Crime & Punishment

Sure, I never claimed that tagging up and ganking as a neutral would be impossible. But I want to play the game as an outlaw. A pirate. A criminal who knocks over a transport and takes their loot for my own. Clearly, CCP wants me to be able to do that as well. They have spent much effort to enable criminal game play to take place in highsec. I think it is perfectly reasonable to raise the concern that a change in game mechanics would make such play functionally impossible.

I don't care about bumping. Replace it with something else entirely if you wish, but I would like to be able to plan and execute a heist with my fellow outlaw highwaymen. If bumping is removed straight out I would not be able to do so as an outlaw - at all. Sure, I can 'abuse' (see what I did there) the Tags-for-Sec system and gank while neutral, but that doesn't seem like a good solution from a content point of view as I would be much harder to stop from ganking using cloaked stealth bombers or otherwise while neutral or from a world view as only the most overloaded freighters would ever die because of the increased cost. If reducing the rate of ganking is you goal I can see why you would want bumping removed, but otherwise it seems to me if it is only bumping you have a problem with you would want it replaced with some other interdiction mechanic more likely to stimulate conflict and provide a skill component for flying freighters.

But this is all premature as I agree with you CCP is unlikely to prevent a suicide point from working. So we are left at more-or-less the same place we were before. I agree that perma-bumping was problematic and I accept the need for a suicide scram a reasonable compromise but I don't expect that to change much at all - either changing how outlaw gankers operate or making carebears and their apologists suddenly happy about the mechanic. Criminals will still operate, exactly as CCP intends for them to, exploding complacent freighter pilots and adapting to the new mechanic, and carebears will continue to whine how unfair it is that they can lose their stuff to a dedicated and organized group of players many times their number. But I really do think there is a better way to facilitate criminal game play somewhere out there.

I am very interested in hearing replacement ideas for bumping (or bump/suicide scramming) that would allow criminals to fight over a freighter in highsec that would be embraced by the anti-ganking community. Perhaps this isn't the place, but if some anti-ganker would like to lay out a system they would think fair to allow a group of outlaws to attack a freighter in highsec that doesn't use bumping, I am all ears.

The only new bumping mechanic I am aware of is the idea that you can't be bumped if you are tethered to a citadel.

I'm not mad at all. Just my read of the situation is that suicide scramming will still be possible and I am curious how the anti-bumping crew will take that. You seem mostly cool, if not your usual passive-aggressive self about it.

Personally, I don't think that most others who have an issue with bumping will take the migration to the suicide scram paradigm with such aplomb. They will view the requirement of sacrificing a frigate or noob ship as 'cheap' and be agitating for more nerfs the next day. But given we don't even know what form the nerf to bumping will take, it probably is too early to start a meta discussion of the acceptance of a yet-to-be-determine mechanic.

Therefore, I withdraw the question.

Apparently we have very different views of what a pirate constitutes. For me it's a role you can play in the game, defined by your actions and a certain state of mind (of your char) but also limited by game mechanics. For you it's apparently either a certain number on your char sheet or the refusal to pay a fee/effort to prevent highsec NPC's from chasing you.

I really don't get why you think you're entitled to an aggression free tackle mechanism for a certain ship class when all other forms of piracy simply accept the fact that they can't do certain things when having a security status below -5. I've yet to hear a single Vexor or Tornado hauler ganker in the trade pipes or at trade hubs to demand such a thing. CCP even gave you clone soldier tags to bribe your sec status up to a desired level, so you don't have to grind it up anymore. Don't pod the target and the security hit is very small. If you also want to pod the target, you've to pay a price for it but that is your choice.

If freighters couldn't be ganked any other way you'd have a point but that is certainly not the case as others demonstrate on a daily basis. Even with a sec status of below -5 it's far from impossible. It's certainly tedious and error prone, depending how good your timing is, but it can be done.

If bumping was a crucial tackle mechanism in other parts of space, you'd have a point but that also doesn't apply anymore: supers just got their e-war immunity removed.

Removing bumping as a way to prevent warp also only affects freighters that are actively flown. Freighters on autopilot still can be bumped as long as you want when they're slowboating to the gate or even on the other side with a suicide scram, which - as you certainly know - disables the autopilot and thus any warp attempt. Isn't that what your camp is telling people all the time: don't fly a freighter AFK and you're safe (which was BS to begin with but without bump tackle it's at least true in certain cases)?

Above are the reasons why it's highly unlikely that any AG member will ever make any serious suggestions to replace bump tackle with something else because we want it completely removed as it's completely unneccessary. Sure, you may hear some people, who haven't really thought it through, say that a bumping ship should simply go suspect but we both know that it would be incredibly hard if not impossible to implement this in a way that doesn't turn the Jita undock into a freighter graveyard.

CCP is giving you a 3 minute window (for now) and you should be happy that they're even so generous because in my opinion it should be removed alltogether as it doesn't make any sense and doesn't fit in with the rest of the highsec aggression mechanics, but ...

