Plenty of Open only / PvP advocates also say that Open is much riskier than Group / Solo, but that it's really easy to avoid other players if you don't want to interact with them...
I'd say that's also a direct contradiction and you can't say both.
Yes PVP is unfair.
- Thread starter _Dastardly_
- Start date
Plenty of Open only / PvP advocates also say that Open is much riskier than Group / Solo, but that it's really easy to avoid other players if you don't want to interact with them...
I'd say that's also a direct contradiction and you can't say both.
Plenty of Open only / PvP advocates also say that Open is much riskier than Group / Solo, but that it's really easy to avoid other players if you don't want to interact with them...
I'd say that's also a direct contradiction and you can't say both.
i dont see why not lol.
if i fly out 400ly away from any where in open i will not see any one else. or if i tread a path that is not often beaten by others. again i wont see any one else,
But if i fly to a CG in open its a lot more dangerous than in solo or group.
So that is true.
What you cant say is..
people are blockading robigo. pvpers are hanging arround the starter systems killing every one, and pvpers are at the CG's making them near impossible because its blockaded.
and then also say
You cant blockade anything in open.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Most of Open, i.e. very nearly 100% of Open, is completely devoid of players - by definition, given the size of the game world and the number of players (even if every single player who owns the game was online and in Open at the same time).
While complete blockades are not possible, I expect that players who enjoy such gameplay can roleplay them as they wish. The fact is that a complete blockade is not possible for several reasons: instance population limit; P2P connections between players meaning that they will never be instanced together; three game modes.
Players form their own perceptions of Open and comment accordingly. Some players have had subjectively bad experiences due to interactions with other players in Open. For those players' perceptions of Open to change, they would need to have subjectively better interactions with other players. Meaningful consequences for unlawful destruction of players might go some way to improving the situation.
The fact that Sandro has posted here seeking feedback on potential consequences would suggest that Frontier feel that something needs to be done - whether that infers that the population in Open is dwindling (as a proportion of the active players) is up for debate.
It will be interesting to see what form any changes to crime and punishment take.
First of all I refuse to refer to what the OP was talking about as just "PvP" because I have no problem with combat between players. But what these people want is "PvP as a sport" and that is something I want no part in.
If it were up to me, there would be zero ways to identify another player so you never know if you interdict an NPC or a player until you realize this guy is WAY better than you.
This would mean that sports-PvP players would have to organize and meet to fight and everyone else would finally have what at least I myself always dreamed of in the 90s: A game where you are just one of the NPCs and your NPCs are played by other poeple to make the world feel even more real.
No more attacking noobs because it just doesn't give you the same satisfaction if you can't be sure if it's really a noob or just an NPC, no more blocking systems as you'd have to interdict ALL ships, not just the three players you see every once in a while.
I would love that, but until then it's Private / Solo for me.
If it were up to me, there would be zero ways to identify another player so you never know if you interdict an NPC or a player until you realize this guy is WAY better than you.
This would mean that sports-PvP players would have to organize and meet to fight and everyone else would finally have what at least I myself always dreamed of in the 90s: A game where you are just one of the NPCs and your NPCs are played by other poeple to make the world feel even more real.
No more attacking noobs because it just doesn't give you the same satisfaction if you can't be sure if it's really a noob or just an NPC, no more blocking systems as you'd have to interdict ALL ships, not just the three players you see every once in a while.
I would love that, but until then it's Private / Solo for me.
Wow, 77 pages.
Is this the new Open vs Group vs Solo debate?
Is this the new Open vs Group vs Solo debate?
They aren't killing "everyone" and they aren't "blockading". What happens is that
- a sufficiently larger number of people are destroyed so that it becomes more than just a rare random occurance
- the prepetrators do so intentionally
- sometimes even claim some sort of blockade (typically infused with some faux-RP nonsense)
So it may not be a "blockade", but an "attempted blockade". It's not able to prevent, for example, a CG from succeeding, but it prevents the victims of the attacks from enjoying it. That is unless they switch to private group solo mode, until some of the "blockaders" come to the forums and complain how those "cowards" hide behind solo mode.
