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

What do you consider "the single most significant avenue of advancement"? And why is it "essentially impossible without PvP"?

Tactical and strategic experience and skill. You can improve basic piloting by flying your ships or combating NPCs, but NPC AI is just a script and an artificially limited one at that. No amount of combat against them will prepare one for combat against a more flexible, more competent, enemy. No amount of facing NPCs will teach would what loadouts and modifications are most effective as you'll face the same templates repeatedly and easily overcome them with just about anything.

Likewise, nothing at a strategic level, with regard to the BGS or anything else, happens without player influence. So, pretended other players don't exist or can't influence one's game abstractly will leave a setting that changes seemingly at random.

You can take my credits, my ships, my ranks, my reputation, even my engineering, but I could get it all back in relatively short order because of my experience...and I wouldn't even have to avoid other CMDRs while doing it. Indeed, experience is about the only way to measure advancement that hasn't been grossly trivialized. Everything else is vastly easier than it was originally.
 
I've no doubt it is. The question is whether the game will live that long.
Simples, kick out certain types of PvP player and I am sure everything would be peachy. ;)

WRT Speed limits, that is almost certainly largely to do with what is practical in a multiplayer environment from a technical sense (dead-reckoning issues for example). The speed limit is less of a concern in the super cruise environment which is why that speed is largely unconstrained, but affected by gravitational wells. That aside, inertia dampening limits is the most likely (short answer) in-game lore reason for the speed limitations.

WRT ED taking a Multiplayer stance, I personally believe it is a positive move (from a small Group play perspective). Trying to play the MMO card has probably been the single most disastrous choice though IMO. Saying this, I would probably have not been as reticent to consider ED in the first place if they had not been trying to push the multiplayer on-line element, it took a nudge from a friend to get me to take the plunge.

WRT ED and it's relationship to earlier games, it was a complete rewrite from scratch as I understand it thus a completely new product and in this day and age that is an expensive and risky process regardless. From a software development standpoint, with such projects you really do need to go back to basics and that often means delaying delivery of functionality from previous games and may be even deliberately excluding functionality if it does not fit in with the latest developer vision of the product. I suspect the latter is more the case where ED is concerned and until main stream product development has been completed (we are talking about regarding the entire feature set they have planned for their developmental end-game) it would be unfair to judge the product. ED is not an early release title but it is a self-admitted incrementally delivered product with plans for substantial amounts of new functionality to be paid for mainly in a piece meal fashion.
 
Tactical and strategic experience and skill. You can improve basic piloting by flying your ships or combating NPCs, but NPC AI is just a script and an artificially limited one at that. No amount of combat against them will prepare one for combat against a more flexible, more competent, enemy. No amount of facing NPCs will teach would what loadouts and modifications are most effective as you'll face the same templates repeatedly and easily overcome them with just about anything.

Likewise, nothing at a strategic level, with regard to the BGS or anything else, happens without player influence. So, pretended other players don't exist or can't influence one's game abstractly will leave a setting that changes seemingly at random.

You can take my credits, my ships, my ranks, my reputation, even my engineering, but I could get it all back in relatively short order because of my experience...and I wouldn't even have to avoid other CMDRs while doing it. Indeed, experience is about the only way to measure advancement that hasn't been grossly trivialized. Everything else is vastly easier than it was originally.

Ok, I get your point now. And agree with almost all of it. The sole aspect I disagree is referring to it as 'avenue of advancement' because it directly implies or at very least indirectly infers some form of 'advancement'.

I was thinking rank, some quantified measurement / credits / etc.

Obviously (I hope), tactical and strategic play against players does require more skill, more finesse, and provides far greater degree and need to react than scripted play against NPCs.

I don't see any advancement in this form of play though. There's no PvP only ranks - which while I don't PvP too much, I would certainly support and agree would be good to add to game. Usually quoting real life always ends up badly but I'll try here - in the militaries of every country on earth, no one provides an Ace badge for being awesome shooting down drones.

