On any given evening, it's not unusual to see 40,000 characters online. CCP has told us that nearly 50% of EVE players live in highsec. So, on any given evening, there should be approximately 20,000 players in highsec.
Of those 20,000 players, how many heinous acts of criminal ganking* occur on any given evening? 10? 25? 50? 100? 200? Let's say there's 200** such acts (which I feel is probably on the high side of any estimate, but I'll go with this number to keep everybody happy). Those heinous acts account for only 1% of the total highsec population on any given evening.
Yet, there's a strong push, in some quarters, to continue carebear creep, to continue to safen up highsec, for a mere 1% of the highsec population. (And 95% of that 1% are probably straight-up numbskulls, who refuse to do anything to protect themselves at all.)
So, basically, 99% of the highsec population gets along just fine on a nightly basis, yet, according to some, we should continue down the path of the themepark, move towards consensual highsec PvP all for the sake of a mere 1%.
Sounds downright silly to me.
* We're not going to account for anything that happens outside of highsec, because anything that happens outside of highsec is to be expected.
** Sure, I'm pulling the gank number out of my ass, but since CCP is never going to give us any numbers, some educated guesswork is required. Considering gankers love to advertise their handiwork, if the number was higher, we'd be seeing a lot more links to killmails, chat logs, and youtube videos.
You're totally ignoring the numbers that matter though. The point that CCP is making is that they are losing subscribers do to the highsec ganking. Unfortunately, they're not exactly giving us any facts to work with so we can pull any numbers out of our ass to justify our positions... "Over 1000 subscribers a month ragequit over ganking... we NEED highsec safer"... or "1 person in the last 10 years quit because of ganking HTFU!" Without facts, this just becomes useless opinions... of which you're a master :)
ReplyDelete"The point that CCP is making is that they are losing subscribers do to the highsec ganking."
DeleteAre they saying this, though?
"Are they saying this, though?"
DeleteAs a matter of fact, yes.
However, the unsubs are not due to ganking alone. They are also due to the proliferation of other forms of high sec hijinks, such as wardeccing of small noob corps by larger PVP corps, and ninja harassment of mission runners. Basically, any activity that causes new players in high sec to unsub, or not convert a trial account to a sub. Particularly, those players who are more interested in the PVE aspects of the game, rather than PVP, which, believe it or not, is a significant, albeit quiet, percentage of the player base.
And, while you might make an argument that a ganker has the same right as any other player to engage in his/her style of gameplay, CCP's accounting department doesn't see it that way. They would prefer to keep the subs of 5 carebear victims rather than the 1 gloating ganker.
CCP does have numbers and statistics, btw. They collect them as part of the "why did you quit playing EVE" questionnaire that goes out to unsubbed accounts.
^^ CCP isn't [yet], but plenty of other people are.
DeleteI think at the end of one of my recent tl;dr posts I posed that question: "How does ANYONE know why people are either not subbing trial accounts, or un-subbing existing accounts?" CCP has NO metric in place, no "exit interview" or "survey" to answer that question.
All they have to go on is the raeg-filled forum posts and petitions they receive. I mean, I could take my 1 alt acct, write a teary post in C&P with one of the chars on it about how terrible griefing and ganking is, maybe even cook up a staged killmail to support that, if I really wanted to go "9/11 was a demo job" on it, and subsequently unsub that account.
Sure, the usuals would come out of the woodwork with their usual "hurf-blurf, HTFU or GTFO", but how many other [hisec/Carealot-dwelling] others would hold that up as yet another "tragedy" that points to how terrible EVE is even in hisec, and why we'll never top a million subs. ;-)
Then again...how would EVE honestly accomodate 1M subs, especially if the "60%" stat is right, and 500K of those would live strictly in hisec??
