Am I the only one not understanding all the fuss?

[Riepah]

How is it "diluting" the game modes especially Solo? Do you think that Private Groups are also a problem?

In the case of Solo mode, the "dilution" is that your efforts in this Solo universe are still rendered naught by the Open mode, since the universe in Solo and Open are one and the same. Even in Solo mode, you can not decide to try and push faction X to expand, unless the majority of people in Open currently want to push the same faction. If the people in Open push faction Y, you can try and job for faction X all you want and they'll still lose influence, and there's nothing you can do to change that. A "proper" Solo experience should be unaffected by what other people do in other modes of the game.

Ideally, each Private Group should have their own universe as well, only affected by this group, neither from random people in Solo, nor random people in Open.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[Sentenza]

Yes, you've missed alot of points, so I'll chime in a few :

- when you're in the same Networking Region during peak Play times and around a choke point System, you're far more likely to see other Players
- when you're servicing certain Trade routes, you're very likely to encounter more Players
- when you happen to be "paired" with a Griefer - you will not normally lose that pairing. He'll be there for you all the time - and may even like it and follow you, no matter where you go (with Solo Play actually being the only escape, short of logging off entirely).

- Traders usually don't have too much Problem with the general risks - it's their absolute helplessness that bothers (they have no means of returning some of the 'love' they received by any Game mechanics. Those mechanics are completely missing.)
- that makes PvP a very single-sided "entertainment". One side gets all the fun & glory - the other side foots the entire bill without having anything from it, nor being able to retaliate by other means

In short, it's a severe balancing issue on the side of (mostly) defenseless Traders. They literally got nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Give a Trader the Option of placing a high-profile Assassination Missions on his Killer into Bulletin Boards after getting attacked or even killed - then we're beginning to talk balancing.

PS.
Since Griefers usually aren't the "brightest bulbs in the shop", they're also completely immune to registering what their behaviour (under abovementioned prerequisites) does to the Game.

Just take an ASP or even a bigger ship into a semi-busy Sector and monitor how other Players (Traders or smaller Ships) react.
After a short while, you'll notice they're avoiding you at all cost - if persistent, they might avoid this sector alltogether despite no harm ever being done.

That's one of the reasons Players often prefer to "disperse" into Systems where they rather not encounter potential Trouble.
And as a direct result - Players simply enjoying the presence of others find themselves more and more often alone.

PPS.
Another detail is usually ignored :

Those small guys floating around in their small Trade ships might not be the most experienced Players around.
Could be that guy worked over an entire week of gameplay to afford that Hauler with its Cargo hold.

Then comes along somebody why destroys all that work for just 2 Minutes of percieved fun. Just like that. Doesn't even care, even calls his victims "Idiots" just for underestimating his sociopathic hunger for senseless destruction against other Players.

The only potentially serious problem I see in what you said is the pairing, and that could be easily fixed server side adding some randomizing or something of the sort. About the rest, well yes cargos are defenseless, and isn't this exactly what they are supposed to be? You can't have huge easy profits without any risk in life, why should you have them in a game? We may speculate that a future expansion should give traders the option to hire escorts or form convoys, but apart from that, traders in the game are not more 'unbalanced' than real traders in the real world. Try sailing a cargo ship near Somali coast some time

BTW, i love fighting ASPs

 

[Techmonkey]

Understanding the fight between the hardcore pro and anti PVP camps would give the ability to divide by zero
In every sandbox ish game you will experience the pro/anti PVP crusades, and the best thing to do is taking cover and observe them at a safe distance

 

[gazzareth]

So explain the anti choice! I'm in favor of choice. What I don't like is the fact that even though the choice is already there with multiple options, ie.. solo, group, ignore function. Some players ignore that fact and claim people are 'griefing' when in reality they are only playing the game the way it is designed.

If you can't take criticism and need to resort to the childish 'go and grow up' argument then I suggest you don't make such ignorant posts.

Nothing ignorant in my post I was just responding to the utter rubbish in your one, perhaps you should re-read it since it contrasts rather a lot in both tone and content with this.

 

[TannakaObi]

I've flown the Hauler, the Type-6 and the Type-7.