So if ED added a different ranking scheme, say an Ace ranking that only counted PvP kills towards that new Ace-Elite ranking, I'd be fine with that, and agree with your point you can't get that avenue of advancement without PvP. But for now, while I get and fully agree with your point re: much more skill and can only really be learned actually doing it against live players vs scripted NPCs, I disagree there is anything that could be considered an avenue of advancement.

Maybe if the game didn't go so out of it's way to quantify, measure, and show your advancement in other areas then this would just be a semantics issue. But as long as the game does go to clear lengths to provide actual rank advancement in all the other areas, it seems PvP for now is essentially a non-tracked, non-advancement focus.

Which seems odd. I don't know what I'd call it, the name above was just an example, but as we have ranking up to Elite for Combat, Trade, and Exploration, seems to make complete sense to provide one for in-game PvP (as opposed to the 4th panel icon added for CQC rank).

Personally, I'm sure it will cause lot of shouting, but I'd just rename Combat to something else denoting ship handling experience, transfer all your existing rank/xp into it, and create new Combat ranking category that can only be gained via PvP combat.

While I suit up in my asbestos suit, let me also add I do ~15% at max of play time in PvP combat. I am the opposite of the 'git gud' or die PVE scum! crowd. But it seems to make obvious sense that PVP combat as opposed to PVE 'combat' is lacking a tracked, advancement line.
 
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I was thinking rank, some quantified measurement / credits / etc.

Doesn't have to be quantifiable to be advancement, which I'm using in the sense of "development or improvement".

Frontier has done everything in their power to trivialize all tangible/quantifiable measures of advancement, except perhaps Engineering (which is still vastly easier than it used to be), and this further emphasizes intangibles like experience.

it seems PvP for now is essentially a non-tracked, non-advancement focus.

It's not tracked, and I'm not sure there is any good way to quantify it, but this suits me just fine. I don't really care about ranks and numbers beyond what they allow me to do and what they allow me to do is far less than what my experience enables.
 
starting to feel honored. and i only threw in a penny.

hey wait! let´s just pretend for once this space sim is not combat focused in any way and was never advertised as a cut throat galaxy. It must be a world of peace and harmony where only people that did not put the "please hug me" sign up will ever have to fight....charming! To make this work we also need to call anyone who uses a fsd interdictor for its actual intended purpose a ganker or griefer. Because it would be too boring to use the terms on those that actually really abuse glitches for kills. So we don´t need to excuse the own laziness, makes the whole life easier. Why plot an escape route? Why learn to fly evasive? Why watch even out for dangerous ships? Why even think about a viable load-out that makes an escape easy? I mean..that´s really making the game too difficult, and would require to actually look at the screen between the walks to the fridge for a nice cool beer. Just put the "Hello Kitty please hug me" sign up, and your good to go in open! New experience, no danger at all... just AI interdicting you, easy to evade. And lucky: the evil players with bad karma now do not dare to come close to you! As you have strong AI police enforcing the law everywhere and protecting your buttock. How long till frontier finally hears your bidding and punishes those "certain types" of PVP players. Really dude i can hardly wait, and it is gonna rock...it´s gonna be e-x-i-t-i-n-g...[yesnod][heart]:) You got me. Guys. I give up. Now i also want a version of Quake with a karma system, but also some kind of Tetris-like-game - but with an exciting story-line and roleplay-elements. Also i want FD to implement round-based combat into ED, just because in theory it can be done, and i can get coffe during my pvp encounters then, too! You gus still with me`? Forgot my pills on the first page...wait i´ll quickly fetch em...*sound of a Ranje dropping on the floor followed by loud snoring*:cool:
 
starting to feel honored. and i only threw in a penny.

