Aaaaand this is why I don't play Open Play - and possibly ED

[Sapient6]

Or conversely yours, and the other PKers, too high?

I wonder which of the two categories people fall into might be distinguishable by age?

Who's up for an over 30s group? You get kicked if you text speak, PK or have heard of any bands in the top 40.

I've lost interest in PvP in my old age (I more than qualify for your proposed groups age requirement). For that reason I avoid Open. It has nothing to do with people posting their Open play "horror stories" and everything to do with a measured, informed decision I made after reading up on the feature set of this game. PvP is an intentional feature of the game, it's a feature I do not want to experience, so before buying the game I researched what options were available to Opt Out of PvP in entirety.


All that said, I definitely come from a PvP background. As such my attitude about PvP in general aligns pretty well Outlaw's. If you deliberately play in a game setting where non-consentual PvP is part of the design and the intent, then pitching a fit because you took a loss is being a poor sport. Here we can take it even further: the OP could have kept avoiding the fight indefinitely, reached a point of safety and logged out in order to switch over to Group Play with his friend.


Instead the OP decided to fight. He lost some monopoly money and his response is to pitch an in-game temper tantrum and a trans-web pitty party. When my 11 year old acts this way he has to get offline and go cool off until he regains some perspective.


Maybe Outlaw Jenner really is a griefer, but I've seen nothing in this thread to support that. He's approaching the game from a different perspective than some of you, he's coming at it from a pro-PvP perspective. I see no evidence that he engages in ongoing campaigns to harass and ruin the fun of his selected targets. Quite to the contrary. He's willing to have friendly dialog with the people he fights, win or lose, has forged some decent in-game friendships around the pvp, meets up with people for rematches when they ask for it. In short, he seems like a cool guy and if I still liked PvP I'd almost certainly seek him out.


The fact that Outlaw is engaging in PvP without any monopoly money to motivate him only means that he isn't engaging in your RP, and that's a funny place to draw your griefer line.

 

[agentultra]

Interesting thread! I'd be fairly chuffed about getting ganked on the last leg of a 2 hour run to land a profit. I don't get to play much. However reading this thread has been eye opening and I don't really see any reason to play Solo/Group unless that's your thing. I'm glad they're there (who doesn't like having options?) but Open is the more interesting game.

I'll definitely be looking into what mechanics are available to traders for avoiding combat if that's my game. It'd be cool if there were a contract system that allowed me to hire NPCs or match-make with other players to form a convoy. I also agree that upping the bounty-hunting game would be fun and make smuggling more interesting.

I'm really enjoying this game and I look forward to digging in more. I'll probably have to switch to some kind of stick; this mouse/keyboard thing is terribly difficult to master in combat.

Don't let the gankers win! Use the mechanics! Form groups! Fight back!

 

[Outlaw Jenner]

I've lost interest in PvP in my old age (I more than qualify for your proposed groups age requirement). For that reason I avoid Open. It has nothing to do with people posting their Open play "horror stories" and everything to do with a measured, informed decision I made after reading up on the feature set of this game. PvP is an intentional feature of the game, it's a feature I do not want to experience, so before buying the game I researched what options were available to Opt Out of PvP in entirety.


All that said, I definitely come from a PvP background. As such my attitude about PvP in general aligns pretty well Outlaw's. If you deliberately play in a game setting where non-consentual PvP is part of the design and the intent, then pitching a fit because you took a loss is being a poor sport. Here we can take it even further: the OP could have kept avoiding the fight indefinitely, reached a point of safety and logged out in order to switch over to Group Play with his friend.


Instead the OP decided to fight. He lost some monopoly money and his response is to pitch an in-game temper tantrum and a trans-web pitty party. When my 11 year old acts this way he has to get offline and go cool off until he regains some perspective.


Maybe Outlaw Jenner really is a griefer, but I've seen nothing in this thread to support that. He's approaching the game from a different perspective than some of you, he's coming at it from a pro-PvP perspective. I see no evidence that he engages in ongoing campaigns to harass and ruin the fun of his selected targets. Quite to the contrary. He's willing to have friendly dialog with the people he fights, win or lose, has forged some decent in-game friendships around the pvp, meets up with people for rematches when they ask for it. In short, he seems like a cool guy and if I still liked PvP I'd almost certainly seek him out.