Hisec belts and exploration sites are already highly competitive as it is, I've flown thru many systems in Gal and Cal space with empty roid belts, scanned and found no sites, or a grav site with 2 low-grade rocks left, or complex/anom sites that're already pretty much completed by another player which leads to another good question: in the kinder-gentler hisec, would it be "griefing" to pop the boss/overseer structure and scoop the loot while the guy who's been grinding the site is still busy popping the lesser badgais and tanking the site all this time? Eventually, probably, yes.
But yeah, as it is, the 'ecology' of hisec doesn't appear to be doing well with the current load. And people want to double it. lol.
CCP does indeed have exit interviews when you cancel an account and it goes dark. They should have a fair idea of why people quit. If the main reason is, "my mining ship got ganked" I would say "good riddance". On the other hand if the main reason for quitting is, "my corp got permadecced, they had spies in our corp and we could never undock without facing 3:1 odds" then there is something that CCP and the player base need to look at.
Delete+1. You've just pulled every number here out of your arse Poetic. It's not good enough to make an argument based on that. CCP rightly have their commercial best interests at heart, and by a direct correlation the very existence of EVE. They also have better statistics than anybody about what is costing them money in lost subscriptions.
DeleteYou can bitch and moan all you like about them putting $$ before x or y subset of players, but you can never escape the core fact that the EVE needs to make money for x and y subset of players to even play it. CCP are more than within their rights to make whatever decisions they feel are more commercially viable, up to and including making hisec super-safe. If they feel that will get or retain more players than it will cost them, then that's a good business decision.
The best you can do is argue that the more hardcore players should always have a place in this game- and so far not a single person anywhere ever has denied this outside of the ridiculous hyperbole spouted by the more extreme of the "GANK ALL THE THINGS" crowd.
Furthermore, I do not see how any recent or seriously proposed changes from CCP justify this stupid "carebear creep" term. Since flatly accusing Ripard of being a closet carebear, you've been losing credibility at an alarming rate - the longer you carry on with this stupid little buzzword you've invented for yourself, the more that is going to accelerate. You're fast heading for the "bitter vet, not worth listening to" bin mate.
So, that was me above, and I just ducked over to Mabricks blog. You should read his response there, he puts it very well, if a little less starkly- to be honest he makes his point with less vitriol and a good example. Maybe not quite ready to start my own blog yet...
DeleteYou didn't hurt my feelings.:)
DeleteStart your own blog. If you have things to say, then do it.
I think your eve client should have a few pre-defined ship fittings defined. Possibly with a little write up on each one about what/why it is the way it is.
ReplyDeleteAnd obviously the tutorials need to show the newbie these ships fittings as the different ships are introduced.
There should be an example of a tanked mining ship, and a tanked T1 hauler. There should be an example of a frigate to take to low-sec for a look see. There should be examples of typical PvP frigate fit. Maybe an example of an active tanked mission ship.
Eve is a dangerous game. Don't change that. Just give the new guys more information so that they have a better chance of surviving.
"Eve is a dangerous game. Don't change that. Just give the new guys more information so that they have a better chance of surviving."
DeleteCould not agree more. It's not about changing the mechanics to protect the player, it's about educating the player to protect himself.
Give the man a fishing pole, line and hook ... not the fish.
Replying to myself, but anyway... these fittings should simply be hardcoded corp fittings that are defined in the various starter NPC corps and form part of the tutorial.
DeleteSome preset fittings would be a good thing for new players.
DeleteEve is *not* a dangerous game for gankers....
DeleteThere is no T1 hauler fit than can withstand a gank. T1 haulers simply don't have the stats, bonuses, nor grid to fit any sort of substantial tank.
DeletePreset fittings would definitely be a great start, as would explanations for the vague basics of a good fit - I'm imagining an arrow highlighting the rack of guns explaining why you use the same calibre and which calibre/type to choose for a ship type, one pointing to mids for shield or lows for armor explaining why you tank that type for that ship and don't mix tanks, one for lows for shield or mids for armor explaining why you fit utility mods in that rack, the basic kind of stuff that really needs explaining but doesn't get it.
DeleteProblem with predictable fittings is that they draw predictable responses.
DeleteGankers would start to have an even easier time.
