To Fly in Open or Not - Is Ganking/Griefing Really That Bad?

[Deleted member 38366]

I think for most Players (that at least have a clue of where the likely hotspots are) i.e. a Rebuy isn't the core issue.

Certainly isn't for me, I've thrown away perfectly good Ships for far more stupid reasons than getting Ganked

However, that annoyance and imprinted "zero balancing & consequences" embedded with the overall condition (zero Crime & Punishment System - the one in existence hinders only legal players making honest mistakes and is utterly fake/meaningless to an actual Criminal Player) makes it more of a Principles thing.

Frontier set the pacing. The rule base is 100% in favor of Criminal Players, 0% in favor of Clean Players. Go figure.
So if that "DAY-Z" style Universe is your thing depends on the personal point of view.

Occasionally, I like the challenge of sneaking into a Ganker-infested Engineer System and try to make it onto a Pad with a probably totally non-combat capable Ship.
But even I have moments where I'm thinking "Hmmm... you know what? Screw that stripped Gunship and even the ENG Cargo I could lose... but that mind-numbing Jumpathon I don't want to make a 2nd (or 3rd!) time. Not in in this Rig."

Open is quite safe in about 98-99% of all inhabited Systems one could visit.
Thing is... it's not the 98-99% that fill the Forum or lead to ugly Reviews.
It's the 1-2% that gets people upset... no later than they realize they didn't witness one of the famous "should be rare and meaningful" encounters - but learn they're Screenshot (or unintentional Youtube statist) #1522 for that day.
Day in Day out. 24/7. 365 days a year.
By Principle that's just not a sexy perspective, no matter how you put it. Can't seek revenge, can't place bounties, can't hire NPC hunters from an Allied Faction, can't, can't, can't, can't. Not this, not that.
The Gankers, however, can. Frontier gave them all the benefits and advantages. They're Frontier's "love child", everyone else are just potential Targets.
Kinda explains all the Combat-Focus and amount of tweaks/changes we've seen throughout so many Updates. Trading/Mining/Exploration? Anything non pew-pew? Not so much, right? Well okay : I can get a reinforced Refinery now.

Probably Frontier's biggest mistake was a rather simple one. Open Play might be better off being called "FFA - Free for all" or anything similar.
Something that clearly and instantly tells anyone thinking about entering this mode that this (Open) Universe is truly Toxic and Lawless.
Basically a wording thing. If people knew that at their very 1st Game Client start, we'd have alot less issues and discussions.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Personally, I'd prefer it if Open was PvE, and PvPers had to form up private groups to get their jollies killing other players. But guess what? The PvPers, for the most part, would hate that... because every player they ran into would be (by definition) prepared and on point for PvP action- and most PvPers don't want an equally prepared opponent. That should tell you something about them.

Once at a certain point in the Darwinian Skill Cycle, the upper 10% drive out the lower 90%. See CQC/Arena for an example, or World Of Pay-To-Win.

Then, the matchmaking system goes to perdition. Wait times go up, and more players eject.

This is a very, very old story, repeated time and again, throughout history.

- - - Updated - - -

An I lose button?

That's a revelation. The other player doesn't even need an I win button, winning is easier than ever - I like it!

Z...

That's why Frontier will never implement it.

 

[Kulgrinda Kosmarjus]

[*]I've been killed by commanders 5 times
[*]Each gank it takes 2.5 minutes for me to die

[*]125 minutes of death
[*]24,000 minutes of play time
[*]1.66% of my total play time I was getting killed and dying

How do you get those numbers? 5 deaths, 2,5 minute each that Thats 12.5 minutes of death. Which accumulates to 0,05208% of your playtime.

 

[Shintai]

I think for most Players (that at least have a clue of where the likely hotspots are) i.e. a Rebuy isn't the core issue.

Certainly isn't for me, I've thrown away perfectly good Ships for far more stupid reasons than getting Ganked

However, that annoyance and imprinted "zero balancing & consequences" embedded with the overall condition (zero Crime & Punishment System - the one in existence hinders only legal players making honest mistakes and is utterly fake/meaningless to an actual Criminal Player) makes it more of a Principles thing.

Frontier set the pacing. The rule base is 100% in favor of Criminal Players, 0% in favor of Clean Players. Go figure.
So if that "DAY-Z" style Universe is your thing depends on the personal point of view.