And then this entire process is repeated ad nauseam.
Yesterday I was flying around in the Brestla, the trade CG system. Upon arriving in a hauler I found myself in shark tank full of the usual PVPers with no trader in sight. Surprisingly I was ignored while in super cruise and it was only after observing a wing fight close-up that a wizard student made me disappear. Returning in a combat ship to partake in the chaos was fun but at the same time it is sad to see that Open is no longer representative of the player base. That in turn makes it difficult to judge the effects of any subtle measures taken to reduce in-game murder.
Maybe, instead of tuning down murder as suggested by Sandro here...
... it has to be hit with a sledge hammer first, then tuned up again towards a design goal . In addition to automated NPC responses also remove insurance with more than accidental damage inflicted on clean targets, remove docking rights except for independent stations in anarchy systems, and have the offender pay an instant fine amounting to 1% of net assets (bounties are paid straight away so fines could be deducted instantaneously as well). Double the percentage payable with every new incident and double the bounty up to some maximum. If the offender can't pay the fine then he goes into debt and docking rights are revoked even for anarchy systems. Once the ship runs out of fuel or air it goes boom and the offender starts in a sidewinder with 1000cr. The debt remains and (s)he keeps any other ships owned. If the offender stays out of trouble then the debt is halved every week. In the mean time, all credits earned are applied to the debt leaving 1000cr in the pocket before undocking. The objective is to make offending and murder inconvenient and unsustainable even for billionaires.
Valid PVP targets remaining so far: opposing power play commanders and wanted commanders for the occasional murder. Piracy will work best around anarchy system; there are no fines for murder there.
Maybe it will take a year for ED to level out with some PVPers leaving and going on a last murderous rampage to burn their credits. Fun times!
You can stop reading now; thank you for making it this far.
---
So. I have been playing with this idea and undoubtedly it will go under in the big bag of ideas already posted. I suspect I'm writing this down more for my own benefit than yours. As Mr Fang likes to state, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". If you'd like some entertaining then please read on. I'll probably stick this into the suggestion box one day and apologise for the long post.
Executive summary: PVPers can kill each other without penalty and can earn credits with it, traders and miners are recognised as the liveblood of the galaxy and protected by all PVPers.
Despite what I said about murder, I'd like "meaningful" PVP to be a core part of ED. I'd also like traders and miners to choose playing in Open because in this new galaxy there is no or even less danger for them there than there is in PVE/Solo mode. I'll try to be brief (and fail):
1. Players can pick up a perpetual mission to "establish system supremacy" for a minor faction (this could be a player group faction) with the objective to kill other commanders who have accepted such a mission for a different faction. The commander name is tagged with the faction name and engaging or killing an opposing commander does not incur murder penalties. Of course, this mission is only available in Open.
2. Each day, the following statistics is collected continuously for each faction with such a mission within each system they have engaged in:
Value of opposing faction player ships destroyed
minus Value of the faction's own player ships lost
minus Value of all other commander ships destroyed within the system (by NPCs or otherwise).
At any point in time the faction with the highest total value has 'system supremacy' and players who have accepted such a mission get a payout. The payout is calculated daily and proportional to the time surpremacy was upheld during the day. A bonus is applied proportionally to the number of traders or miners who have visited the system and sold their goods there. The payout is then distributed to all participating commanders equally with the objective that this play style is mostly self-sustainable. It is in the interest of each faction to keep traders, miners and all other commanders alive.
3. Because I'd like to aim for Open being the preferred mode of play, killing opposing power-play commanders becomes murder in this galaxy unless these commanders have also accepted the faction mission. Call it Galactic Free Trade agreement or Galactic Truce that is disrupted now and again by NPCs or the occasional un-deterred murderer commander.
