Discussion: Is Ratts/Ratting is the solution to all problems?!

Communications Center General Discussion
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Hello fellow pilots,

I’d like to start the discussion of eve’s issues of overrun vermin. It is the problem that ccp adds rats to every nook and cranny of the game. As a Tripple A developer, i can tell you this is a “cheap” way to solve bigger problems that ccp is trying to “cut corners” on.

Miners should not be dealing with Npc rats as their form of “Danger factors”. Lets start by addressing this point, because it is probably the most vital to the topic, and the most required area of eve that needs to be looked at.

Mining as a base concept has not been touched in the history of eve. There has over the years been touch ups to the ships and their balance, but the base concept of sitting in a belt afk is one of the only two systems that have not been touched in some major way since its creation.

This system is abusive to the game, and highly supports the concept of macro-botting/multiboxing. This system can easily be resolved by changes to the way the base structure of mining works, by adding things like damage while channeling the beam, a concept already present in the game itself. the removal of rats and changes to mining could provide a huge benefit to the game in many different and fundamental ways.

There is a number of similar concepts that can be done. Like gas that will ignite and deal damage if the beam touches it. This will cause miners to pay attention, move, and dodge potentially lethal damage. The system does not need to be designed like this, but things like rats are highly abusive and dis-encouraging to players that do not want to be forced into combat situations, are to young to venture into nullsec, and so forth.

But this is just part of the ice burg. Ratts are everywhere, and we as players need to step up, by stepping on the rat spam that ccp is adding to the game.

Another great example of potentially bettering this game is hacking sites, and similar “exploration type options” that can be modified or introduced into the game that could be rat free.

It is truly a surprise that ccp has not added rats to planets where people do planetary interaction.

Virtually all aspects of the game is filled with rats. So lets stand up to ccp and cry for something more eventful, that addresses larger issues and is not part of cheap corner cutting.

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They arent. They tend to swat them away.
They deal with players as their danger factor, though there are a lot of shrill voices claiming that any danger is too much for them.

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Rats are a type of environmental damage, One of many that could be in eve.
It should not be the only one. There is more to this then just being able to afk rat.
To be honest, rats are a negative reply to the issue of afk mining. Players should be dealing with things like ion storms, gas cloud explosions, etc as opposed to rats. In addition, positive rewards for moving around would also play an even more impactful reason to not go afk or multi-box.

Im advocating for miners to not be forced to rat, not to be “safe” in some belt. There is equally negative to the spam of vermin.

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What are these?

Dont they already? Isnt that why specialist mining ships reduce the chance of it?

Its terrible to be “forced” to deploy a few drones and forget about them.

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I really like where you are going with this. Rats are the “easy button” for both CCP and players, and they don’t really make miners have to pay attention. I would support expanding the environmental dangers in all mining activities, not just some forms of gas cloud mining, that already exist.

Also, this should be in PF&I

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There more you rat, the more i ninja salvage. So yeah. JUST DO IT :wink:

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That’s nice. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
What will you be doing next week once EA is done with you? Programming my coffee maker?

Meh. I’ll go ahead and play along.

Actually… I don’t mind the request, but hate the conclusion. I’m feeling like an algebra teacher that knows while a student has jotted down the right answer in the end, their shown work is all over the place and makes me question if they actually understand the process - or just guessed well.

Basics (in EvE):

Botting is bad. Multiboxing is fine - if done within the rules.

I don’t see a problem with rats.
The rats provide bounties, modules, and salvage to the miner should she decide to take advantage of them.
So, leave them alone.

I, however, wouldn’t mind other effects being inserted.

The environmental effects would need to be random enough to stymie a bot, but not enough to annoy a real person by making mining even MORE tedious. Any new effect might seem fun, new, and exciting … for the first few times. Then it gets progressively dull.

And for what? At least the rats provide a bonus should a miner actually blow them up and take their stuff.

If environmental effects were introduced, I think they should provide a benefit if successfully mitigated - other than the status quo. Using your example of igniting gas, if a ship is in the cloud it will take ever increasing damage (that’s the stick), but if a pilot successfully ignites it - and is clear of the ignition - then there could be something useful that is left behind that could be scooped up, or maybe a limited time buff in mining in the immediate area (carrot) could be provided.

Gonna need both the carrot and stick, or otherwise you’re just nerfing mining in general.

