Elite: Harmless - Karma System aka "be the Tamagotchi" - FRESH SALT, MINED RIGHT HERE

[Zambrick]

I'm in favor of a new C&P system, always have been.

Not necessarily in favor of much of what's been proposed though.



Move my goal posts? I can find posts of mine that align with what I've been saying these last few pages that pre-date your existence on this forum.

The goal posts have always been, and forever shall be, straddled around as much verisimilitude as possible...convenience, ease of use, and casual perspectives of 'fun' be damned.

Obviously, I can enjoy a game far short of this ideal, or else I wouldn't have nearly five thousand hours in this one, but every silly 'fix' supposed to force everyone to be one big happy space family that goes around and pillaging the deliberately surrealist props and scenery, while collecting pots of gold for it, is never going to do anything but annoy me.



Frankly, I'd fix the economy, the BGS, the mission system, and introduce detailed persistent telemetry tracing for all CMDR activities, plus implement detailed population modeling, then wipe the game again as I think things are largely beyond salvaging without radical measures.

In the absence of that, I'm not really sure what a practical fix is, but we could start by closing obvious exploits, making bounties semi-permanent, and reintroducing major power bounties. A massive AI improvement for higher rank NPCs is also called for. The average Elite NPC should give me a run for my money in a similar ship (and have similar degrees of modification), and a wing of elite defense forces should wipe the floor with most wings of CMDRs.

More persistence all-round and reverting many of the convenience 'fixes' with regard to travel would also make it easier to police secure space, via the most plausible sorts of encounters possible.



I have upwards of 2.5 million cr in past bounties (whose fines I pay once they expire) from base assaults for firmware. This is the only practical way to acquire much of this data at a remotely acceptable pace without exploiting instancing oversights (which, like suicidewindering, is something I will not do).



I'm not a griever and I sure haven't been paying much in the way of heavy costs.

Then you are not involved in open play, CGs, New Discoveries, Engineering bases.

If you are then you are in unkillable shield ship or you run at every encounter. Either way discussing C&P/Karma system not boasting about being good at having a big bank balance. Anyone can do that.

- - - Updated - - -

Without options to clear ones name and get clean that would push everyone into anarchy sooner or later.

or did you mean to combine it with a karma system.

to whom do you speak? There were 2 side bars and 3 separate statements. Or did you just mean to quote the last one?

 

[Zambrick]

I wasn't bagging the idea (though I do support removing it). I was just commenting that because this or that game did something, doesn't mean that ED has to do the same thing.

To address your question however, there's little doubt that certain players deliberately seek out players over NPC's. Removing the easy identifier removes the obvious stimulus to attack a given ships just because it's a hollow square instead of a solid one. To throw the question back at you now, what compelling reason is there to consider a proposal to retain the distinction?

Because NPC players are not part of the Pilots Fed.
Because all CMDRs are part of the Pilots Fed.
So you can know if there is a real person to talk to in the system you are in.
NPCs for the most part stick to their role and dont become insta psychopaths.
The fact that the game is Multiplayer.
Is there a high population general consumer game that exists where NPCs and Players in a combat situation have 0 distinction?

There are numerous others I could list, but whats the point. The game is not and should not try to re invent the wheel. No reason to go back and repeat other games past mistakes.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

to whom do you speak? There were 2 side bars and 3 separate statements. Or did you just mean to quote the last one?

Fixing the C&P system is simple.

- remove clearing of wanted status on death
- give police the tools to handle any type criminal.

Essentially you have to leave any sec system, if you are wanted or you have to sneak past security. If you get caught, you die.

It was in response to the above.

 

[Han_Zen]

Without options to clear ones name and get clean that would push everyone into anarchy sooner or later.

or did you mean to combine it with a karma system.

Bounties go dormant in one week. After that you can go back. You have to have a really busy week to be welcome in only anarchy systems.

No need for Karma, just let the police kill of wanted players that lingers in the system. It's not difficult.

