Griefers and Elite's Emerging Karma System

[Minonian]

A time i also tough its best to everyone if we just shut down the whole mess. But when this much people have trouble with it? It not goes away, until something done with it.

So it's rages, because despite everything what the counter intrested party says it's a problem, and keep raging until something done with it. Players not feeling safe themselves, with this murderous nutbags around.

 

[jasonbarron]

Interestingly I was at Eravate for the first time in years, reporting for duty on my first official day with AA. And lo and behold, I actually get to see a true griefing noob killer at work, a fairly high profile forum member that we all interact with on a daily basis. Personally, I think the career noob killer is the lowest of the low. If ED has a true villain, it's this type of player.

 

[Pakhuis1973]

I do not think it is all that complex and sick as the OP states.
For me it is about a sense of superiority that some people like to feel over others.
In gaming some innocents try to obtain that regardless of the rules or gameplay, for their own satisfaction, which they will never get that way. It is a silly thing, but should be put in the right perspective, and not hugely overrated as it is now. Like it is now it increases those basic tendencies of some.

I do not care if I lose in a game. It is more a problem of nobodies trying to teach nothing, while they believe they are actually saying something. In a game for God's sake, if you are brilliant go to university or use your talents in real life, if you have any.
I am not interested in that at all, and do not want such persons around my children.

 

[A D]

The basic game is a decent platform for PvP, it's also a decent platform for co-op or Solo PvE. IME PvP players largely know each other & seek each other out, and a small subset of players seem to want the game to fail, or at least don't care if their 'over-fishing' actions have the wider ranging, longer term effects of segregating the player base.

Seems to me FDev have decided the game needs to be optimised for one or the other, and while that's a shame if true, it's also not a surprise, for me at least.

I do hope you are wrong Riverside I want Open to be filled with combatants, criminals, explorers, miners, pirates and traders - all interacting in different ways, so I think it would be a great pity if one player group was preferred over another.

 

[Riverside]

I do hope you are wrong Riverside I want Open to be filled with combatants, criminals, explorers, miners, pirates and traders - all interacting in different ways, so I think it would be a great pity if one player group was preferred over another.

Likewise, I have played in open for years now (admittedly I've been out in the black since before Christmas) & enjoy that little extra thrill that purely PvE play lacks. However if I were forced to choose I would take PvE only over PvP only. I have only killed other players by mutual consent (I mean they literally asked me to kill them) and regularly fly weaponless in the bubble to make my benign intentions as clear as possible to other players.

 

[Mordredd]

I do hope you are wrong Riverside I want Open to be filled with combatants, criminals, explorers, miners, pirates and traders - all interacting in different ways, so I think it would be a great pity if one player group was preferred over another.

i agree with this. its the end result i'd like a rich colourful galaxy with plenty of life and some naughtiness too. Its likely a balanced system will be found that suits most without defanging the game. But lets face it the big casualty is going to be erivate noob massacres, thats just not compatable with keeping that life in the galaxy... or getting more players in the game!

 

[A D]

Thanks all, useful discussion...I'm off to play some ED

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

OP thank you for a well worded, reflective post.
Unfortunately it of course attracts the same characters it is trying to expose. A common trait among those disposed for being termed sociopaths or even psychopaths is a self denial, a disability to recognize their own lack of social values i. e. Empathy. This tends to further deepen the gap of understanding between the affected and especially their victims.
These people are quite common in our societies, most even do well. But they are still what they are. Certain professions and trades even excel in their behavioural traits. But the result is still the same, many people will be victimized by them and suffer consequences.
It is in my opinion, based on may years in gaming and online (30), that this occurrence is carried over in gaming or internet interactions as well and even reinforced here because the lack of culpability and lack of punishment of behaviour.
The environment of any unmoderated forum shows this, and the environment of any game that is without rules ( DayZ) shows this very clearly.
Killing other people is indeed antisocial behaviour and those who have are mostly always deeply affected by it, even it was done and sanctioned by society (war/law enforcement) and it does not initially initially misalign your social compass, although prolonged exposure will. Fact! (search internet stress, ect )
The same can be found in games; the more lacking the rules , the faster the slide happens.

