Highsec mercs don't like me. At first Marmite leader Tora Bushido got mad that I wasn't satisfied with their "service" and hired Deadly Fingertips. However he would let this "offense" slip away if I'd pay him more than just wardec costs. Then Forsaken Asylum member Seraph IX Basarab tried to bully me into paying for their "service" and got mad when I published his wonderful activity.
They both believe that as they are mercenaries doing me a service, they should be properly paid, not just for the wardecs. Sounds logical, right? Well, then explain these: 7122M, 590M, 773M, 1061M, 1315M, 1061M, 1316M, 635M, 678M, 735M, 511M, 745M, 670M, 7163M, 6869M, 529M!
These are just the 500M+ kills, they caught crap too, 17B CFC was killed by The Marmite Collective in February when I didn't pay them and 28B by Forsaken Asylum. I wonder who paid for these? It's easy to tell from the variety of targets: nobody! While it's possible that someone is mad at Goons, but who else than me would pay you to attack The Initiative, TNT, SMA, PBLRD for 1-2 weeks?! The mercenaries themselves coughed up the wardec costs. Of course not for all CFC members and permanently, they can't afford that. But if they saw an SMA freighter, they quickly decced SMA for a week.
It seems the truth is not "you must pay wardec + salary for us to attack CFC" what they tried to sell me. It's "we are deccing them from our own pocket when it's not empty and work for free!" Of course I'm not surprised. Remember that I analyzed Marmite vs CFC in 2013 before I hired them for permawars and found that their wars are up and down. However you don't need any analysis to understand what's going on, just have to answer one question: If freighter piloted by a total stranger goes suspect in a "highsec mercenary" gatecamp, will they shoot it or let it pass?
The answer is obvious, but important. By answering "shoot it", we established that highsec mercenaries gladly shoot anybody. Real mercenaries would only shoot people they are paid to shoot. For them it's a moneymaking activity: if the red cross pays no bounty, the ratter won't bother. But they aren't mercenaries are they? They are PvP-ers who roleplay mercenaries, because it sounds cool and because this way they can make some ISK on the side. But the main reason of their existence is that they want to kill ships and the ISK is just icing on the cake.
Now if they were honest about themselves, they'd be happy for a free wardec which is essentially making all the freighters belonging to the targets suspect. But they used that "we are mercenaries" line too long and believed it. Or they thought they could get some extra money from me. Anyway, the very opposite happened: CFC died (not much, but still) and I paid nothing.
I keep supporting Mordus Angels and Sorry we're in your space EH. One could tell that they would be fighting without support and it's true. However they couldn't pay for so much losses and would have to cut back on their operations, just like the "mercenaries" couldn't afford the wardecs. In highsec you have dec costs, in nullsec you have ship losses.
I don't make them fight CFC, I just enable them to do what they want but couldn't afford. So I did with Marmite until they got buttmad. Maybe "working" for negative wage (deccing from their own pocket) makes them think again.
PS: if stupidity would kill... oh wait, in EVE it can! DaveFoz lost a JF to Mordus, but didn't get any smarter. He choose to rat it back in a rat-resist carrier and lost it to interceptors. And his idiocy is contagious.
PS2: The dev blog about the new Sov system is up. Actually, it's pretty good, except one element: the price of the Entosis Link module is low enough to allow "Entosis trolling". This is sending out lone, unsupported, throwaway ships to reinforce Sov structures or command nodes. If the defenders fail to respond, they lose the round. If the defenders respond, they get a kill report of a worthless ship. Because of it, individual defender pilots won't respond unless a director is yelling at them. The point is the extreme inequality of the two sides: the defenders risk their home, the attacker risks a throwaway ship. This can be fixed by increasing the price of the module to 2-500M, so the defenders have at least a shiny kill to bring home.
They both believe that as they are mercenaries doing me a service, they should be properly paid, not just for the wardecs. Sounds logical, right? Well, then explain these: 7122M, 590M, 773M, 1061M, 1315M, 1061M, 1316M, 635M, 678M, 735M, 511M, 745M, 670M, 7163M, 6869M, 529M!
