Isnt it finally time to NERF Incursions?

Communications Center General Discussion
102

CONCORD kills appear on zkillboard.

Additionally, gank ships that die to CONCORD, around the same time that an incursion fleet dies (these losses also appear on zkill) should easily show in the ‘Related’ link, which shows losses in the same system +/- 1 hour. Any logisitics ships should also show gank ships on their lossmails in the same ‘Related’ losses link.

So it should be simple to show it happening if it has. I’ve looked. Can’t find them. So when?

For example:

click this link: Nightmare | fischi vogel | Killmail | zKillboard

Then click the ‘Related’ link: Related Kills | Sacalan | 2016-11-17 05:00 | zKillboard

Basically, an entire incursion fleet lost. However, the logi have no gankers at all on their lossmails, so this isn’t an example of the type of thing you are claiming. There are also no ganker ships lost in that 2 hour period in the system. So it isn’t one of your examples (though not all gankers are linked on zkill, but the logi losses should show their ships, in which case they will show anyway).

So there should be easy to demonstrate examples if this is a thing beyond theory.

2 Likes
103

To be fair, CONCORD kills only appear if the ganker has his API linked to zkill but you are absolutely correct. Gank attempts happen so rarely that they are just a statistical anomaly despite what incursion runners like to claim. Sure, everyone has a story where it happened to their friend, or once to them a year ago, but as a fraction of hours spent it is so rare, it isn’t a real concern.

More people die from falling asleep then get killed by gankers. Sure, both happen, but to claim they are a real concern for Incursion runners is a bit disingenuous. That said, Incursions are working as intended and CCP has purposely built this safe space for group PvE largely immune to the other players. I don’t see why Incursion players insist on claiming they are at any real risk when they clearly are not on balance. Any activity where you routinely field 20B ISK worth of ships is by definition risk-free at least in the eyes of those risking those assets.

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Any logi losses will show the ganker ships, which will then also show on zkill in those logi lossmails.

So they only won’t show if every ganker is not linked and every logi is not linked.

That’s certainly possible some of the time, but it wouldn’t be 100% of the cases that have occurred.

1 Like
105

I agree, your analysis is correct. I was just pointing out that a solo CONCORD kill will only appear if the ganker as provided the token to zkill.

But yes, the ganker would appear on the logi kill. It is amazing how hard it is to find examples of that for an activity that is such a magnet for gankers.

2 Likes
106

It’s almost like Incursion FC’s have spent a lot of time learning how to be less gankable.
Gankers always want their victims to learn right, play at keyboard, fit tank, use web alts to get orca’s through the choke points etc…
And then they whine when their victims actually do get better.
Seriously, HTFU Pedro.

2 Likes
107

Again I am not whining. CCP has made a safe space for incursions and the rate of ganking in them reflects this.

This isn’t rocket science. CCP has stacked the deck to make a safe-ish space for group PvE. It is completely intended that ganking is hard and costly so that it happens very little. The game needs to be this way or people would stop playing.

What I do take issue with is those that continue to paint highsec incursions as risky when they have been intentionally made very safe to run by CCP. By almost any metric it is one of the safest activities you can do in the game and you have almost nothing to fear from other players.

Group PvE is suppose to have a place in the game, but let’s not pretend that highsec Incursions are anything other than group PvE content.

2 Likes
108

Is there a law for how people will always exaggerate the amount of occurences of things they dislike?

Has someone ever written a post proving that suicide ganking is on an all time low?

109

The Snowflake Assertion?

110

Oh, apparently that’s a thing…

111

It’s difficult to do, since zkillboard removed all non CREST-verified killmails. That means there’s no longer easy access to stats back beyond the start of 2014, since the shut down of battleclinic and eve-kill.

Looking at the overall trend for all loss of regularly ganked ships in highsec (ie. barges, exhumers, expedition frigs, freighters/bowhead, jump freighters and the Orca), the loss of barges is way higher than the others, so the trend in barge loss is a good representation of the shape of total loss.

