I found some
commentary on one of my old videos of an encounter that's still relevant to this never ending discussion.
Quite a few people at the time considered my CMDR the 'ganker' there, despite being outnumbered three-to-one and having been yanked out of SC via interdiction and then scanned without his consent. My CMDR
was wanted, but the bounty (as mentioned by
@Screemonster here) was originally accidental. After acquiring it my CMDR had simply continued participating in the CG as normal, only destroying CMDR who tried to claim, or looked like they might try to claim, his bounty.
As the Reddit thread hints at, quite a few people were positively
incensed that I would have my CMDR would fire upon ships for interdicting and scanning him and I believe the leader of the wing I shot down actually quit the game shortly after. I am positive people blocked my CMDR after watching or hearing about this encounter (where I was scrupulously polite, aside from the weapons fire).
Anyway, my point here is that there is no amount of bending over backwards that is going to satisfy everyone, probably not even the majority of people, who believe there is a 'ganker problem'. No amount of accommodation is enough for that subset of the player base. There were as significant number of people who thought (and I know this because they told me) that my CMDR should have fled the CG, or that I should have retired to Solo, or that I should have
suicidewindered (which was an actual cheat as far as I was concerned), or that I should have just let someone claim his bounty. Obviously, I thought these suggestions were contextless, immersion defying, and utterly absurd to the point of being offensive. So, I participated in the CG (top 10% by the way, Open-only of course) until my CMDR's bounty grew so large that people who actually knew what they were doing became curious and drove me off...probably just so novices would stop crying about getting shot down in system chat when they interdicted my CMDR.
As an aside, I want to note that this encounter also significantly predates Engineers, so there can be none of that Engineered vs. nEngineered scapegoatery; PvE bounty hunting experience was no preparation for PvP even then, and most people that had never fought another CMDR before would not have stood any chance against my CMDR, no matter what ships, loadouts, or how many equally inexperienced friends, they brought with them. The assertion that Engineering changed the power dynamic in a meaningful way is a myth.
This scenario is also an example of how a fixation on playing the game the way it's supposedly 'meant' to be played can lead to absurdity. My CMDR had a red WANTED on him, so of course all of these newbies were sure they were
supposed to attack him, and of course he would just roll over and explode, like the thousand NPCs they had fought before...right?! People were following some stupid gamist assumption, rather than applying anything resembling sense, then getting offended when I refused cap my CMDR's skill at that of an NPC.
More than seven years later, Frontier still needs to fix their difficulty scaling.
In my case, the most tangible reward is usually not going to the rebuy screen or having to vacate the area, cause most of the people my CMDR 'ganks' are trying to shot him down...with most of balance either crapping up my BGS work, or fighting on the opposing side of a CZ.
Not remotely all, but a significant fraction of this loose anti-ganker crowd, thinks I'm not being accommodating enough unless I calmly explain to every piece of trash ignoramus trying to take a pot shot at my CMDR that I'd kindly rather they didn't, instead of just using all these damned guns he's got.
For me, the most enjoyable tests of skills aren't against 1v1mebros in identical loadouts in contrived scenarios (though I do practice these enough to only occasionally completely embarrass myself when they happen organically), it's overcoming the unexpected, when I'm not specifically looking for trouble. That's the PvP I'm looking for. And I've gotten fairly good at this sort of stuff...well, good enough that I've played essentially exclusively in Open for more than 7k hours and have never gotten my CMDR shot down in a scenario where I wasn't actively looking for trouble...have had plenty of exhilaratingly close calls though and they were the best PvP experiences I've had in most any game.
What makes you think it was a ganker who attacked you at the Guardian ruins? Maybe it was someone who just wanted a blueprint and was wary around random CMDRs? I guess that depends on your definition of ganker...
I personally would probably have just left for another site, but if I was in enough of a hurry for a final blueprint or set of materials, I might have had my CMDR destroy yours, because I absolutely will
not relog/reinstance to refresh things (it's something I think is a context defying exploit that should be patched out). The game does incentivize violence in these scenarios, because a warning often results in the stranger mode switching, which means I then have to watch my back for a hostile ship that could teleport in at any moment any where. Going for the ship destruction usually means buying enough time that I could get what I came for and get out before the retaliation attempt shows up.
) to really make it function in a logical way and people take better care of themselves- that and form more structures that protect each other (such as squadrons, closer wings and so on) thus making groups advantageous.