hey wait! let´s just pretend for once this space sim is not combat focused in any way and was never advertised as a cut throat galaxy. It must be a world of peace and harmony where only people that did not put the "please hug me" sign up will ever have to fight....charming! To make this work we also need to call anyone who uses a fsd interdictor for its actual intended purpose a ganker or griefer. Because it would be too boring to use the terms on those that actually really abuse glitches for kills. So we don´t need to excuse the own laziness, makes the whole life easier. Why plot an escape route? Why learn to fly evasive? Why watch even out for dangerous ships? Why even think about a viable load-out that makes an escape easy? I mean..that´s really making the game too difficult, and would require to actually look at the screen between the walks to the fridge for a nice cool beer. Just put the "Hello Kitty please hug me" sign up, and your good to go in open! New experience, no danger at all... just AI interdicting you, easy to evade. And lucky: the evil players with bad karma now do not dare to come close to you! As you have strong AI police enforcing the law everywhere and protecting your buttock. How long till frontier finally hears your bidding and punishes those "certain types" of PVP players. Really dude i can hardly wait, and it is gonna rock...it´s gonna be e-x-i-t-i-n-g...[yesnod][heart]:) You got me. Guys. I give up. Now i also want a version of Quake with a karma system, but also some kind of Tetris-like-game - but with an exciting story-line and roleplay-elements. Also i want FD to implement round-based combat into ED, just because in theory it can be done, and i can get coffe during my pvp encounters then, too! You gus still with me`? Forgot my pills on the first page...wait i´ll quickly fetch em...*sound of a Ranje dropping on the floor followed by loud snoring*:cool:

need a hug? haha. yeah, if this really happens my time in this game is limited.

I'm not even a huge killer. I almost always stop shooting once the player is at 10% hull. It's part of my RP. Think I've only killed a handful of players in my time, all pirates themselves. The thing is, if this game gets all love boat I don't see a reason to bother with it. I already have star citizen. It may never be a full game but it's game enough and at least remembers where it put it's man/woman/notacowardhood.
 
Tactical and strategic experience and skill. You can improve basic piloting by flying your ships or combating NPCs, but NPC AI is just a script and an artificially limited one at that. No amount of combat against them will prepare one for combat against a more flexible, more competent, enemy. No amount of facing NPCs will teach would what loadouts and modifications are most effective as you'll face the same templates repeatedly and easily overcome them with just about anything.

Likewise, nothing at a strategic level, with regard to the BGS or anything else, happens without player influence. So, pretended other players don't exist or can't influence one's game abstractly will leave a setting that changes seemingly at random.

You can take my credits, my ships, my ranks, my reputation, even my engineering, but I could get it all back in relatively short order because of my experience...and I wouldn't even have to avoid other CMDRs while doing it. Indeed, experience is about the only way to measure advancement that hasn't been grossly trivialized. Everything else is vastly easier than it was originally.

You dont play a FPS in in the complete emptiness of space to build up strategic skills. The ship is the only thing strategic about the game and even then it has been trivialized to the point of absurdity. The one and only way to get good in this game is to spend time. As long as you spend it engineering, then you will win.

Two ships of the exact same build with the exception that one has engineered mods and the other does not, is still not a contest. You will lose. State otherwise and you are boasting or living in a fantasy realm. There is no field of engagement, you very rarely have the ability or opportunity to use your surroundings to your advantage. If you want a strategy game there are plenty of RTSs out there. If you want a real strategy game play "Go" there are more possible move combinations than the seconds that have passed since the beginning of the Universe.

The "PVP" focus at this point is a glorified game of rock, paper, scissors. Anyone else stating otherwise is trying to sell the game under false pretenses or deluding themselves due to lack of anything else to do.

Experience in PVP has nothing to do with how fast you would recover after purposefully wiping your save. As if that is even a legitimate point of contention for what you call PVP and everyone else calls griefing. Beyond BGS manipulation and Power play there is no combat based PVP in open. Sure you can kill another person if you want to. You can even arrange combat outside of the game mechanics. But to state the PVP is a required integral part of this game is your delusion.

Many people would like it to be. Myself included. However until they can figure out the way to put the lulz kids to bed, we will never be able to explore the possibilities of making PVP a legitimate aspect to this game. You want real measurable combat based PVP in ED right now, you play CQC. You want to do RP duels in the emptiness of space or stomp children, then you do it Open.

This is the second time you have tried to make this argument in this Thread alone. Just because you repeat something doesnt mean that it will magically become true. Nobody here is debating on the validity of PVP, they are trying to figure out a way to curb the childish behavior of a small and needless group of people. If they can address that obvious problem, then they might be able to focus on real Open PVP in the future.
 
need a hug? haha. yeah, if this really happens my time in this game is limited.

