As far as I understand the problem is not not taking an item, the problem is scanning the cans and only hacking the good ones but not even touching the others, which results the site not despawning and only containing worthless loot. (But someone will correct this if it is not accurate.) 
Seems to me that instead of punishing players for not taking items cracking any of the items should trigger a despawn timer instead
Sounds reasonable. Not entirely sure why CCP haven’t done that yet or if they did what the problem is. Maybe someone with actual experience can provide an answer.
Some people have a strange idea what “punishing” is.
“Punishing” would be to have Hacker’s ship explode, if he leaves the site without hacking all the cans. He does action X, reaction Y occurs that does harm to him.
Him not knowing what is inside the cans before hacking them is not a punishment.
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Deleting the ability to scan cans with a can scanner because people dislike getting outplayed isn’t really beneficial for the game, I’d say.
Just go catch and kill the explorer who leaves trash behind, it’s much more fun and interactive than to lobby for the removal of one way of interaction in this MMO.
That isn’t the case. Cherrypicking isn’t “outplaying” anyone. There is no interaction between Explorer A who cherrypicks and Explorer B that comes maybe 30min, maybe 3 hours later and cannot know that there is only crap remaining in the site, unless he scans the system and wastes his time. And the next coming after him as well, and the next, and the next…
I think I already got your opinion on the topic the first time. I asked to back that up with arguments please. Just repeating that you think it’s benefitial for the game to cherrypick doesn’t make it benefitial to the game.
Please compare both scenarios and tell me why an exploration mechanic with cherrypicking is better than one without. I have done it and very clearly the scenario without cherrypicking wins by a huge margin.
- less frustration for many explorers = win for the game by definition
- exploration becoming more attractive as a direct result = win for the game
- more prople traveling around = more player interaction possible → win for the game
- people staying longer in the sites = more player interaction possible → win for the game
Every sentence beginning wiht “just” usually is a made-up statement of which the guy making it knows that it really isn’t a viable solution. You can’t “just catch the explorer” that came 2 hours before you noticed that sites have been cherrypicked. Because he is long gone. Cherrypicking isn’t a “way of interaction”, it is a way of non-interaction.
You (intentionally?) keep skipping the argument I’ve made multiple times now.
Scanning cans allows players to minimize exposure in dangerous sites. This can be a beneficial strategy for the explorer and the existence of such strategies is beneficial to the game.
It is not the only strategy and I would argue it’s not even the most profitable strategy, but it is good for the game that there are multiple valid strategies so that players can optimize for their current situation, rather than forcing ‘one optimal strategy’ on all players because people dislike cherry-picked sites.
Those two aren’t nessessarily connected with each other. You have to compare the ups and downs, and so far the “ups” are only that explorers can minimize time in the site while still gaining most of the loot, which is an advantage for few and a disadvantage for many. So it is a real net loss for the attractiveness of the game. Frustrating potentially many people so one guy can maximize the loot while minize the risk (which is never good, since that actually diminishes possibilities of player interaction), isn’t really benefitial for the game at all. If someone would actually just want to reduce his risks, he could still warp out after hacking the 2-3 closest cans. He just wouldn’t know if he missed a 50M drop on one of the other cans. But the choice of how long he wants to stay in there is still his. There is simply no reason to give him an option to do it while getting 95% of the loot value.
So, it really comes down to the argument that “yeah but freedom-of-choice itself is a value!” - wrong. It is only a value if it would requre actucal skill that is rewarded (which cherrypicking isn’t) or comes along with other players having countermeasures against it. And I can give you a simple example why that is: Imagine CCP would build in a “button” that can make other ships explode on demand. So, yeah, I just right-click on your ship and select “make go boom!” and your ship would explode. OF COURSE you would agree (I hope) that this would be very bad for the game. Such mechanics do indeed exist, it’s called PVP and it requires skill to find, tackle and destroy someone. And that is then rewarded with a kill. Just having a button to do it would actually “add freedom of choice!” because I could simply decide to make your ship explode or not. But it’s not a value in itself.
So no. Your point of view is really not convincing. You are advocatin for a mechanic that requires no skill, reduces the possibilities for hunting and catching people in those sites, making the activity “exploration” less attractive by adding frustration to people who come after the cherrypicker and with that reduce the fun for many to maximize the gains of a few. The definitition of a bad game design.
