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Should Ganking be profitable?

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Jenn aSide
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#161 - 2013-03-20 14:06:30 UTC
Amyclas Amatin wrote:


The less it is about money, the more it becomes a matter of ideology, and of seeing how the player-base can force CCP's hand.


OMG, we can't have that now can we? It's unrealistic to think people would perform acts of terrorism to make other's dance to their toon without any kind of financial incentive. It totally never happens like that in real life!
HollyShocker 2inthestink
HOW to PEG SAFETY
#162 - 2013-03-20 14:16:39 UTC
Theron Vetrus wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Failed troll attempt.


Nice try, but I'm above letting you goad me into personal attacks. I've been around the interwebs for a spell, and my forum Kung Fu is much stronger than yours. Especially when the points you try to make are so easily picked apart.

I posted before that you are the poster child for carebears in this game. That holds true again in this thread. You seem to be a strong advocate against any kind of emergent gameplay, in a game whose sole claim to fame is exactly that which you seem to dislike the most.

The PvE element of this game is boring. Like every other MMO, it's repetitive, predictable, and at best, moderately entertaining even for the players who engage in it most. In most other games, there is a very clear distinction between PvE and PvP elements. There are different servers, and an entirely different player base. None of that exists in Eve. Here, PvP is a very real possibility every time you are in space, whether you choose to participate or even acknowledge it.

Maybe you just want to be left alone to play the game in peace. I can respect that. However, I have equal respect for the player who wants to blow you to smithereens. And THAT is where we differ. You are vocal about wanting to play your game the way you want to play it at the expense of how others choose to play the same game.


Kung Fu? Don’t you mean Dung Du?

You have yet to post anything constructive. All I have seen are one line troll attempts

I don’t want to be left alone. I want you and people like you to come to low/null and provide content. People that want to hide behind the mechanics of hi-sec and gank miners and people that ships aren’t fit or prepped for pvp should be able to do so if they like but they should do it at their own expense and not yield a profit. If you want to kill miners and come to the forums and beat your chest and boast about your pvp prowess you should be allowed to but not at a profit.

I am not asking for CCP to remove the ability to gank people just the profit from it in hi-sec especially look at the imbalance of a few . It could be a simple change like no mods drop for the gankers but cargo only this would still pose a limit to what should be carried…i.e. the right ship for the right job. As it stands now the rig slots don’t drop from any wrecks.

I realize that just removing the profit from ganking in hi-sec and not the ability to gank will cause a lot of butt hurt with a lot of you trolling forum warriors. I am sure you can come up with all sort of reason of how or why this will break the game, but did it break the game when they made ganking retrievers non profitable? Nope.

In the end it would not remove your ability or play style to gank just the profit from griefing miners or the high value ships in hi-sec
Jenn aSide
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#163 - 2013-03-20 14:21:21 UTC
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Theron Vetrus wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Failed troll attempt.


Nice try, but I'm above letting you goad me into personal attacks. I've been around the interwebs for a spell, and my forum Kung Fu is much stronger than yours. Especially when the points you try to make are so easily picked apart.

I posted before that you are the poster child for carebears in this game. That holds true again in this thread. You seem to be a strong advocate against any kind of emergent gameplay, in a game whose sole claim to fame is exactly that which you seem to dislike the most.

The PvE element of this game is boring. Like every other MMO, it's repetitive, predictable, and at best, moderately entertaining even for the players who engage in it most. In most other games, there is a very clear distinction between PvE and PvP elements. There are different servers, and an entirely different player base. None of that exists in Eve. Here, PvP is a very real possibility every time you are in space, whether you choose to participate or even acknowledge it.

Maybe you just want to be left alone to play the game in peace. I can respect that. However, I have equal respect for the player who wants to blow you to smithereens. And THAT is where we differ. You are vocal about wanting to play your game the way you want to play it at the expense of how others choose to play the same game.


Kung Fu? Don’t you mean Dung Du?

You have yet to post anything constructive. All I have seen are one line troll attempts

I don’t want to be left alone. I want you and people like you to come to low/null and provide content. People that want to hide behind the mechanics of hi-sec and gank miners and people that ships aren’t fit or prepped for pvp should be able to do so if they like but they should do it at their own expense and not yield a profit. If you want to kill miners and come to the forums and beat your chest and boast about your pvp prowess you should be allowed to but not at a profit.

