That sounds absolutely brilliant, and I dearly hope they make the game work like that. It willl make the immersion that much greater, and will go a long way to getting the game working like David has advertised his goals for it to be.
I'm concerned – the direction of the game.
- Thread starter Cosmos
- Start date
That sounds absolutely brilliant, and I dearly hope they make the game work like that. It willl make the immersion that much greater, and will go a long way to getting the game working like David has advertised his goals for it to be.
But rules aren't made by those players. Rules are made by FD, and for sandbox, they should be balanced and make sense. Identification is clearly a plus for PVPer, removing it just tips balance to the center - after all, if you clearly see I am human pilot (and despite how good NPCs will be, you will be able to tell after 20 - 30 secs), and you are more skilled than I, you will take me down in a matter of minutes. Also no id works for PVPer favor, as I as potential victim should be at my guard all the times.
I have seen this on both sides of aisles - both with claiming that being killed by human pilot is not the same as by NPC, and also claiming that PVPers want interact "only with humans". And frankly, I don't understand this, because it's boring, and due of sheer size of the game you won't meet lot of human pilots anyway. I want FD to try something new, and no id is good start. I will guess we will see this tried and tweaked during beta. Of course, NPC AI should be more than good then.
You really don't need to use the "blue flashing light" hyperbole you know.
There have been several possible in-game explanations for PC/NPC differentiation put forward - e.g. we are all member of the Pilot's Federation, and the NPCs are not and it's a simple PF mechanism so pilot's can identify other members.
It is not as simple as that. There are not just PvE and PvP players to consider. I may have come across to some as a PvE guy: but I'm not. I want a game where all actors do stuff that makes sense in-game. I have no problem with sensible in-game PvP: if a PC pirate does a "stand and deliver" on me (after doing the scans, etc., 'properly' so he knows I am worth risking his life to have a go at), and I run, I have no problem if he shoots me. None whatsoever.
Now, I understand that there will be griefers, and I hope that the anti-griefing controls will be adequate. I also am beginning to discover that there are people who are not necessarily griefers (in the sense of deliberately setting out to ruin someone's day), but want to be able to indulge in PvP fighting with little or no consequence, even if their 'opponent' does not want to. And that is where I have a problem. So making it harder for those guys to identify me as a PC, so they can randomly attack me, is very important to me.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
.... and it's a simple PvP mechanism so PKers can identify prey.
You really don't need to use the "blue flashing light" hyperbole you know.
There have been several possible in-game explanations for PC/NPC differentiation put forward - e.g. we are all member of the Pilot's Federation, and the NPCs are not and it's a simple PF mechanism so pilot's can identify other members.
This make assumption that no NPCs are member of Pilot's Federation, which I would disagree with.
How did the opt-in idea come about in the first place? , did people want this?, or was it suggested by FD in the initial proposal ?
Couldn't you have a compromise where all players are unidentified until scanned, at which point they are entered into your 'ship database' and are recognisable from then on.
Couldn't you have a compromise where all players are unidentified until scanned, at which point they are entered into your 'ship database' and are recognisable from then on.
If the in game mechanisms to deal with it work, who cares?
But that is just an indirection to another blue flashing light.You really don't need to use the "blue flashing light" hyperbole you know.
There have been several possible in-game explanations for PC/NPC differentiation put forward - e.g. we are all member of the Pilot's Federation, and the NPCs are not and it's a simple PF mechanism so pilot's can identify other members.
If member of Pilot's Federation = PC, then identifying a pilot as a member of the PF is identifying them as a PC. So all that you have done is invent an artificial in-game mechanism to try to support an out-of-game fact.At which point we agree to recognise but not understand each others view of immersion.
Some people feel that having a third person view of your ship breaks immersion, for me having the game treat NPCs and PCs differently in the game breaks immersion even more than that.
The only in-game fiction I can think of that would explain it is if only players were members of the Elite Federation of Pilots and there were no NPCs with that status.
Even then I don't see why a player should be forced to reveal their status as a player ship if they don't want to be singled out. For social purposes simple comms chatter should be enough to allow player pilots to discover each other, voluntarily.
The only in-game fiction I can think of that would explain it is if only players were members of the Elite Federation of Pilots and there were no NPCs with that status.
Even then I don't see why a player should be forced to reveal their status as a player ship if they don't want to be singled out. For social purposes simple comms chatter should be enough to allow player pilots to discover each other, voluntarily.
Not quite true. There is always the possibility of scanning a target, and that scan will help in determining if a ship is NPC or PC. What the Opt - out does is remove the instant knowledge of a ship owner.
Gen-Han-Solo
Banned
I voted for the same radar blip for players as npc ships I run online servers . It is always more fun to try and work out what char is a real player and what is an npc char because you never know what to expect , that way you never get targeted just because you can easily be ID'd . In and allied group it is easy because you can communicate with your fleet and wing men even if they are npc chars . Engaging hostile ships even if they are real players also becomes a lot more fun , because if they are in a hostile fleet you still have to try and scan them and not just shoot them first then run from the battle . So I still vote for the no way to work out what ship is being flown by a real player in the open world until you can scan them or open coms with them .
. -Han_Solo- .
. -Han_Solo- .
There was a related discussion/poll about this in the DDF a while back... we're not sure of what FD will do but the poll and question was -
Flash Poll: telling humans and AI apart
I want to know if the ship is human the moment it resolves 14.88%
I want to know if the ship is human after a BASIC scan 16.67%
I want to know if the ship is human after an ADVANCED scan 5.36%
I want to know if the ship is human if we have both opted in to an IDENT TRANSPONDER service 43.45%
I never want to truly know whether a ship is human or AI 19.64%
Playing a multiplayer game. Sorta expecting to see the other players isn't unreasonable.
I like the idea of the game not indicating the difference between humans and NPC's in the final game. And this is coming from someone who jumps between FFA and the asteroid field looking for humans to fight.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
In the "two PCs in an instance with fifteen NPCs" example earlier, the mechanisms will almost certainly act too late to stop the PvP-PC preferentially selecting the other PC as their target.
Doesn't this defeat the point of a multi-player, unless its really only going to be a co-op game? Its pretty well acknowledged that we're possibly going to rarely see other players as it stands and if being able to hide is implemented in the 'all-group' thats only going to appear worse.
If this kind of thing goes a head I find myself asking if there was any point in implementing multiplayer in the first place. In a sort of reverse Turing test multiplayer will appear to be a single player game.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Sorry, not the way I read the poll at all - if the ident option is selected then a player with the ID transponder switched off would not be identified as a PC to any other PCs, regardless of scanning.
But that is just an indirection to another blue flashing light.
At which point we agree to recognise but not understand each others view of immersion.
Yes, it's about IDing, but not with your silly, hyperbolic "blue flashing light" which exaggerates your argument.
Let me ask... how many multiplayer games do you play where you cannot tell NPCs from PCs?
I'll quote this to emphasize the idea that seems lost on some PvP fans.
I don't mind clashing with other players. I fully expect to be in conflict with some of them occasionally, and I expect I'll go after some of their bounties when flying an appropriate ship.
What I hate is somebody attacking / challenging me because I'm a human player and not an NPC. I can not emphasize this too much.
People who don't care about the in-game universe and immersion will not care at all. To them Elite will probably be no different from Planetside 2, and they want the challenge of fighting other humans, and the rest is pretty much irrelevant or preparation for those fights. For me the "rest" is what is beautiful and interesting, and conflict that arises from me having "player" painted on the side of my ship is extremely unappealing and immersion breaking.