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

And this is exactly why this notion that a karmic tracking system is going to somehow bring people back from group, or keep them from leaving in the first place, is so naive. If I want to ruin these people's day (and yes, this thread has almost succeeded in turning me to the dark side), nothing short of banning me is going to stop me from doing it. None of these players are going to give me that shot, regardless of whatever system is eventually implemented. I can see how a c&p system could be implemented to improve the overall game exerience for everybody, but the notion that it's going to *fix* Open is pretty amusing.

Rep for the term "Shield Justice Warriors." That made me chuckle.

Apparently I am unable to rep your posts until I rep posts by other authors, so I'll just quote and say I agree.
 

Minonian

Banned
And this is exactly why this notion that a karmic tracking system is going to somehow bring people back from group, or keep them from leaving in the first place, is so naive. If I want to ruin these people's day (and yes, this thread has almost succeeded in turning me to the dark side), nothing short of banning me is going to stop me from doing it. None of these players are going to give me that shot, regardless of whatever system is eventually implemented. I can see how a c&p system could be implemented to improve the overall game exerience for everybody, but the notion that it's going to *fix* Open is pretty amusing.

Rep for the term "Shield Justice Warriors." That made me chuckle.
If?
Almost?
This made me laugh.

- - - Updated - - -

All I want to know is I'm still going to be able to pull over the Shield Justice Warriors in their Cutters and Corvettes to humble their ridiculous builds, without getting banned.

If I can still do that, then I don't really care. Put a huge bounty on my head and make me rebuy my ship at full price *if you can kill me*. I'll earn that 70 million back in a jif.
My "friend" what you call ridiculous build is a PVE specialised build. Ain't worth damn agains A "PVP" big gun, with his "PVP" build.
because you see? Both of it demands an entirely different approach, concept and equipment.
 
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Question though, do you really want nothing changed at all?
Do you want no possibility of having a realistic environment in which to play the bad guy?

In the post of mine which you quoted, I wrote "I can see how a c&p system could be implemented to improve the overall game exerience for everybody," so that would indicate that I do approve of a potential c&p system, correct?
 
For me there are two approaches. Either have an invisible "Karma" system, or you can instead have a visible "Crime" system?

One nice thing about a crime system is that it will apply only in systems with effective security. Giving players the option to "play their way" by deciding whether they want to play only in safe systems, or take a risk and play in dangerous ones as well. This is simply a question of having some defined "crimes" in the game, and system-level policing that sends effective enforcement after players. As with the GTA series of games this ought to escalate with further crimes, most especially attacking police. Eventually the military will get involved and cross-power policing might start - who knows? - But we all understand how crime and punishment work. As a victim of crime, the better your reputation the move quickly and effectively the Police turn up. Caught smuggling last week and they finish their donuts first before wondering over the look at the wreckage and give you a crime reference number for the insurance, but if you're the guy who flew in Humanitarian aid last week through a blockade, then they turn out mobhanded, and loaded for bear. Some people enjoy playing as criminals and would find their game enhanced by sneaking around an effective police force. Other want to play in peace and quiet and would find it enhanced by some safe spaces to play in. It's a big universe, and there is space enough for everyone. The key thing about Crime is that it takes no account of whether offences were committed against commanders or content - it's all the same.

Karma has it's attraction in that it is harder to work around as the rules will not necessarily be manifest. Why do you keep getting weak rolls in Engineers? - because you keep using those weapons to grief newbies. Why do you get scanned EVERY TIME you try to dock? - because you've been ramming people. But if you don't know what these rules ARE, then it's harder to exploit them or evade them. To be honest I've suspected there is an element of this in the game for a while because I've had some catastrophic losses, which have then neatly been offset by luck in the mission boards or whatever shortly after. Maybe I've been lucky, but it would be easy to write an algorithm that looks at metrics like PVP, Criminality and so on and decides to offer a player some "luck" whenever they need it - if they're playing nicely. I'm a BIG fan of hidden rules and hidden cause-and-effect they really make a universe feel more alive. There is quite a lot of luck in the this game from PVE encounters to Engineer grinds to USS contents. The really important thing about a Karma system if that you're intentional vague about what the rules are - other than "good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people". No readout to tell you what your Karma is, no notifications when it changes, no explanation for your luck but huge opportunity to improve it. But the key thing is it's based solely around your treatment of other commanders - PVE or other gameplay has nothing to do with Karma.

