I'm concerned – the direction of the game.

[CMDR Texas Stu]

Ok..we are getting off topic, but riddle me this.

A big famine happens to a planet. Traders scramble to nearby agricultural systems to get food for cheap, pirates scramble around the planets' station to intercept fat merchantmen, steal their cargo and sell it for a nice profit, and bounty hunters gather at the other side of the planet, ready to scramble and pick off pirates and other criminals. Smugglers get ready to jump into system with canisters full of dead slaves to sell at the black market as "mutton" and fortune seekers and ninja salvagers sit in the fringes of the system, ready to scoop in and salvage from the ensuing carnage.

This results in an immersive, FD generated but player enhanced spike of activity with extreme levels of player interaction and content generation.

The first trader that can get to the station will reap the most rewards, and as urgent demand is procedurally met prices go down. All players affect the universe, and all players can profit from the opportunity.

You get into your trusty Panther Clipper, fill the holds with precious fruits, vegetables, meat and wheat and then set off for the nearby system.

Before you HS, you check your fuel levels, set all power to the engine and then...turn right into your cockpit where the cheat panel is and press the DELETE ALL PLAYERS FROM UNIVERSE LOL button.

After a successful HS jump and a brief confrontation with a lowly NPC pirate sporting a magenta laser pen, you dock to the station at hand and sell off your merchandise for extreme profit. Your goods bring the price down for all other players in the universe, diminishing their rewards while your risk is 0.

Do you understand the sheer amount of meta balance problems a mechanic like this brings to the table? Again, its one universe, what you do affects everyone.

Your ability to use extremes favorably to your point is obvious.
Now replace lowly NPC with laser pen with 4 well-armed (including missiles) expert fighting NPCs that meet you. There would have been a handful of bounty hunters arriving to assist but you 'deleted' them, lol OOPS!

Point is we can speculate until the Psykokow's come home..
This is pointless before the situation even exists to balance it.

Please revisit the topic when it's actually a 'thing'

 

[Gibbonici]

Point is we can speculate until the Psykokow's come home..
This is pointless before the situation even exists to balance it.

Totally agree. Let Frontier try all these options out in beta and see how they pan out.

Making up imaginary scenarios based on virtually nothing to prove points that might not even be relevant is a waste of time.

 

[Dante80]

Your ability to use extremes favorably to your point is obvious.

Metagaming is based on min-maxing extremes. And balancing is always around the meta-game, not the most common denominator. Thats the reason we have threads about possible/probable mechanics abuse and griefing for example...

Btw, I'm not trying to prove a point here, I'm just asking how it can/will pan out. It was just a scenario. I leave all judgment and implementation in the good hands of FD. They are the creators, and we will see how they will deal with things like that.

I will be playing their game after all, not mine...C:

 

[Herik]

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.

Good point of fact Robert Maynard.

 

[Lobstris]

i'll say one thing - as a solo online player, this would be one feature that might just tempt me into the all group.

exactly!

This is the one thing that has disturbed me the most about the entire multiplayer alpha - the different behaviour exhibited by people when they instantly know a player is present. (FWIW: In the DDF poll I voted for the compromise transponder option, and made multiple calls for variants to be tested in alpha & beta so we could see how this will work - but I'm pretty sure that a hollow triangle on the scanner saying come and attack me will be the thing that drives me to solo online).

 

[Beachlight7]

I dont want to know who is human or AI.

 

[popuptoaster]

This is a non issue. If NPCs are deadlier than other players, why would you be afraid to join the non DELETE ALL PLAYERS FROM THE UNIVERSE LOL mode?

Also, if NPCs are deadlier than other players, why do other players have to FACE THEM AND PCs while you don't?

Lastly, if one cargo haul is not enough to change the price, why not 100 using the same tactic?
And if 100 cannot change the price, why do you think that players could affect the price in the first place?

Guys, these really are some questions for thought.

You are confused and not understanding my point, either that or deliberately ignoring it.

Your argument is based on assuming that players will drop out of multiplayer to get the drop on players who are still in it.

But as i said that assumes that playing alone where you will face NPCs instead will be safer or "easy mode".

If NPCs present as much or more of a challenge than real players do then no one with any sense is going to try it and the playing field remains level because there is no benefit to playing solo.

 

[Dante80]

You are confused and not understanding my point, either that or deliberately ignoring it.

Your argument is based on assuming that players will drop out of multiplayer to get the drop on players who are still in it.

But as i said that assumes that playing alone where you will face NPCs instead will be safer or "easy mode".

If NPCs present as much or more of a challenge than real players do then no one with any sense is going to try it and the playing field remains level because there is no benefit to playing solo.

My argument is that players that have to face other players and npcs could inherently be at a disadvantage to players that have to face only npcs. The amount of challenge that npcs possess is a priori irrelevant as a factor. Also, there is no incentive to face other players if you can avoid it by playing solo or by only seeing and interacting with those players you want to...so that they help you against npcs (stus' bounty hunter to the rescue example).

At the same time, player actions affect the universe the same irregardless of whether they play solo, with friends or with all. So, the relative risk/reward scale could be skewed against those that want to play a multiplayer game fully.

The above is mere speculation, and is based on an extreme example that may or may not happen. As stu2 has said, we will have to see the exact mechanics at hand and how they interact with each other before we can really comment on that.

 

[Herik]

There is no such thing as a sandbox if you have the option to remove other players (without any justification needed) from your game with a button. Its just a glorified MP theme-park.

Sorry, but this must be told.

Sorry; but of course it is a 'Sandbox', with the ability to travel the whole galaxy, and play in any way you like.

 

[Cosmos]

With all due respect Cosmos I believe you need to rethink that position.

