EVE Online Killboard Anonymity Proposal

Communications Center General Discussion
1

Greetings, fellow capsuleers.

I’d like to discuss a long-standing issue (at least among those I communicate with), namely metagaming and the public nature of killboards. Everyone is well aware of zkillboard, br.evetools.org, and other similar services.

I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that with the emergence of such public services, people first open the website, and only then decide whether they will participate in PvP or not, whether they should be concerned that a pilot conceals a potential risk or if it might be a trap. And if everything suits them, they undock.

Another issue is local chat parsers. Take localthreat.xyz, for example - it’s a great tool. You don’t even have to dig through zKill yourself; you just dump the local list into the parser and it spits out everything: threat level, solo player or not, and their favorite ships.

Everyone knows perfectly well that in order to find PvP, you need to create a new character, train it, “create” your page on ZKB so that this character looks like a newbie who doesn’t know anything.

But if you’re part of an alliance, have been involved in luring opponents into traps or other activities that CONCORD doesn’t approve of, then you have no chance. They’ll simply write in local for you to “get out of here” and laugh. Even though you’ve NEVER interacted with these people before.

Constantly creating new characters is not what we want from the game. I want to play with my character, not with dozens of alts. You might say that this is the culture and tradition of the game, but in my opinion, it causes more inconvenience than benefits.

My Proposal and Possible Solution Namely - anonymize those who participated in destroying an object in kill reports.

Currently it looks like this:

Current zKillboard:

Loss: Nightmare Pilot: The Mittani [Elite Pilots]

Killer: Tau AD [RED Alliance]

System: Jita

What I propose:

Loss: Nightmare (3.2B ISK)

Corporation: [Elite Pilots] (anonymous pilot)

Killer Alliance: [RED Alliance] (anonymous pilot)

System: Jita

Specific Changes: Completely hide nicknames and avatars, but keep corporation and alliance names in the API Add anonymity settings in the game options - if a person wishes, their nickname can be hidden or displayed Preserve group analysis capability - corporation/alliance composition is visible, but not individual pilots Keep loss values and tactical information for meta-analysis Advantages of This Approach: For Players: Return of anonymity - can participate in PvP without fear of being “branded” Ability to play with main character - no need to create alts for “clean” statistics Protection for new players - they won’t fear trying PvP due to public failures

For the Game: Increased PvP activity - more players will take risks Reduced metagaming - decisions are made in-game, not on external sites Preserved analytics - corporations and alliances can still be analyzed Improved immersion - the game stays in the game

For the Community:
Focus on group play — corporations matter, not individual pilots More diversity - small gangs get more chances

Technical Implementation: Anonymity Levels: Full anonymity (default for new players) Corporate level (corporation visible, but not pilot) Open profile (opt-in for streamers and public figures) Settings in EVE Client:
[ ] Hide my nickname in public killboards
[ ] Hide my corporation (for solo players only)
[ ] Allow showing my nickname (optional)

What Will Remain: Battle reports - most expensive and interesting battles Search by corporations/alliances - group activity analysis Ship type statistics - meta-analysis Activity map - where battles occur Economic data - loss values What Will Change: Personal killboards will disappear — only corporate ones No “witch hunts” based on pilot history Reduced value of “clean” ZKB pages Less pressure on new players

You might say, ‘Sure, it’s great for PvP pilots, but is it actually good for PvE?’ Absolutely. A ton of kills - especially the high-value ones - start with scouting zKillboard. Whether it’s a blingy marauder, a сapital running sites, or just some ‘credit card warrior’ fit, you’ll instantly end up on every whale-hunter’s watchlist. That’s exactly why PvE players in expensive hulls try to stay off zKill. But it’s not just them - it’s arena-tournament ships, faction dreads, capitals, and supers too. It’s a massive issue overall, and it’s why we see high-end ships in space way less often than we actually could.

Conclusion:
Let the game remain a game. People will still be able to view the most expensive or interesting battle reports. The ability to search for ships, corporations, and alliances will remain. But this will give small groups more opportunity to participate in PvP.

I simply wish for the game to remain a genuine activity, with information circulating solely within the game environment and not being accessible for external metagaming purposes.

Let’s return to EVE Online its magic — a world where every pilot started with a clean slate in each system, not with a public dossier on an external website.

With respect, a New Eden pilot weary of metagaming after 14 years in the game.

1 Like
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It’s been 20 years…

:thinking:

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nah-im-good

3 Likes
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If you want PvP, make your Killboard present you as someone who gives good fights.
If your Killboard looks like ■■■■■■■■, no one is going to give you PvP.

When 80% of your KB look like this.
And 10% of your KB look like this.
”Why does no one PvP me?” :pikachu face:

Everything working as intended, no changes needed.

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Since a lot of the pilots present on this forum play for a lot less time, they cannot even imagine how great EVE felt without all those auto-analyzing tools. So our idea will have no chance against people who are absolutely used to get all the info they want on one-click.

All those tools removed a lot of the fog of war from the map, a lot of darkness form the game and catered ultra-risk averse gameplay and a focus on “stats” instead of learning good baiting techniques and building a reputation out of engagements.

So, nice try, but you could also talk against a wall here. CCP has dug this hole too deep with all their api/esi realtime surveillance stuff. Can’t squeeze the toothpaste back into the tube. Unfortunately.

