Don't play the semantics game. You know exactly how it was meant.
Ganking People in Sol
- Thread starter Hellstar
- Start date
It's not semantics. Your CMDR is literally immortal in ED. The only person who can kill your CMDR is you yourself, by uninstalling the game. But it's certainly impossible for other players using direct ingame ship to ship combat.
that doesn't change anything. Players are still attached to their CMDR, their ship, their mission, their whatever. It doesn't matter what phrase you use do describe the destruction event, the outcome is always the same. It is semantics.
And how would you demonstrate this? How do we quantify how large a problem ganking is?
Never implied the distress other players felt wasn't real, but that it may often be unreasonable and may not be significant enough to justify the attention given. Many of the proposed solutions (e.g. mass blocking campaigns, infallible and/or draconian C&P, heavy handed prohibitions on CMDR action, or illogical equipment/capabilities) probably aren't going to cause a net reduction in distress either.
That's what I'm saying and what I'm constantly attempting/working on.
I don't think I'm getting the same consideration...not referring to you specifically, but an entire subset of the community that cannot seem to grasp any other perspective than one where anyone who would attack their in game character is doing something wrong, or must be out to spite them, and that this in turn justifies whatever damage they do to the game to avoid those situations.
What principle is it that's inspiring you to dump these players into someone elses' instances?
It's fine to play a straight flush in poker because it's possible to play a straight flush in poker, if you have the cards. That's not a weird take, that's part of the game.
It's also possible to shoot someone in the abdomen and spend the next fifteen minutes watching them die for taking your money with that straight flush, but as that is not the game and violates all kinds of implicit social contracts, not to mention causes significant and objective harm, subjective morality may come into play in a way that it rarely does when talking about what happens between players within the confines of a game.
Of course, in game characters, not knowing their existence is a game may apply all kinds of moral connotations and there may be all kinds of in-setting laws to discourage all kinds of behaviors, but violating those in-setting prohibitions doesn't imply anything about the rules of the game itself.
And a 'kill' rarely interferes with any of that, notwithstanding any cargo involved. The outcome is most often a loss of a trivial sum of credits and maybe five minutes of inconvenience.
These are also outcomes that are fully intended to occur on occasion, with no other CMDRs involved at all. I've yet to hear any good answer as to what makes it worse when a CMDR causes it.
No it's not. Since your CMDR does not cease to exist, you cannot apply the same kind of morality to the deed as you could to actual IRL murder.
It's shooting down virtual pixel spaceships in the competitive environment of a video game about shooting at virtual pixel spaceships. If you are better than the opponent, you will prevail. But it's not a 'game over' condition for either of the participants.
I would say it implies morality has nothing to do with it, we are all logging into a game in which to varied degrees of directness others can impact our time spent in game, regardless of mode. When another's actions impacts us negatively, I don't feel the assumptions they are bad people are warranted or appropriate. I got absolutely crushed in short order in the BGS by some commies who I had banter with both in and out of game in a small edge of bubble system I took interest in. I have zero doubt they relished the idea of using their superior power to destroy all of my efforts in game. Good for them, I'm glad they had fun. I've been in a CZ with someone (same side) who teamed up with me to clear up until the rest of their wing showed up, then promptly tried to delete me. I don't know or care what kind of a person they are. They helped me get some combat bonds at an accelerated rated then ran me off. So be it. I moved to other things.
People are unreasonable. I think you know that
.Agreed. This is why one of my earliest responses in this thread was: Get over it, don't give them attention, use the means the game gives you to deal with the issue. I never call for any kind of draconian measures.
I'm not averse to violent player interactions per se. My pet peeve are more the typical newbie gankers / seal clubbers / amateur gankers who specifically prey on the weak. For example, I've always agreed that pledging to PP paints a big fat target on your back. You pledge, you risk getting shot at. I'm not saying no player should ever attack another player ever. That would be silly.
