Many people make complains about suicide ganking; others defend it as the holy grail of PVP…
I will not take any sides here, all i will do is to suggest a way, maybe the simplest one, to prevent excessive proliferation and getting ganking practice out of hand;
In the same time will be avoided any game breaking changes, by nerfing guns, ships, combat mechanics, concord time response, etc.
So what will be that magic fix? Is very simple, just by bringing back consequences on this kind of game activity, plain and simple. All what is needed are two small changes:
Remove Concord bribing, aka the security tags as they break the security status function and make the removal of consequences for the criminal activity an instant process.
(As a side comment, is just about reverting to a previous state of the game, before devs invented security tags as some uninspired way to promote piracy as profession for casual pvp players… that clearly is not the case, as all people who had chosen that path are very well, happy and proud with their -10 sec status).
Make the docking mechanic working the same as it works for FW factions, being dependent of security status of the player and the security of the system where the structures are placed.
That mean if you have under -5 you cannot dock in any high sec stations (+5 systems), -4 players having no docking rights in +6 systems, under -3 no docking in +7 systems, under - 2 no docking in +8 systems, and above -2 players being able to dock anywhere.
Docking restriction for some categories of players is a mechanic who already exist in FW, so will not be like reinventing the wheel. Also being a -10 player and being able to dock and find a safe harbour anywhere in high sec is not just absurd, but is also a game breaking mechanic.
Bring consequences (back) for the criminal activity, and you will be able to fix suicide ganking proliferation, simple by making high sec targets being less accessible for outlaws.
The removal of security tags is also mandatory as they allow the outlaws to insta-clear their criminal record by bribing Concord, making security status virtual irrelevant at this moment for any wealthy player. (For the ones who may argument that money spent on tags represent any deterrent, the cost for going all the way up from -10 to 0 is just 250-300 mil ISK, a small fraction from what it takes to gank a single freighter, for example.)
While I would agree that there should be “bigger” consequences for criminal actions, than there is today, removing the ability to “fix” your concord standing is perhaps going a little too far. Perhaps one could suggest that CCP takes a look at this mechanic at the same time that they’ll be looking at making a new War Declaration system.
I would think something in line with; Tags should be moved to NPC Null space as a reward for completing missions from “neutral” agents scattered around multiple systems. Tags should not be able to be traded. Piracy should be a difficult career path and not something that one can just change over night. Corporations with a number of Criminals, above a certain threshold, should not be able to anchor structures in Highsec and if they have some prior to reaching this threshold they will be sieged by Concord, at random time during the week. This Concord force should use similar mechanics as FoBs do, but instead of defending they will obviously be attacking with the purpose of destroying the criminal infestation.
This makes little sence; Concord does not own a whole lot of stations, nor do they control what the factions’ and their corporation can and can’t do. It would only make sense for station that Concord actually own.
He’s right. Your ideas are dumb. Suicide ganking in its present form has been the way it has been for a good long time now.
I’ve never partaken, I doubt I ever will because if I’m gonna club a seal I’ll do it in null with a blops or cap.
But make no mistake. CCP has no issues with it benig where it is. Of all the things they’ve said they have problems with, ganking has never been one of them.
Besides… consider your actual suggestions and how they don’t actually help:
Oh dear… I guess I’ll have to live with my negative sec status. On my pvp toon that doesn’t go into highsec unless it’s for transit where concord isn’t going to get me anyways. CCP will never increase the speed that concord will react to people with poor security status, because that kills content… and content is the name of the game here.
Net result, your change is both unwarranted, useless, and against current design philosophy. Otherwise known as dumb and reeking of inexperience.
And why would concord have any say at all over the ACLs on my citadels? Again, plainly stupid, because if this change you want were implemented, they’d just drop raits in the systems they want to gank in.
Well, they kinda do still serve the function they were primarily put into the game for: it allows lowsec residents to pay others to repair their security status via tags. I mean you can suggest a change that will hurt them, but you probably should have some accomodation for the more intended use of the mechanic.
Also, many, maybe the majority of suicide gankers run around as criminals, never using the tags. And the ones that do use tags have to deal with public killrights. I am not sure this is going to make a big impact on balance and is going to hurt lowsec players.
Putting aside the question of lore and consistency (why would the Amarr lock me out of their stations when I have high standing with them?), criminals will just use private or public structures, or barring that, stage out of Bowheads and Orcas like they did before we had structures. I don’t think this serves any purpose other than perhaps to cause even more grief to newer players who tank their security status in lowsec and are locked out from their stuff.
