"Money is in highsec" is widely accepted in EVE, practically every null/low player has highsec alt(s) to make ISK. My recent results proved that even the "get fights" value of null/low is way below highsec leaving it no selling point. Those who are there are either mistaken or just want to fool around.
Still many resist the necessity of serious nerfing of highsec income, based on the idea of "buff null/low" instead, providing rewards to players for moving instead of punishing staying. This won't work. It's not an opinion, as it was tested recently and failed.
8 months ago CCP made a serious design error and provided insane income for FW lowsec in the form of LP print in complexes that could be completed in a one week old frigate while AFK. The LP could be cashed out at insane rates during level 5 zone control. Players participating in it got over hundred billion ISK a month running several of the AFK orbiting frigates. Even a single account could reach 2-300M/hour which was way out of reach for any other PvE activities. The result was devastating inflation, increasing the price of PLEX (practically the amount of ISK in the hands of players) by 20% over 3 months (185%/year inflation). The price of titan BPCs and slave implants doubled. Lot of people got very rich until CCP finally fixed it.
So CCP created the ultimate lowsec income buff. Yet only a few adventurous players responded. Most of the highsec dwellers remained in highsec. Missioning/AFK-mining alts were not replaced by FW orbiter alts in significant numbers, despite the huge income imbalance. Why?
Because highsec income is enough. If you do PvE in highsec, you gain enough money to PLEX your account and pay for your PvP costs. You don't need more income. Sure you could waste billions on never-logged-in titans and solo roaming Machariels and other forms of luxury but you don't need this money. So most people couldn't be bothered to learn how to operate in FW lowsec.
If the totally unbalanced FW rewards couldn't lure people out of their comfort zone, how could any form of balanced null/low income buff have any effect?
To have an effect, highsec PVE income must be nerfed to the point where no form of low/null life can be financed from it, nor PLEXing an account. The second is imperative: since the highsec PvE player provide no content for anyone, there is absolutely no reason for him to play for free. If he quits because he can't PLEX an account, CCP loses nothing. He didn't pay and he kept no one else playing. If his ore or LP is missing from the economy, NPCs selling them could replace it. No, they don't provide content for suicide gankers, since only small portion of highsec PvE players are gankable: the morons. However the first part is also necessary: no null PvP-er should be able to finance himself from highsec PvE, he must PvE in low/null or PLEX.
The above nerf could be done by removing L4s, incursions, complexes over L3 difficulty/reward and every ore but veldspar from highsec. While most fear a highsec exodus, it is neither relevant (they didn't pay for their account anyway) nor likely. Don't forget that highsec play will still remain an ever-increasing wealth. Even if slower, every highsec player would keep on eternally progressing. The fact that they will be blitzing L3s for 10M/hour instead of L4s for 100M/hour is completely irrelevant. And don't forget that a fixed competitive nullsec would gain new players.
The crucial point here is that a fixed nullsec is very newbie friendly while current highsec is not. Why? Because in nullsec blob warfare every pilot is valuable. The current newbie-unfriendliness comes from "we didn't want that space anyway". Many alliances prefer losing their space than giving up their "elite" status, because they really don't need that space as they make money in highsec by AFK retrievers and Vargur bots. If losing their space would mean losing income, they wouldn't treat new pilots like crap.
Still many resist the necessity of serious nerfing of highsec income, based on the idea of "buff null/low" instead, providing rewards to players for moving instead of punishing staying. This won't work. It's not an opinion, as it was tested recently and failed.
8 months ago CCP made a serious design error and provided insane income for FW lowsec in the form of LP print in complexes that could be completed in a one week old frigate while AFK. The LP could be cashed out at insane rates during level 5 zone control. Players participating in it got over hundred billion ISK a month running several of the AFK orbiting frigates. Even a single account could reach 2-300M/hour which was way out of reach for any other PvE activities. The result was devastating inflation, increasing the price of PLEX (practically the amount of ISK in the hands of players) by 20% over 3 months (185%/year inflation). The price of titan BPCs and slave implants doubled. Lot of people got very rich until CCP finally fixed it.
So CCP created the ultimate lowsec income buff. Yet only a few adventurous players responded. Most of the highsec dwellers remained in highsec. Missioning/AFK-mining alts were not replaced by FW orbiter alts in significant numbers, despite the huge income imbalance. Why?
Because highsec income is enough. If you do PvE in highsec, you gain enough money to PLEX your account and pay for your PvP costs. You don't need more income. Sure you could waste billions on never-logged-in titans and solo roaming Machariels and other forms of luxury but you don't need this money. So most people couldn't be bothered to learn how to operate in FW lowsec.
If the totally unbalanced FW rewards couldn't lure people out of their comfort zone, how could any form of balanced null/low income buff have any effect?
To have an effect, highsec PVE income must be nerfed to the point where no form of low/null life can be financed from it, nor PLEXing an account. The second is imperative: since the highsec PvE player provide no content for anyone, there is absolutely no reason for him to play for free. If he quits because he can't PLEX an account, CCP loses nothing. He didn't pay and he kept no one else playing. If his ore or LP is missing from the economy, NPCs selling them could replace it. No, they don't provide content for suicide gankers, since only small portion of highsec PvE players are gankable: the morons. However the first part is also necessary: no null PvP-er should be able to finance himself from highsec PvE, he must PvE in low/null or PLEX.
The above nerf could be done by removing L4s, incursions, complexes over L3 difficulty/reward and every ore but veldspar from highsec. While most fear a highsec exodus, it is neither relevant (they didn't pay for their account anyway) nor likely. Don't forget that highsec play will still remain an ever-increasing wealth. Even if slower, every highsec player would keep on eternally progressing. The fact that they will be blitzing L3s for 10M/hour instead of L4s for 100M/hour is completely irrelevant. And don't forget that a fixed competitive nullsec would gain new players.
The crucial point here is that a fixed nullsec is very newbie friendly while current highsec is not. Why? Because in nullsec blob warfare every pilot is valuable. The current newbie-unfriendliness comes from "we didn't want that space anyway". Many alliances prefer losing their space than giving up their "elite" status, because they really don't need that space as they make money in highsec by AFK retrievers and Vargur bots. If losing their space would mean losing income, they wouldn't treat new pilots like crap.
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