 

[Cosmos]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

So the general argument these days to why people don't play, left, or never stood foot in Open, or at least the most rational argument made, is that there are no consequences for certain actions some consider to be unnatural. Assuming that the proposed karma c/p system is fit for purpose then surely both solo and private group modes should be removed from the game.

In addition if the C&P system has depth so it affects the wider game, thus making the experience much deeper and interesting, there would likely be more people who were genuinely wanted thus giving a 'reason' to seek and destroy there by eliminating claims 'I was killed for no reason'..

Seems only fair right..

 

[Theodrid]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

Funny Cosmos, I didn't have you down as a..........oh never mind!

 

[Robert Maynard]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

From what Sandro says, it doesn't look like Solo and Private Groups will be going anywhere:

We want to try our hardest to let Commanders enjoy the game how they want to. However, and it's a big however: Open is a shared game space that we want as many folk to enjoy as possible. We have to decide what is best for the greater good when there are conflicts of interest between Commanders. Just because there are Private Group and Solo mode, does not necessarily mean that Open should be without codes of conduct.

 

[Cosmos]

From what Sandro says, it doesn't look like Solo and Private Groups will be going anywhere:

So are you going to play in Open post karma system? Im curious, have you ever compromised over anything Robert?

 

[Han_Zen]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

Have to keep solo if karma is added. If you hate people, not only would you be forced to play with them, you would be forced to be nice to them as well.

 

[Cosmos]

Have to keep solo if karma is added. If you hate people, not only would you be forced to play with them, you would be forced to be nice to them as well.

Considering I along with others don't use solo/pg and have no intention of doing so it seems only certain people will be forced to be nice to others. Not that Frontier are biased or show favouritism towards certain players..

 

[Commander Biscuit]

Move my goal posts? I can find posts of mine that align with what I've been saying these last few pages that pre-date your existence on this forum.

The goal posts have always been, and forever shall be, straddled around as much verisimilitude as possible...convenience, ease of use, and casual perspectives of 'fun' be damned.

Obviously, I can enjoy a game far short of this ideal, or else I wouldn't have nearly five thousand hours in this one, but every silly 'fix' supposed to force everyone to be one big happy space family that goes around and pillaging the deliberately surrealist props and scenery, while collecting pots of gold for it, is never going to do anything but annoy me.

Morbad sometimes your pride is cringeworthy. Please stop telling everyone how long you've been here, how little you get killed, how much money you have etc. These brags do not reinforce your points at all. Try having some substance, rather than appeals, in your counters.

The goalposts I'm talking about are the ones you're moving to evade logic in every post you reply to. (to mostly everybody, not just me) I'd list them to make a point but honestly I don't have the energy to track them down. Arguing the point would be like trying to grapple a greased eel.

In the absence of that, I'm not really sure what a practical fix is, but we could start by closing obvious exploits, making bounties semi-permanent, and reintroducing major power bounties. A massive AI improvement for higher rank NPCs is also called for. The average Elite NPC should give me a run for my money in a similar ship (and have similar degrees of modification), and a wing of elite defense forces should wipe the floor with most wings of CMDRs.

I agree with all of that. However I feel like a C+P system that makes sense (absurdity, immersion) is always going to be navigable by canny griefers. I'm using the world griefer specifically because a canny criminal should always be able to navigate a C+P system successfully if he's good enough and has learned the system. This is why immersive C+P just doesn't cut it.

Fixing loopholes and exploits helps, but more than that is needed because in the arms race of griefers and those that try to control them, the griefer is more determined and has more free time and is most often the winner. For this reason a tracking system is what's being suggested, something that profiles a player and punishes them, rather than just treating the player in the same way as npcs.

 

[Robert Maynard]

So are you going to play in Open post karma system? Im curious, have you ever compromised over anything Robert?

Certainly. Not over the three game modes, single shared galaxy state or mode mobility, no.

 

[Morbad]

Then you are not involved in open play, CGs, New Discoveries, Engineering bases.

