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[Saede Riordan]

EDIT : though like you I would sometimes like to see a game where you don't have to go for pimp every time in pve. Where pve could be done in lowsec with actual pvp ships that can reply in force if they are attacked by hostiles. It would mean loss from time to time, but measured loss on a more profitable gain overall (except when you are in a bad day...). I would enjoy the game ten times more if it was not so much centered around money and farm. I'm sick of spending hours of farm to see it vanish in 5 sec every time. It's like paying infamous sums of money to get into a themepark lasting 5 min.

confirming that I run sleeper sites in pvp fits.

[Steffanie Saissore]

I do kind of wish there was a way in which there wasn't such a huge gap between a pvp-fit ship and a pve-fit ship...reminds me too much of WoW where people would literally be carrying around two to three suits of gear: one for questing, one for dungeon raiding, and one for pvp.  I sort of hoped that given combat between ships was just that, combat between ships, there would be less of a break, but quickly learned that there's how to fit a ship for doing pve missions and how to fit the same ship to handle pvp, and you cannot do a decent hybrid.

Getting jumped doing a mission that took me into lowsec was kind of a wake up for me...I was always used to a pvp flagging mechanism in the other games I played and I had assumed that this would be the case in EVE; that if I was doing missions and not opening fire upon another player, I'd have no worries except for perhaps null-sec and w-space.  So, now I have to refuse missions that send me into lowsec because a mission fit is going to get ripped to pieces by pvp ships and I won't have much to say in the matter.  And given that there is no fast switch between mods fitted and mods in the cargo, it's even harder justifying taking missions that go into lowsec.

That said, the other thing I have an issue, getting back to Incursions, is the fact that it is something that doesn't allow for new players to experience.  When I first heard about the Incursions and saw them happening, I thought this would be something neat to get into...then found out that unless one can drop several billion isk on a ship, there's no place for you in an Incursion fleet.  I don't know how Incursion was brought into the game, but to me, introducing something that, on a story-level, is extremely devastating and could impact the entire system, not being able to do anything about it because I happened on the scene after kind of sucks.

It would be neat to see something that is dynamic, but again, how do you bring in new blood if all the 'easy' things have been dealt with?  MMOs have that unfortunate issue where they need to be able to allow players to accomplish things and progress, but at the same time still be able to bring in new players well after the fact in order to maintain a profit.  Trying to impose ship limits in missions (or going further, SP limits) seems to be somewhat immersion breaking (oh, there's a new nest of pirates out in that there asteroid belt? Let me just hop into 'insert massive battleship here' and blast them out...wait, what, I can only go in there with a frigate? Why? Cause you said so? Look son, I can get this here nest cleared out in five minutes with Bessy the Battleship...or an hour with Fido the Frigate...).  There are probably ways to make certain aspects more dynamic than others, but as someone else pointed out, if a vast number of paying players bitch about something, the company is now in a position where it has to way the odds of sticking to what might be a cool immersion tool/gimmick or catering to the masses to keep people entertained, playing, and most importantly, paying.

Overall, I have little to complain about as it does seem that I've come in after a lot of the mistakes and from what I've heard, CCP is fixing some of the story mess ups.  Anyway, that was my ten cents on the topic.

[DeadRow]

Katrina's Last Post.

My experiences with Incursions seems to be rather different than your's.

HiSec incursions and Level 4s are extremely safe way to make isk and I'm all for a nerf to them or a buff to try and attract people into Low/Null but either option I can't see CCP doing.

With manufacturing there just isn't any reason to not do it in HiSec. ABC ores recently got a buff but I'm not sure how that has affected anything.

Steff's Post

The reason why you can't (usually) do PvE in PvP ships is that you need to be relatively cap stable in PvE. This is because there are too many rats per mission. People have been harping on to CCP for a long time to reduce the amount of NPCs in the sites and increase their difficulty, make those 20 NPC BS into 5. I don't know why they insist of keeping it like it is and it doesn't look like it is going to change.

With PvP, if your fit lasts 5 minutes tops. You are good to go 90% of the time.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Also to note, CCP knows about and doesn't like the discrepancy between PvP and PvE fits, and is working on changing NPC AI and NPC ship stats to make them closer to what players do.  I've heard rumours of making it so that NPC's will warp away if you dont have them tackled, so that they hit harder but are fewer of them, etc.

[Lyn Farel]

HiSec incursions and Level 4s are extremely safe way to make isk and I'm all for a nerf to them or a buff to try and attract people into Low/Null but either option I can't see CCP doing.

