Hi Mr Fang. I see many good things written by yourself dismissing some of the various ideas thrown into the pot, mostly with good reasons as to why they most likely would not work.
Are there any things that you think that could possibly be implemented to assist in the great pirate/griefer/cheater war *.
Cheers, John.
* also known as "the war of many circular posts"
The current problems we are looking at are the following:
1. PK/harassment
2. Griefing/Perceived Griefing
3. Combat Logging
The first problem, player killing can happen as an unfortunate byproduct of piracy, usually due to when the victim is uncooperative.
Traders lack proper protection from authority vessels in high-security system, causes frustration on traders.
Pirates waste time dealing with Combat Loggers, causes frustration on the pirates.
Positive matters:
Some traders live and survive the experience and thoroughly enjoyed it, some get boiled up and still know that they brought it upon themselves. Pirates got some loot, and some interaction fun.
Negative matters:
Some traders immediately begin complaining about the disadvantage they faced, despite much of it is completely self-inflicted and caused by lack of knowledge in the game's ample escape mechanisms. Then some of these traders begin justifying combat logging or utilize combat logging, or both. Pirates get frustrated, becoming less and less forgiving. I witnessed this transition in many player pirates, and I mean many, it's unfortunate but it happens.
Interfering matters:
Questionable deviants that shoot people for no other reason than for fun tries to call themselves pirates, which give piracy a bad name. This seemingly lack of objective from the killer frustrates victims, which lead to natural stereotyping, and general resentment, which generate more combat logging tendencies.
So far, in this game, the positive is greatly outnumbered by the interfering and negative, due to the "free" nature of the game. Rationally, this will create a nomocracy that the community builds together, that creates norm and ethics for everyone to more or less an agree-able degree. However, this game cannot do that due to the mode system it has, if anything, it worsens this cycle. Collective action is difficult due to the lack of individual commitment and reciprocity, allowing people to "avoid confrontation" looks great on paper, but in implementation it fragments the community into pieces, and severely so. "So and so is causing trouble next door? Oh who cares, just shut the door/enter another mode and keep doing my own thing." The game design (modes and instancing) makes players that play together OP when it only appears OP, because it's a rarity, the game doesn't keep people together, it actively tries to create factions in the game and outside of the game. The PvPers, the PvEers, the solo players, the MP players, the MMO players, then add in the different professions...
In my honest conclusion, people are given the tools to counter the current perceived oppression by aggressive players, the people that truly complain about it as a priority are unaware/refuse to acknowledge of their lack of knowledge within the game and about game mechanics. Then they try to justify this by stating that they have no interest in learning it because it isn't fun, which then I must question in return that what if the PvP players really didn't like the PvE portion of the game and only did it to accumulate the necessary assets to enable their PvP career?
Can we improve from our current situation? Sure, there can always be improvement, but this sort of complaints isn't out of the spirit of revolution but a sign of the indolent nature of humanity manifesting in an awkward and ironic manner.
Suggestion:
1. Give BH an active role, get that wake scanner upgraded and into action. (Implement a "ghost wing" mechanic it forces the two players or more to wing together without HUD display for the target, where it tether the BH to the target so instancing doesn't get in the way and allow mandatory wing-man beacon to be enabled on the tethered target. At the same time, police arrival clock will start ticking down where the police will aid the BH in hunting down the target based on the system's security setting.)
2. Stop the boost boost boost habit (unless you're in a Clipper/Cobra, heh). Right now, people are too used to submitting and boosting without looking at their communication panel, where potentially meaningful interaction gets ruined because of this bad habit. Of course, if people just start shooting, one should probably run. So overhaul the NPCs to demand people to stop (police scan/pirate scan), this way people start learning how to interact other than breaking the boost button and disabling local chat.
3. Blowing up clean targets will have consequences. Add 1% timed re-buy cost to a player, functions like the bounty system. Each time a clean target gets blown up, the timer resets to the original (precise duration can be discussed later). This re-buy cost increase doesn't disappear when changing ships, and dying doesn't reset it, so no more suicidal Sidewinders feeding the station wall for fun. On top of this, repair/restock/refuel cost will drastically increase, killing people for fun is expensive, this value can be discussed later, but basically all stations will demand much higher cost to maintain a ship that's been killing clean ships, and this stacks, too, like the re-buy cost % stacking. This gives meaning to even damaging a player killer ship.
4. Hi-sec low-sec profit rebalance (former decreases in profit, latter increases in profit):
*Quoting from another thread*
"If profit balance isn't done, the following will happen:
Hi-sec:
Police everywhere, trying to commit crime will get serious police response within seconds, effectively deterring crime to occur.
Low-sec:
Scarce police, crime is easy to commit.
Legal profession response:
Why would I ever go to low-sec unless I'm brain-dead? I make the same/almost the same profit in high-sec systems.
Illegal profession response:
Well... committing crime in high-sec is a no no, and there's no on in low-sec, guess I better play something else then..."
Conclusion:
Traders have places to be relatively "safe," and can play it risky if they want, risk and reward are properly balanced.
Player BH can finally have a real job, and dust off the wake scanner.
A good pirate doesn't kill often, and killing is bad for business to begin with.
Griefers is almost non-existent in this game, people that kill clean players for fun on the other hand, are properly checked with reasonable consequences.
So far I think these ideas are somewhat appropriate, feel free to criticize and add/subtract, it's about 6 AM here Sunday, so my mind isn't that coherent, probably.
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So basically your view of open : screw anything PVE as there is no point having a ship not outfitted for PVP. Never use a T6 or an hauler or anything not fit for heavy combat, as the game here is "I'm a psychopath in 100% anarchy systems". Of course, if you want to test your pvp abilities you could just play CQC but then again, it might not be as easy as shooting an unarmed trader with your FDL because of "the warm glow of ships going pop"
Hah...
Okay, I'll play then...
PvE ship and PvP ship are so diverse not because people want it to be, but FD made it so, and made it more so with the 1.5/2.0 SCB changes that is suppose to create variance within the game and bring PvE PvP ships closer together and away from specialization, but it did the opposite. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the 1.5/2.0 changes.
I can survive easily in a T6, Hauler on the other hand, I probably can't make it work.
CQC's PvP isn't the same as main game PvP, if anything they're drastically different, please do some proper research before making parallel between the two. Also, because CQC is so simple and easy to do well in, I choose not to play it often.
I have no interest in blowing up unarmed traders, thank you very much.
) So they should be prepared for it. 500T unarmed T9's are asking for it. Its bad enough with the NPC sometimes but a player will toast you. Thems the rules. Its open. There is no PvE in open. Its PvP/E. If you want it to be PvE mainly in open then keep a low profile and go where no-one is. But expect to be shot at by a CMDR for no particular reason. As some PvP players have the generic PvP MP game mentality that is, shoot to kill and do it with whatever advantage you can muster. Its war. Its the same game mentality I have in BF4. I wouldn't stop for a chat in BF4, I often just run around with my knife killing and being killed. PvE in open need to realise that for some, this is legitimate. No matter how I perceive it as a PvE player. Its open. 