I am not asking for CCP to remove the ability to gank people just the profit from it in hi-sec especially look at the imbalance of a few . It could be a simple change like no mods drop for the gankers but cargo only this would still pose a limit to what should be carried…i.e. the right ship for the right job. As it stands now the rig slots don’t drop from any wrecks.

I realize that just removing the profit from ganking in hi-sec and not the ability to gank will cause a lot of butt hurt with a lot of you trolling forum warriors. I am sure you can come up with all sort of reason of how or why this will break the game, but did it break the game when they made ganking retrievers non profitable? Nope.

In the end it would not remove your ability or play style to gank just the profit from griefing miners or the high value ships in hi-sec


And the whole idea is really dumb. You want some magical shiled around not just people flying inexpensive ships, but people flying REALLY EXPENSIVE ships. It's pure welfare queenesque entitlement thinking. NO PLACE in EVE except inside a station should ever work like that.

The idea is anti-EVE and you should be ashamed of yourself for even posting it
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#164 - 2013-03-20 14:34:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Arduemont
Unless I didn't make this clear in my last post in this thread. I think Sad is perfect where it is at the moment.

Edit: I wrote "ganking" where that frowny face is, and for some reason it auto-changed it to the frowny face... Not sure why, but I am leaving it there because I thought it was awesome.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#165 - 2013-03-20 14:49:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Theron Vetrus wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Failed troll attempt.


Nice try, but I'm above letting you goad me into personal attacks. I've been around the interwebs for a spell, and my forum Kung Fu is much stronger than yours. Especially when the points you try to make are so easily picked apart.

I posted before that you are the poster child for carebears in this game. That holds true again in this thread. You seem to be a strong advocate against any kind of emergent gameplay, in a game whose sole claim to fame is exactly that which you seem to dislike the most.

The PvE element of this game is boring. Like every other MMO, it's repetitive, predictable, and at best, moderately entertaining even for the players who engage in it most. In most other games, there is a very clear distinction between PvE and PvP elements. There are different servers, and an entirely different player base. None of that exists in Eve. Here, PvP is a very real possibility every time you are in space, whether you choose to participate or even acknowledge it.

Maybe you just want to be left alone to play the game in peace. I can respect that. However, I have equal respect for the player who wants to blow you to smithereens. And THAT is where we differ. You are vocal about wanting to play your game the way you want to play it at the expense of how others choose to play the same game.


Kung Fu? Don’t you mean Dung Du?

You have yet to post anything constructive. All I have seen are one line troll attempts



I'm fairly sure that a 4 paragraph reply is slightly more than a one line troll.

You call it ganking, some call it piracy.

Pirates have been around since at least the 14th century BC, that's 3400+ years of plundering the unwary and the unarmed, for profit. If they got logistical support from external concerns then they were called Privateers.

Pirates and Privateers have historically chosen to plunder valuable cargo, kill unarmed merchants, and damage the industrial backbone of their target audience. Generally they would try and avoid taking on the forces of law and order or anyone that may be able to beat them.

In Eve they do the same, they prey on merchants carrying valuable cargo, they prey on the miners who provide minerals to the industrialists who in turn produce ships and modules to sell to someone who may be an enemy or competitor. In a historical context, they're doing something that has been going on for thousands of years.

Who are we to frown upon, and demand changes to, what is quite possibly the worlds second oldest profession?

When something explodes in Eve, someone somewhere makes a profit, whether it's a direct or an indirect profit, ganking is profitable for somebody, anything else is anathema to what Eve is.

The original question opens up a very very deep and complex rabbit hole, where is the line drawn?
Do we stop those who aren't directly involved in the ganking from profiting?
Do CCP automagically reimburse ships lost to ganking to prevent industrialists from making a profit out of another's actions?

Either of the above scenarios would irrevocably damage the ingame economy, and would probably kill the game as both gankers and the industrialists that profit from their actions leave en masse, because the whines from the minority who want a safe New Eden have effectively killed the game for them.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#166 - 2013-03-20 14:59:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
People that want to hide behind the mechanics of hi-sec and gank miners and people that ships aren’t fit or prepped for pvp should be able to do so if they like but they should do it at their own expense and not yield a profit.
Why should you not be allowed to rob people of their valuables?
Why should you be able to hide your valuables behind mechanics rather than have to protect them yourself?