It would be nice if this could tie in with the background simulation.
Thank you and sorry again about the long post.
Maybe, instead of tuning down murder as suggested by Sandro here...
... it has to be hit with a sledge hammer first, then tuned up again towards a design goal . In addition to automated NPC responses also remove insurance with more than accidental damage inflicted on clean targets, remove docking rights except for independent stations in anarchy systems, and have the offender pay an instant fine amounting to 1% of net assets (bounties are paid straight away so fines could be deducted instantaneously as well). Double the percentage payable with every new incident and double the bounty up to some maximum. If the offender can't pay the fine then he goes into debt and docking rights are revoked even for anarchy systems. Once the ship runs out of fuel or air it goes boom and the offender starts in a sidewinder with 1000cr. The debt remains and (s)he keeps any other ships owned. If the offender stays out of trouble then the debt is halved every week. In the mean time, all credits earned are applied to the debt leaving 1000cr in the pocket before undocking. The objective is to make offending and murder inconvenient and unsustainable even for billionaires.
Valid PVP targets remaining so far: opposing power play commanders and wanted commanders for the occasional murder. Piracy will work best around anarchy system; there are no fines for murder there.
Maybe it will take a year for ED to level out with some PVPers leaving and going on a last murderous rampage to burn their credits. Fun times!
You can stop reading now; thank you for making it this far.
---
So. I have been playing with this idea and undoubtedly it will go under in the big bag of ideas already posted. I suspect I'm writing this down more for my own benefit than yours. As Mr Fang likes to state, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". If you'd like some entertaining then please read on. I'll probably stick this into the suggestion box one day and apologise for the long post.
Executive summary: PVPers can kill each other without penalty and can earn credits with it, traders and miners are recognised as the liveblood of the galaxy and protected by all PVPers.
Despite what I said about murder, I'd like "meaningful" PVP to be a core part of ED. I'd also like traders and miners to choose playing in Open because in this new galaxy there is no or even less danger for them there than there is in PVE/Solo mode. I'll try to be brief (and fail):
1. Players can pick up a perpetual mission to "establish system supremacy" for a minor faction (this could be a player group faction) with the objective to kill other commanders who have accepted such a mission for a different faction. The commander name is tagged with the faction name and engaging or killing an opposing commander does not incur murder penalties. Of course, this mission is only available in Open.
2. Each day, the following statistics is collected continuously for each faction with such a mission within each system they have engaged in:
Value of opposing faction player ships destroyed
minus Value of the faction's own player ships lost
minus Value of all other commander ships destroyed within the system (by NPCs or otherwise).
At any point in time the faction with the highest total value has 'system supremacy' and players who have accepted such a mission get a payout. The payout is calculated daily and proportional to the time surpremacy was upheld during the day. A bonus is applied proportionally to the number of traders or miners who have visited the system and sold their goods there. The payout is then distributed to all participating commanders equally with the objective that this play style is mostly self-sustainable. It is in the interest of each faction to keep traders, miners and all other commanders alive.
3. Because I'd like to aim for Open being the preferred mode of play, killing opposing power-play commanders becomes murder in this galaxy unless these commanders have also accepted the faction mission. Call it Galactic Free Trade agreement or Galactic Truce that is disrupted now and again by NPCs or the occasional un-deterred murderer commander.
It would be nice if this could tie in with the background simulation.
Thank you and sorry again about the long post.
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No, not because of instancing. The ability to effectively control an area of space and deny others access to it was explicitly and intentionally designed out of the game. That's a mechanic that was specifically stated as being one that FD didn't want. If a blockade wasn't rendered moot by instancing it would be rendered moot by mode switching, and if that didn't do it something else would be in place to ensure that area denial would never be an effective tactic in ED.
DB disliked the "camping a choke point" gameplay excluding other players from areas of space, so FD explicitly designed the game so you couldn't, with no choke points to camp and no way to positively exclude other players from any area of space. The instancing and matchmaking mechanics are the chicken, not the egg.
