Unfortunately I also mirror Watcher's feelings on the matter. This is quite a daunting task and has been the subject of forum debates and heated arguments almost since the launch of the game itself. In my opinion, unless they update their lore and the technology level of the galaxy as a whole, fitting in an appropriate C&P system or Karma system is going to be almost impossible due only to the fact that this game is preached as "play your own way" not, "play the way that makes everyone happy."
When I first started played ED, I was looking forward to the multiplayer RP aspect. I imagined fighter escorts, fighter sweeps , blockades, intercepting enemies and all the rest of it.
I only ever played in OPEN but I soon came to realise that with the different modes and crappy instancing, people could simply "undermine" your efforts to interact with them.
i.e. you are waiting in a star system for people to run the blockade….. but they just travel there in solo or group so you never see them!
After a while I came to terms that ED is a PVE co-op game - which also allows "meaningful" PVP to happen in the open mode.
I left just as Horizons was launched.
So having returned to ED a couple of weeks ago, why bother with OPEN now?
Especially as everybody seems to have heavily "engineered" ships these days with all kinds of enhanced weapons and effects..
Disparity is so high now, why go there just to be slaughtered. Hence why I am playing only in private group since getting 2.3.
The “combat” in ED isn’t very exciting anyway. Basically point and click with some clunky ship systems management.
I feel like it needs to be pointed out towards the debate of survival of the fittest, not as much a direct reply to either, that online griefing in a computer game does in absolutely no way translate to the real world especially survival of the fittest.
Among other things because in survival of the fittest, disruptive elements that hurt others are often removed, and groups have been known to gang up on those stronger then themselves to remove said disruptive elements, surprising isn't it?
But here's the thing, there is absolutely no survival of the fittest in a video game, because said griefer and others, do not have one life, if there was a perma death version of the game, you'd see people banding together to defend themselves, you'd see those groups fighting, sure, but what you wouldn't see much of is the random people that have gotten powerful going about alone griefing people, because that would be way too risky because a group that might not like them could find and jump them.
So yeah, please consider that survival of the fittest has gotten us to the societies we have today. However they themselves might not be related to that anymore, and most certainly it doesn't mean that just because the internet or a game on it, allows people to grief, that said griefers are part of 'survival of the fittest' because they are not.
Your concerns about the misuse of evolution as explanation or justification, the negative impacts of social Darwinism on society, and its in-applicability to Elite are well taken.
As a friendly amendment to your point, it was the social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the term "survival of the fittest". Darwin did subsequently use the terms without appearing to understand the classism, racism, and militarism that Spencer used natural evolution to explain and justify.
That we hear griefers using a concept they don't really understand to cast a veneer of justification over their actions should not surprise us, a?
Multiple pedantic people using the word grief in the formal against the people using the word in its informal aside, this is a real in game issue regardless to the term assigned.
In Eve in High Sec systems, if you get blown away and then podded to the clone goo, then not only do you lose your ship, all equipment(engineers) Implants, that you had installed and in some cases you lose a skill point when flying a strat Cruiser.
In ED terms the equivalent would be a complete loss of your ship no rebuy, No surviving engineering Mods, and a rank/elite loss to boot. The fact that nothing of the sort is in place in ED. The penalty of death is used for both parking violations and mass murder. Both get you a killing, accept you cant survive a bad parking job and not get blown up. However murder sprees can be fixed by going to a new system getting into a free ship and flying it into the side of a starport at boost.
On the other hand in Elite Dangerous if you are newish to the game and you are in your first T-6 some "griefer" fly's in and destroys your ship, then its your fault 100%.
You are also 100% responsible for the person who blew you up. According to their mindset, you play this game because you are their content. The entire in game cost of the experience is the brand new pilots burden to bear. None of the responsibility of the deplorable event is placed upon its perpetrator. That is the reason why the griefers do these things. They know that they will never be held responsible for their actions. Even if their actions cost FDEV money and potential revenue due to the loss of customers.
The Karma C&P system will allow the tracking of intent and playstyles across the game.
We dont want the game to be as harsh as Eve, but we also are not required to coddle the people who enjoy griefing others.
A simplified purely arbitrary example would something akin to the 3 strike rule. Let the offenses roll of on a perpetual 3 month cycle. Every 3 months a strike is dropped. The most important part is that the crime is tied to the ship that committed the crime. So if you choose to use another super uber engineered ship to do additional crimes, then you risk the total loss of those ships as well.
1. (Crime) You commit a major crime such as the murder of another player Pilot, then you lose all ability to dock at any star port other than in Anarchy systems. Increased interdictions by authorities, Insurance cost raised by 10 percent.
