Okay then.
First, I hear you on gameplay style being directly threatened/being nerfed out of the game. It’s happened to me 3 times over the last 11 ish years, maybe a fourth, but I can’t remember that one for sure, so forget it.
Phoebe was the first one that killed one of my playstyles.
Surgical strike was the second one.
And citadels was the third.
I get it, and have sympathy. But, let’s also be real. Putting dreads anywhere and being able to open the map and watch the cyno chains light up from every corner of the galaxy to where you were was a problem that needed fixed. It wasn’t that jump drives needed to go away or be removed, just that things needed re-worked.
This is where ganking is. It doesn’t need to go away, but it does need some re-work. Seriously dude, tell me one aspect of this almost 20 year old game that doesn’t need re-worked, except for maybe skins?
Now, to cover a few things in the middle. Gankers are not victims. Gankees are not victims. Neither of you are pinnacles of righteousness and absolute truth. You’re two groups of players interacting in a system that isn’t function adequately and neither party is particularly happy with it. You both have reasonable grievances, both have unrealistic expectations, and both have people amongst your ranks that make it impossible to have an actual conversation about this.
Question one: Can we agree on that paragraph above?
Now, those people who are either forever ‘I shouldn’t have to PVP period’ and the ones who are absolutely unwilling to even discuss for a moment that maybe there might be an issue with the way the system forces interactions around ganking, we can disregard both their opinions? At least until they’re willing to come to a more reasonable and balanced view that somehow imitates “Ganking is a part of Eve, it isn’t going anywhere, and though I may have issues/complaints -founded or not according to some other people - with the way its working right now, we should work to improve the system and gameplay, not try and wholesale remove it in either direction.”
Question two: Can we more or less agree on that?
Removing Concord(In part)
You’ve mentioned a few times removing Concord and that most the horrible gameplay around ganking has to do with Concord. You are correct, Aiko is correct, everyone who says Concord is the problem is correct.
So, there are two options. Remove Concord, or fix Concord.
TBH, I prefer the remove Concord(in part) option. Let’s do that. Personally, I still feel Concord needs to exist in and around newbro systems. NOT because I want them to be forever sheltered, but because Eve is a complicated game, give them at least a few systems to learn how things work. That’s the ‘in part’ caveat to my remove Concord. Otherwise, if I had the mystical authority stick to do whatever I wanted, right now, then remove Concord from .5, .6, and .7. And with Concord, remove the instant deathfleet outside of that small umbrella for Newbro systems. Removing the instant deathfleet and even replacing it with a Sansha Incursion style Faction Police response fleet alone fixes half the issue. In conjunction, add a ‘You’re jumping into .7 space, Concord doesn’t patrol here, blah blah blah,’ so the players all know, hey, Concord isn’t gonna instant deathfleet save you here, you have to take care of yourself, or use contracts, or use alternative means.
This isn’t perfect, and I can guarantee you can point out a few holes, or questions, because so can I - one of them being CCPs ability to code ANYTHING anymore - but instead of Concord instant deathfleeting, use the Sansha Incursion style fleet, plus gate guns and faction police ships already on the gates. They will kill you eventually, but you have some time and luck involved as to who gets targeted, focuses, etc, instead of Concord just appearing out of thin air and killing you immediately. Also, the instant warp kill thing, gotta go. Reduced warp time, okay, fair, we can do that. Now, this is where CCP’s ability to code kicks in, CCP loves their indexes, as well as a more dynamic response. Currently Concord spawns a ships in response to the number of criminals. That’s not too terrible, but the way it does it is the problem. Alter the spawn mechanics to start lower/weaker, and then introduce a ramping up mechanic to them. As an example for discussion sake, say if the criminal ship is on grid for 1 minute, in warps an X value range of ships as a response, 2 minutes ‘X x 2’ value range, 3 minutes, ‘X x 3’ value range, and so forth. Warps, not appears, because appearing instadeathfleet is bad. This would give gankers more opportunity to use other ships and concepts for ganking other than insta blap, but, if you chose to stay around for too long, you’d definitely die, and some of you might anyway because of luck of who gets targeted. But this is the middle ground solution between an instadeathfleet(that is a bad experience for everyone), and a more moderated, responsive system that gives a few more options - and also places more responsibility - on the individual pilots. Obviously, .7 is going to have a stronger response than .5 as a baseline.
