No, if anything Concord response time should get shorter.
Don’t know where you live but in my country when crime increases in a specific area, the police will patrol that area a lot more thus allowing them to respond sooner.
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lol, I don’t think CCP added Triglavian NPC’s due to a reduction of ganking…
Anyway, according to what you said earlier:
Thank you, this is very helpful in learning the game.
Xeux, how do you know I’m not listening to Black Pedro?
I am not asking for all my points to be adopted wholesale, simply for some thinking. I agree if everything I advocated was adopted it would be chocking NERF sweater for many Eve players and bad for the game. It’s brain storming for balance.
I am not whining about my own hauler. I’ve never lost one. I’ve lost lots of other things and its all been tuition in learning more about the game.
I would not fly a cargoI could not afford to loose either from an isk factor or a long term game enjoyment factor. I read something in some forum (sorry I don’t remember char to credit properly) that ships are best viewed as ammunition and I get that their are strategic issues in attacking merchant shipping AND that even if its just someone popping pinatas for the fun of it that is a legitimate play style, a way of enjoying EVE. A WAY.
I am trying to grapple with your view point because on balance I do not think it is enjoyable for every player to have one’s hauler shot down in front of a Navy Station or gate with virtual environmental impunity for the wrecker’s mates who do the scanning and loot scooping .
Perhaps some of those players should not play EVE if they don’t like that. Maybe. But on balance perhaps there’s room for more playing styles and ways of enjoying the game without buying wholesale into your piratical philosophy. Why would making more “realistic” role play based environmental risk from NPC entities destroy EVE? That’s not locking aggression toggle to green for the whole game. That’s not eliminating risk for pirates who simply want to pop piniatas or for strategic wolf packs preying on rival player factions or philosophically preying on places like JITA because they have fun being disgusted by the phenomenon of it having become the Central Business District of New Eden and they prefer some other hub to get business.
All of that can still happen while making it environemtally riskier for Joe Pirate to pop small mum and pop corp Johnny Bgood’s whale of a Iteron V piniata moving van at Jita IV 4 because Johnny Bgood hasn’t learned to enjoy the game by practicing good operational security and should not be in the game at all if he doesn’t want to invest the time and energy to do so. If Johnny B good doesn’t want to learn, and doesn’t enjoy playing that way, there should still be some risk EVEN in 1.0 sec, otherwise I agree that the core omnivourous preditory / prey / preditor nature of EVE would be threatened by the advent of boring mission running mindless mining care bear “eutopia”. YUCK.
But, even if there’s no specific buff, and there are some changes (not ALL the changes I suggest but some changes to balance things maybe changes I haven’t even thought of) high sec should not be entirely safe for Johnny Bgood BUT currently there’s no risk for the scanners and scoopers who enable the pirate shooters. WEll some risk for the scoopers, they flash the banana when the open the ristricted loot can.
So from your perspective I have an issue and am not past the first question where the correct answer is that piracy in high sec is a good thing for EVE.
That’s OK. It’s a big universe.
Yes piracy should be possible in high sec. It is a thing. It should be a thing. Is it a good thing? It’s a fun thing for a lot of people. It’s a fun thing for people into the strategic game of rival alliances. It is not the only thing AND high sec should have some real environmental risks for the scanners and the cargo snatchers who enable the pirate shooters.
As to buffing pirates for balance the “problem” in high sec is there is not enough of a risk for pirates in high sec. BAlance does not mean buffing pirates in high sec.
Perhaps there ought to be a way to PVP scoopers and scanners beyond the brief banana flash and small sec status hit a scooper experiences when looting a restricted can. More opportunities to engage pirate characters without flashing suspect or criminal oneself.
Thanks, rep.
Yes, players need to intercede. Good that’s part of the game. If things degenerated into an NPC focused miasma of mindless mission running and mining it would be gross.
interesting. Jita is dominant and I can see how it may be fun for certain players to camp Jita and wreck merchants just from that perspective.
But any change in the game would go across the board, for better or for worse. If it’s more risky to practice piracy in Jita then it becomes more risky to practice piracy in Amarr or any other developing rival trade hub that finds the dominance of Jita offensive.