Why would I go into lowsec even with a drastic nerf to highsec ? To painfully grind lowsec L4s like I used to in highsec ? .___.

Buffing or nerfing is not the answer, it's barely an empty gesture that will change nothing and only make things worse. What they need is a complete overall of the game if we want to go that road.


Edit : to clarify a bit my thought on the matter, is that we are into dead end. I too would like to see everything of value taking place in dangerous places of space where you have to fight your way to the valuable commodities. That way only fruitful missions and pve could take place in low sec, same for mining, etc, thus creating conflict everywhere for the ressources. Yeah that's pretty nice and attractive said like that, but people claiming that are often people that actually tend to think that their ay of having fun in the game is the only and true way and that Eve has always been thought to be that and nothing else. Somehow, it's close to a YDIW mentality.

Sorry to disappoint but tons of people seem to enjoy safe pve. Nerf it, and you get rid of them properly. And that's probably not going to be a huge uproar like monoclegate, but a quiet drain of subscribers leaving. If CCP really wanted to make the game the way you want to make it, they would have done that since the beginning. Now, they are stuck with a huge variety of differing gameplays and niches - and mission running is definitely not a niche considering the amount of "carebears" in the game that almost only play for that. Changing the game orientation - because that's what you ultimately call for - is like telling fuck you to all of these people.

Don't get me wrong, I am mostly a pvper (or was...), so I quite like the idea of everything of value happening in dangerous space and creating conflict and pvp. I also understand that people are not all pvpers and just don't want to deal with that part of the game. And they are also not industrials. If CCP wanted to make combat pvp oriented only, then they have been fucking doing it wrong since the beginning, and are fucking doing it wrong right now.

Eventually I think that asking for CCP to go that way is rather selfish.

[Ava Starfire]

Eve has half been founded on such principles to me, at best. The tedious farming side of it has always been designed to be more or less safe in high sec, and stable.

Yes, but it is poor game design when the risk/reward ratio is so horrible that you can make such huge sums of money for no risk.   

If you are making lots of money, it should be dangerous and competitive and something you have to fight for.

Fit Stabs -> Head to FW space -> Make 100m an hour on a day old freebie account alt.

I think we have worse offenders than incursions, but wholly agree, yes.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Eve has half been founded on such principles to me, at best. The tedious farming side of it has always been designed to be more or less safe in high sec, and stable.

Yes, but it is poor game design when the risk/reward ratio is so horrible that you can make such huge sums of money for no risk.   

If you are making lots of money, it should be dangerous and competitive and something you have to fight for.

Fit Stabs -> Head to FW space -> Make 100m an hour on a day old freebie account alt.

I think we have worse offenders than incursions, but wholly agree, yes.

If Level 4s and Incursions were moved to lowsec and grinders found a way to run them without getting killed - say with warp stabbed fits and heavy tanks - then many people would be complaining about those tanks and warp stab fits and how "imbalanced" they are with poor game design, etc.

Any game mechanic in EVE that doesn't allow PvP'ers to kill PvE'ers will always be met with derision.

That's the part of this debate I don't agree with. That's the part I can't respect. PvP'ers are demanding easy food on a silver platter by forcing PvE into lowsec. It's the PvP equivalent of carebears wanting highsec to be completely safe without ganks. If you want to kill them, there are already wardecs and suicide squads. Bumping too for miners. These are valid game mechanics already in place for people to release their frustrations on 'carebears'.

I get that lowsec is lacking in decent content outside of FW. I empathize and do think something should be done, but not at the cost of content in other parts of the game.

[Shiori]

Those're, at large, my thoughts as well.

What do I care whether a carebear who never leaves hisec makes 5, 50, or 500M an hour? If their fat wallets make them a little more confident about dipping their toes into the shark pool, so much the better. If not, well. No amount of ISK was going to make them, probably. What bother are they of mine, then? I'd say it's them missing out, not me.

[AOkazon]

The problem is that you assume that a bigger carrot and a sharper stick would prod extremely conflict-averse/carebear-y people into lowsec.

It's just as likely that they'd, you know, leave. The best way to get more gank targets is to grow the playerbase. This increases competition for high-value high-sec resources, and results in statistically more people willing to take risks and throw down.