There’s obviously some finetuning and ‘what about this situation’ and so forth, the big one being, ‘okay, what about logi if some gankers opt to put a full fleet out?’ Well, since logi inherits the timers of those they rep, that would solve that, eventually.
Okay, what about the other side, the haulers and miners and so forth?
First and foremost, the impetus for taking care of their own stuff is going to/should be made very clear with the warning message. “You go in here, Concord isn’t going to show up and insta blap anyone who shoots you. Local Police will show up and attempt to save you, but you are not guaranteed.”
Yeah, but that’s not REALLY gonna stop them complaining.
I agree, which is why we agreed above that anyone who just flat out, utterly refuses to accept that ganking is part of Eve is not an opinion we need to consider until they’ve come to some sort of terms with that. But as for the ones that aren’t quite so hard line, but feel this is a little too insecure, two things, reminder, this would be for a .5, .6, and .7 space that has had Concord removed, and Faction Police behavior modified to warp in and escalate their response over time, NOT .8, .9, and 1.0 that Concord would theoretically still operate normally in.:
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Put a warning message - that players can opt to toggle out of - in place that, if a gank or ‘criminal activity’ is ongoing or has recently occurred on the other side, they will have to approve jumping through that gate. Good luck AFK hauling.
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Local chat exists. System wide bulletin if a ‘fugitive’ is on the loose in system, or else a message across the screen, or whatever. That, again, players could opt out of. People will KNOW criminals are moving through, or have engaged in activity. Okay, your potential target might get a short warning, but a lot of ships have cycles these days and will be stuck, and anyone not paying attention for the wrong 20 seconds isn’t going to be saved by it, and if you want to discuss a delayed broadcast, or broadcast on warp not entering system, hey, cool, I’m there for it.
Is that REALLY gonna stop them from complaining?
Well, no, but we already agreed to disregard the perpetual ‘but why must I PVP’ crowd.
Problem with this idea so far
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Forcing people to accept responsibility for their own ships could either force people to just stay in .8 and up, OR make them become larger corporations to now actually take care of themselves, not just rel on Concord to do it.
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Even though I see all these as perfectly moderate potential adjustments that don’t fundamentally destroy the foundation of anything in the game, just alter the behavior to be more amicable to play and counter play, theoretical you might hate them for various reasons. I accept that. That’s the other issue, is we all have our own view on ‘how to fix and what exactly is broken.’ I’m trying to suggest something that leaves the core of the game basically how it is, but improves the system we all use to interact within it.
Possible emergent gameplay solutions with this proposal so far
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People having to be responsible for themselves - and that made perfectly clear that the Police will try to help them but will not necessarily save them - in .5, .6, and .7 space might just possibly Make Convoys Great Again. If you gotta move a freighter right now, too many people believe they can just yolo it and Concord will save them. If they KNOW Concord won’t, they will either NOT, or seek solutions, or come complain on the forums that Eve is too hard cause they have to have FRIENDS to move a freighter. I see this as an absolute win.
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People won’t move their freighters, and freight corps will have an even larger and more important role.
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With Concord not showing up to instadeath everyone all the time and Faction Police arriving in an increasing response pattern, the ‘time element’ of a kill will still exist, but it won’t be ‘Hey try to rep your bro for 15 seconds while we try to kill him for 15 seconds.’ That gameplay is frustrating for most everyone. There would be a legitimate window for Anti-Gankers to actually engage in meaningful combat with gankers, and not just ‘Hey, I jammed you, lololol.’
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Gankers might not like other gankers sending off that warning message to their potential targets(as suggested above) so gankers would have more reason to either spread out, or fight for their turf.
Additional ideas that don’t necessarily have to be done, but should be considered
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Freighter fits. Come on. Every other ship above a rookie ship has better options with fitting a freighter. The freighter is such an odd duck. At least give it some fitting and rig slots and then if people go full expanders/full expander rigs and die then laugh even harder at them.
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Like players can pay Concord to NOT shoot them while they shoot other players, the inverse should also be considered. “Hey, we’d like increased protection for Larger sum of Money for an hour.” Heck, I’d even be happy to consider the alternative as well, so there can be a bidding war/gamble. Take the risk or leave it. And hey, since we’re here, we could also consider a bribe to the Police to NOT broadcast your presence in system… for a little bit, at least.
