I do, but I think you're already smoking a kipper.
Please rework Crime and Punishment
- Thread starter Billaien
- Start date
The problem with having a two tier system like that though is what happens when the PvP one is entirely ineffective. Every player I've seen in open recently has been pledged to a power. That alone is enough to render a dual system pretty much impossible to operate because all of those players have effectively signed up for PvP.
Also, how to define ganking within the game rules? If it's one player shooting and destroying another player, then finishing off players by ramming them becomes a thing. If you include ramming, you have to remember the game can't tell who rammed who. You open up the game to players using paper ships to ram themselves to death on T-9s amd Cutters that can't get out of the way.
Another thing to consider is that FDev have so far been unwilling to separate crimes between players and NPCs. The last time players asked for tougher punishments for crime, we got the very system that directly resulted in the OP making this thread. The current system recognises the players as a criminal, locks you out of stations and has you attacked if scanned whilst you're wanted. All possible to get round of course, but inconvenient just the same. A harsher system would be even worse for people like the OP if they got caught up in it.
You started this discussion with me, offered nothing as an argument or discussion point aside from saying the current system is bad and some of what you've said is factually wrong (crime is not considered negative). Why waste my time?
I understand and respect your thoughts on the crime and punishment system with regards to PVP, however I will now admit that I do not participate in the PVP mode of the game, and play the game in a cooperative mode (Private Group)
I can't offer solutions to the PVP problem, but considering gameplay loops are all designed without PVP strictly in mind, I do have a wealth of knowledge of the rest of the PVE gameplay. If frontier WAS willing to separate crimes between players and NPCs, after all a stance doesn't have to be forever, then those more experienced in the PVP aspect of the game could weigh in their opinions on how to change crime and punishment with respect to players. On the PVE front however, I am happy with the points I have raised. PVE criminal loops outside of smuggling make no sense to take as the current system creates more hassle than the paycheck is worth considering you can find a legal mission paying the same or more.
Sure, get me a size 3 S&R Multi-Limpet with collector, refuel, and repair.
Yes, this was kind of the problem years ago when players said that C&P wasn't harsh enough. We've ended up with this system which is a headache for people if you're not prepared for it. Accidentally shoot a clean ship in a Haz RES and then have it blown up by NPC pirates credits you with a murder and either 2 hours locked out of the local stations or a trip to a prison ship somewhere.
Then you add powerplay, where even doing weekly tasks for your power gets you wanted in your power's space.
So, actually yes, I do agree that it needs looking at from the ground up, it's just that as soon as you look at a harsher system for PvP, players have a habit of working around these things and if you make it so harsh as to make PvP crime impossible, there's the question over why FDev even allow that gameplay in the first place.
I am against getting rid of ATR, I am for giving anarchies a Pirate faction version of ATR. If I reworked the C&P system, it would actually be more harsh than it is now. That would go both ways though. Start collecting bounties in an anarchy and some dread pirate ATR shows up to convince you to hunt elsewhere.
ATR is designed to drive you off, or kill you if you are dumb enough to stay, it works as intended.
I like the cool down timer requiring you be logged in as well. There are supposed to be consequences for the criminal life lawful systems, we have them. I do want them to add consequences for the bounty hunter life in inhabited anarchies.
ATR is designed to drive you off, or kill you if you are dumb enough to stay, it works as intended.
I like the cool down timer requiring you be logged in as well. There are supposed to be consequences for the criminal life lawful systems, we have them. I do want them to add consequences for the bounty hunter life in inhabited anarchies.
The system is broken - I have taken missions from the authorities to salvage something, bring it back and they same authorities claim I've grabbed illegal salvage and am thus a criminal. Its ludicrous, not just that they posted these illegal missions on the public mission board! There are other missions (like takedown terrorist) where oyu have to scan a building that givers you fines for trespassiong, and then you get a bounty for not getting out quickly enough, you become the criminal and the authorities arrest you on return for doing what they sent you out to do!
At least put the illegal ones behind a "go see criminal hanging out in the backrooms or bar" aspect, and certainly only let the law set illegal missions from a "CIA handler" guy who's offering plausibly deniable missions from a back office somewhere and wipe all fines and bounties when you return to him.
