I imagined the separation of ranking categories something like this (this is from the 'improving piracy' thread link in my sig);
PVP/Crime Consequences required levels (Answers from PVE players please.)
- Thread starter Majinvash
- Start date
I imagined the separation of ranking categories something like this (this is from the 'improving piracy' thread link in my sig);
What an epic logo for pirate rank, I want it all over the front of my ships! *slams rep button*
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Majinvash
Banned
Been playing GTA5 recently. Not open online, just mainly PvE except when my daughter thinks its funny to shoot a flare gun into the back of my head. To be fair, i had just deliberately rammed into her bike at full speed.
Anyway, I notice they had a mechanic whereby the more people you kill (including NPCs i think), the more your "mental" state goes up, and the more visible you become on the city map, allowing people to track you down. And of course, wanted level whereby you get the cops chasing you.
But leaving aside the wanted level thing for the moment (which is cool and fun to run from the cops), perhaps ED could do something similar to the map visibility thing.
Here's a proposal.
Menace: If you kill a player, your gain in notoriety starts. Pilot's Federation doesn't like its pilots killing each other when the target is not wanted, so in the system where it happens, its noted. Renegade PF member kills another member - bounty on head. See mission board for details. (Go to mission board, mission to kill that player appears with reward added). At this stage, all that is known is the killer was in the system.
Wanted: If they kill a second (non-wanted) player, they become locked to playing in Open until it wears off (second so people who accidentally kill another player are not locked to open, stuff can happen). Additionally all system stations where the player has omitted crimes (Minor factions) now post the news and offer the missions, even if those are systems where they player has not been - the news starts to spread. Anyone carrying the mission gets a comms notification every time the target is spotted by a player or system authority in areas where they are wanted.
Murderer: Third time - things get hairy. The target's information and missions are now posted in all systems where the major faction has as presence (if alliance, fed, or empire - not so if indep). Worse though is an icon appears on the galactic map to anyone with the mission showing what system they are currently in. The PF transponder on their ship is activated!!!! (what is this PF transponder? Just some lore i made up). Still, only happens if in areas where the missions are posted, they can run to systems where they are not wanted still. Anarchies regardless do not report position.
Mass Murderer: Fourth time - mission payouts increase (probably increasing with each level anyway). System map now shows a map marker highlighting which object the target is closest to, whether it be star, planet, or station. If docked, then naturally the station is highlighted. Still restricted to only regions/systems/stations where there is law enforcement for any of the crimes committed.
Fugitive: Fifth time, the hunt is on. Anyone with the mission (now available from any station that isn't anarchy), the players location is broadcast to anyone with the mission as detailed as possible in real time. Galactic map shows where they are, system map shows their approximate location, and comms updates are sent every time they change location/system. The only places where their doesn't happen is anarchies. They set their foot outside of an anarchy and every BH with the mission will know it instantly (or, a slightly less brutal version - once they are spotted by any player with report crimes turned on or by any system authority vessels).
Of course, there is some sort of cooldown on this, 1 week perhaps like the current bounty system. Go a week without killing a player, the effects wear off (slowly or instantly), missions expire, etc. Perhaps lose 1 rank of wanted status per day or week.
Still most likely wouldn't get me back in Open, but it might provide fun for the criminals, the bounty hunters, and at least some victims might appreciate it, and hell, maybe their victims will go grab that bounty mission from the BB and join in the hunt.
Only one possible exploit that comes to mind immediately is the max mission payout can't be much higher than the rebuy cost of the target ship - otherwise i could see people cooperating to turn this into a way of getting credits unfairly - and it would have to adjust based on what they are flying at the time of death, possibly taking the bounty money directly from the target as part of their rebuy cost. Would need some thought.
Proper bounty hunting tools have been requested time and time again, along with a proper bounty board like in the good old days. I worked hard to be in the Top 5 in Leesti and Lave.