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Not really - I don't think gankers are going out of their way to target newbies, I think they're going out to target untanked ships, weak fittings, silly lossmails (especially for those who use wardecs rather than suicide gank) etc. The problem as I see it is that right now there's a lot of correlation between those criteria and new players, who just don't know any better yet. If you give them sensible fits to use and an explanation of what makes those fits sensible then you won't have newbies in fits that attract ganks.
DeleteThat wouldn't necessarily help with the problem of (relative) newbies loading up everything they own into an industrial, flying off to seek their fortune and then getting popped because they went over the ISK value their tank protects them from, but I did have an idea for that as well. Credit where it's due, I was actually inspired by an old Gevlon Goblin post - he suggested revamping the Business tutorial to have players get suicide ganked by an NPC, but I think that's too harsh for the same reason getting ganked by a player is a problem. On the other hand, a tutorial agent could give a mission to supervise some incoming goods shipment, fly to a deadspace pocket and find a stargate with Shady Guy and Shady Guy's Friend (neutral NPCs) sitting nearby. The industrial carrying the shipment spawns and then Shady Guy attacks it, turning hostile, kills it quickly and is then killed by Concord NPCs spawning in. Shady Guy's Friend flies up to the dead hauler and loots it, also turning hostile but not being concorded and the player's agent convos them to tell them to kill Shady Guy's Friend and reclaim the shipment. When the player docks up to complete the mission the agent explains how/why for-profit suicide ganks work. The newbie in question gets an introduction to hauler ganks (and maybe they think to themselves "Hmm, I could do that!") and the basics of Crimewatch.
"That wouldn't necessarily help with the problem of (relative) newbies loading up everything they own into an industrial, flying off to seek their fortune and then getting popped because they went over the ISK value their tank protects them from"
DeleteA tutorial won't help with this problem, because "over the ISK value their tank protects them from" is relatively low. A new player might have a mere 10M ISK worth of assets - is this unreasonable to move in a tanked T1 hauler? No, of course not.
But, any tanked T1 hauler can still be easily ganked by a dessie. Which means that the new player can lose everything he owns in a few seconds, due to a bored ganker (not every gank is for profit, you know).
And, unfortunately, any hauler which has or can fit a real tank, such as freighters and T2 indies, can't be flown by a newbie.
I think this is an excellent idea. Pre-determined corp fittings in NPC corps with a basic explanation of each. Predetermined loadouts for new players happen in a lot of games (not least of which is Call of Duty) so players have some ideas to build upon.
ReplyDeleteDear Poetic,
ReplyDeleteif you quote numbers, please quote the relevant one. In the scenario you are describing the survival chance (experiencing no gank-attempt) follows an exponential decay law. A 1% per day chance of being subjected to a gank means that 26% of all players (all other things equal) will (on average) experience a gank in their first month (30days). After two months this rises to 45% and to 97% after a year.
I will leave it to others to judge if these numbers are high or low.
Fly smart! Chira.
You forget that most people who get ganked are downright stupid, and they are probably ganked multiple times because they refuse to play smart.
DeleteBut given your numbers ... if every highsec player only endures a single gank once per year, on average, then where exactly is the problem? Getting ganked once per year is something that needs to be fixed?
Numbers to back up that "most people" statement, Poetic, or I call shenanigans.
Delete"You forget that most people who get ganked are downright stupid, and they are probably ganked multiple times because they refuse to play smart."
DeleteNo, actually, most gank victims happen to be newer players, who don't know any better yet. CCP's explanations of high sec PVP mechanics have never been particularly well explained - many older players still don't understand how -10 sec status pilots can operate so freely in high sec. And, why does CCP still have that auto-pilot feature in the game, anyways?
"if every highsec player only endures a single gank once per year, on average, then where exactly is the problem?"
Because the distribution of these ganks is not spread evenly across all high sec players - it is too heavily slanted against the newer players. And, a single gank can result in a 1-2 month old player losing pretty much everything he/she has acquired to date, which is sufficiently demoralizing in many cases to discourage a new player from continuing to subscribe (after all, EVE isn't a F2P game, remember).
