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I Will Admit, I Do Not Understand

It is not an exploit if CCP has not deemed it to be an exploit. Yet, as I watched the latest Titan being bumped out of a POS I found myself not excited and thrilled but saddened. Somehow this thing that I was watching has been deemed okay. I'd love to say 'for now'. I hope that there is a 'for now' attached but I worry that is only hope.

I watched this. I was horrified. I watched this. I read this.

It looks like an exploit. It smells like an exploit. But, at the moment, it is not an exploit. I cannot, at this time, wrap my mind around why it is okay other than the fact that it has said to be okay. If someone came to me and said, "Hey Sug, let's go bump this thing out of its shields from outside of the shields," I'd assume that I would pick up a ban.

But not today. Not for this. Not for some reason.

Somewhere at the core I guess I can blame the POS code. I could blame the water physics of the game. I could blame the fact that spaceships are really circles with a pretty graphic in the middle. But blame isn't going to fix anything. Only a rule or a rework of some mechanic.

Can I expect people to self moderate themselves? With the recent drama going about, the answer appears to be no. In an ideal world of grape and strawberry skittles, the answer would be yes. In reality, as long as people can use something they will use it.

But what I find truly soul crushing is the outcome of this. With the mechanic not an exploit the groups that can use this will use this on each other. They will use it and push it and try to get CCP to come down as an exploit or change some aspect of the mechanics involved. Instead of decisive action now, we will have forced action after a trail of spaceship carnage exists. It will further damage faith in CCP. It will further reinforce the idea that the only way to get something changed is to abuse it until the change is forced.

How can I stand there and say people are wrong when they prove themselves right? I can say that there are other ways. There are, but those ways will be diminished. Rage and rampaging will seem to be more successful then reasoning and and waiting. Even if they do not they will seem to. And how would I be able to prove otherwise?

I suspect I know where the eventual outcome will go. I dislike the view of that future.

But everything must have a start. And in this, I have and will voice my opinion.


  1. You can blame the POS code, but the real problem is, and always has been, the bumping mechanic. It is the most problematic, bullshit mechanic in the game.

    1. Sadly true. Ships should at least take damage from being struck (proportional to the momentum of the ship hitting them). Also, I somehow feel like the bumping is off anyway, seeing as frigates can bump orcas significantly without even going that fast. Probably has something to do with the inertial modifier unbalancing ship masses.

    2. Yes. Bumping as implemented is a stupid mechanic; it actually is actually ramming. The outcome should be damage to the involved ships, Moving a ship should be done via tractor beams sufficient to the task.

  2. Sugar, read up on the Goonswarm Forex/FW shenanigans (if you haven't already). The reputation CCP has of ignoring issues until a public outcry or mass use/abuse forces their hand, is a well earned one

  3. In order for people to have faith in an entity like CCP, they need to establish a world where right is right, and wrong is wrong. They need to be clear, consistent, and relentless in application of policy. They need absolute rules.

    That flies in the face of the world we live in. We live in a world of moral relativism. That's the world that crafts the players who play this game. Without those firm guidelines, people will exploit any advantage they can get. There is no restraint because human nature has no restraint.

    CCP needs to realize they can create whatever rules and conditions they want in their world. Until they do, they're paying for idleness today with outrage tomorrow.

    1. Couldn't have said it better myself... Though I do feel that CCP often lets the player base define the rules and only steps in when the fire gets too big to impact subscriptions...

  4. Itès very sad because this is what's going to happen. Now that there is a green light on it, it will be abused to hell and back, and in the end CCP is going to come out and say to everyone to cut the crap, stop doing it, or else. This is how this usually happens. What frustrates me to no end is that we can't just jump straight to the "Don't do it, this is an exploit" and have to sit through the bullshit abuse of the "mechanic" every damn time, even when it's obvious where this is going.

    Sometimes CCP just doesn't learn.

  5. If I may ask a naive question . . .

    At appears that, for the moment at least, CCP is calling this new version of POS Bowling a feature rather than an exploit. If it’s to be a feature, one presumes it has some redeeming value. Anybody know what that redeeming value is?