I know this isn't aimed at me, but for the record: My block list is empty. I just reserve the right to use it should I feel inclined to do so, because it's a tool the game gives me to deal with annoyances.
For some, it's maybe not so trivial. For all those arguing here til the cows come home, probably not so much (I assume most of us here are billionaires). For a newbie ganked dipping their toes into open it might be equal to a game reset if they lose their ship and don't have the rebuy. In any instance, they might not care if you call it "kill", "destruction", "pixels" or "Geoff". The result is the same.
I agree with this.
However I'd like to point out that if a player feels sufficiently griefed that they stop playing or that the game generally gains a reputation for being 'full of griefers' that's /not/ good for the game.
It is kinda depressing to see so many long-term players complaining about facing opposition in Open doing what is essentially a PvE activity. Why were you in Open in a hotspot FDev created, did you think maybe this time it would be different?
Something I have written before is that the game does (now) provide fair warning about what can happen in Open on the menu screen but doesn't recommend any private groups as an alternative. There are large groups available for community exploration, AX combat & even simple PvE only groups that are managed by community members but could still be recommended in the game. They have a similar system for youtube & twitch streamers after all.
Hmmm. This game has missions making it 'legal' (no fines, bounties, or notoriety) for assassination's of groups or individuals if you have a mission. Slaves are legal in some areas. Some parts of the game seem to encourage getting notoriety to gather mats, like in Ody on foot. How ethical is all of that?
Some of the commodities are not so ethical either, in my opinion, but are available for anyone to buy at some locations: (not an exhaustive list)
Explosives, Nerve agents, Narcotics, various Onionhead strains, Slaves, Imperial Slaves, Landmines, and lots of the rares seem dubious to me
The 'authorities' pass laws allowing loitering in the station to be punishable by blowing your ship up. That is not very ethical either.
Morality or ethics in this game seem to be not a design choice, as it is a game. Fdev created this game as a sandbox. Do what you what, in the mode you want, however you want to do it and enjoy yourself.
In my opinion almost nothing in this game is ethical or rewards the moral high ground.
I had that a few years ago (different group) & spent the next 18 months tearing them a new one in every system their faction inhabited. Never had so much fun in the game
I actually remembered you talking about that on the forums when I was typing that post!I had that a few years ago (different group) & spent the next 18 months tearing them a new one in every system their faction inhabited. Never had so much fun in the game
With all that ganker talk going, I wonder how bad the experience would really be if the game would be open-only no-block... I guess I will start that as an experiment once I get my Prime alt going. Like, call out every playing session in a thread here, announcing what I'm planning to do in that session, and then reporting how badly they nailed me down. Sure I have knowledge to compensate, but I'd like to know how far I would be able to get in the game from a fresh start in such a situation.
These guys have at least a thousand kills, and maxed ships. Good Luck.
I recommend a "honeypot" tactic: Buy a cheap ship (not necessarily a sidewinder because the gankers might grow suspicious), and just fly around with it in Sol (or ShinDez, or Deciat), and every time you get ganked just send a local message like "thank you for participating in my honeypot trap, to my blocklist you go" and block them. Do this until your blocklist is hundreds of players big.
Will that start causing instancing problems, when someone with a blocklist of hundreds of players pops in? Maybe. Fdev's headache, not yours.
I agree with almost everything you said regarding AX combat.
I significantly reduced my time spent on it when the glaives came out because there was no build that was all of the following :
1. fun (shieldless small or medium, flakless and no MCs)
2. can fight any configuration of thargoids (hydra, glaives, swarm ...)
3. can fight or escape gankers
There are two krait builds (phantom, kmk2), that I am aware of and sure is well known, with 4 modified guardian plasma chargers and mirrored armor engineered thermal resistant with mostly kinetic HRPs (all with layered experimental if you worry about ganker missiles ) that can fight many gankers, not the uber gankers. They are also less fun imo from the AX point of view and in multiplayer instance, the plasma charger visual effects seriously hamper the heart's visibility for everyone else. Not to mention that annoying metal cutting metal sound effect of the weapon ?