Perhaps shifting criminals to Upwell structures will serve some purpose to put things in space that can be attacked by vigilantes, but I’d like to see some more low-end structures for criminals to stage out of first - maybe like the player FOBs mentioned at Fanfest and then cancelled/postponed at Vegas. Player-owned pirate FOBs for criminals to stage out of sounds kinda cool.
Neither of these will address ganking.
Tags are intended for low sec residents to get sec status back from low sec pvp. As you’ve already said hardly any gankers use them so removing them won’t harm ganking while it will harm low sec players.
Station docking, well code directly have a citadel in uedema no one attacks already while any citadel could be dropped from an alt corp. additionally you have yet again harmed low sec players. So minimal impact to gankers anywhere outside hits while massive impact to low and null players… again not good.
If you want to change the feel of ganking you actually need to make the gank timer longer. This means fewer ships are needed but there is more time for people to take actions against them. Then you also give industrials (all types hauler and miner) some real fitting including weapons, who really cares if they get to 80% dps of a normal cruiser as an example and some niche fits beat cruisers, this is not a bad thing for the game having even more variety in the game, and now we have a real fight when a gank happens.
I expect gankers to then bring some overkill so plenty of ganks will still happen, this is not intended to directly reduce ganking, only give the usual gank targets a way to directly fight back without having to run several escort alts.
I agree that security status should mean something.
Around -3 docking in NPC stations in high sec should be stopped.
Around -5 the player should be removed from High sec and not allowed to interact with any High Sec NPC factions or their agents.
Security status needs to mean something and there needs to be a real penalties to losing security status. There is no reason that -10 characters are in High Sec.
I’m definitely for removing tags for sec. Feels like cheating now with how easily I can boost it back above -2. Also I feel like belts were more active when people were going there just for the security ticks in-between looking for targets.
Maybe make it a bit easier though, I remember the sec rating moving unbearably slow back in the day. Maybe more battleship spawns in low sec belts to compensate? Idk just spitballing.
Your argument is stupid. You are bad and you should feel bad.
Lots of things were a certain way “for a good long time” and they got nerfed or buffed.
Suicide ganking was buffed with the release of Upwell Structures. I notice how so many of you defenders of ganking purposely omit that bit of information.
Define benig.
Citation please. One that didn’t happen “a good long time” ago. Player retention is a new focus. People do leave that get ganked. It happens. Any arguments otherwise are futile.
If it is useless, what is the problem with it? Oh…you just don’t like it. Well I don’t like you. You’re useless.
Citadel tethering by -10 and the like is a buff to ganking. “A good long time” ago gankers couldn’t just undock as -10 characters and be safe with a tether. Blinky red means criminal. Criminals shouldn’t be allowed to dock in anything that isn’t owned by them in any high sec system.
You shouldn’t call people plainly stupid when you exhibit plainly stupid arguments to others people’s ideas. (good or bad)
Ah the old “one more nerf and it will be balanced”
Two in your case both of which are bad, and you should feed bad.
Remove Concord bribing, aka the security tags as they break the security status function and make the removal of consequences for the criminal activity an instant process.
Which is a pointless change as most decent gankers are already -10.
Make the docking mechanic working the same as it works for FW factions, being dependent of security status of the player and the security of the system where the structures are placed.
FW works on faction standings not security status, CONCORD cares about security status and has no influence on Faction standings.
Either way ganking is a necessary part of eve and has been hurt several times in the last few years, no more nerfs so high sec can be “safe”
Changing tags hurts non-gankers more than gankers. So nope.
Locking people out of stations hurts non-gankers more than gankers. Gankers are alts that can re-ship in space from a neutral bow head. They can also have an alt corp set-up player owned structures. No point.
Pay attention. The ‘lack of penalties’ for gankers comes from the ability to use alts that do nothing but gank. But i have to say, there is some lovely irony in the fact that so many people use these alts for ganking BECAUSE the penalties for ganking became so severe after crimewatch.
If you have a problem with Moderation, File a support ticket. And if you believe that I personally attacked you then feel free to flag it as so, nobody is stopping you from doing that.
The removal of security tags mean just reverting the game to an early stage when criminal activity still had consequences. Period.
This will work best in conjunction with docking restriction in high sec for criminals in ALL structures. You chose a criminal career path in eve, you must also live with the consequences.
All i suggest regarding outlaws is that their actions must have meaningful consequences, especially in high security areas, nothing more, nothing less.
They will still have plenty of opportunities and proper space for their wrongdoings in low sec areas and in null space, so i cannot understand the fixation about high security area…
Is only about having access to soft targets?
Then maybe that is the main problem, some people had become very lazy and cannot conceive that finding a target must be something you need to put some work and a bit of effort into it.
And that does not mean just siting on a gate and scan passing ships, with the -10 chars used for ganking docked in the system or even tethered in space…
