Malcanis wrote:The idea that one must be ">" than the other is outmoded, divisive thinking. It leads to such arrant nonsense as people supposing that what is good for hi-sec is necessarily bad for null, and vice-versa, when in reality, improving hi-sec (and by "improving" I mean making those activities more fun, not increasing the ISK that can be ground per wallet flash) is nothing but good for null, and vice versa.
Both should be valid playstyles, able to cater to a variety of playstyles that span the spectrum of risk:reward from greater to lesser. Lo-sec too.
Whilst I agree with you Malcanis, if you're looking at criteria, then you can have some areas better than others.
stupid quick examples from my own experiences:
overall feeling "safe" to do stuff (usually just passing through)
hisec & soverign null > w-space/NPC null > low
fights without worrying about stupid NPC consequences
null/w-space > empire
fights without "surprise!" (or at least limited surprises)
w-space > k-space
not having to deal with too many politics
hisec > low/w-space/null
overall balance of the above:
w-space/null > hisec > low
Now, it's a very quick list and built from my own experiences. However, the overall "is better than" list is broken. It really should read that w-space/null is on top, followed by low, followed by hi. BUT that is not to say that hi is worthless and shouldn't continue to be balanced.
IMHO, hisec is "too safe" for people, and really does them a dis-service in that they don't really get involved with EVE. Yes, there are and always will be the types who don't want to go lower than 0.5, or that don't want to go higher than 0.4 and that's totally cool. The best fix to this would likely be blurring 0.9 to 0.1 better -- so that there aren't any real "steps" anymore
Currently, this is a rough list of how the system sec works:
1.0 -0.9 --> no rats, nothing really useful
0.8 --> rats introduced
0.7 - 0.5 --> progressively harder rats
0.4 --> no concord, welcome to supercaps online.
0.3 - 0.1 --> progressively harder NPCs, moongoo extraction.
0.0 --> Nice system, we'll take it.
What if the lines were a little blurrier
1.0 --> no changes
0.9 --> rats introduced
0.8 - 0.7 --> no changes
0.6 - 0.5 --> remove CONCORD, replace with navies (navies can be avoided, system rules otherwise unchanged)
0.4 --> no navy, welcome to supercaps online
0.3 - 0.1 --> no changes
0.0 --> no changes
in 0.9 - 0.0, reduce the respawn timers on rocks (no more of this once/day stuff).
Now, slow down CONCORD in 0.9 - 0.7 systems, essentially to what happens in 0.5 or 0.6 now (20-30 sec or so). Have the navies work in waves, with the waves showing up in the same timelines as CONCORD (20-30 sec)
first wave -- normal navy ships (IIRC, no scrams)
second wave -- scrams brought in
third wave -- enough DPS to concordokken you if you're still alive.
With that then, you can choose to sit around through the first wave and GTFO just as the second is coming in (so about a minute). If you run from the navy, you have 15 minutes to bounce around the system before the gates/stations let you pass. Now, since you're running from the Navy, they won't bother with the "waves" as you're running around. You'll have 20 sec or less to re-enter warp after you've landed at a celestial or safespot before the CONCORDOKKEN fleet arrives. For those of you thinking "hey, i'll just safe up and cloak" -- the navy will cheat in this regard (i.e. see right through your cloak).
Yes, this means gankers can probably kill a few hulks and get away free and clear. This ALSO means that the hulks can have their own defence fleet who can gank you first (allowing the miners to GTFO), rather than sit and watch their mates DIAF.