I agree with you on this. Despite CCP explicitly calling it out as not an exploit, there are many people that either (1) haven’t read the exploits and misconceptions list, so don’t understand CCP’s position, or (2) disagree with CCP’s view and so claim it’s just crappy design, incompetence or a bad game.
As to ganking itself, in the Burn Jita thread there was a claim we see often, that gankers target new players, so yesterday I took a look at the average age of Freighter/Bowhead/Orca pilots that died in highsec since January 2016 (6000 killmails in total). The average age of pilots:
| Summary | ||
|---|---|---|
| Average Age (Days) | 1749.7 | |
| Average Age (Years) | 4.8 | |
| Std Deviation (Days) | 1287.5 | |
| Median Age (Days) | 1513.5 | |
| Median Age (Years) | 4.1 |
So the mean age of characters flying freighter size ships being killed in highsec is 4.8 years, with 50% of all the values being above 4.1 years (and some well over 10 years). 84% of all the characters are well over a year old.
After more than 4 years in the game on average, how much protection should a player need?
From my perspective, the argument against ganking often reduces to an argument of fairness, where it is seen as a bad mechanic because the freighter can’t shoot back, and so CCP should change the rules of the game to make it a more fair contest for freighters. There seems to be a view that the freighter pilot themselves bears little or no responsibility for their own safety.
But the data clearly shows that these ships aren’t being flown by new players in the main. They are being flown by veterans.
Veterans should know better. They should know the harsh edges of EVE, they should know how to keep themselves safe and they should definitely understand that Freighter EHP gives them a huge advantage, so when they are ganked by 20-30 people, that isn’t a measure of imbalance at all. Until gankers can get those numbers, the Freighters have a huge advantage, and the addition of a single webbing alt/friend makes the advantage even larger for the Freighter.
I’m always one that takes the view that we should be more personally responsible for the things that happen to us in the game. We are just playing for entertainment after all. Nothing real actually gets lost. It’s all just wasted time and not worth angst over.
It’s also totally possible to stay safe if you are careful, so nothing wrong with the system (and that’s from a perspective where I haul in a Freighter, Jump Freighter and Bowhead through highsec regularly).