Balancing Hi-Sec Freighter Bump Mechanics

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
522

Let’s be clear about this. Bumping a freighter for hours DOES happen. You just have to check @Siegfried_Cohenberg post history to see he admits he and others sometimes do that. So that should be out of the question. The question is not whether it happens. The question is whether it’s a problem that needs fixing…

Every time I think of it in an abstract way, it looks like a broken mechanic to me and I’m inclined to agree with @Mike_Voidstar, who has exposed his point very well and doesn’t deserve many of the derailing and personal attack replies he’s got here… except frankly, expecting a new mod to be introduced in the game just for this…

But when I look at the whole picture and even try to put myself in the place of the pilot being bumped, it isn’t clear to me at all this is a problem that needs fixing…

If I was in a freighter being bumped for hours, I’d just have a good laugh at the bumper. It’s the bumper who has to be there all the time doing his thing. All I’d have to do is watch and laugh at it while I do something else. I’d only be worried if I could be ganked, but then I don’t see why would it matter whether he can hold me in place with bumping alone or has to also throw at me some suicide tacklers in rookie ships.

And what about all those freighters killed or even self-destructed as a result of tricking the freighter pilot into a duel? Should that be considered a problem or just emergent gameplay? Doesn’t look to me like something that CCP should remove from the game by changing the bump mechanics…

So FWIW, I wouldn’t be surprised if CCP eventually makes it possible for the bumpee to warp away after a set amount of time regardless, but wouldn’t be surprised either if they do it in a way that won’t make much of a difference and the current forms of freighter griefing continue being possible with minor adjustments.

2 Likes
523

there is no Problem with bumping oO and yes it happens thats absolut correkt xD but how big is the % of the playerbase who get bumped for Hours and Hours ? Maybe 1 % maximum ? why should someone do anything because only 1 % of the playerbase are not able to be smart and avoid bumping. there is an easy counterplay for bumps why you Need an overpowered module / rule for any bumping ?

lol no … xD read above

if the freighter Pilot activate selfdestruct then ist his own fault and extactly THIS is a result what the bumper wanna get. or if they get tricked by a duel request …. what do you think is this if you accept a duel request ? xD is this a realy good choice ? ^^ no ist ■■■■■■■ stupid and they Need to die and lern

there is a reason if they dont implement such Mechanic …. a very good reason but you cant see this reason and you dont accept the reason

524

LOL, what?

525

The reason … nobody needs this ■■■■ just play smart

526

Man, you really need to read the post you’re replying to before posting… and make sure whoever you’re replying to needs the “advice” you’re giving to him…

527

What does playing smart have to do with broken mechanics?

If it were impossible for this to happen except to stupid players, you might have a point.

Even your own supporters admit that this happens to people who are simply unlucky. It has nothing to do with what they are carrying, with whom they are flying, etc.

How do you make the claim that the proposed module would be overpowered? Do you honestly believe that 5 minutes is too short of a window to expect a supposedly organized and prepared group to execute their gank attempt?

Stop banging on about how stupid the target is, and support your own position. It’s a discussion about Balancing Hi-Sec Freighter Bump Mechanics, not Curtailing Stupid Behavior. Either provide an argument based in mechanics, or admit you have nothing and stop trying to derail the conversation because it might one day cost you billions because you are bad at Ganking.

528

And again xD i see your problem is ganking and not bumping so it matters what you are carryingbqnd how you play … a single bumper cant hurt you and because this favts makes any discussion obsolet… its simply no broken mechanic why do you think this ?

529

It’s just his way of spinning the truth, don’t waste you time on him. You pegged it right.

Good software changes stand on their own, they don’t need this level of spin!

530

They can already be killed by a competent gank squad. Killing a freighter takes much less than the several minutes duration of the proposed timer. The only attacks it would save anyone from are from the poorly organized gankers who can’t get an immediate kill and have to hold the target in place for a long time while they fumble around trying to arrange their attack. Good players just press F1 and take the loot.

What you’re essentially saying here is that killing freighters that carry excessive value is so important that every possible opportunity must turn into a kill, even if it means keeping bad mechanics that only benefit bad players. In that case why have ganking at all, just have a freighter self destruct if it carries more than X ISK.

