Originally by: GC13

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You know, I've been pondering this issue. I'm a carebear, so you can't say I'm some ebil pirate trying to drive more victims into lowsec. Rather, I am just keenly aware of why I choose to cower in highsec or 0.0, but never in lowsec.

Lowsec sucks. Why should I go out there? Jaspet is the only good ore that highsec doesn't have, and it's not that much better (is it any better now?) than Kernite or Omber. So remove those two from highsec. Re-balance the other ores in lowsec to be worth mining.

Weaken or remove the rats in highsec. Jeez people, I'm tired of wondering why CONCORD will waste someone suiciding on a macroer in five seconds, but not do anything about the hordes of NPC pirates patrolling the belts. Simulatenously beef up the rats in lowsec. They should get plenty of battlecruisers and a few battleships. Add carriers to 0.0. That should keep 'em on their toes...

This next part, I'm sure, I will revise in the future, but here's what I have right now.

You'd need to totally re-work the agent system too, and even the way NPCs fight. Kill missions in highsec should all be from low quality agents sending you against NPC "raiding parties" who will flee if you damage them heavily and don't tackle them. If they all run, you still get your reward but lose out on the bounties. Give every agent category something they can do for you, just like we have locator agents and R&D agents. I could come up with a few ideas, I'm sure...

Missions in lowsec should be much more lucrative "assault the pirate base" missions where NPCs are much less likely to run. You should have agents of all levels out in lowsec (just like in highsec), and instead balance lowsec by giving it heavier missions and you much more likely to nail bounties.

Outright support players forming groups in missions. Since we're trying to blur the boundaries between NPCing and PvPing so mission runners aren't easy prey, we should also not have mission runners either risking their expensive ships solo in lowsec, or grouping up with no benefit.

Okay, we're on safer ground again.

Since highsec now officially sucks, make it safe haven away from wars, and the purpose of wars be to not lose security when attacking them in lowsec.

Now, the whole goal of this is to use a purely carrot approach to get people into lowsec, since I sure as hell wouldn't be content running junky missions solo in highsec when I could be in a mission corp (which, by the way, would have a point now) running missions in lowsec and slugging it out in fair fights with pirates who tried to gank us.

Alas, I am afraid that we would STILL get people cowering in highsec even with the added rewards of lowsec and the lowered rewards of highsec. This thought is what scares me...

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