So there you really have two systems. I'd like to see both implemented.
 
My "friend" what you call ridiculous build is a PVE specialised build. Ain't worth damn agains A "PVP" big gun, with his "PVP" build.
because you see? Both of it demands an entirely different approach, concept and equipment.

The vast majority of big 3 ships I interdict have prismatics with tons of boosters, several shield cells, engineered weapons with special effects, and they fight back. Well at least until their hull starts taking hits. Which I love, and lose to on a semi regular basis. Those ships are extremely well prepared for PVP.

Every once in a while I'll run into a big 3 that's ovbiously a PVE player. The shields go down fast and they don't know how to use their banks. Once I identify that, I generally leave them be with a little hull damage. I have nothing to gain from blowing them up. With a couple caveats. 1) Salty comms chatter gets you killed or 2) I've drank too much Scotch and DGAF.

More importantly in the context of the discussion, a TON of ships I interdict escape unharmed. Anyone can do it. Even the "weak" pve ships. More people should do that, and this conversation can finally end.
 

Minonian

Banned
I've drank too much Scotch and DGAF.
You know what can happen if you after drinking get in the car, and you cause accident, or a cop gets you? I don't see why this must be any different.

Anyone can do it. Even the "weak" pve ships. More people should do that, and this conversation can finally end.
The problem you see? There will be always new meat in the grinder. And so as more dumb, less prepared / experienced / educated players. So no, not they are the ones whom must be better, but the pros must be more understanding toward them.
 
For me there are two approaches. Either have an invisible "Karma" system, or you can instead have a visible "Crime" system?

One nice thing about a crime system is that it will apply only in systems with effective security. Giving players the option to "play their way" by deciding whether they want to play only in safe systems, or take a risk and play in dangerous ones as well. This is simply a question of having some defined "crimes" in the game, and system-level policing that sends effective enforcement after players. As with the GTA series of games this ought to escalate with further crimes, most especially attacking police. Eventually the military will get involved and cross-power policing might start - who knows? - But we all understand how crime and punishment work. As a victim of crime, the better your reputation the move quickly and effectively the Police turn up. Caught smuggling last week and they finish their donuts first before wondering over the look at the wreckage and give you a crime reference number for the insurance, but if you're the guy who flew in Humanitarian aid last week through a blockade, then they turn out mobhanded, and loaded for bear. Some people enjoy playing as criminals and would find their game enhanced by sneaking around an effective police force. Other want to play in peace and quiet and would find it enhanced by some safe spaces to play in. It's a big universe, and there is space enough for everyone. The key thing about Crime is that it takes no account of whether offences were committed against commanders or content - it's all the same.

Karma has it's attraction in that it is harder to work around as the rules will not necessarily be manifest. Why do you keep getting weak rolls in Engineers? - because you keep using those weapons to grief newbies. Why do you get scanned EVERY TIME you try to dock? - because you've been ramming people. But if you don't know what these rules ARE, then it's harder to exploit them or evade them. To be honest I've suspected there is an element of this in the game for a while because I've had some catastrophic losses, which have then neatly been offset by luck in the mission boards or whatever shortly after. Maybe I've been lucky, but it would be easy to write an algorithm that looks at metrics like PVP, Criminality and so on and decides to offer a player some "luck" whenever they need it - if they're playing nicely. I'm a BIG fan of hidden rules and hidden cause-and-effect they really make a universe feel more alive. There is quite a lot of luck in the this game from PVE encounters to Engineer grinds to USS contents. The really important thing about a Karma system if that you're intentional vague about what the rules are - other than "good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people". No readout to tell you what your Karma is, no notifications when it changes, no explanation for your luck but huge opportunity to improve it. But the key thing is it's based solely around your treatment of other commanders - PVE or other gameplay has nothing to do with Karma.

So there you really have two systems. I'd like to see both implemented.

As would I.

We're only getting the 2nd though, right ? As in, all this hot-air from FD is only about player-on-player action, not generic to the game ?
 
You know what can happen if you after drinking get in the car, and you cause accident, or a cop gets you? I don't see why this must be any different.

