I Tip My Hat To You CCP

It's not everyday that CCP pulls a fast one on the majority of the eve universe, but that is exactly what happened in Retribution.  I mean, who has noticed that both Technetium and High-Sec have been nerfed, while low-sec pirating has been buffed?

Imagine the tears that openly stating a nerf to high-sec would have caused. The threads, the tears, the threats to quit eve online with all 5 accounts each high-seccer has.  Yet by nerfing it in a round-about way, and not calling it a high-sec nerf, the threads and tears are minimal, and I've yet to see any threats to quit the game.  If you already haven't figured out how high-sec is being nerfed you need to get Netflix (assuming your the one person on the planet who doesn't have it) and watch more Sherlock.  For those of you still in the dark, I'm talking of course, about the sleeper AI proliferation to all rats.  You see, incursions and sleepers already had "sleeper AI" while their backward inbred cousins, belt and mission rats, did not.  With these changes, the belt and mission rats now switch targets seemingly randomly, rather than simply focusing on the first target they aggro.  Yet, this doesn't matter much in belts as at most, there are 5-6 rats in a belt, and are almost always soloed (hence, no targets to switch).  Yet in missions (especially Level 4s), where there are a multiple of that many rats, many people would run them in groups of 2-3 toons, either 1 tank + a dps ship or two, or a couple battleships with a logi.  Yet now, all toons in the site must tank, and even the logi will now gain aggro, making missions, a staple of high-sec income, more of a challenge (I use the term challenge loosely here).

I believe the buff to low-sec pirating is fairly clear (gate guns 'forget' you if you warp off and back) and will now focus on how Technetium was nerfed.  I spoke somewhat about this in my post Winter is Coming.  You see, these tritanium built t1 cruisers are becoming somewhat of a norm for "everyday" fights, whereas the technetium built t2 stuff is left in the garage for fights that must be won.  The T1 cruiser has been tiercieded to where it is now the "everyday" car, whereas that T2 cruiser has been relegated to only be flown on nights you wish to impress the opposite gender.  Sure, the T2 cruiser still has a purpose, but the game is no longer T2 or bust.