The fact that Outlaw is engaging in PvP without any monopoly money to motivate him only means that he isn't engaging in your RP, and that's a funny place to draw your griefer line.

Thank you! You see it crystal clear. I stated earlier somewhere that normally I'm a very avid RPer and I just chose not to take that route in ED. Maybe I should, that could "possibly" alleviate some of these problems. That however, becomes a catering match, I have to change my chosen gameplay style to cater to the possible wishes of others gameplay style. We all paid for the game, with the option to play our way. Sometimes paths are going to cross, hulls are going to break, but that doesn't mean one person is more right or wrong than the other. The exception being people that sit and maliciously wait for fresh new players to show up then stomp them with uprated gear. That isn't "fun" that isn't a valid gauge of skill. Frankly I want someone to kick my ass, I want to learn how to get better. If I can't start at fighting bigger tougher ships then where do I start? Do I need to start diving headfirst into 1 v 4 engagements? What will I learn there other than "I need more wingmen"? We had a fight the other night. 2 Asps, a Vulture, and a FDL vs 2 Vultures, a Python, and an Anaconda. We killed 2 of the vultures, and the python right after my asp was destroyed, one of the vultures that returned to the fight and was pretty much dead before his connection crapped out. That was a prearranged fight after multiple run and gun skirmishes with this group. It was good fun, there was no butthurt even though the amount of money lost between the sides was very disproportionate. That fight, by all rights and means we were out classed yet we won.

That is what I play Elite for. I don't want enemies, i want frenemies. I want to be able to fight you, and fly with you. The rebuy screen shouldn't be a factor in determining if we should be cool or not. The experience we shared should, because from that one loss, we may together go on to claim a dozen victories, or do something completely off the wall like "Elites Got Talent". That got started because I beat Mafia in a fight (granted due to a headtracker button failure) and after he sorted it he wanted a rematch. I told him he ran and didn't want to waste the time. He explained the issue, I heard him out, and agreed to fight him. Result, I got my backside handed to me and after we winged up and I said... hey, why don't we do some stop and sings for fun. That turned out to be one of my best experiences in ED to date. Since then I've adopted and tweaked his Asp build and we've had a lot of fun.

I'm completely freelance. I fly with anyone, I don't care if you're Z4, CODE, or EIC, or Cosmic State, or ToC, or whatever (those are the only "groups" I've actually encountered), if you want to play, around on comms and have a good time I'm down. Labels don't apply here, only fun factor. No I'm not a pirate, no I'm not a murder, no I'm not a Griefer, I'm a player... I do what is fitting at that paticular moment in time. People have been killed, people have been poorly pirated, people have been let go, people have been saved, people have put on a show, people have killed me, baddies have been hunted, traders have been escorted during CG's, I do it ALL.

 

[AlexRyder]

If you don't want to die in open, learn to fly.

It's really that simple.

Anything else is exploiting part of the game design to avoid another part of it.

 

[Herik]