The outcry on these forums, I think , is that most CMDR's here does not want to seeE : D turned into Day Z in space, it is surrealistic, "anti lore" and "wishfull" thinking, grat social structures like the Empire, Alliance and the Federation could not have developed without them. That does not exclude any Anarchies being in existence though. Anarchies that would cater for these types of people. (Real Life is again an example )

I welcome FD's thoughts on this matter, a type of system is long overdue, consequences, good or bad, are long overdue, in order for this game to make sense in the long run.

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Delilah]

I read the OP carefully. It was well written and thoughtful, but I was not persuaded that it is correct or useful to draw a correlation between in game and real life behaviour or transpose the two. It is not correct because video games encourage fantasy anti-social behaviour. Responding to the game in that way does not mean you are anti-social in real life. It is not useful because video games are incapable of recognising a player's subjective intentions or motives. Destroying a ship is just a bunch of code processing the action as valid whether you are The Pope or Ted Bundy.

This does not mean that a video game can not impose rules thought to discourage bad behaviour, but in the end it is simply comes down to what the game mechanics do or do not allow regardless of anyone's subjective view. There is of course one notable exception, we may end up with Sandy Smarko's view of what constitutes bad behaviour because he has the keys to the game.

I appreciate the generous tone of your disagreement. I think you have a point when it comes to whether video/online games make people violent. That was a hypothesis from the 1980s forward, but it turned out not to be true. Indeed, some argue that gaming violence may serve as a release valve for some people with violent urges.

However, the study of griefing came later and the literature is quite clear. Griefers (as opposed to pvpers) do tend to have personality traits that map over to the dark tetrad. Moreover, because multi-player/MMO games/virtual worlds embed players in a social context, player actions do have an impact on others. Some of these contexts are so structured that griefing is not a problem. Battlestar Galactica online comes to mind. Others are more sandboxy and subject to mischief. Indeed, it is the ability to cause grief to others in open ended games that draws griefers to them.

That said, I appreciate you drawing out the distinction.

 

[Delilah]

OP thank you for a well worded, reflective post.
Unfortunately it of course attracts the same characters it is trying to expose. A common trait among those disposed for being termed sociopaths or even psychopaths is a self denial, a disability to recognize their own lack of social values i. e. Empathy. This tends to further deepen the gap of understanding between the affected and especially their victims.
These people are quite common in our societies, most even do well. But they are still what they are. Certain professions and trades even excel in their behavioural traits. But the result is still the same, many people will be victimized by them and suffer consequences.
It is in my opinion, based on may years in gaming and online (30), that this occurrence is carried over in gaming or internet interactions as well and even reinforced here because the lack of culpability and lack of punishment of behaviour.
The environment of any unmoderated forum shows this, and the environment of any game that is without rules ( DayZ) shows this very clearly.
Killing other people is indeed antisocial behaviour and those who have are mostly always deeply affected by it, even it was done and sanctioned by society (war/law enforcement) and it does not initially initially misalign your social compass, although prolonged exposure will. Fact! (search internet stress, ect )
The same can be found in games; the more lacking the rules , the faster the slide happens.

The outcry on these forums, I think , is that most CMDR's here does not want to seeE : D turned into Day Z in space, it is surrealistic, "anti lore" and "wishfull" thinking, grat social structures like the Empire, Alliance and the Federation could not have developed without them. That does not exclude any Anarchies being in existence though. Anarchies that would cater for these types of people. (Real Life is again an example )

I welcome FD's thoughts on this matter, a type of system is long overdue, consequences, good or bad, are long overdue, in order for this game to make sense in the long run.

Cheers Cmdr's

Nicely said. Thank you.

 

[Morbad]

a disability to recognize their own lack of social values

I actively reject such social values as the useless baggage they are!

Not a griever though.

