Simple idea: players who have a sec status of -4.99 and above gain sec status upon destroying a player’s ship who has -10.0 to -5.0 sec status.
Why? Because some players don’t want to go full blown criminal, and implementing something like this could make it easier for those players to avoid being fully criminal while still enjoying their PvP activities in low sec. Player pirate hunting could become a fun, niche activity if you’re looking for ways to increase sec status.
This is not a bad concept actually.
Only real downside is the rather high potential for alt abuse.
I get a pi alt, or any alt that never needs to go to hisec, get them a -10 sec status through the good old “burst jammer on the jita undock” method. Send them a couple of jumps away from Jita to reset their home base and give them a nice supply of cheap frigates.
When my main’s sec status becomes problematic, i can simply send them off to kill said alt repeatedly.
Depending on the sec status gain, it could work out much cheaper than buying Clone Soldier tags.
So that’s the balancing mechanism.
Overall, nice.
They could simply add diminishing returns for killing the same criminal over and over again.
then i have 2 other chars on this account and 10 other accounts to complete it …
First, this feature should not apply to criminals on an alpha account. The criminal you would gain sec status from should be omega. This way friends can’t use this to easily and cheaply help their friends.
Second, the returns shouldn’t be nearly as good as buying tags for sec status. Spending ISK on that should put you in the fast lane to -2.0 or 0.0. This method I’m proposing should take quite some time, but not so much time that it would be pointless to implement. Need to find a good balance.
Thirdly, diminishing returns could be as steep as 100% effective on first kill, 0% effective on 2nd kill within 7 days after, only 50% effective 7-14 days after, maybe back to 100% effective after 21 days. Diminishing returns could also be as strict as 100% effective on first kill, and then 0% effective for the next 365 days.
Just spit-balling here. This is all ultimately up to CCP if they would even consider the idea to begin with of course.
It has to apply to alpha accounts too. If ppl try to game it by “sec status trading” it will not be end of the world.
Again: send alt to Jita, let rip with Burst Jammer a couple of times, booyah, I have an alt me and friends can farm sec status off.
It was already suggested to give diminishing returns from the same guy
To clarify, alpha accounts that have -5.0 to -10.0 sec status should not give sec status bonuses to any players.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but to my understanding, alpha accounts cannot go criminal in high sec.
Also see diminishing returns mentioned in this thread.
I’m not talking about an Alpha alt. I’m talking about an Omega PI alt or one that doesn’t need to go to hisec.
As for the diminishing returns, it all comes down to actual hard numbers. If it’s cheaper to farm the alt than tags, then I’ll farm the alt. If tags are cheaper, I’ll just use tags. The other option is to find an out of the way null system and just sit in an Ishtar for a while.
I’m not against the concept. I’m just pointing out there are potential abuses of the proposed mechanic.
For what its worth i oppose not having it apply to alpha accounts. But also if someone wants to farm sec status with alpha account its not a big deal. It probably wont be better than other methods.
Never underestimate the power of a guy who can afford 10 omega accounts (30 characters) and has the gumption to start an in game service
It was already suggested to get diminishing returns from the same guy(s)
Would be relevant with some numbers. How much sec gain for getting a pirate? How much diminishing return for getting him twice? does the diminishing return follow the pirate or the player that killed him?
Endlessly repeating „but diminishing returns“ is not a counter point. Either the sec status gain is going to be so tiny as to be a complete waste of development time or it will be powerful enough to nuke the Tag market and be abused by players outside of the desired design goal.
Any proposal that ties itself to sec status has inherent flaws that it naturally assumes from the existing ecosystem.
OPs original design goal was to encourage people to get out and go hunt pirates. This can happen today but the player base is so focused on ISK per hour and never having fun adventures that it doesn’t try to hunt pirates. Most of the player base is dead inside and wondering why no crazy player driven stories are coming out: when it is because of their own „I don’t want to be the crazy player that’s driven“.
The fundamental flaw in this proposal is the belief that if you have a goal („hunt pirates“) and put a reward at the end, people will go for the goal. They don’t. They go for the reward. Not the goal. Hence the abuse and min-maxing and „violating the spirit“ of changes. You see this in Faction Warfare — the place people are supposed to PvP in is full of PvP-averse farmers. They’re not going for the goal of „blow up the enemy to take control of systems“. They’re there for the rewards: the LP/hr.
Hence: the sec status gain will either be a complete waste of time (people who already hunt pirates barely get any benefit, and people who do things for rewards still won’t hunt pirates) or it will be excellent and therefore be abused (people who hunt pirates still hunt pirates, people who don’t still won’t and will use it to get rich selling services or use such services to avoid paying for expensive tags).
Losing security status from killing players but not being able to gain it from killing players is a flaw. Does it matter the potential security status increase is so low that buying tags or what not will be a more popular way to boost sec status? No it doesent. So its not an argument against the idea
It does matter and it is an argument against it. Simply saying „no“ does not magically make it a non-argument.
If you don’t want to deal with the criticism then just ignore it. But it’s not going away unless you actually address it.
What if players could only gain sec status from -4.99 to -2.0. If a player has sec status above -1.99, they gain nothing from killing player criminals. This would keep that market intact.
However, if “Few enough people care to go from -2 to 0 as is” as you say, is there even a worth-while market there to begin with?
Considering if they just kill npcs in low or high or run a few missions they can raise their sec status that way
Yes, but it is because the supply is severely constrained, so it is a high margin business (hence the top tier tag price). The number of 0.1 systems is small and the spawn rate of clone soldiers is low, and very few people farm them, and people that get the tags are not necessarily putting them on market. It might have been a few years ago but I do recall someone doing the math on the forums at some point to estimate the global generation rate of tags. In theory it’s surprisingly high but market evidence (and anecdotes) shows they’re not being universally farmed.
The premise is still flawed though. Killing pirates for sec status gain is not going to be the deciding factor for people to hunt pirates.
Dont let anyone water down a popular and common sense suggestion to the point where it makes no sense anymore
It is objectively not popular: