One way to counter mindless player killing (griefing?)

[Red Fox Four]

When you murder someone you get roughly 6500-7000 credit bounty (murder bounty + initial assault bounty).

This might work for NPC's to prevent players from just mindlessly killing innocent (read: Clean) NPC's but rather attempt to actually steal their cargo.

When it comes to innocent (again, read: Clean) players the murder bounty needs to be increased significantly.

The murder of a player within controlled space (read: not anarchy) where the player is innocent and has a clean status should be increased to 100.000 Credits, if not more.

Why?

Because the current 6000 credit murder bounty is a joke. I make 6000 credits back from a single NPC bounty. It's not a dent, not even a scratch, to the credit balance. Anyone who has the cash for a Viper or Cobra can make 6000 credits in less than 5 minutes of playing.

The penalty for murdering players is simply too low and insignificant.

What happens now is that people don't care about the low murder bounty so they proceed to murder and grief players who are just trying to make a buck in their haulers. We've seen numerous threads about players who want to play in Open Play, who don't mind being pirated now and again, but instead get murdered for no reason.

What is the result?

All these players simply start playing Solo mode instead. Is that what we want? To drive all the traders, explorers and non-pirate players into Solo mode?

If that truly is your agenda then I call you a griefer and I will stand firmly by that statement nomatter what obnoxious Jason Bateman roleplaying story you try to feed me.

The consequences for player killing need to be significantly higher.

Here are some ideas:

- Increase bounty for murder to 100.000 credit flat rate. This may work, but we all know that in 6 months from now 100.000 credits is nothing for most players since you stockpile credits easy in this game.

- Step up the bounty per consecutive murder by a factor of 5. First murder is 6000 credits, second murder is 5 x 6000 credits = 30.000 credits. Third murder is 5 x 30.000 credits = 150.000 credits. And it just keeps adding up. Clearing bounty should not clear the amount of kills. Another 'redeeming citizen' system would need to be implemented to clear the amount of murders done to remove the factor of 5 bounty increase.

- Bounty for murdering a player is based on your total assets. 10% (other numbers can be used of course) of your asset value = bounty for murdering someone. So if you show up in a high rate Cobra worth 3 million credits and your credit balance is 7 million, that's 10.000.000 credit assets, where 10% would be 100.000 credit bounty for committing a murder. If your credit assets is 100.000.000 credits then your bounty becomes 1.000.000 credits per murder. By basing the murder bounty on the offending players credit balance you ensure that even rich players will be appropriately penalized for murder and won't get away with a simple 6000 credit inconvenience.

For clarification, these increased bounties only apply when attacking players. The current 6000 murder bounty for killing NPC's would remain as it is today. Point being, we do attack and fight NPC's more often than players, and a lot of the missions (e.g. the navy rank up missions and the massacre missions) require you to kill Clean NPC's. A high penalty for murder bounty on NPC's would directly conflict with the reward from these missions and they would all need to be revamped.

So discussion time ....

Do bounty for killing players need to be raised or are we happy with the current insignificant 6000 credit 'inconvenience' for murdering Clean players?

 

[Huita]

Increasing bounties yes, stepping up the amount by factor of 5 no, what are you thinking? It would very soon go into ridiculous figures and basically stop any kind of pvp.

Btw, i have an idea:

>One way to counter mindless player killing (griefing?)

Shoot back.

 

[John Xenir]

There is one downside to your idea.
Imagine such a "mindlessly killing" player kills 10 other players, gets 1M bounty on his head and then his friend kills him to take the bounty.
Then they switch places.

Can you see where this is going?

 

[Flappers]

This would discourage any sort of PvP in the game... sorry, but it's a really bad idea.

Random player killing does not equal greifing.
Someone following someone repeatedly killing them/ camping them and specifically targeting one player to cause disturbance is greifing.

Player killing will continue to exist in the game. There will always be the random people who will kill someone for no reason... why? It's the Internet.
Multiplayer does that to some people.

There are 2 things you can do to counter it:

1. Shoot Back, kill them first. If they shoot you first then they gain a bounty, you will not.
2. Play solo play.

You have to remember, pirating in the game is a legit career.
Sometimes a player will not give up their cargo and try to get away, the punishment for this is death.

If there was a ridiculous amount of bounty gained from killing another player, then no one will want to pirate.

 

[Pheyes]

I guess the OP would prefer it if there was no combat and it was just space trucking.

 

[StephenB]

When a player gets a bounty do other players not gain the bounty after killing that player? This could lead to an exploitable situation with someone quickly racking up multiple million Credit bounties, letting their friends kill them and having an endless supply of money.

As much as you want to deter players from killing clean players it won't stop the AI from doing so anyway. If a clean player is killed and is upset about this then they can play solo; not everyone will play solo, some will enjoy the risk. You can't stop the mindless killing, that's how people want to play this game. If you increase the bounty placed on the commander that kills clean commanders then it could be exploited.

People will play the game they want, the way they want. This is the way of Elite.

 

[Tony2438]

There is one downside to your idea.
Imagine such a "mindlessly killing" player kills 10 other players, gets 1M bounty on his head and then his friend kills him to take the bounty.
Then they switch places.

Can you see where this is going?

That happend in eve

 

[Bingo Brewster]

EDIT: in reply to John Xenir

I see your point, but as things stand, the original player will still have the bounty when they respawn, even though it has been claimed. I assume this is to counter people doing what you describe.