It would be a very welcome addition and if set-up correctly, up to and including player placed bounties showing up as a mission.
Matched with NPC's asking you to low wake so they can tell you I was just spotted in Cemiese.
Would boarder dangerously close to actual content.
Still wouldn't mean anything as ( unless changed or magic FSD scramblers arrive ) I could high wake away from anything remotely dangerous, but it would be a start.
At least I could he harassed.
Majinvash
The Voice of Open
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
THIS!!!
Cheers! Yes something like that as a decal would be cool I agree.
To avoid the bounty exploit:
- Upon death you need to pay off your bounty +10% handling fee prior to purchasing a new ship.
This stops you being farmed to make money. If you end up broke / exceed the limit of your loan amount - few of options:
- Liquidate existing assets to pay off bounty (other ships)
- Ironman wipe: All reputation reset (you're effectively starting over)
- Repuation wipe: Each rank in Federation / Empire / Alliance is worth some credits. (Low ranks worth less than high) You can pay off your debt by effectively being stripped of title / rank
If you have billions in the bank then sure, you're just going to buy ships as an insurance policy, so I prefer the reputation loss. Doesn't mean much I know (as reputation is only used to access ships) but loosing that title might mean you can't buy a clipper any more
--
I believe in balance / equality though - what's in it for the Pirate if they risk potentially everything ? Bring in the rating for piracy !!
(Just like being an Elite pilot doesn't really mean much in game being an Elite Pirate won't either, but it's something to strive for non the less : blowing up ships should cost you dearly [on your bounty & piracy rating] whereas stealing is just an annoyance [and increase in piracy rating] - aka Piracy role as introduced by FD but never implemented)
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If they are gonna slam me with that many bills I really would need a pre-nerf python! Come on FD you know you want to return my beauty back to me, shes all sad in the dock with pirate paint scheme, retired and defunct only holding frags I bought from hudson
I like it. Nice decal designs too.
Thanks
If FD introduced a proper ranking organisation for the criminal professions it would help open play as a whole (while also giving solo/group players something else to do). The 'Outlaws Brethren' (placeholder name) could be a cross-faction underground society that invites commanders to join once they have showed a certain amount of skill in the criminal professions. Once agreeing to join it, the player would then get that UI screen, the ranks, decals etc.
The main bonus to open is that once a system like this is in place, there could be penalties applied to criminal players who choose to go on random killing-sprees - like temporary suspension from the organisation and rank loss (the organisation would only be interested in skilled criminals, not rampaging maniacs - they have standards).
More detail on these rank-system ideas can be found in the OP of this thread.
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I think the issue here isn't so much that NPC's are too good or not good enough because all situations exist depending on who the player is. The issue is more that the NPC's abilities don't scale well to match the players so while the majority of the NPC's are a challenge to pretty much everyone when you're "harmless" and in a sidewinder, by the time you're "competent" in a cobra you've learned how to beat the lower ones and avoid the higher ones. (It also doesn't help that the npc's appear entirely stupid, and do stupid things like stopping and spinning in space... and their chatter makes them appear completely at times and has no regard for situation - eg: "oh you scratched my paint" when their hull is at 2%, or "there's the ship I want - the one with the big haul" when you're in a Type 9 carrying 5 tons of cargo.) I remember someone (Michael Brookes I think) back in beta saying that they could easily make the NPC's unbeatable, but that would make the game unplayable so their real problem was in balancing them for playability. I believe some more effort in addressing this would help, though there's always going to be the folks who "just want to see someone else's space pixels explode" too.
Oooh I like that a lot. Cool colours too. Definite +1 for that.
I agree with those of you, who want a level system for murder and piracy. I want to play in open all the time and like the risk of being ambushed SOMETIMES, but not always. And i want it that way, that the chance of fighting back is increased. It should be so, that ambushes of none wanted players count more, if the attacker has clearly better chances, than the attacked. Factors like wings against solos, or railguntank against midshielded ships should count higher in the penalty. IMHO the fact, if a ambusher flees from battle, should count also. Maybe you invite a coward rank, have fun finding a logo for it.