I'm not even a huge killer. I almost always stop shooting once the player is at 10% hull. It's part of my RP. Think I've only killed a handful of players in my time, all pirates themselves. The thing is, if this game gets all love boat I don't see a reason to bother with it. I already have star citizen. It may never be a full game but it's game enough and at least remembers where it put it's man/woman/notacowardhood.

lol you attempted to gender shame a video game.

This is the reason why this crap is a problem. Nobody can think beyond the next insult the next jab. Nobody can stop doing this until they have derailed any sensible debate possible. You let them represent you when you dont call them out for saying something stupid.

Remember these are the people who are calling you cowards in a video game. Somehow that is supposed to shame you into letting them kill you. They use words like skill and cunning and strategy to sell you a game environment that has none of those things.

For example during the Canonn CG I got to see a lot of what people are calling skill. Many members of the so called "Elite" PVP crowd were not even skilled enough to pull me out of SC in a fat slow Anaconda. Their skill only reach as far as holding down the trigger on their engineered weapons. Flying their ship and understanding any of the other mechanics of the game is not required. Especially when you are used to everyone just giving up during an interdiction. Nobody knew you actually had to know how to do it.


You had some good points earlier in the Thread, but somehow in the last 3 pages your IQ has dropped to that of a 3rd grader making fun of someones Mum. Class it up a bit, and dont try to defend lunacy. It only makes you look silly and I have seen that you are not.
 
True. Just imagine what could be done on today's systems.

As has already been said, it might well be we'll get to see atmospheric landings soon. But we'll still have to sit through loading screens while we transition from cruise to "orbit" to approach and landing. And of course it's not really orbit, at that. You can't switch your engines off and coast around the planet because gravity doesn't seem to do a great deal if you're not in non-cruise flight close to the surface, and in any case you can't go fast enough or slow enough to set up an orbital trajectory. You're either at a few hundred metres per second or a minimum of thirty kilometres per second in supercruise.

It's a bit annoying that FD hasn't put a little extra into this part of the game. All the mechanics are in place. You can fly in normal space to the surface of a planet, without loading screens. It just takes a stupid long time, because of the speed limit. I which there was a 'third mode', where you could accelerate indefinitely as long as no other ships were around.
Orbiting maneuvers would still take a long time, but it would be doable.

Gravity works very well in ED. You can see cargo falling towards planets, from very high orbit. We just don't feel it in our ships, because of the speed cap.

If FD want to address this, I think it's doable. All the mechanics are in place.

Sorry for OT. I'll get bad karma now, I guess.
 
The ship is the only thing strategic about the game

I was thinking more of the BGS.

Two ships of the exact same build with the exception that one has engineered mods and the other does not, is still not a contest. You will lose. State otherwise and you are boasting or living in a fantasy realm.

Have an Engineered combat ship?

Experience in PVP has nothing to do with how fast you would recover after purposefully wiping your save.

Of course it does, for two reasons:

1. Fighting CMDRs makes me much better at fighting NPCs than most CMDRs who don't fight other CMDRs.

2. I play Open exclusively. Knowing how to escape and evade is pretty important, especially when outmatched, as I would frequently be while working my way back up through the 'tangible' sorts of advancement.
 
lol you attempted to gender shame a video game.

I clearly did not gender shame anything (I included both genders to avoid just that). I did however say it was cowardly. I said Man/woman because I think it's very un-adult/childish of people to be so insanely concerned about death in a video game. I was drunk and not attempting to be eloquent about it so a little anger in response is understandable.

This is the reason why this crap is a problem. Nobody can think beyond the next insult the next jab. Nobody can stop doing this until they have derailed any sensible debate possible. You let them represent you when you dont call them out for saying something stupid.

Remember these are the people who are calling you cowards in a video game. Somehow that is supposed to shame you into letting them kill you. They use words like skill and cunning and strategy to sell you a game environment that has none of those things.