The point is that statistical numbers can be presented in all kinds of suggestive ways and therefore it is useful to always explain what a distribution means on several scales. 1% per day sounds like not much. 26% in the first month may sound a lot and once per year (with 97% probability) again sounds not dramatic. However, your use of this latter number is again flawed, because the average time between ganks on the same player in your example is 100 days ( = 1 / 1% ), which is about thrice as much as you suggest.
DeleteI agree that players are not all equal and there are some "stupid" (or inexperienced) ones and smarter ones. This will skew the numbers discussed accordingly. Unless you invent a way to tell the stupid from the unexperienced ones, though, I would be careful to jump on any conclusion. The newbie zone we discussed a week ago might help here.
Now judging: Personally I am not interested in highsec ganking and -- outside of certain situations where an economic profit can be made -- have a hard time understanding it. But that does not mean that I think it should be nerfed. Actually I don't care so much, as I believe it is a big red herring that distracts from more serious problems with highsec. Like ridiculous capabilities of highsec stations compared to POSes and Outposts.
I would be ok with CCP making highsec safer if they also make it less productive (which needs a lot of systemic change also to nullsec mechanics....)
Fly smart! Chira.
Excellent, Someone comes along showing you ganking IS a problem...your reply?..."They're Stupid".
DeleteNice Circular Logic you got there..
Assuming that the gankers are looking for easy kills first and foremost, as well as biasing them towards idiots it's going to bias them towards newbies who don't know how to spot an incoming gank and don't know or can't fit mods to deter them. If there's an average of 19.4k ganks per year, that's not going to be distributed evenly over the whole playerbase in hisec.
DeleteYou keep using the word stupid, Poe, but a better word might be inexperienced. It never occurred to me when I first started playing that someone would sacrifice their ship simply to blow me up. Someone who has never interacted with me before.
DeleteNow I have a very shrewd idea how suicide ganking operates, down to the favoured systems etc.
But I've not become more clever. I've simply become more experienced.
And that's why perhaps it might be an issue. Preying on the dumb is fine, Darwin and all that, htfu. Preying on the new however...
Where are the numbers for stupid victims vs not stupid ones?
DeleteFour days in, and you're still missing the point. Ripard's posts are not about lobbying *CCP* to make Eve safer. What he's doing is asking Eve's *players* to think about the consequences of pissing in the sandbox.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mention Ripard at all. If I'd wanted to tie this discussion to Ripard, I would have mentioned him. I did not, because the discussion is not related to Ripard. It's related to every carebear who continues to make the argument for more creep.
DeleteHow many carebears - please define the term first, as you'd be surprised how many people consider themselves carebears that might not fit your definition - are clamouring for this supposed creep? Two, 100, 2000? All I see are a vocal minority, mostly.
DeleteThus far, CCP has done the right things to make ganking make more sense - the mining barge rebalance being the single biggest plus. I don't detect any indication CCP is about to lock up highsec completely. Have they stated concerns over losing higher than acceptable numbers of subscribers? Sure. Is that bad? No. They're a business and they have to pay attention to such things.
The sense I get is that they really do want to educate folks better, they just don't know how :) I mean, look at the NPE. It doesn't really do that good a job of impressing just how nasty EvE can be, but then again I'm not sure how CCP can underline it more, as one can only tell someone the facts in plain English only so many times and if folk don't read/listen...
Like the idea for some suggested default fittings - have them come with a roll-over/popup/eve-mail explaining why they work, too.
Honestly, though, demonstrate with actual data this supposed carebear creep is real or there's the danger that you become an hysterical anti-carebear.