And one word to the socalled pirates. Some of you claim, that you are doing real roleplaying. If you really want to, please have a look on reality. Which pirate, who has money for big guns, modern military equipment and so on does exist there? Only that ones who send poor buggers on small ships against superfreighters. They don't sail themselfes, they don't shoot to have fun, they reside in their fortified homes. The ones that sail often have no choice, so maybe FD should build the circumstances to help you to be real roleplaying pirates, by banning you from rich stations and take all your legal money. Than you can go on hunt with 3 sidewinders, especially piratefitted with railguns, and heavily armoured pirate t7, called rusty buckets, to gather the loot. You should be allowed to dock to certain piratestations, and have piratemoney. Than i give you some respect to do so.
And i like the idea, to ban massmurderers into instances with other massmurderes. There you can massmurder each other. [big grin]
On the other hand i agree, that there have to be real dangerous systems, where outlaws could behave like they want, and where the chances of quick money are as high, as chances to pop like a firecracker.
And one word to the socalled pirates. Some of you claim, that you are doing real roleplaying. If you really want to, please have a look on reality. Which pirate, who has money for big guns, modern military equipment and so on does exist there? Only that ones who send poor buggers on small ships against superfreighters. They don't sail themselfes, they don't shoot to have fun, they reside in their fortified homes. The ones that sail often have no choice, so maybe FD should build the circumstances to help you to be real roleplaying pirates, by banning you from rich stations and take all your legal money. Than you can go on hunt with 3 sidewinders, especially piratefitted with railguns, and heavily armoured pirate t7, called rusty buckets, to gather the loot. You should be allowed to dock to certain piratestations, and have piratemoney. Than i give you some respect to do so.
And i like the idea, to ban massmurderers into instances with other massmurderes. There you can massmurder each other. [big grin]
On the other hand i agree, that there have to be real dangerous systems, where outlaws could behave like they want, and where the chances of quick money are as high, as chances to pop like a firecracker.
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An extremely interesting thread, thank you for starting it.
Bluntly said, I think open play is currently in a state which is a broken mess. I personally have retired to Mobius somewhen beginning last year because of overall bad experience made in open.
I think there are right now too many building sites regarding competitive play in an open environment that it may already be too late to fix it. Many good points were raised in this thread, and almost all of these points have already been discussed 1.5 years ago. Since then nothing has changed.
- The crime system is broken because there are absolutely no consequences for being a jerk. Removing major faction bounties in 1.3 (?) made it worse
- Competitive gameplay is broken because of
a) high-wake without masslock
When I noticed high-waking was a possibility, I thought it to be a bug. Crazy this has not been changed.
b) Combat logging
I played some competitive games since the late 90ies. Usually people doing this too regulary to avoid death would just get perma-banned.
c) Client-side cheating
This is a fundamental game architecture issue which has been discussed a lot here. I doubt there is a solution, any solution would mean refactoring the whole game architecture, which is unrealistic.
- Lack of proper bounty hunting tools. Lots of good suggestions in this thread.
- Lack of pirating tools. Lots of good suggestions...
- PowerPlay is currently a broken mess with a few jerks exploiting the system
Without going into much detail, as that would just repeat what previous people already formulated better than I could, I have doubts that a simple fix to the crime system with meaningful consequences would change the whole competitive open gameplay for the better, as the crime system is only one of multiple gamebreaking issues. Of course, it would be a start. Yet, seeing the heap of fundamental problems, I think it is no longer possible to resolve it without major design change, which is a very bad idea in a running game. All these points except powerplay have been raised in beta. Back then it would have been possible to fix them, but now it's getting very difficult.
It may be possible to resolve all these points in iterations, but that's a very long term project. Iterative development seems to be Frontiers philosophy, so I still have some hope. Yet, until then, I personally will stay away from open play.