You have professed a desire to be a bounty hunter and part of your ritual will be to scan pilots anyway to see if they have a bounty on them or not ... You can't openly attack people without confirming first their status.

Part of the compromise could be to include the PC/NPC status in said scan.

(emphasis mine)

Its one of the roles I find of potential interest but I'm not sure I can get excited about repeatedly bounty hunting NPCs.

 

[Dante80]

Sorry; but of course it is a 'Sandbox', with the ability to travel the whole galaxy, and play in any way you like.

That is for certain, I intend to take the wife to the Pleiades as soon as I can...I think the view will be breathtaking (and helpful for explaining why we don't have a new microwave with the money she gave me)...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Its one of the roles I find of potential interest but I'm not sure I can get excited about repeatedly bounty hunting NPCs.

Why not? It was rather awesome in FE2.

 

[Helios]

My argument is that players that have to face other players and npcs could inherently be at a disadvantage to players that have to face only npcs.
(..)
So, the relative risk/reward scale could be skewed against those that want to play a multiplayer game fully.

Could you explain, how PvP players would be at a disadvantage by the mere existence of players in the same universe who do not partake in PvP in the?

I most certainly do hope that ED is not a PvP arena in development.

Assuming ED is not a PvP arena the term "disadvantage" would need to be specified in more detail I suppose, because, well ... how can you be at a disadvantage against someone you are not contending against?

 

[Dante80]

Could you explain, how PvP players would be at a disadvantage by the mere existence of players in the same universe who do not partake in PvP in the?

I most certainly do hope that ED is not a PvP arena in development.

Assuming ED is not a PvP arena the term "disadvantage" would need to be specified in more detail I suppose, because, well ... how can you be at a disadvantage against someone you are not contending against?

Think of a trader that gets hit by pirates going to the system, or a pirate waiting for prey to come by and gets blue balled, or a bounty hunter waiting to kill said pirate. Or a trader that reaches the station only to find that the price went down from ghost players bypassing the blockade.

Again, its an extreme example, that really doesn't have to do with pvp in the strict sense.

In any case, I think we are off topic for some time now. Sorry for that Cosmos, I didn't want to derail. Powering down <o

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

A simpler solution would be to have the player scan cover all targets in range with one click, while revealing yourself as a player (and the scanner) to all targets.

But a 1 click scan everyone is effectively the same as we have in the alpha: all payers instantly identified.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Its one of the roles I find of potential interest but I'm not sure I can get excited about repeatedly bounty hunting NPCs.

No, I appreciate not .. but the point I was making, which I hope you appreciate, is that saying you don't want to scan looking for humans is not much of an excuse when you're going to be scanning ships anyway. As long as you don't have to do it twice then I don't think that should be used as an excuse. (There are other valid reasons - one's I don't agree with, but certainly more valid than scanning for its own sake)

Regardless, it's an interesting topic you've opened to the floor .. we flogged it to death in the DDF so reading other people's opinions is interesting

 

[Cosmos]

No, I appreciate not .. but the point I was making, which I hope you appreciate, is that saying you don't want to scan looking for humans is not much of an excuse when you're going to be scanning ships anyway. As long as you don't have to do it twice then I don't think that should be used as an excuse. (There are other valid reasons - one's I don't agree with, but certainly more valid than scanning for its own sake)

Regardless, it's an interesting topic you've opened to the floor .. we flogged it to death in the DDF so reading other people's opinions is interesting

Nah, its a fair point. Yet, this whole scanning business could possibly become extremely repetitive and highly tedious.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Why not have an option for differentiating PCs/NPCs - yes/no. All the 'no' folks can live happily in their world, not knowing who is who and all the yes folks can do the same, clearly identifying each ship. Except... the 'no' folks want the 'yes' folks to not have that option, is that right?

Not really.

If the mutual ident transponder proposal is implemented, players who are broadcasting can identify each other, players who don't broadcast cannot identify any players.

So, players who wish to identify other players (and be identified by them) can and players who do not wish to be identified as a player (nor identify others) can too.

 

[Crash_Happy]

If this is a living world say your in that world you can't tell the difference between two people. there both people.

you can't expect a massive dot this person is a player feel free to kill them, you should be picking off little things you can as a criminal, not just targetting players, or not targetting them etc.

That pretty much is how I feel. Once you set out players as separate from NPC's with whatever flag you wish you have to explain why you want them set out so. For most, it would be to shoot at.

 

[Y2K]

I backed Elite Dangerous to be able to play a huge game of Elite with real people. I'd talked about it for years. I remember playing side-by-side with co-pilots and wishing we could all have our own ships and play together with other fans.

Now I'm getting the feeling it won't be as populated as I'd hoped for. Lots of very pretty stars and a lot of space but few encounters with fellow players. I hope the feeling I'm getting from the tone moves away from a clever clockwork simulated galaxy toward a big social galaxy populated by fun loving fans. Time will tell.

I guess we will make it what we can with what we are given and it will be down to the players to be social if they want. Roll on Beta. We are still in the very early stages with only a little space to play in. The Beta may dramatically change the mood and direction of the game in some very positive and surprising ways.

I hope that it doesn't become ships passing in the night against a very pretty back drop.

I find playing with others including strangers very exciting. However, to each his own.

+1 I backed ELITE Dangerous because of the exact same thing. Imagine the original ELITE with massive multiplayer and all the eye candy and evolving universe. Make friends and enemys.... or will there be enemys :\ Ive put this forward before, yes an ignore option by all means. Ignore the player comms, emails, hails, voice but not the ship and its actions.

Still looking forward to the game, i think it will be a blast. These small but HUGE points will factor in how long it keeps me interested.

Just my 2cents.