2 Likes
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Yes, god forbid i want to know that i’m not about to tackle something only for a capital fleet to bridge in to fight my 1 little cruiser

I also want to know if its even worth killing them, killing someone who can’t fight back isn’t PvP thats just killboard padding, and while thats perfectly valid as far as spending your gameplay time, if people want actual interesting fights they are going to look for things that can test them, and intel works great for that

1 Like
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I we had a good cyno balance, like in the beginning of the game, that wouldn’t even be remotely an issue as no one could bridge anything on you and even remotely hope to kill you with it. CCP successfully messed that part up as well.

As if you would let go a 20M Thorax that your gang got tackle on because you check it’s KB and see it’s a blodd noob. You’d just kill it without asking questions and maybe transfer the poor dude a few ISK. Which you don’t need a KB checking tool to do so.

But as said: People these days are so used to all these tools that they can’t imagine to play a pure game without that stuff (hint: that worked!). And since they absolutely believe those tools are a must-have feature to somehow get the PvP they want, it’s a rather pseudo-religious discussion that no side can win. :man_shrugging:

2 Likes
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You mean when you could get a capital fleet from Tenal to Feythabolis in less than 5 minutes? That cyno balance?

I’ll be honest, this sentence was so ridiculous I didn’t even read the rest of your post. If you thought cynos used to be balanced, you have no clue at all what balance is and should never speak on the topic.

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idc there’s been no action on my KB since 2019. Let people waste their time looking at it if they want.

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I’ve also argued for anonymous-by-default lossmails and I know it’s a very unpopular opinion because everyone uses zkillboard primarily for risk aversion despite other claims.

And I’m pretty sure it would work well in spite of naysayers because it works fine for Dota 2 which is a much more competitive game with millions of dollars on the line for pro players.

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maybe you mix up “balance design” with “projection design”.

Just to clarify what the difference between those is: “balance” is the behaviour of the module and it’s real interaction with other players on use. “projection design” is how you much area of the game universe you can cover by using those modules (and in your example: chaining them in short succession).

What I mean is the balance of the mechanic itself, which includes the jumptime of ~30+ seconds we had in the early days. Which is now reduced to ~5 seconds under current circumstances. That created a huge disbalance between small roaming gangs or solo fights which - back then - had a very good chance to simply run from any cyno-blob, because from lighting the cyno over jumping the reinforcements in, loading the grid, locking ships and then beginning to shoot you had easily ~45 seconds to warp away or pull range, overheat on the tackler, deaggress and jump the gate and so on. Cyno hotdropping on mobile subcapital gangs was almost never successful and thats why basically nobody did it.
“Projection” is a whole different discussion and I totally agree that the initial design wasn’t good here. I even think the current solution to keeping power projection in check isn’t good enough and jump ranges and cooldown timers should be even more restrictive to make capitals and super cap a strategic asset that can dominate a local area, but are slow to get in - and get back.

Sorry if I was unclear about that difference, I absolutely meant the jump-time and not the range-projection.

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What a load of utter nonsense. Why would I not want anyone to know that I killed ( by actual name ) a top player ?

Your request is just bonkers. That player in Kubinen who has 30,000 solo kills….eliminating his name not only craps on anyone who manages to defeat him, but also prevents any would-be challenger from even knowing who to look out for. Yeah…you didn’t think of that, did you, before conjuring up your silly request.

Your request does not add ‘magic’ back to the game. It eliminates the magic of personal endeavour and success and personal victory over a specific character. It eliminates all notion of personal and public vengeance as well.

You’re not enhancing the game….you are taking away one of the main reasons for playing it.

If you’re not happy with the game then please biomass and I’ll make better use of your stuff.

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You and the top player (by actual name) would most definitely disable anonymity so nothing would change in this case.

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Only carebears want to hide.

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This isn’t even carebearing. His KB literally is “10+ vs. 1”, “smartbombing soft targets” and “smashing ships two size classes smaller with a Kronos”. Oh, and helpless cyno ships. A kill is a kill.

If that KB was a person, it would be the 60yo town creep looking to snatch leftover drunk girls on Saturday night. I’d want to hide too if i was that KB.

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Anonymity may be fine for games that are just a series of one off ‘respawn’ encounters, but it is absurd for a game that not only has, but is, an ongoing history in which actions have consequences.

The fact that everyone knows if you screwed up is precisely what drives the incentive to do better. A hidden KB provides no incentive whatever. If I can lose 1000 ships from bad play and nobody else knows about it, what conceivable fun or advancement or sense of consequential history is there ?

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Valid point, but some people just don’t need external validation or motivation. I’m also quite certain that a lot of people are put off by the possibility of external critique that is oh-so-common and vitriolic in some circles (and especially in local). edit: there’s a shining example just a couple of posts above lol

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Well then all the little buttercups need to HTFU. This is EVE…not fairies in the enchanted forest waiving daisy chains.

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Yeah, I get it. Sadly, those buttercups are often alliance/roam/opposing fleet FCs that waste your hour+ to preserve THEIR killboards.

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Before opening such a thread, one should understand the basics of a killmail. The basics are: there are always at least 2 parties involved if no NPC was fought and both receive the killmail. The second party doesn’t necessarily agree to your anonymity wish and also doesn’t have to. If such a system was ever implemented by CCP, you can be sure that the killboards would just add manual posting again, so everyone could just add in the missing information before posting.

1 Like