Deliberate Ramming

[Cocalarix]

Sandro, is there any plan to encourage "police" forces by players? Let's say I enter a high-sec system and I receive a message that there's a known criminal at this location causing havoc. Something along those lines.

Or a Galactic Bounty Board where the biggest criminals are listed. Which could also have some Wanted NPCs listed (for the Solo guys), but with top tier engineered ships. So basically a proper boss mission.

 

[Jukelo]

Hey Sandro,

Please keep in mind that it is very difficult for an experienced player to ever die, unless another player is involved and they both agree to fight to the death. Do remember that, even before factoring in engineer modifications, anybody intent on not dying only has to survive 15 seconds before they can jump out, something which is not too difficult against other players, and utterly trivial against the police response of even high security systems.

Increased rebuys will only be a factor if somehow a player flagged by the karma system ever comes close to losing their ship against their will - that is, if the game somehow offers them an increased level of challenge, at which point those of us with a clean karma would be wondering "why can't we also be offered enough challenge and risk losing our ship once in a while? "

Also, I have a feeling your definition of griefing (which you describe as seal clubbing noobs) doesn't exactly cover what the portion of the community complaining about it actually mean. I think you'll find there is not much disparity in terms of ships and play time between the attackers and defenders in most instances of so-called griefing, it usually comes down to one side being unwilling to take preventive meansure to ensure survival despite having all the means to do so. So a system dealing with only the outliers (say, Conda vs Adder) wont do much to appease the constant whinge I'm afraid as it wouldn't cover the vast majority of such interactions.

If protecting beginners is the goal, wouldn't a beginner zone wit hthe appropriate protections be an easier approach?

 

[Ashnak]

Hello Sandro,

thank you for that clarification. Together with your "lesser challenges" (I'd rather consider them as the main points, but you have access to numbers that I do not know) and closing the Suicidewinder loophole - agreed.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Hello Commander Ashnak!

Good points. There are some Commanders with exceptional amounts of credits, but not everyone is super rich. In addition, this kind of penalty *every time* you lose a ship can actually add up fairly quickly if you are using extremely expensive vessels (which tend to be the ones best suited for this activity).

Of course, I also used this amount to ensure that there would be fewer cries of "that effectively stops them playing". The amount could be higher or lower. Finally, this would be on top of a range of lesser, but still notable, challenges, such as lack of docking permission except at anarchies, more powerful, determined authority vessels, auto-hostility from authorities in secure systems etc.

Also, we will (separately) be looking at closing the Suicidewinder option, so you'd always be looking at the re-buy cost of the most expensive ship used in a crime spree.

You make a point that I think is worth repeating: the idea that infamous criminals tend to spend more time in anarchies would be, in my opinion, a good thing, both contextually and for game play.

50% is ok, if you start to monitor countless mission exploits,
fix them in a resonable time (aka ASAP)

what is youre stance on the current "Quince" misison exploit, where a bug in passenger missions + a missconception of how they are generated, allow players to make those billion credits in no time?

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Robert Maynard!

Remembering that none of this is being promised, I would say this about the players interacting with players versus players interacting with NPCs:

* In general, only players are members of the Pilot's Federation, which would be the organisation dealing with a karma rating.

* NPCs don't support the game's development. They don't (as far as I can tell) enjoy or hate the game mechanics. This system is not about them. It's not even focused on verisimilitude. It's about dealing with humans in a shared game space and creating an environment which supports as many of them as possible as well as we can.

Whilst we could apply a karma system to NPC interactions it would require more data tracking and serve no useful purpose as far as I can make out.

The only "beefing up" of crime I can think of at the moment is more teeth to authority vessels to cope with heavily engineered ships (authority vessels are always meant to be a threat, so I'd like to see them visiting the Engineers).

 

[AndyJ]

I think a big issue, clarity wise, here is the combination of "unlawful" behaviour such as killing a clean player (or NPC) and having the game respond to these actions, versus the unwanted play-style of repeated Player Killers and controlling that - and describing it all under the single banner of "Karma".

It would be helpful I think if we could see the "criminality" side of it fleshed out - perhaps as "crime & punishment" and see the in-game penatlies such as fines, insurance loss, system lock-outs/hostility etc under that topic but keep play-style related issues (PK, combat logging etc) separate as Karma/metrics - because I would assume these things need to be at an account level, not commander level so that if a player wants to PK by ramming people on a throw-away commander, it'll be able to catch that and flag it up.

It seems to me though that the bad play-style side of things needs an 'out of game' punishment on the table if it is really that bad and needs to be put to a stop. And I guess I'm not too sure why this wouldn't really come down to a manual decision making process - i.e. if a player is just being completely anti-social, there'll likely be complaints raised and the "Karma" side of things would really just be metrics that provide substantiating data to show if it's an isolated incident or something that requires warnings and perhaps later a ban or whatever is deemed neccessary?