We could actually make things simple while Crime and Punishment is being worked on.
Stop differentiating between NPCs and CMDRs. Everybody is a solid square/triangle. Nobody has a CMDR tag on him.
Start giving NPCs Commander-like names.
That way you won't know if the ship you're intercepting or attacking is a player or NPC.
And you won't know if the ship attacking you is one either.
Nobody complains about being attacked by NPCs anyway....
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Perhaps. But that is a moot point also.
There are more inhabited star systems than there are players at any one time.
And there are many more star systems in the game, than the entire human race.....
You blockade a system. There's always somewhere else to go....
Stop differentiating between NPCs and CMDRs. Everybody is a solid square/triangle. Nobody has a CMDR tag on him.
Start giving NPCs Commander-like names.
That way you won't know if the ship you're intercepting or attacking is a player or NPC.
And you won't know if the ship attacking you is one either.
Nobody complains about being attacked by NPCs anyway....
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Perhaps. But that is a moot point also.
There are more inhabited star systems than there are players at any one time.
And there are many more star systems in the game, than the entire human race.....
You blockade a system. There's always somewhere else to go....
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How are blockades avoided/respected? The Galaxy map shows nothing and the only option is fastest or economic route. I'd love to "respect" people's strange "denial of system" stunts, but if you just want to kill me I don't need your excuses.
And what is this:
All the fantasy MMO's are sharing a majority of their game mechanics, but space MMO's will wait forever and avoid borrowing each others' best ideas like there was a patent on it. I watched Chris Roberts talk about Star Citizen and he answered a question about inspirations from other MMO's, well he awkwardly mumbled how he was inspired by other games but was more comfortable saying how he didn't like their game mechanics and such.
None of the space games will excel if developers are too proud to learn from one another.
And what is this:
All the fantasy MMO's are sharing a majority of their game mechanics, but space MMO's will wait forever and avoid borrowing each others' best ideas like there was a patent on it. I watched Chris Roberts talk about Star Citizen and he answered a question about inspirations from other MMO's, well he awkwardly mumbled how he was inspired by other games but was more comfortable saying how he didn't like their game mechanics and such.
None of the space games will excel if developers are too proud to learn from one another.
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It's quite hard for PvP'ers to argue against the modes/ mode switching when some self righteous eejit can just smack their argument out of the debate with a massive wall of information and quotes that counters them every time.
We knew sooner or later they'd have to change the plan of attack
PvP in its current form is very unfair though. As the only real reasons to do it are killing non-PvP'ers for lulz or messing about with other PvPers.
That whole "rare and meaningful" didn't exist last year and there is no signs of it being here this year either. For some it is plentiful and pointless and others it is rare and pointless as far as PP / BGS goes.
Currently, the only time there is an in game reason to PvP is under kill missions, if someone picks up a kill traders / pirates / bounty hunters etc...
and there happens to be a human player near by who qualifies as a mission target. Not really a great section of "meaningful" PvP there.
Certain PvP actions should be tied in to the BGS and a greater variety of missions and mechanics to support the play style better.
Off the top of my head these are the things that need looking at;
- Players involved with PowerPlay should be worth the same merits as the NPCs
- Collecting bounties from human players should give the same reputation bonus NPCs do
- The bounty board needs to only show people online, in your current mode
- Hatch breaker limpets need improving, perhaps have them ignore shields? (fuel and collector ones ignore shields, so why not)
- Crime and punishment system really needs reworking
- Some ships, the cargo hatch is tougher than the rest of the ship - ??? Can my ship not be made of the same stuff to make me invincible
So that's the top of my head list - I'm sure I could think of more.
Actually, something that can cause a cognitive disconnection is that PvP, when taken as the whole player career (rather than a single encounter) and between players with a similarly high interest in PvP, is indeed fair. And a number of PvPers start from the assumption that every single player is highly interested in PvP (hence the number of claims that Solo players are merely accumulating resources to come into Open with a big ship, some of the claims are obviously a red herring but I do believe a number of those that claim it legitimately believe it).
