The point I want to make is, it’s all relative and decisions depend on circumstances, and IMO usually not driven by some fixed route. ICD classification aside.
I can be very risk averse with my RL money and of course life, but lose ships (dying in the game) one after each other, as long as it doesn’t harm my ability to play at all (lack of ingame money).
My assessment why people are perceived risk averse is because they lack the money to afford a particular loss or just don’t like to lose at all, which means to avoid playing (PvP).
Managing money and risks to include loss in the equation is not easy sometimes.
EDIT: Just saw your other post. I’m not a native English speaker but “risk averse” for me means, “trying to avoid a risky situation”. Which is different to take on “calculated risks”. And this difference I see in people’s behavior and talks in EvE.
No. This is risk aversion, still. If you say, “I can afford to lose X.” You are still risk averse. You are no different than the guy in Vegas who says, “I have $1,000 to gamble with and if I lose it all, meh…don’t care.” That is literally risk aversion.
Now if you show up in Vegas and say, I’ve taken all the money out of my retirement, took out all the equity in my house, emptied my savings account and and I am putting it on black at the roulette table…then you are risk seeking.
If you say, “I have 200 billion ISK in game and I can afford to fit a ship for 1 billion and go have fun at various systems knowns for gate camps…” You are like the guy with the $1,000 in Vegas. Risk averse.
Yeah…you could, but if you are risk averse it means you are risk averse - i.e., you do not like taking on too much risk. You can try to fight against that in game, but that’s rather hard. Risk aversion means taking on additional risk does not give you extra utility (welfare, pleasure, etc.). For a risk seeker more risk means greater welfare, happiness, pleasure, etc.
If you are calculating risks and seeking ways to reduce the risk then you are risk averse. That says “risk” does not give you any sort of welfare enhancement. That is risk does not make you better off, but worse off.
It doesn’t mean you cannot engage in risky behavior in a controlled manner (limiting your gambling budget, limiting your ship value, etc.). What it means is you seek to avoid risk when you can. If you can’t and the expected reward is still worth it…you take the risk.
Then per your definition any rational human being is risk averse all the time. Then what term would you characterize people who do not manage risks, but want to avoid loss at all regardless their wealth, and furthermore an environment where loss is not possible (only to them)?
There is the concept of loss averse as well. That is, suppose you face an uncertain outcome to a given action. Suppose the loss if is 100 and the gain is 100. A person who is loss averse will weight the loss more than the gain, say 2x the gain. In this case a person will work rather hard to avoid this situation. Even if the probabilities are 1/3 (for the loss) and 2/3. Your expected value is 66.667 - 33.333 =33.334. But since the person is loss averse the loss comes in at 66.666 meaning that the overall “gamble” here is a bust (equals 0).
Yes, you’re correct. Before Crimewatch 2.0 we had some PvPers who liked to stroke their ego by flying around safely in high sec and finding easy targets they could annoy/trick into engaging with them, so they could score an easy kill.
Then we had Crimewatch 2.0, which led directly to EVE’s best year ever, player number wise. And the so-called “PvPers” bailed en masse because now some of the consequences they are so fond of saying should apply to their targets actually applied to them. How completely unfair!
Then once the ‘dust’ settled on 2.0, we got a new crowd of “PvPer” who still wanted to sit safely in high sec and kill easy targets at no risk. They just now had to find situations where the math favored them and looked like they could also score a profit.
So we transitioned from lame PvPers seeking easy targets in high sec, to more lame PvPers seeking easy targets in high sec but also wanting to farm a profit from it.
CCP’s not particularly caring about whether they attract farmer types, or arena types, or ganker types. They’re interested in attracting “the types who pay us the most subs”. The current changes are simply aimed at making not-subbing less viable, and making sub-and-join-a-big-corp/alliance more necessary.
I’m perfectly fine with CCP doing things in ways that will make them the most money. They’re a business, that’s fine. I just think they’re going about it wrong and it will cost them money in the short and long runs.
Exactly. Get ready to move to Null/WH and join a sizeable corp if you want to keep playing. Because sandboxes are all about telling players how they should play the game!
People who want more safety go to highsec.
People who want more risk go to lowsec.
People who want even more risk to go jspace.
People who want to krab in relatively high safety go to null.
In every case was it the sandbox who told the player what to do.
Environments shape decisions. You not liking the decisions the environment forces you to make …
… does not make it any less of a sandbox. It’s not my fault you can’t understand this, is it?
It’s more of a sandbox than all the other games, where you have far less decisions to make …
… and even less freedom to do whatever you want to do, including stealing and scamming.
You feeling entitled to doing what you want also doesn’t make it any less of a sandbox.
Yes, absolutely! So the question here isn’t about “whooo destruction, so good! Whooo anti-farming, yay!”.
I’m perfectly fine with cutting down the egregious ISK farming that was going on in Null anomalies. I’m perfectly fine with the extra trading expenses (which have the greatest impact in high-sec), even though I don’t really see yet (from the data) whether that’s been good or bad for the game. It’s certainly cut down on trading and liquidity of stock though.
However, when 3/4 of your player base prefers wealth-building to PvP, I simply don’t think putting a choke-hold on wealth-building is a great idea. Particularly since it was done in a manner that hurts small players more than big/wealthy players.
So yes, CCP is shaping the environment into the way they prefer it. And that shape is definitely likely to push people in certain directions of gameplay, that’s how it’s always been.
So the real question is, what direction do people think these “ecosystem rebalances” are pushing people in, and is that a good direction for EVE to go?
(Hint: “Scarcity breeds War” is a crock and isn’t doing anything of the sort. In fact these changes make PvP more costly and less likely to be engaged in.)