2. (Crime) You commit another murder of a player pilot. (Punishment) Lose the ability to dock at any station in secured systems, Increased Interdictions by Authorities. Bounty Hunters dispatched by pilots fed to chase you in any system security type. Increase cost of rebuy to 50% of ship/ships total cost. 2 million dollar fine
3. (Crime) Commit a third murder of a player pilot. (Punishment) You lose the ability to dock at any station in secured systems, Increased Interdictions by Authorities. Bounty Hunters dispatched by pilots fed to chase you in any system security type. Military level vessels are dispatched and will not stop interdicting Criminal until they are killed. 100% rebuy cost of ship/ships. 10 million dollar fine and a decision to make.
(Punishment cont...)
If you cant pay the fine, then you lose your ships. The decision is as follows, Even after paying the fine and rebuy, you have to decide the punishment. You can get that ship back out of impound and lose entire credit balance. Or you can lose the ship, all mods attached to it, and any materials in it and keep all of your credits.
People who do not grief have to make that very same decision every single time they get blown away. They have to decide if the engineering time and cost of ship rebuy is worth the credit hit. With a system like the one above, it would only hold people who enjoy griefing other players, to make the exact same decision as everyone else.
I am not proposing my exact example above, but the only thing that must remain the same is the punishments. FDEV can pick and choose the varying degrees of criminal activities, strikes, or whatnot. However the ultimate decision to keep ones ship or ones Credits, must be made by the person who chose this game style. They can make the same choice that every other player in the game today makes every time they get blown away by one of them.
Personally, I would like the Karma system to be able to push Griefers, Player Killing Pirates (not players who pirate) and Combat Loggers to be only able to play in Anarchy systems. If these type of players turn up in other systems, the security response is so strong that they'll find it to difficult to stay. The advantage to that is it makes anarchy systems scary again for players and it fits in with the feeling of the wild west that should be in anarchy systems.
If a player behaves themselves for a while, then the karma improves to the point where they are allowed back into the other systems but kill another player and back to the anarchy's you go and all handled within game mechanics and without the need for shadow banning.
Obviously, it should be pointed out that, Combat Zones, Anarchy Systems and some CGs should be exempt from the Karma rules. I really do want CGs to have a little more of a 'breaking the siege' feel to them.
Not really. If a CG is held in a High Security system, one would logically assume that the host faction would increase policing and security in order to remove wanted Criminals persistently from hanging around in SC for hours in the system in question.
Not really. If a CG is held in a High Security system, one would logically assume that the host faction would increase policing and security in order to remove wanted Criminals persistently from hanging around in SC for hours in the system in question.
Your point is well taken. Griefers using CZs for easy kills are still griefing. At the same time, pvp should be expected in open combat zones. So perhaps a weighted karma score in CZs?
Morality standards? They are purely artificial constructs and there are may of them. In that there is no Argument between us. Except? Some sort of them is necessary.
Your Code also is a set of law, morality standard to pirates. And you know it's necessary.
Frontier actually altered the Crime and Punishment system they already have?
Frontier Enhanced the bounty system they ALREADY have to help us to hunt the transgressors, and leverage the BGS/NPCs to assist?
Frontier addressed their networking limitations and software instabilities/exploits before implementing a brand new system?
Opinion: Fix your networking, leverage assets you already have, and come up with a better design strategy.
Unfortunately no surprise nope, unfortunately though it is often seen that many defenders of them that don't grief themselves believe their defence because of for example them using this justification.
And yeah you are right important to remember where a term really comes from.
I feel like it needs to be pointed out towards the debate of survival of the fittest, not as much a direct reply to either, that online griefing in a computer game does in absolutely no way translate to the real world especially survival of the fittest.
Among other things because in survival of the fittest, disruptive elements that hurt others are often removed, and groups have been known to gang up on those stronger then themselves to remove said disruptive elements, surprising isn't it?
But here's the thing, there is absolutely no survival of the fittest in a video game, because said griefer and others, do not have one life, if there was a perma death version of the game, you'd see people banding together to defend themselves, you'd see those groups fighting, sure, but what you wouldn't see much of is the random people that have gotten powerful going about alone griefing people, because that would be way too risky because a group that might not like them could find and jump them.
So yeah, please consider that survival of the fittest has gotten us to the societies we have today. However they themselves might not be related to that anymore, and most certainly it doesn't mean that just because the internet or a game on it, allows people to grief, that said griefers are part of 'survival of the fittest' because they are not.
