FearlessLittleToaster
GoonWaffe Goonswarm Federation
202
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Posted - 2017.06.08 23:47:58 -
[1] - Quote
As an (ex) explorer I have to say the change to escalations doesn't make me sad. I did exploration as my sole PvE activity from 2010 until early this year. The thrill of running gate camps, scouting with an alt, and the big find where one site paid for Eve for a month on a good drop was really the hook that got me into Eve. I liked it so much I've written articles about it, taught classes to Goons on it, and held it up as the right balance between risk and reward to anyone who asked. And, as of the start of the year, drops from anom escalations devalued the rewards to much they drove me out of it.
I tried like hell to keep going too. I figured out site spawn theory and started exploring in dangerous areas where others weren't brave enough to go since that got me more sites. I went from two alts to four, from a couple T1 battleships to three spider tanking Domis to three bling-fit rattlesnakes to three sins and a covops-cyno/prober scout to get more efficient at finding sweet sweet deadspace sites. But the value of the drops just kept going down. In the end, even with the sins running sites almost non-stop and the scout doing archeology the whole time, it just didn't pay anymore.
There is more Isk and less risk in almost any other PvE activity, to include active anom ratting in a carrier or faction battleship... and selling the escalations to a site running service. And yes, I could have just bought sites, but it wasn't grinding out 10/10s all day I really loved. It was moving between systems, running sites in hostile space with a red in local and daring them to come in and get me, it was the finding of a system crammed full of signatures after working out where others explored and daring to go where they wouldn't.
As an explorer who misses the PvE that made Eve awesome every minute I sit on rocks and watch my drones grind out spod, I support these changes. I actually have more Isk now, but earning is is a lot less fun. So maybe this change will do a bit to save nullsec exploration from being devalued into the new belt ratting. I can only hope.
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