What they either don't get, or choose to ignore, is that both a large number of players have no interest in the kind of PvP that is currently prevalent in Open, and that when that PvP happens between players with wildly different levels of interest in PvP it is very unfair (because performance depends more on preparation than on actual skill, and while PvP players might spend every in-game moment preparing for future PvP fights, PvE players won't).
Part of the reason I want an Open PvE mode. With the players not interested in preparing for PvP playing somewhere else the PvP in the current Open mode can indeed become fair.
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Most of the Open vs Group vs Solo discussion is merely a thinly disguised PvP vs PvE discussion, so yeah, it could very well be.
Meanwhile, I would never play something like that. As I never attack a player without first making sure he wants to fight, if I can't differentiate players from NPCs, it means I can't attack anything, making the game kinda pointless for me.
You're absolutely right, 400 Ly out and you won't even see much in the way of NPCs, (just lots of crashed spaceship POIs on planets apparently). But comparing two different activities isn't a very good argument IMO. What I was referring to are the posters who come here and tell us that escaping from any PvP encounter is laughably easy, so nobody should be 'scared' of playing in Open, and at the same time suggesting that because of other players Open is so risky that some kind of bonus or incentive should be given for playing there.
As far as I'm aware, no element of the game has been successfully blockaded, (I'll be happy to be corrected if someone can tell me if any CG has been made near impossible), just that those that have tried have on occasions been instanced with an unsuspecting opponent and thus claimed that a blockade would work if everyone were in Open.
It seems as though in your original reference to how people are contradicting themselves you are also comparing two different activities, random PKing for no real reason, and trying to successfully blockade an area in PP or a CG, so no, I'll stick with my opinion that it's not just one half of the posters who have some rather 'crazy' arguments.
Perhaps it is necessary to define and distinguish between the different types of PvP that can occur within ED/EDH ...
Here's a rough stab at it. Feel free to refine/re-define/improve on these...
1) PvE-PvP : this can be defined as "Players who are playing against other players indirectly via the Environment - e.g. Supporting factions, Powers etc."
2) PvP - Piracy : one of the in-game careers
3) PvP - Bounty-Hunting : one of the in-game careers
In-game careers being defined as one of the officially touted careers of Trader, Explorer, Pirate, and Bounty Hunter.
And then there's:
PvP for sport : this is the one where I think all the contention is being caused by. This is where there are players of the game who only go looking for other players to shoot at, for no other reason than just shooting at other players and getting satisfaction at seeing their unwilling opponent's ships being blown up.
There is no officially touted in-game career of "PvP for sport" - there is, however, CQC. That, is basically PvP for sport. I am deliberately not including PvP-for-sport as an "in-game" career because CQC is supposed to be some virtual sport game within the game.
Nevertheless, despite the presence of CQC, there appear to be a not insignificant amount of players now who engage in PvP-for-sport within the game (i.e. outside of CQC). This is why, I think, there is so much objection - it's because PvP-for-sport is not taking the in-game careers into account.
PvP-for-sport is completely out of context for most other players who are trying to play the game the way it's intended to be played. The only time PvP-for-sport players are concerned with real in-game contexts, is when they need to earn credits in order to maintain their ships that they use for PvP-for-sport.
This, to me, looks like a game design problem, one that needs to be addressed by FDEV. They have in fact tried to do so by adding CQC. But for whatever reason, there are untold numbers of PvP-for-sport players who don't want or don't like CQC and are embarking on out-of-context playing in Open.
"But in Open anything goes! PvP is valid play style!" - Yes and no. It's valid play style if you are engaging in the intended and in-context roles within the game. It is invalid play style if your only way to play the game is PvP-for-sport, and that is out-of-context.
My 2 pennies worth.
