High-sec ganking — can we make it harder without removing PvP?

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
22

Thats a lot of misconstruing.

If we talk about “appearing out of nowhere”. Nothing appears out of nowhere, except maybe cloaky ships in wormholes and pochven. But you certainly can be surprised by a roaming gank of 3-10 catalysts coming out of wormholes or other systems, as they don’t enter flashing red.

20 was just a number. But I’ve seen a lot of ganks of 3-10 catalysts killing ships which never even had the chance to drop enough loot to offset the 3-10 Catalysts. It is done and not that rarely. And not even a problem in my opinion. People can gank for whatever reason they want. All I said is: It hits different whether that are 3-10 people all offering their time and coordination…or just 1 guy scaling his money.

But to say an equivalent of “Ganking only happens because you are looking interesting” as in a loot-sense, thats to some degree delusional. Ganking happens because you are a loot fairy. Ganking happens because you are a juicy trophy on a killboard

You can’t really see any excuses as I never said anything against ganking per se so I don’t know what you are at here.

The only thing I pointed out is the problem of multibox projection in ganking. Which isn’t a problem to ganking alone but to the nature of multiboxing same activity on same grid.

It’s really so easy to understand. I even disagree with OP on making ganking itself harder. But OP brought multiboxing into the discussion early and here I agree: Multiboxing scales unfairly in ganking, as it does in almost any activity in the game.

23

I actually like the idea of giving players more responsibility for governing parts of highsec, although I’m not sure I’m ready to become someone’s vassal just yet. :joy:

One thing I’d add, though, is: which players are actually going to take on that role? Saying “the alliance” sounds simple, but in EVE the real resource is the players themselves.

We already see a version of this in some highsec areas, where players have effectively claimed a system or constellation as their territory and have their own “security” teams that gank unwelcome visitors.

But who is actually going to spend their limited game time acting as the sheriff, patrolling, enforcing rules and responding to threats?

Time is probably the most valuable resource in EVE. Skill training takes time, manufacturing takes time, mining takes time, travelling takes time. You can add more characters and accounts, but you can’t create more hours in the day.

And with the declining player base, this becomes even more important. We have huge numbers of characters on paper, but many corporations are actually being carried by just a few active players running multiple accounts.

So if we’re going to give players responsibility for governing highsec, there needs to be some meaningful incentive for the people actually doing the work.

But then I have to ask: why even have highsec, lowsec and nullsec in the first place?

Part of what makes EVE interesting is that each security level has a different purpose. Highsec has NPC protection, lowsec has more freedom and danger, and nullsec gives players much more control over their own space.

If we start giving alliances the ability to decide how secure highsec is, aren’t we just starting to blur the line between highsec and nullsec?

Maybe that’s an interesting direction for EVE, but it would need to be done carefully.

And honestly, the idea of several thousand nullsec degenerates in Muninns acting as the local sheriff does sound very EVE. :joy:

24

Oh yes, you are absolutely right! :heart: Some pilots aren’t attacking others for profit at all. There is an educational purpose behind it! They are simply increasing awareness of gankers flying around… by personally demonstrating the consequences. Truly a public service :kiss_mark:

25

The concerns raised here are duly noted, although I think there is some confusion regarding the proper role of the peasantry in matters of territorial administration.

The administration of security policy is not a matter for the peasantry. The purpose of delegated local governance is precisely to remove such questions from the hands of people who have neither the institutional authority nor, frankly, the demonstrated aptitude to make them. Security policy is an executive function belonging to the Steward and his appointed officials. Vassals are entitled to enjoy the security arrangements provided to them; they are not entitled to formulate them.

Naturally, a vassal who finds the conditions of his holding unsatisfactory may petition his liege lord for relief. In exceptional circumstances, he may even apply for a permit to relocate to another holding whose governance is more congenial to his preferences.

The application will be denied.

This is not a flaw in the system. It is an important feature of stable territorial administration. One cannot have a functioning aristocratic order if every peasant is permitted to shop around for a more favorable lord whenever he dislikes an ordinance.

I am also somewhat skeptical of the repeated invocation of a “declining playerbase” as justification for policy changes. If this is intended to be a material consideration in the proposed policy, one would expect the argument to be accompanied by at least some statistics demonstrating the alleged decline.

Instead, we are apparently expected to accept “the playerbase is declining” as a sort of universally acknowledged fact requiring no evidence. This is precisely the sort of intellectual laziness that makes it difficult to extend any meaningful expectation of executive agency to the highsec population in the first place.

If your argument depends upon a measurable demographic trend, measure it.

If you cannot be bothered to provide the evidence, then perhaps the appropriate conclusion is not that FCCP must restructure the security apparatus of New Eden, but that you should leave matters of statecraft to your betters.

The Steward will take your concerns under advisement.

2 Likes
26

Oh, say ohay, my lord! Though we live in an age of magic crystal balls, we dare not speak against the will of those who clearly know the way. :joy:

27

Ganking should be made easier.

We should start a fund to insure ganker’s ships.

1 Like
28

Oh please yes…bring back the good old times of insurance fraud with smartbomb battleships…that was a good time, where you didn’t need those massive gank fleets…everyone could be a ganker back then who wanted to…

3 Likes
29

Ganking by a Multiboxer should be an exploit.

Pulling concord the increas response time should be removed via
Every offense spwans a own version of Police which leaves after time X the offending grid.

A Criminal Timer generated in highsec should be increased to time X.
You will not be able to undock if you set your Homestation in Highsec.