Occasionally, I like the challenge of sneaking into a Ganker-infested Engineer System and try to make it onto a Pad with a probably totally non-combat capable Ship.
But even I have moments where I'm thinking "Hmmm... you know what? Screw that stripped Gunship and even the ENG Cargo I could lose... but that mind-numbing Jumpathon I don't want to make a 2nd (or 3rd!) time. Not in in this Rig."

Open is quite safe in about 98-99% of all inhabited Systems one could visit.
Thing is... it's not the 98-99% that fill the Forum or lead to ugly Reviews.
It's the 1-2% that gets people upset... no later than they realize they didn't witness one of the famous "should be rare and meaningful" encounters - but learn they're Screenshot (or unintentional Youtube statist) #1522 for that day.
Day in Day out. 24/7. 365 days a year.
By Principle that's just not a sexy perspective, no matter how you put it. Can't seek revenge, can't place bounties, can't hire NPC hunters from an Allied Faction, can't, can't, can't, can't. Not this, not that.
The Gankers, however, can. Frontier gave them all the benefits and advantages. They're Frontier's "love child", everyone else are just potential Targets.
Kinda explains all the Combat-Focus and amount of tweaks/changes we've seen throughout so many Updates. Trading/Mining/Exploration? Anything non pew-pew? Not so much, right? Well okay : I can get a reinforced Refinery now.

Probably Frontier's biggest mistake was a rather simple one. Open Play might be better off being called "FFA - Free for all" or anything similar.
Something that clearly and instantly tells anyone thinking about entering this mode that this (Open) Universe is truly Toxic and Lawless.
Basically a wording thing. If people knew that at their very 1st Game Client start, we'd have alot less issues and discussions.

Agree. There is pretty much no penalty for just randomly killing others.

 

[NW3]

... But people aren't chased off by the ganking, their chased off by the looming threat of the Gank. The idea that someone could, if they chose to, set them bad 5-10 hours of "work" is enough to push people away.

The last time I played in Open (probably over a year ago) I was killed by a much larger, heavily armed ship, with no request to drop cargo or any other message. I lost 2-3 weeks of earned credits and was left with barely enough credits for 1 more rebuy. This is no fun, so I stopped playing Open.

 

[Frenotx]

I just had the best thought / idea ever.

What if... [hear me out here].... what if.. what if there's a big red 'concede' button.. when someone attacks a victim, all the victim has to do to 'surrender' is push the button and the attacker gets a little trumpet fanfare, a few semi naked girls do a quick samba across the screen, and a message appears to say 'Congratulations commander {name here}, you are victorious!!!!!'

and the victim simply ghosts out slightly and can just be on his merry way!

I think this holds traction.. The attacker gets that all important 'you win' feeling, the victim can go without the re-buy screen.. EVERYONE wins.


http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/0f/0ff49113f737f6725161e579f345863f0a8b6d82d260aca7a3726c18b760b024.jpg

If such a button allowed the victor to take their pick of the surrenderee's cargo and also prevented the surenderee from being in that star system for a few hours, then sure!

 

[Exigeous]

very true .. but it does make me laugh that almost all of the posts that say 'Open' is fine .. always have the proviso of "as long as you avoid busy areas"

Well I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree here. IMHO and in my experience you can absolutely fly in open and be safe, but here's the thing. We aren't kids on a playground, why is "safe" such a big damn deal? Okay, so you don't want to deal with human commanders, what about NPCs? I've been killed by FAR more NPCs than I have commanders. By a huge margin. With your logic I suppose to be safe I should load up the game, sit in my cockpit in the hangar for a while then log out. Blamo, safe.

While I absolutely think everyone should play how they want I just don't understand this whole "safe" mentality. I don't understand the big deal around clicking a few buttons (you're dead message and rebuy button), that a fake magical number of credits gets a little lower and you appear back in your last station. I've already said there are fringe cases, like coming back from a long exploration trip, etc. where you have a lot of work to lose. Other than that I just think it's extremely silly to worry about stuff like this. Let it add excitement. Let it add unpredictability. Let it add skill.

- - - Updated - - -

Due to some recent "impulse" purchases, I'm running a 4.5million rebuy FDL with about 800k in cash. You think I should participate in a CG in open?

I think not.

While I would say this falls into the fringe cases, like coming back from a long exploration trip risking a huge amount of time/money, it's extremely stupid to fly a $4.5M FDL with only $800k in the bank. You could very *very* easily get killed by an NPC, I've gotten killed 72 times so far and 5 of them were commanders. The notion that playing in solo/private will save you here is just dumb. You made the decision to buy a ship you can't afford, saying that's somehow linked to open/solo is also just dumb.

