They’ve obsoleted everything else and negatively affected the ability of younger and more junior players to participate in PvP because a pack of experienced players with these things are too strong to face with a t1 fleet of junior players (almost regardless of how many you bring).
I propose they be banished like carriers were, let them play outside empire… but inside empire lets keep it to just t1 and t2 (the t2 drawbacks are so great that I don’t consider them to be unbalanced).
Imagine how much more fun everyone would have had if the mercs had been flying in a mix of t1 and t2 boats… that is fightable without risking billions in a fleet.
The cessation of conflict in highsec is the problem and it can’t be rectified by me
buying plex.
The field needs to be leveled enough to where fighting can occur. Senior pvp’ers (of which I am, formerly known as Mobadder Thworst) armed with T3s which have no substantial weaknesses, and are good at everything, loaded with faction modules… aren’t beatable by pve corps. This has lead indirectly to the elimination of warfare.
If we need to get can flipping gone so noobs can enjoy highsec… and we need to control wardecs because noobs can’t wnjoy highsec… doesn’t it make sense to cap the level of ship we can fly?
Noobs don’t fly faction triglavian battleships…
I am, in fact, an omega and I have been playing for a decade. The fighting has stopped and it’s killing this game.
I’m proposing a way to start the heart of Eve beating again.
The limitations of t3ds are fitting resources. T3cs, have enough drawbacks as well, not the least of which is sp loss on death. Everyone can gain access to the trig ships quite easily as well. Run tier one sites with two buddies all in t1 frigs, super easy. You will get skill book and bpc drops. Alternatively you could always just buy Plex and sell it for isk to buy those things.
My argument is that the isk making potential of new players in highsec makes these ship violate the rule about losing what you cannot afford to lose.
As such, they’re balance breaking… completely obsoleting the ships that are really intended to be the core of a space thats’s been progressed for years to be a toddler playpen.
For fighting to occur, we have to bring the cost of playing competitively back within what a highsec player on an omega account can reasonable be expected to afford.
If you want to see more PvP in High Sec, then join a Corp, deploy a structure, and then Wardec others.
But the recent changes to Wardecs, such as the requirement that they own structures first… means that the Devs aren’t going to force people into High Sec PvP, they’re making it harder. Now the Care Bears can avoid harassment just by avoiding owning real estate. And your only option after that is going to be Ganking. If you’re really hard up to Gank, I hope you find the tank on a T3C a bit challenging. GTFO of High Sec, and go find PvP in Low / Null like the big boys.
Aside from T3 Destroyers not being remotely as capable/threatening as their cruiser counterparts and the quirks of Trig ships in general…
Basically, this entire issue seems to be a continuation of the “wardec corps that hyperdunk new player corps and don’t do anything else” problem… except that that problem is basically solved now due to the changes in wardec mechanics (granted there’s a few longer-term players who are just as bad as newbies at the game who should really know better but that’s not the issue at hand).
Even then highsec has become increasingly “less safe” insofar as there’s been a number of major confrontations of the EVE great powers, primarily in Perimeter.
Further, Triglavian ships are themselves a tool that seems designed around solo/smallgang use, and the Leshak in particular- and I can say this from personal experience- is a superb low-player/high-SP solution to structure bashes (a proper PvP fit Leshak needs pretty limited support if you just want to hit the DPS cap of a structure; IIRC mediums are 3k DPS cap, and a dual-radsink Leshak gets ~2k with Occult at full spool, before accounting for four heavies that add another 250-ish).
In particular, the Leshak is I would argue the premier solution to minimally opposed (IE someone shows up to defend but the structure itself isn’t really fit to fight people) smallgang structure bashes.
Keep in mind though, the words “minimally opposed (but still opposed)” and “small gang”.
Triglavian ships are something you can still match by just throwing a ton of T1 ships at them; the MWD fit Kikimora for example is incapable of holding grid against any kind of cruiser weapon which can project to about 40-50 km, as not only would a heavy pulse Nomen with Scorch perfectly track it from ~20 km on, but so too do medium beams, rails, and artillery track sufficiently well to apply 200-300 DPS to an MWD Kikimora, either outright vaporizing it or at least forcing it off grid.
The Vedmak itself is fairly limited; personally I think the best fit is the 100mn dual rep brawling fit that Lussy Lou flew, and it’s primarily a solo fit- you might get away with flying microgang with it but it doesn’t scale in the slightest.
The Drekavac and Leshak do well in small gangs, and even then their use is pretty rare in highsec. In fact AFAIK the most common highsec use of Leshaks is in Incursions with the armor group The Ditanian Fleet.