It's different because it's a video game. The only possible real life consequences are my wife thinking I'm an idiot and a slightly higher electric bill. And maybe a nice CMDR gets sent to the rebuy screen.

A far cry from drunk crashing my car dude.
 
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Goose4291

Banned
You know what can happen if you after drinking get in the car, and you cause accident, or a cop gets you? I don't see why this must be any different.

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The game design information published at the start of the Kickstarter also includes the possibility of more than one Open Group (mode) where the rules can be different to accommodate different play-styles. Not yet implemented, maybe never.
After sleeping on it...

There are technically 4 modes of play with ED:-
  1. Open
  2. Public Group (or Open Group if you prefer) which is an option available when you create your CMDR's Group and does not restrict random new players from joining the group but I think it supports player controlled ban lists in some shape or form
  3. Private Group which is group mode where players have to be on a white list specific to that group
  4. Solo
It may be that the "Open Group" mode is actually catered for by the Public Group mechanic?
 
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.... except for the implementation of a rule set, without which no-one in the Public Group would would be restricted any more than they are in Open.
Except, (I think) they can get themselves black listed by the owning player, there by the "rule set" is really managed by the group owner as opposed to via in-game mechanics per-se.

I do get where you are coming from, but it does seem to fit the alleged definition of player Groups (the group owner defines the play book for the group - as in what is generally considered acceptable behaviour)
 
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All I want to know is I'm still going to be able to pull over the Shield Justice Warriors in their Cutters and Corvettes to humble their ridiculous builds, without getting banned.

If I can still do that, then I don't really care. Put a huge bounty on my head and make me rebuy my ship at full price *if you can kill me*. I'll earn that 70 million back in a jif.
Would being able to dock in anarchy systems only, be an inconvenience to you?

Because you make a good point. Only having a bounty or monetary penalties would not do the trick. The trick is to make it inconvenient for someone who breaks the law. Which would add some character to the role of law breaker. Right now you can strut around in high security systems and no one bats an eye. I'm not, but if I were to play a notorious killer, I'd like the hiding in anarchy, raid high sec systems, get out before the heat get to hot kind of style. This would also add some character to the galaxy and the system's security statusses would actually mean something. Also in reverse. A trader would be daft to have the trade route go through an anarchy system, this also should have consequences.

But hey ... maybe people prefer, interdict ... pew pew pew yay ... interdict ... pew pew pew yay ... interdict ... pew pew pew routine.

In games the restrictions put on you make the game more interesting in my view.
 

Minonian

Banned
It's different because it's a video game. The only possible real life consequences are my wife thinking I'm an idiot and a slightly higher electric bill. And maybe a nice CMDR gets sent to the rebuy screen.

A far cry from drunk crashing my car dude.

Your mind become just as much messed up in the life. So it's not better, in effect on you, and your deeds. The only difference? You cannot get caught and what you did is not count as crime in the eyes of RL law.
But this? not makes you any better, and not gives you absolution over the charge of griefing.
In the matter of fact? Alcoholic influence is an aggravating factor!

And "sonny" if you keep shooting others to educate them you a griefer. If you do this as a habit under alcoholic influence? You are not just a griefer but mental!
 
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Fair enough. But if it's that rare then pirates won't be affected by the karma system at all, since it's going to be focused on tracking trends rather than punishing individual incidents. They will only have to worry about it if they make destroying ships a habit, in which case they're crossing the line from being a pirate into being a griefer using piracy as an excuse.

It was only rare because I didn't kill people who didn't pay. If they didn't give up the goods by the time they were near dead I'd just let them jump. Look at it this way, do NPC pirates have to decide to let you go when you're near dead after you didn't meet their demand for cargo?
 
The Karma system punishes no one. It just tracks it. Everyone is throwing around shadow bans as if it would be something normal. I am sure they will just do the exact same thing that they do now and shadow ban people manually. But if anyone wants to question whose right or wrong or it was a mistake or not, then the karma system would have all the data.

They have all that data now, but its probably not being presented in an easy to use fashion and is also not available for public use. The Karma system can be used as a tool for tracking as well as a tool for in game enhancement.

C&P can be effected by Karma system, but the C&P portion would be standardized and you would know what you were getting into before you commit said crime. It could tell you that you are like 2 negative Karma widgets away from having your insurance buy back cost more.