Quote:
In the end it would not remove your ability or play style to gank just the profit from griefing miners or the high value ships in hi-sec
…in other words, it would remove the play style of robbing people of their valuables for no reason that you can articulate.

By the way, griefing is a bannable offense in EVE. Robbing people of their valuables is not, nor is blowing stuff up for profit. What reason do you have to turn legitimate gameplay into griefing?
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#167 - 2013-03-20 15:17:25 UTC
There's a difference between ~griefing~ and what CCP considers "griefing." Capitalizing upon another player's mistakes is simply a part of the game, period.

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
March rabbit
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#168 - 2013-03-20 15:32:31 UTC
Amyclas Amatin wrote:
Let me put it this way: As the economic incentives for ganking are reduced, we end up with less and less "pirates" who gank for profits, until the primary perpetrators of ganking are comprised mostly of fanatical griefers.

This is why the ganking scene is now mostly alliance sponsored. This is why madmen like James 315 can thrive, and have hundreds of volunteers who are all too willing too force his doctrines down high-sec's collective throats.

what did i miss? Shocked
gankers only lost easy mode for mining barges. No industrials got protection, no mission runners got protection, ....

IF "we end up with less and less pirates who gank for profits" then they were not pirates but kiddo-gankers i suppose. Easy mode: google "catalyst fit for ganking hulk", fit it, go to belt, etc....

Real pirates who spend :EFFORT: and choose real VALUABLE target haven't got any changes as far as i remember. Mission runners still getting ganked, jump freighters still getting killed, etc...

The Mittani: "the inappropriate drunked joke"
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#169 - 2013-03-20 15:35:08 UTC
[quote=Tippia]Why should you not be allowed to rob people of their valuables?
Why should you be able to hide your valuables behind mechanics rather than have to protect them yourself?

quote]

They still can protect thier stuff behind game mecanic. Those emcanics are called tank, EHP, resistance, ... If people want protection, there is all the protection in the world. People not using such possibility like my untanked retriever for example should just deal with the fact that they did not use what was available to them to protect thier wares.

I personally think if people were fitting a decent T2 tank with no stupid misstakes and still get ganked profitably, then maybe some of those tnaking module are not good. If you bling it or leave resist holes, then you deserve to loose your stuff.
Amyclas Amatin
SUNDERING
Goonswarm Federation
#170 - 2013-03-20 16:12:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Amyclas Amatin
Frostys Virpio wrote:
[quote=Tippia]Why should you not be allowed to rob people of their valuables?
Why should you be able to hide your valuables behind mechanics rather than have to protect them yourself?

quote]

They still can protect thier stuff behind game mecanic. Those emcanics are called tank, EHP, resistance, ... If people want protection, there is all the protection in the world. People not using such possibility like my untanked retriever for example should just deal with the fact that they did not use what was available to them to protect thier wares.

I personally think if people were fitting a decent T2 tank with no stupid misstakes and still get ganked profitably, then maybe some of those tnaking module are not good. If you bling it or leave resist holes, then you deserve to loose your stuff.


Tank won't save you.

There are fanatics who will target tanked ships just to make an example of them. You trusted in your tank, and not in the mercy of The New Order. How dare you, and all that...

High-Sec is a fiasco, and the not-so-profitable ganking scene is now heavily subsidized by null-sec dwellers to the tune of billions. James 315 also pays 5 million isk for you to lose ships that he supplies at 4 million isk...

Sign up for terrorism today.

For more information on the New Order of High-Sec, please visit: http://www.minerbumping.com/

Remember that whenever you have a bad day in EVE, the correct reponse is "Thank you CCP, may I please have another?"
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#171 - 2013-03-20 16:12:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
March rabbit wrote:
Real pirates who spend :EFFORT: and choose real VALUABLE target haven't got any changes as far as i remember. Mission runners still getting ganked, jump freighters still getting killed, etc...
Their looters got a massive nerf with CW2.0 (especially in the case of freighters), and the new AI makes mission ganking a fair bit more problematic.

Quote:
IF "we end up with less and less pirates who gank for profits" then they were not pirates but kiddo-gankers i suppose.
No, if they were ganking for profit, they were pirates. If we end up with less of them, then that's a pretty bad direction for the game at this stage.

