Jita Park Speakers Corner

Duly promised.

I'm looking forward to malcanis winning because then I won't have to think for myself about eve problems for a year knowing that my general views are well-represented

which, of course, means more time for p0rn

So first of all I hope you get in to CSM 8, You have always advocated in a sensible, logical way and that is something that is always needed on the CSM.

Now for a policy question.

What are your thoughts on the new Rat AI? Do you think its ok for people who live in null-sec and particularly gurista's space to get a free concord?


What I'm referring to is the rats attacking someone trying to kill the ratter.
The set up: I jump into a system and immediately appear in local. I start a system scan and start d-scanning. After 10 seconds I can now d-scan anomalies for ratters after determining whether or not there are any within 14au.
At this point if I'm extremely lucky there is a ratter withing 14 au and its the very first/only anomaly I have scanned. I can warp to said ratter and expect to arrive on grid within 40 seconds of arriving.
If I don't get lucky increase the time by anywhere from 20-60 seconds.

So now I have landed on grid and heres what happens with the new ai.
For a Tengu all frigates and some cruisers will swap to me instantly.
For a battlecruiser the frigate and cruiser rats swap within almost instantly with there being a split in the battleship rats with the majority of them being on the ratter.
For battleships its roughly the same as battlecruisers
For carriers (and this is hilariously broken) Its normally an instant switch of every rat in the room.
For all ratters de-agression will remove all rat aggro from them within 20-40 seconds depending on rat type.

Now the reason I liken Gurista space to concord is of course because gurista's ewar effect, jamming, but other rat ewar can be just as bad such as Blood raiders neuting out a point.

My proposed fix is to remove ewar against another player from the rat's ai and for the rats to prioritize a target that has/is shooting them over one that isn't.



And finally just for you we shall apply Malcanis' law.
We used to use thrashers solo or fast frigates in small gangs to go and gank expensive ships. Our thrasher of choice is a t1 thrasher with auto's and a small tank. something we use to encourage many of our new players to fly, something that's now no longer possible. The rat ai changes give a massive advantage to ratters, combine that with jump bridges, intel channels and of course the ever present local its almost no longer possible for a new player to solo around 0.0 and not get blobbed/fight nothing.

I'm kind of conflicted. On the one hand I can definately see how it would annoy any Pizza, who basically makes their living with such activities. I know it can be frustrating even trying to get on grid with a ratter, never mind then getting popped by rats as soon as you do.

On the other hand.... yeah I don't see why the ratter should be the one who necessarily has to always to deal with the all rats as well as being attacked.
I guess I'd go for an interim fix that just gives rats a percentage change (modified by how many rats there are on grid) to attack the new arrival on grid. If that sounds like wishy washy weasel words it's because they are; I just can't think of anything cleverer that that right now. I'll keep thinking about it and if I do, or if someone cleverer than me makes a good proposal I'll revisit this issue.

Long term, the answer is to have better rats that require PvP fits and are optimally dealt with by groups of players. Until then there's no obvious solution that will make everyone happy.

Agreed, grouping shouldn't be required, but on the other hand it shouldn't be penalised either; 90% of EVE's PvE content is optimally rewarded by autistic, solo, repetitive, predictable playstyle. I would rather err on the side of favouring group activity. You'll notice that I said "optimal" not "required". Yes, plexes, but plexes are a minority activity as far as PvE goes. Incursions are an example of required grouping. It's quite easy to imagine a rework of anomalies for instance that splits the anoms into those suitable for a single ship (and therefore not realy worth bothering with for a group) and those suitable for a group (and therefore not really feasible for a solo ship).

There's no reason that all missions, for instance, have to be all solo-orientated. Missions used to be very much a group activity back in the day, but difficulty got nerfed and ships got a LOT better so now it's more efficient to solo them. Reduce or eliminate the penalty for declining a mission, let people cherry pick the ones that suit them, whether solo ones or group-orientated ones.

Or better yet: tiercide missions. Turn level 1 missions into the "solo friendly" ones, level 4s into the "better bring some friends", (With level 2/3 being the intermediate steps) and have the agents increase the difficulty of the missions & the reward they give you based on your completion stats.

As for the CCP comment, it was in the original testserver/F&I post (don't recall which forum it was). CCP Foxfour said it wasn't a bug, perhaps not intended, but to HTFU. He said those looking to gank ratters would just have to adapt or bring friends. It shouldn't necessarily be a solo endeavor to kill a ratter. As to the RP version, if you were in a fight and couldn't kill the giant carrier taking out your friends, and some other guy in a frigate warped in, wouldn't you want to take something out before dying?

As to the whole make pve use pvp fits, that'd be great if the ships were being balanced that way, and the missions were being redesigned to accomplish that goal. As CCP Foxfour isn't even on either team anymore as far as I can tell, this is just another thing that someone had a vision for, and was then abandoned as they got moved to do something else.

Well when I go back out it'll be in a dual prop cynabal instead of a triple LSE fit so I can flip the AB on to speed tank both the rats and the ratter, so HTFU challenge accepted I guess. That doesn't mean I don't think it's dumb.

PvP/PvE unification would be a pretty long term goal anyway though, that's a given.

I don't normally vote mate, but will for you.

You're welcome bud.
It's more the fact that your right for the job with common sense, which isn't all that common these days.

Anyway I blame Tippia, his sig made me do it.

Tippia is a menace to all right thinking citizens, and should be made to drink a cup of hemlock.