Why PVP is Dead or Dying. PVE is now KING!

Hatchepsut

Hatchepsut
Hi CMDRs ....
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For those commanders that have yet to PVP or for those that are living under a rock, the face of PVP has completely changed.
Some of us used to think of PVP as an exchange of weapons fire between random players and ships with different configurations and specs.
In fact I used to think of scenarios like Combat Zones ....
with lasers and missiles and projectile weapons bouncing off shields and eventually raking away at armour.
No CMDRS .... not even close.
If you find yourself a fly on the wall at a PVP engagement between 4 or 6 or 8 ships .... then this is what you will see.
On you radar most of those ships will DISSAPEAR ....... occasionally you will hear a gauss cannon sound from rail gun fire.
You will also start seeing little lights ... and when you target them you will identify them as heat sinks.
In 3 or 4 minutes either the occasional ship will explode ... or High Wake away .... the rest will run out of ammo and dock with the closest station.
THAT is what PVP is today.
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Thanks to all CMDRS for your thoughts and contributions.
Also thanks to those that wanted to have me Drawn and Quartered just for suggesting that PVP is finished....or de-Rep me to say the least.
As you can imagine I needed a STRONG title to convince you to read my post.
I would like to further clarify what I meant by PVP loosing its essence and therefore itself.
Many CMDRs seem to agree with me that PVP is supposed to be a RANDOM experience....
I am supposed to travel through space with the CONSTANT danger of being found and Interdicted by a Pirate CMDR.....
I am supposed to weigh my options ... more powerful shield or more profit from the trade.....
In contrast Pirates are supposed to travel with lots of equipment NEEDED for their trade.....Not only cargo space and perhaps limpets......
but also cargo scanners .... kill scanners .... interdictors ..... and enough firepower to actually threaten another ship and get away quickly....
These SHIPS no longer exist ..... Dedicated PVP ships do not want your cargo ....(they have no cargo space for it anyway) ..... they just want you to die ASAP...
These NEW and IMPROVED PVP ships only carry Heat Sinks and Rails ..... the rest is taken up by Hull Reinforcements......they are solely there TO KILL YOU.
I no longer have the luxury of DECIDING wether I should try to communicate with the pirate and perhaps loose cargo and profits.....
I should either High Wake .... after submitting of course .... or wait out a 15 second log out .....
Great ...........


I wonder if STEALTH RAIL GUN ships is what Elite had in mind for us since 1984 ?
I seriously doubt it.
 
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Hatchepsut

Hatchepsut
_Fissure said:
Obvious solution: give rail guns more ammo.
Click to expand...

Technically they can restock their ammo as long as they spend lots of hours in an SRV to gather the materials.
But sitting right smack bang in the middle of the battle you will not see any ships except the occasional weapons fire bouncing off armour or being surrounded by heat sinks.
 

Alex Brentnall

Alex Brentnall
The big issue is that there is a meta build as with most games. In other games if a meta is established it gets nerfed or other things get buffed. It is a very very fine knife edge to balance things enough to not have a 1 type meta. This is compounded by wing combat and up to 4vs1 combat.
What I'm saying here is it's an exceptionally difficult job to balance things perfectly. Not making excuses for the Devs but it is.

Railguns and stealth has been the meta since 1.4 I believe, particularly since HRP's and Imperial hammers. Prior to that it was shield tanking. Before that it was dumbfire missiles.
I do believe that's due for a shakeup, although there are a ton of changes to modified weapons, missiles and other stuff coming that may change the meta on their own.
 
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Bomba Luigi

Bomba Luigi
PvP in most cases will end up at the place where everybody is dong the same, since most folks who pvp want the best build and so everybody ends up with roughly the same. I am at least am not suprised, granted I still live under a rock, its nice there!
 

xondk

X
Hatchepsut said:
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Click to expand...
Sorry, but no, PvP is not dying, PvP is different, PvP in Elite is not like PvP in a lot of other games.
The main thing that prevents people from enjoying PvP as I see it are expectations and reactions, people are upset, at for example high waking away, yet gladly do it themselves because 'they' dont want to die, but complain on their streams when someone else does it.
And apparently the reason for doing it is being afraid of losing, which seems the best I can figure related to kill / death ratio and other such weird measuring sticks.

And Elite just isn't made with that kind in mind, but it is even a problem in actual PvP based games of late, people will cheat and whatnot to try to avoid losing.
The competitive scene of gaming is turning really sour in direct confrontation games, such as those based around action PvP, seemingly because people are afraid of losing and losing 'face' or? maybe it is something else about losing?

So yeah, PvP itself is fine, it adapts to the genre it is in, Elite PvP shouldn't be the same as other games, and isn't dead or dying, nor should they be the same as others again, but seemingly that is what is expected? maybe I am misunderstanding, but I enjoy PvP, I enjoy it being different unpredictable, heck I enjoy a good fight where I lose, maybe it is just me being weird?
 