Meanwhile, the justice system should reflect superpowers fighting each other, but otherwise should reflect a kind of wild west, where there's a difference between shooting innocents and shooting a hardened gunslinger. Also, nobody should know or care if you're a baddie when you rock up to town a 1000 ly away, you do not have a barcode on your forehead with your crimes linked to it. You can't go back to the old places without repercussions but you take your chances otherwise.
Illegal salvages is stupid too - each pod carries a heap of paperwork with it? Is it illegal if nobody is there to notice, like shooting anyone in an anarchy system? I've taken illegal ground missions and had no consequence as nobody wwas there to see me. Its all a bit junk and needs to be reworked and then made clear how it works - why do you get noticed by the law, how they do it, why the higher security system notices you compared to lower level ones, how you get away with it if there's nobody to see you do it, etc.
and anon protocols are dumb too - "hi welcome back cmdr gbibaanb" they say as I sneak in anonymously because I have a 500cr fine
At least put the illegal ones behind a "go see criminal hanging out in the backrooms or bar" aspect, and certainly only let the law set illegal missions from a "CIA handler" guy who's offering plausibly deniable missions from a back office somewhere and wipe all fines and bounties when you return to him.
Meanwhile, the justice system should reflect superpowers fighting each other, but otherwise should reflect a kind of wild west, where there's a difference between shooting innocents and shooting a hardened gunslinger. Also, nobody should know or care if you're a baddie when you rock up to town a 1000 ly away, you do not have a barcode on your forehead with your crimes linked to it. You can't go back to the old places without repercussions but you take your chances otherwise.
Illegal salvages is stupid too - each pod carries a heap of paperwork with it? Is it illegal if nobody is there to notice, like shooting anyone in an anarchy system? I've taken illegal ground missions and had no consequence as nobody wwas there to see me. Its all a bit junk and needs to be reworked and then made clear how it works - why do you get noticed by the law, how they do it, why the higher security system notices you compared to lower level ones, how you get away with it if there's nobody to see you do it, etc.
and anon protocols are dumb too - "hi welcome back cmdr gbibaanb" they say as I sneak in anonymously because I have a 500cr fine
The biggest problem here is that you really need to design it with a comprehensive vision of the entirety of the game and how it will interact with it on every level. That's a massive undertaking, and to be frank, I just don't think that they have any developers right now with the necessary game knowledge and skill to make those sort of calls and be able to reliably produce productive results.
Like, who would have predicted that players would fly around in shieldless sidewinders, inside stations, with the express goal of getting other players to run into them at over 100 m/s, get a murder charge, and get blown up by the station?
In the long term, notoriety definitely needs to go away, at least in its current form, but what replaces it? That's an enormously more complicated question.
Like, who would have predicted that players would fly around in shieldless sidewinders, inside stations, with the express goal of getting other players to run into them at over 100 m/s, get a murder charge, and get blown up by the station?
In the long term, notoriety definitely needs to go away, at least in its current form, but what replaces it? That's an enormously more complicated question.
There is a whole episode of Firefly about this.
It doesn't make any sense though. You're advocating for real life consequences for in game "crime." It's not counted as two hours in-game which is actually 10 minutes or whatever, it's two hours real time, forcing a player to remain logged in. Effectively it is a punishment similar to a ban or a kick under a shallow guise of "gameplay" - with no way to shorten the timer or the ability to play something else to wait it out, for a gameplay system designed from the ground up to supposedly be a viable method of gameplay. Just a reminder, I am talking strictly PVE, by the way. Other games with a crime system handle it in a much more effective manner. In some, you take a hit to some stat like a reputation that you can decide whether to work on restoring now or later, or the consequences of your crime are exceptionally short (Such as a few minutes) with a lot of difficulty in the meantime.
My issue with the current system is that it drags on and on, with very little consequences other than pure annoyance. I am a clean player 95% of the time, the other 5% of the time when I do get a bounty against me, what does that really mean? How inconvenient, I guess i'll just use one of the other hundreds, possible thousands of stations in the inhabited galaxy.
Once you're in supercruise, you are untouchable. Even if some kind of system authority tries to interdict you (They never do by the way) you can just evade it. I've never lost to an NPC interdiction once I learned how the minigame worked way back when I started, even in some of the slowest turning ships like a cutter.
Wouldn't it be more fun if notoriety was like - 5 - 10 minutes instead, and if you're wanted in the system the local authority actually puts some effort in? As it stands, it really is just a station ban you wait out in real time logged in, only to pay some miniscule fine that the average late game player has wedged between the cushions of their fleet carrier's sofa.
