Rookie Griefing Policy was updated Monday

Communications Center General Discussion
227

I haven’t got response from my last question, and I’ll assume you fail the entire arc if you fail one mission, which you’ll fail if you lose your mission item. You can still try find the mission item in contracts in case you lose it, but there is no guarantee there will be such contract.

The suggested issue about the change is that unlike starter systems which are well-defined, the SOE Epic Arc item can just appear in any ship for whatever reasons. The change has limited its scope to players 30 days old or less and in mission sites and systems associated with the arc.
It’ll (theoratically) be a issue if you are a ganker/wardeccer and kills everything you can without checking the player.

I did noticed some players frequently killing noobs like this guy, though it is about 6 months before CCP made this change.

According to the rules they will warn you first in case you are killing ships carrying those items very often, but how often will that ever happen to such a degree that CCP goes after you? Let’s look at the Data.

There are 26 missions in the SOE Epic arc that requires you to transport stuff.

Mission 3:Of Interest-Strange Datacore
Mission 4:Retrieving Red-Red
Mission 6:Jet-Canning a Jantior-Nebben Centrien, Janitor
Mission 7:Chivying a Chef-Chef Aubrei Azil
Mission 8:Delivering a Doctor-A Lot of Money/Doctor Luija Elban
Mission 9:Engineering a Rescue-Engineer Tahaki Karin
Mission 11:Studying the Scene-Corrupted Drone Components
Mission 12:Rendering Assistance-Antibiotics* an item that is also a commodity so it can stil be obtained by other means.
Mission 14:Data Retrieval-Dr. Castille’s Data Core (Property of CreoDron)
Mission 17:House of Records-Hidden Data Sheets
Mission 19:Economy Under Threat-Farming Supplies
Mission 22:Royal Jelly-FR Personnel
Mission 23:Nature Pictures-Encoded Data Transmission
Mission 24a:Tracking the Queen (Part 1)-Corin Risia
Mission 25a:Tracking the Queen (Part 2)-Corin Risia
Mission 26a:Tracking the Queen (Part 3)-Drone Tracking Data
Mission 24b:Bag of Blood-Wolf Burgan’s DNA
Mission 25b:Planting the Body-Wolf Burgan’s Body Double
Mission 36:A Matter of Decorum-Mizara’s Doll
Mission 38:Recovery-Mysterious Statue
Mission 39:Of Quiet Night Long Past-Strange Coded Document
Mission 43:A Stranger’s Face-Altered Identity Records
Mission 44:The Sisters and the Spy-Tahaki Karin
Mission 45:Chasing Shadows-Kritsan Parthus
Mission 49:Our Man Dagan-Dagan
Mission 50:Dal Segno al Fine-Dagan

Now, let 's take a look at the zkillboard records containing these items in the past 9 months,which is on or after 12/16/2016 to today, 9/15/2017 (or at most 50 entries as Zkillboard shows)

Raw Data:

Killed by NPC/Killed by non suicide gankers/Killed by suicide gankers
Strange Datacore:1,35,1
Red:1,21,0
Nebben Centrien, Janitor:3,2,1
Chef Aubrei Azil:4,4,0
A Lot of Money:3,25,0
Doctor Luija Elban:2,3,0
Engineer Tahaki Karin:3,4,0
Corrupted Drone Components:3,0,0
Dr. Castille’s Data Core (Property of CreoDron):1,11,0
Hidden Data Sheets:4,24,3
Farming Supplies:4,10,0
FR Personnel:0,2,0
Encoded Data Transmission:8,15,0
Corin Risia:36,9,0
Drone Tracking Data:33,17,0
Wolf Burgan’s DNA:0,1,0
Wolf Burgan’s Body Double:6,5,0
Mizara’s Doll:1,1,0
Mysterious Statue:1,1,0
Strange Coded Document:0,0,0
Altered Identity Records:5,25,0
Tahaki Karin:0,2,0
Kritsan Parthus:1,5,0
Dagan:0,3,0

Total:120 killed by NPC,225 killed by non suicide ganker,5 killed by suicide ganker in last 9 months. And many kills are in systems not related to the arc at all, or the character is not noob so it does not qualify for griefing.

From the data I’d say legal agressors(low-sec, wardec, faction war or suspect baiting) contribute to most of SOE runner deaths while suicide gankers are negligible. I’d say the change wouldn’t affect most of the players except those who are very very obsessed with killing noobs.

228

I am almost certain that a GM will reset a SOE starter arc mission for you, if you are a new player. They have no problem doing so for the career agents, and given they treat this as an extension of that now, I bet a petition would solve the issue. Also, just waiting for the next downtime often will reset a mission on its own, and I believe that is the case for the SOE missions (but a new player might not know this of course).

Honestly though, Eve is a full-time, competitive open-world PvP game. I think almost everyone is cool with new players receiving some protection and even GM reimbursements if they are unlucky or make a mistake in the first mission arc, but you can’t bubble-wrap them forever or treat them as porcelain figurines too delicate to play with. They have to get into our shared sandbox and sometimes that means they will explode like all of us do from time-to-time. Every time CCP looks at this issue, and various interests have asked them to repeatedly, they find that “rookie griefing” has no impact on new player retention just like your numbers show.

This isn’t a problem worth worrying about. There are plenty of more significant issues facing new players than “rookie griefing”.