I've been an Open exclusive player, except for a short stint in the PvP League (which used a private group) for over two years.

I participate in most CGs. I've been to the alien ruins and all the currently known generation ships. I have all the engineers unlocked and ~2000 mods generated.

If you are then you are in unkillable shield ship or you run at every encounter.

Any ship could possibly be in is unkillable, unless I deliberately bite off more than I can chew, by virtue of the fact that it's pilot isn't clueless.

I am perfectly willing to fight, or run, as necessary to achieve my goals.

Either way discussing C&P/Karma system not boasting about being good at having a big bank balance. Anyone can do that.

I have one of the lowest total income (assets + lifetime expenditures) vs. time played ratios I've ever seen. I just find it very difficult to lose money unless I deliberately throw it away.

Morbad sometimes your pride is cringeworthy. Please stop telling everyone how long you've been here, how little you get killed, how much money you have etc. These brags do not reinforce your points at all. Try having some substance, rather than appeals, in your counters.

I think you are presuming a tone that's not present in my posts.

If someone is arguing that Open is frightfully dangerous, how is my experience in Open, where I am quite safe, unless I choose not to be, not a valid counter?

My anecdotes are worth at least as much as anyone's, and when it comes to those who have barely poked their heads in Open vs. my well over 4k hours in Open, I'd argue mine are worth more.

 

[DaveB]

We need to remember that we've strayed into talking about two different but related mechanics here...

C&P is the immediate reaction to a specific act that the game considers "illegal" - assaulting or murdering a clean pilot, interdicting a clean ship, colliding at >100 in the NFZ, getting caught carrying illegal cargo etc. That gets you fines, gets you bounties and turns you wanted in the local jurisdiction. It is undeniable that this system needs work because the current penalties imposed for crime are a joke. Fines are minuscule relative to even the least competent players possible earning rate, bounties are ridiculously small compared to what a hunter could earn doing something else and they expire too soon for them to be any kind of factor when a pilot is asking themselves "Is doing this worth the risk?" The system needs a radical overhaul, but one thing must not change. There currently is not and should never be any difference between the penalty imposed on a cmdr for committing a crime against another player or against an NPC. This overhaul is needed whether or not FD actually introduce "karma" or "notoriety" and should be specified and coded without consideration of it.

The proposed "karma" or "notoriety" system is related to but completely independent of the C&P system and should be designed to function without any dependency on the state of C&P. it is not about responses to a single action, it's about how the games responses to your actions are moderated by the trend in your actions. If you go bounty hunting and blow away hundreds of wanted NPCs or Cmdrs then you're not going to get dinged even if your victim is some harmless noob who somehow managed to end up wanted in their eggshell sidey at Eravate. They were wanted, so a legitimate target. You might get some "good guy points" if your targets are consistently the most dangerous opponents, Elite criminals in engineered battlewagons. If you're murder-hoboing across the galaxy and leaving a trail of shattered ships in your wake then if your victims were consistently of a type that should present you a challenge, while you will get the same consequences of the actual crimes from the C&P system you won't get as heavy a ding of "bad boy points" from this crime-spree as you would if the majority of your victims were snowflakes to your blowtorch, weak and easy kills. This is also where player actions that don't have in-game criminal penalties can be addressed because it is based on trends. Take CLogging for instance - The game can't penalize this through the C&P system because it isn't an in-game action, it takes place on the wrong side of the 4th wall. However, while clobbering a player for one, or infrequent, disconnects in combat is unreasonable because they could be down to dodgy internet or a myriad of other reasons, if a trend emerges then they can be hit with "bad boy points" for doing it too often and too consistently. It's not going to carry its own penalties, it simply weights the other ways in which the game responds to your actions - be consistently "good" and maybe your fines will be lower, your bounties expire more quickly and be less likely to go superpower-wide, you might be more trusted by law-abiding factions or less trusted by criminal ones, even to the extent of criminal factions denying you docking at stations they control, you might get poorer prices on black markets because the fences don;t trust you as much. The opposite, of course, if you're consistently "bad" - it's most definitely NOT going to do the kind of dramatic things to either PvE or PvP that some folks are predicting on this thread.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

Not everyone that plays in solo does so because they don't want to play with other CMDRs. I played in open for awhile on the XBox and then the PC but my network connection has excessive latency. I'm out in a rural area and have no option but a WISP. Removing solo would hurt my experience and anyone else I happened to instance with.