Let's see if I can manage to do this without violating a rule and getting this thread locked or deleted. Here goes nothin'.
.
First off, a little history. I started playing back near the end of beta, so I've been around for a little bit. When I first started, I played Open Play exclusively. After all, that's one of the major features of this game, the ability to play with other people. I got killed a few times, but everyone was still in crappy, new ships, so it didn't matter. Nothing really mattered, because learning was what was important, and starting over was no big deal.
.
Then I started trading, and after a while, dying would end up costing me hours of work (between rebuy and cost of haul), and knowing how people are, I could not accept this risk, so I went to solo/private group to get some trading done in peace. Well, I became addicted to not dying while flying a defenseless ship, and worked my way all the way up to an okay-ish Anaconda (a little over 200m). Nothing to write home about, but after days and days of flying Type-Xs, it was awesome.
.
So, my brother and I decide to play together. I make the decision to play in Open Play - my first mistake. I jump out to him, we head out for a RES. There are a couple other players in-system, but they're all apparently clean. We're almost to the RES, and I get interdicted by an Orca. I submit, it's a player. He deploys but doesn't fire, so I figure he's scanning me; I have no bounties, so I'm not worried. My brother drops to me just as I'm jumping out; I tell him to jump back out. Dude starts attacking him just before he jumps out - and my brother is only in a basic Cobra. After some running around, I finally get sick of playing, and engage him. He springs the trap (silent running, heat sinks, upgraded hull, ram and guns). I jump out, he catches up, kills me.
.
No cargo. No bounties. He didn't get anything out of the engagement except the enjoyment of killing a "noob" in an Anaconda (for the record, I'm not completely stupid; I had my rebuy cost).
.
But that's not even the issue. It's that the criminal justice system in this game is pathetic. Report crimes against me? Useless. The guy MURDERED me. And what will the cops do about it? "SCAN DETECTED... Just murder, no illegal cargo? Move along." Just... no.
.
Ultima Online, the first MMO, had a better justice system than this game. Five kills of innocent players, and you turned Red, meaning you were Killed On Sight by town guards until you turned Blue again - eight hours per kill, making you town-less for FORTY HOURS of playtime. There is nothing even close to that here. Bounties? Please. A bounty is as much of a deterrent to people who get their kicks ruining other people's fun as a piece of paper is to an asteroid.
.
"Name of the game, noob. You're dangerous. *whips off Aviators*" Oh yeah? Dangerous to who? Because from what I can see, the game is only dangerous as long as you, yourself, are not part of the danger. The moment you stop seeing your fellow players as potential allies and start seeing them as prey, you minimize their ability to prey on you.
.
But you know what? I don't really want to play a game where I have to assume that everyone is going to kill me just because they can do so with a minimum of consequences, when it has taken me literally days, weeks to get where I am. I mean really. A bounty, for murdering someone, possibly eliminating days or weeks of work in a matter of seconds - and that's IT!?

Yeah, different games of course and mechanics; but it sounds like 'Eve'. The huge expense and time. Fortunately with E there's Solo and groups and and I know you play in one; you -(and your brother) should of joined a group.

 

[Herik]

Interesting thread! I'd be fairly chuffed about getting ganked on the last leg of a 2 hour run to land a profit. I don't get to play much. However reading this thread has been eye opening and I don't really see any reason to play Solo/Group unless that's your thing. I'm glad they're there (who doesn't like having options?) but Open is the more interesting game.

I'll definitely be looking into what mechanics are available to traders for avoiding combat if that's my game. It'd be cool if there were a contract system that allowed me to hire NPCs or match-make with other players to form a convoy. I also agree that upping the bounty-hunting game would be fun and make smuggling more interesting.

I'm really enjoying this game and I look forward to digging in more. I'll probably have to switch to some kind of stick; this mouse/keyboard thing is terribly difficult to master in combat.

Don't let the gankers win! Use the mechanics! Form groups! Fight back!

More Interesting game?...Different strokes. No interest in 'Open' for me.

 

[Outlaw Jenner]

Just found out... this has also propagated to the Steam community forums: http://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/615085406669646967/

 

[Dakron Nova]

Wow this thread still going!

So some further thoughts....

Problem here was CMDR basically grinded his way to an Anaconda in solo and thought brilliant now Im untouchable.

CMDR then joins open and gets his backside kicked by a passenger liner. WHICH he was quite happy to engage right up to the point he thought he would lose.

Grinding in solo and then switching to open is clearly an exploit, which although didnt work out for the CMDR this time. (Lets be fair EPIC FAIL) should be closed by FD like they have other exploits.

 

[Ian Phillips]

You have to be able to make the distinction between "exploit" and "game was designed to work this way from before the kickstarter".

 

[Dakron Nova]

You have to be able to make the distinction between "exploit" and "game was designed to work this way from before the kickstarter".

Er.....wasnt it originally envisaged that there would be a full offline single player experience. Solo was the "this is what we can do" workaround?

Dont think we want to open that wound!

Also it can still be considered an exploit. I doubt it was intended people should grind in solo and then jump to open once they had one of the most powerful ships! At best surely the intention was people would spend a mixture of time in both?

------edit

I'll get my coat.

 

[Nara]

Just found out... this has also propagated to the Steam community forums: http://steamcommunity.com/app/359320/discussions/0/615085406669646967/

It's a good job you were alone in an Orca. Imagine his reaction if you'd killed him in a combat fit Anaconda... with a wingman. It would be in tomorrow mornings edition of the Daily Mail.

 

[Outlaw Jenner]

It's a good job you were alone in an Orca. Imagine his reaction if you'd killed him in a combat fit Anaconda... with a wingman. It would be in tomorrow mornings edition of the Daily Mail.

