80k players is a pretty significant sample given that the all time high of subscriptions was around 500k.
And that was not all they did since they also mentioned that they looked at reasons for people unsubscribing (and that’s ALL players who quit) and only <1% cited ship loss as the reason.
I would actually support this changes. I think this is the right way to go.
No, a corp might need a breather, I have seem some collapse under multiple war decs all the time.
It is because of Jita, ease of access to raw materials and a place to sell your stuff, I have a number of alliance mates who have their hisec indy setup on that basis. They just don’t want to do all those jumps and want it as low cost and as low maintenance as possible.
That is what I do…
There is no excuse for all freighters to not be NPC corp. They incur no additional cost for being so. The transactional costs can be mitigated on a toon dedicated to trading and impervious to PvP, due to being permanently in station.
As corp POS assets, its a hastle, but again, you can cycle the POS through new corps, thus negating the wardec at no significant cost to yourself vs their wardec costs.
Yes, that I know and understand. What I dont get, is not accepting the risks/competition in operating there. Especially considering how cheap/zero risk contracting freight to others is across even vast swathes of space.
Thats cos you and I are smart, and know whats what.
There is so much Empire space that almost never sees PvP destruction, and which is nominally of the same value as The Forge. I dont understand risk averse players deliberately choosing to operate in the most competetive/risky areas of HS without having the balls to back it up.
It is not a meaningful sample in terms of your statements.
That is all a question of timing, during that golden age of miner ganking, CCP did not capture this data, so that 1% on a sample where the issue is fixed is meaningless, because at this point I agree there are hardly anyone leaving the game due to losing a ship, now…
To be blunt having a freighter in an NPC corp is stupid in terms of the biggest risk being from bumping to hold it in place for a gank fleet to blow it up, so having a webber is more effective. Though using duels is easy, but has other issues, the freighter needs to duel the webber and block duels by the way.
What they do is have separate corps who own the structures to the ones that do the hauling, war deckers tend to only notice the ones doing the hauling as they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of structures, the poor lambs.
Station traders are the definition of no risk.
I had not looked at this in terms of structures.
There are enough places even there which are off the beaten path and if you keep your head down the level of hunting and information gathering is pretty naff. The hunters tend to be really lazy. I know some pretty intense indy players that operate in the Forge and they have never had a war dec.
This would be easily exploitable. Just make an alpha and join a corp that is wardecced, then leave and join another corp you wish to dec. It effectively gives a free war.
Your other ideas are solid.
If you have the logistics to fly a webber alongside, dueling the NPC corp freighter is a matter of seconds and no cost. Inconvenient, yes, but worth it to thwart the gankers efforts.
The NPC corp status makes them immune to wardec and forces a CONCORD reaction against the gankers, severly limiting their time and how much firepower they can apply in that period.
This is eminently preferable to a non-restricted engagement by a wardeccer.
Yes, its possible in The Forge, but even more possible elsewhere at even less risk.
A) At a very small cost, and no risk, you can have your goods freighted for you.
B) If you insist on flying it yourself from elsewhere, you can go NPC and avoid wardecs.
C) Local aggressors are less likely to even bother with you if you dont have POS in their space. They are concerned with local competitors to their own POS, not random freighters from the fringes of Minmatar Empire.
I did say player in that the war followed the individual character, not the other corp members in the new corp if they were not in that war. Sorry for not making that fully clear.
If it was to carry on to the corp then the onus is on the people recruiting to check if they left during a war, it is the same as accepting a corp into an alliance which gives a free instant war dec too.
Ah, I see. You make the wardec target the individual pilot as opposed to the corporation, if they leave a corp/alliance that is at war. I like the idea a lot, actually. It would be a TON of help for corps looking to do decs against small groups. I think you’d see a lot of people just completely drop to NPC corps, though.
The people I know see the loss of a freighter to gankers as a much higher risk than operating in the Forge with their indy structures. Bear in mind that it is possible to get some meaty off grid bookmarks with incursions for your important structures…
And having your contracted materials ganked does have an impact in terms of time cost.
All in all they worked it back to being better off in the Forge and avoiding the real pipes.
Yes, the option of dropping to an NPC corp should always be there, but there also should be some war dec relief on corps too, what you want to have is an entity mean something, which is worth fighting for to create better war decs.