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Hatchepsut

Hatchepsut
Bomba Luigi said:
PvP in most cases will end up at the place where everybody is dong the same, since most folks who pvp want the best build and so everybody ends up with roughly the same. I am at least am not suprised, granted I still live under a rock, its nice there!
Click to expand...
I started playing this game when Powerplay came out.
Combat and PVP was still the occasional Anaconda in the fray with Clippers and Fer-De-Lance 1 or 2 Pythons and even a few cheap cobras for the easy rebuy.
Shields were BLUE with the occasional green (omg green shield that guy is a TANK) but all where powered ON ... and when the shield fell it meant time to run away.
One day I met a shield less DBS and I thought the guy just did not have the money to buy one :p
Now ALL PVPers have a few main ships for trading and PVE and ONLY ONE SHIP for PVP ..... and you guessed it ... it has no shield ... only heat sinks and rail
 

Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
Hatchepsut said:
Now ALL PVPers have a few main ships for trading and PVE and ONLY ONE SHIP for PVP ..... and you guessed it ... it has no shield ... only heat sinks and rail
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It's the current FoTM (Flavour of the Month) build for PvP-Combat.

That doesn't mean PvP-Combat is dying, it's just that it's changed.

Come 2.1 I expect the current meta to change once more.
 

Gedemon

Gedemon
xondk said:
So yeah, PvP itself is fine, it adapts to the genre it is in, Elite PvP shouldn't be the same as other games, and isn't dead or dying, nor should they be the same as others again, but seemingly that is what is expected? maybe I am misunderstanding, but I enjoy PvP, I enjoy it being different unpredictable, heck I enjoy a good fight where I lose, maybe it is just me being weird?
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Total agreement with that, I'll add that my perception of combat in the game is contextual, for examples:

- I'm a trader/smuggler/explorer/miner and I'm engaged by an hostile: if I make it out alive, I've won.

- I'm a pirate and I'm engaging a trader/miner: if I gain some cargo, I've won (which allows win/win situation)

- I'm in a combat ship engaged against another player: if he runs from the battlefield I've won, if I need to leave the battlefield, I've lost.
 

Hatchepsut

Hatchepsut
Liqua said:
It's the current FoTM (Flavour of the Month) build for PvP-Combat.

That doesn't mean PvP-Combat is dying, it's just that it's changed.

Come 2.1 I expect the current meta to change once more.
Click to expand...

I certainly hope so Liqua. I hope a new type of weapon or equipment will eliminate all these invisible ships surrounded by heat sinks. (Did I mention that my CLass A scanner does not resolve one of these targets until they are 300mt from me or less ?)
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
People tend to flock to "teh best builds", that's a nature of online gaming community, or at least min/maxers part of it. They can't stand idea there might be multiple ways to play....It is hard for them to grasp even that idea.

I think 2.1 and crafting in general will shake this up quite a bit.

edit: also if they find this really exciting - who can stop them? I mean, it is clearly very very exciting.....well, it is not, but still.
 
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K-Rose

K-Rose
I'm not sure how you can change the Silent Running meta, the missile changes coming will help but you'll still have to hit a signatureless ship with moving rockets...
Maybe it needs other limits around heat, like only one heat sink allowed?
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
PvP was always dead / PvE was always king.

Only 15% of the forum community are playing PvP. I guess the numbers for the whole community are even lower because PvP players tend to be more communicative / have more reasons to visit the forum.

PvP never was and never will be alive, it's a possibility not a core feature. Nothing wrong with blowing a CMDR up in a CZ or getting some pirating action, but all the talk about PvP meta, HRP builds and SCB stacking is what actually destroyed PvP.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=235448

PS

This Poll from 2014 shows exactly the same results:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=85583
 
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Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
K-Rose said:
I'm not sure how you can change the Silent Running meta, the missile changes coming will help but you'll still have to hit a signatureless ship with moving rockets...
Maybe it needs other limits around heat, like only one heat sink allowed?
Click to expand...

Here's an interesting thought - in Star Trek lore only certain races have cloaking devices (which in effect SR is a cousin) and when ships there cloak shields drop and they can't fire (only 1 ship was able to - ST:IV Klingon prototype Bird of Prey)

Not suggesting that you can't fire whilst silent running but perhaps playing with the heat mechanics when firing might help ?

#2cs
 
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xondk

X
babelfisch said:
PvP was always dead / PvE was always king.

Only 15% of the forum community are playing PvP. I guess the numbers for the whole community are even lower because PvP players tend to be more communicative / have more reasons to visit the forum.

PvP never was and never will be alive, it's a possibility not a core feature. Nothing wrong with blowing a CMDR up in a CZ or getting some pirating action, but all the talk about PvP meta, HRP builds and SCB stacking is what actually destroyed PvP.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=235448

PS

This Poll from 2014 shows exactly the same results:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=85583
Click to expand...
Uh, that's a bit of a stretch to say the poll represents the community, at max 510 players in said vote, I know a ton of people that don't bother with official forums, and I know a ton, my self included that simply don't vote on a lot of the polls, because of how they are worded or seem silly at best, so yeah. Please stop with your initial statement, I've met quite a few that enjoy PvP and do PvP in Elite quite happily so....yeah..numbers are way way off at best.

Edit: to clarify, you are saying the votes of 510 people, on a forum with 66k people, out of a game with more then a million sold copies, their votes indicate how the entire community feels.
 
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