EVE General Discussion

It makes my job easier. Good change.

^This is the way I see it tbh. Yes it's unfortunate that awoxers get thrown under the bus, but if player retention goes up by even 2-3%, it's probably worth it.

I don't have statistics on the reasons for why people leave when they do, ccp does. They probably think a mild increase in retention is worth the loss to awoxers, given that other criminal elements of eve (ganking, scamming, corp theft, etc.) are still intact. Eve is still the darkest grittiest mmo out there with or without awoxing.

GHSC popped an officer fit something or other just before I started playing. A few people I know remarked that they heard about it and started playing because they were intrigued by the notion of a game that allowed players to engage in that type of activity. The Dbank, Ebank and T4U scams were shortly after, sparking similar levels of press attention, and reports of people subbing to see what the fuss was about. B-R and Asakai kicked off because of a failed sov bill and an accidental "jump to" instead of "bridge to" by a Titan (try telling me that button arrangement is "logical").

Some people are attracted to open ended game play where this type of activity is possible. Some are repulsed by it and accuse the participants of being vicious sociopath griefers who drive players out via cyberbullying. You don't have to engage in these activities to appreciate the value in allowing them to occur. It makes ingame achievements meaningful when they are earned in spite of dangers and risks. There's a trend here to curtail player driven interraction that generate noisy complaints and to smooth the rougher edges from something that stands apart by being prickly. Remember can-flipping and when there was no "enable safety" button? These were actually content generators that got people interracting and were treated with amusement by people playing in good fun.

Closing these "illogical" loopholes as you put it erodes our ability to generate player driven narratives that are unique to Eve. That GHSC awox will never happen again if this proposal is implemented. Once it's gone, you can't put it back. The whining of Highsec residents will never stop until CCP caves and puts them in an instanced zone where they have absolute control over their interraction with other players. Even then, they'll still find something to bellyache about. It's alright claiming changes like this are being proposed "for the noobies", but it affects everyone, and it's not unfair to react to a general 'dumbing down' or 'Eve Online for Numpties v.18' with a degree of dismay. We all started out in Highsec, and exposure to awoxing, thefts, wardecs, ganking may have been the trigger to draw us into a more engaged playstyle - or at the least taught us to be careful and to take responsibility for ourselves. How are new players supposed to gain those experiences when they are being gradually stripped away?

Just to clarify, none of that is a rumour and can be easily verified trough the CSM notes. I for one applaud CCP for going forward with this. It's about time we clear up obscure and inconsistent mechanics from this game, especially when they have such a negative effect the growth of the playerbase. Last time I checked, Highsec was still full of suicide ganks, wardecs and suspect baits everywhere. The tools for ganking and killing other players are all there, only your easy-mode safaris aren't an option anymore. If people in this forum are half as good villians as they claim to be, surely they won't have issues ganking carebears again (never had issues with that myself, and never had to awox anyone either), unless of course they're bad at this game and need a flawed mechanic to their advantage to do so.

This change is the equivalent of banning all Jita bots and then claiming Eve is a themepark where the scamming playstyle isn't allowed. If this remotely affects you, chances are you're not very good at this game.

I agree with you to a certain extent, but it's one that doesn't allow a corp to grow.

Due diligence when recruiting new members should be an integral part of the recruitment process, look at how many corps Psychotic Monk has managed to awox, with very obvious awoxing alts, because the recruiters didn't practice due diligence and do the most basic of checks. Personally I won't join a corp that doesn't request a full API, they're taking no steps to protect their corp members and IMHO it's a sign of poor leadership. As I said earlier there are ways to detect potential awoxers, and to balance that there are ways for potential awoxers to avoid detection, eg. using an alt account.

Totally.

That remains to be seen, nothing is concrete yet, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

1. Once again I agree to a certain extent, corps should be comfortable with recruiting newbies, but not so comfortable that they have a lax recruitment process. I'm in the process of joining a corp with a fairly new alt, full API was requested on top of having an existing corp member vouch for me. To me that shows the corp cares about who joins them, and is taking steps to protect themselves, and their members.


2. Not necessarily a good idea, it often ends in the blind leading the blind because the corp leadership has absolutely no idea what they're doing. If someone is going to recruit newbies they should be in a position to teach those newbies things like "don't shoot at the flashy guy who just robbed your wreck", not to mine or mission during a war etc. Telling newbies not to talk in local or to dock up does those newbies no favours.


3. That's fair comment, some of the RoE can be a tad obscure.


4. Agreed, the rules of membership should be clear, however a decent corp should also make clear that those rules aren't applicable to those outside the corp, and teach newbies how to deal with or avoid them.

Player retention is crap, nobody is denying that. Whether or not it's down to current mechanics, or down to people thinking Eve is something other than what it is, is up for debate.

With reference to the topic of awoxing and predatory gameplay and any changes to them; some see it as the start of a slippery slope in which Eve ends up as a shadow of its former self, only time will tell. (Yes I am aware that the slippery slope is considered to be a fallacy)

Bad change for high sec is bad...
on the other hand-I am a bottom-feeder and live in low sec...so it does not concern me directly.
It cuts out a whole playstyle though...does CCP have the plan to generate a mitigate that?

I would argue from direct experience that it is possible to actively betray/attack a corp via spying. Even as a spy you have to interact with other members of the corp and/or alliance, and can potentially (and quite easily as it turns out) direct their actions toward your goals without suspicion, much like a parasite attacks a host without completely killing them so it is not detected until too late. You are in no way just functionally limited to corp theft unless you are not very creative.

This is going to kill a particular type of pew-pew play-style certainly, but it's not the end of awoxing as we know it as presently defined. A pervasive mantra chanted here is that people won't leave NPC corps, this works a bit toward that goal.

This change will make infiltration easier. That's a buff IMHO.

The funny thing about all the QQ.

The OP didn't say anything about removing awox.

Now they just have to deal with Concord........the whole risk thing they have been avoiding.


At the end of the day, who cares if you lose an easily replaceable desi to Concord. Surely the reward of tears is worth it.

Suicide ganking already exists. I don't have to be in someone's corp to do that.

There's a lot of snobbery associated with highsec PVP. It comes across as a mixture of envy from those in low/null (lots of supposedly easy targets who can't fight back, such dishounoure yada yada) and victim mentality from people who are genuinely outraged that they are being interfered with. There's this attitude that wardeccers, mercs, gankers, awoxers are crap at PVP and genuinely twisted individuals.

The dedicated highsec pvpers I know are really pretty good - and it's not as easy as it appears. It's a bit of a simplistic argument to say they take no risks, especially given a lot of them are either soloers or alts with mains in supposedly 'elite' groups. Don't forget they often target corps with a number of members who could fight back (but would rather screech in local about harassment). If you grab a ship and go fight them, most of the people I encountered were really pleased (and gave loads of tips).





You're mixing up suicide ganking with awoxing. Highsec ganks use desis in large numbers because they're cheap, have high raw DPS and can get a couple of volleys off before being Concorded. Awoxers bypass Concord but go to the trouble of joining a corp to find targets - but they could decide to try kill a corpie in an Ibis if they feel like it. Don't forget not all internal corp kills are due to infiltration. Sometimes corpies fall out, then flip out and shoot each other. Which is absolutely hilarious tbh.