 

[Ashnak]

...it usually comes down to one side being unwilling to take preventive meansure to ensure survival despite having all the means to do so. So a system dealing with only the outliers (say, Conda vs Adder) wont do much to appease the constant whinge I'm afraid as it wouldn't cover the vast majority of such interactions.

More likely, iClipper vs. pretty much anything slower

I'd think it's worth a try. Sandro should (could) have access to the actual numbers (both in play and on the customer support front), and if from those numbers the highy asymmetrical involuntary combat (HAIC) situations are a significant problem under the assumption that HAIC is a "bad thing", these measures should help.

If protecting beginners is the goal, wouldn't a beginner zone wit hthe appropriate protections be an easier approach?

Easier maybe - but I wouldn't consider a dedicated kiddie pool satisfactory from an overall game perspective. Much better, more complicated, but very satisfying from an overall perspective to strongly encourage criminal player characters to limit their actions to Anarchy systems.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Hello Commander AndyJ!



Not at all. We are interested in giving authorities more teeth, additional challenge for criminals in secure systems etc.

It's just that to deal with this particular issue is beyond all such teeth without effectively creating a PVE zone or flag environment. Without such things, it would be next to impossible to prevent the crime, only respond to it. And at this point, you're back to consequences, which a karma system can possibly handle better.

to make this clear
we need karma generated by player vs. player activities
we need npc authorities forces reacting to player with karma (special forces with engineered weapons, docking permits, etc)
we need a pvp related bounty system, where the bad player cannot get rid of a bounty on his head that he has gained from killing other player


about the last: why not increase the bounties gained by killing another player - that is much higher then the pve one (3M instead of 3k credits), and that can only be scanned by the one that was killed.

 

[Truesilver]

Hello Commander Truesilver!

Without taking anything away from your worries, which are valid, I would say this: assuming that it is relatively robust (no mean feat in of itself), I think we could all agree that a trend tracking system could be very useful for identifying both of these issues (combat logging and "grief" killing - that is, attacking clean ships when there is a massive, mechanically verifiable power differential between victim and aggressor).

So part of the discussion should be about is what kind of consequences should be applied. Because we can never *truly* know if a disconnect is deliberate or not, is it not plausible to suggest that the consequences could remain as in-game penalties? This is not a rhetorical question, it's a genuine one, especially if the result is that combat logging decreases.

Another part of the discussion is the concept of karma consequences for "grief killing". I still find the range of responses on this a little strange (I suspect because of the wide range of differing opinions): either we think it's a problem or we don't. I would like to assume that most folk do find it an issue, PvP and PvE players alike (PvE for obvious reasons, and PvP because it can clearly have a chilling effect on the population of the Open mode).

If we do make this assumption (and to be sure, that's all it is), then we have two very clear options in my opinion.

A) We prevent it.
B) We add consequences that act as a form of appropriate risk/justice

As I've stated before, I'm not too keen on option "A" unless it's absolutely necessary (and by the by, I consider a consequence so harsh as to stop a player playing the game not really any more suitable than simply preventing the activity in the first place - it's a last resort option to me). Also, note that saying "just make crime response better" is, in my opinion, not very useful. That crime response ships could do with much more teeth is not in dispute, but to make them able to prevent the crime would require instant arrival along with other magic powers

So lets say the worst punishment is that the re-buy premium becomes 50 percent of the cost of the ship fully fitted. Dramatic, for sure, but clearly no more game stopping that flying without the means to pay for a standard re-buy. More serious? Absolutely - you need staggering amounts of spare credits if you're flying a tooled up big ship. But you can make that kind of money. And this is the final level of consequence, built up over a period of time where you will have been repeatedly warned and suffered lesser penalties before hand.

Now the question I'm interested in is this (again, not a rhetorical question): Why would this drain Open of PvP players? They can still perform their "nefarious grief killing", only now there is an escalating series of challenges to consider. Not to mention that outside the power differential criteria players are still free to attack each other with abandon.

Again, these are genuine questions. Of course, if folk disagree with some of the assumptions I have to make to create this scenario (like assuming that "noob killing" is not very desirable, then clearly that puts a different spin on things, but in those cases, I'd love to know why they disagree, it will help us understand.

*** EDIT *** All of the above does not have any affect on how we deal with combat logging or other issues *currently*. This is simply hypothetical discussions. You have been warned...

Aaaaaanyways, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Hey Sandro,

Please keep in mind that it is very difficult for an experienced player to ever die, unless another player is involved and they both agree to fight to the death. Do remember that, even before factoring in engineer modifications, anybody intent on not dying only has to survive 15 seconds before they can jump out, something which is not too difficult against other players, and utterly trivial against the police response of even high security systems.

