Except that if they have non-zero yield and are sitting on the field anyway, they can optimise it by sitting next to a rock if they’d want to. It’s not worth much, but it’s something to keep them busy if they want.
If they think it’s not worth their time to position their Orca well for small change, that’s their choice.
They do care about yield, because if there was none they wouldn’t do it. Even if the yield wasn’t 0, but only like 10 ISK/hour, they wouldn’t do it. Point is, lowering the yield will discourage AFK mining and at a certain point they will give up on it altogether. I don’t necessarily want to reach that point, but lowering will discourage AFK mining and you can’t convince me otherwise.
You assume that my knowledge is lacking, yet assume that ‘nullsec mining’ consists of Rorquals, Hulks and proper safeguards and that this is what I do. It isn’t, I have mined alongside a Rorqual twice and see more neutrals visiting my mining site than I see ‘proper safeguards’.
Maybe your knowledge is lacking? Not that this is strange, EVE has a lot of different playstyles and I don’t think anyone knows them all. I also think it’s wrong to assume that because someone is lacking experience in one part of the field, that they cannot comment mechanically on another part that has the same mechanics.
Why is it a false pretense?
I think AFK gameplay needs to be discouraged
People who want to mine while AFK use Orcas because of the defences, large ore hold and significant yield (significant enough to make AFK mining worth it for them)
A nerf to Orca yield to 0 will lead to them not being used for AFK mining anymore.
An Orca with 0 yield is still a very welcome mining boosting ship in any fleet
I don’t want to remove Orca yield entirely, because I think active Orcas should still have something extra to do while helping their mining operation, if they would like to.
My suggestion is to nerf Orca yield to non-zero values to discourage AFK mining.
I agree, but some things are unrealistic. Sometimes the realistic path is to change the game in a way that the unwanted behaviour is discouraged instead of encouraged, rather than completely changing the game to make absolutely sure it cannot happen at all.
For example RMT: introducing PLEX was one of the smartest moves I’ve ever seen in the battle against RMT in games, not because it makes RMT impossible, but because it discourages it by giving a legal alternative. If CCP had instead gone all the way to make it impossible without this pressure valve, it would have taken way more time and resources for less effect. Now they have time to go after the few people who still RMT, just because there’s far less of them.
Similarly I’d like AFK gameplay not to be made impossible, because how could you make it completely impossible, except by having some ingame check of ‘are you active’ every minute in the form of NPC danger, other things or literally a button ‘not afk’ to click?
Instead I’d like AFK gameplay to be discouraged and for CCP to add alternatives so that people can choose between low effort low paying gameplay or high effort higher paying gameplay.
And for that in the context of mining I have a couple of suggestions although I’m open to critique or other suggestions:
give mining an extra optional interactive component, for example let people chase better rocks that dynamically change or something like that
reduce yield of the biggest AFK mining offender: the Orca
Afk mining orcas weren’t a thing before they got a yield buff. And afk miasmos are not common.
An Orca with no yield is still a very useful asset to have because of logistics, tractor beaming cans and boosts.
It is absolutely bizarre that the argument against nerfing the Orcas yield is that it will make the Orca less active, but the mining part of the Orca is it’s most AFK role.
Far more time is spent dragging ore and moving it between bays, keeping range between barges and being ready transfer shields when gankers appear.
You can certainly nerf the yield and they will still be an invaluable asset to hi-sec mining. And they will still require attention.
Then make suggestions about active gameplay instead of nerfing something that then allows you to be AFK even longer until you have to lock new target. Seriously, what should you do in active mining? Stare at asteroids? The whole mining is boring as ■■■■. And the ganking adds to the fact that you do not allow yourself to actively mine with better ships. Change that for now.
To be honest it is the other way around, the more alt’s people have the more likely they will want bigger ships. The bigger their ships the more allies they want around them so that they can use those ship’s and hence will interact more sociably with others.
CCP is already sorting this out by having less resources per system which means anyone multi boxing 5-8 motherships at once will have to do it with their motherships in seperate systems (or face running out of sites) making them easier to kill, which balances the risk reward dynamic.
If one person has 300 apm then managing 60 accounts would be about 3 apm per account after all the alt tabbing.
Needing only 3 apm to use capitals sounds like more of a problem than multi boxing, CCP could fix that by making the game more skill based.
Multi boxing is not the issue the issue is that the game is too easy when using certain ships and weapon types such as drone boats or capitals.
When CCP tried to nerf drone auto aggro all the players with only 3 apm micro skills started complaining.
Because the best way to combat afk play…is to gank it or mine the ore out from under such AFK’rs
if you are concerned that much about it, then actively intefere as in interact with said AFK miners…and quit attempting to carebear to CCP…and yes that means stop qq’ing.
Why should I choose between nerfing AFK gameplay and supporting changes to reward active gameplay? That’s a false choice, if we want more engaging gameplay we could really use both.
That is the best way we players can do something about it, yes.
What I want is for CCP to do something about it. After all, I believe that rewarding AFK gameplay is not something that should be in the game and this is not something we players are able to change, but CCP is. As such, suggesting what we as players can do to stop rewarding AFK gameplay is helpful, but not the answer.