 

[AlexRyder]

One good counter is to not be terrible at Elite. Either fight back or all power to engines, boost away and engage the fsd

 

[Painkiller]

This can be considered cheating (as this form of getting rich is not a new one and many games do it and I am sure ED has implemented some internal control scripts that compare victim and killer commander and if there are a lots of "69" among them, it is clearly that its bounty exploit and steps will be taken.

There is one downside to your idea.
Imagine such a "mindlessly killing" player kills 10 other players, gets 1M bounty on his head and then his friend kills him to take the bounty.
Then they switch places.

Can you see where this is going?

 

[fergal]

If a player wants to not pay off their bounty and keep adding to it they will eventually be added to the top 5 list which will bring them to teh attention of other players. I think this part of the bounty system is fine (although needs some tweeking)

The problem is the players who just go an pay off their bounty straight away. This removes the ability of other players to hunt them down. I don't think making the bounty amount bigger is the solution, I have around 11 million cr without doing any real trading, other players must have over 100 times this amount (1 billion cr), how big a fine will deter me from this? 10 million cr?

You shouldn't be able to pay off your bounty straight away. There should be a period of time where you are actually wanted, maybe 24 hours like the fine timers. If you want to log off and not play for 24 hours thats up to you. If you want to keep playing you will do so as an actual fugitive.

Something like this should only be for major crimes, like murder. Someone who accidentally shoots another ship should probably be able to pay off the bounty straight away if they wanted to.

*edit, just need to add, where is all this player murdering taking place. I'd love to see a video of the evidence.

 

[rupok]

How about no? Pvp is already discouraged enough as is and now you want it to be impossible, please play another game.

 

[fergal]

I guess the OP would prefer it if there was no combat and it was just space trucking.

What was the end result of dying with a bounty to a player vs NPC? Has there been any confirmation if either was a bug?

 

[Pheyes]

What was the end result of dying with a bounty to a player vs NPC? Has there been any confirmation if either was a bug?

I put a ticket in and it hasn't even been looked at, I still think it must be a bug, why would they make you pay your own bounty? If you pay your own bounty how do bounty hunters claim it?

 

[Gods3nt]

So I came across a player flying a larger ship the other day after failing to evade his interdiction. His first words were something along the line of "dead men tell no tales..." At first I started to think something was wrong with him. Was he suffering from an identity crisis? I don't know. I asked him what he wanted, he then replies "greetings commander!" I asked him again, he replied "drop cargo." I looked over to my cargo tab and saw I was empty, after telling him I didn't have any he simply opened fired like it was just another day at the office. After my Viper giggled from the tickling of his lasers I fired about 6 missiles into his hull instantly dropping his shields and "health" down to 60. Right off the bat he scurries off into super cruise as if he realized he made a terrible mistake. I wasn't going to kill him, Lord knew I could have, besides that's not my style. I may be a mercenary and a bounty hunter but your death is worth nothing to me if there's no value or bounty on your head.

I think he was flying a type 6 by the way.

What I'm trying to say is that for grievers, I just wish they could see that bullying other players is so last year. Yes being a pirate is one thing, but you better come prepared. If you're not ready to die and lose everything, then when you meet that one commander who's nothing to mess with you best be prepared.

In conclusion I don't see a necessary need to buff what is already in the game as far as grievers go. I say let them do their thing, eventually they're going to come across the wrong pilot and regret making the wrong decision.

 

[Pheyes]

I seriously don't see the problem I have been flying around in a lackon 6 with no shields and hardly seen any players and if I do get interdicted and they want some cargo I will gladly drop them some, it wont cost me anything to drop 20 gold I make the money back in 1 run, as it is at the moment it feels like elite safe, the worst thing that can happen to me is if the game bugs out.

 

[Red Fox Four]

There is one downside to your idea.
Imagine such a "mindlessly killing" player kills 10 other players, gets 1M bounty on his head and then his friend kills him to take the bounty.
Then they switch places.

Can you see where this is going?

That doesnt work.

If you have 1 mill bounty on you and I kill you to claim it then I get 1 mill credits and you get -1 mill credits (actually I think the factor is closer to you losing 1.1-1.2 mill as there is an additional cost for the criminal).

So your plan will simply put both you and me (or your friend) into serious debt.

 

[Dabba]

Just make the bounty 150% of the insurance cost the murdered player has to pay to restore their ship.

 

[Riepah]

I don't quite understand. On the one hand, it's a popular thing to say "It's Eliteangerous, not Elite:Safe", and on the other hand, people seem to think there's a problem when people decide to randomly attack other people. Isn't space supposed to be dangerous? The currently crappy AI which is easily avoided, or ran away from, during interdictions, can hardly be considered a tremendous source of "Danger", can it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not keen on getting killed by people when I'm not prepared for it, but that's what Solo mode is there for, isn't it? I don't think killing players, for whatever reason, should come with a penalty any higher than killing NPCs. The penalty for attacking players should be that they may actually put up a reasonable fight and turn the tables on you. Or that they'll get so angry at you that they put a player bounty on you on top, paid with their own cash, separate from the default bounty the game gives you.

 

[Dabba]

If player bounties were an option that would be great too, unfortunately they aren't.

Also Im all for encouraging piracy and bounty hunting, but I do believe straight up murder should be highly, highly frowned upon and systems put in place to discourage it.