Do the smart thing and either strip parts off that to cover your rebuy or strip everything, store it and fly a Vulture until you can afford it. No one should *EVER* fly without at least 1 rebuy and really that should be 2-3.

 

[Mangal Oemie]

It's exceptionally rare for me

Over 2,600 hrs of game play
true ganks: 1 (when newish vulture pilot)
additional "ganks": 1 <--- gankers signaled in a system by others in my group; deliberately went out to see if I could lowake them. I couldn't

Couple of consensual (report crimes off) and CZ PvP encounters. But that's it.

Saddest part is that when out in my FdL, any comms lead to immediate hiwakes, drops, etc...

 

[NW3]

I don't want "safe". NPCs are fine; I've never felt like they attacked me with grossly overpowered weapons. I survive the vast majority of NPC encounters.

However, the places where I tend to spend the most time are in "popular" areas, like CGs, alien ruins, etc. Those places tend to have a lot of griefers, so I mostly play in Solo.

 

[aRJay]

I just had the best thought / idea ever.

What if... [hear me out here].... what if.. what if there's a big red 'concede' button.. when someone attacks a victim, all the victim has to do to 'surrender' is push the button and the attacker gets a little trumpet fanfare, a few semi naked girls do a quick samba across the screen, and a message appears to say 'Congratulations commander {name here}, you are victorious!!!!!'

and the victim simply ghosts out slightly and can just be on his merry way!

I think this holds traction.. The attacker gets that all important 'you win' feeling, the victim can go without the re-buy screen.. EVERYONE wins.


http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/0f/0ff49113f737f6725161e579f345863f0a8b6d82d260aca7a3726c18b760b024.jpg

Well everyone rational wins.

 

[Luniticisi]

Well I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree here. IMHO and in my experience you can absolutely fly in open and be safe, but here's the thing. We aren't kids on a playground, why is "safe" such a big damn deal? Okay, so you don't want to deal with human commanders, what about NPCs? I've been killed by FAR more NPCs than I have commanders. By a huge margin. With your logic I suppose to be safe I should load up the game, sit in my cockpit in the hangar for a while then log out. Blamo, safe.

While I absolutely think everyone should play how they want I just don't understand this whole "safe" mentality. I don't understand the big deal around clicking a few buttons (you're dead message and rebuy button), that a fake magical number of credits gets a little lower and you appear back in your last station. I've already said there are fringe cases, like coming back from a long exploration trip, etc. where you have a lot of work to lose. Other than that I just think it's extremely silly to worry about stuff like this. Let it add excitement. Let it add unpredictability. Let it add skill.

I was just saying that the statements about Open being safe were funny .. Space isn't safe, NPCs aren't safe .. it is just that space doesn't attack you for the sole reason that you are a "real boy", a player, a Non-NPC if you will.

 

[aRJay]

I've been killed by FAR more NPCs than I have commanders. By a huge margin.

As have I but I don't recall any NPCs killing me without me having nearly beaten them or nearly getting away, in other words they were fights not me getting murdered by someone shooting me with both barrels of a sawn off shotgun from a dark alley.

 

[Maelkhor]

Whooo, using this kind of ratio logic is really dangerous... It can be abused so much, ad absurdum we could get:

- the total time spent by woman not being "assaulted*"/time spent being "assaulted*" on a large scale proves that it is a non problem.
- Siria is currently a safe place, time spent living there not being shot at is a far greater than time spent being shot at.

As you can see, the ratio is irrelevant unless you compare it to an absolute tolerable value, I voluntarly used case were there is no tolerable value to show how dangerous it is to reason this way (and by the way, this kind of statistics biases is commonly used by politicians etc.)

What pvper really needs to understand, is that for most pveers gone to open/mobius(although many still enjoying their share of conventional competitive pvp), one single grief is already one grief over the tolerable limit. Just like some people have zero tollerance to cheating (ingame/irl), some players have zero tolerance to griefing, and by extension, for "griefing friendly environment" like ED open currently is.

Also, in most multiplayer game, it is relatively easy to differentiate grieffing from normal pvp actions, not so in ED, as instakilling noobwinder for the lulz is totally legit by the rules. Still griefing by the book definition (aka, purposly ruining other players experience in online games). Some PVE players just consider pvp in ED unbalanced, some wait for proper C&P mechanism, some just don't like pvp at all, some like it only when they feel like it. At the opposite some player like the thrill of being in a game were a RNGnered A rate anacond could melt them instantly any time. Or some like to hunt sidewinders in eravate, or bumping in stations etc.