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And this one is really dependent on CCPs ability to code and goes back to their system indexes. Add a crime index. For discussion sake, let’s say it’s on a scale of 0 to -1. 0, no modification, Faction Police respond as normal, warping to crimes, or warping in reinforcements as the specific crime escalates. -1, looking at you Uedama, the Faction Police have recognized there is a large crime problem in this system and their base reaction is increased by X modifier, as well as sentry gun effectiveness, so they can start doing something about it right away, but yeah, you still have time for a few play/counter-play options. Some days, Uedama might just not be your best place to gank because the crime index is too high. Again, introducing more reason for gankers to spread out or dispute turf. In exchange for doing away with Concord instadeathfleets and a progressing Police Response warping in to the scene of a crime, giving them more time and opportunity to actually engage in some sort of gameplay - and possibly get away because insta-no-warp would go, too, other than warp, lock, OH, shoot, get scrammed, die. But, that’d be an option, too.
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Like the freighter fitting, and something I never should have argued against years ago, add armament to industrials. Even if it’s just small turret slots for 125mm ACs. Again, pushing the impetus/responsibility on players and making it even more clear, you are to take care of yourself in .5-.7, and the police will try to help.
Now, the crux to all this, and getting back to my major issue of mass proliferation of ganking as a sustainable career path and it’s spreadsheetization.
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the instadeathfleet removal and changing the nature of .5, .6, and .7 systems to be ‘eventually you’ll get help, but you have to survive long enough for that help to arrive’ removes part of that. Yes, it does open the opportunity for say, a group of taloseseses to warp in, blap a thing, and then be gone before Police can respond in .5, .6, and .7 systems, but only to a point.
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The implementation of a Crime index and its scaling severity puts a hard upper limit on how much criminal activity can be done in a system before Police are responding with maximum response(which would probably function not too far off current Concord mechanics, but this is another point of 'I don’t have a specific answer and open to discussion). Bringing that index down through bleed off, or else ratting/missioning/whatever, allows more time/less response, etc. That way space will never be 100% safe, because even at the maximum index you can still be killed, but at maximum index, the Police presence on places like gates and stations would also be significantly higher to start, incentivizing bringing it back down. Heck, you could also go so far as to implement system wide buffs for non-criminal ships at the highest ends of the index scale if you were looking to really tinker with an adaptive and responsive system. This constant change could ultimately be spreadsheeted out, you are correct. This is Eve, what can’t be? But, the variable in the response, and the escalating nature of it, always leaves some margin for uncertainty.
Conclusion
You can hate all of this. That’s fine. You can think I’m some dude who stopped playing two years ago and has no idea what any of Eve is and didn’t play for 11 years and actually didn’t really stop playing until Fall ish of last year. That’s fine. My goal with taking the time to write all this out and actually respond to your olive leaf is because I DO very much want ganking to remain in Eve, but have disagreed where the balance point sits - and the horrible gameplay involved in it - for years. I don’t have all the answers, and I expect 2 dozen what ifs, because that’s what this forum is, and to some degree, with good reason, and others, well, just people who don’t want their little sand castle to be squished.
But I’m not after your ganking. I just think we can do the whole thing a helluva lot better than we’re doing, and, let’s be honest, as I said above, really, name me one system in this almost 20 year old game that really is working well and has no need/room for improvement. Sure, some of the mechanics have tweaked a little, but the core of Ganking in 2022 is almost the same as it was in 2012, like missioning, and mining.
TLDR;
Remove Concord from .5-.7
Leave in .8-1.0 to give younger players space to learn the complexity of the game
Give Concord’s job to the Police
Take away the instadeathfleet and insta-no-warp, implement some measure of police response that will ultimately escalate far enough to kill criminal pilots, but doesn’t immediately just obliterate them, allowing them to get in, do the kill, and even get away sometimes, too.
MAKE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that while the Police will try to save you in .5-.7, they are not guaranteed to, and you have to take care of yourself til the arrive.
Increase broadcast/notice of criminal activity in system
Give bribery play and counter-play options to weight police response
Hope and pray CCP can design a Crime index, because they love their indexes, to modify Police Response
Increase variability base of Police Response to increase randomization and risk of making the gank
Address some of the other issues, like the freighter fitting and lack of armament on other industrials
Make a huge post in possibly the 2nd most bitter thread on the forum of all time, up there with the ‘AFK cloaking thread’ and wait for all the what ifs and I hate it because’s.
Re-iterate, I don’t expect to have all the answers, and know there are a few holes in the idea, because Eve is huge and complex and it’s impossible to come up with a single idea that takes care of every single issue and instance ever without some feedback and other perspectives and ideas.
