Within the present Eve Online game mechanics, you are correct. At the present time, the only legal combat targets are Faction Warfare pilots and pilots associated with war declarations. Some players dedicate an alt to FW for minimal combat risk. War Declarations are something else; players calculate the risk versus reward before declaring war. Still, the strategy will be risk-averse, not gratuitous combat just for the fun of it.
If it is gratuitous combat for the fun of it that you seek, why not challenge people in local chat for an 1v1 at the sun?
Try it in various places, duel if in HS and see if you can find likeminded people who also want to risk fair combat for no gains.
You could even start an in-game channel for the activity, or advertise here on the forums, start making it known that people do fair 1v1s in a certain system in the game.
All the tools exist, now you just need people.
Many players are risk averse and take fights mainly when there’s something to be fought over and/or when they think they can win, so they won’t be interested. Some people avoid all PvP and won’t be interested either.
Still I think you will be able to find some people who also are up for fair 1v1 fights.
I am not seeing optimal conditions for gratuitous, intentional combat. The risk versus reward calculation strictly favors risk-averse combat.
What exactly is the problem?
Do you wish to fight fair 1v1s or not?
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They’re kind of an endangered species… I dropped into low-sec just to mine a bit for Military Campaigns and got locked by a Garmur. Then a Vedmak and Astero chimed in as well. They stopped shooting only long enough to try and ransom/scam me, but realized after several minutes that I had blocked private chats and finished me off.
I’ve linked the killmail here. No big loss (I made it back in 30min), but it illustrates why players gravitate to high-sec and avoid doing anything in low-sec. I guess 46m ISK in dropped loot split between the 3 of them was a good use of their time…
Yeah, I forgot I’d left the more expensive drones in.
Seems to me like you are playing the wrong game, sorry mate. What you are looking for is an instant-action round-based space-shooter or something.
EVE is simulating a somewhat realistic economy/society that is persistent, requiring some kind of effort to replace every bit of equipment you want to use. You can’t just “log in and shoot”, like no ancient warrior or soldier just “wakes up and begins fighting”. He needed to travel, hunt, care for his horse, weapons, armor… negotiate with others, gather money and whatnot 99%+ of his time.
EVE reflects all that: Losing is costly. Avoding losses is benefitial.
This is EVE. If you want it another way, go look for another game that offers lossless instant-action.
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Coming Soon™ to an Exordium space near you…
Eve pvp is about winning a fight. if there was a fair fight in eve at least one of the parties involved made a terrible mistake
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The only mistake is showing up to the fight in the first place… Everyone says if you end up in a fair fight that you’re doing something wrong, but that’s just an excuse to gang up on players and pad killboards.
I lost a mining destroyer today (not a big deal, replaced in 30min), but tell me why the Garmur that locked and pointed me needed the help of an Astero and Vedmak if not just to whore in on the killmail? My total defensive capability was a grand total of 4 light drones…
They only stopped firing long enough to attempt to ransom/scam me.
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They were flying together and needed that extra firepower against tougher targets.
Against your ship it was overkill, but since they were flying together they held your ship so the others could get in on the kill too. It’s a bit selfish to keep kills all to yourself and is much more fun to share.
Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I once caught a Vexor in my Deluge hauler and dropped 20 people on him. Not that we needed it, I had almost killed it by myself (Deluge missiles OP!), but because it was fun killing something on our way to a Carrier kill. The Vexor just happened to be unfortunate enough to be in our mid system on the jump route to the Carrier.
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It’s not like they “needed” to all get on the kill, but they were flying as a team and you were just a “snack” to them. If the target can’t escape and no immediate danger is present, it’s just a nice move to let the other teammates get on the killmail.
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No, the others showed up separately minutes later. I even watched them pop-up in local (either they jumped in or logged on and undocked).
You’re right about the killmail whoring, of course. I mean, they also tried to extort me for more ISK before finally blowing up my ship…
Here’s my point: players complain about lack of content. And what did these actions achieve? Less of it. I probably won’t even go back to low-sec for the foreseeable future.
And screw any more efforts with Military Campaigbs.
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And if they hadn’t shot you, they would have gotten no content at all. What did you expect, that they just let you fly around, ignoring you and waiting hours if maybe at some point someone comes along that offers a somewhat “fair fight”?
You can’t seriously argue that killing people in a PvP game is removing content…
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How could those players have interacted with you in a way that maximized content?
Would they have convinced you to come back in a PvP ship or to come back repeatedly in new mining ships after getting shot if they had let you go this time?
Or had you stopped going to LS anyway if they had not shot you this time but shot you next time?
I think that shooting your spaceship once may have been the most LS content the game could have had from you, but they could not know that in advance.
Luckily there also are other players who keep trying and keep playing outside HS even if they lose a ship once.
What was the point exactly? 15m ISK each in loot and a 123m ISK killmail? I had zero chance of even fighting back. I’ve never (ever) had a ransom honored.
Content today for zero content in low-sec again. Good trade, right?
They had lots of options. But outside of just killing me: First, they could’ve just left me alone (you don’t mine very much with a mining destroyer). Second, they could’ve offered to protect me for a fee (I would’ve taken them up on that). Third, they could’ve just white knighted me and I’d have left them everything I was mining and probably sent them ISK on top of that. I wasn’t in it for the ORE; I was simply trying to complete the campaign objective.
Every time I relent and give low-sec another chance - I get burned. Because it’s always the same gate-camp, gang/scam or blob drop. And then I have to read the same “nerf high-sec to force players into low-sec” sh*t in the forums.
Honestly, a lot of players are their own worst enemy…
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It is as if you are walking and are learning to run, but instead of learning from a fall and run until you can do it without falling you give up immediately and go back to walking again because you don’t want to get hurt.
Being able to run is a fun skill, my toddler daughter can almost do it now without occasionally falling. But she tries again.
In EVE terms: you can learn to survive outside HS, but you have to want it and to keep trying even if you lose a ship once. Just fly cheap, change strategies, learn, practice.
A Venture is cheap and hard to catch. A covops Prospect even harder to catch. An Endurance isn’t easily caught either. There are mining options that allow mining in hostile space if you want to do that.
What’s the point? It’s an effort in futility… There are becoming fewer and fewer options for solo gameplay…
Everyone b*tched about Exordium but it took years of this kind of crap for CCP to finally realize why they were losing players in addition to not attracting new ones. So (surprise), they’re throwing darts to see what might stick (Exordium, Ansi).
I wouldn’t even be surprised if large swaths of high-sec eventually become “safe-sec” and see CONCORD expanded into low-sec.
The point is that the cat and mouse PvP gameplay outside HS is fun for many players and that you too could learn it if you kept persisting after one setback.
It’s one of my favourite things of this game, not the ‘killing other players’ part but the ‘avoid getting killed’ part. It keeps space and the PvE activities interesting to me.
I understand that such gameplay isn’t fun for everyone so it’s good that high sec exists where people can largely let their guard down or can learn to fly oblivious to dangers without immediately being punished for it.
But your taste in games does not mean LS mechanics are wrong, it just means LS is wrong for you.