Live Events Discussion

tl;dr
Live events should be more like regular PVP, not less with full range of interactions (including meta) possible.

Well, of course they won't, but consider it from the other side. Imagine this branching scenario:

You're the FC of the fleet escorting the delegate. You send scouts along the route. They report nothing.

You decide the way is clear and bring the fleet and VIP forward. You jump through one system safely... but when you arrive in the next one, there is a gank fleet of Tornadoes waiting. Uh oh.

Alternatively, you're a little more paranoid. There may be nothing on the main route but what about the surrounding systems? You send additional scouts to check out other systems. Ah- lots of event flagged people here. This looks like an ambush. Scout relays the information to the FC. The FC suggests an alternative route to the delegate, maybe has an argument (though one doubts that the President of the United States would backchat his security detail on matters relating to his safety). Perhaps the FC decides that they'll make a run for it, trusting to the skirmish boosts and webber he's provided for quick warps.

The scout meanwhile keeps track of the event flagged hostiles. He uses his dscan, checks stations, tries to find them. Perhaps he succeeds, perhaps he fails.

It turns out that the would-be gankers have their own eyes on the convoy. They observe that the escort fleet starts moving in a different direction. The gank fleet's FC has done his homework and knows what other routes are likely to be taken. He moves out to intercept. Or perhaps he sees that the other side is pressing on and decides to make his play as planned. Or perhaps he sees that the other side is too well prepared and aborts it, to the chagrin of his followers.

Let's say he launches his attack. To do so, he'll need someone on grid to provide initial tackle. Since he knows there is a strong defending force, and their goal is to spirit the VIP asap, he'll need someone on grid otherwise they'll just be webbed off.

So he deploys some T3s perhaps. The other side have of course seen this and jump their fleet in first to engage. The FC advises his VIP to hold until the way is clear, or get safe. Perhaps the VIP gets safe.

Anyway, the defence fleet has engaged the tacklers. The attackers' own scout happened to be in a probing ship and gets to work finding the VIP's shiny ship. He gets the hit and reports this to his FC who warps his fleet to the gate and jumps them straight through. His prober decloaks and tackles for the fleet who soon arrive and dispatch him, having outmanoeuvred the defence fleet.

Alternatively, the VIP is aligned and warps back to gate. Hostile ships soon land with him so he's forced to jump through. Chances are he'll be tackled, so all of a sudden we have a close quarters brawl at the gate. The defenders desperately try to keep their VIP alive in the chaos. Perhaps they succeed, perhaps they fail.

Ah, perhaps the attackers just bring suicide gank ships anyway, you say. Well the defenders have options to disrupt that volley through ewar. And that's just the obvious example. If need be, they can just advise the VIP gets a faster ship and runs the rest of the way in that.

If the VIP survives, perhaps the event flagged defenders get a medal. If not, maybe someone with a plausible reason issues a medal to the attackers. And of course believable consequences follow for participants.

There has been some talk in this thread about how we should be maximising the content this game delivers. Which scenario has more content? 50 Goons suicide ganking a TTI, or a pitched battle between attacking and defending fleets that may or may not result in the destruction of that TTI?

In other words, I fully agree that players should be allowed to interact to the maximum extent with the story. If anything, the problem is that the very mechanics of highsec limit scope for interaction. The only option to disrupt the passage of an event actor in highsec is a suicide gank that the mechanics do not allow an adequate defensive response. However, for maximum participation, the event has to happen in highec so the largest number of players have a chance of encountering it and choosing whether or not to interact.

The use of an "event flag" allows participants to sidestep the limits of highsec and have a full range of interactions with each other. Such a flag might even have wider use. I've heard that crimewatch has had a positive effect on performance, but it still has its limits. Giving players the option to manually flag themselves so others do not invoke even the crimewatch system when engaging them might make large lowsec encounters a little more playable as well.

I've deleted more trolling from this thread. I'm getting close to locking this, as most people are going around in circles.

Starting war with HBC... oh wait

I'm going to try not to go in circles here. I think there is still the possibility for good discussion here.

I think you overestimate the number of Goons that will show up. 500 ships is a lot to save a tech moon, much less go ganking in high sec. However, in a sandbox, a viable counter is to bring more people. No one complained about being outnumbered at Asakai. So, if you want to defend against the hundred or so Goons that might show up on a good day, bring two hundred. Hold the events in low sec, and use NPSI ROE. I would not complain about CCP cynojamming the system to keep out whatever, as cynojam mechanics are already available to sov alliances. Gank the gankers! You know there are Goons hanging about, it's not like there's a doubt what they are there for. Gank them first! Or, CCP could take the module that's been suggested and add it. Or, war dec Goons! There are tons of options.

There is a great line in the Untouchables where Sean Connery's character grills Kevin Costner's character about how far he is willing to go. How far are RPers willing to go to protect their actors? Grideris is a white knight figure, CONCORD aligned. It would be an interesting thing to see him decide that ganking Goons might be the lesser of two evils.

These NPCs were simply far too valuable to the storyline.

They HAD to survive, otherwise the impact on the storyline would be unmanageable, for the relatively small storyline and events team to do things with. I.e. rewriting the Minmatar Republic from having a tribal council to having Shakor being supreme dictator.

Other NPCs, that are not so absolutely central to the storyline, could be involved in future events, where their survival or otherwise can then affect how the storyline progresses.


Also, there is the larger question about what relevance the NPC factions have at all, and how players should affect things.

You can shoot any number of things belonging to the Caldari State, and the only penalty are a few ships following you around in highsec. You can still dock, trade, and use other station facilities in Caldari stations. So what relevance does the Caldari State have at all ?

The ships were piloted by NPC capsuleers. The ships were also carrying other officials as passengers, according to the news stories. Those people would not have been cloned, so shooting down the ship would have had an impact.

That and the shield harmonizing module are the closest we have. But that's something that helps one person (and only one) help everyone in the fleet. How about the other way, something that allows many people to cooperate and help one person? An example is remote reps. But those do not help against an alpha strike, or most suicide ganks because the deed is done before the repper cycles.

A Remote Shield Extender would allow several escort ships defend one VIP against a gank.

Edit: One issue with such a module: Would there be an armor equivalent? If not large fleet armor tanking will die. Something like a "Remote armor pump".

I'm glad CCP is listening to the player feedback on this event - I love to see this game keep getting better.

My main issue here is that the way the story played out made the NPC faction stupid - they sent absolutely critical VIPs out in (should have been) vulnerable ships with a known high risk of pirate attack. They were basically sent out as sacrificial lambs and then saved by an act of God - that's poor storytelling all the way through.

Any number of ways to achieve the same goal without taking immersion-breaking shortcuts have already been discussed, and I look forward to seeing CCP do better in the future.

It's good to see Empire life keep getting better and more interesting, and I very much want to see that trend continue.

Please go reread my post where I laid out how I viewed the mod being implemented.

Talking about the introduction of major new modules that would massively change the way tanking works in EVE is stupid in a thread about live event interaction.