Gank multiboxing is best solved by other means than any artificial restrictions.
Namely... give industrial vessels of all kinds real fittings and slot allowances, then increase (Yes, I do mean increase) the concord timer significantly.
(Concord should also just remote detonate your ship rather than spawn in and shoot it as the spawning in can cause significant lag en mass, which is why AoE en mass is very very bad in high sec).

The increase in timer means they can't just hit follow/f1/f2/f3 and wait till concord is done then fleet warp the pods because there is a lot longer to fight in and the targets can fight back. Yes it makes it easier to gank someone not paying attention but well, tough luck. And yes it lowers the numbers needed for a gank, but it also gives a lot more of a chance for defenders to act. And that interaction is the important thing.

Sure they still 'can' bring 20 ships and just blow you up instantly, but then it's massive overkill and far less efficient than if they do it with 2 or 4. And you get to feel smug that they were that scared of you they felt the need to overkill

You can already actually fight back. It's called doing the same thing as they do. i.e. getting friends or alts.

I suggest that you're quite mistaken about the scale of organization attackers have to do compared to defenders. If gank defenders could organize on the same scale that gankers do (And that's not a matter of game tools, it's a matter of social cooperation) Then we would agree that there would be a lot less industrials/freighters exploding.

They already nerf multi-boxer enough to where it is pretty difficult to gank with 5+ alts.

It works both ways.

Haulers often use multibox ALTS to scout their route or web a freighter into warp. Jump freighters require cynos and this will usually be a multibox ALT.

Other haulers play the probabilities - launching several freighters on autopilot before going to work or sleep. A bulkhead fit freighter with less than 1 billion in cargo is not a profitable gank and there are no tears to harvest so these ships have a very high probability of arriving safely at destination. You will experience an occasional loss but so what - as long as most get through and the business is profitable.

I think multiboxing for this or mining ops is not a problem.

However I do have a problem when a self-proclaimed pvper "only" needs 2+ to shoot at one boat.

You can read all those almost sad sob stories about the poor sov alliances with only 845729566415614835 members that never have content and stuff.

When I go out there and a "resonse" to 4x frigate is 3x sooper dooper, 6 carrier, 5 dreads, 8 hictors... accumulating to 190 accounts in the system you ventured to, you have to think why they don't want you there.

The "statement" is clear, "never do this again", so I don't.

So just be quiet you "poor" souls and rethink your ways.

...It's like people don't understand that unless player have massive grudge against you, they won't be your content if you keep curb-stomping them...

You know that you could ruin the ganker's day by using an alt to shoot a ship to trip concord so the response time was effectively 0 seconds?

Or, you know, just use an alt in a duel to web the ship so it enters warp almost instantly, with no sec status hit, lost ship, ect...

I'd remove the "Gank" in the thread title because what you're describing is not exclusive to ganking but applies to all forms of multiboxing where most or all chars do the same activity. The actual problem is that many activities require very little interactivity which makes multiboxing them possible in the first place or even bearable/interresting for many people (think mining e.g.).

So, fixing them would require them to be more interactive which in turn would cost CCP a lot of subs. It would at least be risky for CCP to do that and tbh, I think it's way too late for that.

what I see is exploiting a feature of this game beyond what I think CCP had originally intended.

So far, no one has really come up with reasons on why ganking with an excessive number of mutlboxed should be left unaddressed when I can give several on why it should be addressed.

You see incorrectly. Both suicide ganking and the use of alts have been in the game since the beginning. The only "issue" here is that stupid and/or lazy players are not immune to ganking. IOW, everything working as it should.



That's because your whole idea is a solution in need of a problem. You haven't provided a convincing argument that a problem exists in the first place. You haven't even defined what "excessive" means, or why we should consider that number "excessive" instead of "normal". And the only benefit you've managed to come up with in defense of your idea is that stupid people will get ganked less often, which most of us consider a bad thing.

So far, no one has really come up with reasons on why ganking with an excessive number of mutlboxed should be left unaddressed when I can give several on why it should be addressed.

Actually you haven't provided a single reason, other than your hunch, that they may not have intended this.

I don't think you realize to what extend CCP intended multiboxing. There are mining fleets with 100 chars out there, all controlled by a single guy, full incursion fleets, also controlled by a single guy. The few ganking multiboxers with their 10-15 chars are actually small fry. CCP regularly sells their "power of 2" packages to encourage multiboxing. You are even allowed to use buddy links to sub additional accounts and reap the benefits. There are even game mechanics that require you to multibox if you want to get anything done or want adhere to one of the core principles of this game: trust noone. So it's a bit far-fetched to claim that they didn't intend this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend multiboxing wrt. ganking or otherwise. I'm just telling you how it is. On the contrary, I think that multiboxing makes meaningful balancing of many aspects of this game impossible, as any imposed consequences for an action can be made irrelevant by adding more alts to the mix. That's why we'll never see any meaningful consequences or balance in ganking (or wardeccing e.g.) and any discussion about it is actually a collossal waste of time, as alts/multiboxing blow any consequences out of the water.

*snip.*

But in hi sec its a problem especially when used in systems that are bottlenecks and the result is when trade gets restricted.

but that single player who runs 8, 10 or 15 catalysts and basically shuts down the whole system for hours on end and for days.

Go to Uedema and spend a few hours there for a couple of days to find out for yourself.

I think it all goes back to the original problem with EVE and that is the gate system.

However the solution is as I posted above, not a change to multiboxing rules or possibilities, but extending the gank timer which means simply pressing 2 buttons and waiting 15 seconds is not all that is involved in a gank, but actually several minutes of fight.
I.E. More interaction, more decisions, better game play (normally)

Anyone running multi boxing on that level is almost certainly using input broadcasting which is now banned.

