Mabrick is a carebear. That’s the life he chooses. It isn’t a life forced upon him or one he wishes he could change. It’s what he wants to be. That said, don’t take him for noob. He’s been around the block a time or five. With over 15 years of MMO playing under his belt and a memory that reaches back to pencils and dice, he offers his insights into the not so virtual reality we call Eve Online.
Mabrick’s Mumblings: The Nature of a Carrot
Last week Jester said I dropped the ball. First though, he said I was “usually very good about care-bear concerns.” Now that’s a masterful way to take the sting out of just about anything. It wasn’t that I dropped it so much as delivered too much toe under the ball and missed the goal. My ball sailed over the defender, the upper bar and straight on out of play. And it was a free kick even! C’est la vie.
Then on Thursday, EVE News24 ran this article from Syncaine: The highsec Player does Not Exist. “That’s the right play!” I thought to myself. Syncaine is so absolutely correct. There is a group of players living and working in high-sec who will never leave high-sec unless it is to move to a different game. Let’s call them True Carebears. They are the ones I don’t want hit with the stick. They are the ones I was thinking about when I wrote that post. This group by default includes all new players regardless of PvP disposition as far as I’m concerned.
Everyone else living and working in high-sec is in the second group. They are in high-sec to make ISK or for whatever reason they feel high-sec is more advantageous than anywhere else for the things they do. They are the malleable group. They may grumble about change, but so long as it isn’t something like Incarna they will adapt. They are the ones who CCP can “entice” into low-sec. Let’s call them Pseudo Carebears.
The nut of the problem is CCP can’t use high-sec station changes to target one group without also targeting the other. Increased taxes and reduced refining rates and all those sorts of things apply to everyone. When too much of the stick is applied to things they value most, True Carebears will leave. CCP can i’ll afford to drive out any subscribers.
That leads to my overly broad observation that low-sec needs to be more advantageous than high-sec for the things they do – they being the Pseudo Carebears. But as Jester correctly pointed out, you can’t make something less expensive than practically free. But can you make it more advantageous?
What CCP needs to do is better understand how those two groups are different. CCP needs to identify high-sec benefits for the Pseudo Carebears that hold little value to True Carebears. Once they identify those benefits, CCP does not need to worry about driving off the True Carebears. They can target changes to those benefits with significance only to the Pseudo Carebears.
Here is my attempt at listing high-sec benefits and which group values that particular benefit most. Initially I was going to do a them-us-both sort of categorization. After getting most of the way through it, I think that may be way too simplistic. All things are valued by both groups but usually more so by one than the other. So I whipped out Excel and I did up a quick spreadsheet with relative percentage valuations and a nice chart.
- Mabrick
I like most of those ideas, it's good stuff. Removing incursions from highsec would probly curb-stomp the incursion community though. But removing POS's from high, I LOVE IT. That would be an amazing conflict driver in low and turn station systems into something to be fought over. Not to mention all the new targets when pseudo carebreas leave high. But I can only think of what it would do to t2 prices…
Reading your post I'd say you're stood stupid be be writing a blog, much less play a game as complex as eve. Remove hi sec pos's. Remove hi sec jump clones or make them capital price? Are you fucking retarded? "From what I've read jc's are just used to travel from null to hi" what bullshit have you been reading? People use them as a means of traveling between long distances. Maybe I run a lot of lvl 4's so I need to travel long distances between different agents and don't want to fly my tengu 80 jumps so I have assets and jc's at each location. Fuck true care bears. This psudo bear is now going out of his way to gank you and those in your corp.
Agrees especialy since having a JC in highsec requires you to have a 8.0 standing with the station holder…… thats not something you can get over night.
These are all good ideas. Nerf highsec I say. The real money should be in null, low and WH space.
Real money is alredy in 0.0 what game are u playing, I make a bil a day running anom w/salvage
all these changes = a lot of subscribers saying wtf i spend all these time only to have my investment get destroy because people are complaining that not a lot of people are living in low sec. Since when do people live in low sec to live? They go to low sec to kill!
