This blob outside of Jita undock has grown and grown to the point it should just be considered an issue. It’s obviously bait in hopes someone will activate a kill right that is horribly more than the cost of the ship and it’s still within dock range so even if someone Is stupid enough to activate it they can most likely just dock and save the ship and the kill right for another day. If not, oh well the cost of the kill right replaces the ship and they get a little extra on the side. They set the kill right up themself with an alt so they get the money when someone activates it.
This defeats the entire point of the kill right system. Some would call it abuse others just say it’s someone riding the line of the game mechanics just on the edge. The entire point of the kill right system is to get some form of “justice” for someone who did you dirty in the past. Either someone who attempted to gank you in hs or killed you in ls. It’s designed for revenge be it from the person it was done against or a bounty hunter. Anything outside of that is against the purpose.
Sure it’s not the original bounty system which had some serious flaws that people abused just like they are abusing this system. Just using an alt to kill the character with the bounty so they could get the money themselves. The point I’m making is people abusing the bounty system is the reason it was replaced. At what point does that happen here? When does the abuse of the kill right system cause change?
It’s a completely optional, voluntary, user-chosen system. Nobody is trapped or stuck into activating a kill-right without having the opportunity to check the situation out beforehand. While it may not be accomplishing “what it was intended for”, it doesn’t qualify (IMO) for an ‘abuse’ label.
I don’t think kill-rights are a very good or useful system myself, but that’s a completely different design issue (along with bounties and the whole criminal system).
As a side note, a lot of people seem to think they know what CCP “intended” certain mechanics to accomplish. Keep in mind that what CCP intended for a mechanic and what you think it’s intended for may be two very different things.
It’s design is extremely obvious and I’m sure was made aware to players during its implementation. CCP however in all it’s glory cannot always account for the human element. Humans by design it seems always find ways to exploit the systems they are given.
Yes, EVE uni mentions it as ‘scam’ in the wiki page about kill rights.
Keep in mind that even if something is a scam in EVE that does not mean it is a problem, or that it requires fixing.
EVE is a complex ecosystem in which scams are just part of the game.
These players have found the most efficient way to get rid of kill rights, in a way that costs them little, just like other players also found efficient ways to play in their part of the game.
For example some players found a very efficient way to get kill mails, by shooting targets that are already being attacked by CONCORD. This usually doesn’t accomplish much as the target is condemned to die anyway, but it is a very efficient way to get kill mails.
In the case of kill rights these players with kill rights on their character also found a very efficient way to play.
To me this is a sign that kill rights actually work, because if kill rights didn’t work, why would these players spend time getting rid of kill rights? Kill rights are supposed to be an annoyance and one of the repercussions for criminal gameplay and these players spend their valuable time clearing themselves of kill rights, time they could otherwise have spent ganking players for example.
Isn’t this the same as like the MWD+Cloak trick, which was an unintended usage but CCP considers it emergent gameplay and as such didn’t sanction it so is a retroactively intended part of the game now?
Besides various (even exotic) methods of scams are basically EVE tradition and are one of the major differences from other games where scams are not allowed in any way while in EVE unless it is declared an exploit or forbidden then any scam goes.
This is an emergent way to use the killright system to scam lazy who lack foresight. It perfectly fits the EVE mindset IMO.
Also some people do this deliberately, get a killright on their character with an alt then park a freighter or battleship or such outside the Jita docking ring at a higher price than the ship itself.
(Note that this case they do not try to prevent losing their ship by docking up so they are not within the docking ring.)
This way the price goes into their own pocket thus they basically sell a killmail to anyone who bothers to pay for it. It is more of a transaction than a scam unless the person paying for it thinks this obvious situation is not deliberate (and even then they scam themselves through their ignorance).
(The ship usually parks there all day until the ship is blown up after which it is usually replaced with another with a new killright on it it. I’ve sometimes even witnessed more than one such ship near Jita 4-4.)
This is exactly what I explained in my original post. It is exactly the scam I’m talking about. It is a scam. The picture in the original post is outside Jita 4-4 and every single ship in that picture is one of them. It’s a kill right set up by an alt with an overpriced kill right that’s more expensive than the ship they are in.
Nope, not the exact same. What you wrote about is people docking up when their KR is activated. While the ones I’ve been talking about, as explained, were never trying to dock up and were way beyond the docking ring thus never had a chance to do so either.
Actually EVE Uni doesn’t say anything at all about kill rights being ‘a problem’. It tells you what they are, how they work, and then points out that there is a way players use them that you should be aware of because it can be used in a ‘scammish’ way.
Just like there are Hypernet scams and blackmail scams and awox scams and market scams and double-your-ISK scams. The existence of a scam usage isn’t the same as definition of an ‘abuse’.
You’re also confusing “exploit” with “people using the system in a way that gives them an advantage against less-well-informed players”. Getting ‘unfair’ or unexpected or little-known advantages is what EVE is all about.
You’re also confusing the removal of the bounty system with “because it was being abused/exploited by players”. CCP never saw that as a problem, afaik. They adjusted the bounty system to cause it to work in a way that was more relevant (ISK value of the kill percentage) as opposed to “just kill your corvette with an alt and claim the bounty yourself”. CCP adjusts a lot of systems to make them work better.
As for removing bounties, they ‘temporarily’ removed the bounty system because it was generating way too much server crosstalk during large battles, not because it was ‘being abused by players’.:
Personally I feel that bounties, kill rights, and much of the entire criminal/flag/standings process should be reworked to be more interesting and encourage more activity. However, “remove them because I don’t like them” isn’t the way to go about that.
It was being “abused” by means of being able to place bounties on players for any or no reason at all. For example. I used to place 100 million ISK bounties on brand new players in Rookie Help chat just for asking ridiculously stupid questions. I made it 200 million ISK if you admitted to skipping the tutorial…
Considering the payout was, what? 10% of the value of the ship you were in at time? The players I placed that on would have to get blown up 100 times in order to pay it off.
Which they didn’t know, they assumed it works like NPC bounties (the amount shown is paid out), thus they always asked around rookie chat in panic they will be hunted down because even the minimum 10 mil bounty that was placed on them seemed like reason enough they will get killed… until someone explained it to them how the system worked, which of course took time and several chat posts.
