Not sure if we ever want that… I do not want it to change. Lowsec is the only space not infested with bears.
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I love the implicit assumption here that safety/danger for a given part of the game should be something established independent of player actions.
Null is safer than Low Sec because of player actions to make it safer for those players and their allies.
If you made Low Sec more valuable than Null then two things would happen:
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The Null groups would move to Low Sec. After all that’s where the money is now, and it’s actually much more convenient and safer for them. No bubbles and much easier access to High Sec which means easier and safer logistics with shorter logistics chains.
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Low Sec would rather quickly become safer for the players that control a given chunk of it and their allies. None of the existing Low Sec groups would be capable of stopping a large Null group from moving in and basically quashing all resistance like a bug and setting up the same infrastructure and resulting safety that they have in Null right now.
Reward also needs to outweigh probable loss in order for players to be willing to go somewhere to earn money. Right now Low Sec is plenty valuable, and in some places it’s even more valuable than Null for a solo player, but it’s exponentially more dangerous (or at least perceived as such) so very few bother to risk that danger.
Even if you amp up the rewards that won’t actually attract new players unless the perceived danger drops as well. Partly because getting blown up all the time isn’t really a ton of fun even if you’re making a profit, partly because quite a piece of Low Sec profit is generally in stuff rather than raw ISK and can be lost on ship loss, and partly because if you increase the rewards people will find ways to make things safer and you still won’t get your desired PvP targets.
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No group will move anywhere unless the gameplay matches what they like to do. High to low, null to low, null to w-space, low to null, etc., nobody’s moving to the perceived less-danger, or even same-danger, zone.
Exactly!
Noting things like ship loss, loss value etc. just by themselves can be misleading. Nobody is going to stupidly stuff a freighter with 8 billion ISK of goodies then autopilot it around Esoteria. Noting that such ship losses are rare in NS vs. HS suggests a person who has a problem thinking things through.
NS is safer because players make it safer. They make is safer with intel channels, taking precautions most people in HS do not take and not taking the same kind of risks you see in HS.
Oh FFS…
Why is it people think risk is generally something that CCP has to balance.
Risk, FFS, is dependent on player actions. If a player is stupid as ■■■■, then he’ll face high risk. Not because the game is “balancing risk” but because he was stupid as ■■■■.
Risk is not some thing that exists in the game independent of player actions. It is a fecking function of player actions. A player has considerable control over the risk he faces. Consider the following scenario:
A player lights a cyno 100 km off a station then jumps in a JF in a LS system.
Is this high risk or low risk?
It is high risk.
Why?
Because the player was fecking stupid beyond belief. He did something to increase his risk vs. minimize it. So if somebody notices this idiocy and takes advantage of it why should risk be balanced? That is, why should the people taking advantage of this moron’s idiocy face higher risk? They should not…unless they themselves are dumb.
In this game you manage your own risk to a large extent. It is not CCP’s responsibility to manage your risk. Grow up and stop being Bad™.
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“Lowsec Should Be More Valuable Than Nullsec”
Be careful what you wish for. If low gave the best rewards, then the null alliances would move in and kick the pirates into high.
Then the pirates would be back on the forums with more salty tears.
Nullseccers are mostly carebears. Lowseccers are mostly pirates. When they come, they’ll face united opposition. if you think nullseccers in low will have a fun and safe time, like they do now, then you’re far off. the fact that there aren’t bubbles in lowsec makes it even more attractive to go to low and kick some nullbutt.
This falls into the catagory of “how many times does this have to happen before you realize it doesn’t work” lol.
No place in EVE has gotten the attention (isk wise) as low sec has since 2009.
Low sec was given lvl 5 missions (still bltizable for 500 mil isk per hour even today) high sec DED complex, Clone Soldiers, FW PVE (which for a long time was an INSANE Wealth faucet and is still pretty good now), Buffs to the rewards of DED complexes (most Pithum and Gistum Deadspace mods come from low sec, which is why 6/10s are more covetted than 10/10s), new exclusive exploration content and multiple other small rewards buffs.
And yet the population numbers didn’t budge. This is because Low sec is CRAP to do PVE in regardless of the rewards, whereas in null sec (and high and wormhole space) you can mitigate danger in various ways.
I’ve tried at least a dozen times in the last 10 years to set up a ‘pve’ shop in low sec. It should be easy with all those npc stations. And some of it is , I still have my lvl 5 blitzing triple carrier set up sitting in a low sec region for example. But it’s just not fun at all, because low sec is small group space and to really do PVE you either need heavy duty mechancal/automatic safety (CONCORD in high sec) or a huge group of real life bros backing you up (Alliances and coalitions with their intel channels and Standing Fleets in null sec).
Wormholes even work better for PVE because they heavily restrict access where as any day tripping numb nuts in high sec can gate into low sec and screw with you while you try to make isk.
Long story short, as long as you can PVE in high sec, wormholes and null sec (both sov and npc), very few people will do so in low sec, no matter what rewards CCP puts there. We’re talking about human nature here.