For example during the Canonn CG I got to see a lot of what people are calling skill. Many members of the so called "Elite" PVP crowd were not even skilled enough to pull me out of SC in a fat slow Anaconda. Their skill only reach as far as holding down the trigger on their engineered weapons. Flying their ship and understanding any of the other mechanics of the game is not required. Especially when you are used to everyone just giving up during an interdiction. Nobody knew you actually had to know how to do it.


You had some good points earlier in the Thread, but somehow in the last 3 pages your IQ has dropped to that of a 3rd grader making fun of someones Mum. Class it up a bit, and dont try to defend lunacy. It only makes you look silly and I have seen that you are not.

Perhaps I missed something over the past few pages? I don't know, don't feel like reading them. I didn't have the impression that I quoted or replied to anyone's insults. It's fair of you to say that a lot of the players who call themselves great fighters are just fools with big guns. I actually agree and I think the games combat mechanics lean too heavily towards bigger is waaaay better. It's still insulting to call them fools though, even if it's true. Kinda like how I said people are being cowardly? Funny that comparison, isn't it.

Sometimes the truth is insulting. That doesn't mean you should avoid the truth.
 

Jex =TE=

Banned
I'd expect that the system is already designed, in relation to NPCs and the AI associated with CMDR encounters.

Also, I don't expect that "we" all want the same things.

No.

In the context of our conversation "we" are designing the system. Do you get the context of our conversation?
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
No.

In the context of our conversation "we" are designing the system. Do you get the context of our conversation?

Are we? Given what Sandro has posted, the potential karma system (that Sandro speaks of) would clearly be aimed at dealing with some player behaviours (against other players only).

Link to my recent post quoting both my question to Sandro in the Deliberate Ramming thread and his response: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...D-RIGHT-HERE?p=5514092&viewfull=1#post5514092
 
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Jex =TE=

Banned
Are we? Given what Sandro has posted, the potential karma system (that Sandro speaks of) would clearly be aimed at dealing with some player behaviours (against other players only).

Link to my recent post quoting both my question to Sandro in the Deliberate Ramming thread and his response: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...D-RIGHT-HERE?p=5514092&viewfull=1#post5514092

That would be a no then.

We were talking about the hollow squares and their removal before you tried to derail the conversation presumably because you saw you were losing the argument and rather than agree you chose this route?
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
That would be a no then.

We were talking about the hollow squares and their removal before you tried to derail the conversation presumably because you saw you were losing the argument and rather than agree you chose this route?

Oh - that. Right. That would seem to have been decided at the start of the Kickstarter:

FAQ- Elite: Dangerous


How does multiplayer work?
You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily....​
 
Conceding that many players would actually prefer this, my own .02 cents is there will always be griefers who don't care how bad the punishment is, long as it is possible to do the crime, they will still engage to make your life as much grief as possible. Pain to themselves is irrelevant, just your salt is what counts.

Yeah I can see where you are coming from there... for me however that then becomes an acceptable risk. Way back when DBOBE was asked about pvp he said "rare but meaningful" and on griefing he said "community policed". A real, effective c&p system will do that. Note that he didn't say "prevented" however. I can accept unwanted pvp in my game IF the level of consequence for it is appropriate to the
in which it occurs... ie: if I'm wanted or in an anarchy then little to no consequence for my attacker, but if I'm legal in a lawful system then harsh, immediate, and expensive consequences. I don't mind dying, I mind dying cheaply.

However as we've both pointed out, this is opinion only. Both options have their plusses and minuses, and mine is NOT the only good answer.

- - - Updated - - -

There may be a subset of the PvP community that are upset about being punished for ganking random people but I very much doubt any of the players that came from Eve (which is probably a large percentage of the PvP'ers) will care because the C&P and "karma" systems in Eve are way more aggressive than the proposed system in ED. If you think the ED system is going to put the brakes on ganking, I believe you might be in for an unpleasant surprise when it finally does roll out and has very little effect, which I believe it will.

