Human nature is to fight, not wimp. Modern, western weakness is nurtured by the system. When you try outrunning an oversized, aggressive cat, then you die by default. It’s a huge ■■■■■■■ cat! Fighting is the best option, as running is futile. Evolution dictates survival of the fittest and strongest, and sometimes of the smartest. If our ancestors always ran away, they’d just had died. There’s no way people cowered, because it’s counter productive. We’re talking about a sable tooth tiger here, and about people who grew up in a world where running leads nowhere and defending yourself was mandatory.
Hell, the same is true for today. You either try to beat a tiger, puma, bear, etc., or you might know how to outwit them, but you will never successfully outrun them.
That’s a modern mind’s perspective. Do you do any martial arts, or aggressive sports? You fight, outsmart them or die. Running is silly. There’s survival guides out there telling people how to behave in front of certain aggressive animals. That’s outsmarting. Not knowing how to behave when you can’t try fighting, means death. vOv
You are wrong on this one. You run because you don’t have to outrun the cat, just the slowest member of your group. And a human will never be stronger than a large predator like a saber toothed cat.
Humans eventually were able to go from prey to predator thanks to the development of their larger brains, but early hominids did not have this advantage so they ran and developed quite an ability at spotting patterns which we most likely still carry around today. People all the time are seeing patterns in data that later simply disappear because the initial pattern was just plain old randomness. People are continually fooled by randomness. When you see a pattern in the clouds you are seeing this ability in action.
No, evolution is random mutation and survival of the fittest, being the strongest may be what determines fittest, but look at the gazelle it is not stronger than the cheetah, it tries to be faster and/or more alert. In fact, it is actually a co-evolutionary process where not only is the adaptations of the gazelle effecting the gazelle it also effects the cheetah and other organisms and even possibly the fitness environment itself. In the case of humans and predators initially we were the prey, but our evolutionary pathway was that of developing a larger brain and greater intelligence which allowed us to flip the relationship, and was almost surely a diffuse co-evolutionary process.
Actually, yes I have, and the first rule is if you can avoid the fight you avoid the fight. Let go of your ego and do the right thing. If you messed up and admitting it can remove the conflict you do that vs. fighting and risking injury or even death.
And fighting another human is not the same as fighting something like a saber toothed cat (note, the term is saber tooth cat, not tiger). Your ancestors when confronted with the possibility of a saber tooth cat did not stand their ground and fight, the booked it. Later when their descendants had developed better tools that relationship would have flipped where a group of human the apex predator. Until then…you ran.
This isn’t true. There is no ‘system’, only nature. What’s happening in modern society is the result of over-abundance (thus the old saying "Adversity makes men, prosperity makes monsters) and relative lack of predation (despite what the news tells us, we are living in the most peaceful time in human history).
“Human nature” (and the nature of all animals above insects) is to fight or FLEE. You can see this in EVE. When I used to FC I was amazed at how many gangs of equal size or slightly larger to mine would run away from us. I was amazed at how people would rather shoot ratting VNIs and mining ships in null that mostly couldn’t shoot back than face my Ratting Rattlesnake or Machariel.
I used to be like you, thinking that something must have made them that way, but as I got to know people personally I figured out that most people who play games just want to win, and they bring that with them to ANY game, not just EVE.
Myself I’d rather a good fight that I eventually end up losing rather than than an easy fight that I win, but understanding the world means understanding people who different, not people who are the same as me…
EVE Online has 4 types of “non-high sec” space (low sec, wormholes, sov null, npc null) Of those 4, only one actively punishes people for PVPing, and that is low sec. In the other 3 you can blow up whatever with no in game consequences.
CCP has already stuffed low sec with some of the best rewards in the game, DED sites that drop pithum and gistum invuls, FW missions where you can make as much wealth per hour with a Jackdaw as you can in null with a carrier, lvl 5 missions that take seconds to complete and that let you use a regualr carrier to make 300+ mil per hour, etc etc, and yet the population numbers don’t budge.
