Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Let me start off by saying that I was a suicide ganker years ago, and earned billions of ISK from it. I feel it is an important aspect of the game that should never be removed, and should actually be easier to achieve. I am against ehp buffs across the bored, that is not the solution to widespread ganking or greifing. Giving the EVE community the ability to retaliate against their attackers in significant ways is the best way to balance suicide ganking and create more content for players.

None of the proposed changes would change suicide ganking as we know it today, however these changes would make it easier for players to retaliate in significant ways.

- Allow unoccupied ships floating in space to be destroyed without criminal flag.

- Toons with -5 and below sec status should not be able to dock in high sec stations, -4 sec status toons can dock in .5 systems and up, -3 sec status toons can dock in .6 systems and up and so on. All toons regardless of sec status can dock in citadels, at the citadel owners discretion. This restriction would push more players out of NPC stations and into citadels. Citadel markets specifically for criminals would spring up in lower high security space. This would also allow players who are fed up to target citadels that harbor and supply specific criminals. Also, gankers would have to undock in something other than a throw away gank ship to go rat if they wanted to access higher security status NPC stations, giving players the opportunity to destroy gankers in their more expensive ratting ships. This would create content, and would be good for EVE.

With these changes, suicide ganking stays the same, but those who gank are at risk of retaliation. This is needed, it's ridiculous that ganker groups can destroy hundreds of billions in assets with impunity.

Flame on

Did not think about the pod self destruct, thats a good point, but there are plenty of solutions for players exploiting the self destruct option.

No one is denied the right to dock in high sec until they choose to lower their sec status.

Gankers would either have to be vulnerable while ratting to get their sec status up, vulnerable staging out of low sec, or stage out of a friendly citadel that is vulnerable to destruction.

That is consequence, that is why the EVE community would be able to fight back.

Right, but after the 15 minutes you have to stage again for the next hit. Gankers use throw away pods as well, so it doesn't matter to them. No one is forced to be a criminal in EVE, the reality is consequences are not harsh enough, gankers are going to destroy hundreds of billions in assets this week, all they will lose is throw away gank ships because that's all they undock in and are sheltered by current game mechanics. It's unbalanced game play.

If these changes were implemented, criminal alts would not be as protected by game mechanics. Again, stage out of low sec risks getting caught on gates. Stage out of high sec, means ratting sec status up, puts them at risk while ratting. Staging out of a citadel puts the citadel at risk.

Look, what I'm about to say is purely speculation. I have seen no facts, heard no rumors, to justify what I am about to state. I am just of this belief because it *seems* to be the direction CCP is building towards.

I feel, CCP may eventually deny docking rights to those with low security status. But I feel this will be done around a rebalance - they will no longer have facpo or Concord chasing them around (unless having just performed a criminal act, of course). So, criminals will be able to fly around freely. But they will be able to dock at citadels that opt to allow it. So, the counterplay to gankers will be you can declare war on them, then opt to take down their citadel to make your area of space marginally safer since they can no longer stage there.

Once gankers have to travel a bit further to the op, and they can do so because Concord isn't chasing them, you will have the opportunity to intercept them en route (remember low security status means they can always be shot at!). This is the counterplay that victims want, while not being a tremendous burden that would altogether halt ganking.

That does mean citadels that opt to harbor criminals will eventually have war declared upon them, and will need to field a defense fleet. A fleet of talos won't work for defense, so the victims' desire for the gankers to be "real PvPers" will be satisfied.

This is *entirely* speculation, but I look at what Citadels currently do, and I can't help but see enormous potential to do everything I've listed to give players on both sides of the coin enormous play and counterplay options. There'd be a lot of re-writing of code necessary, and a lot of fine-tuning for balance, but there's simply too much potential for awesome gameplay to not do something very close to these lines.

Do not mistake what I'm saying. I'm not specifically advocating for this to happen. I sound a bit enthusiastic because it sounds like embracing EvE's core where players take more control over their destiny through the tools at their disposal. I'm just speculating with what I see with citadels, that something like this sounds not just plausible, but inevitable. If I had to guess at a timeline...3 years from now.

The only strong opinion on this that I have is that you'll be negatively affecting FW players, even players who are fighting for their empire won't be able to dock in highsec systems owned by their own faction.

PvP in lowsec leads very quickly to low sec status because it's a free-for-all, including neutrals and FW pilots.

None of them are necessarily doing anything wrong other than pvping where highsec dwellers often tell them to go and by denying a player who is in FW the right to dock in the NPC stations of his own faction, that seems a bit harsh.

They aren't gankers. They aren't doing much in highsec other than some logistics and travel. They aren't doing anything wrong, other than playing the game for fun and this approach does nothing but punish that choice.

So, some wider changes would be needed in lowsec before this proposal (ie. #2) would make sense.

There would be other consequences that CCP might find difficult to work around too.

For example, during the Alliance Tournament, all teams form up in their HQ station and are then moved to the tournament systems by the devs, just prior to a match. Afterwards, they are returned back to the station.

Most of these stations are in highsec as that makes logistics much easier for teams.

In its current form, this proposal would stop a lot of players from ever taking part in the Alliance tournament and/or would be impossible for CCP to run the tournament as they currently do.

Teams take opsec very seriously.

Moving freighters of tournament ships and fittings around without having the contents scanned by other teams is all part of the fun.

If CCP had a Citadel that all teams use, fits would be compromised, because every Freighter entering system could be scanned (double wrapping could get around this).

It would also be a great focus for gankers to target; and/or teams could set up their own gank support to hit opponents Freighters in order to find out fits of double wrapped packages.

That would have a significant negative impact on teams as sometimes even a single module difference in fit can be an advantage to a team. There have been some good examples of this over the years.

So I doubt teams would agree to that approach.

Another ganker who doesnt want to fight for their ability to gank. For the billions that you have destroyed what have you lost other than throw away gank ships? Exactly, your gameplay is unbalanced.

Its not a nerf for the EVE community to be able to retaliate against you and your boyfriends, that's how it should be.

Unoccupied ships floating in space would have to vulnerable to attack without a criminal flag for this to work. That is not an unreasonable request. When I ganked ships in jita I would stage my typhoons just off grid of gates, often times players would steal the ships. There was not flag, no kill right, etc., and that was fine with me. Being able to attack an unoccupied ship in space without a criminal flag makes sense.

Um, nope. Do you really think we wont be able to track their orca/bowhead alts and scan down where they leave the ships? Thats why the criminal flag when attacking unoccupied ships is unbalanced. If a player can steal an unoccupied ship in space with no flag, then they should be able to destroy it too.