Told you someone would argue your conclusions even though you make none in the O.Pđ
1 Like
Had a couple people ask (in other venues) about Nullsec PvP - how, why, where, what. I donât fight in Null and have rarely gone there myself, so canât answer. Perhaps someone else would care to weigh in on the causes and outcomes of PvP in Null.
On a daily basis, that is, I assume weâre all well aware of the occasional war effect.
As for just the numbers, the month I referenced had (looking only at Victims):
Top 10 Destroyed:
Capsule 58,688
Ishtar . . . . 5,825
MTU . . . . .5,603
Sabre . . . .4,627
Vexor . . . .4,277
Caracal . . 3,733
Heron . . . 3,232
Stabber . .2,922
Muninn . . 2,197
Flycatcher 2,103
And top 10 Groups destroyed:
Capsule . . . . 59,581
Cruiser . . . . . 21,662
Frigate . . . . . 15,886
Heavy Assault Cruiser 11,793
Interdictor . . . 8,142
Destroyer . . . .7,985
Combat Battlecruiser . .7,179
Mobile Tractor Unit . . . 5,673
Interceptor . . 5,427
Shuttle . . . . . .5,363
4 Likes
Iâve had some questions, requests, and feedback about the âgankingâ total numbers. Mostly based on the belief that the 5-man+ âganksâ recorded from Zkill would be greatly in the minority vs. solo or 2-man ganks.
The first question to address is âWhat is a gank?â. For my purpose Iâm going to say: âa gank is when a PvE-fit ship going about regular PvE business in high sec is killed by PvP-fit ships against which it has basically zero chance of successfully resistingâ.
Lots of room for debate here. We could argue the details forever but Iâm looking at miners, explorers, missioners, haulers etc. who arenât prepared for the âPvP everywhereâ aspect of EVE. (Yes, everyone should be ready for PvP and dealing intelligently with the risks; no, thatâs not the case in practice.)
Iâm also not concerned with whether ganking is ârightâ, moral, fair, or âthe way EVE is meant to be playedâ. Simply on the practical effects on game activity, retention, and population.
Looking at the top 100 high-sec PvPers and top 100 âgankersâ, their âsoloâ kills tend to make up about 20% or less of kills. Looking at all potential ganks, adding in solo and small gang (2-4)
kills appears to give about 5-8 times as many ganks, depending on ship class.
For instance Ventures have higher total kills per month (400-500 ish); but if you look at Venture solo kills (and some other cheap ships), you see a ton of killboard padding and other ânon-gankâ kills. T1 haulers can be solo killed, but virtually all Freighters, DSTs etc. are 5+ ganks.
For the purpose of determining effects on players quitting, high value ganks are more relevant than extremely cheap (ie. Venture and corvette) ganks. Higher value ganks are also more likely to employ the 5+ ganker numbers used by Zkill. However even here many kills that could reasonably be labeled a âgankâ donât earn that tag from Zkillboard.
I find Iâm agreeing with a number of the comments and feedbacks I received stating that the quickie gank numbers I pulled from Zkillboard probably are too low by roughly an order of magnitude.
(This is not to imply issues with Zkillboardâs âGankedâ labelling system - which was basically just added to give a rough idea of certain types of kills. Just means I was too quick in grabbing the most easily available number.)
Iâm going to keep fiddling to see if I can get better than a ârough guesstimateâ, will update when and if I do.
4 Likes
I donât know that this is a valid assumption. CCP for example have identified that for new players, one of the main driving factors in leaving the game is not being able to understand what happened when a ship is lost (not just from ganking, but also including ganking).
The value of the loss isnât as influential as not being able to really learn from the situation, simply because they donât understand what happened.
Conversely, veteran players lose expensive ships all the time and arenât at near the same risk of quitting, possibly because they have already accepted the nature of EVE, have other ships they can go jump in, know how to replace their stuff, etc. (not CCP data on that, just some possibilities).
Value of the loss may be a driving factor, but I donât know that there is any way that we as a player base can validate that.
6 Likes
Well, itâs true that itâs an assumption. I donât have data that says losing a large portion of their wealth in a gank is more likely to cause players of any age to quit. Itâs just what Iâve seen over the years.
I suppose I should clarify that by âhigh valueâ, I meant relative to the players net worth. A 5 billion gank isnât too terrible if youâre worth 500 billion. If your net worth is 6.5 billion, itâs pretty significant.
Over time Iâve seen a lot of people saying theyâre gone because their big freighter, miner, or blinged out mission runner etc. got ganked. Iâve seen virtually nobody saying theyâre quitting because their Venture, Ibis, Heron or Vexor got ganked.
