There seems to be a few people that believe highsec piracy is an extremely bad thing, and often suggest that game mechanics should punish high-sec ganking far more than current mechanics. This leads me to a frank, upfront, honest question;
What would you suggest game enforced punishment be for high-sec ganking?
As has been mentioned, there are a whole lot of games that create areas for new and even old players to exist and never face any risk. While this very concept is counter to everything eve is about and has built upon, I do understand how this assists newer players in adapting to the new-to-them UI and game mechanics.
In this specific situation, Piracy is a basic function of the game, but I am willing to discuss how prohibiting this extremely large part of the game will assist new players. ( NPC piracy and revenge is part of the initial story when being introduced for the very first time. )
I will not become hostile in this thread, This is intended for honest discussion.
Make clone tags a one time turn in. Faction standing repair tags are a one time deal. Why should security status be any different? CCP said come tags were suppose to be a âgolden washbowlâ type mechanic. Someone wanting to clean their hands of a dirty past.
Instead, it has turned suicide ganking into:
Cargo scan new target.
IF cargo value is less than x2 clone tag value GoTo step 1. Else GoTo step 3.
Calculate number of Catalysts needed to kill target.
If Catalysts online is > than number needed to secure kill Then run SuicideGank.exe. Otherwise GoTo step 1.
(Been a long time since Iâve taken a coding class, but Iâm sure you get the idea.)
Okay, for fun letâs assume this new ganking thread is going to be productive. Let me add a suggestion I had been thinking of.
Similar as now, but add more variety to CONCORD response times in order to make ganks âless predictable mathâ (a common complaint) and give victims more feeling of agency.
For example:
Increase default CONCORD response time a lot, butâŠ
Let CONCORD arrive quicker to revenge people with high security status
Let players bribe CONCORD to temporarily get an even faster response
Add more randomness to the CONCORD response timer (normal distribution so you can generally expect a middle value but there are rare fast or slow outliers) so victims can get and can wish for a lucky quick response
Example with numbers, but just an example and definitely not meant as final numbers:
A regular CONCORD response time now in a certain system would be 18 seconds. New default response time is doubled to 36 seconds. This response time for players with security status of up to 5 is reduced by up to a third to 24 seconds. The player bribed CONCORD in one of the CONCORD stations for a fair amount of ISK or tags to keep a closer eye for the next hour, and will arrive in half that time, 12 seconds. Next, added randomness means they wonât arrive exactly in 12 but makes it very likely for concord to arrive within 2 seconds of that 12 (10-14), less likely to arrive within 4 seconds (8-16) but also possibly arrive within 6 seconds of the 12 (6-18) so people can during the engagement hope and watch out for a lucky quick response where loss is not guaranteed unless the gankers brought vastly more ships than needed on average.
While in essence it keeps the CONCORD revenge system the same, hopefully this should allow players to feel less helpless as they can do more before (get good security status / bribe CONCORD) and during (wish for a lucky quick response) a criminal attack.
Tags are, accoding to some, âcheap and not a consequenceâ so it shouldnât be hard for haulers and miners to bribe CONCORD to keep a close eye on them while they do their thing and always have a faster response time than now, but even if they donât want to pay that expense at all times, it can still sporadically be used to bait a gank much more effectively or when they know gankers are around. Next, CONCORD might arrive faster than today to save them if their security status is good and they are lucky. And if CONCORD were to arrive later: that increases the opportunity window for counter-ganking!
Personally, i think everything is fine like it isâŠbut i to will try to stay positive about this touchy subject.
Now that CCP is implementing supposed âsafe systemsâ to the game, i think a part of the required learning procedure to allow anybody there is to learn how to gank. Yes i said itâŠ.learn how ganking is done.
Much like the new player experience, they have to take a ganking mission and learn all the ropes on how to properly hunt the target, plan the attack, and execute the kill.
Now theyve learned whats behind it and the actual work thats involved. It will in turn eliminate the need to change the game entirely and the player will be better prepared for danger later in their travels.
I know the thread is about consequences for ganking. But im just one of the players that dont see a problem here.
Gankers will just bring enough ships to blap you in the narrowest window.
Ganking is a very premeditated playstyle. You scan the target and determine how many ships you need, you position them appropriately (say by having a fleet of cats prealigned to a gate in Uedama in the direction you know the target will be coming from, or by moving your cloaked scanning alt into position), and you fire them all off as simultaneously as humanly possible because CONCORD is a hard time limit. Just about every suggestion to change ganking (that isnât just âmake it bannableâ) revolves around shortening the time window gankers have to operate in, and nothing else. That doesnât make it more fun, it only makes it more expensive.
A better suggestion to make ganking more fun would be to add a mechanic whereby the ganker can get away. For example if the wreck gets salvaged before CONCORD shows up, thereâs no evidence anything happened, and the ganked personâs testimony is thrown out of court as hearsay and heâs ordered to pay the ganker a fine for libel.
Just for funsies maybe tie CONCORD response time to players faction standing. Keep the current timers, but if they increase their standings, CONCORD responds faster
All player corps should be war eligible again (you should still need an HQ to declare), and all players should be forced into (PlayerNameâs) Corp if their account is over 30 days old and theyâre not in a player corp.
Everyone is now free to punish the gankers via the war dec system, enjoy.
Iâd like to see an option for gankers to pay CONCORD a bribe, and then CONCORD doesnât show up at all. We can call this a Hypersecurity Tag, available only in elite lowsec systems, where the ganker must give battle to the Clone Soldiers in order to earn the loyalty of CONCORD!
âP2Wâ pretty specifically refers to using RL money to purchase an ingame advantage. Security tags are not P2W and attempting to contort the definition of P2W to include purchasing things with ISK is silly in its obvious dishonesty.
They literally are NPC drops already. Do you even play this game?
In this context it is that the rich can avoid the consequence of the security status loss, especially when their riches come from the pockets of others.
Tags can be exchanged for security status, other NPC items only for ISK/LP.
âProductive ganking threadâ is basically an oxymoron. The entire core of the topic is people being mad at their skill issue and trying to remove any ability-gradient from highsec so they donât feel inferior anymore.