531

I have been summoned. Thanks @Knowledgeminer .

Bumping is a balanced mechanic. Only a very small percentage of freighters get ganked because of bumping. A machariel by itself can not kill a freighter. A freighter pilot can safely ignore the bumper.

The only people in the game who are willing to bump for more than 30 minutes are literally just members of the Bumper’s Union, which I lead. Theres only a handful of Bumper’s Union people out there. Freighters out number us by far.

The same way that OP claims bumping is risk free, the freighter pilot can ignore the bumper without any risk. “But siegfried, the freighter can be ganked! That is a form of risk!” If the freighter can be ganked, the bumper can be ganked as well. It takes less people to gank the machariel than it takes to gank the freighter.

You also have to use multiple accounts to gank it. If gankers have to use 20+ accounts to kill a single freighter, why should you expect to NOT MATCH THEIR NUMBERS. Flying a freighter is not to be taken lightly. If you want 100% safety, I recommend you just hire me as your escort. I can make sure that no one touches you.

1 Like
533

It seems like he wants to support bumpers, but what his words say don’t match his intent.

So… It does happen. That’s proof that there is a problem.

But the Freighter can’t ignore the bumper. It needs to get where it’s going. Even if the point wasn’t a gank, why should you be able to just bump him around for such a long period of time?

There’s plenty wrong with this statement. First, it does not take 20+ to kill a freighter, it just can. See the discussion and examples above.

Second, the proposed solution requires an escort, not a solo freighter.

Third, unless those 20+ are on the gate and ready to shoot, you can’t count them. If all that’s on station is the bumper, the freighter, and the freighter’s escort then the freighter deserves to get away. If all that’s on station is the bumper and the freighter, and the freighter’s escort arrives late, spools up a module for 5 minutes, then the freighter really deserves to get away-

Regardless of if the bumper was just having some fun with someone or if he was setting up a gank, it’s not reasonable he can keep that going for an extended time.

534

just because something happens, that does not mean it is a problem. It happens to so few people that its not remotely a problem

I should be able to bump anyone around for any amount of time because I want to. Its a sandbox MMO. You can do whatever you put your mind to.

Even if you reduce the amount of people involved in a gank, the freighter pilot needs only to match the fleet of the gankers to be on an even playing field. “B-B-But it only takes 11 people to gank a freighter sometimes!!!” The problem is that haulers routinely do not engage in critical thinking and they keep flying solo or refuse to make more accounts. Number advantage is important. Why should anyone survive by themselves when they jump into superior numbers?

Yes, escorts are good. A solo freighter is bad.

Really? Does he deserve to get away? Because if the one bumper is better than both the freighter and his escort, does the freighter really deserve to go anywhere? You pit me against your average hauler and his escort, and I will bump them until downtime. You have someone else bump me and my escort, and I’ll escape in less than 3 minutes. Player Skill and creativity should be rewarded. Bumping is a SKILL based mechanic.

2 Likes
535

That’s what needs fixing.

Aggression is supposed to be limited in High-Sec. You are using bumping as tackle, and tackle is considered aggression in every other form it takes.

Credit for being clever and skilled, a reasonable time frame is on the table.

You are right, it’s a sandbox, but some parts of the sandbox have rules that everyone is expected to adhere to. In High-Sec, one of those rules is that aggression is met with concord response after a few seconds. Congrats, you found a loophole, here’s a 5 minute window instead of 30 seconds, and it does not even cost you the bumping ship.

536

no it doesnt.
The freighter pilot if he has an escort, has access to the same tools that I use to prevent him from warping. If bumping can be used to stop warps, bumping can be used to cause a warp.

1 Like
537

Bumping to prevent warp is not that hard.

Bumping someone into warp is substantially more difficult, to the point of it being pretty unlikely if the other bumper isn’t an idiot. There’s also the difference in ships.

It’s simply not balanced, and your entire post is practically an informational packet on why.

538

It is easier to bump someone into warp than it is to keep them out of warp.