These are just the 500M+ kills, they caught crap too, 17B CFC was killed by The Marmite Collective in February when I didn't pay them and 28B by Forsaken Asylum. I wonder who paid for these? It's easy to tell from the variety of targets: nobody! While it's possible that someone is mad at Goons, but who else than me would pay you to attack The Initiative, TNT, SMA, PBLRD for 1-2 weeks?! The mercenaries themselves coughed up the wardec costs. Of course not for all CFC members and permanently, they can't afford that. But if they saw an SMA freighter, they quickly decced SMA for a week.
It seems the truth is not "you must pay wardec + salary for us to attack CFC" what they tried to sell me. It's "we are deccing them from our own pocket when it's not empty and work for free!" Of course I'm not surprised. Remember that I analyzed Marmite vs CFC in 2013 before I hired them for permawars and found that their wars are up and down. However you don't need any analysis to understand what's going on, just have to answer one question: If freighter piloted by a total stranger goes suspect in a "highsec mercenary" gatecamp, will they shoot it or let it pass?
The answer is obvious, but important. By answering "shoot it", we established that highsec mercenaries gladly shoot anybody. Real mercenaries would only shoot people they are paid to shoot. For them it's a moneymaking activity: if the red cross pays no bounty, the ratter won't bother. But they aren't mercenaries are they? They are PvP-ers who roleplay mercenaries, because it sounds cool and because this way they can make some ISK on the side. But the main reason of their existence is that they want to kill ships and the ISK is just icing on the cake.
Now if they were honest about themselves, they'd be happy for a free wardec which is essentially making all the freighters belonging to the targets suspect. But they used that "we are mercenaries" line too long and believed it. Or they thought they could get some extra money from me. Anyway, the very opposite happened: CFC died (not much, but still) and I paid nothing.
I keep supporting Mordus Angels and Sorry we're in your space EH. One could tell that they would be fighting without support and it's true. However they couldn't pay for so much losses and would have to cut back on their operations, just like the "mercenaries" couldn't afford the wardecs. In highsec you have dec costs, in nullsec you have ship losses.
I don't make them fight CFC, I just enable them to do what they want but couldn't afford. So I did with Marmite until they got buttmad. Maybe "working" for negative wage (deccing from their own pocket) makes them think again.
PS: if stupidity would kill... oh wait, in EVE it can! DaveFoz lost a JF to Mordus, but didn't get any smarter. He choose to rat it back in a rat-resist carrier and lost it to interceptors. And his idiocy is contagious.
PS2: The dev blog about the new Sov system is up. Actually, it's pretty good, except one element: the price of the Entosis Link module is low enough to allow "Entosis trolling". This is sending out lone, unsupported, throwaway ships to reinforce Sov structures or command nodes. If the defenders fail to respond, they lose the round. If the defenders respond, they get a kill report of a worthless ship. Because of it, individual defender pilots won't respond unless a director is yelling at them. The point is the extreme inequality of the two sides: the defenders risk their home, the attacker risks a throwaway ship. This can be fixed by increasing the price of the module to 2-500M, so the defenders have at least a shiny kill to bring home.
13 comments:
Regarding the proposed sov change:
Well, the troll has to hit the structure during it's vulnerable period which, if the alliance was not brain dead, will be at their prime time.
For an alliance holding sov over a large area, trolling will be an issue. If the alliance is not bigger than it's britches, then I imagine we will see a good number of Procurers and Skiffs killing 20-80 million isk Ibises. Additionally, it would take a lone Ibis or interceptor 40 minutes to place the structure in reinforced.
I don't see the trolling as an issue for anyone except groups holding large amounts of space but with little activity in them. ie: groups like goonswarm are going to take this more in the pants than anyone else. Rental empires as well since they will need to keep someone on watch.
