EVE General Discussion

As we all know, killing players in an NPC corp results in a standings loss with said NPC corp. I'm not sure how or why it works that way, but up until now, it hasn't really been a huge issue for lowsec dwellers.

However.

Deep Core Mining is one such NPC corp, and it turns out, if you have -5 standings or worse with them, landing in a belt with their mining fleets will result in an immediate NPC response fleet, one of the new improved advanced ones which I actually enjoy to fight, without any aggression. That is, the moment you land, the NPC miners start warping out, and the NPC fleet starts landing and immediately aggros.

This is detrimental to PVP because now we have very player-like NPCs potentially determining the outcome of a player-driven event in what's meant to be a player-driven game. Sure, this has happened before with Guristas potentially jamming out parties in a PVP engagement, but never on this scale.

Now, any engagement in an asteroid belt where NPC miners might suddenly land could be decided by said NPCs instead of players. I don't think this is right for this game.

INB4 "what did you lose". I didn't lose anything to this situation, yet, but when I was testing NPC fleet reactions, I was in a belt alone and had a DCM mining fleet land in the belt I was in, and then immediately warp off followed by an NPC combat fleet, which I evaded. Now imagine if I'd been engaged with a player in that belt, was winning the fight, but he had me scrammed when the NPC response fleet came. Now I've lost a fight because of NPCs.

Is this a player-driven game or not?

I can think of a few solutions to this. The first and most obvious is making adjustments to what corps can spawn mining fleets, and get rid of them in those corps in which players can be a part of. I have fought two DCM mining fleets total, with a corp mate. The vast majority of my negative standings with this corp is due to killing players in it.

Another solution would be to remove the immediate aggression that these NPC corps go to just because you land in their belt, without attacking anything.

And before you say, "but Rem, the actual solution is to fix your standings and stop killing players in NPC corps." To the first, I say, I'm working on it. Been running lvl 1 missions out of DCM in Hogimo to do just that. To the second, no, no one should get this kind of special protection from PVP just because the NPC corp they are in runs mining fleets that can kill a solo PVP'er just by looking in his direction.

Yes, I understand 'consequences' just fine. These 'consequences' break low-sec pvp. Try reading what I've written, and understanding the complication that arises when you have players getting help in PVP from OP NPCs. This isn't high sec I'm talking about, where you already have a CONCORD response.

The consequences for attacking a player should be the chance of losing my ship to said player in the event that they are capable of destroying it. The consequences of my actions of attacking players this way has already cost me billions of isk worth of ships in cases where the player I've attacked has been a bait of some kind. I'm okay with that, I 100% accept those consequences, because they are the consequences of the EVE Online that I first subscribed to. I do not want the equivalent of facpo coming to the 'rescue' of people I pick fights with, or worse, people who pick fights with me.

Features and ideas?

Ive not seen large swarms of NPC players in low sec using this example you gave.

If it's a " thing "

Discuss it to death by all means.

While it is a player driven world, that does not mean that the NPC's should be irrelevant.
They should be moving forward on their own agenda, not simply be things to shoot etc.

Maybe the standings loss to a players corp should be massively reduced in low & null sec admittedly, it is a very big hit.

You haven't said anything that runs contrary to the problem at hand. NPCs can have their agendas, but interference in PVP to this degree, especially in low sec, is not appropriate in this game. Players are not meant to get protection, or assistance, from NPCs in low sec. It's never happened before in the history of EVE, and every now and again when someone suggests on these forums the ability to hire NPCs for protection, they get shut down for the same reasons that the current NPC mining response fleets are a problem due to negative standings acquired for killing players in that NPC corp.

Let me remind you that the negative standings I have with DCM are largely the result of killing players in that corp, not for going after DCM. I have no problem with DCM. They are NPCs, what kind of problem would I possibly have with them?

I still remember one of my earliest PVP engagements. It was my brawling Ishkur vs an artillery Wolf. I still consider it one of the best fights I've ever had. He was kiting me and tanking my drones, and I was active tanking his artillery. It was a long fight, and it was fun. Eventually I figured out he was using keep at range to kite me, so out of desperation, I decided to try positioning myself so he would be between me and an asteroid in the belt we were fighting in. When I thought I had something lined up, I just clicked approach. As I was hoping, he bounced off an asteroid, killing his range control, and I was able to scram him and load him up with Void.

Now imagine, in the middle of that fight, tackled by his Wolf, and a DCM mining fleet lands. How do I evade them while I'm tackled? And why is it that a fight I should have won by virtue of clever piloting is suddenly turned on me because of NPCs that behave and coordinate more like players? You need to pay attention to the words I've used. I already acknowledge that NPCs have had an effect on PVP for a while, but it's never been on this scale, to this degree, and it damn well shouldn't be the deciding factor in an engagement as I described above.

Some of my best fights have been in asteroid belts. I've won some, and lost some, but the ones I lost were because of my own error, a superior enemy, or a combination of both. Not because they got a fleet of five NPC neuting Ravens with logi, EWAR and tackle to help them.

Well... they get assistance at the gates right? The reason they don't get assistance at belts is because the gate guns were only at gates.

Now... Detris players who've left their corp end up getting protected in belts where NPC miners are at. I'm sure the reason for this mechanic is so that players who regularly gank the NPC miners get aggressed on sight. I think the main issue with this isn't that it's unfair to the pirate... but rather that it give an advantage to one bloodline over the others in the game (even if it's a very specific scenario... NPC corp mining)

I may be misunderstanding this...

Do the NPC miner security fleets agress you just because of your standings with their corp?

Or will they aggress anyone attacking a DCM player where NPC miners are present?

No, the reason they get assistance at gates and stations is because they are bottlenecks that players have to go through, and are therefore easy to camp. Also, don't even pretend that the measly dps from sentry guns is anywhere near comparable to the NPC combat fleets. Also, no one is getting 'assistance' from sentry guns. The sentry guns fire on people who perform illegal actions within their range. They don't 'assist' so much as they respond.

I'm also not talking about what is and isn't fair. If I wanted fair, I wouldn't be playing EVE. I have been blobbed and hotdropped by players many times, and never once when it happened did I make an issue out of it on the forums. Those are player-organised actions. This is completely different.

They're attacking due to negative standings, which are largely the result (in my case) of attacking players in the DCM NPC corp.