Unless you believe that AFK rewarding gameplay should be part of the game, then you can tell me you disagree with my opinion.
Then do it already, me and my ppl already do cause we are not lazy carebears.
I see, thank you for admitting to being a carebear.
I do not agree with is, and neither does my organization…but then of course we Bump, gank, and outmine anybody that is AFK in the belts with us…well we do that to non-blues that are not AFK also.
So yes I can disagree with your opinion, cause you are a LAzy carebear, scum that don’t belong here, go play Hello Kitty online, or WoW or something…cause your filth of lazy carebearism is stinking up my game.
It would be great if there were a way to limit one person to one account and one window without creating a police state or taking over people’s computers in other ridiculous and invasive ways. Unfortunately, it isn’t.
Affecting the game AFK is also a difficult matter but may solutions might exist.
Unlike carebears, I do see the difference between my personal challenges in this game that I need to overcome, and game issues that CCP needs to overcome.
RMT, AFK gameplay, ship balance and inflation/deflation are not things that I personally should go and solve in this game. I could do something about it, true, but it’s much more effective to let people handle such things who have the correct tools to actually do so: CCP.
I personally could go and gank AFKers in high sec if I wanted (and I still plan on trying this in the future, got an Alpha alt training up), but that would just be another form of playing the game, not actually solving the issue. And most importantly, saying that ‘ganks are the solution against AFKers’ means you think AFK mining is a legitimate part of the ecosystem, with counterplay and all. And I don’t agree with that.
Ganks may help against bots, RMT or AFK gameplay, but I’d rather see CCP remove those aspects from the game as much as they can. Then the gankers can focus on killing people legitimately playing the game.
I also said just mine the rocks out from under them…
And no you are a carebear…
Cause carebears run and cry to CCP to change something whilst already having the tools in game to effect the “change” they are crying for.
If a guy is “AFK mining” and you come along and take his rocks and all the rest around him…then i guess you win…why is AFK so detrimental to you? does it really affect your gameplay? Do you really care if someone is paying a sub or trying to plex but is AFK and an active player is making such AFK play extremely difficult?
Personally i do not like AFK’rs but im not going to cry about them, just show them the error of their ways in Game, there has been many times i have seen an AFK miner whom would come back and complain about a belt being gone in local…that person would be told oh well pay attention next time and that maybe they should move on. The organization i work with also regulates any AFK play telling their members it wont be tolerated with ganking (a blue) being the final solution if it becomes a habit.
It is not an obstacle to overcome, it is not really any ones job to regulate…unless you are paying that persons sub.
Deal with it or dont and just move on, but stop being a carebear for something that is so trivial.
Now, you mentioned RMT…that delves into the realm of Botting more than actual true AFK play, so if you are against Botting then maybe i can support your views better…but AFK, yeah your views are messed up infected with carebearism.
@Ridley_Rohan sorry buddy ive been here for 10 years, and if you want to support laziness and carebearism then sure go ahead, but then i think you are an idiot as well.
Hello. It is fair that you have touched the revenue topic. It’s a very essential point. I’ve been thinking about it too, when I was writing the message.
And in my initial post I wanted to say that with current level of social interactivity the game is not as attractive to players as it could have been let CCP do something against multiboxing abuse.
I’m leading to the point that the income CCP presumably loses when restricts multiboxing abuse will be compensated by the amount of new people who would actually stay in the game (or get back inspired by the news) plus, on top of that we get healthier gameplay that should make the game more attractive and lead to player base growth.
I’m not stating this as ultimate truth, I don’t have the numbers to analyze and make a prediction based on maybe some kind of machine learning. But CCP has. So all I want is them to at least consider introducing some restrictions to multiboxing abuse that makes parts of game simply ridiculous imo.
Hello, Shipwreck_Jones, I really liked your post and wanted to answer some parts of it.
First, about the quote above.
Yes, you are right - restricting multiboxing won’t make them go and make friends to fleet up. Though…EVE online has plenty of activities for solo play. ratting, missions, mining, gas harvesting, scanning, trading, DED expeditions, belt hunting and much more. All can be done solo.
Yes, it will lead to minor inconveniences, like as a belt hunter if an officer appears you’d have to go dock and change your ship to more suitable one. Or you’d actually have to order a courier of your stuff as a trader from another player, not just “log in your DF alt and some Cyno-alts”.
But…that’s all.
Of course it will lead to incapability of doing level 5 mission solo (mostly) as I’ve been told by those who is doing them that you need to fly 2-3 ships to complete them. Or they wouldn’t be able to confront incursions as you’d need a fleet for them, but…The game SHOULD work like that.
There is a solo content, and there is a multiplayer content. And it’s normal.
When in some MMORPG you’d see one guy soloing 5ppl dungeon (of an adequate level) you’d say the game balance is broken enough to lead to this. The same applies here.
small groups will multibox a lot to help them to compete with larger groups
Small groups SHOULDN’T be able to compete with larger groups in numbers, this is the whole point. They can do it using a strategy or pure skill advantage, but not numbers.
This is what makes people form a coalition or an alliance, or join a corp. To be able to do bigger things. And this is totally normal.
That is one of the reasons I’m saying the restriction of multi-boxing abuse will make the gameplay healthier.