More likely the Ibis fitted with an Entosis module will also have a Cyno so they can bridge in ships to take out any responders. Not to take sov, but to generate fights.
"I don't see the trolling as an issue for anyone except groups holding large amounts of space but with little activity in them. ie: groups like goonswarm"
Except for the fact that unlike most powerblocks (and as gevlon continually goes to great lengths to point out) goonswarm actually use their space.
S Riojas, it's also a problem for smaller groups. This new system means that you can troll a group simply by hellcamping them for an hour or so while you take their system. You don't even then need to keep it, but you can take it forcing them to come back when you want. You can even set up a troll alliance with a window you can purposely move without affecting your real space to be when that alliance will not be available to fight back for it. On top of that, this change means that if for one day your group aren't available (christmas day for example), anyone can come and trash your space without even sweating.
"On top of that, this change means that if for one day your group aren't available (christmas day for example), anyone can come and trash your space without even sweating."
And they can even not bother with station, the most juicy target for troll is IHUB. Kill it, and they would loose any development, the sov index goes down, etc.
If someone in a throwaway ship can reinforce structures during primetime without response, do you really deserve that space?
Since entosis fitted ships are more likely to die since they can't warp off it would be really expensive to try and provoke fights if they were a hundred million.
Something to add as a follow up to my 2nd posting: Certainly this system can also make it easier for groups to harass small alliances trying to hold sov. However, those small groups currently do not hold their own sov.
Until there is a better suggestion how a small group can gain and hold sov without needing a large capital fleet to counter other capital fleets and that does not entail structure grinding, this is the best solution I have heard. As for concerns about station loss: never put all your eggs into one basket.
The main weak areas are: the 4 hour vulnerability period and that it should be increasingly difficult - as in a longer period for the reinforce based on usage before the FW aspect of complexes appear in the local constellation.
As for Goonswarm: sure, they have their ratting space and they will keep their ratting space. But it will be harder for them to keep their non-ratting space since it acts more as a buffer to their ratting space. I imagine Mordus Angels will spend a lot of time "hell camping" such areas and flipping/nullifying sov they could not have otherwise done without a heavy capital fleet.
This change allows the little guy to get into the action. It can be hard on the little guy, but at least now a determine little guy can get in.
@Raziel: Enthosis should be used to take sov, not "provoking fights"
You believe that "deserving space" means having to spend running around without any reward for 4 hours a day?
I think so.
What makes someone deserving of space? The ability to take it or the ability to keep/control it?
Why do people pvp? Fun? some do. Others need an excuse. Like the need to defend against an attacker.
If you think an attacker is not serious just let them reinforce your structure and recapture it two days later when he is gone.
If you let him reinforce, then 2 days later you have to whack-a-mole 10 command nodes. This isn't really an option.
My problem is that no PvP will happen, unless you consider popping an AFK T1 frig with only an Entosis module "PvP".
A: there will be trolling no doubts about it
B: it will also be used to create good fights
C: it will be used to give smaller groups an opportunity to invade null and over time create better and better content (short term blue'ing will be the thing).
but back to your merc issue, I asked the very same thing in en24 and got the response "well killing these ships really doesn't generate any income"
You have the main point right: A real merc would only shoot those they are payed to shoot, those that shoot at them first, and those that threaten their base of operations.
Basically, you're paying them isk to keep a war open with your targets. As long as there's nothing particularly more expensive about your target than some other target they'd kill, you could probably even find people willing to keep a war open for less than its cost.
As a side, how would the bounty system have to change so that you'd have an in-game way of managing this?
Its easy to explain.... contracts :P. You think you are the only one who doesn't like the CFC ? The last year people didnt need to hire us, because you were already doing it. Now this is over, people start to hire us again, but this time properly paid. We arent asking the jackpot, but we also wont work for leftovers. One of the contracts was even as allies on a war.
Remember that assumptions are the mother of all fuck-ups.
Tora
pff. Tora's comment just showed that Gevlon wasted several hundred billions on paying them way too much...
Post a Comment