Potential Solution for PvE Vs PvP in Open Play: Pilots Federation Rep & Restricted Matchmaking
The Problem
Ok I think most of us understand the issue now.. PvE players wish to play in open mode because;
There has been much talk from the PvE community of ideas such as a 'Open PvE' mode or 'PvE-only flags', with the intention to stop the more aggressive players attacking them, but at the same time allowing them to interact with like-minded players.
Why are 'PvE Open' mode or 'PvE flags' NOT desirable solutions?
Despite the popularity of these ideas, there are of course issues with them (probably why FDev have not implemented them);
For these reasons, I believe a smarter solution to the problem must be sought, here is my proposal;
Step One: Introduce a 'Pilots Federation Reputation' system
Step Two: Give players a 'Restricted Matchmaking' switch in the options menu
Step Three: Make running the risk of Low Security / Lawless Systems worth going to for non-combat players
With a system like this in place, PvE-leaning players would have a barrier of protection against player killers (as long as they stay in secure systems). This way they could have the benefits of Open play social interaction, with a much-reduced risk from player killing. At the same time, criminal players would have more of a reason to keep their rep at a certain level, otherwise their targets will dry up. This may encourage more positive forms of outlaw play (such as piracy).
All of this could potentially be achieved without extra modes being tacked-on to the game.
The Problem
Ok I think most of us understand the issue now.. PvE players wish to play in open mode because;
- They are perhaps fed-up with playing alone
- The Mobius groups are limited in their capacity to offer a true 'open experience' as all members have to be granted access and private groups have a hard-coded player-limit
- They are reliant on players administering Mobius or other groups in their own time
- They don't like feeling 'forced' into solo or groups
There has been much talk from the PvE community of ideas such as a 'Open PvE' mode or 'PvE-only flags', with the intention to stop the more aggressive players attacking them, but at the same time allowing them to interact with like-minded players.
Why are 'PvE Open' mode or 'PvE flags' NOT desirable solutions?
Despite the popularity of these ideas, there are of course issues with them (probably why FDev have not implemented them);
- There is no lore reason why any ship should not be able to damage or destroy another ship
- Dividing up the playerbase into yet another mode could potentially fragment the community more than it already is
- 'Griefing' would not necessarily stop because players can't be damaged, it would just change in nature
- Legitimate PvP gameplay pathways could suffer with these solutions (Powerplay, Bounty Hunting, Piracy, Protection Wings, Faction Combat, Community Goal Diversity)
- Knock-on effect from introducing these solutions would effectively draw most non-combat players into Open PvE, causing what is now 'Open' to become 'Open PvP', which is undesirable to a lot of players (including myself)
- Players would have yet another method of circumventing player-opposition in Community Goals & Powerplay
- The notion that the Elite: Dangerous world is a 'Cut-throat galaxy' would likely be diminished
- Splitting 'Open play' mode up or making certain players off-limits to attack would be an admission of failure from FDev that they couldn't get open working the way they wanted it to
For these reasons, I believe a smarter solution to the problem must be sought, here is my proposal;
Step One: Introduce a 'Pilots Federation Reputation' system
This feature would assign reputation labels to players based on how they interact with other members of the Pilots Federation (i.e players only).
Reputation Tiers
This points-based system would have the following tiers (Not visible in Anarchy systems):
The tier your commander would occupy would be determined by how you interact with other commanders. Everyone's starting tier would be 'Neutral' and would rise or fall depending on recent player interactions. Over time, this rep would reset to 'Neutral' so players must keep their standards high to maintain a good standing. The reset of rep to neutral would take some time, probably somewhere around 25 points a week.
At time of implementation, all players would start from 'Neutral' with a clean slate (not including fines & bounties).
Reputation Gain
Being given an 'Endorsement' by players who themselves have a high-reputation would boost player rep. These could only be given to the same commander once to avoid exploiters boosting their friends up continuously.
Players with negative rep could not give endorsements at all.
Here are the proposed endorsement values;
* Endorsements could only be confirmed while docked, to counter potential 'rep extortion' (threatening players to award them rep)
Reputation Loss
Rep-loss penalties would be given for acts deemed dishonorable by the Pilots Federation, these include:
There would be caveats to make sure that rep-loss is not applied unfairly. For example, if you are wanted, and get interdicted by a clean commander and managed to kill them; you would not receive any rep-loss because you were not the aggressor.
