EDIT: I’ve left the original post below as a record of what I wrote, but updating based on comments in this thread.
I accused a player of using macros. Evidence from players in this thread shows that macros are not necessary to coordinate a group of coercers in this way. I apologise for my false accusation.
The 1st (pre-October 25) and 2nd (post-October 25) players may or may not be the same player. Regardless, if the 2nd multi-boxer is not using banned strategies, their playstyle is ok.
Thanks to those who posted useful information in this thread.
I think it is fair to conclude that earning billions of ISK by multiboxing on accounts that are a few days old is a playstyle that is both supported and encouraged by CCP. Presumably it takes a level of skill to do this which is why not everyone is doing it. Seems like a great playstyle if you can do it and far superior to grouping with other players. I don’t think this is great gameplay, but that’s just my opinion. I’ve already adapted to this reality. Sorry to disappoint those hoping for a ragequit.
ORIGINAL POST
*There is an active multibox ganker who is pretty obviously using input broadcasting or some other macro to manage a fleet of coercers. I’m not sure if it is ok to post the zkillboard links demonstrating that the coercers in the fleet do a very similar amount of damage to each other, which seems unlikely to be possible outside of use of a macro (someone please correct me if I am wrong on this front). This guy was banned but was back in action for the current gankfest with 1 day old accounts killing gilas and ishtars worth billions. He even rejoined his new accounts to his old alliance. He has been reported using the “report bot” function, but no action so far and many billions of ISK “won” by his accounts. *
Can some better bot detection tools be developed to deal with this?
I have no problem with ganking. It is part of the game and an important part of the risk/reward balance in EVE. However, it is hard to believe that someone with accounts a few days old can earn many billions of ISK with no response from CCP and just start again in 1 day with new accounts if banned.
just wondering, if it’s all that obvious, why need better detection tools ?
and how do you know the guy was banned ?
how do you know it’s the same guy again ?
The plot thickens, my dear Watson.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for banning breakers of ToS’s and EULA’s. But only if they broke them, not because they’re good at what they’re doing - to keep it justifiable.
The game has a mechanism for detecting automated actions. The effects of its work are highly debatable. However, any discussion about this mechanism and whether someone got banned for automated gameplay rightly or wrongly - is pointless, because anyway we, the users, have only speculations, and moreover the rules of this forum do not allow such discussions.
Regarding the mentioned multiboxing ganker - this problem with accounts with minimal development being able to effectively wreak death and destruction has been known and discussed for a long time. No one will officially tell you this, but this is what CCP is all about: there is supposed to be destruction. Ships are supposed to explode. Cargoes from the wreckage are to be looted. This generates cool MER scores, and “content” for “dedicated PvP players”.
If you want to avoid this fate - either always avoid systems full of gankers, or pay for multiboxing yourself in order to have an account-scout at your disposal to pre-check the route of your planned transport.
In case you are wondering whether this is right or wrong, the Crimson Harvest event is nothing but a very deep bow from CCP to all kinds of gankers. For 12 days they can earn absurd amounts of ISK at minimal cost, and then that blood money will be used to fund their ganking for the next few months. During this time, anyone who has already learned the realities of the game simply does not fly anything expensive, avoids the well-known gatecamp systems by a wide margin, and does not wander into a null sec system without good reason. And if someone really, really needs to transport some goods - he uses cheap, sub-2 sec align Sunesis.
The thing is that all those who haven’t got to know the realities of this game yet, during Crimson Harvest flying to Uedama get to know it once and for all, often losing the fruits of months of playing. That’s how it was, is, and will be, because it’s a brutal New Eden.
Ganking crew v1 activity stops on 25th October. Perhaps due to holiday in Ibiza, but more likely due to ban:
Ganking crew v2 activity starts 1 day later. Note the number of kills with coercer damage clustered closely together. Possibly due to amazing skill when lawfully switching between clients. Or not.
Posting Zkillboard links here won’t do anything ‘official’ although it might draw some player eyes to the specific pilots/systems this is occurring in.
Report it and link evidence via the bot reporting tools. CCP won’t take instant action, it might be months before they check it. But they do check it.
OP, you realize that in-game functions for fleet control accomplish like 90% of what goes into making a gank, right? And that the only real set of inputs a ganker has to make is targeting and shooting? Modern keyboards have simple macro recording functions that can, for example, alt-tab and press the targeting hotkey with a single button press, and this is allowed.
If you look at the kills being made, you can see that the damage figures are all staggered, meaning that all of the shooters aren’t activated at the same time, but at short intervals, so input broadcasting isn’t being used.
Stop crying wolf just because you’re personally offended by their play style, unless you have concrete proof that this player is breaking the rules.
-2 subs from me because ccp clearly condone this behavior with these incentives.
It is simple: I no longer trust the game developers to manage a reasonable economy. At the core of my frustration here is the economic imbalance and impact of the last event.
My time is wasted in an environment managed by whoever made these decisions. Gatecamping and taking candy from kiddos just isn’t my idea of fun or a good game design.
Needlejacking in nice ships/ roaming/small gang pvp fighting outnumbered, pushing your ship to its maximum, warfare positioning and the art of the kill - this is why I play.
What eve is right now is a horribly managed cashino- new players will not stay
huh are we looking at the same data ? first 5 kills i look at there is a cascade of damage from for example 5000 down to 600 , how is this a cluster of the same number . the data clearly shows the gankers shooting one after another with the first getting many many more hits than the last to fire.
depends on the rate of fire of the guns but its not hard to get 2 or 3 characters with the same number of shots if the target dies fast enough, it can take a second or less to switch character and fire
Lots of players get a reality check when playing this game. They think, and always thought, that EVE Online is for them, but in actuality it very much isn’t. The realization that the game requires genuine academic intelligence and street smarts for success is too much to bear for people who have thus far made a career of gaming by “memorizing rotations” or parroting gamer jargon like “solo mid” to feel like they’re part of the in crowd. And so the only pro-gamer move they have left to pull is to retire.
Like that guy up there who has thousands of kills and is waxing poetic about “roaming” and playing for the “art of the kill,” but doesn’t actually understand the game at a deep enough level to throw a shield-extended travel fit on his 1-billion-ISK gank bait PvP Vagabond.
Seems interessting. A bit of info: the person in the first zkill link got permabanned for delaying concord response. It made some waves in the russian highsec gank community.
One thing you might want to consider is the OP has to guess who got banned. If the information was made available, it would help players identify them when they come back. Further, it would encourage their “friends” to assist CCP by identifying the player But as we don’t get the official story we are left guessing. Why do they leave us guessing? I can think of only a few reasons, and they aren’t any good.
Just wanted to pop in, in regards to posting zkill, you can’t use it on the forums to troll someone etc. Other than that, your uses here are fine, per rules.