Zar Arstop
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Posted - 2010.05.18 17:06:00 -
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The issue at its base is that PVE + PVP don't mix well.
PVE ships, and certainly the BS's set up for lvl 4 missions are horrible at PVP. Faction, Dead Space, Officer fittings are not uncommon on PVE ships and can push the ship value into the billions.
In high sec, a multi billion isk fit CNR for example can run lvl4s with next to no risk. In low sec that same ship is slow, easy to scan down, its active shield tank destroyed by a neut, while its cruise missiles are far from effective vs. small/fast/close range PVP ship worth a fraction of the isk.
End result is that in general, even a huge bump in the rewards to missions in low sec I don't think will see a large jump in people running missions there unless the mission are changed in such a way that allows (even encourages) them to be run in PVP hulls/fits or the two are more balanced
Risk vs. reward is one thing, another is feeling that you at least have a chance to fight back and in general most PVE vs. PVP fit fights are decided before the first shot is fired. Most pirating is simply ganking carebears with no real chance of fighting back.
Going forward I'd love to see a rebalancing by addressing PVE vs. PVP fits + NPC AI in missions etc. but it is a huge undertaking. Shipping up for PVP or PVE should just be "setting up for combat" not the 2 very different things they are now.
Short term there are some smaller fixes that I think would make things more balanced/interesting however:
-Change the overview to only read hull type. As an example: Is it a Scorp, Navy Scorp, Rattlesnake, Widow ... get close enough to see what color the paint on the hull is to find out. They are 4 very different ships. This simple dumbing down of the UI offers an element of surprise/unknown to combat that I think would make picking only fights you can win much harder and in general make PVP more fun across the board.
-Add Q ships. "Yes, it looks like a Badger, but I removed the cargo hold and replaced it with a huge drone bay, surprise!". With the above overview change all sorts of interesting things become possible.
Over all however, breathing life into low sec and giving it an outlaw flavor will need some means of giving carebears teeth. Just bumping rewards on missions there will not draw people in. No one wants to be prey no matter what the rewards. It will need a means of balance that offers a chance to both sides. A pirate appearing beside a PVE fit BS tanking a room full of NPCs will pretty much send the carebear back to high sec. unless he feels he has at least a reasonable chance to fight back.
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