No rep-loss would be applied for Powerplay related kills regardless of ranks or local security rating (though it still would for logging or killing your own faction).
Also if the victim has 'report crimes against me' set to 'off', no-rep loss is applied to the aggressor (except for menu-logging).
Murder Scenarios
We would need a system to measure murder-severity, so it would be a good idea to have degrees of murder (include rep loss if against other CMDR):
So we do not return to the days of bounty-farming, FDev would need to standardise the conversion of unpaid fines to bounty value to say 20,000 credits. This will stop illegal-cargo fines being used to bounty-farm, and thereby allow higher bounties for murder.
Low Reputation Consequences
There would be consequences for having a low Pilots Federation rep, these could be:
Reputation Tiers
This points-based system would have the following tiers (Not visible in Anarchy systems):
- Legendary (+1000) (Top-end limited to +1500)
- Honorable (+500)
- Upstanding (+250)
- Reliable (+100)
- Neutral (Default)
- Unpredictable (-100)
- Dishonorable (-250)
- Treacherous (-500)
- Murderous (-1000) (Bottom-end limited to -1500)
The tier your commander would occupy would be determined by how you interact with other commanders. Everyone's starting tier would be 'Neutral' and would rise or fall depending on recent player interactions. Over time, this rep would reset to 'Neutral' so players must keep their standards high to maintain a good standing. The reset of rep to neutral would take some time, probably somewhere around 25 points a week.
At time of implementation, all players would start from 'Neutral' with a clean slate (not including fines & bounties).
Reputation Gain
Being given an 'Endorsement' by players who themselves have a high-reputation would boost player rep. These could only be given to the same commander once to avoid exploiters boosting their friends up continuously.
Players with negative rep could not give endorsements at all.
Here are the proposed endorsement values;
- From 'Neutral' Commander : +5
- From 'Reliable' Commander : +10
- From 'Upstanding' Commander : +25
- From 'Honorable' Commander : +50
- From 'Legendary' Commander : +75
* Endorsements could only be confirmed while docked, to counter potential 'rep extortion' (threatening players to award them rep)
Reputation Loss
Rep-loss penalties would be given for acts deemed dishonorable by the Pilots Federation, these include:
- Killing clean commander ships without cause in secure systems (i.e not wanted, no Powerplay rivalry or not an enemy in a Combat Zone) : See Murder Scenarios
- Speeding 'incidents' around stations with other commanders (player moving fastest gets the rep-loss penalty) : -50 rep
- Using the 15 second 'graceful exit' menu system to log-out during combat (with players only) : -75 rep
- Killing members of your own Powerplay faction (unless self-defence) : -100 rep
- After repeated complaints of task-kill-style combat logging on a certain player, FDev could manually set the player in question's rep to 'Treacherous': Rep-loss at FDevs discretion
There would be caveats to make sure that rep-loss is not applied unfairly. For example, if you are wanted, and get interdicted by a clean commander and managed to kill them; you would not receive any rep-loss because you were not the aggressor.
No rep-loss would be applied for Powerplay related kills regardless of ranks or local security rating (though it still would for logging or killing your own faction).
Also if the victim has 'report crimes against me' set to 'off', no-rep loss is applied to the aggressor (except for menu-logging).
Murder Scenarios
We would need a system to measure murder-severity, so it would be a good idea to have degrees of murder (include rep loss if against other CMDR):
- 4th degree = self-defence (when wanted vs clean opponent) or sanctioned kill (Powerplay) : 10,000 credit bounty & no rep-loss
- 3rd degree = murder of equal or higher level clean pilot : 25,000 credit bounty & low rep-loss (-50 rep if not Powerplay, Wanted or Conflict Zone)
- 2nd degree = murder of clean lower-level pilot (all ranks less or equal to 'Mostly xx') : 50,000 credit bounty & med rep-loss (-100 rep if not Powerplay, Wanted or Conflict Zone)
- 1st degree = murder of clean lower-level pilot + ship value under 100k credits : 75,000 credit bounty & high rep-loss (-200 rep if not Powerplay, Wanted or Conflict Zone)
So we do not return to the days of bounty-farming, FDev would need to standardise the conversion of unpaid fines to bounty value to say 20,000 credits. This will stop illegal-cargo fines being used to bounty-farm, and thereby allow higher bounties for murder.
