Should ED have dedicated PVP weapons?

[DukeIronHand]

I think this thread has become "all over the place" and is confusing to me.

1) There are no PvE vs PvP ship builds. If you meant a PvE combat build vs NPC's and a PvP combat build then yes.
Straight up there is a difference between the two and the design philosophy to make them successful. This was spelled out nicely earlier.

2) A PvE ship build to me is, basically, a no-combat build. A ship made for mining, exploring, trading, etc not combat.
This is where the different player types come in or "min/maxer's." If I want to trade then I make an trade ship: I make my Python haul 272t of cargo. Great trader. Now if I want to trade in Open I cut my cargo and/or performance in half as I load up with all sorts of defensive and offensive stuff. So now I have an "okay trader and an okay combat ship."
Now the key point to me:

*Is my "combat trader" as good as a dedicated PvP ship?*

The answer is clearly "No".
With that being the answer I now have to decide what I want to do. If it's trade then I might as well take a max build trader and go Solo or PG. If I want to fight then I make a PvP ship (that's works just fine against NPC's) and play in Open. Only with a maxed out combat ship will I stand a chance against another players combat build. There is no middle of the road for ship builds against other players. A multi role hybrid ship will never beat a dedicated combat ship with pilots of equal skill.

3) Engineers didn't make the above problem it just made it worse - for Open.
Solo and PG players don't mind Engineers - in fact they seem to enjoy them as they can either do it or not and still have success in the space lanes trading, mining, or combat.
Now we have the Open player base broken down into additional subsets.
A) The player trying to play ball in Open with a combat trader, certainly now, has to "Engineer or die."
B) The non-Engineered PvP'er has to spend dozens and dozens of hours Engineering his ship or he dies vs...
C) The Engineered PvP "Death Machine" cruising the space lanes for only one thing - a hollow square on the scanner.

With all of the above, which is my opinion, this player base will never be happy and it is just as well there are different play modes to suit different ideas of what they want their game to be.

 

[Stealthie]

Surely a more logical approach might be to reduce/rein in unwanted PvP, and the game orchestrate/offer more "concensual" PvP.

Let a Crime and Punishment system penalise habitual "illegal" destruction, and for the game then to offer plenty of easy to access PvP via PvP scenarios/task and CGs and such.

This, unfortunately.

Restrict players to the use of pointy sticks and you'll still get people finding ways to grief/gank effectively.

Arbitrarily preventing/limiting things is just sticking a band-aid on the symptom rather than addressing the cause of the problem.

Fixing it properly will involve the people at FDev putting their their thinking-caps on and creating a fully-functional C&P system which is capable of detecting proper griefers/gankers and dealing with them mercilessly while also being tolerant of players who're RPing as pirates to some extent.

 

[DukeIronHand]

C&P is not some panacea to all of Open's problems: it may help, a little, or it may not.

I am a miner in my...let's say T7 mining ship. I like to mine and I like the T7 for this discussion.
I spend 3 hours mining and am en route to sell my haul of the "Three P's" when I am interdicted short of port and am blown up by another player - call it legitimate game play or call it ganking...whatever.

How does the - idea as I won't know - of the other player being punished make me feel better?
He is being fined? Laughable. Some nebulous "Karma" system?
Why would someone who just wants to mine put up with that?
He wouldn't and thus is born another Solo or PG player. He just wants to mine (or trade or explore) and not have a target on his back as, apparently for some players, a hollow square means "attack."

The sooner the player base (or this forum more correctly) comes to understand that this game will never be all things to all people the sooner FD can pick a direction and make a good game.

 

[Pyrobee]

In open you have to expect PvP and set up your ships depending on their purpose. In PvE you don't have to specialise in outfitting as much. My trade cutter wouldn't be outfitted the way it is now if I played PvE, there would be no point in a ship set up for blockade running in mobius or solo.

Best thing you should learn in open is how to avoid the fight in the first palce if it isn't one you want get involved in

- - - Updated - - -

C&P is not some panacea to all of Open's problems: it may help, a little, or it may not.

I am a miner in my...let's say T7 mining ship. I like to mine and I like the T7 for this discussion.
I spend 3 hours mining and am en route to sell my haul of the "Three P's" when I am interdicted short of port and am blown up by another player - call it legitimate game play or call it ganking...whatever.

