I joined the war dec discussion group, and I can say that the war dec players know that there is an issue with wars in hisec, It is that they have turned into pipe and hub camping low interest blanket wastes of time mostly for the defender who might be war decked because he was seen moving a freighter, with the hope that he will be dumb enough to do it while at war. This is the end game of the current war dec system, you war dec a large group of people so you can pick off the dumb players…
The most basic thing that needs to be done now, is to add an active status to the locator report, CCP should just do it now, no ifs or buts.
I had suggested that the locator agent for people in a war dec would enable them to do block character locations, which they can drag and drop from the character list, or perhaps do it at a corp level. One of the disappointing aspects of suggesting this was that I wanted to make standings mean something so that if the war decker used the locator agent which you had high standings with to search you the locator agent would tip you off, this was to enable people to setup an ambush. I met some resistance to this suggestion because all the player concerned could think about was the person logging off and that it enabled him to waste his time, and that is part of the issue, here, most players are still not able to understand that the issue is with hisec being effectively very dead and that giving the defender an opportunity is worthwhile… If you moan about people not fighting in wars then you really need to help them to fight…
The victory suggestion while a good idea is pie in the sky wishful thinking, because as I said hisec is too far gone in the main, I had suggested a war dec holiday for engaging in a war and my initial thought was to use losses in the calculation of the war dec holiday, but that would be perhaps too much, so I would work on the basis of getting a single kill on a war decker and apply that as of now. Later when people have the attitude to fight and they get something meaningful, then we can adjust to actual victory, but part of this is to change peoples attitudes in hisec. This war dec holiday would be a period of time free of war decs.
Neutral RR is an issue which prevents people attempting the roam type sudden combat type event, because you have to set up to counter the neutral RR, and while I don’t like the idea of making people go criminal I would perhaps do it for a period of time, before switching back to suspect.
I would drop the cost of war decs, especially against major nullsec alliances, cap them at 200m please for people like the Goons. Drop base cost down to 20m , perhaps lower.
I would make it so that a player leaving corp and joining another player run corp will take the war with him.
I would not do a capture the flag type thing at all, it is too damn artificiel, why fight as a defender, I would not, better still would be something worth fighting for such as something that gave you better yield in some way but limit that so it has to be fought over, but don’t make it only one because that will end up with them all owned by certain war deckers.
All in all the mechanics are quite good, sadly the issue is on both sides, people who have no reason or desire to fight and people who want easy kills and green killboards and don’t really have the attitude to hunt, and those that want to hunt have no way to have fun in maybe a two hour session of play because they have no way to know if their prey is even online.
The watch list was too powerful and I don’t want to see it back, the locator agents are a better way to do it, or some sort of OA in space that can be attacked which of course has the benefit of being a content driver. And do note something about watch lists now, with Keepstars it is not quite so powerful to prevent fleet fights because those characters may be ratting in something else now…
I will end in saying that CCP should interact more with the war dec players, this is a very committed group of players who are passionate about Eve.
So what is the state of play with hisec ganking:
Mining ships, they are in a good place overall.
a) Alpha accounts are stuck with easy to gank Ventures, however they are very cheap., no issue here.
b) There are a range of ships with different abilities, people can chose a ship and fit to tank to be a challenge to even the most prolific multi-boxer, they can fit cheap for yield and take the losses, totally fine.
c) Orca mining, can be ganked with special effort like freighters, as the Orca is sitting at a belt and without an MWD to get into warp faster takes an age to get out, so no bumping needed for fast attack fleets, the only reason that they don’t get ganked while mining is because there is no profit in it for the amount needed to gank them. This is at the level of ganking a Macherial bumper, no profit only loss which is why the gankers don’t do it.
Ganking of Indy’s, DST’s
a) Indy’s can be tanked quite nicely, however it is not enough for a determined gang, plenty of small groups waiting on gates, overall balance is good and they can be stopped with clever play.
b) DST’s can be tanked to a very high level, but needs deadspace modules and requires overheating at the key moment, many that ganked are fitted for another way of operating, balance is fine.