Thanks Scoots I misused the word mechanic. You are right every one of my suggestions changes mechanics. I meant Core philosophy and have edited my OP accordingly.
Ok, but can it ever be enjoyable for another player to lose a cargo ship?
I think most long-time Eve players yes, especially if they feel they have some agency. They could enjoy the cat-and-mouse game and come away having fun even if they end up losing it. For others, the risk that they could lose (and the game of outwitting the criminals) is the fun, and since it’s pretty easy to outwit/outplay a suicide ganker in highsec, most players win at that all the time. For other players however, there is literally no way they will have fun either feeling like they have to play against other players, or worse, lose something.
There is nothing you can do for these last group short of change the core idea of the game. They signed up to play a game where loss can happen everywhere, yet they can’t handle loss. It’s not that the game is too risky - it is that there is any risk at all.
You can’t change this with “balance” changes, believe me, CCP has tried. This even has a name: the One More Nerf™ phenomenon. Players who can’t handle risk complain that the criminals have it too easy and agitate for the fix that will put everything into perfect balance. CCP implements that, and either the criminals adjust, or maybe not and some of them quit, but some crime still goes on. Then the next generation of carebears comes along, and either after losing something or realising that loss is possible, decides that crime isn’t “balanced” and demands yet another nerf. And so on, never stopping because there is still some risk there, however small.
So after more than a decade of that, we have much less crime in highsec. Being a highsec pirate is basically inaccessible to new players, and there are so many ways to mitigate the small risk from other players, that highsec is basically perfectly safe to even moderately experienced players who aren’t completely reckless, lazy or boneheaded. I get that for new players it may not feel that way as they don’t know the behaviours to mitigate almost all the risk, or have access to the safest ships, but trust me when I say a veteran Eve player can move vast amounts of wealth around highsec with essentially no risk. The MER shows less than 0.1% of ships/cargo are lost in highsec, and that is to all causes, not just highsec piracy.
More ships are being lost to Triglavians these days than criminals. Some would lament that fact, but I think it highlights that crime isn’t a major problem, in aggregate at least, for people who live in highsec.
A more “realistic” environment is fine. But as I described in my last post, all your ideas together make piracy impossible. In the current game, haulers are literally vulnerable for a few seconds during their travels, and 100% of that vulnerability is on stations or gates. If you make it impossible to scoop the loot from a target exploded on a gate or station, then there is no more piracy.
You need some balance here if you are going to start making changes in the name of realism. Your changes don’t do that - as is they are overwhemingly in favour of haulers, to the point piracy probably would be impossible. Ok, you said they are discussion points and not all needed and that’s fine, but you can’t just make them because you feel they are “realistic”. You have to look at their effect on the game and game balance.
Most of those ideas in the OP make it harder for pirates, so logically there is going to be less piracy. So, if you don’t want less piracy, you also need some compensatory changes that benefit the pirate. But to even begin to decide what combination of changes might make the game more fun for everyone, you first have to decide how much crime you want in the game.
To these specific points - cargo scanners are good thing for both pirates and haulers. They allow pirates to identify the most profitable targets and focus their efforts on them. This makes prudent haulers safer, and is key to make piracy a profession. Without it, gankers would have to just shoot randomly and this isn’t good for haulers who keep their cargo value reasonable, which is really the most foolproof way to thwart pirates in highsec.
I’m fine with more gameplay around scanning but there already is a bit. There is a ship class that is immune to scanning, and you can use courier contracts to make an unscannable package. However, I’m not sure that making a scanning ship suspect is necessary or makes for better gameplay, but feel free to make your case. Cargo scanners are more used by explorers than pirates I will point out , so I think you will make a lot of people angry if using that modules makes you suspect.
As for loot scooping, this is the one item of yours I agree strongly with. The flags from having stolen items should be more persistent and it is too easy to dodge the consequences of loot scooping and flee to safety. There should be more risk and opportunity for fighting over stolen loot than there is now, although I also see the problems in making that happen. But yes, CCP, make that happen!
Given you clearly haven’t lived the life of a highsec pirate, I will discount your assessment of risk as you lack the experience. However, as I alluded to above, I meant more here that the you really need to consider more the end result of your changes on the game balance and player behaviour rather than your subjective assessment of “risk” or “realism”. Changes that make piracy harder are going to cause less piracy, or at least change the target profile so more haulers are safe as unprofitable targets. Changes that make piracy easier are going to do the opposite. Burying your head in the sand and designing your game without considering the change in player behaviour as a result of your changes is not how CCP or anyone designs a game.