Picture this:
"Become a bloodthirsty pirate, who lets none who stand in their way live. You live dangerously, and have been largely exiled from civilized space. Entering a system with even a shred of respect for law and order is like an interdiction minefield, authority vessels gnashing their teeth at the thought of finally taking you down."
"Or become a stealthy assassin. Maybe you're the hidden knife of the power you're loyal to, maybe you're just in it for a paycheck. All you know is you kill quickly and cleanly. By the time the authorities show up, there's nothing but a body or a field of debris. You're quick in, quick out, and any authority figure would greet you like any other law abiding citizen."
---
That's fun, that's a fun idea of illegal gameplay loops to me. Harsh responses to crimes with short to no notoriety once you're ready to move onto another role and return to clean status. If you survive the trip to an interstellar factor then yeah you get to wrap things up neatly. And some way of being able to do illegal actions without instantly gaining bounties if there are no witnesses or you escape quickly enough would be a great reward for playing well. Do you really not get sick of the omniscient crime system that marks you as wanted if you manage to kill some poor sap on their own, in space, where nobody can hear them scream? It would make sense if system authority showed up to find you and the destroyed ship, but no, you just get a crime stat.
Being wanted is not fun, there is no incentive to do it right now. I would argue purple missions don't get picked up as often leading to straight up neglected mission types. The punishment for wanting to be lawless in a game that is supposed to be all about the wild west of space disincentivizes committing crimes so heavily that it quickly leads players who want to enjoy all areas of the galaxy unimpeded to live a life of respect to the law, except when the game bugs out and inevitably gives you a bounty or fine for some asinine reason such as updating a legal mission to take you to a location where the mission is now illegal.
tl;dr make the consequences of crime actually in game. Not an arbitrary timer, make clashes between criminal players and system authorities fast and brutal, with way more interdiction attempts and other such things, but if you can make it to an IF you can clear your name quickly without having to sit and wait. These NPCs do not have feelings, and trying to pretend they do with a punishment system that treats NPCs like you just killed a player, effectively giving you a realtime ban from some areas of the game, INHIBITS roleplay opportunities, as most people won't bother to deal with being a criminal. It doesn't pay more, it causes inconvenience and annoyance but is otherwise not difficult, and there's no way to utilize stealth or avoid punishment if you get out before someone sees you.
Yes. Reworking crime and punishment is needed. At the moment, there's no benefit to being a criminal. You can do it, but there's no purpose to it. No fun.
I would suggest that notoriety should be permanent, unless you work to clear it. Saving escape pods, doing restore missions, donations, etc. Those should be the ways to clear notoriety, not some timer.
That's a good example.
I would suggest that notoriety should be permanent, unless you work to clear it. Saving escape pods, doing restore missions, donations, etc. Those should be the ways to clear notoriety, not some timer.
Just a minor observation regarding ATR, did you know that leaving the system resets their timers, regardless of Notoriety? The first time you get warned about them coming, jump out and back in, they wont show up for another few crimes. Rinse and repeat and you'll never encounter ATR. This is apparently the intended goal, to force you from the system, though I'm not sure Frontier considered the possibility of coming back.
The saving grace of the Crime and Punishment system is that it has so many loopholes you can largely ignore it if you know how. I'd be concerned that an attempt to fix it would just make it worse by closing them.
The saving grace of the Crime and Punishment system is that it has so many loopholes you can largely ignore it if you know how. I'd be concerned that an attempt to fix it would just make it worse by closing them.
As Rainbro points out, the C&P system is very easily avoided. There's a dude who basically lives in Deciat ganking ships. He has, since Thursday, killed over 100 players and it looks like most are in Deciat and most aren't pledge in Powerplay. Yes, Deciat is low security, but he isn't dying constantly, so clearly the system can be worked around.
You claimed that "murder is bad" in the game.
I pointed out that that assertion is at best thuroughly inconsistent in the ED universe, and that the game does very little to encourage you not to be a murder hobo.
You effectivle agreed with me, while at the same time also effectively claiming that that murder is only murder if you get a bounty from it...showing that you you both did, and really didn't get the point.
I thanked you for aggreeing with me.
And you decided imply that I had said that bounties and notoriety was good to have on your character, and that I whining about things I have never whined about.
So, sweetling, you didn't really give me anything to work with.
