Originally by: Kwedaras

---

Risk vs Reward. I am sure everybody heard these words at least a few times while playing eve. Almost every ccps balancing patch (Read: nerf) is based on that. Stabs, nanos, suicide ganking and other nerfed or will be nerfed things render too much reward or too little risk. Now, i want to point out, that this post is not written by a bitter suicide ganker or nanofaag. I must admit that i have tried suicide ganking few months back, i got some kills but that profession was too boring for me. And for nanos - i have 500kish sp in navigation, so no nanos for me.
Lvl4 hisec kill missions.
I think there are two main reasons to do them : money and fun (standings is not a valid reason, if you want high faction standings and do lvl4s, you are doing it wrong, start doing courier missions). The people who do lvl4s for money : chinese farmers, alts of pvpers, pvpers. For fun : carebears.
Rewards.
Typical lvl4 missionrunner should earn about 17.5-20 mil a hour not counting in lp rewards (i got this figure by myself, running missions against guristas in absolution(wrong dmg type, not very high dps)) so rewards can even be higher. I hear guys who are saying, "hey, its just you, i earn 10 mil a hour". My response would be: So if you are doing missions for money, you should find more isk yielding profession. If you are doing them for fun, well, read further. I was also living in lowsec and doing lvl4s there. Three q20 agents is really nice i could choose most suitable missions and reward there was about 30 mil a hour (not counting lp rewards). 0.0 ? It was never appealing for me, but from waht i read people earn 20-30 mil a hour on average (not counting hauler, faction and officer spawns as i was not counting lp rewards, and sure, some might earn even 45 mil, from chaining but i take an average).
Risk
Lets start from other side. 0.0: Risk is quite high. Roaming gangs, enemies make ratters life hard. Some might add that in alliance core systems its pretty quiet. Well thats the point. In order to get to that space you must be a part of the alliance, you must do your duties, defend space, manufacture. It takes hundreds or even thousands of people to cooperate in order to conquer space and make it safe. I give Risk ratio : from 4-10
Low sec. Systems with several good quality lvl 4 agents are commonly visited by pirates. Again, in order to be safe, you need to make a protection force. Some pirates jump in your system, gang is made, and the blob of agentrunners is flying to fight (thats how it was done in system i was missioning). You need to COOPERATE in both cases (lowsec and 0.0). Risk ratio : 4.
Now lets see what we have in empire : You can do lvl4q20 missions freely, even for several agents (there are i think 3 q20 agents in range of 1j in motsu). No need to pay attention all the time (you need in lowsec and 0.0 if you want to stay alive). Also you can try to pimp your ship to a certain level, as suicide ganking is being nerfed and you certainly wont be ganked if you fly a CNR with 500 mil in mods(CN fit). The only left risk is being wardecced, but again, you can leave to npc corp until wardec is dropped. Salvage thieves is not a threat, as they cant shoot you if you are not a moron (Read: you shoot back). Risk ratio : 0-0.01
Risk vs. Reward
So what we get (higher the better) : 0.0 - 45-20/4-10 = from 11.25 to 2. risk vs reward ratio. lowsec - 30/4 = 7.5. And finally : 20/0-01 = from OH SHI-(infinity) to 200
Why lvl4s needs a nerf and not lowsec/0.0 ratting/lvl4s needs a boost : boosting lowsec/0.0 ratting/lvl4s will cause massive inflation, as amount of isk earned will be significantly higher.

---