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Crime & Punishment

 
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So long, and thanks for all the isk

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Lady Ayeipsia
BlueWaffe
#21 - 2016-04-28 14:20:26 UTC
As I recall, the buddy list can function as a watch list if the other person accepts the request. I have not tried this but it was how CCP said they would implement the change. In other words, if your friend agrees to you watchlisting them, you will see when they are online. This is why I suggested infiltration may be required now for normal hi sec merc work. Get an alt into the corp. Friendly up to the corpmates, claim you want to join their fleets when they get online and ask them to accept the buddy list invite. It may be harder, but may be doable.
Saturn Sabezan
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#22 - 2016-04-28 14:20:34 UTC
I have no words. You know I love you guys and I agree 100% as we've discussed.

<3
Dom Arkaral
Bannheim
Cuttlefish Collective
#23 - 2016-04-28 14:25:06 UTC
Lady Ayeipsia wrote:
As I recall, the buddy list can function as a watch list if the other person accepts the request. I have not tried this but it was how CCP said they would implement the change. In other words, if your friend agrees to you watchlisting them, you will see when they are online. This is why I suggested infiltration may be required now for normal hi sec merc work. Get an alt into the corp. Friendly up to the corpmates, claim you want to join their fleets when they get online and ask them to accept the buddy list invite. It may be harder, but may be doable.

Not worth it... at all

Tear Gatherer. Quebecker. Has no Honer. Salt Harvester.

Broadcast 4 Reps -- YOU ARE NOT ALONE, EVER

Instigator of the First ISD Thunderdome

CCL Loyalist
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#24 - 2016-04-28 14:49:20 UTC
Lady Ayeipsia wrote:
As I recall, the buddy list can function as a watch list if the other person accepts the request. I have not tried this but it was how CCP said they would implement the change. In other words, if your friend agrees to you watchlisting them, you will see when they are online. This is why I suggested infiltration may be required now for normal hi sec merc work. Get an alt into the corp. Friendly up to the corpmates, claim you want to join their fleets when they get online and ask them to accept the buddy list invite. It may be harder, but may be doable.

If i can get an alt into a corp i dont need to **** aroumd with the buddy list, i can just look in the corp member list and see who is online,
regardless of this its still a ludicrously excessive amount of work to do on demand (which is what is required now),
moreso than i can give to this game and i have tried ,
i do have a clean unaffiliated account but that should not be a requirement .

Normal highsec Mercenary work is now sitting in hubs and pipes and decking everything that moves within eye-shot.

We will not ,
Therefore we are no longer Mercenary's.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#25 - 2016-04-28 15:07:25 UTC
It's interesting how the PL CSM reps are coming to the watch list rescue. Please keep in mind they are about hunting supers and this whole mess was created by whining super pilots. Sure they are on your side on this one, but only out of mutual convenience. They don't care about empire mercing, they care about dropping on supers. Use them, but don't expect any birthday cards down the road once they get what they want.

OP - if you or any of you lads are interested in wh stuff feel free to hunt down my public channel and we can talk about it. It's a different kind of hunting, but it's pretty fun and the closest thing to old school mercing in eve.
DerpimusPrime Aihaken
Free Tank Test
#26 - 2016-04-28 17:43:09 UTC
CCP is going down a bad path.
And thats not in favor for those who do indeed create their own content in a land on missions and mining.

Cya around! o/
Starrakatt
Empire Assault Corp
Dead Terrorists
#27 - 2016-04-28 19:01:05 UTC
Serendipity Lost wrote:
It's interesting how the PL CSM reps are coming to the watch list rescue. Please keep in mind they are about hunting supers and this whole mess was created by whining super pilots. Sure they are on your side on this one, but only out of mutual convenience. They don't care about empire mercing, they care about dropping on supers. Use them, but don't expect any birthday cards down the road once they get what they want.

What you wrote there is true.

Got to keep in mind though, the PL player that posted earlier in the thread is (was) the leader of a Hisec Merc alliance that used to be one of the most successfull, as far as hunting and fighting goes. One that also closed up due to drying up content.

