And the game population grew faster when it was that way. They made it easier and it didn't help a whole lot, actually leveled out growth. Why play EVE as an easy game when there are so many other easy games to choose from already? If these new players are first introduced to easy going gameplay, then that's the type of player CCP is going to attract while turning away the other, and they will either quit or cry for changes once things get into the normal gameplay of EVE. Those are people that should just never get past the trial and find another game.

It's related, and not just tangentially so.

The game is most fun when it is not a chore. The game is not a chore when you can find income and content around where you live - this sort of makes a self feeding loop of content generation, and suddenly chores can become very interesting. Conversely, when local income is so bad or so sub-optimal, you spend more of your time away from places that could be interesting if there was a stable population and something to fight over, and more of your time acquiring the risk free isk of HS.

Syndicate is one of the most violent regions in the game; it has a great location in terms of accessibility and adjacent regions, and harbours lots of people who like to shoot at each other. However, Syndicate is also one of the poorest regions in the game - the LP store is a joke compared to any other pirate LP store (including HS SoE), DED sites don't pay well any more, etc etc...there's no way to support yourself out there. You have to chose between roaming/being in syndicate generating content, or making money where it is plentiful and accessible. For the amount of ISK, minerals and other resources Syndicate makes, it punches extremely above its weight in terms of lossmails and content it generates.

Which is the whole thing of why it is damn important to deal with HS income - both HS income being too good, and NPC Null/Low income not being high enough, creates content vacuums. So long as people are on their alts or mains, earning income places they don't live, content dries up and the game is more of a chore than it needs to be. Put the money where the danger is and the game would be more fun - you can get in trouble AND make some ISK at the same time rather than neatly partitioning it into chore and non-chore. When you compare EvE to another game, the ratio of chore to fun comes to mind, and there would be much less of said chore factor if risk/reward was given a hard look at.

The other half of the problem right now is the ship meta. There are no fun fights left, or very few, since everything is so fast and kitey. Getting a good fight when all the best comps now can easily disengage or chose not to fight makes the game even more of a chore, on top of having to buy the ships in the first place.

I've run as many as 4 alts (a mach or rattlesnake +3 with either smart bombs, assigned drones or FoF missiles) and have never been able to break 240-260 mil per hour total. OR I can make that much with ONE BOMBER in FW, or a sizeable fraction of that with ONE MACH in high sec, or join up with a wormhole corp we are blue with and mae REAL isk.

What Genre would you call Elite Dangerous then... "Good"?

Its a space ship game, that you can fight, mine, trade and do it all solo or in groups with better balance of force projection and quicker access to action. It also requires the user to be present at his/her keyboard and has so much space and exploration that only 1/10th of the game has even been discovered yet.... Its also free each month, so you get more value for your money after say month 4 or 5 than you do with Eve...

My account here can't run out of time fast enough.