jodgi

No, listen to me: "You have the BALLS to sail alone!". Not everyone dares, but you do... 😉

Expect to be super-ganked, it will happen. Good fights happen too, some people do have the balls or the crazy to go in alone.

I don't mean to be Captain Obvious, but try to get your marks in the patrol zone. You don't have to be a superstar to get some damage done. Cap a ship, buy a ship or craft one. Go to the zone to die for at least 3 marks. You can hit bots too if you have little time.

Yes, we know... See things your way or GTFO.

I want challenging and even hard fight against good players. I light up when rediii, Ram Dinark and players of that caliber show up, especially alone. Yesterday Ram outplayed me severely, it was a good night. I'm not too fussy (any longer) by which mechanics the fight happens as long as it happens. I'm almost completely disenchanted by the hunt as it's a bunch of running 9 out of 10 times. People say that wolves don't want to fight wolves. There must be different kinds of wolves because even with the current sub-optimal patrol zone setup I keep meeting top dogs there.

Yes, it could be an argument against a truly safe zone. You're just postponing and possibly even compounding a problem. Maybe that's where the idea of partially safe zones came from? No safety too harsh, full safety weakens the mind, so to speak. I don't have the wisdom to decide between no, partial or full safety. Anecdote: I was hit by a Swede gank squad just on the edge of our reinforcement zone. I saw I wouldn't be able to escape them or beat them, so I concentrated on dragging them into my zone. I paid attention to wind (duh) and used counter tag to avoid a too unfavorable start. Because of neutral to slightly favorable wind and my reinforcement bots I only had to deal with two hercs while their big consorts beat upwind while being annoyed by my big clickbots. One of the hercs broke off to avoid sinking and the other didn't feel like fighting my vanilla frigate alone so I was soon left alone to escape upwind. I left them entangled with my leeward bots (that is punishment worse than sinking, but I know I'm special in that regard). The current reinforcement zone works great for me, but I don't truly want it or need it. I will admit that anything that makes life hard for these 5 guys+ ganksquads in capital waters feels like a good feature. So you're saying that sandbox games attract weak minds while shitty mobas foster people who push through and learn (to a greater extent)? You will call me facetious, but that is the natural implication of what you said. In mobas normal players lose more than half their battles but thousands of concurrent players keep at it. (It's so tempting to take one of my habitual jabs at the greatness of loss mechanic right now, but I kinda promised to refrain.)

You'd have to spell it out to me. I'm only familiar with the baby Solomon threatened to cut in half to identify the true mother, I fail to make any NA connections so it must be some other Solomon?

Good post @Liq. I can't vote because I don't know if one or the other truly is, as we say: "Good for the game". "It works in EVE" is not an argument that wins me over, in fact it just makes me highly suspicious. I'll be diplomatic and say that EVE is not a game for me. I could vote for absolute safe zones as big as can be, but that's just because I'm tired of listening to people asking, begging and whining to get them. I'm also in continuous mild shock over vet players going to capitals to prey on the weak almost like they're content with it. "But that's where everyone are, jodgi!". That pushes me into the annoying observation that if everyone hides from loss why do we pretend to love loss? I'm in good spirits today so we won't go there. In my heart I'm more like this: Btw, Heth, how does it feel to be in line with Doran and Kaos? Highly self serving but I'm a believer in a competitive (anti gank) patrol zone (ish) thing. I want to fight people who want to fight. I imagine a functional patrol zone that attracts fighters and partially relieves the so called noobs around capitals. It won't fully relieve capital zones because this is a full loss sandbox and there will always be plenty of guys who prefer to scumbag easy kills over proper fights.

Gotcha

That's not how I remember the game before mods were introduced. (Or: I don't understand, please explain)

List of speed changes.

I like how a new ship has got the old grumpy serious face posters out all squeeling like little girls. Well, ok, no... But it sounds more fun like that.

I'm ok with that (I don't know if less or more protection is "good for the game") I'm a pro-choice guy 😉. I just don't want bots dry-humping me, is all.

Oh, we can, that's not our problem. Like many have pointed out; It's just a waste of time. We've tried this before, it's not theorycrafting. It's as fun as a biathlon penalty lap.

If people want the option to enjoy large bot pile-ons; More power to them! If bots start to waste my time in OW I will get very grumpy.

I really hope you're right as that would kill off the "DLC ships ruined the game" argument.

