As it is today scammers have to relay on game mechanics, that not everyone is aware of, wich limit the range and creativity of possible scams. The courier who doesnt know every itsybitsy detail of the latest patch can often fall for it once, regardless how careful he is. So it all ends in a few types of scams that becomes boring quite fast.
My suggestion is to spice it up abit. Couriers should be able to VIEW and VALUE the cargo BEFORE they accept a contract.
This is far more realistic and it would help turn scamming into an art instead of the dull monkey business it is today. It will also punish the hasty and greedy.
They can already do that. Its called cargo scan. And the ganker have no need to view contracts since he aint knowing who is going to take it.
Traders can see what they are buying before they buy it. A courier basically buys the cargo (collateral), hauls it and then sells it (collateral + fee). Differens between the Trader and the Courier is that the Trader has a far better ROI and that the Courier cant even see what he is buying
But I don’t care or want realism in my video games.
Also, pretty sure UPS doesn’t rip open and peak into my packages when I’m having stuff shipped around.
Well UPS doesnt get scammed either. In that case its the receiver of the packáge not the transporter. Besides what you care about or want in a video game isnt my concern
Good thing it’s also not CCP’s.
I’m not even sure what particular problem your “solution” is trying to solve. You can already see the volume and the collateral amounts. Why do you need to see inside it? How does that prevent a scam?
Nah, that’s not how you go around getting rid of scams. You do this by getting rid of the stupid mechanics that enable these scams, which are as follows
1: The inability to use the drop and deliver feature for reinforced citadels
This is, as far as Im aware, the only mechanic which is niche enough but also used for scams that it warrants removal. Getting ganked if you’re not careful is fine. You should already know that taking lowsec into a hisec island is likely to run into a camp chokepoint. JF pilots should know to avoid jumping to “freeports” that they aren’t 100% sure of being actual freeports.
However, being entirely mechanically unable to use the drop and deliver feature due to a structure being reinforced is dumb and something often only found out once one becomes a victim of said feature.
I think he’s talking about 2 things that emerge as a result of being unable to see the contents despite being able to see the collateral.
1: The fact they can put double wrapped packages inside to bait gankers into ganking you, regardless of collateral. Gankers often assume if a package is double wrapped, that’s because the hauler doesn’t want them to see what’s inside it and therefore they gank them. This is the same reason why Blockade Runners are often gank victims regardless of cargo value, if they ■■■■up. They’re immune to cargo scans.
2: If there’s a ridiculous collateral but the items inside have much less value, that often means theres a scam going on involving an attempt to kill the hauler. They can kill the hauler and claim the reward, without having to worry about losing their own assets beyond whatever they field to kill the hauler. Since this thread likes mentioning UPS so much, t’s basically the equivalent of getting UPS to haul your stuff, blowing up their truck, and getting the insurance for their package being destroyed. IRL this would be negligible as an advantage because obviously you lose the goods you wanted in exchange for that insurance, but here you can have your cake and eat it too because the package itself had almost no value but the insurance was really high. This is, imo, a good thing to have as a possibility. It keeps haulers vigilant and careful
Why with BR its better to agile fit/faster align, imo. They shoot first, ask questions later. Time to play the lock time game versus you gone in warp. Mix in cloak on warp…works out better most times. DST for more cargo and tank to live maybe. BR…carry less move faster, works out better.
And before I say one counter exists(ed)…did in several years away ccp remove the ability to take a contract, re-contract to someone else and they haul it?
This was the bypass I knew of. Load baiters are looking for player name X to hit a system. And pop them. Really bad ones will write you after you pick up and say man I need this now…can you speed it up. They did this to setup fastest route on the courier. With the camp conviently on it. YOu don’t take that bait lol. edit: If it was jita to amarr…it was always bait. they’d even offer more money. Gee…let me guess. Niarja is the camp site?
You Re contract the load and its player Y or Z who hauls. They aren’t looking for them. This works out perfectly they won’t realize you flew by on player Y char till they see contract completed notice.
Beyond that…yeah…hitting say uedama with a legit high value load or a baited crap load does it really matter? You take the risk regardless.
Yes, now you can’t re-contract anything that’s double wrapped, so most scam contracts make use of that fact. The character you took it on is the one who has to haul it.
True, but its still going to get you killed if you’re not careful.
Nice quoting (not), take the first half sentence and ignore the paragraph. If you actually read what I said you’d know what I’m talking about.
Not sure what u mean “up to the individual courier”, you don’t decide whether or not the contract has a double wrap in it.
I never said they’re scams, I said that’s what OP is trying to get at with this suggestion. He wants less risk for haulers by removing unforeseen risks when taking a contract, by having all risks be known before taking it.
To be clear, we both agree that OP’s suggestions aren’t good ideas and that the risks he tries to address should remain core parts of hauling.
He’s saying that his proposed change is a “solution” to courier scams, and then proceeds to provides examples of situations that aren’t scams. So what problem is his solution actually trying to solve here?
I guess that depends how you define a scam, but whatever the case you can’t deny it’s a risk when hauling. Hauling a double wrapped package paints a “GANK ME” sign on you for any cargo scanners.
What he’s trying to get rid of are unforeseen risks when taking a courier package. As is, when you’re looking at a contract there’s a few unknown things about it which influence how risky it is to try to do the contract. OP wants there to be no unknowns so the exact way the contract will go can be determined, and therefore you can choose not to accept contracts that are more risky. Instead, and this is how it should be, you have to take a guess as to whether it’s more risky than it seems or have a plan to mitigate the added risks involved in specific contracts.
Thanks for all replies.
To be able to view and value the cargo and then decide wether you should accept the contract or not will take time. Double wrapped or empty container contracts will be easily spotted and thus avoided. Scammers will have to be more creative to lure you in.
This will lead to that you have to choose to instantly accept the contract or take your time to evaluate and have the risk that someone else takes it meanwhile.
This system rewards the creative scammers and vigialant couriers and punish the back alley monkey and hasty and greedy couriers.
All in all I belive it would be far more intresting gameplay than it is now. Dont you agree
No, I don’t see how removing mystery and unpredictability leads to more interesting gameplay.
The courier system only has so many ways to get scams and you can’t just keep inventing ever more creative ways of making ■■■■happen forever. For a scam to work, you have to prevent the delivery from finishing, which means rendering the drop off inaccessible (reinforced private structure), or killing the hauler. It’s very easy to tell at a glance right now whether a contract is likely a scam or not (compare the difference between the collateral and goods value).
If you can see whats inside a package and make that comparison, the end result isn’t more creative scams, instead they’ll just have to make the package seem normal and kill you anyways. This will mean less ISK for the scammers cuz they lose their own stuff half the time, but actually make it worse for the haulers because when they do get scammed, the contract contents won’t be able to alert them to it and they might not take extra precautions like scouting for that 1 jump of lowsec they have to do.
Your suggestion actively hurts the very people you claim to be helping, except for the sorts of people who would take a scam contract even if it was obviously a scam contents-wise.