OTOH, I have no problem with karma impacting solo or pg players, a solo player that CLogs against NPCs and then enters open should be treated just the same as a player that CLogs exclusively in open. As for the idea of a player ganking NPCs, I have my doubts you'll find many in solo that will find much enjoyment in hanging out at a station and killing NPCs. If it's for practice a CZ or anarchy space would suffice. For that reason I think all karma rules should apply equally in solo/private/open to human/human and human/NPC interactions alike.

All that being said I think karma should fade just like reputation does and that, maybe, certain missions or other in-game activities should improve karma.

 

[Nazdakka]

Big thumbs up for a karma system.

 

[Sandmann]

If this karma system goes through, then solo and private group should go.

If we are to accept yet more compromises, which all seem to go one way, then seems only fair.

Here was my post

Open isn't attracting enough players for various reasons, one of which (a major one) is the anarchic nature of the galaxy. A karma system, and/or a crime and punishment system is an attempt to address that in the hopes that it will be more attractive to a greater number of people. However if it is STILL not attractive and solo/group still proves more attractive then that is a problem with OPEN, not with the other modes. You don't punish people for not wanting to play in open by forcing them to play in open or not at all, you fix the problems with open. If there were no problems with open it would be more popular than solo/group, the fact that it's not is evidence of the problems it carries.

And sorry to say this Cosmos, but your very persistent attitude on this subject and refusal to see any point of view other than your own is illustrative of the problems open has that is keeping it unpopular. There's a small core of players who get irate at ANY improvement to "their" mode, seemingly feeling that "their" playstyle is the "only" playstyle (we're all seen some players literally saying this verbatim) and that all other goals, playstyles, and features are without worth. Sorry, but it just aint so. What you demeaningly refer to as "compromises" are actually attempts to fix problems that some people enjoy taking advantage of. "Improvements", not "compromises".

 

[Sandmann]

Because NPC players are not part of the Pilots Fed.
Because all CMDRs are part of the Pilots Fed.

To these two, I answer "so what? Irrelevant. Why should pilot's fed members look different?"

So you can know if there is a real person to talk to in the system you are in.

"Hello? Anyone out there?" <= gives them a choice if they want to be identified or not.

NPCs for the most part stick to their role and dont become insta psychopaths.

Granted. However PC's that DO become insta-psychopaths usually do so BECAUSE they've identified a real player as a target.

The fact that the game is Multiplayer.

So? What's that got to do with anything?

Is there a high population general consumer game that exists where NPCs and Players in a combat situation have 0 distinction?

1: How is it relevant what other games have or don't have?
2: Are you really calling ED a "high population general consumer game"? I'd say more like low and getting lower population, special interest, niche game.
3: I don't personally know but I'll borrow Cmdr Jex =TE='s list:
Armed Assault Series
IL2
Falcon 4.0
Lock On
No doubt the DCS series
Janes Longbow
Enemy Engaged
Evochron Legacy

There are numerous others I could list, but whats the point. The game is not and should not try to re invent the wheel. No reason to go back and repeat other games past mistakes.

The point is that you haven't yet MADE a point for your argument. Most of your so-called points were completely irrelevant. As for "should not try to reinvent the wheel"... WHAT? Are you REALLY trying to say that existing games are as good as they'll ever get and that ED shouldn't try to be better than them and should just be a clone? Seriously?

 

[Zambrick]

To these two, I answer "so what? Irrelevant. Why should pilot's fed members look different?"



"Hello? Anyone out there?" <= gives them a choice if they want to be identified or not.