Amyclas Amatin wrote:
Tank won't save you.
Of course it will, to the extent that any tank will save you.
If they're really determined to kill you, then nothing (short of not undocking) will save you, but if all they're after is cash, then a tank will work wonders.
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#172 - 2013-03-20 16:35:37 UTC
Amyclas Amatin wrote:
High-Sec is a fiasco, and the not-so-profitable ganking scene is now heavily subsidized by null-sec dwellers to the tune of billions.


No, The New Order's list of benefactors consists of players from every part of the game, not just 0.0.

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
HollyShocker 2inthestink
HOW to PEG SAFETY
#173 - 2013-03-20 16:52:39 UTC  |  Edited by: E-2C Hawkeye
Jenn aSide wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Theron Vetrus wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Failed troll attempt.


Nice try, but I'm above letting you goad me into personal attacks. I've been around the interwebs for a spell, and my forum Kung Fu is much stronger than yours. Especially when the points you try to make are so easily picked apart.

I posted before that you are the poster child for carebears in this game. That holds true again in this thread. You seem to be a strong advocate against any kind of emergent gameplay, in a game whose sole claim to fame is exactly that which you seem to dislike the most.

The PvE element of this game is boring. Like every other MMO, it's repetitive, predictable, and at best, moderately entertaining even for the players who engage in it most. In most other games, there is a very clear distinction between PvE and PvP elements. There are different servers, and an entirely different player base. None of that exists in Eve. Here, PvP is a very real possibility every time you are in space, whether you choose to participate or even acknowledge it.

Maybe you just want to be left alone to play the game in peace. I can respect that. However, I have equal respect for the player who wants to blow you to smithereens. And THAT is where we differ. You are vocal about wanting to play your game the way you want to play it at the expense of how others choose to play the same game.


Kung Fu? Don’t you mean Dung Du?

You have yet to post anything constructive. All I have seen are one line troll attempts

I don’t want to be left alone. I want you and people like you to come to low/null and provide content. People that want to hide behind the mechanics of hi-sec and gank miners and people that ships aren’t fit or prepped for pvp should be able to do so if they like but they should do it at their own expense and not yield a profit. If you want to kill miners and come to the forums and beat your chest and boast about your pvp prowess you should be allowed to but not at a profit.

I am not asking for CCP to remove the ability to gank people just the profit from it in hi-sec especially look at the imbalance of a few . It could be a simple change like no mods drop for the gankers but cargo only this would still pose a limit to what should be carried…i.e. the right ship for the right job. As it stands now the rig slots don’t drop from any wrecks.

I realize that just removing the profit from ganking in hi-sec and not the ability to gank will cause a lot of butt hurt with a lot of you trolling forum warriors. I am sure you can come up with all sort of reason of how or why this will break the game, but did it break the game when they made ganking retrievers non profitable? Nope.

In the end it would not remove your ability or play style to gank just the profit from griefing miners or the high value ships in hi-sec


And the whole idea is really dumb. You want some magical shiled around not just people flying inexpensive ships, but people flying REALLY EXPENSIVE ships. It's pure welfare queenesque entitlement thinking. NO PLACE in EVE except inside a station should ever work like that.

The idea is anti-EVE and you should be ashamed of yourself for even posting it



Not true its already working like that for the retrievers. Can retrievers still be ganked? Yes they can. Is it profitable to do at the moment? No it isint. Seems to be a place in EVE atm for retrievers to be non profit and working as intended.

Sorry you dont like the idea. I am not asking for the ability for ganking to be removed only the profit how is that asking for welfare? The people taking advantage of the welfare are the gankers able to use low cost fits to kill high value ships.

If the profit is removed and you feel the need to kill people nothing would be stoping you. Just like nothing stoping you from killing retrievers.

What mentality are you using that justifies your ability to use high dps low value ships to kill high value ships little effort or risk. You decide who when and where the attack happens and if you have enough dps. If this isint pure welfare queenesque entitlement thinking then I dont know what is.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#174 - 2013-03-20 17:00:37 UTC
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
I am not asking for the ability for ganking to be removed only the profit how is that asking for welfare?
Because you're asking the game to do something the players should be doing for themselves. This is also why the barge buff is not working as intended: because it removed player choice from the equation.