- - - Updated - - -



*double sigh* No, you're just not understanding what I'm saying. For a player with 2 billion in the bank and a super engineered, indestructible ganking machine who's only interest in the game is shooting at other commanders and nothing else then the game is primarily PvP for that player. Do you understand? It's not a definition of the games design, it's whatever a player wants it to be because all options are available to them. Do you comprehend? The BGS has nothing to do with anything because it can be completely ignored without having any effect on your gameplay experience. Does that compute? Some people play the game as a single player experience via solo mode and some choose to play it as a multiplayer experience via open or pg, so which is it? Is it single player, or is it multiplayer? Well, it's whatever the player wants it to be because both of those options are available. Is it sinking in yet?

Yes, I understand, and always did, that you were referring to personal viewpoint. You however fail to grasp that personal viewpoint does NOT alter the game's actual design. It is what it is, and remains so regardless of your own interests. You can think of it and treat it like a PvP game.if you want, but it's STILL NOT a pvp game, that's STILL just one part of it, just as it doesn't become just a space trading game because that's MY interest.
 
PvP isn't a 'role', it's what happens when the opposition to whatever you happen to be doing is a CMDR...which can be completely incidental, or the entire point, depending upon the intent of the player in question.

No, you're right, it's not. Combat is a role, and there's two basic forms of it, PvP and PvE. If however you accept that definition as two seperate roles it gives five basic roles which conveniently allows me to refer to any one of them as 20% of the game, thus illustrating my point, albeit with very much simplified math. If you insist on lumping all combat together as one role, I don't have the percentages of players available to me to calculate the what fraction PvP combat is... but if you take all the various polls as gospel then pve : pvp is something like 3:1 which would make pvp combat something like 8.5% of the game rather than the 20% I quoted, and I figured I could afford to be generous.

Also, the single most significant avenue of advancement, in my opinion, is essentially impossible without PvP.

I'm curious, which avenue is that?

[Edit] Never mind, I read your explanation later. I assumed when you said "advancement" you were referring to in-game advancement, not personal growth.
 
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Could somebody explain to me why being clean should prevent others from attacking me? And why does being clean mean that there is no in-game reason for others to attack me?

It shouldn't. Nobody said it should. If you do it in a lawful system however the cops should be seriously on your tail for doing so. Attacking a clean player in a lawful system should entail asking yourself "is this gonna be worth the hassle?". Right now the "hassle" is trivial.
 
I was thinking more of the BGS.



Have an Engineered combat ship?



Of course it does, for two reasons:

1. Fighting CMDRs makes me much better at fighting NPCs than most CMDRs who don't fight other CMDRs.

2. I play Open exclusively. Knowing how to escape and evade is pretty important, especially when outmatched, as I would frequently be while working my way back up through the 'tangible' sorts of advancement.

Fighting CMDRs and Fight NPCs require 2 different skill sets and have different tactics all together. Its like saying I take part in F16 jet fights on the weekend so I can fly my 747 at my day job during the week better. 2 different animals.

PVP also is not the reason why you are able to progress faster through a self imposed reset of your save file.(Also done by such a significantly tiny part of the community that it does not matter and is a none issue.) It has more to do with overall understanding of the Basics such as Piloting, Landing, Using the Interfaces, Understanding missions systems and types etc... None of which has anything to do with PVP and is by far more important for progression than any RP event or grief killing escapade.

Just because you feel that PVP is that important does not mean its true. Its your personal opinion and there is no way to ever measure your opinion. Utilizing ones tools to maximum efficiency will increase productivity to gain experience well beyond anything PVP can hope to accomplish. That can be measured and tested because its a controlled environment.

PVP in ED, does not teach you strategy that can be utilized anywhere other than ED. Especially since ED lacks strategy almost completely. Being a so called "good" PVPer carries no additional benefit in the game or anywhere outside of the game. The Environment is too specialized and nonsensical to be of any use elsewhere.

At least a good Karma and C&P system could start introducing strategy into the game. System control and government types. Figuring out ways to Infiltrate and change a systems security rating to Anarchy. Strikes into lawful space, how to avoid authorities and methods to do so. Risk Versus reward. The lack of a Karma/C&P system is exactly why this game has been dumbed down to the base kill or be killed attitude that breaks the entire game universes believably.
 
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