Personally, I believe that removing POSes from HS would be a monumentally bad idea given the current POS structures. It would make faction standings mean a lot less, Caldari towers would be unused for all intents and purpose, the costs for running a POS would be a lot higher with the number that were able to be destroyed without a second thought, et al. Admittedly, it would be a conflict driver for low-sec and researchers could just use the Scientific Networking skill, but that's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Many 'carebears' use POSes, and there are even whole alliances based around using HS research slots.
Changing 0.5 and 0.6 to low-sec would have to be the stupidest idea I've heard on the forums or evenews. What you're saying is that all factions would be cut off from one another by low-sec zones. Costs for all items, whether factional or general, would skyrocket due to the cost of logistics and likely loss of goods. The inter-factional low-sec systems would become more populated than Rancer, Old Man Star, Amamake, et al. Better ideas than this for segregating faction space have been introduced and shot down on the forums.
The Jump Clones removal from HS might be a good idea, as few carebears use JCs. I do use them, but they aren't a crucial part of my game plan. Their cost should also be increased exponentially. This is perhaps the only redeeming quality of this article. Like the other author said, the change would have an impact, but not a drastic one due to the costs of manufacturing being such a small portion of the total costs, similar to when CCP introduced the 11% tax rate on NPC corps.
You people are idiots, your idea that carebears live in highsec because they are risk averse is ignorant in the extreme.
Have you seen the spodumain mining people have to do in 0.0 grav sites?
Have you considered the inability for a corp to tax mining in 0.0 without station access ?
Have you thought about the -25% to POS refineries for those without station access?
Have you even slightly considered that these guys a lot of the time wouldn't even get sstation access because they are miners and thus are automatically nerfed by CCP for even trying to go to 0.0 ?
These are a few of the issues the current so called "industry CSM" has overlooked and not even mentioned to CCP.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I hate to admit it, but for the first 8 months of my play time, I was a miner. 5 months of that were in 0.0 (where I shed the bear cloak and donned the "elite pvp" hat). I first mined in NPC 0.0, where station access is free and clear. Then I moved to sov space, where my corp rented a system we did not control. And yes, the corp that owned the station taxed the ore we refined (10%).
That being said, let me address your points one by one:
A.) Spod sucks, no one mines it unless they have to (only in the large grav sites, as you want to flip those as often as possible to make the most amount of ISK for your time.
B.) You lose 25% when you don't use a station. Why would you do that? POS refineries are for Deep W-space. There's no sense in using it anywhere else.
C.) See point B. Also, if you are in 0.0, you get station access. If you don't, then you're a ninja miner and you'd benefit from a rorq to bring your ill begotten goods to low-sec for refining.
D.) You apparently have never been in a Mining corp in a 0.0 alliance or you are butthurt that you got kicked/punted for being retards.
PS…not sure if trolling….
I like these ideas, but think low-sec still needs tweaking. If you make .5 and .6 "low-sec" systems, I think there needs to be a gradiation, such as no gate/station guns in .1, .2 and .3 systems (which would make it like low-sec but without bubbles) and gate/station guns as they are now in .4 .5 and .6 systems. Just a thought.
*make it like nullsec but without bubbles*
I actually like this idea. perhaps only take the station/gate guns out of 0.1 and 0.2 though. The "safer" part of low-sec needs to be slightly bigger in order to pull more of the high-sec dwellers out.
Good point
Conferming The ramblings of a retard who has yet to understand how this game works, remove high sec POS's you say???? Are f'ing mad???
I think this is one of his weaker arguments. Most people I know that never leave high-sec actually just build things. They need the POS towers to manufacture/research. Pretty sure a large portion of the "true carebear" population he talks about would indeed be alienated by this.