Join Celtic Anarchy!

Sneaky bastard.
Saeger1737
Habitual Euthanasia
Pandemic Legion
#28 - 2016-04-28 19:02:20 UTC
Hub camping is utterly drooling out boredom, yes it can interesting at first, but when you begin this game based on the PvP I've experienced it becomes mind numbing crap.
Watchlist added a fun factor that created a connection to a target, you actually wanted this person to log on, almost pushing the stalker in all of us to new heights. When he finally did, it either goes well, or its a TRAP!!! Either way it was a content booster for us.

Hub camping has turned into a almost not like killing arena, causing the same people to become drones to the undock. Exploding their egos and thus making highsec more or less boring. Yes my alliance has a ton of them, station hugging folks, but I'm not one of them.

Thanks CCP for taking away my whaling practice....

MERC WITH A MOUTH, Send me DPS and my fleet will double it back! Special offer!
Snip King
Pandemic Horde Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#29 - 2016-04-28 19:32:00 UTC
Thanks for all the nerfs CCP, you're doing a great job. Do our Carebear friends have anything else that they want it nerfed? Again, great job CCP, you guys are awesome......NOT!

Support Can flipping.
Kaely Tanniss
Black Lotus Society.
#30 - 2016-04-29 01:13:20 UTC
I agree with you Raz. Flying with Devils was a lot of fun and you guys are a bunch of cool people. The "buddy list" (it makes me cringe just refering to it) is totally stupid. I don't need a list of ppl who I'm cool with..I need a list of ppl who wanna shoot me and I them. The whole thing was changed over the complaints of super caps pilots. CCP didn't need to take the watchlist away, they needed to "fix" it along with locators. Locates should return the same results as when a target is in a wh (except say the target is not online or something)..also, if it were such a big deal to the super cap pilots...why didn't CCP just make the watchlist not work in ls/ns and leave hs alone. CCP has been having a total lack of insight on the game..especially lately. They add all this pointless stuff, yet don't fix old issues..and take away vital tools that made the game work. To me, CCP is making a grab for all the money they can before they drive the game into the ground. That's how I see it anyways. Roll

I really hate to see Devils go. I doubt CCP will get a clue and change things for the better. It makes me wonder if they even play the game..or if they do, do they only change what benefits them or their friend? That's a conflict of interest. Eh...whatever. With the current downhill spiral I think the game is heading in...a lot of ppl will probably be quitting in the not so distant future..including myself. Mercs have been reduced to camping over hunting...I wonder if CCP even thought about this for a minute when they made the change...somehow, I doubt it. Ugh

Long live The Devils Warrior Alliance Twisted

If I had a nickel for every time someone said women don't play eve, I'd have a bag of nickels to whack the next person who said it..
Jamwara DelCalicoe Ashley
New Eden Tech Support
#31 - 2016-04-29 05:20:51 UTC
People should not fly what they can not afford to replace - supercaps included. Or YOLO down the street with your **** hanging out... don't care either way but why whine about dumb ****?

set.them.red was the best and worst thing.

Thank me later :D
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#32 - 2016-04-29 06:12:41 UTC
This drastic change with the "buddy" lists was a want of nullsec players, not highsec. Let's not forget that.

AG made heavy use of these lists as well, probably as much as highsec mercs if not more.


Seeing a dozen known gankers log in (almost at....once? Hmmmm do they start all those clients with some automated input?) all in a burst created a lot of scrambles. I've seen freighters turn around seconds after my notice button lit up.

It does have some benefits being gone. I know of a few highsec dec types lose track of people who they decced NOT because someone paid them, but because they could fight back.

You see one of the "problems" of highsec decs is that the advice of "just fight them it's a PVP game hurrr durr" would only get you on a list - a buddy list for example - as "people who fight back and provide content" and therefore you will get decced over and over again. For no reason, and no increasing cost or any further consequences than that cost for the deccers. And I have seen the occasional post from leet highsec PVPers saying things like "LULZ I haven't seen them log back in they rekt back to WoW I'm so leet! LOL BOOMHEADSHOT!!!!" Now when "they" don't log in any more, well, who knows. Did they get greifed out of the game or not? It's better nobody knows.