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Not everything has to be cooperative, EVE also is competitive.
Ganking also is an advantage for few and a disadvantage for the targets.
I still think ganking too is healthy for the game, just like I think cherry picking as option is healthy.
Many players are against ganking or against cherry picking, so I’m not surprised to see people asking for the removal of either, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.
I’m neither a ganker nor a cherry picker and while I’ve never been the victim of the former I have been annoyed by the latter. Still I think it’s good that it’s an option. In my case a cherry picker triggered me as explorer to make my first PvP solo kill back in the day: Ares | rusn | Killmail | zKillboard
Friction and antagonists means content in a game.
I keep seeing players claim that sites do not despawn unless all cans are looted, when CCP has said that once the first can is hacked, the site is now on a 30-45 minute timer to despawn. If you see a site last longer after it’s been cherry picked, you should submit a bug report.
The new drone relic sites de-spawn after being warped into right ? maybe other sites need to be made like that one from the back-end.
Should be easy to test. Question is: does that apply for ‘all’ hacking sites or just ‘some’?
I propose a mix of things.
First, my position on the matter of cherry picking. From a gameplay perspective, I don’t think "cherry picking” should be removed, ie. I don’t think that 100% of all cans should prevent the use of a cargo scanner. My reasoning, doing that would be a massive debuff to a cargo scanner as an item. In addition, it would also mean that a particular play style is removed from the game. Now I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the annoyingness of hopping into a site that has been cherry-picked and then being pissed off. I absolutely understand that, but at the same time for some people, it is fun to go and scan down the sites as fast as possible and grab what they can and get out. I think that is also a valid play style (especially offensively, though more difficult to do that way since explo sites in general aren’t a huge source of income for most k-space groups).
The way I see it, especially in EVE, the more “options” for players the better; the more the “choice” to do something or take a risk is in the players’ hands, the better.
So, with that out of the way, I have a handful of ideas that may work either individually or in combination.
- Make site cans more consistent, ie. If a site has 10m in loot, then try to spread it out more evenly so that no one can has all 10m. (They probably do this already to an extent)
- Hard part with this is when you get a single drop that is 10m you can’t split one item into 5 cans
- Have a site have for example, 5 cans where 4 are scannable and will contain some amount of loot. Lets say 10m and the 5th can is NOT scannable. This 5th can, when opened, will trigger the despawn of the site but also has the highest chance of valuable loot. But the 5th should always have some amount of loot that is decent. I’d probably also say the 5th should be very difficult hacking level (or comparable for the level of the site)
- I like this idea or similar because it means that cherry pickers can still pick the out side loot but the inside they have to take always take the time to loot to have a chance to get the good loot. This means they either pick the outside and leave a decent and potentially very good drop to the next person or the site will just despawn with and there isn’t a problem anyways.
- Don’t change the existing sites at all. Instead, add a new classification of site that spawns reasonably frequently based on the level and security status of the region. This site does not allow scanning but has a higher chance of good loot, but take more time. You have to open them all if you want to know for sure you got all of the drops.
- Gives cherry pickers the option to continue what they are doing in the existing sites while giving other players the ability to make a choice “Do I risk the site being cherry picked and my time wasted or do I just do sites I know won’t be but take longer”
- A site could despawn after any can is opened. I propose a slight modification to this in that a site should despawn after a specific ISK value is removed.
- My reasoning here is lets say you are in NULL and you want to do a site but a NEUT/HOSTILE fleet jumps into system. You have to sit on site cloaked until they leave or you feel safe. However, you looted 1 can, now your site despawns. That would be super frustrating. This is because when you are cloaked you are NOT considered to be on grid. So the site will despawn because it has considered you has having left the site when you cloak up.
- Sites could have random cans that can’t be scanned
- Not sure i’m a huge fan of it but figured i’d throw it in here. Basically the idea here is that there is an equally likely chance that a can could be scanned as one that could not be. This means that there will be a chance good loot gets left by cherry pickers
- I don’t like this one because of the randomness it feels like the other one i mentioned with a guaranteed 5th can that isn’t scannable but less consistent and more frustrating.
So far, those are my ideas, id be curious of people’s thoughts.