Low Reputation Consequences
There would be consequences for having a low Pilots Federation rep, these could be:
- Refuse docking permission for 'Murderous' or 'Treacherous' commanders at High-security ports
- Refuse docking permission for 'Murderous' commanders at Medium-security ports
- Refuse to issue a 'clean' status to 'Murderous' commanders in High-security systems
- Issue kill-on-sight orders to NPC security against 'Murderous' commanders in High-security systems
- Some faction-types would refuse to work with negative-rep commanders, regardless of ranks, making some missions unavailable.
Step Two: Give players a 'Restricted Matchmaking' switch in the options menu
So, now we have a system that can measure how honorably players interact with each-other, we can offer commanders an option in the game menu that restricts which players are match-made with them in open-play (in certain systems).
The Switch
This would be a simple two-way switch that could either be set to;
Who would it filter-out and where?
How this would work is; players who switch to 'Restricted Mode' would not be placed in the same instance as players with:
The potential benefits
The effect this could possibly have would be:
The Switch
This would be a simple two-way switch that could either be set to;
- No Restrictions (Normal)
- Restricted Mode
Who would it filter-out and where?
How this would work is; players who switch to 'Restricted Mode' would not be placed in the same instance as players with:
- Rep-levels of 'Treacherous' or 'Murderous' in High-security systems
- Rep-level of 'Murderous' in Medium-security systems
- Low security systems would continue to have full player matchmaking, with commander rep-level displayed to all players in the instance (after basic scan)
- Lawless & Anarchy systems would have full player matchmaking, with commander rep-level displayed as 'Unknown'
- If a player with a negative rep of 'Dishonorable' or lower switches to 'Restricted Mode', it has no effect and they will still be match-made with low-rep players - this is an excellent way to discourage combat logging.
- If a player with Restricted mode set to 'On' is wanted in the local area or system, they are placed in the normal instance with everybody
- Rival Powerplay commanders are always instanced together in power 'Control' systems regardless of rep level or 'Restricted mode' setting
The potential benefits
The effect this could possibly have would be:
- Feeling a bit safer, non-combat or PvE players may return to open.
- Low-rep players would gravitate towards 'Low-security', 'Lawless' and 'Anarchy' systems, where there would be no-matchmaking restrictions.
- Forum-rage may subside quite a bit (it won't go away entirely)
- Pirates would have a motivation to not kill their targets. By keeping their rep high, they would benefit from having access to more targets (No matchmaking restrictions)
- Combat logging would be discouraged naturally, as the end result for the logger would be that 'Restricted Mode' no longer works for them and they are unable to avoid player-killers
Step Three: Make running the risk of Low Security / Lawless Systems worth going to for non-combat players
Dangerous systems have to have an incentive to visit
With a system like I have outlined above, there would need to be a reason for traders, miners & explorers to go to the riskier systems.
What should happen is that profit margins for all activities in these systems should be increased. This would include trade profit margins (including rare commodities), bounty vouchers, exploration data and mission rewards.
Something like this could work well:
Net result is, non-combat players can stay safe and trade in the secure systems relatively hassle-free -or- they can try their luck trading in risky systems for a nice bonus to their profits. This way if they get killed or robbed, the blame can be put squarely on them for venturing to low or no security systems unprotected.
With a system like I have outlined above, there would need to be a reason for traders, miners & explorers to go to the riskier systems.
What should happen is that profit margins for all activities in these systems should be increased. This would include trade profit margins (including rare commodities), bounty vouchers, exploration data and mission rewards.
Something like this could work well:
- High Security : Profits have 0% bonus modifier applied
- Medium Security : Profits have 10% bonus modifier applied
- Low Security : Profits have 25% bonus modifier applied
- Lawless/Anarchy : Profits have 50% bonus modifier applied
Net result is, non-combat players can stay safe and trade in the secure systems relatively hassle-free -or- they can try their luck trading in risky systems for a nice bonus to their profits. This way if they get killed or robbed, the blame can be put squarely on them for venturing to low or no security systems unprotected.
With a system like this in place, PvE-leaning players would have a barrier of protection against player killers (as long as they stay in secure systems). This way they could have the benefits of Open play social interaction, with a much-reduced risk from player killing. At the same time, criminal players would have more of a reason to keep their rep at a certain level, otherwise their targets will dry up. This may encourage more positive forms of outlaw play (such as piracy).
All of this could potentially be achieved without extra modes being tacked-on to the game.
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