And much of this is why? Because hub humping is boring so that one hapless player or two who follow the bad advice of fighting back are like the one man who gives a beggar a coin and suddenly he's swarmed by beggars.


Again, the good guys also made great use of it. It was also a great tool in nullsec NPC space too, especially in areas that get hot-dropped by (again, bored) players looking for kills. it was helpful knowing who the blops/cyno/cap operators in the region were so you could be more careful when they were online. That too is gone.



Oh well. There was once a time when "merc" didn't mean what it means today. "Merc" also meant hunting in lowsec without having to contend with security loss from attacking the intended target. "Merc" also meant "assassin" too when Awoxing was a thing.


There was also once a time when every other thread in C&P was NOT some merc advertisement. Maybe it's been played out? It's certainly getting redefined.

Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Dracvlad
Taishi Combine
Astral Alliance
#33 - 2016-04-29 07:09:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Dracvlad
Well first of all this is one of the best Merc entities in the game, so sorry to see them go.

But I ask you have you thought this through, because what you can do is go in the area where the target is with your locator toon, pretend to scan, link IWANTISK adverts, PC random people and the target in local, get that toon blocked by the target player.

Now when you do a private convo it will report that he is off line or otherwise not reachable when he is off line, but if he blocked you and is online you get told that he blocked you. A little bit more effort but certainly doable for people who are active hunters and have my respect, because you guys actually got a kill in hisec on someone who was not easy to catch.

Try it out, we did a brief test and it worked for the two toons we tested.

Doing it this way means it is not free intel, but you get intel for work and benefits targetting, all in all I am happy to see the watch list go even though as Herzog pointed out it removes the ability to note the BLOP's pilots logging on while cloaky camped, but it makes cap fights more likely. But as as I like this merc alliance I decided to help you out with this approach, good luck and I hope you reconsider.

When the going gets tough the Gankers get their CSM rep to change mechanics in their favour.

Blocked: Teckos Pech, Sonya Corvinus, baltec1, Shae Tadaruwa, Wander Prian, Daichi Yamato, Jonah Gravenstein, Merin Ryskin, Linus Gorp
Catalytic morphisis
Deep Space Coalition
Fraternity.
#34 - 2016-04-29 10:02:15 UTC
Sad to see another Merc group Folding, But pretty spot on, Gone are the days when I could locate people, go set up traps and have some good fun

Actual Link free and scout free solo PvP'er
Starrakatt
Empire Assault Corp
Dead Terrorists
#35 - 2016-04-29 14:22:05 UTC
Dracvlad wrote:
Well first of all this is one of the best Merc entities in the game, so sorry to see them go.

But I ask you have you thought this through, because what you can do is go in the area where the target is with your locator toon, pretend to scan, link IWANTISK adverts, PC random people and the target in local, get that toon blocked by the target player.

Now when you do a private convo it will report that he is off line or otherwise not reachable when he is off line, but if he blocked you and is online you get told that he blocked you. A little bit more effort but certainly doable for people who are active hunters and have my respect, because you guys actually got a kill in hisec on someone who was not easy to catch.

I agree that this could work, thanks.

However, unless you are looking for only a handful of players (all of which won't block you) you are a looking at a LOT more than a 'little bit' of time, and don't forget, since Watchlist is gone you don't know when they are online in the first place (which admiteddly, can be worked around, but still a lot of time) and second, if they are half smart, and you follow them with Local spamming alts, you are going to burn your scouts.

Also, you will usually track and hunt targets that are Contracted first and foremost, and that usually mean you don't have the time to do all that preliminary scouting and spam/blocking stuff. The client wants results soon, not in 2 weeks time.

Join Celtic Anarchy!

Sneaky bastard.
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#36 - 2016-04-29 14:48:38 UTC
Starrakatt wrote:
Dracvlad wrote:
Well first of all this is one of the best Merc entities in the game, so sorry to see them go.

