EVE is a pretty shallow pond in some places. If you overhunt juicy, it can take a lot of time not hunting to again see the juicy. You will see some plankton, but not juicy.
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The Risk/Reward balance is completely out of alignment.
Scarcity has come in, so capitals and T2 & faction ships (particularly battleships) have significantly increased in price.
In nullsec, ratting has been nerfed significantly with ESS + DBS, so the risk of flying a ratting cap has doubled and the reward has halved. Changes to the mineral ecosystem has also pushed away rorquals. There has been no changes to the basic form of nullsec ratting (anoms) since the stone age so there is zero incentive to run them in anything other than gilas and ishtars which are far less interesting targets to fight than the old variety of battleships that used to rat. The war also means the capital umbrellas which protected space and were a major part of predator/prey dynamics are missing for all major null blocs except fraternity.
In wormholes, C5/6 space was balanced around dreads being locked in space to make cash, leaving them open to being caught by rage-rolling. Now dreads are twice the price, but leshaks and nestor prices remain steady and they can do the sites efficiently and are near impossible to catch.
Lolsec is just some small fry running content, and large groups “hostile” to each other with rorqual non-agression agreements.
But in highsec, people are making bank running T5/6 abyssals or multiboxing orcas with minimal threat of PVP.
To address the original question directly: the level of fishing has actually decreased (lots of the high-end hunting community quit after blackout ended), but CCP has made changes that massively disincentivize anybody to be a fish.
We need a massive overhaul of PVE content across new eden to create high risk (of pvp) / high reward content that’s designed to put interesting targets (battleships / caps / krab fleets) out in space where they can be shot at.
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But for that you would have to make it appear not everywhere, but in a random, dangerous space where everyone can shoot at you.
Literally anywhere other than highsec. I can deal with response fleets and cap umbrellas, but I can’t magic up krabs into space for people to shoot from thin air. We can’t even try to kill something and fail nowdays, most ishtars and gilas warp before you load grid in system.
I used to be an active fisherman running and hunting for whaling fleets but in today’s environment I feel like the chance of actually finding anything to provide content to my fleet members is too low to justify the time I invest and ask others to invest following me.
I think the summer also is to blame for it, not only game mechanics or overhunting, there is always some kind of lull in the game, less people playing it during summers. It can be seen in the charts.
While I agree with the AFK Orcas , you don’t need to be in highsec for T5/6 abyssals.
High sec abyssal runner ganking is also a thing.
Gankers see what ship is lost in abyss and then go and find the person that lost it, to then gank another such expensive ship of the same character.
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Sure, but why do them anywhere else? Jump-clones and alts exist.
Why not ?
The problem is not the location, but payment of red loot . Red loot along with blue loot are major ISK faucets atm.
Summer is not to blame - even with less people online, who says that only high-sec crabs stay on while all other players enjoy the sun?
As @Katya_Itzimaru said, it is due to all the changes that actually do not encourage people to undock with the chance of getting killed. Crabs are crabs, I am not excluding myself, I undock my Orca fleet in highsec instead of moon mining in my Rorquals in null, basically making sure the fish is not where the fishermen are.
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Sure, and for some it’s compelling gameplay. However, as much as “adapt or die” is a thing, the solution to no one risking anything in null / wormholes / lowsec is not to also move to highsec.
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ever go to null?.. (on no juciy targets lol)
rljpdx
Okay, I feel like I’ve overfished my little area before. So, I certainly think that it’s possible. Moreover, it has been asserted by people who know a lot more about game development than I do that having a good balance between different players (i.e. explorers, achievers, socializers, and killers) is extremely important to a game’s player ecosystem population health.
However, I don’t think that a lack of targets for whalers right now is due to overfishing. Instead, I’d assert that the biggest contributing factor right now is resource scarcity. Prices for a lot of things are up (especially for the ships that whalers like to hunt), and a lot of people’s incomes are down. Then on top of that, there has been a lot of major fighting going on for the past year or so [i.e. dead co destroyed, Provi-bloc evicted, World War Bee 2, and more], which has had a major effect on things like people available for response fleets, enemy presence, how much time you have to crab, and how convenient it is for you to do so. And if all of that wasn’t enough, player numbers are currently taking a big dip right now (the lifting of covid restrictions coinciding with summer has likely played a large role in this).
But, honestly, I doubt my answer will satisfy you, because I doubt you were actually asking a question. Seems to me like you were actually pushing an anti-hunter/ganker agenda. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. I myself have my own agendas that I most certainly push. I just figure we might as well talk directly. So…
IMHO, hunting does not need a nerf because hunting is not the problem him. Once again, I think there are several issues going on right now, but I think the biggest one is that of resource scarcity. Of course, I do believe that things were in a bad state before scarcity. However, it’s now starting to feel like CCP over-corrected. So, hopefully they find a good middle ground soon.
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I can tell from fish/whale perspective. At some point you weight risk/reward. And when you calculate how much it takes to replace your isk earning ship (and I talk not about venture). You notice that you earn more isk not undocking. Then you find activity which is more in touch with risk/reward and do that.
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Maybe so, for two days now my Orca had been docked close to Hek waiting to move some things
but the zkill board says it’s Orca season with losses showing every 20minutes over the parts of the last two days.
Somebody is hunting Orcas like fish in a barrel and no matter what sort of boundaries or connections Frostpacker had set before this Orca killing season had started, it is just way to likely if I undock a orca that I will become a statistic.
The speaker mentioned a specific hunting ground, the hisec to lowsec connections, where apparently there is a lower number of “juicy targets” coming through e.g., Rattlesnakes and freighters.
When talking about blops specifically you can mostly ignore hisec. Blops lose their one advantage there, they can’t drop on anyone because of cyno restrictions (and would require wardecs because of concord of course).
Thinking about mining as an example (exploration and mission running rarely lead to pvp in hisec, I think), it would be interesting to see what the time interval is between two consecutive attacks on the same player i.e., how many hours of mining on average it takes to be attacked. If that interval is short, meaning the mining time doesn’t cover the costs of the activity+loss (value of ship), then either the pilot in question is doing something very wrong, or it may be a case of popular hunting grounds.
Other possible reasons for less relevant targets for blops: resource redistribution (changes in the belts, disappearance of belts in a large portion of NS, etc) with likely a drop in rorqual use and concurrent increase/stabilization of HS mining; PCU has dropped ; war in the south-west, a lot of juicy targets have been pulled away and concentrated down there together with massive protection. And last but not least the industry changes driving up the prices of the ships, and people thinking twice about flying the fancier (juicy) targets - so blame ccp lol.
You mean the kills in Heimatar and Metropolis region ? You can almost plot the course the FC was taking 
, not surprising since those regions picked up a lot in mining value the last couple of months. My bet would be on The Forge getting more tlc from them in a not distant future…
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Having tons of this threads whining about ganking lately tells me we probably have a carebear overpopulation problem.
Maybe it’s time to return. Someone has to thin the herd.
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Maybe if a lot of those threads arise there is a problem? Maybe a lot of PVE based players still want to enjoy the game, but currently are in position that it becomes near impossible or overly stressful.
While you suggest for PVE players just leave game, same could be told to the other side, but no solution would be found.
That’s why those posts arise, we are looking for solution.
… one that is good for New Eden, not just for pve players who feel stressed and apparently only suggest to “nerf ganking”, or increase the theme park aspect, or generally make the game easier for very casual players (on whom the game is neither built nor maintained).
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Does caring for my (Maggie) Orca’s wellbeing enough to be carebear eligible and potentially be considered whining?