Carebear: (n). 1. A person who believes that PvP should be "optional", and they and any others who desire to, should be able to opt-out of PvP to play "unmolested" in hisec. [At this point in time, anyways. I reserve the right to re-define appropriately, should there be an eventual push for "PvP-flagging" in low/null as well]
DeleteMerely "not participating" in PvP doesn't make you a carebear. Believing you should be _exempt_ from PvP does. Clear, simple, and straightforward enough? I move we adopt my working definition as the de-facto definition, forthwith. Any seconds?
As for the "vocal minority" -- vocal minorities have always driven meaningful change. Women's Suffrage, the 1960's Civil Rights Movement, Ghandi's Civil Disobedience Movement, the modern Murrican Gun Control Movement -- all of those were begun by "vocal minorities". Underestimate the power of a vocal few at your own peril. History is rife with examples of those using the Powah of the Underdog Side to surprising effect.
The examples you gave happen to be cases where a 'vocal minority' advocated for beneficial changes, and were ultimately successful. The fact that a 'vocal minority' is advocating for a particular change has no bearing on whether or not the change itself is beneficial.
DeleteThat said, nobody is underestimating the influence of a vocal minority of 'carebears' that inundate CCP with petitions related to non-consensual PvP. If anything, they acknowledge the influence and recognize its effects (wardec changes, etc).
I think the system is working just fine way it is - it's not broke. I would, however, provide new players with more information that would help them be less vulnerable to a gank. Perhaps an introduction video intended for new players that explains the concept of a gank and the different methods in which some pilots execute them. It could also inform the victims on how they can retaliate (i.e., mercs, bounties, pvp etc…).
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that (a) you can't prevent a competent gank, and (b) you can't successfully retaliate.
DeleteA ganker can always fit reasonably cheap ships to pop the tank of a hauler or mining ship, even if the victim fits for max tank. The only way to be "less vulnerable" to a gank is to remain docked in station.
A ganker is hard to kill, because their attacks last only seconds, and then they are warping off with their pod to dock in station, and/or logoff, until the next gank. The smart ones don't even log on until they are ready for the gank, relying on alts to scout/mark targets and to prepare the gank ship. When the ship and target are ready, they log on, board the ship, and warp to target. The actual time you have to spot a competent ganker and get away can be measured in mere seconds.
You can't defend against every possible gank, simply because there is, in principle, an upper limit on how much EHP your ship may have, and no upper limit on how much DPS your adversaries may bring.
DeleteYour ship's tank is not the only variable in the equation that you should be considering - the other variable is potential reward for the gankers. To illustrate, two extreme examples are:
1. A max-tanked Skiff. You are tanky, your ship (as well as loot and salvage) is low relative to the ISK that must be invested to destroy it.
2. A Mackinaw fitted with triple faction invulnerability fields. Obviously, this Mackinaw is tanked better than most Mackinaws, but the ridiculous choice of fittings makes him an incredibly attractive target, and gankers are given a powerful motive to invest in their attack.
(The particular Mackinaw I'm referencing is here: www.minerbumping.com/2013/01/permit-tank-best-tank.html)
The key to avoiding ganks is to make yourself an unattractive target, in relation to other potential targets. One shouldn't reasonably expect to be able to thwart every possible gank, especially when ganks are typically conducted by many individuals against a single victim.
Guess upon guess upon guess. So 50% of players live in HS, that doesn't mean that, at any given time, the number of players on-line matches that figure. And even if you admit you pulled the number of ganks out of your arse, it doesn't change the fact that you pulled it out of your arse. Trying to come up with any kind of meaningful statement based on numbers that could be wildly inaccurate, or are at least assuredly unconfirmed, is pointless.
ReplyDeleteCarebear creep isn't the problem. The lack of challenge for high sec PVPers is the problem.
ReplyDelete@Poe - You've admitted to ganking a few carebears, yes? Did you really find it to be particularly challenging? Did they really have any real chance of getting away from you, once you were on top of them, guns ablazing?
Let's be honest. Thanks to a combination of CONCORD mechanics and sensor boosters, carebears can't shoot first... ever. And, unless you are a really stupid ganker, your victim is likely to be dead before they even noticed that they had been locked. No chance to run, no chance to fight back. Do it once - collect some tears. Repeat a few more times on the same player - collect a rage-quit.