I love this game and want it to succeed. The PvE part is actually pretty great, and cooperative gameplay with my wife and friends is an absolute joy. I still care about this game after playing it for 1.5 years. But I'm afraid the open play mechanism has failed miserably. An unfortunate fact in pretty much any multiplayer game is, there is always a small number of jerks who get a pleasure out of making other peoples life miserable, just for the lulz. The impact can be softened by technical steps and game design, but utter ignorance only makes it worse and drives the majority of players (== customers) away.
This all may sound pretty negative. I still enjoy this game a lot and I do hope Frontier has some plans for the future to fix existing broken gameplay elements while most of their resources are bound to releasing new stuff, because people need to get their value for the season pass purchases.
Sorry for the long rant, but had to get it out.
Bluntly said, I think open play is currently in a state which is a broken mess. I personally have retired to Mobius somewhen beginning last year because of overall bad experience made in open.
I think there are right now too many building sites regarding competitive play in an open environment that it may already be too late to fix it. Many good points were raised in this thread, and almost all of these points have already been discussed 1.5 years ago. Since then nothing has changed.
- The crime system is broken because there are absolutely no consequences for being a jerk. Removing major faction bounties in 1.3 (?) made it worse
- Competitive gameplay is broken because of
a) high-wake without masslock
When I noticed high-waking was a possibility, I thought it to be a bug. Crazy this has not been changed.
b) Combat logging
I played some competitive games since the late 90ies. Usually people doing this too regulary to avoid death would just get perma-banned.
c) Client-side cheating
This is a fundamental game architecture issue which has been discussed a lot here. I doubt there is a solution, any solution would mean refactoring the whole game architecture, which is unrealistic.
- Lack of proper bounty hunting tools. Lots of good suggestions in this thread.
- Lack of pirating tools. Lots of good suggestions...
- PowerPlay is currently a broken mess with a few jerks exploiting the system
Without going into much detail, as that would just repeat what previous people already formulated better than I could, I have doubts that a simple fix to the crime system with meaningful consequences would change the whole competitive open gameplay for the better, as the crime system is only one of multiple gamebreaking issues. Of course, it would be a start. Yet, seeing the heap of fundamental problems, I think it is no longer possible to resolve it without major design change, which is a very bad idea in a running game. All these points except powerplay have been raised in beta. Back then it would have been possible to fix them, but now it's getting very difficult.
It may be possible to resolve all these points in iterations, but that's a very long term project. Iterative development seems to be Frontiers philosophy, so I still have some hope. Yet, until then, I personally will stay away from open play.
I love this game and want it to succeed. The PvE part is actually pretty great, and cooperative gameplay with my wife and friends is an absolute joy. I still care about this game after playing it for 1.5 years. But I'm afraid the open play mechanism has failed miserably. An unfortunate fact in pretty much any multiplayer game is, there is always a small number of jerks who get a pleasure out of making other peoples life miserable, just for the lulz. The impact can be softened by technical steps and game design, but utter ignorance only makes it worse and drives the majority of players (== customers) away.
This all may sound pretty negative. I still enjoy this game a lot and I do hope Frontier has some plans for the future to fix existing broken gameplay elements while most of their resources are bound to releasing new stuff, because people need to get their value for the season pass purchases.
Sorry for the long rant, but had to get it out.
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So the second time (in a day? in a week?) an NPC rams me in my T9, the game mode is switched from Solo to Open. So now if I want to play solo, I have to reconfigure my router to block Elite P2P traffic.
Sorry, but that just makes the game worse.
Especially since, in the rest of your post, you are escalating the negative effects of everyday stuff that happens.
He's talking about the killing of clean CMDR's, not NPC's.
All of this (and especially the P2P game architecture, which has often been shown to be cheater heaven in PvP games) suggests Open really should have been a PvE mode by default.