  6. You ought to understand CCP: adding infinite mass to logged off Titans within a POS shield would be too difficult.

    1. Or sentry drones that don't move 1m/s because 'Hey, we're still a drone!' All problems of that massive entity system they showed off last fanfest...

  7. Could someone link the article/forum post where it was green-lit? It's not mentioned here. All I see is the exploit itself, but no official word from CCP either way.

  8. Sugar, why do think this is not considered to be an exploit? This was officially covered here a while back, so any method of bumping a ship in a POS while outside without having the password is an exploit. With your position with the CSM, perhaps you could raise with CCP why they aren't enforcing the ruling they made themselves?

  9. "The bottom line is that it's down to members of the community to know where the line crosses from common gameplay mechanics to exploit. We will not draw a line in the sand so that people can skirt on the edge of it and bend the rules as much as possible."

    edited CCP Falcon quote above to fit this situation.
    Allowed today, retroactively banned tomorrow. Or not. As long as nobody else gets banned for this behaviour you can always take the gamble and engage in the activity yourself, (then yell at CCP afterwards if you get banned).

    But no worries, the invaders are putting their titans at 'considerable risk'.

  10. Thank you for taking this fight. I also disagree with the POS bowling mechanic. In fact I'm not a big fan of bumping in general since there is no damage to either ship. If you're in a POS shield you should be safe no matter what. I would also like to see the mechanic changed such that a frigate bumping a battleship would essentially do very little due to mass differences.

  11. how difficult would it be to add a feature to a POS which essentially parks your ship, I find it hard to believe that CCP doesn't have the tools to create make an entity unbumpable

  12. It IS an exploit... the Reddit link even has the link to the specific Exploit Notification and quotes the specific language.

    The ONLY detail that could be argued at all is that, as you said, our ships are "actually" round balls in space with a 3-D picture of a ship 'inside' the ball... so the "picture" may show as fully inside the POS Shield when the actual round ball that the game 'sees' as the ship is not... hence allowing you to bump the 'ship' because in reality it is not actually 'inside' the POS FF.

    As far as I am concerned, this needs to be addressed specifically by CCP and I hope you will bring this to their attention. Human beings rely on what our senses tell us... if we SEE a "ship" fully INSIDE a POS FF then the game should treat it as FULLY inside the POS FF. Then and only then will this exploit be removed from the game.

    Exploit Notification:

    to whit:
    "Bumping ships, that are located WITHIN password protected starbase force-fields, out of the force-field from outside without having the correct password or corporation/alliance permissions as configured in the tower settings, is considered an exploit."
    (bold emphasis mine TE)

    CCPs "recommendation" to avoid this exploit (instead of fixing it) is to use an X-Large Ship Maintenance Array. Which does not fix the case where the capitol ship is a guest at another corps POS and for other reasons of gameplay.

  13. I may not have all the facts straight, as I'm getting the information second and third hand from other EVE sites, but it seems that CCP has begun reimbursing some of these titan losses and giving permabans for at least one pilot who used this tactic.

    Now, I am all for having this issue declared an exploit and officially off limits, but we need some consistency from CCP. If it's true that they are permabanning players who used this tactic during the time that CCP had said it was not an exploit, then that is a really bad move on CCP's part. You can't tell players that something is allowed, and then punish them for doing it. That's a surefire way to lose the trust of your customers and destroy the brand.

    Again, I don't know how certain or reliable the information is that I've been reading, but if true it is very disturbing. There are several issues that have come up late (generally in regards to player behavior) in which for many valid reasons CCP is unable to draw a clear line as to what is allowed and what is not. This issue is not one of them. This is a simple mechanics question, and there should be no ambiguity as to whether it is allowed or not, and players should be able to be easily informed as to whether their actions are within or against the rules in a way which will get them banned from the game. And if players had been told that their actions were within the rules at the time those actions were made, then CCP should not be handing out punishments retroactively.


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