Live Events Discussion

Two separate issues.

Yes I would have same responses to any "well-known" RP group doing the same things with the same results and starting a similar thread.

I'm personally more interested in the fiction, where things are going, and things developing than having every.single.event be a 'shoot the actors' event. But that's just me.

I think ccp also runs regular loot pinata events that might cater more to this kind of playstyle as well.

It's also more of a larger issue with gameplay mechanics not quite up to reflecting how things would react in a more 'real' world, by way of the things mentioned previously such as docking / KOS by Concord, etc. Gankers take advantage of an extremely unresponsive and unpredictive NPC environment to do their work. I'm quite alright with that with regards to other players but it does break the immersion walls down sometimes with respect to live events and VIP event characters.

Until those things are amended I've got no problems with GMs handwaving workarounds to any events in order to propel larger PF forward.

Both suggestions boil down to "hold a completely different event".

Which, you know, on your side, but the question is, what could the escort players have done in the specific scenario we were presented with to prevent the big shiny actor ship from exploding, and the answer is.... well... Nothing. The way the event was constructed put the question of whether or not the actor's ship would survive completely out of our hands.

The addition of the QA module put it out of everyone else's hands too. If the goons had successfully blown up the actor, I would have raised my concerns about one side's effective uselessness with Falcon, but as it turned out everybody was on a level playing field, we just lacked some information regarding how much our actions could influence the event.

Like I said: I'm fine with the idea of an event being a "cutscene" where the outcome is less malleable. I just want to know ahead of time if what we're turning up to is such an event.

The usage of QA extenders was worth it to see tears of this volume flow into the forums. There's nothing more satisfying than to see Vea cry.

I'm inclined to agree with Stitcher that there is no way those of us who escorted the delegates could actually have dealt with a suicide gank. The fleet I was part of was a coordinated shield cruiser/BC fleet with logi and boosts. It could have mounted credible resistance to a fair sized, sustained attack if one was presented.

However, there will always be more would be gankers than defenders, especially if shiny ships are in play.

I know nothing about coding, but perhaps there might be scope for players to self-flag for events? Essentially, players take on the event flag in order to interact with the event actor (well, in a way that involves F1 to F8). They become engageable by anyone else with the event flag active. This would give the defenders an opportunity to scout out who was really dangerous and who was just a bystander and act pre-emptively.

We have duelling mechanics now which are a kind of self flagging. There would need to be some sort of warmup before the flag became valid of course, so people couldn't just flag up the second they intended to gank, but a 10 minute warmup time would be ample for a competently led fleet to identify the threat and assess the situation.

Event actors would need to respond to their defenders' suggestions in a plausible fashion however. Capsuleers may be immortal, and some might be megarich, but we don't see Tech barons leeroying into gank traps do we? If nothing else, they would be ridiculed for their stupidity however rich they are.

Assuming escort fleet was competent, they'd have scouts ahead. Just like a regular PVP fleet. Scouts who could see that there was a likely hostile fleet in system.

And if they're an incompetent rag-tag just along for the party, well, the guy they were escorting would deserve to be shot down. Just like anyone else in an uncoordinated fleet.

Though I suppose I should have made clear that the event flag would need to show up in local like suspect/criminal flags.

Reworking the drop rates could be interesting all around, changing it from static RNG to something more dynamic:

- Damaged mods have less of a chance of survival (based on % damage)
- Burnt out mods rarely survive
- High alpha wrecking shots reduce module survival chance (1400mms)
- Low DPS increase module survival chance (50 Acolyte Is)
- Fragile or volatile items could be given greater chance to break
- New modules could be introduced that will automatically incinerate ship cargo on destruction.

I doubt it's as simple as a single for-each-if loop over all modules. But the whole thing could be built with a control to say what might and might not survive for these special characters.

Now I'm imagining an FC yelling "overheat everything, burn out everything to prevent recovery".

No, we are saying that when you show up to troll a live event, don't claim to be role playing when you showed up to do nothing but troll.

"You weren't roleplaying how I want you to roleplay, so you can't be roleplaying at all!".

I'd feel sorry for anyone who went to a DnD game with this mentality. I didn't realise we had to conform to the expectations of others in order to roleplay in EVE.

On the flipside, if you came to my DnD game with the attitude that Vincent Athena just described, and are there just to troll the heck out of my DnD game without making the experience of a higher quality for everyone else involved, you'll get kicked out of it before you can pronounce "George Stephanopoulos".

This whole drama about RP live events shouldn't have begun to begin with. I for one don't recognize Alizabeth Vea to be part of the RP community. Nobody from the RP community should.