Aye to better crime mechanics. Even PVE crimes are very easy to wipe with the sidewinder exploit, which removes a whole aspect of the game.
Insurance companies providing replacement ships that were basically used in drive-by shootings for the same 'excess' is incredibly odd. Frontier Developments made inexpensive ships that are very capable (but ignored due to 'completionist gamers' mentalities), if you change the insurance terms it will change piracy in a very positive way:
1. Poor pirate ships. Pirates are poor, didn't you know?
2. Better challenge versus pirates, because pirates will think twice before fitting a 13M plasma accelerator or 50M powerplant on an uninsurable ship to gank a guy struggling for his first million.
3. Fair risk for both pirate and target (trade ship with uninsured cargo versus combat ship that is uninsurable in piracy).
4. Trade ships can finally use their weapon hardpoints, right now they're empty because weapon or not, the pirate is flying a corvette or an anaconda. Why bother fighting back?
5. Pirates have to learn how to fly because their WASD-steered star destroyer has to stay in the hangar.
6. PVE players won't have to make their own justice with smear campaigns in social media.
7. PVP players won't have to smear back.
8. Everyone becomes a little bit nicer to each other.
Nerf their insurance.
Insurance companies providing replacement ships that were basically used in drive-by shootings for the same 'excess' is incredibly odd. Frontier Developments made inexpensive ships that are very capable (but ignored due to 'completionist gamers' mentalities), if you change the insurance terms it will change piracy in a very positive way:
1. Poor pirate ships. Pirates are poor, didn't you know?
2. Better challenge versus pirates, because pirates will think twice before fitting a 13M plasma accelerator or 50M powerplant on an uninsurable ship to gank a guy struggling for his first million.
3. Fair risk for both pirate and target (trade ship with uninsured cargo versus combat ship that is uninsurable in piracy).
4. Trade ships can finally use their weapon hardpoints, right now they're empty because weapon or not, the pirate is flying a corvette or an anaconda. Why bother fighting back?
5. Pirates have to learn how to fly because their WASD-steered star destroyer has to stay in the hangar.
6. PVE players won't have to make their own justice with smear campaigns in social media.
7. PVP players won't have to smear back.
8. Everyone becomes a little bit nicer to each other.
Nerf their insurance.
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I am totally up for some immersive piracy.
Let us look at the ships with pirate paintjobs for an example,
we have got:
Eagle
Viper
Cobra
Dropship
Python
(did i miss one?)
The problem is rather simple,
if you fly a cheap ship, you might be able to catch up with the prey,
but they will escape via waking, or you will simply fail to damage them because of the weak weaponry.
The larger ships however deal enough damage to be viable (given most players i see trading fly big ships),
and have room for more cargo and tools.
However, piracy does pay poorly, in ships up to the Cobra you can grab loot,
that can pay your bills and repairs + surplus for saving insurance.
The bigger ships have to get lucky and raid a large amount of valuable cargo
to pay bills, repairs and get only a very small surplus, not enough to quickly get the insurance fee.
If there was a way to prolong the combat situation without the trader leaving, small ships would come in handy,
yet the reward will be smaller, than in a pirate python using the same option for prolonging combat.
It's a discomforting problematic.
I could see specialized modules only allowed on small ships,
but that'll lead to having specialists in gank wings, blocking the escape window for the prey aswell.
A dilemma.
So what to do as a pirate?
Get creative and ask a CMDR to follow your wake,
to check in on the hottest news, or to obtain some speciality cargo?
Get polite and shave?
Arrr, no! Theres gotta be another way!
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And even if he wasn't, this is the same old short-sighted "can't fix problem x because of problem y" argument that seems so prevalent on these forums. The answer is obvious: fix both problems.
Majinvash
Banned
Can I clear up a common misconception.
On busy trading days in Cemiese with minimal combat logging, you can make 1-2 million an hour from abandoned Slaves.
