Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So "Burn Jita 2" happened this weekend and I got to participate - as a victim, due to my own stupidity. This post probably isn't about what you think I'd suggest. I'm going to suggest a way to let this happen more often, but in a better way.

In a morning, apparently with less coffee than I should have had, I took a freighter to Jita. The gate was busy and it took a bit to get in - that used to be quite common and I didn't really give it much thought (lack of coffee) and then got my freighter blown up. I realized after thinking about that a bit that I didn't even expect that could happen means that high sec is a little boring. In addition, I was annoyed that I couldn't do anything to fix the situation (yes, I have some kill rights now, but it's not likely I can do much with them).

So the half-baked thought is something like this:
The overall idea is to have a good mechanism to allow corps to temporarily overtake a high-sec system and allow others to fight against them - in a way it might be looked at as a player run version of an incursion. Some points:
- after some trigger (not sure of the details on this, maybe some number of acts of aggression in a given timeframe), CONCORD declares wars (without a waiting period) on the offending corporations or alliances (I think this should just be limited to the systems that the aggression happened in or possibly the adjacent systems also). This has two effects:
CONCORD response:
- CONCORD's response changes from just acting on acts of aggression to actively targeting ships from those that it is at war with.
- the response from CONCORD escalates over time - since it has to draw ships from other places - effectively limiting the overall time that all of this can happen to a couple or few days
players options:
- once war is declared in these systems by CONCORD, players not in the offending corps or alliances are allowed to sign up to fight off the invaders - making members of the offenders viable war targets that can be fought (limited to those systems that CONCORD has designated - although another option would be to make this in all of high-sec - only player response in other systems).

This gives Goons (or whoever wants) a mechanism to mess with us "carebears" in high-sec, but also give us a way to fight back to keep our nice little nest. Seems good on both sides…

Obvious problems:
- For this to work, CONCORD has to be less invincible on a larger scale. The invaders would need to be able to gain control of the system for a period of time - they won't keep it, but they need to get it initially.
- This would probably be hard to balance - although having a geometric response in the scale of the CONCORD response (they pull in ships over a broader range over time) would probably make it self limiting

I think this would be hard to balance, but I didn't explain part of the solution well:

- once CONCORD declares war, they attack anyone in the offending corps on sight, it would have nothing to do with aggression timers or anything. Given that and a geometrically increasing response from CONCORD, it would limit things even if no players engaged the enemy.

I agree that it would be sad if no one fought back, but now there isn't even a good mechanism to fight back if you want to (yes there are kill rights, but doesn't cover everyone I'd want to fight in this case). I would have fought today if there was a good way I could have...

Emergent, yeah right... CCP artifically produce a traffic jam on Jita gate and create a shopping gallery, and that's emergent gameplay?

Just let everyone lag in Jita and crash once in a while. Then ppl moves to other hubs. That's emergent.

Having corps control systems is a good idea, but better off in lowsec. I've got an old proposal kicking around about revamping lowsec around this idea, you can dig it up if you want. Doing it in highsec however is a terrible idea; a majority of EVE subscribers live in highsec, they live there for a reason, and CCP is not going to shoot themselves in the foot by pissing them all off.

High security, Not absolute security. Maybe it can changed the security of the system to low when it happens so if you run an autopilot it'll tell you that you're going through a "low security" system. And because it is a High security system it will eventually return itself to high sec without player involvement with concord. Player involvement would just expedite the process. Also the players that take the system over cannot use the gates. So they're stuck there until they're all blowed up and podded.

Concord sov null roams to bust these gatecamps. There, unforeseen. Change is good.

Yes!!! I think that would be awesome for throwing a unique twist into null sec and pump more life into it. They dont have to stay the whole day just pop in occasionally randomly :)

Interesting idea. Needs work and thought but I like the concept of it. Maybe we could tighten security in low sec a teeeeeeeeeeeny bit (just give a small navy presence) and implement a system like this?

Someone posted an idea a while ago that CONCORD should be partially or entirely made up of actually players, which, as crazy as it sounds actually has a lot of potential in my opinion. This kind of thing might be a good step in that direction without diving in the whole way at first.

I'll riff on that for a second to see if I can propose some kind of realistic idea:

So starting off with this "player incursion" kind of idea, NPC CONCORD could crack down on the offending parties, and reward Players who helped them with the regular LP and ISK rewards, but in addition give some kind of special legal status to particularly helpful pilots. For the first stage of this being implemented, this would probably mean that the players get no real power at all. Maybe just some kinds of special notifications from CONCORD when the "incursions" are happening, or something equally meaningful but un-abusable.

After this had been going on for a while, there would be a storyline reason to say that CONCORD has decided that it needs to increase its ranks. My understanding is that all CONCORD pilots are already capsuleers in the fiction anyway, so it would make sense that players could join them.

There would have to be extremely restrictive rules for what a PC CONCORD member could do, and harsh and swift penalties for violating those rules.

Eh, okay, I'm kind of at a loss for some of the details, but it's an interesting thought.

From a gameplay perspective I never liked High sec ganking, its easy and bad for my immersion. I would rather that ganking badgers happened in low sec where the possibility of fighting back against camps is possible rather than setting your freighter on autopilot, watching tv, then your ship gets bumped like a tennis ball and then one shot, only to return 30 minutes later to find yourself dead.
Although it is important for keeping morons in 10bil mission boats in their place.

Look at the thread link in my signature for my suggestion, a sort of blockade of an entire empire would be cooler since it would be easier for people to ban together and fight back.

High-sec doesn't really need to be changed for things like burn jita to become obsolete and replaced by something more interesting.

Carebears would still be able to live in their isolated bubbles, and any large scale events like this would be more likely retained in the pvp areas (mostly).
Traders would still have options for crossing such a barrier (JF, wormhole, cloaking hauler) and Jita would no longer be the only place that mattered in high sec since a bazillion freighters wouldn't be pouring in.

Give the thread in my sig a look, and a bump would be sweet.