Granted. However PC's that DO become insta-psychopaths usually do so BECAUSE they've identified a real player as a target.



So? What's that got to do with anything?



1: How is it relevant what other games have or don't have?
2: Are you really calling ED a "high population general consumer game"? I'd say more like low and getting lower population, special interest, niche game.
3: I don't personally know but I'll borrow Cmdr Jex =TE='s list:
Armed Assault Series
IL2
Falcon 4.0
Lock On
No doubt the DCS series
Janes Longbow
Enemy Engaged
Evochron Legacy



The point is that you haven't yet MADE a point for your argument. Most of your so-called points were completely irrelevant. As for "should not try to reinvent the wheel"... WHAT? Are you REALLY trying to say that existing games are as good as they'll ever get and that ED shouldn't try to be better than them and should just be a clone? Seriously?

Never heard of any of the games you listed. Never saw one of them at E3 or otherwise.
You want anonymity why?
What is the point you are trying to make besides having a pointless argument?
How does not identifying players have anything to do with griefing, C&P and the possible Karma system?
How would it make anything more realistic, fun, interactive, or for that point interesting?

Before you try and reply to any of the questions I have posed, how about you have some sort of point or base of understanding? Perhaps you can explain how exactly does in game anonymity address the possible introduction of a Karma system and a C&P system. Or better yet if you feel the need to hijack the thread further with pointless drivel, why dont you go start your own thread to discuss the merits of player anonymity in a multiplayer game.

You have that now in ED with the solo mode and Group mode. How has that worked out so far?

 

[Sandmann]

Wow, way to be offensive because you failed to make a point. Good one. I'm gonna quote you out of order for clarity.

Before you try and reply to any of the questions I have posed, how about you have some sort of point or base of understanding? Perhaps you can explain how exactly does in game anonymity address the possible introduction of a Karma system and a C&P system. Or better yet if you feel the need to hijack the thread further with pointless drivel, why dont you go start your own thread to discuss the merits of player anonymity in a multiplayer game.

Nice attempt to deflect, pity it failed. Robert asked the question, I responded to it. Now, back to the topic at hand, since you seem to determined to continue to deflect...

Never heard of any of the games you listed. Never saw one of them at E3 or otherwise.

So what? Your ignorance of these games doesn't change the fact that they DO exist and ARE popular. You are NOT the font of all game wisdom.

You want anonymity why?

As I said earlier, Robert asked the question, and I responded. This thread is about the possible introduction of a karma system to attempt to address the problems of ganking/griefing and combat logging. The removal of hollow squares to identify human players would remove the easiest method of identifying targets for griefing/ganking, which would reduce the griefing/ganking problem that a karmic system attempts to address. If you still think this is "hijacking" then you really need to check a dictionary.

What is the point you are trying to make besides having a pointless argument?

Ridiculous and futile attempt to be offensive.

How does not identifying players have anything to do with griefing, C&P and the possible Karma system?

Explained above, and quite honestly it's patently obvious. Stop being disingenuous.

How would it make anything more realistic, fun, interactive, or for that point interesting?

Realism: Do you think having NPC's around is realistic? From the game's perspective they're "people" as much as we are, so why would we REALISTICALLY have a marker above our heads that says "target" or "threat"?
Fun: You only have to look at the huge numbers of people avoiding open because they don't think it's fun to get the answer to that question.
Interesting: So you think it's more interesting to have your fish in a barrel where you can stomp them than have to go looking for them? I disagree.

You have that now in ED with the solo mode and Group mode. How has that worked out so far?

Uhh it's worked out really well actually. You'll notice that neither mode is calling for open to be abolished, or demanding that people play in their mode. Poor old Cmdr Mobius had to have his group split into two coz it was so popular and might have to have further splits real soon now. I could equally ask you how retaining the ability to easily gank without recrimination is helping open, but the lack of players there speaks for itself, as do the actions of apologists such as yourself and Cmdr Cosmos making demands of non-open players to come back to/be forced into open.