Increased rebuys will only be a factor if somehow a player flagged by the karma system ever comes close to losing their ship against their will - that is, if the game somehow offers them an increased level of challenge, at which point those of us with a clean karma would be wondering "why can't we also be offered enough challenge and risk losing our ship once in a while? "

Also, I have a feeling your definition of griefing (which you describe as seal clubbing noobs) doesn't exactly cover what the portion of the community complaining about it actually mean. I think you'll find there is not much disparity in terms of ships and play time between the attackers and defenders in most instances of so-called griefing, it usually comes down to one side being unwilling to take preventive meansure to ensure survival despite having all the means to do so. So a system dealing with only the outliers (say, Conda vs Adder) wont do much to appease the constant whinge I'm afraid as it wouldn't cover the vast majority of such interactions.

If protecting beginners is the goal, wouldn't a beginner zone wit hthe appropriate protections be an easier approach?

Sandro, thank you very much indeed for your continued detailed engagement with us. RL beckons, so just three very quick responses for now:

1. There are some incidents of combat logging when malign intent is so obvious that people are convicted of murder in RL for less. I mean, wannabe interdicts clean Cmdr, gets kicked hard, turns and runs, loses his FSD or Drives, then logs. You do that twice on video and you should be shadow banned.

2. I don't think half of ship cost as rebuy is any real deterrent in PvP. Too easy never to die.

3. I think that there may be room for some form of anti-crime interdictor, i.e. a module that really seriously disrupts the FSD of a high-bounty Cmdr and can only be used by a clean Cmdr (or if winged, the whole wing must be clean). That would deal with the major problem of PvP retribution which is that there is no way to prevent escape.

Hope this is helpful,

Truesilver

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Jukelo!

Hey Sandro,

Please keep in mind that it is very difficult for an experienced player to ever die, unless another player is involved and they both agree to fight to the death. Do remember that, even before factoring in engineer modifications, anybody intent on not dying only has to survive 15 seconds before they can jump out, something which is not too difficult against other players, and utterly trivial against the police response of even high security systems.

Increased rebuys will only be a factor if somehow a player flagged by the karma system ever comes close to losing their ship against their will - that is, if the game somehow offers them an increased level of challenge, at which point those of us with a clean karma would be wondering "why can't we also be offered enough challenge and risk losing our ship once in a while? "

Also, I have a feeling your definition of griefing (which you describe as seal clubbing noobs) doesn't exactly cover what the portion of the community complaining about it actually mean. I think you'll find there is not much disparity in terms of ships and play time between the attackers and defenders in most instances of so-called griefing, it usually comes down to one side being unwilling to take preventive meansure to ensure survival despite having all the means to do so. So a system dealing with only the outliers (say, Conda vs Adder) wont do much to appease the constant whinge I'm afraid as it wouldn't cover the vast majority of such interactions.

If protecting beginners is the goal, wouldn't a beginner zone wit hthe appropriate protections be an easier approach?

Very good points!

I have mentioned increased threat from Authority vessels, I think this is part of *any* solution. With Engineering, we definitely have ways to threaten the risk of ship destruction (anyone who's tasted the starport's external barrages should be able to attest to this).

We're also (separately) considering increasing the log out timer, to say 30-60 seconds) which would go some way to helping in at least some cases. There are possibly a few other things that might also help here (which I don’t want to muddy the waters with for now).

Again, on a separate line, we do want to increase challenge in the game, so it's not just authority vessels that might improve. However, we want to add challenge carefully so as to avoid mutilating Commanders without warning.

As to Commanders who lose ships due to lack of skill or forethought, I don't have as much sympathy for them, which would likely filter through to module and ship power values and result in much lower modifications to the aggressor's rating trend.

Like I've said before, I don't think a karma system would be a panacea. But maybe it would lead to some level of improvement, which is better than zero

 

[Robert Maynard]

Hello Commander Robert Maynard!

Remembering that none of this is being promised, I would say this about the players interacting with players versus players interacting with NPCs:

* In general, only players are members of the Pilot's Federation, which would be the organisation dealing with a karma rating.

* NPCs don't support the game's development. They don't (as far as I can tell) enjoy or hate the game mechanics. This system is not about them. It's not even focused on verisimilitude. It's about dealing with humans in a shared game space and creating an environment which supports as many of them as possible as well as we can.

Whilst we could apply a karma system to NPC interactions it would require more data tracking and serve no useful purpose as far as I can make out.

The only "beefing up" of crime I can think of at the moment is more teeth to authority vessels to cope with heavily engineered ships (authority vessels are always meant to be a threat, so I'd like to see them visiting the Engineers).

