me"

Nikk - the entire concept behind 0.0 in all forms is that the only safety you enjoy is that which you make yourself, or with other players. Other secstatus areas merely mitigate this axiom that drives EVE (but never completely). Adding NPC 0.0 protection is not only against this concept, but it would also work against newbies. Example: So me and my roaming gang jump into a system that you and your friends have decided to try your hand in. You and your new corp getting the hang of things now not only have to compete with us, but the NPCs that defend us while we occupy your space, probing your hulks and ratting ships, bubbling the exits out, anchoring sbus, etc.


What's actually needed is an increase of risk in highsec, not a decrease in risk of nullsec; namely by making features work as intended (removing dec shields, corphopping, removing NPC corps as a 100% safe way for your alt to PvE/do 0.0 logistics etc) and make the idea of player-enforced security not seem like such a step down from living in a CONCORD coccoon.

I have to pull you up on this, sorry.

Eve is PvP centric and has been shown many times, it's hard to even note three things that are not PvP within Eve. That alone, is what make Eve so different from every other MMO and the reason many misunderstand the games balance.

As far as your idea is concerned, no thank you. Null and lo sec should remain concord and faction police free.

I don't know about null sec since it's never really appealed, but I've taken in a few new players, some of whom I feel certain will venture into low sec with the older players eventually. All they need is the confidence and some encouragement. Some new players may never get that since they spend too long in the NPC corps and don't take that step out of the cosy warmth of their starter corp and are invited along on mining ops or mission running, activities that become habitual. While there may be a social aspec to it, there's no sense of 'doing it for the corp' and making a contribution.

CCP can't force people out of the NPC corps, that wouldn't be playing fair, and as has been mentioned, a lot of those in NPC corps are alts of one sort or another, and who know how many are inactive, so part of the job is identifying the accounts that aren't sat in high sec as ornaments or to earn isk for null/low sec mains.

You know what? Yes, that could happen. I am not going to BS you. Any number of things could happen.

But any place like this used by an alliance to stage out of, has drawbacks for it as well.
If you are war-dec'ed, it doesn't matter if it is high sec. Shoot em in the face.
You can obviously have out of corp alts watch them, with them unable to shoot back at these. They can't war dec NPC corps, so concord has their backs. Taunt away.
It is a dead end system, blockade the gate.

Your alliance would probably have a good amount of happy pew pew if anyone was trying this.