Back when rare trading was a thing, if you camped a drop off point. You made 14k + a tonne.
If you do it right, it's not a bad money maker.
Majinvash
The Voice of Open
On busy trading days in Cemiese with minimal combat logging, you can make 1-2 million an hour from abandoned Slaves.
Back when rare trading was a thing, if you camped a drop off point. You made 14k + a tonne.
If you do it right, it's not a bad money maker.
Majinvash
The Voice of Open
There's been a little bit of venom on here, but putting it all aside...
Whatever solution FD implement - assuming they don't look at the whole can of worms and decide that it's not worth the effort - it's clear that "getting more players to be willing to play open" is a multifaceted issue.
Right now, piracy as FD originally envisioned it (demand cargo with menaces, mostly get it without having to kill your victim) is a mugs game. Players that want to be "pirates" are encouraged by the current game mechanics to simply become PKers, because if their target tries to get away there's pretty much no way to stop them or inflict some penalty for their defiance apart from destroying them. Shooting out their drives or FSD simply isn't practical in the 30 seconds it takes for a savvy player to spool up the FSD and high-wake. Target the relevant module, then get on target and maneuver so that you can fire at it and mash the trigger... unless you're a railgun expert and have enough of them on your ship to strip their shields AND take down the module (without wrecking the hull with stray shots) the odds of you succeeding before the target goes poof are kinda low. I'm a trader/bounty hunter and I want piracy fixed so that it's a truly viable career. If piracy is fixed such that pirates have a way to "stop me without killing me" and force me into the "negotiation" phase then I'm all for it. At least make high-wake subject to mass lock again. Preferably give the pirates a way to disable a ship and remove cargo by force other than the currently horrible mechanic of "shoot out the right module and then use hatch-breakers" as well. What I'd like to see is some weapon that reliably disrupts ships systems without causing appreciable hull damage. Maybe then have the pirate maneuver to dock hatch-to-hatch and let the PIRATE pick which cans they transfer to their own hold. Sure, they would be marked "stolen" since the original owner didn't abandon them but give the pirate some way of fixing that before they sell them, or make them sellable on the open market at anarchies. Let the folks who want to be pirates BE pirates. Give them a "piracy rank" that can get them to elite status as much as trading, "legal combat" or exploring can.
That's one facet. Fixing piracy so that it's viable is pretty much a prerequisite for addressing others, of which top of the list is increasing the consequences for non-pirate PK activity. There's been lots of suggestions on this thread and whether we are talking about generally increasing the consequences for "murder" - whether of clean NPCs or players - or introducing some specific mechanic addressing PvP kills the one thing that pretty much every suggestion has in common is that it must scale. The "casual criminal" who maybe has to cope with the consequences for the odd stray shot or "scanner oops" should not face the same level of retribution as the guy that's on a murdering spree across five sectors. I maintain that this should not be a matter of simply credits - whether in fines/bounties or messing with the insurance, because that simply wont work - but should be a matter of in-game inconvenience for the perpetrator.
Making bounty hunting more than just "hang out where your game will spawn wanted ships and explode NPCs" is another facet. I like the suggestion of a "notorious" criminal showing up as a mission target on the map or sightings of them outside of anarchic systems being reported in real time to players that have expressed an interest in chasing them down. Frankly, that might make me more of an ED PvPer than I currently am because while at the moment I typically don't initiate PvP in open I might be tempted to go after those players with the enormous bounties if I thought there was a reasonable chance of me finding them, or gather a few friends into a wing and go hunting so we could cover a few systems at a time.
It's going to be a LOT of work for FD to do this "right" if they really want an open environment that doesn't bleed players into other modes until only the hardcore PKers are left, that instead gives a rewarding open experience to everybody, PvE, Coop and PvP players alike, without breaking the equality of the modes and the equivalence they like to maintain between actions against NPCs and actions against players. I'd love to see them do it and I believe a combination of some of the suggestions made in this thread could get them a long way towards it.