To reiterate (and TL;DR):

  • Keep the rats as they are.
  • Introduce environmental effects that can hurt if not dealt with, but provide a bonus if successfully negotiated.
  • Make the detrimental effects strong and random enough to dissuade botting, yet make the bonus lucrative enough to keep real people interested.
  • The effect should be just complicated enough to keep actual players attentive without becoming another chore.

–Queen Rock Smiter Gadget

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First off, Who said i am working for EA? Troll knows nothing.

Multiboxing is not fine. I Know a lot of people argue this, but most of the time its because
they want to have unnatural and unintended income rates.

Players do things like his because they “believe they need to do it”. If this is the case, ccp needs to find ways to lower the grind-rate to obtain things, or find ways to return it (Like upping the t2/t3 insurance returns).

The truth is, we developers cannot fully stop these things really, out side of removing their need to exist (By removing trading all together limiting players to what they earn on each account). Even then in some cases it will still be valid.

Multiboxing hurts the economy. It also fills corps with lots of toons but little to no interaction. These are both good enough reasons to try to fight their existence to the fullest extend we can as developers.

CCP and some other games capitalize on the existence of bots (by the monetary value they bring), However, the real truth is that real money comes from lots of players. IF ccp had educated, intelligence designers they would get this. They would start to understand why intentionally designing complexity in the game effects the income rates they have, and ultimately their success as a company.

There are two things you do not add to a game when you design it, yet so many make the mistake of doing it, Complexity and Hardware requirements. Both of these factors limit the potential population in a game, as ccp is learning.

This is why Eve suffers from population issues, and it is nothing other then this.

So in essence, ccp shot themselves in the foot to obtain more money, but if they would patch up the gunshot wound by fixing multiboxing and fighting it, the population of the game would increase. solving some of their issues.

Multiboxing is not good, ever. It is only enjoyable to players who want to farm at rates that are unintended, or fight unfair battles.

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Right…

I was joking about the EA bit. Fine, as It seems you prefer bluntness, my real message was that you are lying about being a developer in order to make your idea seem more credible.
/shrug
Maybe you actually are a “Tripple [sic] A developer”, but until you prove it, for purposes of this discussion you are not, and no extra weight will be given to your supposed position.

Multiboxing is perfectly fine - within the rules. CCP itself has said so.

Are you a developer or a psychologist? (Gadget votes neither)

Sigh… A miner having three barges mining means an increased chance that one will get “interacted” with… forcefully. Once again, if the rules are followed.

I actually don’t buy this.

Unintended by whom? And Unfair battles is the theme of EvE…
Multiboxing is allowed in EvE. You are carrying a special torch for it.

Nice agenda push.

–Gadget is developing a headache

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Try to do it in WH or 0.0 :wink:

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First off… The majority of Relic and Data sites do not contain Rats. You simply hack, loot, and run. Ghost sites, wormhole sites, and a few others are the exception to this rule.

As for environmental effects, Mercoxic (sp?) already includes that impact. People just tank well. And really, how is an explosive cloud any different than rats shooting you? Yes one is ships the other is a random cloud but both are still random effects. They could be called just about anything and it would still amount to tanking your ship correctly.

Belt rats also serve some very useful functions… Fastest way to fix a low sec status, go belt rat in nul. Starting over from scratch… Kill a few belt rats in hi sec in your corvette till you can get better. They are the most basic isk resource farming method. They are also the only locations where officer rats spawn.

They also add a semblence of life to the game. Without them… Well… You might as well ask for a Skyrim with no random monsters, only pre-planned dungeons.

What next? Let’s get rid of space ships?

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True dat

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I don’t think the OP was suggesting this kind of boring game play, but instead a more variety in things. That in “normal” mining, you might get attacked by rats, or a gas cloud might drift onto you (which could explode), or…etc. In your Skyrim example it’s not to remove the random monsters, but to make them more random.

As things are, when you go mine in one sector of space not only do you know the only non-player threat you will have to deal is rats, but you even know what faction those rats will be from and so what weapons and defences they will be using. This suggestion is to make the non-player threats much, much more random; in terms of damage, combat/protection methods, and lore/gameplay.

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As an in game entrepreneur and relations officer for a small gank/piracy corp… I like rats, could do with more variety. Hi-sec belt rats need a buff, they used to be a potential threat to lazy players ages ago, but are little more than free money delivery now.