Point blank, low sec is annoying, and as long as it’s annoying, now amount of rewards is going to help.
Fight and flight are almost identical biochemical/psychological survival mechanisms.
The spur of the moment decision to pursue the appropriate one for that circumstance is what determines survival. Logically, flight is the preferred initial reaction, except when flight is not possible, or the animal is protecting its young or not built for escaping.
Reading things like this frustrates me. For a lot the stuff you can do in LS to make isk you do ‘very quickly cover the cost you invest into obtaining the tools that enable you to reap them’. You don’t have to use an expensive tool. T1 cruisers can kill clone soldiers. Kill 1 in 0.2 or 0.1 sec space and you pretty much cover your cruiser. It’s pretty easy to get a lot more than 1 out of a cruiser before you die, and even better, you can do it in a PvP fit.
Have a look at DED sites. Almost any frigate or destroyer can run 1/10, 2/10 or 3/10 sites pretty easily. Again, you can do it in a PvP fit too. The rewards are random, but you’ll often finding yourself getting a reward that would buy you 10 fully fitted versions of the ship you ran the site in.
I think the important thing here is that you don’t have to use an ‘expensive tool’. If your goal is to just grind isk I don’t think LS is the place to be. But if you want to be sustainable it’s not that hard if you just don’t fly bling.
Now I’m all up for CCP to add more stuff to LS. I would love more things to do while flying around. To me it’s important though that it’s not stuff that requires a bling fit T3 cruiser to do so that people only do it in a cloaky travel fit PvE ship when noone else is in local. I want stuff that you can do in a system full of neutrals, in a standard T1 PvP fit, where you might get a fight. Stuff that encourages people to be out in space looking for trouble, not stuff that encourages people to fit as many warp stabs as possible and spook at the first sign of trouble.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
But most of the time you will be able to decide if you want the encounter to happen, you will need information to see if the encounter is even possible. If it happens and you dont have much chance in confrontation, its better to flee.
All of those except the status aren’t things that are mechanical to Low Sec, they’re behavioral to how players play there by choice. Does Asakai ring any bells? One of the largest fights in Eve history happened in Low, as did a month+ long camp of a Null group. The only thing stopping people from having big fights in Low is that the space isn’t really worth fighting over, so big fights only happen there when someone catches a large asset in transit through Low.
If a large group of Null players started living in Low we’d see big fights there.
Most Null players who really like PvP already roam in Low. Most of them aren’t -10 because shooting rats gets them more net sec status than shooting players loses them. Actually ending up -10 through regular PvP is pretty time consuming and all but impossible if you engage in any kind of regular PvE.
Yes, what I’m saying is that the goal of getting large numbers of High Sec players, or even players in general, to come PvE in Low so they can be shot is self defeating.
Anyone who wants to make more money for a bit more risk can easily move to Null where all the work in creating safety has already been done and the best practices are fairly well established.
In order to draw players to Low instead you would need some combination of an increase in rewards and a decrease in perceived risk. Increase the former too much and you get Null groups looking to take over. The latter on the other hand is fairly counterproductive to the goal of getting people into Low so they can be shot at.
The #1 rule of any PvE activity is that it has to be reasonably profitable, which means you can’t have too high of a chance of losing your ship doing it. That’s why few players bother with Low, because Low Sec PvE requires expensive ships to be profitable, is fairly risky, and around the same ISK could be made with less effort and stress in Null even comparing to cases that are actually slightly better ISK than Null like some escalations.
It’s not, this is outright wrong. It’s called a “fight or flight response” for a reason. Animal nature is to assess the threat and take the option that has the highest chance of continued survival, which unless cornered is almost always to flee. That’s why you should never make a wild animal feel cornered or threaten their young, because the rest of the time they’re run off because that’s the better option.
This part is actually not true, and its the reason why this ‘rewards’ stuff needs to be put to rest.
Its easier to generate more wealth with cheaper ships in low that it is in null.