I believe he would put those people into the Psuedo Care Bear category. I've always wanted to get into manufacturing though, and high-sec seems like the best place to get started, however even to set up a hi-sec POS it's expensive and very difficult for someone to do solo, just testing whether or not they like it. I would prefer to have hi-sec POS ability to rent slots out, and owner corp makes profit and empire faction gets taxes at a much higher rate than low sec. Stations really shouldn't be used for manufacturing anything higher than T1 and smaller sized ships (not sure if this is how it is now). This would force larger manufacturing operations into POS, and those wanting to profit out into low-sec.
It's actually surprisingly easy to setup a high sec POS… took me 2 weeks with an alt to grind standing, while running my corp on my main, takes about 1b to fit it with more labs and guns than you'll ever need, 200m a month to run it… Is it high end solo carebear? Yep, but it's only a month of mining for a dual boxing miner (including plexing that spare account) and then 4 days a month of heavy mining for to support your passive income until it before self supporting (assuming you don't PI+ice mine to make your own fuel).
I've done this, my main is 3 1/2 months old, my alt is 2 1/2 months old. While I am probably in the Pseduo Carebear end of the carebare spectrum, I'm also abandonding my high sec POS as I move out into low sec. Without high sec POSes, I probably would have had a hard time justifying a that expense with the threat of a dread hot dropping before I had the experience of fueling, handling research, understanding the force field, ext..
Right esp. With blueprint copying and ME its so much effecient to be run out of a POS because. Every station lab isbacklogged forever. Let's say if. You did this, the majority of industy would go belly. Up and would present a "Too big to fail" senario.
Currently the Incursions hit specific constellations that are exclusively hisec, nullsec, lowsec. I think a good move for the hisec Incursions would be to straddle constellations, or include constellations that incorporate lowsec, placing the HQ in the lowsec. This way, the vanguards will be run, but all the HQ sites would be in lowsec and would have to be run, and completed, if the CONCORD LP are to be paid out.
I already read a couple good ideas in the CSM minutes that involve boosting the actual threat of the Incursions, having gate camps on gates in hisec, allowing certain systems to "deplete" of Sansha presence through activity, and to have the Incursion to spread if it isn't dealt with, potentially landing in market hubs, camping stations, etc. Currently they are just a thing to do, like missions, where they should be something that has to be done, with rewards that are equally enticing.
lol what is left ( ~30%) of the shield community would have an absolute shit fit if the HQ systems were all moved into LO SEC.
Currently Incursions are the only worth while group activity in HI SEC worth fleeting for.
Who cares, if they don't like it find a pulsar WH
Amen to High sec nerf. Kill pubbies
CCP broke Incursions which were once a success story as proclaimed by Dr E last fanfest. Not a single lo/Null Incursion has been completed since Escalation & the numbers playing them were absolutely decimated. It wasn't that the Incursion community went to arms: it screamed death cries as CCP Devs ignored it for months.
FYI if you want a measure of Incursion True carebears check out how many 'Island' Incursions ( incursions seperatated by the rest of Empire by swaths of null or lo sec jumps) are actually run.
JC clones may not be used by you in hi sec but there are others that switch between clones to save stupid jumps between mission hubs, between incursion sites, impanted characters fot for industry or better mining or scanning clones.. You may not have seen the logic, but other uses for JC are around.
but Over all his thread wasnt about incentive it was about nerfing again…..seriously you didnt give it any thought Mabrick
Conferming getting protest baddons on "stand byy"
How Care Carebears want? XD
I believe that 90% True Carebears don't give a fuck about efficiency. They just do things because they can, and don't stop it if it doesn't pay as much as used to.
For example there are miners and industrials who just build stuff for fun and don't even calculate would they make off more by just selling the ores. Mission runners who are more thinking about how fast you can destroy NPC's (or suprisingly often: how good tank you can get to your ship) and get mission done, regardless what it pays as long as it's the top thing to do solo in high sec.
Well how about making nullsec an interesting place to go for people who don't want to be in giant corporations?
Or how about putting something really valuable in lowsec? Ok there is LP farming and hey that got a response however that's going away. My small group does go there on roams for fights however that's not the same as living there.