Oh I'm not even talking about shadow bans per se, because none of us really know much of the C+P system punishments will be automated and how much will require someone to push a button. But I agree that people are getting a little hysterical for thinking a bot will ban them just for blowing up a clean player. I give SS a little more credit than that. It would be pretty stupid to begin banning people for just playing the game, and I can't see any historical precedent that might make people think it would happen.

What I'm talking about is any punishment at all for combat logging. It's something the a certain portion of the playerbase has been strangely silent about, either because something that's working correctly isn't worth commenting on, or they're combat loggers themselves and don't want to make that obvious by complaining about it.

Combat logging is an exploit, and punishment for that exploit is accepted as good. When asked about punishments for other exploits like suicidewinder, abusing the multicrew feature etc, nobody will talk about that.
 
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Negative karma will almost certainly decay over time and/or be reversible with other actions. That coupled with the fact that it's (yet again) designed to track trends rather than punish individual incidents should mean a pirate who destroys several ships in one unusually bloody session will be fine. Perhaps at the worst they would have to 'lay low' for a while afterwards until the heat died down? But that still just seems like more realism to me.

As for "blockading" CGs, well, they're called community goals, not community contests. Indiscriminately killing players who are trying to participate in a community event is griefing and should be treated as such. If a CG is designed to be opposed, there will be an opposing CG for people to contribute to.



He did say that. I guess whether or not that happens will depend on how much of a hint people can take about what kind of behaviour (and how much of it) is unacceptable. If it does, it won't be the PvE players who are to blame. It will be the subset of PvP players who are already saying what amounts to "you'll never stop me constantly ganking whoever I want unless you ban me".

The effects of bad karma may decay over time or be reversible with good deeds but Sandro said clearly that the system will track your behavior and punish you progressively for each successive offense.

Say you kill two trade ships one weekend while pirating a CG and your ship rebuy is %10 higher for a week after. A week later your karma is healed but it's still keeping track of how you played in the past. You're pirating another CG and again kill the same number of traders who refuse to pay as you did before. Now your rebuy is 20% for two weeks.

This goes on and on weekend after weekend until you're facing a 100% rebuy for two and a half months.
 
It was only rare because I didn't kill people who didn't pay. If they didn't give up the goods by the time they were near dead I'd just let them jump. Look at it this way, do NPC pirates have to decide to let you go when you're near dead after you didn't meet their demand for cargo?

I don't think piracy should shield someone from the consequences of a criminal act. Those consequences are, and should be, part of the considerations one takes before committing a crime. Piracy is part of the game, but it's not legal. It's ridiculous to insist that murder should be excused, in any case, especially when committed in the act of another crime.

Pirates should have to face a hit to their notoriety when they do their work, including murder. It's the price of doing their business. Just as a law abiding Commanders have to pass up lucrative opportunities because of them being illegal.

The idea here is to make open mode more attractive to the Commanders interested in playing in open. Allowing pirates to murder, would entrench the practice of indemnifying seal clubbers if they only ask for cargo. In effect, that's exactly what we have now.
 
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I don't think piracy should shield someone from the consequences of a criminal act. Those consequences are, and should be, part of the considerations one takes before committing a crime. Piracy is part of the game, but it's not legal. It's ridiculous to insist that murder should be excused, in any case, especially when committed in the act of another crime.

Pirates should have to face a hit to their notoriety when they do their work, including murder. It's the price of doing their business. Just as a law abiding Commanders have to pass up lucrative opportunities because of them being illegal.

The idea here is to make open mode more attractive to the Commanders interested in playing in open. Allowing pirates to murder, would entrench the practice of indemnifying seal clubbers if they only ask for cargo. In effect, that's exactly what we have now.

C&P consequences are all well and good, and welcomed. Karmic consequences, the ones applied to players that repeatedly station ram, combat log and actually grief should not apply to anyone who is playing the game as intended.

I don't know how many times I can state this over and over. Karma for bad people. C&P for people who just play the game.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
C&P consequences are all well and good, and welcomed. Karmic consequences, the ones applied to players that repeatedly station ram, combat log and actually grief should not apply to anyone who is playing the game as intended.

I don't know how many times I can state this over and over. Karma for bad people. C&P for people who just play the game.

Indeed - and it's within Frontier's remit to decide what "playing the game as intended" actually is.
 
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