How does the - idea as I won't know - of the other player being punished make me feel better?
He is being fined? Laughable. Some nebulous "Karma" system?
Why would someone who just wants to mine put up with that?
He wouldn't and thus is born another Solo or PG player. He just wants to mine (or trade or explore) and not have a target on his back as, apparently for some players, a hollow square means "attack."

The sooner the player base (or this forum more correctly) comes to understand that this game will never be all things to all people the sooner FD can pick a direction and make a good game.

What defensive measures did your ship have?

- - - Updated - - -

Fixing it properly will involve the people at FDev putting their their thinking-caps on and creating a fully-functional C&P system which is capable of detecting proper griefers/gankers and dealing with them mercilessly while also being tolerant of players who're RPing as pirates to some extent.

FDev have said murder is legitimate game play, with murder comes gankers.

 

[Stealthie]

C&P is not some panacea to all of Open's problems: it may help, a little, or it may not.

I am a miner in my...let's say T7 mining ship.
I spend 3 hours mining and am en route to sell my haul of the "Three P's" when I am interdicted short of port and am blown up by another player - call it legitimate game play or call it ganking...whatever.

How does the other player being punished make me feel better?

It doesn't.

What a C&P system would do would be to minimise the likelihood of that happening in the first place by deterring aggressive PvP in law-abiding systems.

I know some people will complain but consider the same sort of thing in the real world.
There's nothing to actually stop me committing murder if I want to.
I'm not prevented from obtaining deadly weapons and there isn't a policeman walking around behind me to ensure I don't stick a carving knife in somebody's neck or bash them over the head with a hammer.
What's more, if I DO decide to murder somebody, the best legal system in the world won't make that person's family feel any better about it.

So, how come people aren't committing murder all over the place?
Even if we set aside the obvious moral inhibitors (which we can probably ignore in a game anyway), the reason we don't all see murder as a viable action is because we realise there's a good chance we will be caught and punished for doing it.
And, of course, that's also why the lack of an effective judicial system in backwater countries often results in various atrocities and high murder rates.

That's the sort of system a game like ED should seek to replicate IMO.
If you're mining or trading then the risk should be proportional to the level of security in that system.
In peaceful high-security systems, the punitive action taken against aggressive PvP should be severe enough that almost nobody would attempt it.
When a system is either at war or is low security then the risk of punishment would be reduced and in anarchies there would be no risk of punishment at all.

And then it'd be up to you to decide what level of risk you were willing to tolerate and mine in an appropriate system.

 

[Muzz UK]

Nah I hate the idea of PvP and PvE gearing just makes it like any other MMO

 

[Darkfyre99]

C&P is not some panacea to all of Open's problems: it may help, a little, or it may not.

I am a miner in my...let's say T7 mining ship. I like to mine and I like the T7 for this discussion.
I spend 3 hours mining and am en route to sell my haul of the "Three P's" when I am interdicted short of port and am blown up by another player - call it legitimate game play or call it ganking...whatever.

How does the - idea as I won't know - of the other player being punished make me feel better?
He is being fined? Laughable. Some nebulous "Karma" system?
Why would someone who just wants to mine put up with that?
He wouldn't and thus is born another Solo or PG player. He just wants to mine (or trade or explore) and not have a target on his back as, apparently for some players, a hollow square means "attack."

The sooner the player base (or this forum more correctly) comes to understand that this game will never be all things to all people the sooner FD can pick a direction and make a good game.

A karma system and C&P system is less about making the victim feel better, and more about reducing the amount of player-killing by making that activity less fun. If a player-killer find themselves with a red target on their backs, both vs players and NPCs, in high security systems, and the only way to remove that target is to spend time in open NOT player-killing, then the frequency of player-killing will go down to more acceptable levels.

What an "acceptable" level is varies between people. Only Frontier knows what population they want open to be.

 

[DukeIronHand]

It doesn't.

What a C&P system would do would be to minimise the likelihood of that happening in the first place by deterring aggressive PvP in law-abiding systems.

I know some people will complain but consider the same sort of thing in the real world.
There's nothing to actually stop me committing murder if I want to.
I'm not prevented from obtaining deadly weapons and there isn't a policeman walking around behind me to ensure I don't stick a carving knife in somebody's neck or bash them over the head with a hammer.
What's more, if I DO decide to murder somebody, the best legal system in the world won't make that person's family feel any better about it.