... and here comes a big BUT: I also think that the Highsec PVP side in general is in desperate need of a complete rethought as I agree that there are less and less options for you and by that also for the good guys (that's us btw in case you had any ideas :P). Not just the criminal side but also CONCORD approved PVP: Highsec wars were already unfun for the defenders most of the time, now they're even unfun for the attackers, thanks to the removal of onesided watchlisting. There is much more but that's probably for another time to discuss (hi ISD, not trying to derail the thread <3).

I never said I was. But the balancing of the massive EHP against the binary nature of the CONCORD mechanic is problematic. It is the exact reason that the other capital ships are not allowed into highsec - the EHP is just too high for a DPS race game mechanic to be feasible and thus they would be invulnerable. If you do not allow some sort of tackle against freighters, you make it functionally impossible for an actively piloted freighter to be killed by criminals.

I would be perfectly fine with an interdiction method that turns a neutral tackler suspect. Or forces the attacker to risk some deployable structure or special ship. Anything really, that would allow an attempt on an actively piloted freighter by criminals. Bumping for 3 minutes (if perhaps a little short) still qualifies as does bumping with a suicide point, but I was wondering if AG had an alternative they would think more fair than using bumping at all.

Regardless, that is the long term problem is that balancing issue. Without tackle, freighters are much more expensive to kill if you are forced to circumvent crime watch and gankers are much harder to stop if they are not criminals so it kills content from both sides. Less freighters will start fights and there is nearly no room for friends or Good Samaritans to come help out the hauler pilot when it does.

I do see that indefinite tackle, without an avenue for a CONCORD-approved response, needed addressing. We shouldn't forget however that bumping and the risk of interference of navigation of capital ships by subcaps was intentionally included as a vulnerability for them by the game designers. Freighters are intended to have down-sides to offset their many strengths, and vulnerability to bump-tackle is one of them. That's probably why CCP went with this modification of the mechanic, rather than a complete removal of bumping.

Well, at least here we have found some more common ground. I agree that wars and crime mechanics are due for a rethink and pass by CCP. There is much room to fix both mechanics to allow more interesting and enjoyable fights. But I think you are right this isn't the place for that discussion. My hope though is that if Fozzie was serious about letting capitals back into highsec, they will be forced to address the whole way illegal aggression is handled and implement a new way for capital ships to be attacked that allows more interesting gameplay and choices for both attacker and defender.

Until then we have 3 minutes bumping or slightly longer bump/scramming. I guess we'll see how that plays out.

No one demands an aggression free tackle in Highsec. It just happened that the creative people playing EVE used the game mechanics already in place in a probably not so intended way. And this has happened a lot of times with different mechanics over the years.

What makes me upset about this is that CCP has no intention to actually fix the real problems in Highsec. They just remove some stuff here and there and implement some stupid custom rules to silence the people who cry the loudest.

I mean it's not only the ganking, they just seriously hurt all the mercs and probably AG as well by just removing the watchlist without any replacement at all.

And this is just another example of a bullshit fix. What will it accomplish? In the best case nothing in the worst case it will completely backfire. It is always a bad idea to implement some non-obvious game mechanic to protect the carebears because: they will not know it exists, since they are not interested in game mechanics anyway. We will know every detail and use it in ways CCP did not intended.

The way it is proposed now it will still be there, but only for people who have like 6-7 suicide tacklers ready in system. I am sure I already know such a group. Now the mechanic will be an exclusive to us, well done!

I am sure you can provide us with the source of the information where Fozzy says we are responsible for the decline in subscribers and the reason why CCP has to repeatedly adjust the game and introduce silly new mechanics.

I hope it was not just something you just made up or extrapolated out of a simple sentence which tells us absolutely nothing. It Would be great to have that link ready next time someone tells me we have no impact.

No, he didn't say that and I didn't say that either. There is no single reason. It's not that easy. The part in parantheses refers to the second part of the previous sentence: "primarily highsec has lost a ton of subs". My appologies, I should have clarified that. The interview was by EN24. Unfortunately the link to the audiofile on their website is dead but it's still on their iTunes channel. It's the one from 15.07.2015, even earlier than I remembered.

Interrestingly after being asked for ganking he repeated what was presented at fanfest 2015: that ganking increases player retention. I hope that wasn't based on what they presented at fanfest, as while being an interresting datapoint which warrants further research, you can't draw this conclusion from the presented data and methology (you couldn't draw the opposite conclusion either if the data was different). Regardless to what data he was referring to: the question this raises is: what has changed since then? Why the sudden change of mind? Why the enormous freighter EHP buff that also affects other parts of space (don't believe for a second that this was some sort of 'quid pro quo' thing wrt. gankers vs. anti-gankers. No game designer works like that)? Why the bumping nerf? Is it to stop the cases of bumping for hours? Unlikely with just a 3 minute window, so it appears to be more likely to be directly targeted at ganking. But why, when it supposedly increases player retention? Any plausible explanation?

Who bumps with a Cerebus, or without a MWD? A MWD also adds a *lot* of mass.

Feel free to call it whatever you like. At least my conclusion is based on what ends up in the game and not some tinfoil theory.


Another point to consider: the fanfest presentation data only covered the first 15 days of a char. As you couldn't train into a freighter in that timespan a year ago, those aren't included at all and the data for freighters might look very different. It's just a theory but at least it would explain this apparent contradiction in what they say and what they're actually doing.