Jita Park Speakers Corner

Hello CSM,

As you might be aware () there is an 80 page thread in General Discussion about suicide ganking.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=352595&find=unread

In this post, I will not ask for suicide ganking mechanics changes or anything similar, but rather for an answer to the original question of the thread: "Has suicide ganking become a problem?"

As you can see in the "Serach" of the thread, the only response from CCP dev was:


That post did not add anything valuable to the discussion and the response was only good for one side - and this is the important part - without any data to back up CCP's stance that suicide ganking isn't really the problem and without any intention to show the other side in the discussion that their assumptions about the significantly increased volume of suicide ganking are incorrect.

Please note that I have utmost respect for CCP Falcon and that I completely understand that the statistics could not be presented to the community at the time because they obviously don't exist.


So, I'm asking CSM and CCP to provide data, statistics and an objective analysis of the alleged significant suicide ganking increase. I'm not asking you to prove one side or another right or wrong, if you don't want to. I'm just asking for a pure statistical approach of the alleged problem that has attracted enough attention to form an 80 page thread and numerous other discussions (apart from being discussed in game by players who don't even use forums).

If the statistics are not done and CCP's official stance on the [lack of the] problem presented to the community, the discussions in every thread on the same subject will feel for both sides like banging their heads against a concrete wall with both sides not listening to another one's arguments, playing with semantics and quoting out of context. This also attracts a fair amount of trolls and rule breaking posts, which I'm sure our friends from ISD can confirm.

Thank you for your attention.

The problem about producing statistics is that it will be interpreted in different ways.

Say a daily average 200 billion is suicide ganked in eve-online, 20% more than 3 months ago.

Is 200 billion a lot when compared to all the ships destroyed in Eve-online on a daily basis?

Is 200 billion a significant amount when compared to daily creation of isk in the economy?

What if its broken down by geographical location average income per player, (null / high sec losses) included / excluding passive income sources?

My point is that you can find a way of framing the statistics to support an argument that x/y/z in condition 1/2/3 is unacceptable and therefore should be balanced. The question should be what aspects of the game mechanic "suicide ganking" is considered unfair, (to both parties.)?

Although I'm generally against suicide ganking as a primary play style (but I do have an alt for it), I honestly don't think that we are nowhere near "too far" point, but that's only my personal opinion without any data to back it up. What data can be found on killboards simply isn't enough to confirm or deny the validity of my opinion.

My interests in statistics are the following:

The health of the game. I agree that any play style is valid, but if it hurts the game itself it should be looked into. EVE is based on diversity of things that you can do in the game. If one play style in a certain area, like highsec, quickly becomes dominant (like in the arguments of the "anti-gank" community), then balance of the game is hurt. Even if the statistics show that this is the case, it doesn't necessarily mean that suicide ganking as mechanics needs to change - it means that other available mechanics and play styles in the same area (highsec) are not interesting or engaging enough to attract all those players who see suicide ganking as their primary play style. One of the most prominent qualities of EVE is its diversity and if the diversity is damaged by quick and massive rise of one play style, something is wrong with the balance.

Whether you support suicide ganking or not, the fact remains that it is one of the lowest, most basic forms of PvP (if we can even call it that) in a PvP oriented game. While many other PvP activities, including highsec wars where a bunch of experienced players wardec a corp of newbs, offer active engagement of both involved sides, suicide ganking by it's definition offers active engagement to only one side, while the other side must rely on mostly passive methods of defense. One of the examples of that is that the defender is limited mostly to defensive actions with a very limited possibility to fight back during a handful of seconds between GCC timer start and CONCORD intervention. Counter-attack options, which are a primary way of providing both sides engagement in the game, do not exist for any player that sees hunting down a bunch of low cost ships in a time frame of only several seconds as a tedious, pointless, waste of time activity that brings nothing to the quality of their game.

EVE is a game and must be observed like a game. Defenders in suicide ganking do not have and can not get, apart from very rare edge case occasions, a sense of involvement or accomplishment in the action itself. Involvement and accomplishment are primary motivations of playing the games. IF statistics show a significant [increase in] suicide ganking activity, whether you like the activity or not the amount of players that receive a game that does not offer them sense of engagement or accomplishment will increase and that produces lower subscription numbers.