Quote:
If the profit is removed and you feel the need to kill people nothing would be stoping you. Just like nothing stoping you from killing retrievers.
Why should you not be able to rob people of their valuables?
Jenn aSide
Worthless Carebears
The Initiative.
#175 - 2013-03-20 17:10:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Jenn aSide
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:



Not true its already working like that for the retrievers. Can retrievers still be ganked? Yes they can. Is it profitable to do at the moment? No it isint. Seems to be a place in EVE atm for retrievers to be non profit and working as intended.


So a retirever pilot should be able to put on an X-type tank or whatever, get ganked and the gankers get nothing?

As I said, the idea is anti EVE.
Quote:

Sorry you dont like the idea. I am not asking for the ability for ganking to be removed only the profit how is that asking for welfare? The people taking advantage of the welfare are the gankers able to use low cost fits to kill high value ships.

If the profit is removed and you feel the need to kill people nothing would be stoping you. Just like nothing stoping you from killing retrievers.


So what about the people in null sec and wormholes who risk their ships providing trhe materials and bpcs for the pirate faction and tech3 ships commonly used in high sec PVE?

If those ships and modules almost never go boom (and they wouldn't, because most gankers do what they do because of a chance to profit), then null sec/wormhole PVe players get screwed. When they get screwed, the High Sec incursions runners and mission runners get screwed because their LP (a lot of which is converted to ammo and stuff null sec PVE players use) get screwed too.

Expensive Ships and modules blowing up in EVE is a good thing for the economy and thus for everyone.

And you want to stop that so you can fly missions without getting ganked. How completely selfish can one person be?

Quote:

What mentality are you using that justifies your ability to use high dps low value ships to kill high value ships little effort or risk. You decide who when and where the attack happens and if you have enough dps. If this isint pure welfare queenesque entitlement thinking then I dont know what is.


The person flying the loot pinata get to decide if a gank is worth it, not the gankers. You want to take personal responsibility away from people flying 20 bil isk mission boats. This is wrong.

If you don't want to lose stuff of your ship when flying in space, you should be playing Star Trek online.
Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#176 - 2013-03-20 17:11:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Jonah Gravenstein
Tippia wrote:
Why should you not be able to profit by relieving people of their valuables?

FTFY

The main reason that ganking is currently, always has been, and always will be, profitable is other peoples stupidity.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

New Player FAQ

Feyd's Survival Pack
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#177 - 2013-03-20 17:12:21 UTC
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
The people taking advantage of the welfare are the gankers able to use low cost fits to kill high value ships.


A T2 fit Talos only deals 3x the DPS of a T2 fit Catalyst while costing more than ten times as much. This is, of course, by design.

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
Murk Paradox
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#178 - 2013-03-20 17:53:02 UTC
Whitehound wrote:
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:
Dev soundwave wrote.

"Yeah my point is that I don't think they should be profitable to gank. I think it should be possible, but not necessarily profitable (profitable might be the wrong word, but more that the expenses should be higher for the attacker than the defender)."

What is everyones opinion?

He is right. Only it is not as simple as CCP Soundwave makes it sound.

He knows there is more to it so he can make such statements, but for noobs to understand this do they first need to understand profit, and profit is not only about ship prices. It is about time and effort, ship roles, ISK/hour, production, player numbers, and lots of other things, too.

Balance is a delicate network of factors and counter factors. If one factor becomes so overwhelming that it will outweigh others, and all the time, does it become a danger to the balance. This is what he means by saying "necessarily profitable" - a factor become so strong that it will always outweigh others.

When a Hulk makes 15m ISKs/hour and costs 200m ISKs, while another ship costs 100m ISKs and makes 30m ISKs/hour, then you may have a problem.

When a ship like the Hulk needs three strip miners to fill its role and these modules cost 12m ISKs and the drop-chance is 50% resulting in 6m ISKs worth of loot, but the Hulk can be ganked by another ship costing less than 5m ISKs, then you may have a problem.

When a Hulk then needs a month and more of skill training and requires rare materials for building it, materials which have caused many great wars, but the ship can be shot down by practically a noob ship that is flown by many new players in their first week, then you may have another problem.

It is not even about high-sec and how safe it is and how safe it should be in one's opinion, but about the imbalances, which lurk in the fundamentals of the mechanic, and where factors begin to fail countering other factors.



A $2 hammer can always put a nail into a board better than any $300 plate made out of porcelain. Oh wait, that's an analogy, and people in GD hate those...