But I ask you have you thought this through, because what you can do is go in the area where the target is with your locator toon, pretend to scan, link IWANTISK adverts, PC random people and the target in local, get that toon blocked by the target player.

Now when you do a private convo it will report that he is off line or otherwise not reachable when he is off line, but if he blocked you and is online you get told that he blocked you. A little bit more effort but certainly doable for people who are active hunters and have my respect, because you guys actually got a kill in hisec on someone who was not easy to catch.

I agree that this could work, thanks.

However, unless you are looking for only a handful of players (all of which won't block you) you are a looking at a LOT more than a 'little bit' of time, and don't forget, since Watchlist is gone you don't know when they are online in the first place (which admiteddly, can be worked around, but still a lot of time) and second, if they are half smart, and you follow them with Local spamming alts, you are going to burn your scouts.

Also, you will usually track and hunt targets that are Contracted first and foremost, and that usually mean you don't have the time to do all that preliminary scouting and spam/blocking stuff. The client wants results soon, not in 2 weeks time.

thats exactly why infiltration is in no way practical either,
infiltration takes time and more than a little effort for a bloodthirsty savage like any of us to get into character,
its also largly opportunistic so you have to either be a ****ing scary good social engineer or Damn lucky to
offer it as a service or use it reliably as an intell tool on a target in empire dictated to you on short notice.
this is what i meant by it being an inordinate amount of effort to do "on demand" ,
its one thing to get an alt in a corp , "that corp, like right now" though is a different matter
and entirely more time and nuanced effort (extra acc with a compleatly clean and unaffiliated api) than i can muster
and i always loved the idea of doing this.

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
gnshadowninja
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#37 - 2016-04-29 15:02:38 UTC
The main issue ai have is that theres not enough support across all the mercenaries, i mean were all pretty laid back guys/gals that do this type of work so no one really posts on C&P unless its a good troll.

I believe all of us should come together as a collective and put our differences aside to support a single goal to improve our gameplay, We have been let on the side lines for too long with more and more nerfs making it harder to do our role.

Only positive thing ive seen come to high sec mercs is the hics point, what does that matter when you cant even catch a mwd cloaky battleship.

Idea : When speaking about this issue on vendetta TS last night someone suggested that they could just add a role bonus to supers that they will not show as online.
We understand this can mean cyno toons will appear online but there should be some way to hunt supers.
Dracvlad
Taishi Combine
Astral Alliance
#38 - 2016-04-29 15:56:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Dracvlad
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Starrakatt wrote:
Dracvlad wrote:
Well first of all this is one of the best Merc entities in the game, so sorry to see them go.

But I ask you have you thought this through, because what you can do is go in the area where the target is with your locator toon, pretend to scan, link IWANTISK adverts, PC random people and the target in local, get that toon blocked by the target player.

Now when you do a private convo it will report that he is off line or otherwise not reachable when he is off line, but if he blocked you and is online you get told that he blocked you. A little bit more effort but certainly doable for people who are active hunters and have my respect, because you guys actually got a kill in hisec on someone who was not easy to catch.

I agree that this could work, thanks.

However, unless you are looking for only a handful of players (all of which won't block you) you are a looking at a LOT more than a 'little bit' of time, and don't forget, since Watchlist is gone you don't know when they are online in the first place (which admiteddly, can be worked around, but still a lot of time) and second, if they are half smart, and you follow them with Local spamming alts, you are going to burn your scouts.

Also, you will usually track and hunt targets that are Contracted first and foremost, and that usually mean you don't have the time to do all that preliminary scouting and spam/blocking stuff. The client wants results soon, not in 2 weeks time.

thats exactly why infiltration is in no way practical either,
infiltration takes time and more than a little effort for a bloodthirsty savage like any of us to get into character,
its also largly opportunistic so you have to either be a ****ing scary good social engineer or Damn lucky to
offer it as a service or use it reliably as an intell tool on a target in empire dictated to you on short notice.
this is what i meant by it being an inordinate amount of effort to do "on demand" ,
its one thing to get an alt in a corp , "that corp, like right now" though is a different matter
and entirely more time and nuanced effort (extra acc with a compleatly clean and unaffiliated api) than i can muster
and i always loved the idea of doing this.