So, how come people aren't committing murder all over the place?
Even if we set aside the obvious moral inhibitors (which we can probably ignore in a game anyway), the reason we don't all see murder as a viable action is because we realise there's a good chance we will be caught and punished for doing it.
And, of course, that's also why the lack of an effective judicial system in backwater countries often results in various atrocities and high murder rates.

That's the sort of system a game like ED should seek to replicate IMO.
If you're mining or trading then the risk should be proportional to the level of security in that system.
In peaceful high-security systems, the punitive action taken against aggressive PvP should be severe enough that almost nobody would attempt it.
When a system is either at war or is low security then the risk of punishment would be reduced and in anarchies there would be no risk of punishment at all.

And then it'd be up to you to decide what level of risk you were willing to tolerate and mine in an appropriate system.

Oh I hear you but the killer being punished does not make the victim feel better nor bring them back to life. Plus I am not convinced of FD's C&P implementation or its effect or how it discriminates ganking, griefing, from legitimate combat.

Me blowing up a unarmed player trader is not greifing depending on the circumstances.

What the victim will do is to avoid being killed in the first place by another player for no reason.
So if I don't need the aggravation, or desire to be someone else's content, where do I go?
To Solo or PG. That is all I am saying.
This game is other things to some people - not just combat.

 

[mbs357]

There's dedicated PVP gear in World of Warcraft. It basically means that if you're on a PVP server and you're out doing quests (missions) in your PVE gear and someone comes along and wants to PVP you in their PVP gear you basically have zero choice and zero chance.

From what I've seen of PVP videos the game already heavily favors people who very specifically gear their ship for PVP. A person out doing missions is already at a disadvantage form that and the fact that the attacker will have the element of surprise. Adding PVP only weapons will just increase the gap and make it even harder for the people being attacked to survive and will likely make more of them switch to solo mode.

 

[RamirezKurita]

What you're saying is not a question of PVE vs PVP, it's a question of engagement types.

PVE is about killing hordes and hordes of braindead AI. Thus, it makes sense that you use builds made for long sessions like lasers.

PVP is all about the quality of the kill. You very rarely get to have more than four players around, and the difficulty of PVE is just not a match for PVP, so naturally you focus on quality over quantity.

Interestingly, one of the discussions in the beta forum is about ammunition supplies not being sufficient for PvP duels due to the massive inflation in effective HP for players thanks to engineers and various multiplicative effects, with some players complaining that the standard all G5 OC multicannons all the time builds run out of ammunition in most duels before really achieving much.

Which lead me to the startling conclusion that the ridiculous player effective HP actually closes the gap between PvP duels and PvE farming sessions as they now require similar engagement times and ammunition capacities. Balance for one becomes balance for the other, it's just that rather than taking down dozens of fragile opponents you are trying to engage a single hardened target, with ammunition and supply limitations affecting them both comparably.

 

[Dathayn]

When's the last time you used reverb torps on an npc? Pvp weapons already exist lol

 

[DukeIronHand]

Which lead me to the startling conclusion that the ridiculous player effective HP actually closes the gap between PvP duels and PvE farming sessions as they now require similar engagement times and ammunition capacities. Balance for one becomes balance for the other, it's just that rather than taking down dozens of fragile opponents you are trying to engage a single hardened target, with ammunition and supply limitations affecting them both comparably.

Very interesting.
Which, I think, shows trying to balance the game for all player types and modes is akin to a dog chasing his tail.
Goes in circles and accomplishes nothing.

 

[stumblingdrunk]

When's the last time you used reverb torps on an npc? Pvp weapons already exist lol

That is the point of this thread.

I can see several people saying we need a decent C&P system (which I completely agree with), but that doesn't solve the issue that we now 'gear for' PVP or PVE, which seems ridiculous. No doubt I can leave my vette in a station and wait 30 minutes to have my FDL transferred to me if I want to do PVP, but surely FD never intended that?

I also wonder how they can possibly have an effective C&P system unless they relegate all duelling PVPers to only fight each other in anarchy systems or have some silly PVP flag. Neither of these would be good so it just looks like a huge viscous circle as Truesilver mentioned at the start.

 

[Stealthie]

I also wonder how they can possibly have an effective C&P system unless they relegate all duelling PVPers to only fight each other in anarchy systems....

See, that's something I think could be useful.

The main thing that PvP players moan about is the ability to earn money to pay for re-buys.

If the BGS could be "fine-tuned" so that a PVP player who was allied with a given system could actually improve the economy in their "home system" by winning PvP battles then they could be given access to well-paid missions which would subsidise their re-buys.