Nothing forces hard-core carebears to keep playing if CCP makes it easier for you to farm their tears. They'll go forum warrior for a bit, and then when they're ignored, they'll go play something else.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Yes. Being a niche game with only 500k subs maximum is hipster cool and all, but having millions is much better. More subs means more revenue for CCP (which means more employees and more content being produced), more activity ingame, bigger fights in null, more competition in high, and more targets to shoot in low.

You can't hit those kinds of numbers without providing more casual PvE content (among other badly needed improvements). Casual PvE/Grind subs are the bread and butter of MMOs. If you could hit 5 million subs off lowsec/nullsec PvP alone it would have happened already. It hasn't, and it's not going to.

Some people need to accept the fact that EVE cannot thrive as an MMO without a strong and enjoyable highsec. Right now, that means L4s, Incursions, Manufacturing, Exploration, and Mining. CCP recognizes the necessity of keeping the high-sec versions of those game mechanics right where they are - safe in High-sec so casual gamers stay subscribed. It's a shame more players can't wrap their heads around it too.

Nerfing high-sec means nerfing the growth of our game.

[Anja Suorsa]

Yes. Being a niche game with only 500k subs maximum is hipster cool and all, but having millions is much better. More subs means more revenue for CCP (which means more employees and more content being produced), more activity ingame, bigger fights in null, more competition in high, and more targets to shoot in low.

You can't hit those kinds of numbers without providing more casual PvE content (among other badly needed improvements). Casual PvE/Grind subs are the bread and butter of MMOs. If you could hit 5 million subs off lowsec/nullsec PvP alone it would have happened already. It hasn't, and it's not going to.

Some people need to accept the fact that EVE cannot thrive as an MMO without a strong and enjoyable highsec. Right now, that means L4s, Incursions, Manufacturing, Exploration, and Mining. CCP recognizes the necessity of keeping the high-sec versions of those game mechanics right where they are - safe in High-sec so casual gamers stay subscribed. It's a shame more players can't wrap their heads around it too.

Nerfing high-sec means nerfing the growth of our game.

I think you've basically hit the nail on the head there, so won't add or detract from it.

Going back to the OP:

[Extremely mild spoilers for Pacific Rim below]






[... thread preview defeater space...]



So, I'm just riffing off the bit in the prologue where the narrator talks about how "we got really, really good at winning" and how Jaeger pilots were more like rock stars than soldiers, and it reminded me of Incursions.

High-sec Incursions get farmed into the ground by people with very, very, very expensive ships. These are battleships that are turned out like sports cars; fighting vehicles that at the same time are anything but grim, pared-down machinery of warfare. You could easily imagine luxurious interior appointments, on-staff massage so the gunnery crew don't get RSI... [Joker@ME2]real leather seats, Commander[/Joker].

Low/null-sec Incursions? Uh... yeah, hrm. I'd love to come defend you against harvesting and enslavement, but someone might hurt my Machariel...

So, combined with the natural fame-generating potential of capsuleers... you have a blinged-out, hyper-televised 100% victorious war starring people's favourite athlete/captain/heroes, side by side with Nation freely pillaging and kidnapping in the unglamorous, dangerous systems next door, where film crews certainly aren't going to travel, let alone Incursion fleets.

 

I actually really like this.  It works both from an RP perspective (for me) and I love the imagary it evokes. If this forum had likes, you would have mine. Instead all I can give you is this:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[AOkazon]

YES LOVE AND ATTENTION GIVE IT TO ME GOOD

[Silas Vitalia]

NERF ALL THE THINGS!


I think all forms of gameplay in our little sandbox are valid, but I'm not a fan of how separated and high the walls are between different parts of the sandbox in some areas, and not in others.

The deep end of the EVE pool is incredibly deep, and not inviting for much of the player base.  There should be more gradual ways to introduce new players to combat gameplay and losing the risk-averse nature of having your bits and bytes temporarily removed. 

I'd love it if Incursions and Missions were 'adaptable' to the size and power of the fleet participating.  Auto-balance if you will.  The game should take the damage and tanking stats from the fleet taking on the challenge and spit out NPC's and rewards accordingly.   Got a small gang of 5 people in frigates? Super ok, we'll throw you a mission to have fun with it.  Got 30 people in pimp mobiles? We'll hand you something awful challenging and rewarding if you can survive.  This would lead to more 'ad-hoc' missioning and incursion groups, and less 'too cool for school' incursion fleets maybe?