A hulk that specializes in one certain thing doesn't guarantee it will outperform a different ship in something else just because it costs more. It just means it is bigger and took more minerals to build it. Cost versus skillpoints doesn't equate into that formula.

This post has been signed by Murk Paradox and no other accounts, alternate or otherwise. Any other post claiming to be this holder's is subject to being banned at the discretion of the GM Team as it would violate the TOS in regards to impersonation. Signed, Murk Paradox. In triplicate.
Whitehound
#179 - 2013-03-20 17:59:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Whitehound
Murk Paradox wrote:
A hulk that specializes in one certain thing doesn't guarantee it will outperform a different ship in something else just because it costs more. It just means it is bigger and took more minerals to build it. Cost versus skillpoints doesn't equate into that formula.

My example was not about performance, but about investment. If something becomes too expensive, and I do not mean necessarily ISK-wise but also time-wise, and there are less factors to make up for it will players stop going for it.

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.
Georgina Parmala
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#180 - 2013-03-20 18:03:48 UTC
HollyShocker 2inthestink wrote:

What mentality are you using that justifies your ability to use high dps low value ships to kill high value ships little effort or risk. You decide who when and where the attack happens and if you have enough dps. If this isint pure welfare queenesque entitlement thinking then I dont know what is.


The mentality that a coordinated group of individuals should be able to accomplish feats above and beyond what an individual is capable of. It's at the heart of every multiplayer game.Their teamwork and time is a resource that is used instead of something that can be measured with ISK.

Oh wait, that can be measured with ISK too!

Before we even start to look at what loot drops and how much the gank ships cost, we have to consider the opportunity cost of the gank. Lets say it takes 15 minutes for everyone to get their gank ship together in the station and prepare, pick a target. After execution is complete, there is a 15 minute GCC to wait out. So let us say we use half an hour per person. Lets say 3 Catalysts. That means 4 people. You need a scout to provide a warp in and loot/salvage.

That's 4 people that could have spent the half hour running missions and making ~15 million. Each. Unless the gank yields a profit of more than 60 million, it is NOT "profitable" for them to engage in the task.

It's not about "oh on average we're one million ahead of losses". Hell, between the four of them, they could have made 20 million mining in retrievers themselves in that time. Ganking barges is far prom profitable. Adding more people to the effort increases opportunity cost while dividing the reward into smaller chunks.

Then there's risk vs reward. You say ganking is risk free. People say It's all math of scan ship - get ehp - eft sufficient dps.
Your looter goes suspect. It takes time to salvage all the wrecks too. In my aforementioned gank, there was an assault ship in the mining fleet that warped in on the gank and tried to drop one of the gank ships. He forced the looter to scoop the barge loot as he entered warp and leave everything else behind. Others can salvage and loot the remaining wrecks. There are countless things that can go wrong to eliminate profit, all at the hands of the miners. Or even putting said profit in the hands of the miners.That is, if they work together. Because multiple people working together can and should accomplish far more than individuals ever can. See how that works?

Just imagine. An entire mining fleet playing at the keyboard. Mining fleets running shield and armor gang links with some tank implants. With not tank in the mid slots, but ECM. Imagine calculating not how long until CONCORD magically appears, but how many successful jams you can expect from these 20 barges huddled together all fitted with ECM. All ready for the gank, with a plan to distribute jams accordingly. With combat drones aggressing when you go GCC, all on a called primary and dropping a gank ship before concord even shows up. And guess what? by the time the GCC times out, so does the limited engagement with assisting barges.


Now for the part of why should it be profitable?
Every activity in eve that gives any kind of reward carries risk with it. Even the missioner has risk from NPCs. I know people who stopped their guns in a blinged Mach to step away for a minute and came back to a pod (drones killed a trigger). Mining in high sec is the only risk free income. I've literally started my lasers in a belt and walked away for 12 hours unmolested in a max yield fit barge. I should not be able to do that.

There should be risk, especially to effortless ISK printing in a "max gank" fit. The only risk a high sec miner ever faces is ganks from other players. Therefore the ganks need to be profitable. Otherwise the risk disappears, breaking the fundamentals eve is built on. If there is no risk and no effort involved, the rewards are too damn high.

Science and Trade Institute [STI] is an NPC entity and as such my views do not represent those of the entity or any of its members

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=276984&p=38