CCP isn’t going to come right out and specifically say High Sec ganking is an issue. In fact CCP has rarely ever been straightforward with their communication, usually they keep everything vague and ambiguous.
So please enlighten me as to what Hilmar was referring to with this part of the presentation:
Understanding why it happened… a ray of hope that you can respond and get back on your feet and get revenge… and social support. During the Magic Moment, that’s what makes an elite Eve player.
Ummm… referring to the meaning of the words spoken?
In the event of devastating loss (the “magic moment”), you have a much higher chance of continuing playing eve (becoming an elite eve player), if you have social support and understanding of what happened.
All this is still after the 7 day period or let’s call it “grace period”, where he admits CCP should be responsible for explaining the game mechanics.
From where a players first loss (the “magic moment”) comes from is irrelevant. Could suicide ganking be better explained as a mechanic for newbies? Sure… but that is not your argument.
Anyway, I provided the relevant talk and specific clip, so people can at least listen to the source themselves. I’m not super invested in this whole suicide ganking discussion. Since I remembered the relevant presentation, I only wanted to point out that it seemed like a stretch to interpret the talk as Hilmar hinting at suicide ganking being the culprit for losing a big portion of new players each month.
I’m not so sure CCP wants a cold cruel universe, so much as wants to give us the players the ability to make it cold and cruel, or happy happy joy joy barney-ville.
We each get to choose, to be an ganker or not. Do unto others, and all of that.
It does, go fly a concord ship, they have bonuses to rep amounts based on your security status
Cool. You found the one outlier of the literally thousands of non bonus for sec status builds.
Mr Epeen 
They have funnels that lead to bottlenecks! There are many good happenings in the works like the New Player Academy which would surly attract new players by helping to clear away some of the bottlenecks about that potentially prevent new players from experiencing New Eden how they CCP feels that they should.
Can you all just stop the daily nagging about gankers in high sec, learn to live with it.
Built ships that can take a beating and teatch other new players.
Instead of making it only more easy for the highsec multi boxing mining fleets of longtime veteran players who leave nothing behind for the new players to earn something. Thats far worse then being blown up once in a while
New players should be more aware of what kind of game they are joining, instead of just mine allday long.
Because if you play different aspects of the game you learn.
If they only like watching a venture fill itself day in day out, better they go play a game like rolercoaster tycoon or alikes.
I do mining ( hi sec, low sec and wormhole ), missions (hi and low sec), exploration, wormhole stuff etc.
Most of the time when i mine its just because i want easy isk and talk with friends at the same time, its also when i get blown up the most but thats because i dont pay attention.
Mining itself is boring. Doing missions and sites is lots more fun and according to me if you dont get over confident less risk and better isk
Wow, you totally bypassed the part about being able to respond, get back on their feet and get revenge.
Guess some people just don’t want to connect the dots.
So a common theme in this thread is “new player retention”. This is a good discussion and I’m glad to see it; MMO populations are never absolutely stable; they’re either tending up or tending down. As the veteran base gets older, we need new blood. New blood = retaining new players: but it also means retaining younger gamers.
Suicide ganking has been pointed to as a significant causal factor in players leaving the game. Despite how vehemently some are arguing this point, there is absolutely no credible data to support this. Getting blown up has been shown to correlate with higher retention rates, as well as having positive and supportive social connections.
Here’s a puzzle: social engagement increases retention. EVE’s complexity and difficulty reduces retention. But EVE’s complexity and difficulty promote social engagement. So the question is: how do we balance the complexity and difficulty of EVE online so that it doesn’t dissuade new players right off that bat - but also encourages them to seek social engagement?
I have some ideas:
The last industry update was a step in the right direction: all the tech1 stuff smaller than battleships became much easier to build and source materials for - as well as cheaper overall. Meanwhile, “high level” ships - such as pirate/navy, battleships, and capitals - got more complicated. (And this is completely fine - even if, starting today, all battleship, pirate/faction, and capital production ceased, the game would be just fine - you actually don’t need anything bigger than a BC to play EVE.)
Next up: Tech1 and Tech2 need to be rebalanced in such a way that new players are competitive with older players flying their power-creepmobiles earlier on (and this includes affording it). Maybe adjust fitting costs so you can’t just Tech2 everything except your MWD or 1 damage mod. So Tech2 either a) needs to become a lot more expensive and rare or b) less powerful, cheaper, and more accessible for new players to build.
A huge complaint I hear from new player is webs/scrams. Battleships and caps get an 80% web and, granted while that’s with a short optimal - that is absolutely ridiculous. One thing that really turns new players off PvP is getting webbed and scrammed and “not being able to do anything”. I think it’s time to rethink this paradigm.
HiSec should really be like, the low-stakes, not a lot of time needed, not terribly complicated part of the game. It should be easy for players to live in HiSec and afford cruisers easily and battlecruisers with some effort. Nobody should be solo running 4’s. Income - whether through PvE, industry, gathering, etc - should be uncomplicated (except in cases where it promotes group play, such as incursions).
As you start to move into LowSec/larger ships, things get more complicated fast (but also more lucrative).
WarDecs are currently dumb. We need a system that makes PvP more accessible and not just mechanics cheese (suicide ganks, suspect baiting - which I think are wonderful and should be maintained) but also isn’t employed to grief. Maybe a system based not on owning structures but rather on some way of implementing a “parity of force” measure based on the average 30 day activity level of a corp, or something. This way huge groups can’t just grief small groups, so those small groups can continue to grow. Not sure, just a crappy idea.
More importantly, there is no credible data disproving that claim.
Shame that EDENCOM ships dont have bonus damage associated with EDENCOM standings for example.
That’s not how burden of proof works. And actually CCP found that getting blown up was associated with higher retention rates.
Please provide proof for your statement.
Already have, in this very thread. I also know others have linked it to you on other occasions. You either ignore it outright or make up nonsense to dismiss it (such as “sample size” nitpicking - when in reality, 18,000 is an incredible sample size).
Associated with, no causation was stated or claim made by CCP. It is far more logical to assume that the more self confident and mentally tough player will both undertake and recover from high risk behavior that results in a loss they were already prepared to accept. They had, as all the vets state, come to accept that their ship was lost as soon as they undocked. To claim that suffering loss and emotional pain encourages all people to repeat an activity or that they enjoy the loss is equally unfair. Bottom line, the mentally tough and resilient will bounce back from their losses far easier than an average person. This results in them remaining in the game, while the average person tends to drop out.
I completely agree!
So, how do we attract mentally tough and resilient players? This seems like the sure way to improve player retention!
+1
+1
That’s going to be very difficult to balance.
I would suggest instead structures go back to be being based upon faction standings, that goes for POSes, all the way to Keeps. The bigger the structure, the higher the faction standings must be with keeps in the +9 range and poses at +1. Also some reasonable limit to how many can be anchored in a system, some where between 1 and 3 Citadels, 1 to 3 engineering complexes. As for refiners - make them moon dependent. Allow old style POSes to be anchored any where in a system and very easily discovered with scanner or combat probes, so easy that scanning noob can find them with ease.