Largely I think Triglavian use in empire space is ultimately self-regulating; the ships excel at small gang usage, but most of the small gang action isn’t happening in highsec, and most of the time they do get used in highsec tends to be relatively rare one-offs and, TBH, cases where if it wasn’t a Leshak it’d just be a Vindicator.
Which is an interesting counterpoint; that if you lock out T3 cruisers and Triglavian ships in general, then you’d really have to lock out pirate battleships and Marauders as well, because most-to-all of the same arguments of “older players in superblingbotes are stomping newer players by the boteload”.
In fact you could even argue that they do it better if you account for idiocy like neutral logi/Nestor alts or neutral (and expendable) Blackbird alts.
This valuation is so massively flexible as to be impossible to define. A random duder mining in a Procurer or Skiff (because he mostly doesn’t want to get instantly ganked by CODE or something) might be able to pull up to 50 million an hour once he’s got his ore to market and then accounted for the time it took him to mine the ore, haul it to whatever market hub, and then the time it takes to sell it.
By comparison a mission blitzer can hit 200 million an hour if they are suitably prepared.
Similarly someone just starting out in a Venture or running the SoE arc is probably not even hitting 1 million per hour.
But then you consider Incursions and they’re probably pushing 100-200 million an hour depending on fleet composition, the particular organization, group experience level, and site choices.
The range is just all over the place and the “reasonable” solution is to discount it entirely because it’s not really practical to figure out a good average.
But this is the more relevant point.
Who is fighting? What are they fighting over? Are we talking about randumb “merc” corps that basically made it their goal to actually ruin NPE by constantly dec’ing corps full of new players? Because that problem has pretty much been fixed- and even if it hadn’t been fixed then banning T3 cruisers and Trig ships wouldn’t be the answer, because these “merc” groups would just fly blinged out pirate battleships and Marauders and HACs and Command Ships instead.
But how are they preventing these fights? Who is it that you think should be fighting, and what do you think they should be fighting over?
As it stands most ‘warfare’ in highsec already took one of two forms:
“merc” corps wardec’ing newb corps so they could pretend that they’re good at the game by farming killmails and then think they’re elite when they drive new players out of the game (and the changes to wardec mechanics have fixed a lot of this);
two random highsec corps intentionally and mutually wardec’ing each other; most notably RvB, but you’d have some stuff from EVE UNI back in the day I think;
Beyond that, it’s only in recent years (in fact I think in recent year since TEST only put up the Perimeter Keepstar in 2018 didn’t they?) that major fights have started happening in highsec beyond reasons of “hey why don’t we gank some newbs but not get CONCORDOKKEN’d”.
And that’s because of, well, TEST putting up the Perimeter Keepstar. Which meant they could have a huge cut of the tradehub income from Jita. And then Horde decided they wanted to get in on that and picked a fight with TEST.
And here Marcus brings up an amazing excellent point: more PvP in highsec means more corps with Citadels who then wardec each other.
Because due to the current mechanics of wardecs both your corp/alliance and your target corp/alliance have to have ownership of anchored structures in order to both declare wars and to be able to have war declared against you.
Oh, and the setting to accept structure transfers? Yeah that’s defaulted to auto-reject, so it’s not like CODE can grief people by transferring them a structure that’s hidden deep in a wormhole chain so they can’t go pop it themselves to end the 'dec. I mean unless someone changes the setting when they setup their corp, in which case dropping corp and starting over is an option (perhaps a little expensive but even so it is an option).
You guys are so absorbed with the idea that anyone trying to fight in highsec is abusing noobs… I’m trying to re-open the game to them.
That there is literally no functional PvP mechanic for the noobs in highsec is an issue, and it needs to be addressed.
It’s a trope to refer to highsec as a noob zone… but I can use it too.
What value is it to the game to allow the acquisition and use of endgame hardware in a noob zone?
Whether for PvP or not, it defeats the progression implied by all of you demanding I pvp outside high. I am demanding you learn to pve outside high if you want to fly a 3k dps battleship.
If it’s a noob zone, let’s level the playing field in pve and PvP. Let’s all use cheaper ships. You guys are financially victimizing them by overfarming with hyperbling probably worse than any griefers in the game are doing with guns.
Wardecs are dead because all structures are now in holding corps. Can flipping died long ago.
The mercs are quitting en masse. The griefers are gone. If we don’t find something to fight about… the game will itself expire in a cascade of endgame wealth in the face of no risk at all.
