What is a gank?

[Dratai]

I think I agree with the fact that gank certainly makes more sense if you're talking about specifically targeting people in a negative manner.

It's one thing if you show up with a gunboat to camp a newbie or someone in mid ship setup (see: starting starflea) and expecting them to have fun if they don't know where to escape to (even though they likely will if they know where to go, still unfun).

But I have seen both since I returned a few weeks ago and the prior times I played, some people logging specifically to join a fight that's in progress and, for an arbitrary understanding of 'fair' becomes not so the moment 3 more snubs starts shooting on you. It does suck the willingness for some people to go places where they might run into people if the risk isn't just a /1 /2 fight but a guaranteed pvp death by a thousand cuts.

That said: I consider, at least from a viewpoint of what's less likely to make people stop playing aka avoiding a gank: +/- 1-2 players (depending on how many are in the fight) variance in favour of either team feels 'fair' even if the skill level is uneven. We're a roleplaying community so if I, as the losing, outnumbered side, felt like I had an option to at least roleplay my way out of the fight OR am given an option where I can at least see myself winning, ignoring whether I know the players outclass me or not, then a defeat isn't going to make me just drop the game for a week or more out of frustration. now, I'm likely quite 'chill' about defeat so my measuring stick is different, as with everyone and we can't really adjust for that.

But that's the thing, people will be frustrated, but will they be:
1) frustrated because they don't know anything about piloting a transport and fighting in turret view
or
2) frustrated because they came out of a jumpgate/jumphole into squad that outclasses in firepower (all things being equal but number of guns) them who send them back 20 minutes of fly time with no profit on their dinky little freighter because they entered a more or less neutral system?

Kind of extreme but yeah, if you're flying around in a squad, you're looking for encounters, if you then pick a fight it's more or less on you (the squad) to make sure your behaviour doesn't make people give up on the game (especially the newbies but harder to divine who is or who isn't).
It would also help then, that the defenders don't bring like, 2x players (has happened to all of us, on occasion) just to continuously gun down a group, but if it's spread out, then I'd say it's the aggressor's move to stay there.

Basically everyone has a choice, any fight even if they're a little bit uneven isn't really grounds for calling it a gank until every available player drops their stuff to go pewpew and -that- fight ends up massively skewed (raidlogging to the extreme, rather than just backup)

But yeah this is one of those things that's harder to gauge if we start taking into account skill levels, especially since it's an inherent risk in playing the game.

Not super helpful but TL;DR:
I think ganking is only ganking if you do it in a way that is pretty much guaranteed to ruin someone's time because it'll feel like you're going out of your way to kick them while they're down.
Someone being salty just for a loss in a situation where they could have a shot is not the same thing.

But it's also very much an opinion thing. So I understand why there's a push to try and tone it down a little at times/regulate it for the sake of player retention.

That's my angle though.

There'll never be a way to make any moderation on it pleasing to everyone but personally I think as long as I get more interactions I don't mind stopping and chatting (and maybe getting blasted to bits) as long as I don't run into /1 /2 memers hitting my crummy 3.6k ship with 3+ snubs at the same time. Like sure, there's a draw for PvP inRP for a lot of people but if that's how everything plays out each time, people are going to take longer and longer breaks.

So while I don't think logging to rebalance a fight should happen, it's also a little on the groups with the (clear) advantage to make sure they don't kick players too hard if they still want to have people to interact with- that's just sensible.

For the same If disco was real and the pirates managed to pirate everything in a region with abandon and no trader made a profit, they'd no longer have traders run through their zones. Or there'd be no more traders. Basically as a tip: "don't over exploit your farmland"

That got a bit long so I'll shut up now. xD

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