Here is a video of someone making more isk in a Jackdaw than you can make a carrier in null. (even with the changes to the jackdaw since then, this still works, but for safety/travel purposes a Rail Hecate is better now even though it does the wrong primary damage for Minnie missions)
This lvl 5 mission guide works. My set up (3 Archons in 3 different stations, the lvl 5 agent is in the system in the middle of the constellation, use a Leopard to shuttle from station to station so you never have to jump a carrier through a gate/cyno) in total cost less than 7 billion isk yet I can make close to 500 million isk per hour in LP and Tags (selling tags to buy orders and getting 450 isk per lp , going to Dodixie and buying implants to sell).
In other words, for 1/3rd the price of a super carrier, my lvl 5 mission blitzing set up makes more than a super carrier… In low sec.
And it doesn’t even take lvl 5s or FW missions. I haven’t personally done this in 2 years (and I only did it for 3 weeks to test that it works. It does, btw), but there is no reason it shouldn’t still work. Blitzing lvl 4 missions in nothing more expensive than an attack BC, and making more wealth per hour than a ratting carrier (the video claims 300 mil per hour and it’s doable, but a more realistic figure is 200 mil per hour, especially factoring in time to convert LP and transport items to a hub)
People kill npcs more often for lower rewards than what is possible in low sec for a variety of reasons. Null anoms are instant isk (no conversion time needed, just warp to anom, collect bacon), you don’t need multiple ship set ups, You don’t have to dock up all the time to collect rewards (so there is a convenience factor) and its easier to get help if attacked in a populated sov null area.
The best rewards in the game (potential wise) are actually in NPC null (burner mission blitzing eclipse all other manual forms of making isk, it’s insane), followed by wormholes then low sec. Null and high are actually pretty even, but null sec wins not based on reward level, but by the extreme ease of obtaining rewards. Hell, burners in high sec still pay more than any sustainable sub cap null activity, you need a carrier to do better than this in null
IF CCP wanted to use ‘rewards’ to draw people to low sec, it wouldn’t be raising reward amounts, those are already superior to other places except wormholes and npc null, and with less expensive ships as well.
They would need to be easier to access isk making in low sec to get people to go there for rewards. Even then, the punitive mechanics of low sec would still keep people away IMO.
I’d say the standings management surrounding L5 tag farming is enough, ie a lot of people would technically view your setup as 3 carriers + ceptor + minimum of 20b isk for carrier alt + the standings to confine the standings trashing to a character that they don’t care if its standings are trashed.
When thats all said and done its a lot of resources with less certainty they can actually do the task than ratting with a super deep in a blue donut, and the super is a goal ship, where as a bunch of carriers probably isn’t.
I agree with the general gist of your points though - mostly lowsec pve is pveing in a pipe, and its not the isk opportunities that keeps people away.
I tend to agree LS could use some more profitability, preferably something that doesnt pay out in isk straight or existing modules/bps/drops so as to not contribute to inflation or saturate markets.
LS sort of lacks some desirable commodity unique to LS, unlike WH/NS or the nascent safety of HS.
Alternatively, force gate transit through LS by removing cynos. This is very controversial, but my view is it will make LS extremely lucrative for pirate activity intercepting the insane amount of material/value currently passing through/over LS, from HS><NS with impunity.
The idea there being that the value in LS is not so much due to locally sourced value, but in extracting value from accounts attempting to pass between HS and NS markets.
it technically already is more valuable then null sec… isk wise a low sec fw player can make 1.6b a day running offensive plexing in a atron, with a fit worth 5 mill total.
nullsec Rorqual with excavator drones, can do that in 5 hours, but risk being higher,
Wh’s is prolly the highsec values then null 300m isk every 30 mins ratting in c5 sites win!
Low Sec already has lots of this. Low sec is where most pithum and gisthum a-type loot comes from (you can get it in null by farming the lwo end anomalies that generate 6/10 DEDs, but not many people do this as its so hit or miss)
And you can’t get Pithum/Gisthum B or C type at all in null. Low Sec is almost the sole supplier. Pithum B Type invuls are selling for half a bil right now in jita, there are few null sec sourced deadspace items that will get you that much.
