Why has "Seagulling" in Pochven not been declared an exploit

Communications Center General Discussion
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o7

This is a support ticket I recently submitted regarding Seagulling or isk payout theft from corporate reward payouts.

As seen on the EVE forums and r/Eve reddit seagulling is a form of gameplay many players are participating in. However, this is largely to the detriment of a large number of groups who actively run or used to run Observatory Flashpoints, but have disengaged from the content as result of this gameplay.

A list of groups where this form of gameplay is a pain-point are:

  1. Kybernauts Clade
  2. Triglavian Unity
  3. Breadfleet
  4. Stribog Clade
    (All members of the Pro-Triglavian Coalition of around 1200 players)
  5. Any other group looking to engage in content within Pochven which is largely just Observatory Flashpoints

This is a common bug report my alliance has submitted on a number of tickets.

Observatory Flashpoint Payout Theft

There is an issue with Observatory Flashpoints in Pochven. Observatory Flashpoints currently pay out all pilots up to 70 pilots who have tagged a rat in the first or second room regardless of participation in clearing the site. The site being high level PVE takes a large fleet of T2 or Triglavian ships. This is a large investment and someone being able to use a T1 cloak on a T1 frigate to get paid a MASSIVE amount of isk for their investment is extremely discouraging as it decays your fleet members payouts. Additionally, if they arrive when the site spawns they can burn thousands of km away making it impossible to catch the offenders as combat probes are ineffective in the site. As an FC this is extremely frustrating. Especially because there are a large amount of repeat offenders abusing this payout system which I view as exploitive.

Find Observatory Flashpoint in Pochven

Find Flashpoint before it has spawned or enter the second room while a fleet is engaging the dreadnought which spawns at a distance from the beacon, tag enemy, cloak up, wait for fleet to run site or finish site, decloak before they finish, receive payout.

Basically, warp into site, tag a single enemy and MWD away, cloak up and wait for fleet to run the site. Decloak before Observatory dies, receive payout."

However, the number of seagulls and their methods have since escalated. Now the most popular way to engage in seagulling is to burn 10,000KM away, jettison a single piece of ammo, remote repair the can, receive payout. Very cool gameplay, much counterplay. To make matters worse you cannot use combat probes to scan these players down as the site is a deadspace pocket.

However, while Observatory flashpoints are the main point of contention, all Triglavian and DED corporate reward payouts have this issue. Within Pochven there are smaller sites which bluntly are not worth running due to the miniscule isk rewarded for the required isk and time investment to run the sites. However, if you add seagulls or players taking payout ticks without helping to complete the site they most certainly are not worth running.

Furthermore, this is not just a Triglavian aligned player issue. Accelerator Flashpoints the Edencom variety of the Observatory flashpoint have the same issue which has been recently confirmed. Additionally, Triglavian wormholes in K-space which are much more accessible and it is common to encounter another player on have the same issue. Except not only do you lose out on isk which is rewarded albeit in a small amount but also loyalty points. This is the same for the Accelerator Flashpoint which also rewards loyalty points.

This has always been an issue.
During invasion phase 3 one of the Triglavian and Edencom aligned players methods of demotivating the opposing side was offensive logi where they would repair the NPCs of the side they support. However, when the site completed those participating in repairing the NPCs within the site would actually receive payment making the isk payment almost abysmal for an individual player.

After reviewing all of this information I cannot grasp why this system has not been changed to only pay out the highest damaging fleet within the site. This is an existing mechanic in Incursions and this same issue, was at a point solved for Incursions, by implementing the highest damaging fleet system.
Therefore, I would like to ask why this form of gameplay is not considered an exploit and if it was the intentional way for these sites to operate.

  • Salty Matt

The response I received was our first clear statement of seagulling not being an exploit but working as intended.

Greetings Salty Matt, GM ----- here,

The mechanics you have decided to call “seagulling” are working as intended by design, and not considered to be an exploit. If you believe that the relevant mechanics should be changed, or that a policy stance should be enacted to declare the behavior you described as an exploit, I understand your concerns. Any feedback from our players is taken very seriously and we appreciate your contribution. I would encourage you to also consider posting your thoughts on the EVE Online forums Link, that you may discuss your recommendations with the development team.

I recommend that you consider highlighting your concerns to the CSM as well. They ensure that the voices of the EVE community are heard and you can either post on the CSM section of the forum or contact them directly.

If you have any further concerns or if there is anything you’d like to add then please let me know.

Best Regards,

CCP Player Experience | EVE Online

Why is being able to jettison a piece of ammo 10,000KM away and remote repairing it to get a large amount of isk not an exploit.
I’d like to get more player feedback to bring this issue to light.

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Speaking as one of the CSM, yeah, we have voiced complaints but thank you for the very full explanation.

m

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Gratz on that, by the way.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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Thank you! I appreciate that you’re aware of the issue and the quick response!

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Well, I’m still out of likes from yesterday (because limiting likes was definitely something we needed). So, take my updoot.