Yes, I gave up on the quality of PvP a long time ago. Doran and Kaos did tell me that sandbox=gankbox but I hadn't tried such a game before so I went "pfft... Naww". The upcoming duel tournaments could end up good unless loss and mods does a number on it like with OW. I also have hope that patrol zones could be a sanctuary from ganks.

What about good suggestions trying to generate more pvp? I'm not happy with neither quantity nor quality regarding pvp in OW.

What does "enough PVP" mean?

Heh, brutal honesty. If we get our way with the patrol zones "gank or be ganked" will be blocked. You're free to enjoy the prime sandbox content "gank or be ganked" on 99% of the PvP server forever.

Knock yourself out, man. Must be nice to be content with so little substance.

Now I like you forever! Listen, later on when they get time to look at patrol zone we might get lucky and get fair'ish fights (anti-gank roe). I place an inordinate amount of hope in that. Weekly duels will be challenging and fun, but I worry about how that will work due to the intention to include mods and loss.

Maybe the upcoming rework will do wonders? This is perfectly fine and even sounds good to me. However much I try I can't put all the variables into my head, work them and pretend to reach a valid conclusion. With that disclaimer out of the way I have questions about eco vs. pvp that are not combative in nature. The sum of the questions can be formulated as "How do we get people to play the victim?" It seems to me people do the darndest things to avoid that: Buy dlc, hide in reinforcement zone, hide in remote corners, gank instead of being ganked, tp and fleet loopholes or "exploits", rage-quit, normal-quit and the list goes on, I'm sure. The one thing the listed items have in common is that they affect pvp negatively, either quality or frequency. Marks do feel forced and artificial as opposed to what you outline. They became a thing because of the sad state of pvp. They've been a success as far as pvp frequency goes, but I'm open to pvp quality going down, up or sideways Same goes for dlc ships. Yay, quantity! But what about quality? Open and honest question: If you picture the perfect NA economy; Can such a thing exist without it being a chore? I'm aware the question is loaded but this is me asking. You already said you don't want it to be a chore, but how would that work? If you role-play the captain it's weird that you have to worry about shipyard, resources and money in big enough chunks to build a ship from scratch. I could twist the above quote as a defense for dlc ships. Don't comment on this, here's the talking point I'm getting at: "For eco to work in a global game sense (all but) every player has to assume the role of admiral/minister with responsibilites touching the national budget or at least navy budget. We can't have pure navy career captains who only worry about shot, repair, refit and crew cost." Clans can easily make this happen but I'm apprehensive about the "clan up or gtfo" implication.

Well, I haven't played anything but MMO's for many years, NA is the first with eco and loss. You may define MMO as including role-play, eco, crafting and full-loot loss, but not everyone does. Found a tongue-in-cheek definition on urbandictionary I'll include for unrelated shits and giggles: When I first heard about eco/crafting I thought it sounded really cool on paper. Then I saw what it does to the collective player psychology and wasn't amused. I understand what you guys mean when you say it brings "depth and meaning" to the gaming experience, I even agree that it does, but it takes away so much from the things that I enjoy. Think in terms of "one step forward, ten leaps back". Even without eco we would have ganking, noob-bashing, capital waters cherry picking and general timidness, it's just multiplied with full loss and the need to grind for pvp gear. I know I'm the antichrist to eco lovers and I happily accept the role as a punching bag. Ofcourse I want legends back! No need to nag incessantly about stuff not on the table for the time being. I have a different opinion of what "base NA" is. I don't want to force anyone. In a perfect silly world I'd say people should be able to pvp all day, port click all day or swing role as they like. I understand the eco makes that impossible because stuff breaks for you guys when ships are easy to get, the doesn't lead me to be angry at the dlc ships but I direct my irritation towards eco. You really think it's hypocrisy? I thought I was abundantly clear and consistent.

Heh, naive old me started to ask for premium ships two years ago because I never enjoyed any of the eco and crafting everyone professed to love so. I don't need the role-play esque suspension of disbelief layer also called "meaning" and "loss" to enjoy the fighting. I know others do and that's fine. So there I was thinking I'm the odd one out. Maybe there were others like me? At least I thought so. If a few fun-loving fighters got a way to enjoy the game without any of the pointless boredom, what harm could it do? All the loud eco/craft lovers would surely continue engaging in their most important gameplay and keep on hauling, port-clicking and all that stuff that makes the game worth playing? Are there in fact too many guys like me who only eco/craft if forced to?