As an 8 years veteran in EVE, I know all of the mechanics that one can use to avoid being a victim, but many of the players apparently don't. If the statistics does not confirm a significant increase of suicide ganking enough to alert CCP to consider looking at the game design itself, only then we can talk about educating players about the ways to avoid being a victim. I say "only then" because it's ultimately pointless to try to "fix the problem" with education if the game balance is hurt and game design bad.

Two reasons are for this:

- The players who see themselves as victims will not listen (as shown in the mentioned thread) to education if they think that CCP as a game designer does not pay any meaningful attention to what they see as a problem, which ultimately leads them to believe that the mechanic is broken and the developer just does not care - whether it is or is not the case. If players don't trust the developer, they will certainly not trust or even pay attention to the advices of other players;

- Those of us who like to contribute to the community with useful advices and education simply don't see the point of trying to help if the game balance and design is broken to the point where most of the invested educational effort would not see any results. I have been doing this for years with good results working with groups of players that I have contact with, but I'm starting to wonder if that makes any sense if the game itself is broken. After all, the only truly effective long term solution that worked is abandoning high-sec altogether, which makes the game experience more poor;

In any community, including EVE, a very small amount of motivators and educators are needed and engaged to influence a large amount of people. However, if rules and laws of the community (which translates to rules and mechanics of the game) are badly designed or unbalanced, any unbalanced activity will escalate to a point where it's statistically visible and becomes a problem. We then obviously can not balance the activity with education, but rather with changing the rules and laws themselves. This is why statistics would help. Also, any meaningful, objective and insightful observation from CCP as a game designer on the subject of suicide ganking would help a great deal. If nothing else, it would at least re-assure one of the sides in the discussion that their concerns about the game's health are listened and taken into account, even if the official statement is not in their favor - but only if the statement is backed with objective data and statistics. "Gray area" and even a possibility for interpreting the data and accompanying analysis in different ways would mean that this might be an activity worth observing in the future because it isn't a problem (yet) but requires at least some monitoring attention in the future. It is currently unknown if it's at all monitored, which is a problem with community management that can be easily resolved with one statistics devblog.

Of course, it's not an easy task, but it should be done.

Numbers I want to see is as follows:

Number of freighters undocked in highsec during one average 23.5 hour period.
Number of freighters ganked in highsec during one average 23.5 hour period. (eliminate war kills from this)
Number of freighters ganked in highsec during one average 23.5 hour period who did not take reasonable steps to reduce their 'gankworthiness,' i.e. fitting tank and not packing too much isk value into one trip.

These data points, in my view at least, would provide the answer as to if ganking has become a problem. I suspect that the numbers will show that not only are a minority of freighters getting ganked, but that the majority of those who are did not take any steps to make themselves less of a juicy target.

Could we get the first data point average from CCP for say the first week of July? Then someone can dig through killboards to get the other two.

I'd like the number of freighters that undock in highsec on any given day to show the criers that ganking is not as common as they seem to think it is. If you read the posts these people put out into the forums, you'd think that nearly ever single freighter that ever went through a handful of systems gets ganked. The thread in GD is even titled "Has suicide ganking become a problem?" I'd love to be able to drop some data on that thread showing categorically that it is not a problem.

I too would like to see some figures as De'Veldrin has suggested.

These numbers for as many years as possible in high sec.

Freighter undocks or jumps per month or year.
Individual freighter usage per month or year.
Freighter suicide kills per month or year.

At least we'll have some data to show.

In regards to the following statement:
Some will never get what a sandbox is about and how this is just as valid in regards to PvP, as any other forms. Including Mining, Industry, Markets etc etc. There is no lowest, there is just different types and styles. But some will never see this.

I would also say ignorance is not a reason for change, it is however a reason for more good information to be given and ways for that to happen. Better NPE for example.
The main problem I see, is poor advice being given from closed mined individuals with an axe to grind.