Right now I live in a wormhole with a small corp but I figure after they "fix" high sec, which I see nothing wrong with while leaving the other two spaces Null and Low sec alone in which there is plenty wrong they will go after wormhole space to force us all finally into low or null sec too.
At which point I just leave the game if it's all dominated by large corporations small groups don't have a chance against
Someone has to pay me real money in real life to jump for a giant corporation it's not my idea of fun and I'm not paying for it Pretty soon null is just goons and test and I really don't give a damn about them and the wars aren't interesting when they always win which they will with the numbers at this point. So do I think there is a lot wrong with Hi sec? No. Null sec, hell yes it's becoming the most boring and predictable part of the game and just one big inevitable alliance blob.. Low sec could use more stuff, and wormholes more content. Why are they fixing a non broken part of the game? Why all the focus on hi-sec.? Put something interesting in low or new stuff wormholes if you want them to go there instead of hi-sec, faction warfare lp farming has already proven people will go if enticed. Null sec just means a big alliance, predetermined fights by numbers, and many of us leaving the game instead.
Dafaq did i just read
– Drastically improve low. That means payouts. That means sanshas stash their treasury there. Whatever.
Protect lowsec from null. Cut the hotdrop faggotry. No bubbles either. In low, there should only be players, their ships, skill and firepower. You want to grab him, point him. Anybody can go there, but when they do they gotta put their balls on the line. If this means lowering pos hitpoints – so be it. With no capitals there's no abuse.
– Give candy to high-seccers. Fluff, but with no ISK substance. Stuff that is less than good for lows and nulls. Ruining incursions in high is stupid. Its one of the few things that is worthwhile and allows people to team up.
LV 4s are ridiculous and teaming up is sub-optimal, so it isn't done even if people want to.
– In NULL, players should be an alliance's money maker – and thus valuable. NOT moon goo. Moons should help. If player activities on null are what generates money for the alliance, then roaming fleets and disruption start to matter. Small actions become important, because when your ratters dock, your alliance boss yells and people undock to shoot it out.
Make players matter. Make player actions matter more.
low sec would definitiely make more sense to me if it was "high sec" but without concord. I even think no status hits would make sense in low. If the cops aint around, how they gonna know?
Cause they got their black box in your ship telling them exactly what you're doing all the time. How do they know to pay bounties in nulsec? Do the rats tell them they got blown up? Is there a killmail for npcs? This is why we have to pay them for Sov even though they do nothing for the sov holder except 'allow' more features…
holy crap, i cannot begin to explain how wrong you are with believing any of those changes would help eve. it would turn highsec into a bunch of safe islands, with lots of dangerous space around it, with no inbetweens for things to be moved. jita would die. the entire economy would die. prices would double and triple, maybe even worse. you would have to jump clone just to find certain goods, and then you would have the risk of moving them back, but WAIT, now your jump clones are a bil each, so you probly dont have one. oh and dont even get me started on taking POS out of highsec, literally the dumbest idea i have ever heard in relation to trying to make EVE better … are you trying to bankrupt CCP or just enjoy watching the world burn? no POS in highsec means you have to wait weeks now, or maybe even months for your single rifter to be even built. and dont even get me started on the research. especially this on top of changing .5 and .6 to lowsec, there would be even MORE people crowded in the safe systems competing for the same slots, making them even more crowded.
TL;DR, your suggestions would kill eve, and make it almost unplayable, and it would be gone in 2-3 months. i seriously hope if CCP even reads your blog, that all they do is laugh at your idiocy.