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No, this isn’t human nature. it’s nurtured.
People who believe in nurture over nature do so because because they want to believe that they (or someone) can manipulate the environment enough to change people’s behavior into something they find more acceptable.
We see it in real life, where people say “well, if you just teach them to do (x) , they will be alright”. But people get taught to do (x) and yet their situation does not improve. Like the idea that “if EVE just teaches people to PVP early on, they will PVP more”, but that is nonsense, people with anti-pvp personality traits aren’t going to become blood thirsts manics because a game teaches them to, desire to do anything is mostly internal.
EVE is a wonderful example, CCP has been trying to get people to do lots of things for years. They have offered both rewards (like how they have stuff rewards into low sec and yet the population remains low) and punishments (like how they pre-nerf all nullsec rat bounties by 5% to get people to use the ESS deploy-able, but people mostly don’t use it because it’s a pain in the rear, they just rat with more characters or bigger ships than they did pre-ESS). And yet people do not respond.
That is human nature.
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No, it isn’t. Nurture is a thing. you can program anyone to do anything, given enough time and effort. you can raise someone into being whatever the ■■■■ you want, including catholic suicide bombers yelling GOD IS GREAT! before they pull the trigger.
Humans aren’t born into being materialistic cowards who see themselves as victims. they grow up in a system that creates them that way. Carebears are carebears for a reason, just like you are how you are for a reason, just like i am how i am for a reason.
Curiosity is human nature. this isn’t.
More generally I would say that people want to do what they think is best for themselves, others want people to what they think is best for these people. More concretely, Sue wants to do what is best for Sue. Bob wants Sue to do what Bob think’s is best for Sue. The problem is that Bob’s ideal for Sue is dependent on his subjective values which are almost surely different than Sue’s, thus we get conflict. If Bob is given power to coerce Sue it is even worse.
Generally speaking my preferred approach is everyone STFU, STFD, and mind your own business or GTFO.
In EVE specifically, if Bob and Sue want to interact, fine. If Bob wants to interact with Sue (whether Sue wants it or not) also fine. Same goes with Sue interacting with Bob. What I find problematic is when Bob whines to the Devs that Sue is a poopie head and they should prevent Sue from doing what she wants. This is a competitive MMO…if you don’t like competition, GTFO.
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Like I said, people want to believe that because they want to believe they can have some control over the world. It’s probably one of the biggest lies people tell themselves.
And even if it was true, what does that have to do with a video game? I’m sorry the people of EVE aren’t as blood thirsty as you’d like them to be, but there is nothing you or CCP can do to change that. 14 years of EVE (a game where the best rewards were traditionally away from safety yet the most populated area is the safest/lower reward area) has proven that.
Low sec proves it further, Look at my list of PVE improvements CCP has made since 2009 to low sec, then go to Dotlan maps and see how jumps and npc killing activity in low sec has stay mostly the same over the same period.
No amount of ‘conditioning’ could make me a ganker, and no amount of prodding or dangling rewards is going to make low sec a popular place.
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Human nature is to run like Hell, because that rustling in the tall grass is a Goddamn saber toothed cat that is going to eat you. It is why we are so great at spotting patterns, even patterns that aren’t there. 2,000,000 years ago hauling ass when you think you spot a predator has little downside. Standing there and debating whether or not you are committing a type I or type II error will eventually get you eaten.
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It’s the wind, I say!
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In a perfect world Id be for LS moon mining, but unfortunately that is impossible as it would completely wreck all associated markets.
What makes you think the gameplay in Low would stay the same if it suddenly got a lot more valuable to live there?
The only substantive differences between Low and Null are:
- Sov and Sov Upgrades
- Bubbles
- Proximity to High Sec
If you make Low Sec more valuable than Sov Null then 1 becomes a non-issue, you’ve just made Low more valuable than upgraded sov space.
Most of the rest of #1 is a few convenience features that are relatively easily replaced, and a bunch of admin that 99% of line members will never see or interact with unless it fails to happen.
#2 is kinda take it or leave it, but mostly it makes line members safer. Easier to get pods off grid, harder to tackle caps.
And of course #3 is mostly a win for members as well. Easier to resupply, sell stuff, and move around.
Given this, why on earth would at least one Null group not just wholesale move to Low Sec if it suddenly became more valuable than their upgraded Sov space?
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Because they prefer large scale sov wars to small-scale roaming fleets. Because they need to keep 3-4000 active members entertained and organized, and small roaming fleets don’t cut it. Because they have (and want to grow more) substantial supercap fleets. Because low-sec gives sec. status hits for PVP.
If CCP shares your assessment is that these are easily fixable convenience features, then they will NEVER increase the low-sec rewards by the large amount required to get alliances to move. Players may decide to move / create alts / try the new slightly-improved rewards, but not alliances as a whole.
And in any case, I don’t think there’s a need for null to move to low, I think the perceived need is for high-sec to move to low.
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-10.0
Null people couldn’t handle that
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