At this rate I'll be amazed if this doesn't land on CNN. God knows where else this has spread to. Anyone wanna check 4chan? I don't go there...

 

[Adger Stark]

I had a similar experience to the OP recently, but have quite a different outlook on it. I got interdicted by a CMDR in a Anaconda in Altair who was clearly wanting to blow people up for kicks. I was no challenge. I was running a T6 full of rares. Now, I had been actively looking for an encounter with a human player. I found one and got blown up.

So what did I do?

Got another T6 with my insurance (insurance takes the pain away people), went back to the same system, hung around in SC, saw this guy was still there and waited for the interdict.

Why the hell would I do that?

To see if I could get away from him this time of course! I did, and he chased me for 3 systems before I lost him. Brilliant fun.

And that to me is what ED is all about.Not the unfair fight which in your case seems to be (Anaconda vs T6),but what you did afterwards.....instead of moaning and wailing to all and sundry,you went back and tried again and succeeded fair play CMDR,rep given,and thats why im with CMDR Jenner on this, him in his Orca against 2 Cmdrs 1 in a Conda 1 in a cobra he should never have got out of there but due to possible poor tactics he destroyed them and survived..If people want to save and save by doing whatever it is to earn credits to buy Anacondas but dont have a basic grasp of combat and using the systems available then i dont feel sorry for them at all,practice practice and more practice..i spent hrs literally hours on the combat tutorials until i knew what every button did on my HOTAS,i didnt touch the main game for ages until i knew i was at least competant in combat,i trade,bounty hunt,help Cmdrs and also destroy Cmdrs,i pirate i love that i can do what i want in a game I payed for,if i upset people in game and they come after me and destroy me then absolutely fair play to them,i certainly wouldn,t start a thread here there and everywhere moaning about it

 

[Ecto_plasm]

The Elite's Got Talent thing is honestly the funniest thing I've heard of in a MMO game in a long time. Outlaw Jenner, you're my kind of scum.

I'll be sure to bring a mic when I venture into Open. Never know what you are going to find.

And the Orca fight was honestly really funny to watch.

 

[jimglot]

Best thing the OP did was teach his friend in the cobra to never attack a Passenger freight liner with only a Conda. <g>

 

[GibMeister]

Thank you! You see it crystal clear. I stated earlier somewhere that normally I'm a very avid RPer and I just chose not to take that route in ED. Maybe I should, that could "possibly" alleviate some of these problems. That however, becomes a catering match, I have to change my chosen gameplay style to cater to the possible wishes of others gameplay style. We all paid for the game, with the option to play our way. Sometimes paths are going to cross, hulls are going to break, but that doesn't mean one person is more right or wrong than the other. The exception being people that sit and maliciously wait for fresh new players to show up then stomp them with uprated gear. That isn't "fun" that isn't a valid gauge of skill. Frankly I want someone to kick my ass, I want to learn how to get better. If I can't start at fighting bigger tougher ships then where do I start? Do I need to start diving headfirst into 1 v 4 engagements? What will I learn there other than "I need more wingmen"? We had a fight the other night. 2 Asps, a Vulture, and a FDL vs 2 Vultures, a Python, and an Anaconda. We killed 2 of the vultures, and the python right after my asp was destroyed, one of the vultures that returned to the fight and was pretty much dead before his connection crapped out. That was a prearranged fight after multiple run and gun skirmishes with this group. It was good fun, there was no butthurt even though the amount of money lost between the sides was very disproportionate. That fight, by all rights and means we were out classed yet we won.

That is what I play Elite for. I don't want enemies, i want frenemies. I want to be able to fight you, and fly with you. The rebuy screen shouldn't be a factor in determining if we should be cool or not. The experience we shared should, because from that one loss, we may together go on to claim a dozen victories, or do something completely off the wall like "Elites Got Talent". That got started because I beat Mafia in a fight (granted due to a headtracker button failure) and after he sorted it he wanted a rematch. I told him he ran and didn't want to waste the time. He explained the issue, I heard him out, and agreed to fight him. Result, I got my backside handed to me and after we winged up and I said... hey, why don't we do some stop and sings for fun. That turned out to be one of my best experiences in ED to date. Since then I've adopted and tweaked his Asp build and we've had a lot of fun.