Now what you are trying to do is show PVEers that their reason to not go to Open are absurd, a lot of pro "Open and nothing else" advocate are doing so daily in the forum and the only visible effect is to radicalize pve players even more.

edit: * illustration word replaced because auto-censored by forum.

 

[Starstrydur]

In principle I don't like to feed trolls. I that is enough.

 

[Rado]

The people who cry Open=Gank are the same people who would complain that the AI are too lethal, if that were the situation. If there were AI sprinkled about the game that could kill you with as much extreme prejudice (there used to be) as a human ganker there would be no safe spaces. There would be more ganking because you would inevitably get an RNGesus snake eyes roll, vs having control over your destiny as it is when dealing with humans, avoid and prosper.

Open = it's possible to die*
SOLO\Private = You only die if you want to (crash your struggle bus)

 

[Lucian667]

I couldn't care less about being ganked by players, I fly solo because it seems to reduce the frequency of getting ganked by the servers randomly disconnecting me at the worst possible time and then having to wait 5-10 min for them to spontaneously come good again in every single gaming session. Not fun FD, not fun.

 

[kofeyh]

Ganking doesn't happen much generally, however at CGs or fresh new discoveries you can almost guarantee it.

That said, last weekend there were individuals at Shinrarta Dezhra interdicting any CMDR they could as soon at they arrived in the system, no doubt instantly attacking and destroying them for the glorious goal of giving themselves the satisfaction of another CMDR aggravated for no ingame reason... And about the same time there were also individuals at Jamesons memorial ramming other CMDRs coming in/out of the station... Again no doubt for some highly noble reason, which is in no way toxic to the community/game.

ps: These are probably the exact same people now desperately trying to badger FD to penalise combat logging so they can dish out even more grief even more effectively. God I hope FD ignores them.

I was there last weekend actually. I was rammed once, which reminded me I was speeding at one point. I certainly did not get mindlessly attacked at random.

This is the problem with second hand information (were you there? I presume not since you avoid open?) it's not often accurate.

After well over one thousand hours I can comfortably advise it's never as bad as it's made out. Bagging PVP activity is popular because it supports forcing a PVE mode.

As for folks going to a CG, which as the name suggests is a community event, in a paper thin ship out of pure greed for max capacity then I wish you the best of luck. Because even AI will kick your behind.

 

[Dbrn47]

I've never been killed once, but then again, I play in Solo. The risk of being someone's content is not something I need in a game like this. I simply prefer competitive, organized, team based PvP games that are balanced around that idea. There likely isn't anything, for this game, that would get me playing in Open regularly, especially not since it now requires you to have a fully engineered ship to survive the PvP you do encounter. Any statistics showing that the situations I'm trying to stay out of are minimal doesn't change my mind, it's not just about the risk, it's about the overall spirit and balance of the game.

 

[Gunnet]

If I'm going to be socialising for leisure, I want positive interaction with people. By that I don't mean a game we're playing together has to be cooperative instead of competitive. But that whatever the goal of the game is, the goal of the players is also for everybody to have a good time.

Like I said in your piracy thread, I'm more than happy to have a great time roleplaying as a trader with somebody else who is roleplaying as a pirate. Even if I'm roleplaying a trader who will die before submitting and they're roleplaying a pirate who isn't bluffing. Even if I lose in the game, I will have won as somebody playing a game; as will the other player if I manage to destroy him.

I'm not happy to deal with somebody who wants to wants to destroy my ship/cargo because they hope it will make me as a player unhappy. That transcends playing a game against somebody and becomes defending yourself against them. Fighting a genuine attacker isn't an experience I want to have more than is necessary.

Just to be absolutely clear, it's not dependant upon me being the one who is losing out. Being the ganker would make me no happier than being the gankee. If somebody I'm playing a social game with isn't enjoying it, I'm not going to be enjoying it.

 

[CMDR Endincite]

I've around 1500 hours or so, been killed by 'griefers' two or three times, total damage not even remotely a fraction of what I have. Its a non issue, perpetuated by disgruntled people who dont play Open anyway.

Similar story, and I agree it's mindbogglingly overstated.

2500 hours, all in the bubble, one pirate attack (which failed) and one wing attack (which succeeded, but I was pursuing a Powerplay goal where attacking me was perfectly legitimate).

Note I hardly do CGs, so there's that.

The VAST majority of my ingame run-ins have either been friendly or silent.