But those two medium builds cannot fight the glaives.
What kind of game design is that ?
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You'd see a lot more how-to guides on how to set up IP blocking rules for routers.
Purely hypothetically if I (BGSing in open opposing a group that played largely in their own private group) had faced any kind of opposition at all in the BGS conflict I describe a couple of posts above I'd have a) been a lot less effective and b) had far more opportunities to negotiate a treaty. I think there'd be a lot more white hat PvPers 'policing' Black Hats.
Exacly. But some users here, They dont get it.
Its like playing any of dark souls/elden ring in online mode, then being mad about invasions, but at same time, refuse to go offline, then go great lenghts to complain in forums or reddit, how "unfair" it is, because cannot handle it. Elite's open mode is not really diffrent than such.
But ppl seems bit too much apply thier own logic to it, especially "morals" or whatever else, and surely overreacting too much, by playing the game. This is not RL, its a game with specific environment, wich is quite harsh by design, but as you rightly mentioned, no one really dies in that game, and these days, its not even possible to cause someone go back to thier stock sidewinder, soon after mentioned someone plays more than few hours. Even if someone is new, and lost thier ship and dont have enough for rebui, its supposed to be an lesson for them how to improve themselfs, and of course, having always enough for rebui, there is 0 diffrence whenever it happens if such is caused by other player or npc, from game perspective.
Well said. Despite this, for many here, it seem that whenever is player vs player interaction that wont ends up well for them, its like suddenly all of this above dont apply anymore, but rather thier own morals or ethics, and happly witch hunt anyone who would "dare" to have diffrent opinion, and of course, with mandatory "block all gankers" mindset wich became obvious routine for many, especially in this forums.
Unless you would go live-streaming, annoucing here every time what you are going to do, when and where, its not gonna cause every ganker from all over bubble to go after you.
If you gonna lookin specifically for it and hang out mostly only in hotspots just to find gankers, then it wont be long to find one or two. But in same time, everywhere else that is not known hotspot, your experience from game wont be much diffrent that it was already.
Our CMDRs are (mostly) all monsters, if judged by any prevailing real-life moral/ethical system.
Murder, corruption, and smuggling used to be essentially required to advance in naval ranks, for example, and missions descriptions used to be couched in tongue-and-cheek euphemisms (implying all sorts of disturbing activities) that apparently went right under many players noses somehow.
Even now, many of the entirely legal missions create a myriad of victims.
In the context of a spaceport where any protracted interruption in traffic could result in severe shortages of essential commodities, this is debatable. It would be even more sensible if stations where as fragile as they should be.
No doubt some subset enjoy outrage, but even non-gankers are bound to find the PvE combat in this game lacking in breadth, depth, and just about everything else. NPCs are dumb as bricks, have no persistence, are never pro-active, and are incapable of meaningful coordination. On the rare occasion they actually pose a threat, it's for all the wrong reasons.
Even an inexperienced CMDR flying a deathtrap is capable of surprising someone on occasion, which surely makes them more interesting than most NPCs.
Most importantly, NPCs have no agency. Only CMDRs are capable of shaping the setting through influence, so all the truly high-value targets are implicitly CMDRs. Knocking out a bucket of exploration data carried by a foe can be worth dozens or hundreds of hours of work elsewhere.
I'd wager you'd barely even be inconvenienced. You've been around long enough you could probably play full Open only, no block, self-imposed ironman and never lose a ship, unless you deliberately went out of your way to take unecessary risks.
Inexperienced players biting off more than they can chew is one thing, no one who knows the ropes is really at risk, unless they choose to be.
There's a difference between not getting it and not agreeing <Something about a high horse>.
I actually do that, in the Sidewinder "Griefer Blocker". You don't need to block hundreds; less than a dozen vastly improves Open. And I haven't seen any instancing problems. Not instancing with people who spoil the game isn't a problem!