I'm completely freelance. I fly with anyone, I don't care if you're Z4, CODE, or EIC, or Cosmic State, or ToC, or whatever (those are the only "groups" I've actually encountered), if you want to play, around on comms and have a good time I'm down. Labels don't apply here, only fun factor. No I'm not a pirate, no I'm not a murder, no I'm not a Griefer, I'm a player... I do what is fitting at that paticular moment in time. People have been killed, people have been poorly pirated, people have been let go, people have been saved, people have put on a show, people have killed me, baddies have been hunted, traders have been escorted during CG's, I do it ALL.

I think you have hit on the issue, I have long believed what causes the hurt with PVP is that the loser can lose a LOT of money, if the rebuy cost was more reasonable more people would take part and be happier about losing but losing a Conda isn't funny at the moment, it can be a game ender for some people.

 

[Outlaw Jenner]

I think you have hit on the issue, I have long believed what causes the hurt with PVP is that the loser can lose a LOT of money, if the rebuy cost was more reasonable more people would take part and be happier about losing but losing a Conda isn't funny at the moment, it can be a game ender for some people.

While the cost can be an issue I don't think it is the primary one. The issue is more the unpreparedness for the cost. If you can't afford a few rebuys of a ship you are using in a dodgy situation you shouldn't be using it. The risk is what brings the thrill most of the time. A ship that is as powerful as an Anaconda, and can escape as easily as an Anaconda should have steep operating costs. These things aren't Solopwnboats, an Anaconda should be used as a support platform in a PvP situation. Granted against a solo smaller ship it should be able to more than hold its own long enough to leave (lets be realistic an Anaconda is too slow to catch anything but an Anaconda), or even last a good duration against an equal foe. That all comes to skill in the end though. You have to prepare for any incident when you click launch, more-so in open play.

 

[Starmony]

If he's carrying a bounty, he's fair game. If he's running a blockade, you tell him to scram and he doesn't, fair game. If he's a hold full of loot and elects not to proffer you some as you hoist the jolly roger, he's fair game.

If he's just pootling about minding his own business and you decide to kill him, it's griefing. No other word for it. People seem hung up on the idea that if you don't get banned for it it's not griefing. Yes it is. You're running an in-game loss by fighting him. You're only doing it as you enjoy upsetting him.

Absolutely, 100% disagree. Frontier made a point of programming NPCs in the game that have no motive other than killing you for fun (don't scan you before attacking, say obviously psychotic things, etc). Psychopathic killer NPCs who have their murderous hands on a spaceship and just want to watch the galaxy burn is literally, LITERALLY WRITTEN INTO THE GAME. Do you have a problem with real humans playing other roles NPC's have, like trader, bounty hunter, etc?

 

[NapalmJunkie]

Personally I'm not a great fan of having some PvP foist upon me (mainly as my combat skills are lacking), but that's part of the charm of being in open. If a CMDR interdicts me, then I'm submitting, boosting and jumping away forthwith. Live to run away another day and all that.

In this case both the OP 'conda and the Cobra had a chance to get out of there, but didn't. And as soon as either of them deployed hardpoints and started shooting, then it's all bets are off as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure the 'conda and Cobra were enjoying things when the Orca was shieldless and having its hull smashed in... and then all the laughter turned to tears once the Orca got its act together. I'm sure they didn't expect an Orca to fight (looks can be deceiving) but that is what did the interdicting...

I must admit, I am pretty amazed that a CMDR can buy an Anaconda and then decide to go for a bit if pew-pew in open (even against NPCs) without having either done much combat practice in that ship or weighed up how much they had to lose. I've just picked up a trader Python and am careful where I go and make sure I have several times the insurance on hand.

It's still pretty funny to see than an Orca (wolf in sheep's clothing!) take on a 'conda/Cobra wing... and win!

 

[Fubidou]

My problem is not the loss of money, hell, I'm in a Cobra! And I'm still on the fence of whether I like people imposing themselves on my game, (I hated it before, but now I'm not sure). The problem I have is that people target other players because they are real players, and not NPC's. It creates a weird kind of dynamic, where people are pretending to be in spaceships in space, looking to annoy real people. So that breaks the immersion for me. Why not just go an punch someone?

ps: I tried to find the video on YouTube. What's the title?