That is a factor of how much value they put in their freighters + precautions vs the POS becoming a target itself. Its a bit of comparing apples to oranges, and in anycase, as I said, if you don’t operate out of The Forge, your chance of being aggressed drops dramatically.
Tbh I dont think they are weighing profit/risk/effort correctly. The Forge itself, intrinsically, is no more valuable than any other system in HS, unless for purposes of selling out of that POS in a more populated area. Nothing prevents someone operating out of Minmatar fringe from selling in existing open POS in The Forge though.
If anything, various resources are even cheaper at the fringes of Empire space, as the sellers attempt to offset the cost of moving it to Jita and compete with other local fringe producers of some Empire specific commodities.
I see it as the inverse. Its every contractors dream to have the shipment destroyed and receive the neat, clean net collateral instead of having to waste time on monetizing it.
Those pipes are in The Forge! 
What I am pointing out is that the war deckers tend to pay more attention to ships moving around than structures. And this is an important aspect to understand and operate, never ever have your freighter pilot in the same corp as your structures…
They are operating on time, so less moving around or less time waiting for someone to move it. Take it as more like a just in time manufacturing operation, and that what gets blown up may be only a part of a greater whole.
Well the rule of thumb was value plus 25%, but sometimes they want to make a killing with a certain product and they need to have people willing to move their stuff and of course what I said above as in the cargo perhaps affecting multiple production runs… which means stuff waiting around…
Yes there are pipes in the Forge, however the truly dangerous ones are between regions.
Which is why I stated there is no reason to not have your freighter in an NPC corp. It is much better to force a CONCORD response, than not as a wardec target.
As to having your own POS competing with theirs in that system, it is to be expected that they will eventually perceive that as competition and attempt to remove that (as well as your freight business operating out of it).
I think this is a mistake on their part, and lazy.
Granted, but then you should fly it yourself with all precautions. Also, they could have set the collateral that high anyways, since the freighter contractee doesn’t see the value of your shipment. They dont know what its worth.
I disagree. The pipes are all oriented towards Jita, and most of those, by volume of traffic, are from The Forge.
You know, that is a very vague statement. Can you give us some relevant mathematical reasoning for why you think the 80k is not significant?
They just have the freighter in another corp, though dropping to NPC corps is always an option if they have a war dec.
Structures, stop using POS’s, war deckers don’t really do that, go and analyse their behaviour a bit more, because they tend to notice what is in front of their eyes and they do not like blowing up structures.
Think of it in terms of the Just in Time manufacturing approach used in RL.
Still the most important part is putting a real value for the collateral if a material shipment is destroyed without bankrupting some efficient haulers that normally haul for you and whose service you actually value…
Freighters are ganked in the Forge and Lonetrek into Jita which has seven gates by the way, we are talking about risk, the gankers tend to work certain regional pipes a lot more than these internal pipes because the cargo is often much better to gank.
I tend to operate away from the Jita because I am niche playing with markets, but my friends are operating in terms of certain items that have a massive turnover from Jita.
This:
It did nothing of the sort as the sample was trial period players only. If you seriously think that a sample of trial players proves what you said then I think you are not firing on all six…
At this point in time ganking does not affect subscriptions period, it was also the case when CCP Rise did that study on trial period accounts, the horse had long since bolted and had been chopped up and diced into dog food by the time he looked at it.
You are mixing up two different things here. In the second paragraph you cited I was referring to the whole presentation where they looked at 1) 80k trial accounts and 2) feedback from players unsubscribing.
I asked why you think that 80k is not mathematically significant. I just try to understand your reasoning on this point.
Ganking shouldn’t be viewed as a single issue it is coupled with the time it takes to grind for wealth. If you’re ganked you’re losing wealth, it can take a long time to aquire wealth.
So anyone looking for data on if ganking makes people leave may not find anything, expand the search parameters to include time taken to earn.
I’ve done lots of database design in my time and searching for data can be tricky. If the player filled in a cancellation survey saying loss of assets is a reason for him leaving, then will the person searching the data know that loss of assets could include ganking?
If we can learn how CCP rise searched for this data it might shine some light on if its accurate.
I couldn’t agree more. Maybe gankers have unlimited game time and ISK. Maybe they are backed by trillionaire players or have plenty of real money to throw at plex, I dont know. But what I do know is those of us who play EVE the old fashioned way…missions, mining, market, exploration sites, etc. (no plex) It takes a long freakin time to grind ISK. PVP is way too expensive.