Regards o7
Here's a rough stab at it. Feel free to refine/re-define/improve on these...
1) PvE-PvP : this can be defined as "Players who are playing against other players indirectly via the Environment - e.g. Supporting factions, Powers etc."
2) PvP - Piracy : one of the in-game careers
3) PvP - Bounty-Hunting : one of the in-game careers
In-game careers being defined as one of the officially touted careers of Trader, Explorer, Pirate, and Bounty Hunter.
And then there's:
PvP for sport : this is the one where I think all the contention is being caused by. This is where there are players of the game who only go looking for other players to shoot at, for no other reason than just shooting at other players and getting satisfaction at seeing their unwilling opponent's ships being blown up.
There is no officially touted in-game career of "PvP for sport" - there is, however, CQC. That, is basically PvP for sport. I am deliberately not including PvP-for-sport as an "in-game" career because CQC is supposed to be some virtual sport game within the game.
Nevertheless, despite the presence of CQC, there appear to be a not insignificant amount of players now who engage in PvP-for-sport within the game (i.e. outside of CQC). This is why, I think, there is so much objection - it's because PvP-for-sport is not taking the in-game careers into account.
PvP-for-sport is completely out of context for most other players who are trying to play the game the way it's intended to be played. The only time PvP-for-sport players are concerned with real in-game contexts, is when they need to earn credits in order to maintain their ships that they use for PvP-for-sport.
This, to me, looks like a game design problem, one that needs to be addressed by FDEV. They have in fact tried to do so by adding CQC. But for whatever reason, there are untold numbers of PvP-for-sport players who don't want or don't like CQC and are embarking on out-of-context playing in Open.
"But in Open anything goes! PvP is valid play style!" - Yes and no. It's valid play style if you are engaging in the intended and in-context roles within the game. It is invalid play style if your only way to play the game is PvP-for-sport, and that is out-of-context.
My 2 pennies worth.
Regards o7
Very well said, that, have some rep.
As I've mentioned myself several times before - it is the imbalance of player with very expensive *combat-optimised* ship looking solely for less experienced, less affluent victims in vastly weaker ships that creates such negative feeling.
Basically, there are people who go out, solely to ruin another player's time in game, for the sole reason of ruining the other players time. This is the "out-of-context" play style described above^^^.
It really does happen. I've been there myself. I've witnessed a single Cmdr do it to several obviously unwilling participants time-after-time in a CG system only yesterday.
The issue here is that the victims are being placed in a no win situation. They either high-tail out of system, which, if they succeed in doing it actually counts as a loss to them. In military speak this is called a "soft kill".
Alternatively, they fail and get killed by a vastly superiorly equipped player, which is also a loss, but a more severe loss than the simple soft kill.
So where is the "win" scenario for the meagrely outfitted casual player who is being interdicted by the big man? It simply doesn't exist.
The logical next question to ask is where is the balance for the casual player who has been victimised by someone committing in-game criminality? Where is the consequence for the criminal? There simply is no consequence.
So on the one hand we have a group of players who get their butts kicked and pay for this in insurance payments.
In the other hand we have the criminal player getting away with no consequence.
Something just does not add up here.
And this is the single most powerful reason that the PvP-for-sport role has been allowed to establish itself at the cost of other players' enjoyment.
Cheerz
Mark H
Modern, triple-A FPS games go so far as to turn friendly-fire off by default outside of 'hardcore' game modes.
There, even Battlefield does contextualised and limited PVP.
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This is an excellent post and sums up a lot of how I feel about the "PvP" scene, the Pilot's Federation transponder things feels very contrived to me, just a way to force selective interaction.
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I remember in the good ole days when this wasn't a thing...for the most part it was never an issue. There was that guy, now and then, but it was actually pretty rare. Sigh....
lol for a none pvp game ppl do get upset!
oh need to go again , juicy helpless type 6 to interdict again.
oh need to go again , juicy helpless type 6 to interdict again.
Look at how evolution has failed.