I hate being a whinger.. but this is truly my worst pet peeve about the game. 3 times in as many days I have been kicked out of systems because I have gained a wanted status. Let me explain.
Many times now, I have pilots fly into my line of fire, and I have barely scraped them with weapons.. sure enough I get the usual wait 9 minutes, pay the bounty and move on.. which, personally is just annoying. BUT, what I really HATE.. is when that target is then killed by an NPC, and then YOU get the blame for it and are kicked out of your home system for 5+ days. I have had to move home systems 3 times in the past 3 days, and its getting really annoying especially since I have to move my ships with me. That includes trying to find another home system with good RES sites and close to the systems I frequent, and then ferrying back and forth moving my ships across.
I can totally understand the need for a cooldown period, it makes sense, your wanted in the system so you have to lay low for a while. But I should not have to be punished for only scratching the hull of a target with accidental fire, while other NPC's pummel it to death and then I get tagged as the killer, its totally illogical and breaks immersion and causes frustration.
Now instead of just whinging about the system and how it works, I sat down and tried to think of a solution. Here is my idea.
If you accidentally fire one on a target for less than 2 seconds, you get a fine based upon your elite level starting off at 1000cr for new players and up to 250,000cr for elite players. This way there is still a penalty in place that will have direct impact on all levels of players and dosent resort in all of the security ships turning on you in a res site if you accidentally shoot something, and forcing you to basically quit the game for 9 minutes or make you h-jump out and wait it out in another system.
In order to get a 5 day wanted status in a system, you have to do a minimum of 25% damage to a clean NPC in order to be tagged as the "killer" for that NPC That way there is no mistake, you were purposely trying to damage that target, and there is no excuse.
I understand that there needs to be significant consequences to your actions within the game, but I do believe there has to be some kind of logic to back it up also, and the current system, while the idea of it is logical, dosent work the way that it should. Friendly fire is going to happen in a chaotic environment, punishing the player with the current mechanics just seems not only unfair but illogical, and that can only have a negative effect on gameplay.
Personally I would like to see bigger fines based on your ranking, and no bounties on trivial offenses like friendly fire. 400cr is just nothing to someone like me at deadly level. I dont mind being hit up for 250,000cr it still hurts, but it dosent stop me from playing the game, or panicking when all the security ships decided I am the biggest threat in the known universe just cause my pulse laser scrapped one of their hulls by accident. It will just make me try and be more careful about where I shoot as the best way to punish me is to hit my bank balance, not push me out of the game or my favorite home system.
If anyone else has any other ideas, would love to hear about them.
Many times now, I have pilots fly into my line of fire, and I have barely scraped them with weapons.. sure enough I get the usual wait 9 minutes, pay the bounty and move on.. which, personally is just annoying. BUT, what I really HATE.. is when that target is then killed by an NPC, and then YOU get the blame for it and are kicked out of your home system for 5+ days. I have had to move home systems 3 times in the past 3 days, and its getting really annoying especially since I have to move my ships with me. That includes trying to find another home system with good RES sites and close to the systems I frequent, and then ferrying back and forth moving my ships across.
I can totally understand the need for a cooldown period, it makes sense, your wanted in the system so you have to lay low for a while. But I should not have to be punished for only scratching the hull of a target with accidental fire, while other NPC's pummel it to death and then I get tagged as the killer, its totally illogical and breaks immersion and causes frustration.
Now instead of just whinging about the system and how it works, I sat down and tried to think of a solution. Here is my idea.
If you accidentally fire one on a target for less than 2 seconds, you get a fine based upon your elite level starting off at 1000cr for new players and up to 250,000cr for elite players. This way there is still a penalty in place that will have direct impact on all levels of players and dosent resort in all of the security ships turning on you in a res site if you accidentally shoot something, and forcing you to basically quit the game for 9 minutes or make you h-jump out and wait it out in another system.
In order to get a 5 day wanted status in a system, you have to do a minimum of 25% damage to a clean NPC in order to be tagged as the "killer" for that NPC That way there is no mistake, you were purposely trying to damage that target, and there is no excuse.
I understand that there needs to be significant consequences to your actions within the game, but I do believe there has to be some kind of logic to back it up also, and the current system, while the idea of it is logical, dosent work the way that it should. Friendly fire is going to happen in a chaotic environment, punishing the player with the current mechanics just seems not only unfair but illogical, and that can only have a negative effect on gameplay.
Personally I would like to see bigger fines based on your ranking, and no bounties on trivial offenses like friendly fire. 400cr is just nothing to someone like me at deadly level. I dont mind being hit up for 250,000cr it still hurts, but it dosent stop me from playing the game, or panicking when all the security ships decided I am the biggest threat in the known universe just cause my pulse laser scrapped one of their hulls by accident. It will just make me try and be more careful about where I shoot as the best way to punish me is to hit my bank balance, not push me out of the game or my favorite home system.
If anyone else has any other ideas, would love to hear about them.
