EVE General Discussion

As far as can flipping is concerned I see no problem with the current system. If you are experienced enough to know what jetcan mining is then you deserve whatever you get if somebody steals ore from said can. In short if you don't want your ore stolen, don't leave it laying around. With the current mechanic if your can is flipped you have the option to retaliate, which you do at your own risk. If you want to jetcan mine safely have your corpmates (Oh, your in an NPC corp? Well then too bad.) provide cover while you jettison cans to your hearts content. If somebody DOES flip your can at least your corpmates can make sure he regrets it. Again, the way I see it the current mechanics are just fine, and if people were smarter about how they played the game they could avoid a lot of the 'problems' that the proposed changes aim to 'fix'.

Three threads and thousands of posts might unfortunately mean that this is simply too much to ask of the generation whose general ineptitude is responsible for the health hazard warnings on plastic forks and styrofoam coffee cups.

There will be no neutral reppers with this change. There will be reppers who are one of more of the following: a) free for all to shoot; b) locked out by docking timers (while being free-for-all targets); c) killed by CONCORD.

Actually, yes, very much. Now is when they're deciding what the design goals of the refactoring is and right now, that list pretty much consists of “get rid of one-to-one flagging”. This is the point in the process where we — who live with these mechanics on a daily basis — chip in and say “no, this reduction removes functionalities X, Y, and Z, and it's imperative that they remain”. This is when we get the message across that other goals need to be on the list, and that we can see severe exploits and gaps in the system as proposed so far.

If anything, IMO, this is the exact opposite of Incarna: they're telling us something that needs to happen and why, and they're asking for our feedback on what needs to still be there at the other end and what issues we have that need to be fixed at the ground floor, rather than be clumsily patched in at a later date.

Oh, and Grumpy and Liang: as someone who was there for both the presentation and the roundtable, and who also took part in the discussions on the stairs afterwards let's make this clear: right now the plan is that flagging yourself as “suspsect” gives you no special rights. You are now a legal target for everyone. Attacking you does not make anyone a suspect. Anyone attacking you are therefore illegal targets, and if you try to shoot back at them as they kill you, CONCORD smacks you down hard. Directly from the devs' mouths. Also from their mouths is the only alternative with the current proposed implementation: anyone who attacks a “susspect” is also flagged a “susspect”. You can now fire back at your attackers. The problem with this (and why they're reticent to do it) is that this will very quickly lead to a situation where half the system is flagged a free-for-all target. There's also the notion that, if people know they'll become free-for-all, they won't use the opportunity to shoot suspects, and that kind of ruins the point of having them — it basically means highsec becomes an opt-in lowsec.

Ok, so firstly, see the first bit of my previous post. This isn't something we flagged up as an issue early on, but which looks like it should be solvable so we've not dedicated a whole lot of work to it yet.

Here's the awkwardness with all three obvious solutions to this problem:

1. You can't defend yourself. Silly but robust.
2. Anyone who attacks a suspect becomes a suspec. Robust, but effectively nullifies the penalties of the suspect flag because the risk of engaging a suspect becomes huge without fully comprehensive scouting (which with cloaking and high local-counts is pretty much impossible in hisec).
3. We reintroduce one-to-one flagging in its current form, which is nice in this limited scenario but causes endless breakages and exploits in aggregate, as we've discovered over the past decade or so.

What we're actually considering right now, based on player suggestions, is to formalize the concept of a "limited engagement", which is effectively needed for both wardecs and some kind of duelling system, and carry that across to here too. To whit, anyone who engages a suspect becomes part of a "limited engagement" with the suspect on one side and all their aggressors on the other side, and any further interference by anyone else in that engagement gets a suspect flag.

And yes, I know "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU EVEN CONSIDERED THAT OPTION"; we consider all the options, and yesterday I threw one out to gauge the player reaction to it, which generated some useful feedback.



Forgive my slow brain, I've just woken up, but... a thirty-minute presentation, 15 minutes of Q&A, a one-hour roundtable and a 16-page-and-counting forum thread... and I'm not running this past anyone? Bwuh?



You literally just quoted me saying "we've not made our mind up what the intended behavior is".

Greyscale, have you considered the possibility that the current can-flagging mechanics are already adequate? I know you want to add on to the game, but sometimes new additions do more harm than good. Having a system where a can-flipper gets aggro toward the can owner's corporation is quite fair and balanced. Extending that aggro to the whole alliance might also be tolerable. But extending it to every single player in high-sec is ridiculous.

Also, note how we're not criticizing the RR and security status proposals. It's this specific change that we have an issue with, and quite frankly, it should be dropped without further discussion. I feel like my words are falling upon deaf ears, however. I shudder to think what kind of surprises Sunday will bring.

I'll be gracious and assume it's legit. (More grief from being skeptical of players it seems.)

At least it's interesting they have an alternative proposal.

What's the argument if anything against affording aggression rights to can flippers specifically to those WK's who attack them. Is this simply the case that it would kind of revert back to the old or current complicated list of linked mechanics to individual statuses that would become a jumbled mess as per in some what similar to what we have now?

As the proposal with the CONCORD smackdown would kind of leave can flipping to the exercise of smash and grab then flee. Not really the PvP promoting situation I was hoping for really.

I realise they were proposing a seperate dueling system however to compensate for arbitary PvP encounters.

Edit: Answers from CCP Greyscale came in after I posted.

What about:

4. Anyone who attacks a suspect becomes a suspect *in current grid* (plus a timer to avoid flag => warp => clear flag => get back)? It'd avoid the "viral" flagging (except at Jita undock).
A follow up addition would be "in current grid + gang links in current system".



Also, will you deal with the "circumvent CONCORD with Orca and never lose a ship" trick?

Would see this as the most preferable and sensible option to explore atm.

Forgive me if you have gone over this but this is important to me.

The agro everyone change to can flipping I kinda like even if it does mean my battle haulers life will be made much harder but the loss in sec status is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

Very silly and very much against the spirit of the game.