The ability of players to counter or escape warp disruption was further nerfed when WC Stabilizers were essentially neutered, as well as the addition of things like DED Apprehension boosters to the game.
However, CCP determined the game needs more destruction, and many PvPers aren’t good enough or prepared enough to prevent targets from escaping. So the ability to escape had to be nerfed.
CCP then also made changes like the mining barge rebalance, or the BS update, which makes it more expensive to gank certain ships or slower to fight them. They sort of have a history of screwing both sides over (PvP and non-PvP players) in order to try to shoehorn players into producing the kind of overall stats CCP thinks will be “healthy” for the game.
I don’t believe EVE needs a “safe” mode. The inherent risk in EVE is one of the very few attractions of the game. But personally I believe the current system of standings loss, buy it back with tags, more loss, more tags, repeat as needed is a bit tired and meaningless. ISK is easy enough to come by that mere replaceable standings loss isn’t much of a consequence anymore.
The primary “skin” imbalance comes from the design of EVE, where economically viable targets tend to be non-combat oriented, and combat ships can be made quite cheaply. And as stated, where warp scrambling is very cheap and effective. But not all PvP needs a scrambler, ie., gate camps, bubbles etc.
IMO, EVE could use a boost to the overall attractiveness/reward of PvP, and particularly to the reward balance of “hunting the hunters”, which currently isn’t really economically viable. Mechanisms for doing this have been discussed before, but it generally just results in a crowd of gankers and F1-monkey swarms piling on the thread and shouting it into lockdown.
An easy way to increase skin in the game would be similar to Citadel Quantum cores. Quantum ship cores could come in various strengths, and when you mount your modules you add a core capable of handling them. Like CPU/Power grid, but a purchasable item that becomes a guaranteed drop. This could also be a decent ISK sink, if for instance they’re only purchased from NPCs, and when dropped become ‘damaged’ cores that sell to NPCs for half-value.
If balanced correctly that makes even trash-tier ships like the disposable ganker ships a more interesting target for hunting, and adds more reward to all forms of PvP.