Freighter ganking
As stated earlier the issue is to do with the huge strategic and tactical advantage that bumping gives the gankers, in effect they totally control the time and place of the engagement, it is too much of an advantage.
Using a webber to get the freighter into warp before the bumper can get on it can be (and often is) easily negated by a suicide point, anyone who says otherwise is obviously ignorant of gankers in action.
The freighter has no real options in terms of this, if a bumper is on the gate of the next system the only option is to dock up and wait it out.
Without bumping it would be more of a race to get a valuable freighter with the freighter pilot having a good chance to go for it, cat and mouse games around the jump the gate and holding cloak would make it more fun and engaging for the freighter player who has tactical options to impact the gankers, at this point -10 and the penalties caused by faction police will have real meaning.
Until CCP deals with bumping in some way that ends unlimited time bumping in hisec this activity will continue to be totally out of balance and too easy, being high reward and no risk and the consequences applied to the gankers has no impact, conclusion the entire balance is completely out in terms of gameplay, you cannot get any more high reward / no risk in terms of any activity in Eve.
The biggest issue of all in terms of bumping is that the victims see it as totally imbalanced and a naff mechanic, and they don’t get mad at the gankers as such, their real anger is at CCP, just like the miners when all mining ships had the tank of a wet paper bag and the dps of destroyers was buffed. When people see it like that you have an issue. You can chose to ignore it like you did with the mining ships tanks for years, but it is going to cost you players.
Bumping has a role in other areas of play, keeping people from jumping in small gang combat and bumping people off citadels, though people can just safe log in that situation if they are tethered. Another important aspect is stopping people from getting into warp to get points on them, but that is normally a one or two shot attempt and not the infinite number of bumps used in hisec.
Perhaps hisec gates should have a tethering system like Citadels with the ability to safe log, that would solve the issue without having to change bumping mechanics.
So to further analyse the impact on players of what I call the real bumping losses, those where the freighter is bumped until in desperation he accepts a duel for help and gets blown up. I had a list of characters that had been contacted by another player who wanted to see if they were up to doing something back. I took that list and went and checked what their current situation was in terms of play. There was 25 characters that I could use in terms of their loss and I found that only 5 appeared to be still active while 20 seemed to no longer be active, in that there was no recent killboard activity… 13 out of that 20 had no killboard activity from the time of the loss.
So out of that sample of 25 80% as in 20 of the characters stopped playing and 13 stopped after the loss, which is 52% of the whole and 65% of those that have stopped or appear to have stopped.
After the reaction of a couple of people, I decided to start going through the C&P thread of a certain trick bumper. And by the way I got to know the player and rather like him.
VoltfestXV42 was ganked Jul 2017. Last activity in Jan 2018 would count as inactive at this point and would not define that as due to the bump, likely lost due to provi fallout
Master Hekkki was ganked Jul 2017 had a noob ship loss in Jan 2018, would likely count as a loss due to bumping, but difficult to tell
Lionel Mandrake, was ganked Jul 2017, no losses afterwards, with enough before to take this as a loss due to bumping. on my list
Krewedko, was ganked Jul 2017, continues to player until Jan 2018, likely left due to Provi fall out
Carlito Brigante was trick bumped and then lost to the same player in a war dec. No further activities, left the game possibly but would not be due to the gank.
beff pg, still appears to be playing
Krednal Masiter, one loss before the bump gank, no losses since, on balance I treated this as a loss to bump gank on my list
Cally Altol, still appears to be active on my list
Swift Lurker, numerous losses before gank bump, no losses after, would suggest loss to bump gank on my list
LtYarr, only an Orca loss, was in PH, but went into NPC corp and no longer players, would think a loss to bump gank
Siranu, continues to play.
Ariesta Anthar, had two losses before, none after, would suggest loss to bump gank
yuni Plaude, had a loss due to a mining gank in Jan 2018 and another gank after the bump gank, looks like a lost player to gabnking but not as such to the bump gank.
Harok Audeles, loss two ships after, likely a loss due to Provi rather than bump gank
I will as time permits, deletions of my posts and forums bans continue to go through that thread to give a view on the result of the trick bump gank.