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539

@Siegfried_Cohenberg you’re arguing with someone that has literally 0 ingame experience about anything, but that still posts about anything like he knew what stuff was about XD

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540

Yes and they all use bumping. Waiting out a timer is not an indicator of incompetence…it is a product of the game mechanics. Since they can bump till the end of the timer it is actually an example of prudence and reason, IMO.

Not at all. Using the mechanic in its current form is not necessarily indicative of incompetence.

You sound like the Chinese Communist Party under Mao. Sparrows are eating the seed for planting, so they go out start a war on sparrows. Never mind that it is a trivial problem and actually serves a useful purpose…after all once the sparrows were reduced in numbers enough that is when the locusts game…and ate everything.

The Four Pests Campaign, also known as the Great Sparrow Campaign (Chinese: 打麻雀运动; pinyin: Dǎ Máquè Yùndòng) and the Kill a Sparrow Campaign (Chinese: 消灭麻雀运动; pinyin: Xiāomiè Máquè Yùndòng), was one of the first actions taken in the Great Leap Forward in China from 1958 to 1962. The four pests to be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The extermination of sparrows resulted in severe ecological imbalance, prompting Mao to end the campaign against sparrows and redirect the focus to bed bugs.

It was all quite absurd…about as absurd as this thread really. The Chinese Communist Party declared sparrows as the “animals of capitalism”. Which strikes me as being as dopey as some of the rhetoric that Mike uses.

Further, the actual problem was not the sparrows, but Mao’s attempts to increase rice production. He issued all sorts of edicts that were just blindingly dumb like close cropping. The idea is to plant more plants be square meter than we typically being done. That is you planted 10 plants in a square meter you’d plant 20 or 30 and double or triple the output. But in fact, you end up with even less output than if you had planted just 10 plants.

What is the parallel here with bumping and freighter ganking? We already have the tools in game to take care of bumping. Just a simple scout can be a significant help. Scout Jumps in Sees that Siegfried Cohenberg is sitting there in a machariel…tells his buddy in the freighter to go dock up due to the threat. No extended bumping. Problem solved.

I ignore bumpers all the time. Then again I use a JF, a scout, and have an emergency cyno handy if necessary. Oh, and yeah I don’t overload my JF and tank it so that it is not worth killing except for laughs, which is itself rare.

I was even bumped by Mr. Cohenberg once in my empty obelisk. He informed me that I had to pay a ransom. I thought about it…

If I pay the ransom I might still get ganked. If I don’t pay the ransom and they do gank my ship they get nothing. In fact, they’ll incur a loss for zero return. Also, if there is already a gank fleet, it won’t be long until a fool with an overloaded freighter comes along…which they can use said fleet on for an expected positive return. So I logged off waited 15 minutes and logged back in. By that time he had moved on to an actual target of value.

Heh…says the guy who has never done it.

So freaking true. Mike despises any and all PvP, but he’ll talk about it as if he has actually done it.

541

Oh look. A new fresh batch of Ad Hominem and irrelevance intended to distract.

Good Job guys.

You got a guy that runs a corp dedicated to bumping who freely admits his members sometimes bump people for more than 30 minutes because they think it’s funny. Not to gank or anything else. Thus, we have evidence of the initial complaint right there, irrespective of ganking.

Now, Ganking has been dragged into this a whole lot, as a way to distract from the conversation and as if it were some kind of ameliorating factor for the problem to remain as is. So what’s the response when that is shown to be BS and some people do bump without ganking? Oh, it’s no big deal, Hahaha. Because it does not match your narrative.

In reality, ganking was never part of the discussion. It was about extended bumping being used as tackle without reasonable counterplay. “Stop Playing”, and “Suicide in Self Defense” not being considered reasonable. Sure, you can rely on a lucky bump to get you back going… but the guy who is a self professed expert tells you that if it were him doing the bumping you have no chance of that happening— though apparently it’s super easy if it’s not him. :thinking:

542

But they are. They aren’t considered reasonable by you and that’s perfectly fine. That’s your opinion and it’s as good as any other. It’s no better than any other though, and those things are perfectly fine approaches if someone has already screwed up and are being bumped.

The only opinion that counts is CCP’s and hopefully they keep with their current approach.