EVE General Discussion

Meine Augen! Walls of text!

In before someone starts bitching about AFK cloaky campers on top of everything else.

Too late.

They always lose their ships whenever they gank.

Yeah, it may "look easy" but they put in quite a bit of effort and know the game's mechanics. So we are to penalize them for that effort and human capital? Sounds like a plan to retain players.

Yeah a Catalyst, sometimes a Stealth Bomber or a Brutix or a Talos not a huge deal when it comes to the vast profits they make. But that is often down to stupid people carrying too much cargo. Catalysts went out of favour because AG was bumping the freighter out of optimal so they now largely use SB's. They are well organised, well funded but it is not exactly difficult.

The issue is the lack of consequences, they lose a ship which they know they are going to lose, they have 15 minutes of criminal timer and a penalty on their security status which matters not as they are already -10. Its a pretty weak consequence. What some people have suggested and I agree with is to simply add an inability to dock in NPC hisec stations. Does that sound really that bad when they have looted so many freighters carrying Citadels which they have already seeded along most of the ganking routes. Seriously? A Medium Citadel costs 700m big deal for them no!

Next up is the loot scooping as I said the AG players had some alts that did that, they don't have any income like the gankers and what they gank on is net account, simple as. People are not going to gank 15,000 EHP on low skill alts with just a loss leader. That was the issue with the EHP, it was put above their ability to do it, perhaps if CCP had not cut it off as it was just happening those players might have got into it enough to train up what they needed, but they did not have a chance too. If CCP could re-look at this taking into account game balance I would be happy, perhaps drop it down a bit so its at the level of two cruisers. And then after a while put it back up to 15,000 EHP.

So now we get to the loot scooping, oh dear I can kill a noob ship, they place a DST next to the wreck and of course a freighter, then the noob ship scoops directly into the DST, the freighter pilot takes it into his hold. The noob ship is the only one to go suspect. Total loot security for low risk. So if we cannot blap the wreck for reasons perhaps CCP could look at this aspect and adjust it. Again is this so unreasonable.

Bumping, its a point without applying aggro, about as low risk PvP that you can get, at least CCP is looking to change it so they have to point the freighter with a noob ship every three minutes, wow thats going to hurt a lot. But I will see how this goes, at least they will have to move a bit quicker could mean that AG catch a few more on gates and some gankers will have to fund another account or two like Mr Chicken. In any case we have to accept this approach as being reasonable that after 3 minutes the freighter will go into warp unless it is pointed. I am happy about this because it add just a bit more effort on their side. They will not be able to keep someone there for hours which was my main issue.

That is what t I am suggesting, but those suggestions are destroying ganking and making it impossible, LOL, seriously?

[sarcasm]

Accepting a consequence as a cost of doing business means that it isn't a consequence.

[/sarcasm]

I think the general idea is to make team work less effective at overcoming the efforts, or lack thereof, of an individual...

Again whose fault is it that they make huge profits? Let me see, a guy does something imprudent and foolish...other players who know the mechanics, and have put forth considerable effort to take advantage of that foolishness and imprudence....and we blame those who imposed a cost on that foolishness and imprudence.

Yep, that is totally reasonable.

This is just so stupid.

The reason it is stupid is that there are two parts to this so called problem. On one hand we have a group of players, for the sake of brevity lets just use CODE. as a place holder, that,

1. Know the game mechanics.
2. Have innovated and set up an alliance and logistics frame work dedicated for ganking freighters (lets ignore the ganking of miners)
3. Accept the costs of their actions.

First off 3 does not imply there is no cost. That is just vanilla stupid and anyone suggesting it is vanilla stupid. I have to pay my electric bill or not get electricity. My acceptance of this fact does not somehow magically make my electric bill zero or not a cost I have to pay. Same is true if I accept losing a ship in game for an action I want to pursue.

Second, freighter ganking is also made possible by the actions of those who use freighters imprudently and foolishly. If there was nobody being imprudent and foolish freighter ganking would be extremely minimal. Most likely down to NS alliances shooting "hostile" freighters to gimp their enemies HS logistics and/or ransom requests.

So this notion is that the one side has learned how to manage their risk and at the same profit form it is therefore all their fault is like blaming someone for getting good at some other aspect of the game. You have figured out a way to make higher profits at invention than other players...why your game should be nerfed. You are being unfair to those who have not figured out what you have figured out. You are stealing some of their profits!

Further, those who get ganked are not only imprudent (overloading their freighter) but also foolish. They are foolish because the benefit they get from doing this is actually very small. Even if they were going to go and get 15% return on their 8 billion cargo, that is only 1.2 billion yet they are risking well over 9 billion in assets. The downside risk is substantial relative to only a small upside....especially if ganking is as ubiquitous as Dracvlad and others he would have us believe. If ganking is a high probability scourge in HS, then these players are just down right vanilla stupid. Contrarily Dracvald has argued that no, these players are not dumb. Somehow they are not dumb for doing something with little upside but tremendous downside.

How Dracvlad squares this circle I don't know.

^^ When stupidity is allowed to breed it becomes the norm; Mike Judge made an entertaining film based on that premise, it's called Idiocracy.

Eve is friendly to many play styles.

It's certainly turning into one