Change ratting in null from a solo to group experience to help balance the power between PvP and PvE groups

Before I begin, you all need to know what side of the fence I’m on concerning the blackout. I’m a pure-blood PvPer. I only play EVE to PvP. I realize that the blackout majorly benefits PvPers, and that many carebears are upset with it. I love it, krabs hate it. I realize that with the blackout in effect, many krabbers simply aren’t krabbing in null as much, because they’re either not logging in, they moved to high sec incursions or mission running, they’re playing overwatch waiting for this to blow over, etc. I don’t want null to dry up because, as a PvPer, I like having targets. After reading this post on reddit about the state of krabbing in null post blackout, I had a thought.

The reason so many carebears aren’t krabbing is because they do it solo. With the blackout in effect, there are roaming gangs everywhere, so the bear knows he’ll eventually get caught off-guard and outnumbered or outgunned by a group and killed, so he just doesn’t krab. The post linked above states that krabbing is only occurring under super umbrellas. That’s a very accurate statement, and it’s a problem. If we want a healthy ecosystem in null, I think CCP needs to overhaul the fundamental structure of ratting in null.

So here’s my opinion:

Ratting in anomalies should be a group activity that still pays out the same as it would for a solo carebear under the current system. If null krabbing is made similar to high sec incursions, roaming PvP gangs would be faced up against PvE gangs their size,instead of the lone solo carebear. The structure of NPC spawns in null would have to change to accommodate groups instead of solo pilots, and the payouts would need to change as well to make the krabbing worth while in a group. Making ratting more group focused in null wouldn’t ensure risk-free krabbing with the blackout in effect, but it would add a layer of security for the guy who just wants to make an honest buck. It would be a more social experience for the carebears as well, drawing alliances closer together.

TL;DR: Null sites are to easily solo-able. Change null krabbing to be more like incursions, make it a group activity instead of solo activity. This would change PvEr vs PvPer fights from gang bangs to balanced fights.

What are your thoughts?

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I think this is a poorly thought out and knee jerk reaction to the Blackout, which I would argue, people have not fully adapted to in the first place.

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Group activities need to be organized by the players not be forced by CCP. Let us choose how we do it. Even now ratting in a group provides safety in numbers. Whoever wants to do it that way atm - can do it.

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Censured

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Trying to force group game play pushes a lot of people away from the game.

To be honest, most of my gamplay in Null was loosely organized solo gameplay based upon a common defense.
We were all doing our own thing until a call to arms was called, and it worked very well, and was a lot of fun doing our own thing while BS’ing on Comms.

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Not quite right, IMHO. Many players like to do PvE when they are in mood for PvE and PvP, when they are in mood for PvP. Game supposed to be you having fun, not organising fun for someone else. Since CCP effectively killed that option in null, such players left or leaving null or game entirely. Imagine mature older man, who minds his own business couple of hours in the evening after children went to bed. You want to dictate that sort of players to make a team? Wait till fleet is formed ? No time for that, no fun. Fly in location choosen by someone else under someone’s command? After the whole day your boss was yelling at you and your wife was and children were demanding etc… No. Certainly not. You want to achieve some small personal goal in few hours of play and you will do that if you have means to do so in that game or you go to other.

TL;DR: leave NPC null as it is, add group level of PvE in soverenity null (need upgrades for that).

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The black out has absolutely nothing to do with this. They died by the bucket loads before the black out and their mentality and actions has not changed. They are just now using the excuse and blaming their actions on the black out. Which is complete BS.

If they had half a brain they would realize that they have a much better chance this way as the hunters have to actually scan down system by system to find anything and not rely on local to tell them that they are there. Now the Krabs has to now be involved and actually inject “effort” in their game play…

We don’t actually do that. We just Dotlan and check the NPC killed Delta changes from hour to hour to know which system is active or not.

It does to have a lot to do with it, before we could be smart and do a few hours PVE on a week night. THe biggest difference was I almost always knew if it was one or four plus ships coming down the pipe. My VNI was not really terrified of a lone ship (since alt was in system), and could go get a PVP ship to get ready if four to six were coming, And finally just button up in station if ten were coming. Sometime a crafty few got in, but I could do it some what calm and save for whatever PVP ship was needed for this weeks CTA/

Now, I have to hit scan constantly and still might miss a lucky few who jump right in on me, this simply makes the game UNFUN/

Additionally, defense fleets could try and find the roam now they are way to hard to find, especially most “pvp” types really only want to fight those who can not fight back. Which is exemplified by a guy in my system who still gets a couple victims a night who think those procurers look easy to kill (rarely ends well for them).

If that’s the case, why aren’t people doing it? How hard can it be to find 4-5 people in an alliance with 500 logged in pilots? If there’s safety in numbers, why are people still soloing anoms during the blackout?

Because they have no friends and no one likes them?

I have in fact seen some null groups switch to ratting in groups. Instead of running havens in a single VNIs, they were now running some of the harder sites in 3 VNIs plus various other ships. (Including ships that looked like fast tackle, so I decided not to engage them solo.)

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It needs to be a solo experience as well.

What are you supposed to do at quiet times when your corp. mates are not available, log off and play something else?

The argument was flawed at the fact you think people want a balance fight. This is EVE Online. Very few people want to give their opponents a chance to win.

The only balance between PvP and PvE there needs to be is the support PvE gives in order for PvP to happen. This means, PvE players mining and ratting to provide resources to build and sell ships and modules on the free markets. The idea that PvE players are there just to be killed by PvP players is not a good balance between both groups outside of piracy situations. But, as we all know, piracy as a whole has been gutted by CCP for awhile now.

Since kill mails, players just seem to like counting their notches now.

Kill mails imo killed real PvP

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You also seem to think anyone cares about KMs

The only KMs people care about are their own

Not really. I am a 2004 pilot. We had kill mails actually mailed to us from the system. We had the option of tracking them or not. What really put people over the edge of caring about this is when CCP made it more accessible via API’s and etc outside of the game. Now you can’t hide what you win or lose.

I’m not saying ALL PvE in null should be a group experience. Things like cosmic sig sites are a great solo experience.

After reading some comments, I think it would be cool if anomolies scaled based on how many people are in them. This way, one dude can run them, then others can join and when they do, more rats with higher bounties spawn. This could work up to a certain point. 100+ dudes in a single anom farming would be kind of OP so for the rewards to fall off after a certain number of pilots join the anom fight would be good. Anoms would have to be completely rehauled for this to work though.

Bollocks.

Thank you for the good post.