You're not going to get a "better" environment for players in open unless pirates are encouraged to be pirates and given practical tools to do so AND mechanics are introduced to make "being an ass" less than fun.
Whatever solution FD implement - assuming they don't look at the whole can of worms and decide that it's not worth the effort - it's clear that "getting more players to be willing to play open" is a multifaceted issue.
Right now, piracy as FD originally envisioned it (demand cargo with menaces, mostly get it without having to kill your victim) is a mugs game. Players that want to be "pirates" are encouraged by the current game mechanics to simply become PKers, because if their target tries to get away there's pretty much no way to stop them or inflict some penalty for their defiance apart from destroying them. Shooting out their drives or FSD simply isn't practical in the 30 seconds it takes for a savvy player to spool up the FSD and high-wake. Target the relevant module, then get on target and maneuver so that you can fire at it and mash the trigger... unless you're a railgun expert and have enough of them on your ship to strip their shields AND take down the module (without wrecking the hull with stray shots) the odds of you succeeding before the target goes poof are kinda low. I'm a trader/bounty hunter and I want piracy fixed so that it's a truly viable career. If piracy is fixed such that pirates have a way to "stop me without killing me" and force me into the "negotiation" phase then I'm all for it. At least make high-wake subject to mass lock again. Preferably give the pirates a way to disable a ship and remove cargo by force other than the currently horrible mechanic of "shoot out the right module and then use hatch-breakers" as well. What I'd like to see is some weapon that reliably disrupts ships systems without causing appreciable hull damage. Maybe then have the pirate maneuver to dock hatch-to-hatch and let the PIRATE pick which cans they transfer to their own hold. Sure, they would be marked "stolen" since the original owner didn't abandon them but give the pirate some way of fixing that before they sell them, or make them sellable on the open market at anarchies. Let the folks who want to be pirates BE pirates. Give them a "piracy rank" that can get them to elite status as much as trading, "legal combat" or exploring can.
That's one facet. Fixing piracy so that it's viable is pretty much a prerequisite for addressing others, of which top of the list is increasing the consequences for non-pirate PK activity. There's been lots of suggestions on this thread and whether we are talking about generally increasing the consequences for "murder" - whether of clean NPCs or players - or introducing some specific mechanic addressing PvP kills the one thing that pretty much every suggestion has in common is that it must scale. The "casual criminal" who maybe has to cope with the consequences for the odd stray shot or "scanner oops" should not face the same level of retribution as the guy that's on a murdering spree across five sectors. I maintain that this should not be a matter of simply credits - whether in fines/bounties or messing with the insurance, because that simply wont work - but should be a matter of in-game inconvenience for the perpetrator.
Making bounty hunting more than just "hang out where your game will spawn wanted ships and explode NPCs" is another facet. I like the suggestion of a "notorious" criminal showing up as a mission target on the map or sightings of them outside of anarchic systems being reported in real time to players that have expressed an interest in chasing them down. Frankly, that might make me more of an ED PvPer than I currently am because while at the moment I typically don't initiate PvP in open I might be tempted to go after those players with the enormous bounties if I thought there was a reasonable chance of me finding them, or gather a few friends into a wing and go hunting so we could cover a few systems at a time.
It's going to be a LOT of work for FD to do this "right" if they really want an open environment that doesn't bleed players into other modes until only the hardcore PKers are left, that instead gives a rewarding open experience to everybody, PvE, Coop and PvP players alike, without breaking the equality of the modes and the equivalence they like to maintain between actions against NPCs and actions against players. I'd love to see them do it and I believe a combination of some of the suggestions made in this thread could get them a long way towards it.
You're not going to get a "better" environment for players in open unless pirates are encouraged to be pirates and given practical tools to do so AND mechanics are introduced to make "being an ass" less than fun.
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Yet less people are willing to be pirated,
i think some sharks overfished the poor tunas.