Any theories on why so many people have quit over the last 2 years?

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Nevyn_Auscent

Furthermore, if EVE’s population is declining either in total subs or in PCU, one would expect ganking to decline. The concord kills graph does not seem to be declining as much as the estimates in total subs or in PCU are declining which means that per person ganking is actually increasing.

Actually, there are two aspects to this:

1. CONCORD kill graph reflects an increase the number of ships required to gank effectively
2. Change in target selection as a result of (1); and
3. Gank losses in highsec are down, more than the PCU trend.

Here is the graph of Barge loss in highsec since 1 January 2014, until today:

That is from all causes (ie. ganking, wardecs, NPC, duels). Pulling the ganking out alone (not graphed separately, only summarised in dataframe form), the shape matches this pattern.

So:
In the first half of 2014, there were on average ~860 barge losses per week in highsec.
In the first half of 2017, there were on average ~340 barge losses per week in highsec.

That’s 40% of the destruction of barges now compared to the same period 3 years ago.

From eve-offline:

In the first half of 2014, the PCU averaged 41K
In the first half of 2017, the PCU averaged 35K

Those numbers look wrong, but the data is straight off eve-offline.

So the PCU in the first half of this year is about 85% of the same period in 2014, yet barge loss is only 40% of what it was.

Exhumers match a similar trend.

Freighter losses (including bowhead) in highsec (from all causes) hasn’t changed over the time period, but the number are much, much lower than for the mining ships to begin with:

Jump freighters are a similar pattern to freighters, but much lower numbers again.

The data for CONCORD kills includes an increased number of gank ships required to gank, whether from buffs (eg. damage control, mining barge rebalance, better fitting by players, more use of tank in lower status highsec systems, etc.), and a change in target selection away from lower value targets to more high value targets, which also require more gank ships to kill than the mining ships do.

Overall though, the total loss of mining ships is way down on what it was and the total amount of ganking being done is way down as a result, looking at comparative periods 3 years apart.

Its not a perfect analysis, but the huge difference is obvious even as a first approximation.