Survival of the fittest died out when we stopped chasing our food with sticks and started farming. It became survival of the smartest. During the time that we were still chasing food with sticks, if there was a disruptive element in the tribe/society then they generally became the food. The concept of a coup was a bit much for a group of mammals that survived on threat assessment and instincts alone. That has continued pretty much non stop accept for that inbred period of the middle ages. But then again the moral justice of the age was still enforced.
There is no moral justification in this game universe because its a game. However in all games there must be rules and or concepts that must be adhered to. Otherwise its no longer a game and has been moved into the realm of a social experiment. Like it has in ED.
Right now for the giggles of some members of the Dev team, they want to see how long people will put up with it. They created a crapsack nonsensical universe and are touting it as a "game". It is not a game if one side always has a clear advantage over all other players in the game. Until some sort of Karma/ C&P system is put in place, the biggest trolls of this entire game community is the Development team itself.
The lack of adherence to Real life social norms like not cyber bullying others or forcing your will upon others is purely a social community issue. For example if the people that performed these in game Griefing events acted this way in their normal every day life, then the best they could hope for is a basement at their parents to live in or a low paying job away from all other human beings. They would not be tolerated in a normal social construct.
In fact that may be the very cause of this in game behavior. In their real lives, they are bullied and or ignored/marginalized because of their shortcomings as a productive member of a community. So they act out. Similar to the kid laying on the floor at the grocery screaming for a toy that mum wont buy them. Any attention even if its negative is better than no attention.
People who want this game to succeed do not purposefully sabotage any and all efforts of the development team. These people do. So in order to allow them to continue to play the game, the devs may finally put a system in place. The people who are purposefully trying to burn the game down around you will now face the same consequences that they force upon others every single day.
They have been given enough rope to hang themselves and time and time again they have slipped the noose. Now its critical proportions due to media coverage of the toxic environment that has been created by the griefing community.
Anybody attempting to make an analogy between anything in the real world that is not tied directly to this games community is grasping for straws. This game as realistic and similar to real life as Donkey Kong. So lets leave Darwinism out of it. Especially since we are talking about a video game and not the evolution of a biological system.
Your point is well taken. Griefers using CZs for easy kills are still griefing. At the same time, pvp should be expected in open combat zones. So perhaps a weighted karma score in CZs?
I feel that CZs are the one of the few genuine places where you have to be aware of PvP. Even in the Mobius, it's understood that if two players are on opposite sides, then they are viable targets. (Although some cmdrs will ask if they want to just ignore each other and just farm the zone).
As far as piracy is concerned, I feel that if you Pirate another player vessel, but only take the cargo and not destroy the ship, then you still get the fines but you don't get any bad karma. You only get the bad karma if the player ship is destroyed. If the opposing player manages to destroy the pirate however, no Bad karma should come their way because they were only defending themselves.
I feel that CZs are the one of the few genuine places where you have to be aware of PvP. Even in the Mobius, it's understood that if two players are on opposite sides, then they are viable targets. (Although some cmdrs will ask if they want to just ignore each other and just farm the zone).
As far as piracy is concerned, I feel that if you Pirate another player vessel, but only take the cargo and not destroy the ship, then you still get the fines but you don't get any bad karma. You only get the bad karma if the player ship is destroyed. If the opposing player manages to destroy the pirate however, no Bad karma should come their way because they were only defending themselves.
I tend to agree with you, both about CZ pvp as well as pirating. I really like your idea for karma and piracy too!
Perhaps I should have been more specific about CZ.
Griefers often use CZ as a place to gank pilots. Already engaged, mostly of lower rank and/or out-numbered, this is as much griefing as shooting noobs in starter systems. But pvp in open should be expected, especially in combat zones.
So is there a way to make karma work in CZ that does not deter pvp but penalizes griefers. I don't pretend to have the answer, but it is a worthy suggestion made by folks worth pursuing.
Sorry a little confused, when you refer to CZ, do you mean the Resource Zones (RES)?
In that case I agree with maybe the exception of of the Haz Rez. However, I feel that all combat zones should be PvP and players need to be aware (including the noobs) ;-)
The Karma Idea is something Sandro has mooted in the suggestions forum (No ETA, no guarantee Sing that to the only fools and horses theme tune). Player actions over time will modify their Karma rating, the more combat logging under fire, the more griefing lesser players, the more bad Karma you gain. Player's with lots of Bad Karma are then punished either by shadow banning (Always forced into their own solo instance) or they have in game effects, which will restrict their play (unable to dock, lack of insurance, etc).
Personally I think it's a good idea, it's just a case of working out what actions cause Good or Bad Karma and what the effects might be.
And you know it's necessary.