Well, CCP has implied this I believe, but Iâve seen no numbers attached to it anywhere nor even a direct statement to that effect. If Iâve missed it, Iâd appreciate any links.
What I have seen is CCP saying in that âganking makes people stayâ presentation (or misrepresentation, as some people believe) from 2015 that â<1% of players cite ship loss as a reason for quittingâ. (Or words to that effect, I donât have the page right here.)
Then Iâve seen them recently talking about their big âgrief counsellingâ drive on players first ship loss. So those two âCCP saysâ issues seem a bit at odds with each other.
Probably not, although Iâve been trying to get various looks at killmail data to see if I could determine it. If I had the proper data tools Iâm pretty sure I could, but for now will just have to leave it as a possible conjecture.
3 Likes
Favorite forum reply this week.
2 Likes
lol princess aiko thug life
1 Like
Every week, 20000-25000 new players sign up to the game for the first time. Half of those actually login to the game. Within 7 days, 90% are gone. So even if over the years, youâve seen several hundred players quit because they lost high value comparatively, new players quitting over venture losses may be far more significant, even though itâs low value.
Thereâs just no way to validate that your assumption that high value ganks are more relevant to players quitting than extremely cheap ganks
Iâm not saying your assumption is definitely wrong, just saying there isnât a way for us validate it one way or the other, so itâs a dangerous assumption to make. The error margin around any analysis needs to be so large that the analysis has almost no value.
Hilmar has talked about it a couple of times. Here is one of the occasions, but not the most direct one:
If I can find the more direct statement Iâll edit and post it.
Can you link where theyâve said that?
I donât believe that is what CCP has ever said. Itâs more an extrapolation made by players, of what CCP have said.
To my knowledge CCP has always said they havenât found evidence that ganking drives players away in any significant numbers, but theyâve never claimed that ganking makes people stay.
Theyâve also directly identified that ship loss is the #1 factor that correlates with people staying with the game, but theyâve never assigned cause for that, just observed it.
Sure. If CCP have ever actually said that ganking makes people stay, then Iâd agree. I just donât believe theyâve ever said that. Theyâve only ever said the inverse of that to my knowledge - ganking doesnât cause significant numbers of players to quit, which is not the same as âganking makes people stayâ.
So yes, when I referred to it as âganking makes people stayâ, itâs because thatâs the interpretation PvP players have been putting on it for 7 years now.
What CCP actually said, specifically, was that people assumed ganking drove people away, and so they looked at the data, and found that in a very specific subset of âganksâ looked at, that people who were ganked were âslightlyâ more likely to continue playing than people who died âlegallyâ. Without any numbers, and with a fair bit of fuzziness in the words used.
They also donât differentiate if a âlegalâ death involved suspect baiting, which in the first 15 days of the game would count pretty similar to a gank, IMO.
Iâve definitely never seen anything from CCP stating this. Guess I just havenât been paying attention.
No, that isnât what they said, since âslightly more stayingâ implies âalmost as many leaving as stayingâ. Which Iâd call a significant number.
They do say that âpeople who donât die at all are the most likely to leave the gameâ (in the first 15 days). But personally Iâd say that less about ship loss or no ship loss, and more about âpeople who engage with the game early on to an extent they actually fly out and do things which may result in ship lossâ vs. âpeople who end up doing almost nothing at all, donât engage with the game, and donât end up losing anythingâ.
1 Like
Go watch CCP Quantâs data science of EVE presentation. He directly shows the data analysis around it. The whole presentation is good, but in relation to the subject, 16:46 into the video.
Sure, but CCP have never said so, which is counter to your earlier post.
CCP have said multiple things over the years, and yes, their argument has always been that ganking does not drive players away in number significant enough for them to do anything about it (hopefully that rewording makes sense).
This quote from CCP Rise for example:
Like, I literally just pointed out that CCP specifically said that the ganked subset stayed longer than anyone else.
And you did just say that âship lossâ was the #1 correlation with staying with the game, whereas the quote you linked from Rise says itâs the social factor.
At any rate, I feel youâre starting to get into âI want to hairsplit word definitions and interpretationsâ mode here. And thatâs never a productive convo, so Iâll likely just leave it there.
Thank you for the useful information you did provide here and I will look up CCP Quantâs video.
2 Likes
Yes, they have found a correlation between death (including from ganking) and higher player retention. That is different to attributing cause and saying that âganking makes people stayâ. They havenât said that and it isnât hair splitting. CCP have never attributed cause and rightly so, because there are too many possible causes and no way to validate them all. The correlations are enough on their own for CCP to make decisions.
So back to the original part of this, claiming that high value ganks are more important to players leaving is a dangerous assumption to make. There is no way we as players can validate that (and CCP would have an extremely difficult time trying to do so as well) and any analysis based off that assumption needs to include too large an error margin to be of any value.