Just what problem is that? Gates create choke points that players are forced to pass through, which means there are opportunities for interaction. The fact that you can't AFK autopilot a freighter packed full of high-value cargo through the gate system and expect to survive doesn't mean that there's a problem.

There is a sticky thread elsewhere already just on multiboxing, so I want to avoid this thread getting locked by addressing what I see is exploiting a feature of this game beyond what I think CCP had originally intended.

So far, no one has really come up with reasons on why ganking with an excessive number of mutlboxed should be left unaddressed when I can give several on why it should be addressed.

This is not a viable solution, at all. You can't just magically make ganking take longer without any consequences. If you buff freighter/transport HP you make those ships much harder to kill everywhere else (for example, when caught on a gate in 0.0 where none of those timers are relevant but reinforcements might be nearby). And by extending the time before CONCORD kills the ganker you make it much easier to gank combat ships. Suddenly those mission boats that aren't currently profitable to gank become much more appealing targets since it's a lot cheaper to kill them. And you can't buff HP on combat ships to counter the longer CONCORD delay without completely destroying balance everywhere besides suicide ganking.

1. Freighters on a Null gate, BWAHAHAAHA. Also, and? Why is this a bad thing. It causes a good fight rather than a gank, Isn't that what people want. Though really it's still going to just be a gank in 99% of cases.

2. Combat ships being more at risk of a gank, why is this a bad thing? It makes the transition into low sec more fluid since people are used to the idea they might have to fight, and well, Combat ships can fight back. Also pretty much the only ships worth ganking will be the ones that are already profitable to gank. And there are gankers who operate vs combat ships already.

It's just a hypothetical example (where I didn't say "freighter" specifically), the only point of it being in 0.0 is that CONCORD and sentry fire are not relevant. Feel free to replace it with any alternative: attacking a mining op, etc. The point is that massively increasing ship HP has balance effects far beyond just suicide ganking. For example, your new buffed-HP transports might become ideal cyno ships because of their sheer durability.



It's a bad thing because your plan, which is intended to make ganking harder, makes ganking significantly easier. Right now most combat ships are immune to ganking unless you load them down with high-end faction modules. To kill a T2-fit mission ship before CONCORD arrives requires too many gank ships to make a profit. But if CONCORD is slow enough for your proposal to work suddenly you can profitably gank those cheap-fit ships. You effectively shut down all PvE content above level 2-3 missions in T1 fit newbie cruisers because pretty much any ship can be profitably ganked.

1. I'm not proposing they get buffed anywhere beyond what a combat ship of their size can get.

But ACTIVE tank changes survivability in a 2 minute fight far more than a 15 second fight.

But none of that makes them any better than using a real combat ship for a cyno.

My goal is to make ganking require more attention to each account used, to increase interaction and change it from being a simple maths exercise to actually being a fight.

And no, those T2 fit mission runners can't be profitably ganked, because active fit and virtually no value in their drops.

100dps active tank * 15 seconds, 1500 EHP.
100dps active tank * 120 seconds. 12,000 EHP.
Maths, proving you don't understand a thing.

Also you don't have to *8 the EHP anyway. Because gankers will bring less to the table in order to be efficient, which means you aren't taking as much DPS, which means your active tank actually works better.

you also totally have no clue of the theoretical value of modules at which a mission BS is already gankable,

and if all they care about is the hatemail, they can gank you right now while being heavily isk positive.

Tic-toc, tic-toc.

Changes are coming.

I'm honored. A whole thread for me? You shouldn't have.

Maybe you should get on my level and multibox your own 24 accounts. I don't know what stupid ship you lost, but I'm willing to bet if you had a 15 character support fleet running alongside it you'd have been just fine.

Merin with her cloaky covert frieghter.

We'd see a lot of hi sec systems effectively get shut down at choke points and it would overwhelm any efforts by AG, for example to contain this style of game play.

I hate being proven right, but I don't mind saying "I told you so" when correct. So, I'm for your continued play style even if to the point people start quitting (which could happen). Then CCP might do something about it.

I hate being proven right, but I don't mind saying "I told you so" when correct. So, I'm for your continued play style even if to the point people start quitting (which could happen). Then CCP might do something about it.

Tic-toc, tic-toc.

Changes are coming.

lolwut.

are you talking about the player built stargates?

you really think this is going to prevent ganking in any way shape or form?

in all likelyhood these things are going to be the replacement for the current cynobridge mechanic (afaik the last mechanic left to be replaced on a Pos before they can be removed) if thats the case then they will also be limited to null sec.

even if they DO allow these things to be anchored and used in HS. it still won't change anything, because they will still be expensive to put up and maintain, and are essentially a gigantic "hey come shoot my things" sign.

your willing to put the time, effort, and isk into setting up a corp, training the skills to anchor the thing, buy the structure, fuel the structure regularly, place it somewhere that its not going to get instantly wardecced. do it all a second time at or near your destination.... and yet you can't be bothered to run a webbing alt or a scout?

and what does that have anything to do with the topic at hand? multi-boxed ganking happens, but is much rarer than large fleets of independent gankers. are you suggesting that they all be banned as well?

maybe ccp should institute a rule that there can't be more than x number of players on grid at any one time, set up instanced zones so that you can mine and haul in peace. because from the sounds of it, thats the only solution that would actually appeal to you.

If this style of game play causes player attrition CCP will make changes. That's my point. Take it out to low or null sec, not in hi sec. Knock it off and prove me wrong, but keep it up and prove me right.

CCP looked into this and found ganking causes people to stay longer than those who are not involved in pvp at all.

Wat?