The problem with Concord

I wrote that in highsec you must tank to enjoy the protection of Concord. Today we’ll see why it is a bad design.

EVE is (supposed to be) a PvP game. Yet, in highsec where the new players without outside connection start their life is punishing PvP. No, I don’t mean you’ll be Concorded for ganking. I mean that you are punished for trying to defend yourself. Every damage, damage projection or EWAR (except ECM) mod you put on your ship decreases your chance to win an encounter. If you did 99% damage to the enemy and Concord did just 1%, you did nothing, as Concord would have killed it in the exact same moment anyway. Your combat mods just wasted slots, PG and CPU for more useful modules, namely tanking. The optimal way of winning against a ganker is having just a whoring mod and max tank. This teaches new players against proper PvP fitting. In other words, Highsec is fundamentally different from all other zones and mastering Highsec mechanics gives you no help in other zones. It’s a common problem in MMOs: the leveling game is very different from the endgame.

The necessity of some Highsec anti-aggression mechanic is obvious: a new player (without external help) would be completely devastated without it. However this mechanic should help him defend himself instead of simply doing it for him, without his contribution. Teach them to fish instead of giving them fish! Also, the rigid barrier between lowsec and highsec should be changed. A 0.5 system is more similar to a 1.0 than to a 0.4 and this shouldn’t stay.

To fix it, let me suggest a much better Concord mechanic that applies to all of empire (1.0-0.1):

• If you attack someone without kill right, wardec, awox or him being criminal/suspect, you get GCC (currently in lowsec you only get suspect) the length of GCC varies with sec status, 2.5 mins for every 0.1 (so 2:30 in 0.1, 5 mins in 0.2 … 25 in 1.0).
• During GCC, unless you are in a pod, you are afflicted by “Concord beam”. This is the only NPC effect, there are no Concord or Faction Police ships (Faction Navy that responds to low faction standings stays)
• The Concord beam makes you unable to warp, dock, take a gate or jump
• The Concord beam places a beacon on you that anyone can warp to. The name of the beacon contains the name of the hull you are flying, for example “Criminal Catalyst”. There is a new interface element that informs you about crimes in the region you are in, so anti-criminals can quickly take gates to arrive to a crime location.
• Similarly to the incursion effect, the Concord beam decreases the damage of the afflicted player and his shield armor and hull resists. The decrease effect is 9% for every 0.1 sec status (so in 1.0 the ganker does 1/10 of his normal damage)
• Gate and station guns are not changed, which means greatly increased incoming DPS due to decreased player resists
• The only difference between highsec and lowsec is that you can’t cyno in 0.5 and above.

This new Concord mechanic wouldn’t kill an unlawful attacker but would make him significantly weaker, allowing the attacked party and whoever in system to fight against him when normally wouldn’t have a chance. This new mechanic would encourage players to defend themselves and each other. Having a group would be beneficial instead of just increased risk due to corp thefts, awoxes and wardecs. PvE ops would require support combat ships. This way a new player would learn to fight for himself and would be able to move lower and lower security systems as his abilities grow.

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A player can dream:

• Cruisers have “rapid” anti-frigate missiles
• In Rubicon battleships will get “rapid” anti-cruiser missiles
• Can Phoenix dreads get “rapid” anti-battleship missiles?

The moron of the day is without doubt Hitamino. He is a kind of white knight. I wrote "kind of" because he is way worse than ordinary white knights and his activity is mostly restricted to trolling. In this picture you can see him celebrating that the WGBWC member "ragelogged". 15 mins later, when GCC was up, his rage must have subsided because he relogged and finished the gank.

Let me share a miner story:

1. 3 Mackinaws, an Orca and an Obelisk are mining in a belt.
2. Bad gankers come, a Mack dies. Pod lives because mistakes were made.
3. 2 Mackinaws, a pod, an Orca and an Obelisk are mining in a belt.
4. Bad ganker comes, 1B pod dies.
5. 2 Mackinaws, an Orca and an Obelisk are mining in a belt.
6. Bad gankers come, a Mack and a 1B pod dies.
7. A Mackinaw, an Orca and an Obelisk are mining in a belt.
8. Bad gankers come, a Mack and a 2.3B pod dies.
9. An Orca and an Obelisk are still mining in a belt unless Team Security had time to process my report.

A beautiful anti-tear:
Wait, there are more anti-tears, this time in pastebin, local chat.