Did anyone explicitly mention that notoriety could scale with the number of lives taken? Passengers, escape pods and for some factions even slaves killed should increase notoriety.
Side story:
A friend of mine went and bought some Imperial Slaves (commodity) just so he could jettison them into space. Gave him a laugh. If he did that in Aisling Duval's territory, that should've given him a bounty.
Emergent gameplay.
Side story:
A friend of mine went and bought some Imperial Slaves (commodity) just so he could jettison them into space. Gave him a laugh. If he did that in Aisling Duval's territory, that should've given him a bounty.
Emergent gameplay.
No-one cares about the little people we cart about / eat / help towards Aisling / Dorn / Thargoids.
Which one?
I feel like you could make a reasonable crime and punishment system based entirely around bounties and the security system. It'd take some fairly significant changes though, not just for function but also for form.
For example, it's never really made much sense to me that you can just pay off your bounties. A bounty should be a fairly substantial thing that only goes away over time, but that also gives you more leeway at lower bounty totals.
Here's my core idea: Bounties and Fines get rolled into one thing. The division between bounty and fine has to do with how big it is, not the cause. It doesn't matter what it is, even murder; if it's a first offense or so, you can pay it off without a problem. It's only when it goes over a minimum threshold that it becomes a 'bounty', and you have to wait for it to decay, instead. However, you can do certain signal sources or missions from other systems to reduce your active bounty down to the point it becomes a fine and can be paid off. Refueling NPCs, for example, would have them put in a good word for you and reduce your bounty.
Bounties would have two halves; the Active bounty, and the Inactive bounty. The active bounty decays quite quickly, but the inactive bounty decays much more slowly. However, if you commit any crime, the inactive bounty reasserts itself and you go back to the full total. This includes if you get killed; that will reset your active bounty, but not your inactive bounty. This allows for more player leeway and freedom while retaining significant punishments for serial offenders.
The amount of bounty you can get away with depends on system security level. High has the strictest limits, disallowing players access to services with any fine or bounty. Medium has a moderate limit, something like 500k, while Low is where real criminals will be forced, with no real limit on station services but you might need to bribe them to gain access. Anarchy would actually be inverted, and you'd get automatic positive reputation for having a high bounty there. However, repairs and rearmament should be more expensive there, and boost the anarchy faction's influence. Higher reputation would give you better prices for stolen goods there
Police need to have the ability to scan players without needing to fully interdict them. Criminal players should be constantly interdicted in high security systems, making it difficult for them to interdict other players there, and dropping in regularly to investigate any players who are trying to be unruly. Smuggling into high security systems should be very difficult.
For example, it's never really made much sense to me that you can just pay off your bounties. A bounty should be a fairly substantial thing that only goes away over time, but that also gives you more leeway at lower bounty totals.
Here's my core idea: Bounties and Fines get rolled into one thing. The division between bounty and fine has to do with how big it is, not the cause. It doesn't matter what it is, even murder; if it's a first offense or so, you can pay it off without a problem. It's only when it goes over a minimum threshold that it becomes a 'bounty', and you have to wait for it to decay, instead. However, you can do certain signal sources or missions from other systems to reduce your active bounty down to the point it becomes a fine and can be paid off. Refueling NPCs, for example, would have them put in a good word for you and reduce your bounty.
Bounties would have two halves; the Active bounty, and the Inactive bounty. The active bounty decays quite quickly, but the inactive bounty decays much more slowly. However, if you commit any crime, the inactive bounty reasserts itself and you go back to the full total. This includes if you get killed; that will reset your active bounty, but not your inactive bounty. This allows for more player leeway and freedom while retaining significant punishments for serial offenders.
The amount of bounty you can get away with depends on system security level. High has the strictest limits, disallowing players access to services with any fine or bounty. Medium has a moderate limit, something like 500k, while Low is where real criminals will be forced, with no real limit on station services but you might need to bribe them to gain access. Anarchy would actually be inverted, and you'd get automatic positive reputation for having a high bounty there. However, repairs and rearmament should be more expensive there, and boost the anarchy faction's influence. Higher reputation would give you better prices for stolen goods there
Police need to have the ability to scan players without needing to fully interdict them. Criminal players should be constantly interdicted in high security systems, making it difficult for them to interdict other players there, and dropping in regularly to investigate any players who are trying to be unruly. Smuggling into high security systems should be very difficult.
Ah so that’s why everyone was surprised there was cow in the kumo burger