Why? Highsec is a tutorial space with a market hub attached. You aren’t supposed to stay there long enough for PvP to matter. If you’re established enough as a corp to have structures and become eligible for PvP then why are you wasting your time with the worst space in the game? Get out and go engage with the real game.
What value is it to the game to allow the acquisition and use of endgame hardware in a noob zone?
What value is it to not? Combat PvE in highsec is a joke, so it’s not like having that hardware to farm level 4 missions faster is really making much of a difference to anyone. PvP in highsec exists, I suppose, but there’s not a whole lot of point to it when highsec has nothing worth fighting over. And true newbies are in corps that are immune to PvP so they aren’t hurt by it.
High sec is not noob space. It has different rules but we all play the same game and dabble in the same market.
This game is where the players are, and 70% of players are in hi-sec.
Not defending the op’s idea when i say that, but to think that the ‘real game’ is outside of hi-sec is fundamentally wrong. The game is where the players are.
Which is why it needs rescuing so badly.
If you can’t make the game engaging where 70% of your playerbase is, it’s quite literally game over.
If PvP is the heart of eve, and highsec is a tutorial zone… wouldn’t it make sense to create mechanics for the introduction to PvP in a tutorial fashion?
Ie: limit the hardware and cost so people can try it out?
You are arguing that high end ships in highsec have no impact… but realistically (I’m expanding the scope here), how much faster does a gila make isk than a t1 when pleading? I’d guess it’s probably 2 or 3 times faster than the best t1 cruiser. How about those 3000dps triglavians? Are they faster?
Why should you get to play forever in a tutorial zone, pvp free… with ships that are truly endgame loot. You’re blowing the market for the noobs far more agregiously than any griefers ever did.
Do you think your isk farming, using endgame ships, has no effect on noobs?
My argument is that PvP in highsec is toxic because it’s unbalanced by all the bling ships. Noobs, in their own space, can’t compete in pve or PvP… let’s ship down and make them competitive.
Personally, I’d dump all the pirate faction ships from high as well.
I would dispute this number. It’s 70% of characters, perhaps, but how many of them are alts? Market alts, CEO alts in holding corps, etc, that count towards the total character number but are owned by people who are not highsec players overall. And how many of them are newbies just starting the game who may or may not remain in highsec? I’m sure the real percentage is still significant, but IMO the 70% number that is often quoted is inflated and inaccurate.
If you can’t make the game engaging where 70% of your playerbase is, it’s quite literally game over.
Highsec PvE is inherently impossible to fix. The most important (and, for most players, only important) attribute of PvE is ISK/hour revenue from doing it. Shooting at mindless NPCs is never going to be the highlight of a PvP sandbox game where players provide a far more creative opponent, and an MMO is never going to have the story depth of a good single player RPG. So you’re left with PvE as an income source, and you can’t have highsec PvE be competitive with nullsec PvE without completely wrecking the risk vs. reward balance and removing all incentive to leave highsec.
IMO the closest you’re going to get to fixing highsec PvE is to remove it. Cut the number of highsec systems by 90%, remove everything better than level 2 missions and their equivalents in other areas, and force players to leave the tutorial zone in search of the real game.
No, because the core identity of EVE is as a PvP sandbox where things like betraying an agreement to limit ship types is possible. There are already limits in FW, anything going beyond that would be breaking the entire concept of the game.
You are arguing that high end ships in highsec have no impact… but realistically (I’m expanding the scope here), how much faster does a gila make isk than a t1 when pleading? I’d guess it’s probably 2 or 3 times faster than the best t1 cruiser. How about those 3000dps triglavians? Are they faster?
Who cares? Nullsec PvE is where all of the ISK is, the only people doing highsec PvE outside of their tutorial period are risk-averse carebears who are terrified of leaving the tutorial zone and AFK miners that can’t operate without highsec protection.
Do you think your isk farming, using endgame ships, has no effect on noobs?
I don’t think it, I know it. EVE has a single market, and the primary farming source is from nullsec. Being more efficient at farming low-tier content is irrelevant compared to the market forces of the major nullsec groups and their operations.
Or force highsec players to use ships that aren’t endgame quality…
If my options in highsec are the t1 basic and t2 boats… maybe ban pirate faction too…
It would be a huge nerf to the isk/hour in highsec, would greatly decrease the risk taken by a new player wanting to try PvP in one of the many highsec venues.
All gain, as far as I can tell.
And I don’t think turning down the isk faucet on the risk free farming is a bad thing.
Oh, and CCP has been saying 70% of us live permanently in highsec for years.
I don’t even see a downside… it would further inflate the advantages of moving to low, null, or wh space… which also fits the plan.