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Essentialy, someone in ccp was very pro edencom and didn’t like that we manage to create pochven is such short time
So, as revenge, he decide to curb stomp any chance that pochven have to grow into a niche region

CCP is slowing turning like rockstar with GTA Online, rewarding toxic playstyle and utterly bashing any “honest” player

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the usual complaints from the blue triangle that would rather declare things exploits when any effort is involved or they don’t get what they want

that being said, the active krabsliding teams have generally agreed on doing something about the forms of taxing that were deemed too unreasonable (time investment wise) to counter, we have since discovered that you can counter all forms of krabsliding anyway with enough knowledge of how the site mechanics work (including the ones cloaked 10000 km away) so it isnt nearly as unreasonable as we once thought

There is definitely a balance that can be struck that both removes the most unreasonable forms of the content without outright removing emergent gameplay that has been around for well over a year now, simply at the behest of a very bitter alliances ran incompetent FCs and leadership.

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if you are interested mate, the discord that was used with the representatives from the many sides of pochven that came together to make that document to send to ccp is still up, with all of its discussions on many topics

hit me up with a mail and I’ll get you and invite to it

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Feel you, but there’s a high chance you are very wrong.

CCP shot themselves in the foot with Triglavians, I posted it many times, ofc they never listened, the data came and they regretted it.

Now they need to get rid of it in a certain way that does not look bad for them. Certainly encouraging more of it may not be the right approach, but the CSMs may probably create enough heat for it.

In essence, I’m not against Trigs, but I alerted CCP many times of the usage of trigs to enforce their agenda was a mistake and the (I gonna resist my sarcasm urge) idea of “terraforming” space because “reasons” was even worse.

It was very clear for me at certain point letting these people go free removing know space from EVE was not only tragic but entertaining, so I just let it go. To my amusement CCP stopped it by themselves.

Ofc from this post I’m the bitter and mad guy, this is not true, I posted to my best to alert them of their bad choices, now it’s only fair I have my moment.

Seeking asset destruction is totally fair and healthy, problem is when you don’t know what asset is being destroyed you only promoting gibberish. But I don’t want to go into that now.

No PLEX buyer stopped buying: weak truth;
No player started buying PLEX: strong truth;
No rich player lost anything substantial: strong truth;
Lots of average players got hit: strong truth;
Lots of newbies hated the content, including GM tickets complaining: strong truth;
On point: complaining about trigs (not in overview, or 'cuz you jumped into a system without warning) → 7 omega days, I never asked they just gave me.

That’s probably something near of what Data people showed to game direction.

Triglavians acomplished nothing, just more future stuff to be fixed and some pocket ISK generation.

And then I’m ranting, I looked at the dictionary and it’s not a synonym for being objective.

o7

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You can’t get rid off of something that player create, it would realy look bad to the eyes of playerbase, because it would create a precedent

There were also no agenda, i don’ think ccp wake up one day and said " boi, i realy want all of high sec be turned a giant null sec" or whotever we have in mind in this day. ( maybe to bring that feeling of danger in high sec again )

Also, about the list you made, i think you are in a few point right ( new player wake up with 50 trig ship outside of npc station might anger someone ) but in other point, wrong ( in the invasion, you get a pop up about trig invading the system and you are asked if you still want to jump ) but i don’t think the triglavian are an useless update, to me it was the best content i have in like years

But see it be completly destroy because either of bugs ( the famous “ups, can’t see ship in overview” or the drifter bs 1 shot you while you are more then 1.000km ) toxic playstlye ( seaguilling, no matter whot ccp said, it’s a frikking exploit be able to drop a crate, logi it, and get free 300-400m ) or a ccp dev trying to relive the glory of BoB alliance and be the avenger of edencom.

It’s utterly outrageous and sad.

sorry for the ventilation, it’s 3 am here and i am tired…goodnight

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its kinda strange seeing the guy who tells people he hopes their family dies of covid whenever he loses a hecate in pochven complaining about toxicity

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Pochvenbear tears.

Its all a valid gameplay, like ganking, gatecamps or bumping.

Incursion sites should work the same way.

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Pochven and invasion is and was one of the best ideas CCP had in years IMO. But as usual it was not fully thought through and dropped unfinished, with developers assigned elsewhere shortly after.

They didn’t realize, and probably most players as well, what raw gem Pochven was. No blobs, no army of alts, carebears and PvPer could co-exist. Reason for people to be in space (standing grind). Real humans had to work together, not one person with their 20 alts. After first round of fixes there was even an extra-ordinary income source for group PvE players with high standing.

… and then CCP destroyed everything which was good about Pochven, forever, with one lazy database change. All the problems coming from this big mistake.

Not only from typical CCP laziness, but heavily pushed by player greed and envy from outside Pochven and ill-advise by CSM.

You get what you ask for.

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Caw Caw

Caw Caw Caw

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Why not simply bring a instalocking hic or good old arty instapopper ?

Armor tanked seboed (perhaps RR) Muninn.
1400 Tempest etc etc.

What Am I missing ? A simple fix could be to limit payout to 100km within the warpin. Well within range of 1400s to instapop a stupid astero or cov ops.

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They do, setup is a bit different, but in that direction. The problem are the “seagulls” finding the site first and are unreachable far cloaked when defense arrives. I’m not running the sites but I’m often there before any bigger force, and sites are already infested with droves of “seagulls”. Hence people running them focus on sites where they are early to setup.

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So limiting payout radius to 100km could be a fix ?

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Sounds like they could solve this issue by making all PvE bounties drop as tags.

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Leave seagulls alone! They are regulatory and natural mechanism occuring in ecology disturbed by farming.

Take them away and you only make things worse.

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