I can assure you there's nothing you could possibly put onto these ships that could be of any significant help against a typical PvP scenario (unless you're very lucky and the PvP guy forgot for bring any defensive Systems to the fight).

You're a slow, big target and there's absolutely nothing stopping any fixed weapon fired from a fighter.

That's what I said, if you choose a weaker set up, then you are cannon fodder for PVP, so you have options. Choose a more all round ship, a cobra for example. Take less profit and defend yourself. Or even buy mines, missiles.. better thrusters to run with, set up your power priorities, practice interdictions, play in solo, join a group. Ignore people who are more pvp based. Options, after options.

 

[Unpleasant]

I'm afraid I'm unable to follow your logic. Why should I like to kill a sitting duck? What kind of people do you hang around with?

I don't doubt that there are some people who like to damage other people just for the sake of it, but not being able to do serious damage by griefing etc. they will be just pirates. Granted idiot pirates, but still just pirates. Also, not being able to do serious damage, I fully expect such people to not last long here, quiclky migrating somewhere else where they can.

Let me try some analogies and see if it helps.

If you like fighting in the real world, you might join a boxing club where you'll learn to fight well. You might then have competition fights, where you'll be matched against someone with similar experience and skill. I'd respect you if you're this type of fighter, fighting in this type of way.

OR...

If you like fighting you can go out to town on a Saturday night and kick the heads in of drunks that can't possibly fight back. I wouldn't respect you if you did this, nor would many other people.

You're talking about fighting other players in PvP, but all the pro PvP people want to do is fight weaker, defenseless, opponents in their kitted out cobras or vipers. This isn't PvP in my eyes, 2 kitted out vipers both eye balling each other in the ring, while the ring announcer says "bing, bing" is PvP in my eyes.

 

[TannakaObi]

Nothing ignorant in my post I was just responding to the utter rubbish in your one, perhaps you should re-read it since it contrasts rather a lot in both tone and content with this.

You offer no opinions other than it's all the PVP players fault and to criticise my 'utter rubbish'. I'm not even sure you grasp what I even said.

 

[Tigga]

The problem is that NPCs are not a challenge. NPC pirates should be something traders have to at least think about. If PvE was actually in any way challenging, people wouldn't moan about PvP so much. You can play this game for hours without a single NPC firing on you. This is silly, and makes PvP stand out as the only dangerous thing in the game, which is why people don't like it.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

-- Deleted --

 

[gazzareth]

You offer no opinions other than it's all the PVP players fault and to criticise my 'utter rubbish'. I'm not even sure you grasp what I even said.

I grasp it quite clearly: You said this:

What Dross!

It's the anti PVP that cause the problem, every precaution is made in Elite so you can not be griefed if you don't want to be. Yet people still go on and on about being griefed. It's pathetic!

Responding to my opinion, which you disagree with (no problem with that other than your tone), incidently I haven't seen many people go on about being griefed compared to those that moan on and on and on about mode switching.

Shame because it appears after some of your other posts that I agree with other parts - choice mostly and if you are going to play "OPEN" then be prepared for attacks, even though you are going to struggle to prepare some of the trader ships for a serious fight.

G

 

[DarkWalker]

In the case of Solo mode, the "dilution" is that your efforts in this Solo universe are still rendered naught by the Open mode, since the universe in Solo and Open are one and the same. Even in Solo mode, you can not decide to try and push faction X to expand, unless the majority of people in Open currently want to push the same faction. If the people in Open push faction Y, you can try and job for faction X all you want and they'll still lose influence, and there's nothing you can do to change that. A "proper" Solo experience should be unaffected by what other people do in other modes of the game.

Ideally, each Private Group should have their own universe as well, only affected by this group, neither from random people in Solo, nor random people in Open.

Which was exactly what was promised for offline play, and what I backed this game for; an universe of my own. Unfortunately, Frontier decided that having different universes for different players didn't fit their "vision".

 

[TannakaObi]

I grasp it quite clearly: You said this:



Responding to my opinion, which you disagree with (no problem with that other than your tone), incidently I haven't seen many people go on about being griefed compared to those that moan on and on and on about mode switching.