Basically, I'd try to set it up so that various PvP groups would pick an anarchy as a "home system" and then they could attack rival groups (based in a different anarchy) in order to improve the economy of their own system.

Thing is, you can't just aim to crush PvP completely cos those people have just as much right to play the game as anybody else.
If there was a way that they could actually do what they wanted to do, without just harassing people who aren't interested in that kind of play, I suspect a lot of them would be happy to embrace it.

 

[stormyuk]

Me blowing up a unarmed player trader is not greifing depending on the circumstances.

The thing is its easy to just hide behind that argument, especially if you like murdering defenceless players (I am not implying you do). Nothing personal at all.

But, murder someone in an anarchy lawless system, so what, its lawless. No problem but, do it in a High Security system you better as hell get punished (eventually, via reducing karma which I think has been discussed before) rather then a stupid pointless fine. If you kill someone who is WANTED again, no problem. Do it because they are a PP enemy, fair play, do it with freedom. There are ways and means of creating a system which is fair and balanced, to just defend the status quo is being disingenuous to everyone who feels there is a another way.

I honestly am not sure why FDev are so resistant, its probably a) because its hard (I don't pretend its easy, but it can't be impossible) and b) because they need to spend resources elsewhere.

Its a real shame though as it would make for a better system, at the moment every system regardless of security status is just anarchy really.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Any decent C&P system needs to have an outlet for healthy PvP.

This means PvP where players have:

• opted in
• there ideally exists a rough parity between players
• rewards are scaled based how close a fight is
• no death penalty

In fact, given that every player also happens to be a member of the largest legal criminal organization in the Galaxy, and also a member of one of the three great superpowers (sorry Alliance), the above changes could easily be explained by the idea that the Pilots' Federation has finally had enough with certain members giving them a bad name, and has decided to lay down, and enforce, certain rules for its members to follow. It then strongarmed the other human factions into cooperating with them, otherwise they'd lose access to their members.

For example, let's look at a system designed to promote "proper" piracy. There could be two routes: pirate or privateer. A player would "fly the Jolly Roger", declaring themselves a pirate. A privateer is a player pledged to a power who attacks the shipping of their patron's rivals. Either way, the mechanism would be the same. Any Commander who s currently pledged to a faction, major or minor, can be "legally" attacked by a pirate or privateer, though local laws still apply.

The goal for the pirate is to get the trader's cargo. The goal of the trader is to escape with their cargo intact. During a conflict, both sides earn vouchers, based on a variety of factors including relative strength of ships, damage taken and dealt, ELO rating between the two Commanders, and how much cargo changed hands. The death of the trader invalidates the pirate's vouchers, because neither commander was pledged on sides that had declared war. OTOH, the death of the pirate is worth a bounty voucher, again scaled on the relative strengths of the opponents. All vouchers can be turned into the power they're pledged to (or an anarchy power for pirates) for reputation, influence, and credits.

 

[Han_Zen]

Any decent C&P system needs to have an outlet for healthy PvP.

This means PvP where players have:

• opted in
• there ideally exists a rough parity between players
• rewards are scaled based how close a fight is
• no death penalty

In fact, given that every player also happens to be a member of the largest legal criminal organization in the Galaxy, and also a member of one of the three great superpowers (sorry Alliance), the above changes could easily be explained by the idea that the Pilots' Federation has finally had enough with certain members giving them a bad name, and has decided to lay down, and enforce, certain rules for its members to follow. It then strongarmed the other human factions into cooperating with them, otherwise they'd lose access to their members.

For example, let's look at a system designed to promote "proper" piracy. There could be two routes: pirate or privateer. A player would "fly the Jolly Roger", declaring themselves a pirate. A privateer is a player pledged to a power who attacks the shipping of their patron's rivals. Either way, the mechanism would be the same. Any Commander who s currently pledged to a faction, major or minor, can be "legally" attacked by a pirate or privateer, though local laws still apply.

The goal for the pirate is to get the trader's cargo. The goal of the trader is to escape with their cargo intact. During a conflict, both sides earn vouchers, based on a variety of factors including relative strength of ships, damage taken and dealt, ELO rating between the two Commanders, and how much cargo changed hands. The death of the trader invalidates the pirate's vouchers, because neither commander was pledged on sides that had declared war. OTOH, the death of the pirate is worth a bounty voucher, again scaled on the relative strengths of the opponents. All vouchers can be turned into the power they're pledged to (or an anarchy power for pirates) for reputation, influence, and credits.