Starrakatt, I agree its more than a little bit of time depending on how many you are after, but its a method that at least gives you the ability to know if someone is online. The other part of hunting someone is watching them and getting a feel for their habits especially if you war dec them with a test corp. Again this depends on client understanding and expectations, the information has changed, there is no watch list, I for one would not expect you to do it quickly and may require a lead in time before you go live.

Ralph King-Griffin, yeah I understand that, on demand it is of course very difficult but as the game has changed clients expectations has to change, the game had become too wham bang at times IMO, for example I am always miffed at giving NPC kills on the map, I think taht is easy intel. Perhaps you or others can develop a sort of second tier groups of information mercs that will do this method of getting intel on targets for you or do it as part of your hunt, client expectation has to change because of this.

I understand how you feel because my game play has been afffected by multiple nerfs and buffs to the enemy so to speak, sometimes the challenge reaches a point of head butting a brick wall and that is the time to stop, which I have done with some of my gameplay. Anyway good luck in what you intend to do.

EDIT: It may take a little time, longer than I expected due to the lack of a market module in Mediums, but your targets may become easier to indentify and will have something of value in space. This means that they will also likely grow into bigger groups to be able to defend the Citadel or other structure and be geographically compact. As I said these changes may take time but I would think once we see it then your game play will be improved.

Perhaps you could take a break or go do something else but keep an eye on how hisec develops, I hope it does not stay as it is.

When the going gets tough the Gankers get their CSM rep to change mechanics in their favour.

Blocked: Teckos Pech, Sonya Corvinus, baltec1, Shae Tadaruwa, Wander Prian, Daichi Yamato, Jonah Gravenstein, Merin Ryskin, Linus Gorp
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#39 - 2016-04-29 16:59:42 UTC
"info mercs"

There are "secret squirrel" types who might just love that sort of stuff. Maybe merc corps might take on players like that.

Could not the market also be a means of tracking through buy orders and open contracts? It might be an element to the game too when merc work and market activity get crossed.

What I see on the surface is a lot of "hub humping" which strikes me a boring. Maybe CCP saw it like that too and felt that mercs would have to take extra measures? But if there is resistance to that, then things will change. The future may show us a new kind of merc group that is lopsided towards secret squirrels (SS) who will use every last in-game and meta tool they can find. Is that not more interesting than sitting on a gate all day? Will future merc groups have more SS than PVPers?

Back in the day I used to do a lot of nullsec exploration alone and used wormholes to get in and out. in order to survive without intel channels I had to pick everything from Dotlan to looking up who owned the website/blog of the occupying corp. In a wormhole with no local, it got even more challenging. But I was always able to find out who "owned" the hole and what their threat footprint was, and predict what I would find in nullsec when I got there depending on where I ended up. I could always find out who, what, when, how good they were, and when they slept, and never got caught except one time (and survived that encounter). Every expedition brought back a hold of fat nullsec exploration loot.

It can be done, but it'll take more work. Perhaps the existing merc groups can seek out players who like to do that stuff. Some people like to "hunt" like that.



Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#40 - 2016-04-29 17:38:23 UTC
The OPs point is that the current mechanics lend more to station/pipe camping and less to providing a service via contract. Messing with the watch list moved the balance too far in the wrong direction and he and his corp cashed out. Between assists and the low fees for multiple decs the actual contract part of mercing is as valueless as any war dec that is currently put into play.

Taking away the ability to logically hunt down online targets has left real mercs that move to fulfill contracts with blindly warping around eve hoping to luck into something. Not what I would categorize as fun or emergent gameplay.

The game doesn't need a group of info mercs to step up, it needs an intelligent way to hunt down other players with the intent to blow them up. There just isn't a reasonable option to hunt a guy down right now.

I'm not sure what change is next (concerning waging empire wars) but based on the last 5 years of change - I'm not optimistic.