This is from all causes since the start of 2014 to 21 August 2017 (silly matplot lib x-axis limits that I didn’t adjust):

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So total loss from ganks, wardecs, NPC losses and duels is down significantly over the last 3 1/2 years in terms of raw numbers (what it might be in terms of loss/active player is anyone’s guess, but the loss rate is down more than the decline in PCU, so it looks like there would be less loss/active player, but no actual analysis to prove that).

Individually, other classses of ships don’t show the same level of decline, but their numbers are much lower anyway, so they don’t affect the overall trend. For freighters for example:

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Sorry that’s such an ugly plot (with each ship separated in it’s own trend line) and this is over the same time period, just not switched to dates (since the plots I run are mainly for my own interest and not intended to publish really).

So while freighter loss hasn’t really changed in the same time period, the numbers are way lower, so the overall trend remains the same for all regularly ganked ships.

Trying to show just the ganks only would hit the zkill servers a lot more, so I haven’t run it, though it would be ok to do in several shorter timeperiods since the start of 2014. I’ll go do that now and post the results back here, but of course even if the total ganks are at a low over the last 3 1/2 year, we still won’t know the situation prior to the start of 2014.

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112

Could you also cover pods? Does your script crosscheck with the existence of a CONCORD lossmail? Thank you for your efforts!

113

Yeah I could run capsules too. That is easy.

In terms of cross checking against CONCORD, that’s the bit I am doing now, but only in short time periods, since that will hit the zkill servers pretty hard.

The workflow to do it in pseudocode is:

START
for each killmail:
    for each attacker in the list of attackers:
        get the data for their losses within 1 minute of the original killmail, in the same system
        for each attacker in the list of attackers for this new killmail:
            if CONCORD or sentry gun is present:
                confirmed gank of the original ship
                break and move to next ship in the original list
count the total ganks
END

So with some war targets for example having 15-20 ships on the list of attackers, that’s potentially a lot more data to be pulled for non-ganks and zkillboard would rate limit it if I do the entire period.

So I’m pulling smaller time periods and looking at that to see just the ganks.

CCP have done this exact same thing directly from the killmail server when they were trying to validate whether ganking was a problem the community thought it was. That was part of their approach when looking at new player loss also.

1 Like
114

You could limit it.

On ships with several attackers, to verify if it’s a suicide gank, you only need to run through a fraction of the total amount of attackers to confirm that it’s actually a suicide gank.

I’d say a third is enough? How often will it happen, that it’s mixed?

115

Yeah I can limit it like that also.

It’s easy to limit where it is a gank. As soon as 1 gank ship is confirmed, then break to the original list and move to the next ship. The issue is more where it isn’t a gank. Then all the data for all the attackers has to be requested, which is where it hits the server hard.

For barges and expedition frigs, there are a lot of gank where it’s only a single catalyst, so I already am limiting those based on the shiptype of the attacker (eg. if the attacker is in a Proteus or something, it’s not likely a gank, so move on anyway).

There’s lot’s of ways to limit the amount of data that needs to be pulled, which I’m doing. It just still hits the server hard if I look at the entire time period and not sub-sections of the last 3 1/2 years.

116

Why not buff pve and allow for wormhole style incurions, fleet warps in, wormhole collapses immediately in the incursioned wormhole. They do the incursion and have to complete it to get out.

Or hey just buff belt ratting and focus less on anoms.

1 Like
117

you can turn it around, too. When a fraction of a target’s attackers didn’t get CONCORDed, then it will not be a suicide gank. No?

118

Yes, you can check just the first couple. If they weren’t CONCORDED, then it wasn’t a gank.

However, I have found in the forums that as soon as you make any sort of reasonable assumption, people (not you, just others with their own different view/agenda) will use those assumoptions (which are perfectly reasonable) to say the analysis is worthless.

So while there might be a webbing alt for example that won’t be CONCORDED, it’s simpler to just run through the full list of attackers and confirm none were CONCORDED. Then when someone says “but did you do this?”, or “did you do that?”, or “without knowing X, Y is meaningless”, etc. a lot of that can be corrected.

1 Like
119

Fair. Hm.

120

Would this be useful?

121

the logi dont die in my scenario, all you simply do is stop them from getting into the site causing others to die but not the logi.