Then there is the loot from Clone NPCs in low sec belts that you can’t get anywhere else. And while not exclusive to low sec, FW missions and level 5 missions spew LP amounts that can’t be matched anywhere, giving low sec mission runners an edge in producing high value items from those stores.
Low sec’s problem is not rewards. Since 2009 CCP has added reward after reward after reward (including unique rewards, see pithum/gisthum b/c type loot) and yet it doesn’t really help. The issue is that Low Sec is just painful to play in for a lot of reasons, some of which aren’t that obvious.
Adding more rewards to low sec just enriches the few big low sec alliances (and null sec alt groups) that immediately seize the space where the rewarda are produced. This is why you see low sec alliances creating a stranglehold on the systems where lvl 5 mission agents are present.
It’s amazing what you can do for cheap in faction warfare. I first started doing offensive plexing rather than screwing with missions after watching this video 2 years ago. I was flabbergasted at how much LP you got for that. I haven’t done FW for a while so I don’t know if it changed, but it was good income when I did it.
DED modules are not a sustainable market. Prices on HS/LS DED modules have plummeted over the years.
That is why I specifically stated a reward that is not a module, nor isk, but something unique to LS.
Furthermore, the alternative of removing cynos from LS, thus forcing the insane amount of value being moved between HS and NS to transit through gates, and thus provide content of potentially enormous value. So the value in LS is not in LS resources itself, but in profiteering off value that must move through LS.
Removing cynos will make it worse, as bigger, more organized groups will have the advantage (because they have the numbers to convoy).
It would be CCP repeating the “Dominion Mistake” (Dominion was supposed to help small groups , it ended up encouraging mega-coaltions that enslaved most of null by creating renter empires).
As for rewards, people jsut don’t work that way. If rewards worked High Sec would be empty, npc null would be the largest section of the game, and low sec would be a close second. People stay in high sec despite the lower rewards (for average players, rewards are higher for more established high in players that can do things like blitz burner missions).
We have to learn from the past, and examine the present, not cling to ideas that don’t work.
You are overlooking that other more organized groups will specifically target them as well, from either an NS or LS basis. (Perhaps intervening HS basis as well).
They arent going to stand idly by while multibillion transports as targets of opportunity or of their enemies gate transit through LS, no matter how much convoy escort they bring alongside. They will match that escort with their own intercepting force.
Cynos currently make a laughing stock of the LS barrier between NS-HS trade.
Cynos in LS avoid conflict/content in LS.
No one said other big groups are going to sit idly by. Some will attack, others will group up in ever bigger coalations (like what happened with OTEC) to secure their supply lines.
And who gets left out of all of this is the solo guys and small groups that make low sec what it is. That’s the point, it won’t help the situation and will just make things worse. CCp did that to null with Dominion (and to a lesser extent, with jump fatigue).
You think your idea would help, when in reality it would create the same kind of “unassailable local dominance” jump fatigue did (and that is hurting nullsec now). I don’t know why you don’t take into account the power of large groups to overcome the intent of changes CCP makes.
Null sec already exists for big groups to play in, there is no reason to turn low sec into null light by making it safer for big groups to play in and traverse (no cynos also means no traps for supers and jump freighters to get killed in).
Safety is relative. Null can be just as deadly as Low.
However, when you are attempting to run sites (or missions), Low Sec is probably the riskiest place to do it. Maybe Wormhole space is riskier, but it’s harder to find a good variety of sites to do. If I recall correctly, Low Sec also has the lowest number of systems (of the securities) which means that the same number of players can saturate the area easier. The higher population density also leads to more conflict. I’m not saying this happens across the entirety of Low Sec, but that it can happen without the aid of corps organizing something specific.
When trying to determine rewards, I always want to reward risk and effort. Our team hasn’t done the best job at it so far, but we’re learning and I think we’re getting better at it.