Is this really fun? Hmm....
I believe that all players need to learn that Darwin is lead programmer at CCP. I also believe that you are wrong about 'carebear creep'. Most high sec players aren't advocating for a safer high sec per se. They are advocating that the playing field is skewed to the ganker.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't saying make ganking harder or make afk autopiloting safer. They are saying that if you really want to suicide gank my ship, I can't stop you but I want the hurt to work both ways. They want there to be real consequences for that action. 15 minutes waiting on a timer (great time to collect the insurance money and fit the replacement ship) isn't not an equal level of punishment.
Even in WoW, if you go all Leroy Jenkins on something, you have to go back to a certain starting point and grind your way back. A suicide gank should be something spectacular, not a run of the mill occurence on a kill board.
KD
"Carebears" is a straw man. Using that term lumps 2-week old newbies in with years-old industrialists, marketeers and miners - none of which are monolithic cultures. You don't like whiners who expect to be insulated from the negative elements of unlimited freedom; fair enough, but target them instead of all non-pvp players. It's narrow-minded, elitist, and alienates a significant chunk of the player base. Many of them probably even agree with you, or would, if you weren't calling them stupid and inferior.
ReplyDeleteStanz, the only tears I'm seeing here are yours. Take a breath. All this sound and fury over marginal changes in how easy it is to gank a high-sec mining barge seems designed to make an issue where none exists.
ReplyDeleteIs it raising the price of beer in your corner of FW? Is it putting your corp-mates at a PvP disadvantage? Is it somehow making lowsec a grey and unhappy place for you? Don't think so.
Cheese and crackers, man, you're turning into the Michelle Bachmann of lowsec. Sure, I know riding the highsec hate wagon is all trendy of late, but why are trying so hard to ride up front?
Well if you could first define what you understand in the phrase of "Carebear Creep" to non native speakers, it would be nice.
ReplyDeleteIs living in Highsec creepy? Wouldn't that be more close to stalking? Also just putting out some numbers and "yet to proof" calculations don't proof anything.
You consider 200 on any evening high estimate? oh well, maybe if you just watch jita only. At least try to justify our estimated numbers with references to kill statistics.
'It's not about changing the mechanics to protect the player.'
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean you are in favour of doing away with any mechanics that protect gankers from reprisals in highsec?
You pull numbers out of your ass and then come to conclusions on a course of action based on them. Right then. Moving on.
ReplyDeleteActually, this is pretty much par for the course, for corporations, governments, stock investors, movie/game producers, project managers, etc. So, Poe is traveling in good company.
DeleteThe biggest problem with any mechanistic attempt to enforce safety in EVE is that it's impossible. As Hong Wei-Loh said in Jester's comment section, CONCORD is in many ways the root of the problem: They go after whoever shoots first, so if you're in a mission boat with long-range guns, any would-be ganker can get in neut, web and scram range /and/ under your guns before firing. If they bait you into shooting back, you're guaranteed to lose. Or, as another commenter put it, Hans can't shoot first. The more special cases you pile on to make CONCORD seem more intelligent, the more loopholes you create for veteran players to exploit and the more traps you create for new players.
ReplyDeleteIf you want an unsafe high sec, you should be lobbying for "carebear creep." If you want a safer high sec, there should be much better new player education than there is now: high sec is already safe enough that, with a few simple precautions, you can practice using the various scanning interfaces and making safe spots in peace. They should learn proper fitting, safe spots, instant-undocks, and other basic survival tools.
The mechanical changes I'd be most interested in seeing made are the ones that encourage bad behavior: The D-scan interface is late-alpha-quality crap, hidden in a tabbed interface (and an inconsistent one--survey, ship and cargo . Mining, between the layout of asteroid fields, the sizes of high sec asteroids, the range of strip miners and the sluggish performance of barges, essentially trains miners to pick a place near a bunch of rocks and sit still. Even the simple precaution of orbiting a rock is annoyingly difficult to set up because there's no control over the angle of orbit, and so you're more likely than not to find yourself hung up on a rock, and more helpless than you'd be sitting still in open space.