Of course - "no ETAs, no guarantees" - although there are, I would expect, many players who would like to see something like it introduced, sooner rather than later. Not all players, of course.

Thanks for these clarifications - much appreciated, as always.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Truesilver!

Your comments are always helpful .

1. I think we could safely say that in the event of incontrovertible evidence we could bypass karma for combat logging. Karma would be there to indentify the far more numerous cases where the evidence is missing for whatever reason.

2. As I have stated a little bit higher up, I *think* we can introduce the threat of ship destruction to a higher level than it currently sits at. Your point is clearly still valid though - this is yet another of the challenges (though perhaps some would think that a more powerful authority presence would be a good unto itself).

3. A nice idea, to sit with a few others we are mulling over .

 

[Robert Maynard]

We're also (separately) considering increasing the log out timer, to say 30-60 seconds) which would go some way to helping in at least some cases. There are possibly a few other things that might also help here (which I don’t want to muddy the waters with for now).

Again, on a separate line, we do want to increase challenge in the game, so it's not just authority vessels that might improve. However, we want to add challenge carefully so as to avoid mutilating Commanders without warning.

When considering the log out timer, could you please also consider permitting the player to immediately click "yes" which would be followed by the delay and then the game exiting? At the moment, if called away from the game, the player would need to wait for the delay to complete before being permitted to click "yes".

Good to hear about increased NPC challenge - carefully applied - it would seem to be eagerly awaited by quite a few players.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander Bunkerkind Anni!

If we go with a Pilot's Federation bounty, it would be valid everywhere except anarchies.

I'm not sure that a personal scan bounty would be that useful, it's quite possible the victim-would-be-avenger would not have the capability to claim it. If bounties are effective at all, I think it's because lots of folk can claim them, including the most serious gunslingers.

Overall though, I think I am in rough agreement with your sentiments .

Alas, the weekend beckons. Thank you to everyone for the discussions, stay civil, stay happy, have a fantastic weekend!

 

[AndyJ]

When considering the log out timer, could you please also consider permitting the player to immediately click "yes" which would be followed by the delay and then the game exiting? At the moment, if called away from the game, the player would need to wait for the delay to complete before being permitted to click "yes".

Yes, it should be select "logout" (or return) that then goes to a countdown with an option to cancel and return to the game.
But make it 30/60 seconds and they probably might just as well make us self-destruct.
And why does this screen even need to happen in Solo mode anyway?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

The only issue I can see, is it's actually really hard to die in ED. Lol

Raising insurance creates added risk, but does not actually punish them.

A side from a few accidents (poor landings resulting in death), I've not lost a ship in combat in months, and that was a surprise torpedo PvP attack.
Before that, it'd been over a year.

Just sayin'.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

If we go with a Pilot's Federation bounty, it would be valid everywhere except anarchies.

I would assume that while the bounty wouldn't be valid in anarchies a KWS would still allow claiming the bounty by killing the CMDR in lawless space, correct?

 

[Robert Maynard]

The only issue I can see, is it's actually really hard to die in ED. Lol

Raising insurance creates added risk, but does not actually punish them.

A side from a few accidents (poor landings resulting in death), I've not lost a ship in combat in months, and that was a surprise torpedo PvP attack.
Before that, it'd been over a year.

Just sayin'.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

Maybe this:

The only "beefing up" of crime I can think of at the moment is more teeth to authority vessels to cope with heavily engineered ships (authority vessels are always meant to be a threat, so I'd like to see them visiting the Engineers).

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Hello Commander Bunkerkind Anni!

If we go with a Pilot's Federation bounty, it would be valid everywhere except anarchies.

I'm not sure that a personal scan bounty would be that useful, it's quite possible the victim-would-be-avenger would not have the capability to claim it. If bounties are effective at all, I think it's because lots of folk can claim them, including the most serious gunslingers.

Overall though, I think I am in rough agreement with your sentiments .

Alas, the weekend beckons. Thank you to everyone for the discussions, stay civil, stay happy, have a fantastic weekend!

i would restrict the bounty's visibility to the victim for an important reason: we don't want the bad guy to exploit said system to kill lots of random player, amassing lots of bounties - and then clear his record with the help of a friend by let getting killed in a sidewinder.

if the victim is to weak to claim it? he can always ask a better PVP pilot to let him join a Multicrew session and mount the useless gunner seat, or join a wing. that way he can reveal the bounty to his wingmates/crew.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Maybe this:

Well spotted. Lol

I'd like to see security (that are reacting to a PvP crime, in a high security area), using weapon and modification combos that we simply can not use. Ridiculously overpowered.

Like Reverberating Cascade Packhounds, or something.