Shame because it appears after some of your other posts that I agree with other parts - choice mostly and if you are going to play "OPEN" then be prepared for attacks, even though you are going to struggle to prepare some of the trader ships for a serious fight.

G

My tone was tongue in cheek remark based on:

The fuss is entirely caused by certain people, largely proPVP

I was mimicking you placing the blame on one set of players.

I then went on to point out how, actually the options are indeed already in place. "Every precaution is made in Elite so you can not be griefed" which is the truth.

 

[Robert Maynard]

"Every precaution is made in Elite so you can not be griefed" which is the truth.

.... except for the small issue of there being no uncontested definition of what "griefing", therefore no determination as to whether "every" precaution has been made can be made.

 

[Wurmfist]

Yes! yes! the problem isn't that players are being griefed, the problem is that some players are coming here after being shot once and complaining that they were griefed. So, the problem is, many people here don't even know what griefing is. And in some other poll taken here a very very small percentage of people say they were griefed and even that data is dubious because the poll had a huge argument over what it actually means.

 

[TUXER]

We should get a special sub-forum going for pvp/pve open/solo discussions, that way I could safely ignore them

I play open, but I've yet to be interdicted by a player.

In fact the only interdictions that are ever successful are the ones that I submit to because I've already checked out that the NPC is one that I can easily take and claim the bounty for. The others I simply avoid!


Overall these are pointless discussions whose only purpose are to act as a 'squeaky wheel' so that the PVP-focused players can force everyone into open (which will result in them being abandoned in open to play with each other).

I'm sure there will be people who don't agree with me, and that's fine, you're perfectly entitled to your own opinion as I am mine.

I dont know if this is what the developers have in mind but its an interesting experiment all the same.

The current design as it is asks this question, specifically why do you want to combat a person instead of an AI.

write them down in a top 5 reasons kind of list, be as specific as possible.

 

[Unpleasant]

.... except for the small issue of there being no uncontested definition of what "griefing", therefore no determination as to whether "every" precaution has been made can be made.

A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game who deliberately irritates and harasses other players within the game.

In the culture of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) in Taiwan, such as Lineage, griefers are known as "white-eyed"—a metaphor meaning that their eyes have no pupils and so they look without seeing. Behaviors other than griefing which can cause players to be stigmatized as "white-eyed" include cursing, cheating, stealing, and unreasonable killing.

The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.[4] The player is said to cause "grief" in the sense of "giving someone grief".

The term "griefing" dates to the late 1990s, when it was used to describe the willfully antisocial behaviors seen in early massively multiplayer online games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

Not sure I'd agree that the word griefing hasn't no uncontested definition. It's been around longer than some players have been alive. lol

 

[TannakaObi]

.... except for the small issue of there being no uncontested definition of what "griefing", therefore no determination as to whether "every" precaution has been made can be made.

This is a seperate issues. Clearly the op is talking about the argument over PVP/griefing that has been so prominent in many forum discussions.

I would place griefing as interdicting people over and over, nudging players into walls. Blocking people from landing etc.. and if people were talking about these things then that would be fine. But they are not, people are pointing to the combat system in open play and saying people are griefing by playing the game the way they choose. i.e killing other players. As far as I can see that is what the op meant.

 

[Unpleasant]

This is a seperate issues. Clearly the op is talking about the argument over PVP/griefing that has been so prominent in many forum discussions.

I would place griefing as interdicting people over and over, nudging players into walls. Blocking people from landing etc.. and if people were talking about these things then that would be fine. But they are not, people are pointing to the combat system in open play and saying people are griefing by playing the game the way they choose. i.e killing other players. As far as I can see that is what the op meant.

I think people are talking about griefers being people that murder clean, defenseless player ships and get no reward for doing so.

 

[TUXER]

I think the design is a very interesting social experiment.

many people say it matters but WHY does it matter?

also, from what I have been told my developer in the industry is that AI could beat you every single time, they actually dumb it down for you. So if that is the case isnt there various levels of 'dumbing it down' could it be made that its not always obvioius that a player is better?