Ummmm, what? It’s fine for you to disagree on whether or not solo play should be viable, it’s your opinion and no ones stopping you from having it. However your statement that solo play is/was “risk-free” is ludicrous. Edit: For that matter, suggesting that any form of game play is “risk-free” is just wrong. With the exception of perhaps ship spinning, if you want to call that game play.
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If people want to play the game solo, then they should play the game solo, just because people who disagree with that decision bleat on about it at every opportunity doesn’t make THEIR opinion the correct one.
And whilst this thread has gone completely off track and onto solo play style and declining sub numbers I personally want to find out more about the attacks and measures to counter them, as well as information on standings etc and why they attack whom they attack.
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You’re correct, nothing in EVE is absolutely risk-free. This is the purpose of the modifier relatively.
I love it. NPCs should be able to actually kill solo players. Makes the game more involved for the players.
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Griefing? I wouldn’t go that far. First, we don’t know for sure that the NPCs spawned by the big brother of the FOBs, the Shipyards, aren’t doing the exact same thing in nullsec (and lowsec now). They probably are although I imagine there are less unattended ships floating in space in these systems.
But secondly this isn’t completely out of left field. Highsec has always had belt rats and gate rats and even slightly more intelligent NPCs roaming around Incursion systems. All that has happened is that their limited capabilities, and power creep over the years have rendered them all but ignorable in most situations, even in the more “dangerous” parts of highsec. These, like the Incursion spawns are confined to specific systems, and players will in time learn to evade them although I imagine rarely they will manage to catch someone out who has wandered away from their keyboard and generate an amusing loss mail.
HIghsec was never intended to be predictably risk-free or static, and adding a little bit of uncertainty (that moves around with the FOB spawns) after years of making it safer and safer (and highsec getting emptier and emptier) can hardly be called “griefing”. Some might even call it “fun”.
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Add me to the fun group (or until we see all the abilities/ behavior of the npcs, maybe tentative fun group). After numerous years of solo mission running, hacking their data sites, and hunting down and destroying their various structures through the New Eden, I have earned a -6.0 standing with all the pirates. That they are now out and actively seeking revenge as a result of my previous actions is both exciting and appropriate. No longer can one ignore their pirate standing; they are fed up with you and they are out for blood. Great! This adds an important addition to reinforcing one of the EVE’s mottos: actions have consequences.
Now, I am sure the CCP will need to fine tune their abilities and behavior; it is rare that the Devs get it exactly right the first time. However, I am excited that they have added this facet into the game. Will they eventually even intrude into missions and sites of other pirate factions? Gone will be the faction specific tanks as you have to worry about the chance of facing more than one type of pirate group. I look forward to incoming player reports and discovering myself just exactly what CCP has done to EVE.
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Obviously they are wrong color if they are pirate factions. They should be red! But that is not everything. I have seen Pirate faction ships that are blue like CONCORD! 
CCP cant even get colours of their NPCs right.
Do they even show on overview by default?
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Well, as someone who has spent a great deal of time playing solo… relatively speaking, it is most certainly more risky. I think I understand what you are getting at however, perhaps what you mean to say is being in an NPC corp and living in high sec is less risky relative to other activities/playstyle. Although I’d argue that is also up for debate.
I find this really cool actually. I always wished the NPCs were more interactive.
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Correct, I think we’re getting on the same page. It’s not that there aren’t risky ways to play solo (there certainly are). In question here is a certain set of solo playstyles, which I argue drain the game of dynamism and vigor. Prominent examples would include joining an NPC corp to forestall wardecs (as you noted), setting up a POS in a C1/C2/C3 wormhole and obsessively closing all connections in an attempt to secure one’s own little PVE domain (a practice which, thank Bob, will soon come to an end), setting up your own citadel in a remote corner of “safe” HiSec, running bots, and so on.
When new players pursue these avenues without even considering or trying out a corp, it is detrimental to everyone. It drains away players that would otherwise form part of the recruitment base. The mean corp size is, as a result, smaller, which means fewer PVP encounters. This means fewer explosions, which, in turn, means lower demand for industrial goods. This means less content for the industrialists and contributes to ISK inflation, which is a continuing headache for everyone.
It’s tempting to pretend that solo players are doing their own thing and are somehow cutoff from the rest of us, that they have no impact on the broader community. This is a delusion, of which we would be well served to disabuse ourselves.
I hate to admit it… but that’s spot on. I’ve lost 80-90% of all my eve buddies to almost exactly that, they were almost all solo players. Was hoping the new pve content would bring them back, but it seems CCP can’t even do that right.
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ok set npcs to target any places where it is 1 lone ship, your anti single player perfect solution
Overall I think this is going to affect AFK or bot peeps more than anyone else. I doubt if that orca pilot had been active that it would have ended in a kill mail. I cannot confirm this but I highly doubt CCP put NPC pirates in HS lanes and gave them point capable ships. No one is getting warp jammed. Solo active pilots will be fine if they are just that, active.
On the other side of this conversation, has the PVE side of eve ever been engaging? I find it far more engaging now then it was in 2009 when I first subbed. I can also guarantee that the solo player will continue to find a home as most solo players I know almost never PVE’d to begin with out side of high level missions more for faction grind than anything else. They engaged in isk generating activities such as PI production or ICE/Gas mining and higher end production; at least those living in HS space.
Like the drifter battleships? or the NPC carriers? Null has been dealing with this for over a year now.
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Beating the base shield regen of an orca is not exactly a high bar in term of DPS. Against Guristas, that Orca regenerate about 95 EHP/s at peak with all V and the boost active.
Still, the km is interesting. A fair amount of White Glaze, 3 mining ships in the fleet hanger, and a kill location outside a station. I am leaning toward a multi boxer finishing up in a belt and hitting dock at station. They then left for a bio break or for a bite to eat, unknowing that their Orca dewarped farther than normal from the docking radius. The kestrel then webbed and slowed down the already lethargic Orca and followed by killing it. Unless these pirate ships are way overpowered in some way, I cannot see how a “mañned” Orca was lost to a Kestrel. Anyone have a plausible idea?
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The big question is; did it then pod the afk like drifters will?
On the test server the npc’s that spawn at the Forward Operating Base itself will pod you, no idea if the wandering patrols do, don’t want to test it though.
so your saying a npc cap fleet or drifter fleet warps to your station and kills you? I don’t think so.
This.
An Orca puts out about 600 DPS with good skills and has close to 500K EHP.
Losing to 1 NPC Kestrel?
Yeah, not if actively playing the game.
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