1 Like
229

Just to correct, they’ve only looked once, and they didn’t do a real look even then at the effects. Because they didn’t actually isolate the numbers they pulled out. They just said that people that stay more than a month tended to be slightly more likely to have had a PvP encounter than people who quit under a month. With the number of possible causes behind that you would have to look a lot deeper to actually isolate causes.

@Rosov_Aulmais Consider how many non suicide ganks will be a bait can on someone too new to know better. Suspect baiting or getting them to can flip unknowingly is just as griefing as deliberately suicide ganking them.

Similarly though, I’m not claiming ganking is a general issue, and it is one that newbies should be introduced to in an appropriate manner (Not in one that disrupts their gameplay the first time ideally). Though griefing is quite different from ganking and is & always has been banned when you do it to anyone.

230

Yes they did. Exactly as I said: there is no evidence that “rookie griefing” is a thing that is driving new players away. Yes, I’ll grant you that says nothing about 6-month old players, or 5 year players who self-identify as “new” who quite the game after losing an overloaded freighter, but retention of real new players is not only not harmed at all by PvP encounters, there is a statistical correlation with more players staying with the game who experience player interactions like PvP of all sorts.

Make of that what you will, but the idea that “rookie griefing” is a thing any of us should worry about has thoroughly been debunked. Let’s stop crying wolf about “griefing” and work together to find and lessen the more serious impediments for getting people into the game.

231

Uh, no. ‘PVP encounters’ is a very different thing from griefing. And griefing should always be considered a very very bad thing. Be it to rookies or anyone.

1 Like
232

Indeed. “Griefing” in the EULA sense is verboten and is and should punished. “Griefing” in the non-consensual PvP sense is statistically correlated with increased new player retention and probably thus should be encourage.

One is good for new player retention (let’s interact in a game about shooting spaceships!), and one is prohibited from the game by fiat entirely. They are two different things. I think I was clear in what sense I was using but if you want to be pedantic, then yes, sanctioned PvP encounters (ganking/wars/other “legal” PvP) are what I was referring to, not “rookie griefing” (abusing new players in a rookie system) that is prohibited by CCP.

233

That was my line you wretched egger.

For those unfamiliar with Socratic, The Socratic Files are an amusing read, a tale of comeuppance so good it made one of the Dick Moves in Gaming articles over on Cracked

2 Likes
234

Again, ganking is not correlated with an increase in player retention. CCP’s numbers they quoted do not mean anything of the sort and should never be claimed to do so. Doing so is a perfect example of the ‘lies, damn lies & statistics’ quote, since it’s a blatant misuse of the statistics that means nothing of the sort.

Interaction being good for player retention is the aspect they did establish as being relevant.

And yes, by all means, I promote interaction with people, which is why I think the mechanics behind ganking are bad because ganking in of itself doesn’t provide meaningful interaction because it’s over so fast. If you (or someone else) then go on to have a good conversation with the person it can, but that conversation is the meaningful interaction, not the gank, and should not be regarded as needing to be tied to PVP interactions.

235

is it true that he got unbanned, because his claim that he’s raising attention actually got proven as correct?

i know that from him, it’s been a long while, though.

236

AFAIK his ban was lifted, pretty sure he was posting on the old forums in the last 6 or 7 months; he made a huge fuss about his ban for months on CCP’s facebook page last year, for which he got mercilessly ribbed by those of who know what he was doing in Arnon.

1 Like
237

You, Sir, are ignorant.

You are ignorant of …

  • the game’s history.
  • the game’s old playerbase.
  • the game’s old culture.
  • the proven method of recruiting by shooting.
  • how the game had any retention in the first place.
  • the effects of adrenaline.

You do not understand what you are actually talking about. You think you do, but you don’t.

238

Confirmation bias. enough said.

239

yes. i asked if you knew the reason why he got unbanned. his claim was that they banned him unfairly, because he did not hurt retention at all, and ccp eventually proved that this was correct, and therefore unbanned him. again, his words, quite a long while ago.

240

Dunning Kruger and not the necessary self reflection to realize.

You have no ground to speak on.

241

Ah I misread that, nope I have no idea as to why it was lifted; although tbh that sounds like something he would say anyway, just to stroke his own ego.

1 Like
242

The point you have to resort to calling other people dumb to try and win an argument is pretty much the point you’ve lost it.
I’m well aware of the history of the game, and the player base, and how they tend to only see things from the view point of their own little part of it. This doesn’t mean that they are dumb, it just means they are considering one view.
The claims that ‘nerfing ganking’ have hurt CCP’s player numbers are equally as lacking in any kind of evidence as the claims that ganking has hurt the player numbers, and equally based on a single view point.

Meaningful interactions is the key.

1 Like
243

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: What was he doing in Arnon? When I talk to that dude all I get from him is a crazy convoluted alternative history of EVE events. Not sure if he made it up or really perceives reality that way…

244

hanging in local, pretending to be helpful and fleeting up with newbies running the SoE mission; killed everything in sight, took all the loot and then offer to sell it back at inflated prices and generally being an asshole to the newbies.

245

Wow. And he calls me a griefer…

246

Yes they are correlated. CCP Rise clearly said that those that have a higher rate of explosions (including ganking) had a higher rate of retention. That is a correlation.

We can debate until the cows come home what that correlation means, but that correlation is a statistical fact calculated using data and math and was explicitly told to us in that presentation by CCP.

You should stop falsely denying that. It isn’t helping the discussion. We are all entitled to our opinion, but not our own set of facts.

2 Likes