Crime & Punishment

Everyone likes to have an opinion, so I will add my two cents worth - Note: This is my opinion and results from what I see as a substantial decline in the player base over the past two years or so. I don't ask anyone to agree with me, but feel free to comment and add your thoughts.

The simple fact is CODE and similar HighSec Space Gankers are just low-life bullies; no better and no different to the low-life that creates a false account on Face Book to bully someone online from their school or work place.

“But this is a game, it’s different” you say. How? EVE is just another means to interact with people. You can interact with your mates in a playground at the local park, you can interact through one of the many social media sites, or you can interact in multi player games. How you choose to do so is what defines the difference between playing and bullying.

EVE provides four distinct zones of play, HighSec, LowSec, NullSec, and W-Space. Each supposedly providing different levels of interaction between players based on the mechanics of each zone.

HighSec = High Security Space. You can only legally attack and kill another person’s ship in HighSec if you have a legally declared war through the WARDEC system. Ganking a person – killing their ship / pod in HighSec without a legally declared war is illegal and the player violating this rule will have their ship killed by CONCORD.

People who pay to play eve make their own choice when it comes to how they wish to play EVE. Not everyone wishes to PvP or venture outside HighSec. I personally know people who just like to log on once or twice a week and do a little bit of HighSec PvE mission running or just enjoy the challenge of playing the market. They don’t ask any interaction with low-life gankers that deliberately exploit the game mechanics to attack people in HighSec without a WARDEC.

At this point in time, NullSec is a far safer place to fly than any of the main HighSec trade routes, and CCP are blatantly guilty of creating this situation.

If I am in a fleet and web my Corp mate’s freighter off a gate, I get an aggression timer that will not allow me to dock or jump through a stargate. I have done nothing wrong, but am forced to pay a penalty of 60 seconds.

A low-life ganker can attack and destroy billions of ISK worth of freighter and cargo belonging to someone who chooses to play EVE for their own enjoyment, chooses to stay in HighSec and has no wish to be involved with PvP. All the low-life gets is the same 60 second penalty before they can dock up and wait out the 15 minute Criminal Timer, jump in a new ship and go do it all again. You cannot even try to defend your freighter or industrial ship, as you will get CONCORDED if you initiate any action to try to defend your ship in HighSec.

That is no penalty – it is an exploit; one that CCP is well aware of and as yet does nothing to fix and curb the bulling they knowingly allow in what is supposed to be the HIGH SECURITY play area of the game.

Two years ago, it was normal to see 27 to 33 thousand accounts online in the Australian Time Zone. Now, two years on, I’m lucky if I see 17 to 20 thousand accounts. With FozzieSov coming I am already seeing numbers as low as 15 thousand when I logon of an afternoon now. Talking to Corp mates from other countries, there are 15-20 thousand less accounts online across the USA TZ, and a similar number in the EU TZ. Over 24 hours and all time zones, this is a rough average of up to 40 thousand less accounts active in the game.

People claim it is all the multi-boxers and bot miners out of the game. Really? My brother no longer plays – 2 accounts; one of my best mates in WA no longer plays – 2 accounts; a friend in Melbourne no longer plays – he had 6 accounts; my son no longer plays – 1 account.

They are just the people I know personally, but there are many others I know only through the game that no longer play, and every one of them quit EVE because the HighSec ganking - not just of freighters, but the stand over tactics of CODE bulling miners into paying for a permit to mine in HighSec.

I don’t know what CCPs grand vision is, but all I am seeing is $760,000US per month no longer getting into CCPs bank account. That is $9.12 million per year. Every one of those accounts was effectively a PLEX, and those PLEX only got into the game if someone bought them in RL and put them into the game.

Where is all this going you ask? Simple, I want to see a change to the mechanics of HighSec.

Personally, I don’t believe the mechanic should change that allows someone to target and shoot someone in HighSec without an active declared war. It is a conscious decision on their part if they choose to be a bully. It is the penalty they pay that needs to change. The current penalty makes a complete joke of the term ‘High Security Space’.

If CCP can make an aggression timer that locks a player’s access to docking or Stargates for 60 seconds, then they can write better penalty into game code than that. My personal thoughts on an appropriate penalty for killing another player’s ship in HighSec without an active declared war are:

1. CONCORD kills both Ship and Pod of the offending player(s);

2. Offending player has security status set to -10 for all factions and a criminal flag set until that security status is pushed back to zero or above for the faction space they wish to enter;

3. Offending player’s medical clone (if in HighSec) is relocated by CONCORD to the nearest NPC NullSec (possibly LowSec) station; and

4. The Criminal Flag set on an Offending player should act like an aggression timer, in the sense that it should bar them from accessing any stargate into HighSec space until they grind their security status back to a zero or positive state for the faction space they wish to access. Jump cloning into a HighSec station is also barred until the criminal flag is removed.

Eve is a game about spaceships blowing other stuff up. Shooting a spaceship in Eve is no different to shooting another player in a Call of Duty game.

It always surprises me when players claim they aren't affecting anyone else and they just want to do some PvE or trade, may be a little mining.
If Eve was changed to stop unwanted player interaction then....
The Miner wouldn't have to interact with the Ganker. But then why should traders have to deal with Miners when they want to buy ore and minerals. So we need NPC sell orders for all materials.

Ah, but people who buy and fit spaceships shouldn't have to deal with traders. So we need NPC sell orders for all ships and modules/ammo.

No one should have to deal with haulers, so all stations should have everything seeded by NPC orders including all faction and LP items because no one should have to deal with exploreres and missions runners either.

I'm not sure but I think that would break the game for everyone.

Go play on the Test server if you don't want non-consensual ship on ship violence.

I'm not reading all that on my phone is the tldr more tears about ganking in high sec?

Good to know. I shall rethink my eve life.

I agree that certain gank mechanics are somewhat broken...I disagree with OP's solutions.

Yarr!

No. There have already been many nerfs to hisec over past years, as anyone who knows what the hell they are actually talking about already knows. So if there isn't a direct correlation today of increased subs retention as a result after all that then guess what, nerfing hisec killed subs. tldr; Boredom at saving the damsel for the 100th time without another player invading your mission (or wardec) actually kills subs? Who knew...we content creators did, but no one listened...

WoW is that way --> Go there, or better yet go skill yourself.

F

High security means that hisec is safer than other places, in their vanilla form, not totally safe. If other areas of space appear to be safer it is because the people that live there have made an effort to make it so.

Gankers are not exploiting game mechanics, they accept the penalties and plan around them, they are simply making better use of existing mechanics than their targets are.

The number of players logged in is not subs, while it may have a correlation with the amount of subscribed accounts it implicitly shows only one thing, the number of characters that are logged in.
The ban on input multiplexing has had an effect on logged in accounts, and has probably resulted in some of those accounts no longer being subbed.
Multiple character training has had an effect on logged in accounts, you no longer need to sub multiple accounts to train more than one character, hence unless you need to have multiple characters logged in simultaneously or more than three characters there is no longer a need to have multiple accounts.

No, No, No and No.

Relying on CCP to provide a solution to a "problem" that can be avoided with minimal effort is just plain lazy, learn to protect yourself from unwanted attention.

The current punishment for hisec ganking is already appropriate as it deters >90% of hisec players from indulging in it. Just as in real life the penalty for a crime discourages most people from committing it, not all.

In short, working as intended.

But if it's coming from outside of hisec, is it really trolling?

This thread is going places.

Edit: Also it's obvious what I'm about to do with the OP's alliance, right?