By all means, please propose ideas that make piracy more unpredictable, costly or difficult, but understand that this will change the amount of piracy that goes on in the game. Unless you are claiming there is “too much” piracy and there needs to be less, than your ideas won’t be implemented, or not implemented without corresponding buffs for pirates to keep the game balanced.
Interesting thoughts. Black_Pedro…you’ve got me thinking about the contest and the hunt.
Renoobed recovering carebear Question: what use are cargo scanners to exploreres?
I can see how following ship wreck jone’s (thanks) precautions can enhance game play. And I take the point about using proper tanks for freighters and even iterons and keeping cargo manageable.
A buddy going ahead even in a corvette to scout the way and perhaps a battleship or two to arrive ahead of time incase those fragile throw away pvp destroyers want to shoot at the hauler when it arrives on gate…
It is meant to be a shared competitive / co operative game and not a solo operation.
I think we can probably agree around loot scoops being more challenging. there is room for more game play around that and for a greater risk to the wrecker’s mate the shooter’s friend at stations and gates in high sec.
Lol I’ve actually had to withdraw from Eve because of Real Life issues and hope that when and if I"m able to return I can learn to enjoy the predation from both sides of the omniverous ecosystem, predittor and prey.
I’m pretty sure that if my buddy appealed his ship loss to the GM’s on the grounds that he’s been away from teh game for 7 years and got sloppy he would have got some sort of compensation just to keep him going, but he decided to withdraw from EVE without asking such questions of the GM simply because he does not like the depredation and having to look over his shoulder to enjoy loss. As much as I enjoy playing with him, Eve is likely not his cup of tea and he knows it. He did not think he’d get a refund of isk, but while the GM’s can’t hand out candy, they must have some discretion to give a noob some space to learn without loosing everything. I was more angry about his loss than he was, he was just like well that’s eve and I don’t like it.
I could enjoy a loss if I had the agency and the ‘self insurance’ and the support of a decent corporation. My first player corp in eve was kind of using us without much regard for our enjoyment in the game. And the fun buddy corp that formed around my friend and his friends petered out 7 years ago.
So I set about researching and applying to a corporation who might be a good fit to my styles of play and enjoyment…having not found that when I played eve 13 years ago.
But RL is more important and I’ve had to withdraw for now. Happy hunting. Thanks for interacting with me.
And black Pedro, if I may say, I do think you are on to something about loot scooping and making the consequences more challenging…; ).
CCP please consider that.
I’ve also discovered a bit more about how complex ship loss in Jita is and how difficult it can be to sort out the “pirates” from the kill right baiters from the professional spies and the “honourable deulists” and the mercenaries working strategy from the Pen *s out gankers who just like to pop loot pinatas for giggles.
Plus if one really wants to be a financial mogul one can just buy and sell from Jita IV 4 while other people take the risk of moving things…spread sheets are great for keeping track of margins.
Sooo, as long as GM’s give some lee way to noobs and to players who’ve been out for a while (and thus have forgotten “good” cargo habits until harshly reminded by a high sec pirate) without being becoming sugar daddies then maybe all that’s required is some tweaking around loot scooping.
IF real life permitted it I would definately go deeper into EVE precisely because of the PVP element.
And I do believe that piracy should be possible and possible at a profit, but it needs to be more undpredicatble, costly and difficult
loot scooping changes could do that…but hey the devil’s in the details not just ganking at the gate…
Black Pedro Okay got it scanners can be used to look at loot in relic and data sites to see if its worth hanging around to do the puzzle.
Just become a pirate,no risk
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Imho, players with -10 sec status should get concorded when they enter 0.5 or above. Now as it stands players can just suicide gank all day long in high sec with very little repercussion. Wanna be a criminal, pay the price or restore your security status. Otherwise, what is the point of being a criminal or having concord?
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Crimimals can be attacked without CONCORD intervention, it’s up to you to stop them from preparing another gank. CONCORD only comes in action after a gank.
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