[Morwen Lagann]

Scouts and Vanguards are the playground for newer pilots. HQ sites have a lot of rats, a lot of incoming DPS, and a much less forgiving environment even in highsec for cockups. I don't have a problem with "too cool for school" groups being king of the hill in HQ sites in the slightest. If I'm going to be putting time in in the larger, more difficult sites, I want to be running with people who know exactly what the fuck they are doing.

The reason Assault sites tend to get left alone, by the way, is because they require weird comps that no other sites do: the Nation Consolidation Network site -requires- that the fleet split up into two groups based on size (BS+Logi in one, BC/T3+Logi in the other, which is FORCED by the accel gates, you do not have a choice), then clear through several pockets to meet up at the end together. And, oh by the way, if you take too long to get to the last pocket, all the rats in the last pocket have already spawned by the time you get there, and ~lol~ at the alpha in there.

You can't do those sites without people in T3s or BCs of some sort, and finding people who have T3s handy isn't always easy. Most people want to fly battleships or logi, and a lot of people don't have alts handy to haul more than one ship from incursion to incursion.

Kat nailed the problem earlier, both with this post as well as this quote which I never fail to see proven true whether it's here, ingame or on eve-o:

Any game mechanic in EVE that doesn't allow PvP'ers to kill PvE'ers will always be met with derision.

That's the part of this debate I don't agree with. That's the part I can't respect. PvP'ers are demanding easy food on a silver platter by forcing PvE into lowsec. It's the PvP equivalent of carebears wanting highsec to be completely safe without ganks. If you want to kill them, there are already wardecs and suicide squads. Bumping too for miners. These are valid game mechanics already in place for people to release their frustrations on 'carebears'.

I get that lowsec is lacking in decent content outside of FW. I empathize and do think something should be done, but not at the cost of content in other parts of the game.

Lowsec needs content that cannot be found elsewhere that drags people in. There are basically two or three things you can do in lowsec that you can't do elsewhere:
- Incursions that might drop the Revenant BPC. If you're just in it for the ISK/LP, you could get the same amount by doing it in null if you were part of a group that was near or in one of the incursed constellations. Aside from the potential BPC drop in lowsec and the 30% increase on payouts, Incursion content is completely identical in low/null to what it is in highsec.
- L5 missions. I don't know of any of these agents being in nullsec. So here's something.
- FW. We know my stance on FW, so I won't go into detail.
- Exploration? Yeah, there's some combat sites that are unique to lowsec, namely the 5/10 and 6/10 + equivalent unrated sites, which can drop the A-type and B-type invulns/EANMs. (4/10s can be found in both lowsec and highsec, though they are reasonably rare in high.) Beyond those combat sites, however, the content in low and null is not that different from highsec. You have harder hacking sites, but you're still getting the same loot, more or less - just a bit more of it.

I guess there's some ores that are more widespread in lowsec, and now we have those clone trooper tag things for sec, but really.

The issue boils down to this: there's not enough "OMG LOWSEC ONLY CONTENT" to make it worth poking your head into from highsec. And most of the things that might, are available to people in nullsec too, which can arguably more reward for -less- risk than lowsec (and in some cases lower risk than highsec, given wardecs), if you are doing it with an alliance that has sov.

The solution is definitely -not- fucking with highsec.

Another thing nobody's mentioned yet - ships are almost twice as expensive as they were several years ago in many cases. How the hell do you expect people to afford things if you take away the ways to actually make a reasonable amount of ISK? I've been playing around with a new alt for about a year on and off, keeping their wallet and other shit entirely separate from my known characters as an experiment - they STILL can't afford a battleship, let alone replace one (and even a battlecruiser is a stretch in many ways), even if they have the standings to run L4s with a couple corps.

[Caellach Marellus]

Nerfing hi-sec will never herd the cattle into low-sec. They will simply quit and go elsewhere to other games where they can play their PvE grind.

Low sec missioning as it stands is completely and utterly pointless, the pay increase is bare minimal, and you aren't going to take your super shiny fit in there, nor fly with the speed and reckless abandonment you do in high.

Personally I'd remove lowsec missioning entirely and make ratting anomalies, essentially small pockets of 15-20 top bounty tier rats with a % chance of spawning an overseer that drops faction items (not deadspace) These sites would be 4-5 a system with a relatively decent respawn, and you only need a probe out to locate, like the basic anomalies in w-space.

Considering you'll be running these in a lowsec combat fit (Well sure you can take that pimp mission fit in if you want..) your isk is limited in how fast you clear, but at the same time the bounty values and site frequency means you'll outpace mission isk. The % chance faction loot outpacing missioning LP gains.