1 Like
CCPâs exact words:
âpeople in the ganked group are the most likely to stay subscribed afterwards.â
Not sure how many times I have to type that before you get it. Maybe you should watch the video?
Yeah, thatâd be why I agreed with that a half-dozen posts ago:
But, you know, you can keep repeating the point. If it makes you feel better. I wonât stand in the way of free speech!
1 Like
Many of us have been discussing this since 2014. The video has been watched multiple times, by a lot of people here.
What you are saying CCP have said (ie. ganking makes people stay) isnât the same as what CCP have actually said.
I personally think ganking should increase (along with all opportunities for destruction) and that would align with what CCP have found, but I certainly donât see CCP stating that ganking is an actual cause of players staying.
Yeah. Keep facilitating and promoting anti-player behavior.
See how well that continues to go.
Losses and gains for a company like CCP are exponential.
âeVeN aS fEw As 1o0 pLaYeRsâ can generate, over 5 years, 1 single active and subscribed account for each of those 100 players would be $90,000.
Say ganking has caused only 1,000 players to quit in those 5 years. Thatâs $900,000!!!
Still think youâre smart?
If I was running a business and found that some ****ing ****hole ** ther ***ers caused me to lose dang near One Million Dollars, Iâd make drastic changes to weed those ****ers out of the game.
1 Like
Honestly, they need to either completely rework the âsecurityâ system, or remove it all together. Remove the illusion of safety from the would-be gank victims and force them to band together to defend themselves, while simultaneously allowing the gankers to start using real ships and engage in real PvP with opponents who would be far more likely to fight back.
Then they are lying.
âYEAH! KILL ME AGAIN BABY! Delete my hours and days and weeks and months of effort! YEAH BABY!!! Iâm gonna come back so you can do it again!!! OOOOOHHHH YEEEEAAAHHH!â
2 Likes
I donât believe so. Iâm very likely to call CCP out on spin-doctoring, double-speak, outright BSing, lying or being clueless in their statements. I can honestly say however that Iâve never caught them (or seen them caught) actively fudging their data.
Now, one issue with the presentation is they use words to describe it (slightly more, most likely etc.), and they only post some of the numbers, so itâs been open to a lot of interpretations over time.
I get your point that itâs not ârationalâ that a significant loss would lead to more retention, but people arenât all that rational. Plus, theyâre talking about the first 15 days of play, which is significant.
Without some very careful screening here, theyâre going to catch everything from barely interested dabblers to avid space-gamers to pre-experienced alts created for specific purposes or returning to play. (Keep in mind this was pre-Alpha and people created new demo accounts for lots of reasons.)
That was my hope when scanning the gank/PvP numbers for this thread, was to bring a bit more current update to how ganks and PvP were panning out in the current game.
Unfortunately it turns out that good data is a lot harder to come by than weâd like.
3 Likes
When I lost the Wardec that Code. placed onto Frostpacker I decided to stick around. I was at that time wanting something more than just bootlegging tobacco products between different npc stations.
I wanted to feel hunted, I want to be david in that fight against James 315 (aka goliath)
Some time ago, in the eve year Y124 I had made a comment and amd still waiting, sometimes sitting outside the station just waiting but it doesnât happen.
My reason for submission to our Queen Regent of Highsec is that I believe that I will be rewarded for my loyality to one day be challenged at any moment by the Queen herself instead of her bodyguards who I seem to be constantly fighting to gain trust within their ranks.
That 1v1 call out was and still active.
Iâd like to look a bit deeper into this.
Is there any context? âMost likelyâ means that they actually lead the group of re-subs?
This is not clear at all. Also, if this is from a fanfest, forget it.
Iâm curious, as I hardly see it being of any use for an argument in this case.
If it was for that without context, can we assume that âeveryone gets gankedâ at some point of one of his/her toonsâ life? Which would make it invalid. Now, if it is strictly referring to the first 15 days⌠well, again there is hardly any context there⌠the next question would be⌠âstay subscribedâ after how long?
I think itâs too vague as many references to statements and statements again tend to be⌠Which brings me back to my hate for numbers and the reason for focusing on personal experience.
I can only say that no. Being ganked is not a primary reason for quitting. And yes, everyone gets ganked. It may sound a bit redundant (stupid) but I just want to point at the fact that ganking is just a way, endorsed and facilitated by the current state of affairs⌠and itâs been like that for ever.
A very different thing is, that there are not many alternatives regarding PVP (other than ganking)⌠why? well, lack of creativity on the platform and perhaps the fact that it is âtoo hard to codeâ. The predator - prey scenario is simple and direct, there is not much about it and if anything goes down the drain, well, there is always: âItâs a sandboxâ