"Or, as another commenter put it, Han can't shoot first."
DeleteActually, I said that as well, I think in another remark on Stan's previous post, maybe Jester's, I dunno. ;-)
Either way, you're absolutely right that the more :mechanics: you pile into crimewatch to cover "every possible contingency", the more loopholes you make, and the more you give the advantage to vets used to "work-arounds".
Simple is best, especially for newer players, but the trick is how ... especially given CCP's penchant for not :thinking things thru: and figuring out for themselves all the ways a new rule or mechanic could be exploited, then adjusting accordingly.
If you can figure out a way to fix CCP's lack of forethought, Hong, you would be King :)
DeleteKing Hong?
DeleteHail to the King, now gimme some sugar, bay-bees. ;-)
DeleteWhen did they tell us 50% lived in high sec? Citations please. Also, it's rarely at 40k. And given the number of players with more than one character online, the real number of anything is virtually impossible to determine. In fact, in the CSM minutes, you'll note that CCP itself is saying they're "researching" how many real humans play the game. If they don't know already, that makes any number, given by anyone, at any time, suspect.
ReplyDeleteI fly in hisec.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been ganked in hisec in several years, and then it was my stupidity. I don't have a problem with ganking by itself - ganking MUST be possible everywhere - my problem is with after gank.
Simply put, there simply isn't enough negative impact on the ganker for committing essentially a capital crime in an area designated by CONCORD as "safe as we can make it".
If I need to gank someone (for whatever reason) the end result should be pretty damn serious on my side. A serious loss of standing, and not just a security hit. You gank in Minny space, expect a serious loss of standings with the Minmatar gov't.
Ganking in hisec should be an action of near last resort - a desperate action by someone without another option. As casual gameplay, or as a profitable gameplay (against average targets) hisec ganking should be viable. Yeah, you could say "what you're saying I can't play that way?" but what I'm really saying is "yeah, you can gank in hisec, but its gonna suck for you". Hisec should be 100% safe? Nope. Hisec should be a place where the gamestyle of ganking for shits a giggles without a significant downside is viable? Nope.
Wait, are you saying it's always the same carebears who got ganked everyday? Or that they don't care about what happened to them a few days before?
ReplyDelete1% by day, means it can be 30% of different guys in a month (obviously less, but hey we're not on real numbers anyway). 30% may be less than half, but it's still a good minority. And you're not counting those who escaped the ganking, but consider they shouldn't have to do that; no lossmail for them, but they still exist while not counted here.
And EVE is not a dangerous game if you live in sov null-sec.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really want to know from the "Don't make high sec %100 safe" crowd, is why not? How would the game actually be harmed if hi-sec was 100% safe from non-consensual pvp? I'm not going to go and search through your blog to see if you or any of your readers actually gave their opinions, or go and search for opinions on the EVE-O forums. I'm just curious. From what I see, the only group of individuals who don't benefit from a %100 safe hi-sec are the gankers and griefers.
If you choose not to answer, I wouldn't be surprised. However, I believe it's a valid question. Especially considering the tossed around views of how it would somehow damage EVE or the sandbox, but without any proof, pointing as to how.
The markets would be harmed. All the benefits of the market, with none of the risk. Players would then migrate from risky areas to the risk-free area.
DeleteEve is a game of balancing risk and rewards. If highsec became totally risk free, you'd have to remove all rewards from it as well to maintain the balance.
DeleteNobody is advocating "carebear creep". There are some who are concerned that there is a fundimental imbalance between risk and reward for gankers and miners.
ReplyDeleteWhat percentage of highsec players remain permanently docked? I recon some thousand that log in every day.
ReplyDeleteA large number, actually. Market alts, scammers and Jita spammers never undock. PI, R/D and manufacturing alts also rarely undock.
Delete