some time afk … guess we finish this. or at least go on here:
160 mill to Mister Soldier for Praxis | Franky en Thielles | Killmail | zKillboard
19 mill to Sheriffe’n for Malediction | Hannah Penken | Killmail | zKillboard
95 mill to Souup for Falcon | Wesley Baird | Killmail | zKillboard
20 mill to Prince Seraghis for Malediction | Morris Blower | Killmail | zKillboard
changes pot from 1 068 435 000 to 771 475 500
guess we are not finished here … 770 million more to cash in.
And just to make this clear … after having this payout i can say with assurance: mercenary service is dead in Eve Online.
Its simply not here. There was no easier way to get isk out than to pay for all kills done.
And still it takes month and is still not done.
Pretty sad …
and to be honest … i think of those 5.2 billion payed out there was 0 for bounty hunters or mercenarys … these were lucky kills that happend anyway … its still a nice bonus to those who did the kill … but this was not bounty driven or in any way mercenary style. the first 3 were because there is one … lets call him … special … guy that lost billions isk on ships … on a daily basis … if it wasnt for that guy the bully pot would have taken as long as the SRS pot…
so in the end there were 6 billion and none of those here that call them self mercenarys were up to what they promise… do kills for isk.
maybe one day this will get better when CCP implrements a NPC driven bounty/mercenary service.
until then this game is dead for economics - if there is no way to buy yourself firepower there is no need to get isk in the first place… sad but thats the truth. so in the long run there is no way to play eve without playing on pvp.
until CCP puts a price tag on kills from NPCs like concord. then this will get in any way interesting again … because then mercenary service will be where it makes sense: out in 0.0 or low sec. there is the isk and the wars where merc services will shine again and be what the name would suggest.
today its pvp farming. others farm ore and “mercs” farm other players in todays eve.
Your entire premise was flawed. if you wanted to hurt SRS you would have gone to the groups to make their lifes hard by destroying their warhq everytime they declared wars. Expecting to pay people to “shoot” somebody is going to ignore you. Because the idea of that never worked when the person in question can just dock or not undock.
You said X and expected Z and so people ignored you because you are out of touch how the game works when you want to go after somebody in highsec. It did not even work like you expected it to work back in 2009. in the end, you just wasted 6bill because it did not hurt them in any way.
The mercs did not promise you anything.
Good that you come up with this.
I thought about this…
As you can imagine i asked for help while the stations where still there. it failed due to 2 facts:
You say i wasted 6 billion. I say i payed some players a bonus just because they shot the right alliance at the right time. You see this from my perspective of me wanting to hurt them. Maybe that did not happen. Guess you are right. But i supported players that shot them. That is a good feeling and i do think every isk i payed was deserved by those players.
I could have lost 10 billion with paying for help that doesnt show up not only loosing more but also feeding scammers or players that also kill structures.
Just another sidenode here: The decicion to get help or not was in a very limited timeframe since this 1 timer is not a lot time to make such a deal and decicion. i wasnt even sure if those mercs could have been there on time to defend. another quenstionmark in the option of defending with mercs.
But you see … you say my premise was flawed.
Why?
That mercs wanted 10 billion for and with no guarantee. I came up with a offer that i still find very good for a defender. You come up with docking and not docking. Where do they want to dock? At the base they shoot and they dont have docking access?
That defence timer was a timer for a fleet that was vulnerable and attackable. It was an opportunity to get them into a fight and as much as i know this game with the right setup it would have been easy to make them loose 1 or 2 big battleships while trying to warp away. And if they dont: Guess they would loose all ships if they decide to take a battle with a merc group at a defending station. The defenders have unlimited repair as long as they know what they do in pvp.
So the risk of loosing somthing is pretty small for defenders.
My deal was not to save my base. They would have gotten all the isk just by picking on 1 or 2 enemy ships.
I do think that this is a pretty good deal. Again in words: Come, shoot 1 or 2 big enemy ships at a good opportunity and get a lot of isk. The fight is easier and the pay better than any PVE mission.
The one point where you are right: Nobody promised me anything.
My take is: That was a good 6 billion isk investment. And as i said: Merc Service is actually dead in Eve.
You want to tell me its not possible for any merc group out there to join one of the many SRS wars and gank any single player near amarr or any other gate for some 700 million payments?
I am interested where you see this not being an easy job. People do this without payment - just for loot or fun every day in eve.
Since they wardeck everyone there is not even the fear of concord to strike back.
Making this is so much easier than a normal gank - since you can avoid concord all along.
Just to round this up: My guess why this is not happening:
Those mercs do not want to mess with other mercs. that is not good for business. And shooting lonly structures in the same time makes you the same or even more isk without any resistance or risk.
So the real reason why the merc service is not working is diplomacy and the broken mechanic of guaranteed drop value on player bases. In other words: The isk offer from CCP to mercs is better than the offer from other players.
A year late to the post here… but is this still a thing?