If you enter with criminal timer, faction police will engage you.
Currently only Capsuleers can freely engage you.

If you have an record of multiple ganking attempts you are flagged as criminal (beside your security status which force you to complete an EPIC ARC which deletes your criminal history)
Beside having to pay or rat to increase your Security Status.

Just balance it out. I don´t want people to fly 200B JF without care about being ganked.
But just ganking people because we can do it.. and after 15 Minutes the game forgets is like little bit strange :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
30

Multibox ganking is problematic, I agree.

Not because of the ‘ganking’ part though, but because of the ‘multibox’ part.

But unless multibox mining, multibox ratting, multibox bashing and other multibox PvP also are limited I don’t see why multibox ganking should receive special treatment.

Multiboxing however is a part of EVE and not one that will ever disappear, nor do I want it to disappear as it can be useful at times and is profitable for FC.

So, best we can hope to see are changes that remove or rework the special features that disproportionally support mass multiboxing, which is anything that allows a single pilot to command multiple characters, like fleet regroups, drone assist and fleet warps.

3 Likes
31

and so we’re back to the age old question of how many boxen are too many?

32

I have sum up this under:

In short i would love that PVE gets more a challage which just makes it impossible on HIGH-Tier actions to multibox. Mining is still currently super boring as it only feature is time consuming.
There is no mini game like Hacking in Explo.. or exploding astroieds damaging your ship like in SC. Yes, still an problem if you have 50 Accounts mining an R64 within minutes compared to like 3 Beginners just startint the game getting nothing from the moon :frowning:
Multibox bashing is complicated… i don´t know how to make this more complex.

But Bashing is very similar to ganking since you have one target and the only thing you do is swooping through you clients LOCK & Shoot. After you through all your accounts you swap to your “looter” and loot and GTFO.

Again Ganking should be stil exist and you need to be punished if you transport to much stuff in the wrong ship… but currently it feels to easy for the Gankers.

Whats the hoook??

  • 15 Minute Criminal Timer
  • Security Status which you can increase with Dog Tags = ISK

And thats it… do i miss something?

33

We can skip that… and focus on:

34

you’re feeling the wrong part.

35

As many as you, your PC and your software can cycle through, at the moment.

This means there’s no hard limit, but a soft limit of what is still practical.

And I like such a soft limit more than a hard limit.

Personally I think this limit should not be set by third party software and your hardware though, but that FC should have control over it.

For example they could introduce a delay before a client in focus will accept inputs.

With that delay at 1s you could command 5 accounts in 5 seconds.

Or with the delay at 0.5s you could practically command 10 in that time.

This wouldn’t set a hard limit and people could still fly 20 miners if they wanted, but together with my suggestion to rework fleet warps it will also take your entire mining fleet 10 seconds to start warping, putting a practical limit to it without hard-capping your fleet.

And if this means multiboxed ganking fleets shrink in size and HS becomes too safe, a nerf to freighter HP could bring the balance back to current values bit with less of an advantage for multiboxers.

36

So how many people are multiboxing above this limit now?

I think it is no-one, and this whole anti-boxing sentiment is baseless.

37

Its one pillar of the problem.

Ignoring it is another pillar of the problem.

We turning in circles…

Ganking has following punishment:

  • Securtiy loss
  • Criminal Timer
  • Ship loss by concord
  • Kill Rights

Ganking has following reward:

  • Loot drop
  • Salt (mad people
  • Killmails

There is to less punishment to be an ganker in highsec cause

  • Securtiy loss = can be fixed with ISK or Ratting
  • Criminal Timer = 15 min after this its forgetten - No Criminal RECORD
  • Ship loss by concord = Paid by one of the loot drops from ganking
  • Kill Rights = either its to low so you it gets abused or it is not in line with the cost of the gank ship

As said we need to keep ganking but it need to have more punishment in it.

38

I don’t think ganking needs more of a punishment.

The punishments are very restrictive already, where occasional ganking on a non-specialized character is heavily discouraged as it makes using that character for other activities like mining or hauling in HS very dangerous because of kill rights, and makes repeated ganking on specialized characters not without risks either as you are guaranteed to lose a ship but aren’t guaranteed loot.

And if you do it too often you get additional costs per attack too if you don’t want to be chased by faction police wherever you go.

The only reason ganking even pays well is because of how people fit and fill their ships to be loot pinatas, but if they stopped doing that ganking for profit would become impossible.

I think ganking is in a decent spot.

If anything this gameplay loop needs to be more accessible to new players who don’t have multiple alts, and I think a better window for counterplay against gankers could make it more interesting too.

2 Likes
39

Valid point, i agree.
Most of the ships are very cheap like the catalyst.
I also like this perspective.

40

Deterrence is often times all that is needed to make the High-Sec gankers leave a system for other less patrolled systems.

I haven’t tried it yet, but four or five fully trained cloaked Tholos could do the trick. Uncloaking as the gankers are landing will negate the cycle penalty for the uncloak. Ganker’s usually swarm around a freighter or a ship of the same size at their blasters optimal to apply max DPS. The gankers will also use friendly alts in rookie ships to orbit the target out to 10k to uncloak cloaker freaks. But a well-timed and fast locking Tholos or Cenotaph will be able to get past the de-cloakers just as the gankers land. It’s all about timing really. and getting max DPS on as many of the gankers as possible.

41

Does that really work?

Do you prevent ganks like that?

Video proof please.

1 Like