The current system is fine.

They just need to get rid of the suicide trick to clear bounties and give NPCs better ships than we have access to.

 

[DukeIronHand]

The thing is its easy to just hide behind that argument, especially if you like murdering defenceless players (I am not implying you do). Nothing personal at all.

But, murder someone in an anarchy lawless system, so what, its lawless. No problem but, do it in a High Security system you better as hell get punished (eventually, via reducing karma which I think has been discussed before) rather then a stupid pointless fine. If you kill someone who is WANTED again, no problem. Do it because they are a PP enemy, fair play, do it with freedom. There are ways and means of creating a system which is fair and balanced, to just defend the status quo is being disingenuous to everyone who feels there is a another way.

I honestly am not sure why FDev are so resistant, its probably a) because its hard (I don't pretend its easy, but it can't be impossible) and b) because they need to spend resources elsewhere.

Its a real shame though as it would make for a better system, at the moment every system regardless of security status is just anarchy really.

No offense taken...especially as I am a Solo player.
What I was trying to say is just because I am a player I shouldn't be immune to all attacks from other players.
PP, CG's, BGS wars, etc render a player open to, what in my mind, is a perfectly legitimate attack.
My point was how is a C&P going to distinguish what in my mind is a legitimate attack (as above) and what is ganking?

Frankly at this point in the game, and players, development I am almost of the mind that once you click "Open" you lose all rights to complain about player behavior. What are you expecting from an online game? Was ED going to be different from the dozen of other online games with bad behavior from players? Can't see how anyone could still be surprised by anything once they chose Open.

 

[stormyuk]

.
My point was how is a C&P going to distinguish what in my mind is a legitimate attack (as above) and what is ganking?

Frankly at this point in the game, and players, development I am almost of the mind that once you click "Open" you lose all rights to complain about player behavior. What are you expecting from an online game? Was ED going to be different from the dozen of other online games with bad behavior from players? Can't see how anyone could still be surprised by anything once they chose Open.

The first point like I say, murder should not be allowed freely in High Security systems (but it should not be totally stopped either), and bad karma could follow, keep up with that behaviour and you become gradually less welcome in High Security space, you have a perma bounty (not suicide cleared) and then lose access to stations, and then finally become KoS in that powers High Security space. Stop doing these naughty things in high sec and your karma could normalise over a period of time, your bounty could become dormant (and clear-able by paying it off) and you wont be persona non grata anymore. This system would allow for infractions like collisions at space stations, and reckless flying etc. But continue to do these things over and over and expect your karma to catch up.

Anarchy systems, fill you boots, its rough out there, its got no security, so tough. Anything goes.

Medium could be between the two, you get karma issues but at a lower rate of rise on the behaviour.

PP powers killing enemy PP powers people should be legitimate.

There are ways and means to any system, just saying you lose all right coz "git gud" you clicked "open" you should expect to get smashed in the face is again a cop out to me. It could be so much more developed.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

Until proven otherwise, I cannot assume that the addition of Engineers and general development of "pew pew" gameplay was part of an objective to support, cater or shift focus to PVP gameplay or audience.

It is entirely logical that, if your overall story arc for the BSG and environment is that a war with an alien species will come along and distrupt everything, there would need to be some development of the community's ability to deal with that, for those that have not really engauged in combat and to cover the logical texhnology/capabilitiy gap between human and alien weapons and defenses.

What would the experience be for those that are exclusively traders and explorers if someone just flipped the "Alien Invasion" switch and a lenghty war of epic proportions for the survival of the species broke out, if they weren't able to arm themselves and have prior experince with combat? In context of the BGS & universe, how would the story go if the humans were largely unable to fight or defend their systems?

Yes, the game may be pushing "pew pew", but it is entirely possible that it is in conext of the next chapter of this story rather than anything having to do with marketing stratigies, player bases or anything else outside of the universe that they have created.

Has anyone seen Gangs of New York? The audience spends nearly two hours being drawn into a conflcit between a few groups over a few blocks in a city, and then at the climatic battle, the audience gets to experience the same jolt as the characters when reality suddenly reminds everyone that there are bigger things going on than whatever is happening in a few blocks in New York, and that no matter what everyone was doing up to that point no matter how important it was to them, they now have no choice but to realize that it is now completely irrellevant and insigificant compared to what they all will be dealing with now.