Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Make your own intel channel then?

Literally this is true; CONCORD does not protect—i.e. is not proactive, but instead is reactive. But the CONCORD response/punishment can provide an incentive not to gank. Of course, if you have a fat enough wallet so that losing a gank catalyst is not that expensive and you find ganking enjoyable that incentive may not work. That we have high sec ganking where the profit is low suggests that this is indeed the case.

Still, the idea in this game is that, generally speaking—i.e. with limited exceptions (I can think of one)—you are at risk when you are undocked. That level of risk is contextual and not the same everywhere. In a 1.0 system the incentive from CONCORD is pretty strong in that it would require a much larger number of gank ships. And that comes with two types of “cost”. The first is obvious, more ships = more ISK lost. Since the gain is not increasing this makes ganking in 1.0 systems more prohibitive than lower sec status HS systems. The other costs could be called coordination costs. Organizing 25 guys is more “costly” than 10. That is, trying to get 25 guys online and in fleet and ready to go in a 1.0 system will be more of hassle than 10 guys. And with 10 guys you could roll out much sooner and be ganking in a 0.5 or 0.6 system. It is really a type of opportunity cost. To opt for the 25 guys to gank in 1.0 you pass up the opportunity to gank with 10 guys now in a 0.6 system.

And as for mining being a solo activity…sorry that is by choice. Let me repeat that, that is by choice. Players make this choice. And that means you have less options when it comes to protecting yourself against ganking. For example, if everyone in fleet has been putting ganking groups red and everyone is keeping somewhat of an eye on local, having 6 guys do this will be more effective and efficient than 1. Being on comms can help facilitate communication. If you actually fit a tank on your ships and you use procurers and skiffs you’ll be less gankable than not using such ships. If you have 6 guys in fleet and 5 of them bring shield repping drones and 1 guy the dps drones to kill HS belt rats…you’ll be less gankable. There are things you can do to spread the workload and the risk. Even at a most basic level if there are 6 guys in the belt and a gank squad comes in and assuming equivalent tanks (for simplicity sake) the individual risk of ganking has fallen to 1/6.

Any mechanics change that provides a hard stop against ganking is just bad. The overall view, IMO, in this game is that players should do Things™, not have the game do Things™.

As for this particular idea I think it will be largely ineffective relative to how the OP sees it, and possibly have perverse effects. First off, a gank squad will designate a ship as a bumper when ganking miners. Now escape is not going to be possible with this device as breaking a lock will not stop bumping. Given the suggested parameters the gank squad will just wait it out once the ship is being bumped. Further, in the past attempts to nerf ganking have simply lead to more efficient ganking methods.

EVE is a game. As such we should be thinking of these discussions in the context of game theory. In game theory players have “reaction functions”. A reaction function is where each player formulates their best game play (generically known as strategies) given that the other players are doing exactly the same thing. If you change a component of the game, you will almost surely change other player’s strategies. If you introduce a change that does not change players strategies then it is a useless change and a drain on Dev time and CCP resources. Further, many player suggestions make a fatal assumption: they make a ceterius paribus assumption:



That is, assuming the gankers do not change their strategy and we implement X mechanic it will “solve” the ganking problem. But we know that gankers can change their strategies. If the group of players the change is aimed at either has no impact in terms of outcomes or does not change strategies, then such a change should be considered not worthwhile.

Oh, got it. I definitely misread that. Apologies Frostys.

Yeah, HS PvE-ers making their own intel channels is a really good idea, providing you are selective about letting in people you trust.

It's really not. In fact, mining and most other industrial activities benefit greatly from being part of a well-organized group.

As for the rest of it: most miners wouldn't have the time to activate their modules, and freighters are already held down via bumping. It would be useless (plus a mid slot on freighters is a terrible idea)

That would be agreeable.

They're not 'exploiting the system.' Ganking is intended game play, and the fact that you're still butthurt over it does not make it any less inrended.


So you should be entitled to log on and farm isk indefinitely with absolutely no risk simply because you don't feel you should actually have to actively play to benefit from your game time? Hint, we're not the delusional people here.


And your argument that is essentially nothing more than 'grr CODE." is relevant?



...oh, wait. You were serious...