If anything, they should open up 0.8's and 0.9's to be pos filled, and let the lowsec modules (refineries, reactions, moon harvesting) be turned on in 0.4's, 0.5's and 0.6s. I mean, why did that last highsec moon I anchored at have Vanadium on it when I couldn't mine it? Why does my new one have atmo and silicates? I'm pretty sure there is probably a few tech moons around as well, just randomly generated up in Caldari space, that no one has discovered because 'high sec doesn't have moon goo to mine…'
ARE YOU MAD?
first off do you know how many 0.6 or 0.5 system that connects highsec that will drive away the "True carebears" you talk about
secondly remove POS from highsec are you serious that will drive away allot of industrial players from the game and i would cancel 4 out of my 6 accounts basicly the POS i use pays for my PVP think about that. and not only will it swamp the ME/PE/Inventionslots on the stations in high and the cost for EVERY T2 module in game will atleast tripple in cost. as the industry can't coop with this change.
Removing Incursion from highsec will drive away even more player….
good job sir the game would be dead before december if they implemented it now.
CCP can't ignore 60% of its player base and shouldn't either.
There is no easy answer but i repeat my self
instead of NERFING highsec boost lowsec thats ALOT more popular.
"New targets". Right, thats their ambition in life.
Why do all the retards want to force others to come to their playground in their terms to pad their epeen? Do you think they would come, or repeat the experience after being roflstomped by gatecampers?
They would "play smarter" indeed, by going off and play a game they liked.
Maybe YOU would accept the new terms imposed on you, but if somebody wanted to FORCE me to mine, I
can assure you that mining would be exactly what would NOT happen.
Honestly here is a better suggestion that doesn't drive away most of the highsec dwellers.
the idea is based on how i view EVE and how it should be
Highsec — safe place to do PVE
Lowsec — the wild west where you go in for the PVP game
Nullsec — where you play the cutthroat game of diplomacy with guns.
first off you must accept the following keynotes due to risk/reward ratio
* Traders will stay in highsec making mountain of ISK
* Mission runners stay in Highsec running missions in there pimped ship
* Industry player build in highsec
* Highsec miners stay in highsec
* Incursion runners in highsec is realy beaten down comunity right now
So how do we solve the issue in Highsec/Lowsec/Nullsec that we face?
1# POS revamp I see this as the main thing CCP should focus on.
— with a goal of everyone want to own a pos they need to fix so that your own standing should matter not the corp when setting up a POS
— once thats in place CCP can remove station service from 80% of the highsec stations you want to build/invent on your own. everyone want that.
2# Make the other Lowsec system a struggle between Faction military and the local pirate faction
— this could make lowsec station switch from (example) Amarr –> Blood Raider
— system controll is based on warfront in the system. withi minimal structure grind and maximum rat killing.
– Pirate players will get a new home can create access to Pirate faction missions and still not suffer from there standing.
3# Highsec Harder missions
— Call current level 5 missions Level 6 missions
— create a new level5 missions for highsec thats basicly Level4 missions but is based to be played as a group and can act as a middle ground between Level4 and Level5
4# create real shortcuts through lowsec
— for example Jita –> Dodixie is 15 jumps (2 trade hubs)
how about making it so that you can do it in 5 jumps though Lowsec?
5# Add more incursions from more factions i want to see an Amarr Incursion going towards a Mimmatar Militia area and if they don't take it out the system will be flipped. same can be done in all lowsec systems with all the pirates/empire factions.
I'm all for most of these changes, although removing incursions from highsec really won't change carebear dynamics – the crappy payout is not the reason that nobody does lowsec incursions.
Instead of making 0.5 and 0.6 lowsec, i'd suggest making them a sort of intermediate between high and low. Instead of concord have faction navies respond to GCC, and make them strong but beatable, with a reset time once the initial response squads are taken out.
This would be a way to ease the bears into more dangerous space, but would be inconvenient for classical piracy, leaving lowsec with a purpose still.
The tears and screams of rage on this thread from people who are indeed Pseudo-Carebears shows that Mabrick's suggested nerfs work.
Very pretty chart, any actual research done on what carebears find most useful in Highsec, or are these numbers plucked from your own view on what players (you) need in empire space…
especially this on top of changing .5 and .6 to lowsec, there would be even MORE people crowded in the safe systems competing for the same slots, making them even more crowded.