 

[to_boldy_go]

I think fdev need to get rid of the pointless rank at the bottom most players ignore and bring in a pvp one.

Thjs would score based on main combat rank, pvp combat rank and combatness (scored via guns and shield strength).

Some would be very negative eg a Harmless Sidwewinder would be say -30 vs say an Elite vette all fitted out with mods and 7,000 mj shields at plus 3. Most decent combat ships average say plus 1.

This would discourage griefers as we can laugh at their ranking. Allow it to go negative so a griefer could get a rank of "useless space trash" that they cant boast about.

And a negative rating means no engineer access and no landing in fed' empire or alliance space stations!

We could have a more useful combat rank AND have a better anti griefing system.

All fdev would need to add is a warning flag (like bounties) if it would decrease you ranking.

Non pvp players wouldnt care but so what they can enjoy the game still.

Maybe an overide if someone has a bounty greater than 10,000 then the negative rating becomes 1 to avoid any exploits.

 

[Minonian]

Interestingly I was at Eravate for the first time in years, reporting for duty on my first official day with AA. And lo and behold, I actually get to see a true griefing noob killer at work, a fairly high profile forum member that we all interact with on a daily basis. Personally, I think the career noob killer is the lowest of the low. If ED has a true villain, it's this type of player.

In this, we can agree.

 

[Delilah]

I actively reject such social values as the useless baggage they are!

Not a griever though.

With the understanding that I am not assuming you are a griefer, can you expand on what you mean by rejecting social values? Afterall, we all live in a social world, and Elite is a social game/sim/virtual world.

 

[Kayweg]

His definition of "griefing" in that reddit seems to be somewhat different from what most of us here probably would think.

"In response to combat logging versus "griefing" (which I will define here as killing a much weaker vessel with potentially a lower combat rated pilot): both are considered "undesirable" behaviour. I'm not saying that they would have to get exactly the same bad karma, just that repeatedly doing either act would see a Commander slide down the karma slope."

Now, if that's just his personal view or the official FD stance i don't know, but if that's what that karma system (if it ever arrives) will be defined around, we're in for some interesting discussions.

 

[W.T.Sherman]

With the understanding that I am not assuming you are a griefer, can you expand on what you mean by rejecting social values? Afterall, we all live in a social world, and Elite is a social game/sim/virtual world.

Social values cause us to have silly and out dated ideas like right and wrong, noble and ignoble, peas and carrots (no wait, one of those doesn't belong). With these foolish artificial constructs people start having all sorts of crazy ideas like words having meanings or effects having causes. After that, any thing goes!

 

[Delilah]

Social values cause us to have silly and out dated ideas like right and wrong, noble and ignoble, peas and carrots (no wait, one of those doesn't belong). With these foolish artificial constructs people start having all sorts of crazy ideas like words having meanings or effects having causes. After that, any thing goes!

Sounds positively postmodern and poststructural. And definitely wrong.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Sounds positively postmodern and poststructural. And definitely wrong.

I wholeheartedly disagree unless you wish to provide the likes of Kant's justification for objectivity which I will surely have a field day at picking apart.

Edit:

With that being said, I agree with introduction of a crime and punishment system despite being a pirate. We need to discourage senseless destruction in secured space and introduce proper mechanics and avenue for players that wish to prey on other players.

 

[Morbad]

Social values cause us to have silly and out dated ideas like right and wrong, noble and ignoble, peas and carrots (no wait, one of those doesn't belong). With these foolish artificial constructs people start having all sorts of crazy ideas like words having meanings or effects having causes. After that, any thing goes!

I'm all for peas and carrots, but right & wrong, noble & ignoble, and similar principles are uselessly subjective, often only serving to confuse meaning and obfuscate things like cause and effect.

 

[GluttonyFang]

I'm all for peas and carrots, but right & wrong, noble & ignoble, and similar principles are uselessly subjective, often only serving to confuse meaning and obfuscate things like cause and effect.

*David Hume thrashes in his grave*

*Chuckles in the background*