Balancing the Gank Plank

[Taranis]

There have been a many threads lamenting the various ROEs and ways players can Gank or be Ganked.  Would there not be something to be said in favor of a compensation/balancing mechanism for the underdogs of a given engagement?  A number of other pvp games do this.  Seems there could easily be as part of the exit screen, an adjustment factor for players based on the relative strength of their side - leading to possibly extra gold, exp. or drops.  I wonder whether such a balancing incentive might prompt some to be more adventurous in experiencing PvP.  Perhaps we could get folks to be more willing to play outnumbered if they were rewarded for doing so...  Granted, we now would have to find some logical formula for such an adjustment beyond just BR of ships (which would not nearly capture the concept).

Discuss.

[Yar Matey]

We already have huge NPC fleets with quite a large pull in radius and towers that will wreck even the biggest of ships.  I don't think any adjustments need to be made to anything.  There seems to be good balance now between the gankers and the gankees.  New players just need to learn how to use the fleets and towers to their advantage. 

I have only been ganked and lost my ship once in my home waters since the implementation of the new ROE with towers and NPC fleets.  Also, my clan mates and I have been pulled into combat by gankers a few times in our home waters by 4-5 ships trying to gank one of us.  Sometimes they get us and sometimes they get sunk by the towers or the fleet ships blasting at them. 

The best is when they come close enough to the tower, and then the tower demasts one of them and they cannot get away from the tower that eventually sinks them. 

The only area that needs to be fixed is the PvP admiralty event, which is a pretty bad and poorly designed event in the first place.  But I dont think you can really call it being ganked if you find yourself on the side that is being overwhelmed by the enemy, because everyone is going there looking for pvp. 

Edited January 17, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Koltes]

They should kill PVP event and make us to create those events ourselves by starting hostility missions. Each mission that is just being done and raised hostility creates blurred orange zone on the map. This tells defenders where to come looking for targets. Give people same rewards as for pvp events when they sink someone in those missions or in those areas (from both sides). 

More on that here:

 

Edited January 17, 2017 by koltes

[Farrago]

52 minutes ago, koltes said:

They should kill PVP event and make us to create those events ourselves by starting hostility missions. Each mission that is just being done and raised hostility creates blurred orange zone on the map. This tells defenders where to come looking for targets. Give people same rewards as for pvp events when they sink someone in those missions or in those areas (from both sides). 

More on that here:

 

Obviously I can't read the Devs' minds but I always figured PVP events were probably a temporary testing mechanism. They have to get enough player ships out there fighting in a controlled/observable environment to test combat mechanics. I could be wrong, but having PVP events (at least at such frequency) in a release version seems counter to where the game design concept was headed.

[Yar Matey]

@Wraith I think the best solution to solve your hunting needs is a shorter battle timer tag.  If the timer was 15 seconds instead of 30 seconds, it would be much more difficult for the person being preyed upon to get a good position in OW near defenses.  I believe it is only fair to do this because OW speeds were increased by 25%.  Defenses are absolutely essential to the health and well-being of this game to give solo and new player a fighting chance against ganking squads and reducing the timer would make getting strategic tags challenging. 

However, I do believe the OW no attack timer should be increased from 30 seconds to 1-2 min. 

 

Edited January 17, 2017 by Yar Matey

[Taranis]

I also think that the two circle ROE system would be improved if the size of the outer circle varied with the BR of the attacker's group - which would help solo/small pack hunters.