Ashterothi
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
397
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Posted - 2016.04.30 23:40:01 -
[1] - Quote
Shae Tadaruwa wrote:Dracvlad wrote:I think you are rather confused, you are mistaking adjusting bad mechanics and balancing the game for blocking what you define as content. I think it is you that is confused, but that is situation normal. Beginning from Retribution (Dec 2012) when destroyers were rebalanced, if you go through each change made to the game that either benefits ganking (assigning +1 for easier ganking) or makes it harder (assigning -1 for more difficult), then you can actually see the evidence yourself objectively whether things have been balanced or not, So starting with a +1 for the destroyer rebalance in Retribution and coming to the latest change, even allowing for some differences in opinion, over the last 3 1/2 years, the balance is around the -4 to -8 mark. That's not balance. That's nerf.
Let me start off by saying I have never ganked anyone in highsec, nor have I ever been successfully ganked in highsec (the highsec freighter kill on my record was suspect flag for some damn reason, didn't ask). I know nothing about the actual experience of this gameplay.
However, I do know game design and so I suggest an alternate idea.
Instead of balancing ganking vs not ganking as a 0 sum game in which "balance" is a net 0, instead look at it as a balance between the playstyle of the gankers and the playstyle of the hauler. Make ganking too easy, and hauling becomes more problematic, people do it less, prices go up, less targets for the gankers, more concentration of danger of each hauler, so on and so on, until new equilibrium is met. Make ganking harder and fewer people will go through the effort until the problem is sufficiently solved as to reduce the complexity of the new process. Haulers become "safer" and hauling becomes more common, higher numbers mean fewer percent of the total are being ganked, more risks are taken.
In this universe it actually seems to be that the best way to handle this issue is to every so often, solve the puzzle for the gankers. You don't have to incentivise ganking, the system incentivises itself, so people work to solve the new puzzle and find new methods and eventually the danger level rises until it is time to shake it up once again.
So maybe that is why you see these things. Every time the ratio of killers vs haulers raises above a certain point, they remove an exploit or otherwise terrible broken mechanic to make the wheel continue to turn.
Just a thought
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