IMHO… The problem is that there are activities in EvE that lend well to botting and AFK play. In these activities there is little difference between actively doing them… or not. Forcing an engagement on them in a passive way is not the answer. Allowing them to be more engaged in the content they are pursuing should be the focus; active content. Engage the player, reward for the effort. Create a large enough gulf between the two and botting/AFK play is no longer competitive.

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First, Game development is partially involved in psychology. It is in fact a larger part of what we designers to. Your choice of the safe route up the long, mountain paved road, or the short dangerous way jumping up the side of the mountain. So welcome to your first game development lesson, That psychology involves somewhere between 40-60% Of game development (depending on what developer you ask).

Second,
Multiboxing is permitted. That does not make it beneficial to the game. Ccp’s designers are underskilled and ignorant of the complexities of game development. Imo, it’s last great designer departed some time ago.

Now the are left with designers who lack and real creativity, drive, or knowledge regarding the complexity of key issues. In essence they design principles and positions are heavily lacking real understanding of game development. Being a coder, does not make you an expert designer, and visa versa. Many roles are played in a team to bring a game into position, but easily the biggest of them is the position of the visionary(ies) that shape a game like eve, which are long gone from the ccp dev team.

Let me explain why i say this.

Other games developed by two other leading AAA companies in the industry (one which came from the other) are well founded in design principles (because of what they learned before they made their own company). I’ll omit the games for now because im not interested in hearing peoples opinions games which are easily accepted in the industry as “successful” (be it that the player in the discussion likes it or not).

These two (and other) companies know that the key aspects of a highly successful games development ultimately rest on a single specific factor, Population.

Population is highly and directly responsible for the health of a game, and for its income. Income that in return also effects that “rolling stone” or “snow ball” (effect). It is highly complex to explain all of the aspects of it in a single typed out discussion like this but i’ll start by explaining why larger populations effect the over all health of a game.

A games health is dependent upon the ability of players to access content, and to cooperatively and/or competitively compete for that content. This is possible because of the clans/corps/etc that are there to offer them (the players) the ability to access and compete and/or cooperate for that content.

When populations of a game drop, this has a destructive effect to the game in question, which is always met with player consolidating into a few clans, then a single clan, which ultimately leads to the death of the game. The question is Why?

The answer is because people are unique. They need clans to have various levels of progression, things to be offered, but most importantly personalities and interests. The larger the population of a game, the more this role is filled, and the more people can find kindred spirits to keep interests in the game in question.

This is why some games become like a literal drug. It is not because of the game itself, completely, it is largely the people in it.

Multiboxing fills a corporation with larger amounts of inactive people. This causes people to migrate around the game until they find a location. However, because most of the population of eve is consolidated into a few mega powers, the idea of identity is shifted from a free creative position, to an oppressive forced concept.

In short, Basically if you want to join anything of worth, you need to confide to the rules and obligations of eves super powers like goons, test, nc, drf, tri, etc. All of this is largely taking place because of design choices ccp makes, and because of multiboxing. The worse the multiboxing gets, the more the population will cluster to seek that companionship (even though in ways its abusive/oppressive).

The reason for all of that is because by nature we are a social species. We eat together, talk and enjoy each other. So, As time progresses the only thing that will take place is this will become more concentrated. I’d be interested to see at the end of the eve monthly report metrics about this and compare it to retention rates from eve’s metric system.

Hopefully you understand part of the issue by now.

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The only way this will be true is if we remove the ability for intel channels, or 3rd party software. While i am impressed by the software that is being developed out there for eve, it is becoming an epidemic, one which no other company has been so free with. This is extremely dangerous grounds for ccp, especially considering the rise of some software out there that are abusive (like the ones that track freighters etc).

In short, People die with lots of alts because they go afk, not because they have 10 to move at a time. Id be interested in seeing evidence that “a lot more alts gets my toons killed all the time”, because a lot of you multiboxers play this card, and as a developer I have to call “Bs” on it, more so because iv lived in null since 2003, and know how extremely safe it is with people who pay attention to local/intel.

Btw, Who said you cant fleet warp to a safe right on top of a citadel?

That line is enough to prove your claim stated above is absolute nonsense.

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I agree we need more supercarriers to deal with all these rats especially now when they come in larger numbers/sizes.

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