PvP PVP as a 'feature'...

[Shinji Ikari]

It really is incredible the strong opinions people hold of PvPers without actually ever being a member of the community they criticize so much. I feel like most people would be beyond shocked to see how 99% of us spend our time: gathering mats for rolls or sitting in Supercruise looking for other wings to pull. Dusting asps and T6/7's isn't fun, but shooting another PvP-fit wing is.

Ok, then why is SDC, SDC?

We've had searches, yes. There are lists for optimal canyons and the thickest rings, prettiest rings etc. If you look at the footage of Season 3 of the league you'll see the best we could find (within the parameters of accessibility, outfitting, and anarchy... nothing like cops showing up during the championship match) - the problem is rings just aren't thick enough. The fight always gets dragged out of them because a single evasive boost will pop you out, and if you're under wing focus you often don't have a good path to re-enter. So it needs to be thicker. 10-25k in all directions would be amazing. Ideally, be it a space junkyard or asteroids... whatever - something pretty with obstacles - ideally it'd be thick enough that the game stays in the terrain features. CQC assets, rings... they're mostly just a bunch of open space that you end up in. For competitive fights it's the most fun if you're forced to fly within the constraints of these features. There are numerous reasons for this. The mechanics of the game allow for boost spamming without consideration to vector or obstacle. At a certain point you get bored of this and realize whatever skill you've acquired can be better shown within the constraints of some manner of terrain feature. In a sense, skill disparity can't really be shown as well until you get into this. So many players have simply existed on fa off boost spamming in open space, full gimbals, without a consideration in the world to their vector or flight other than keeping their nose within umpteen degrees of the target. Heck, I used to - but now I know that great difference and skill you can develop. This keeps people in the game, you really can get very nuanced with each particular ship - it's a wonderful game and it will keep people going for years improving their control over a particular flight model specific to a ship. So watch a video of john raanes, sundae, or jamie rush in some rings fa off and you see a display of impressive skill - it's really something and this game needs to give folks the environments to maintain increasing degrees of challenge, especially if FD is really considering going the distance on this where you'll have 10 year players.

So yeah, we've looked into it and continue to look. There's definitely a thickness cap on rings, and it's just not big enough. CQC structures are somewhat buggy and tend to vanish when someone drops in, or the walls aren't really walls - and there's just not enough space to effectively make use of. Canyons, as I said, have no overhangs so it becomes an elevation game = fights get dragged upward into open space unless you regulate it. And on the stations - the idea is to have the station in that asteroid field or right on the edges so you don't have the SC hop game.

All that said - it's all about a hub. We can try to create one but then it's a matter of getting the word out and getting momentum. And it honestly needs to be good enough to draw crowds otherwise the gameplay gets a bit contrived. I know I'm just publicly fantasizing and I doubt FD will do anything like this, ever, but just imagine - your 4 wings of 4 heading through those rings toward the other station where you know 16 guys ready to fight are likely setting ambushes in the rings. It'd bring about new wing techniques and considerations on loadouts, and it really would offer an enduring environment that the community could continually evolve.

Best PvP thread ever.

 

[Morbad]

two stations with decent shipyard and outfitting, slightly separated, in the thickest bit of the rings. (I suspect that's probably about the densest you can get, only a few km thick but the stations can be separated along the plane of it

Back in beta there were several instances of planets with invisible, but enormous, rings.

I got trapped in one once with my viper and it took me three hours to fly out of it by the shortest route I could find. Another time, I couldn't be sure I was oriented correctly and had to self destruct after two days of trying to escape.

Anyway, they could easily make a ring, or other collection of stuff, as expansive as they needed it to be, and you could easily be hundreds or thousands of km from the nearest way to escape with an FSD.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Back in beta there were several instances of planets with invisible, but enormous, rings.

I got trapped in one once with my viper and it took me three hours to fly out of it by the shortest route I could find. Another time, I couldn't be sure I was oriented correctly and had to self destruct after two days of trying to escape.

Anyway, they could easily make a ring, or other collection of stuff, as expansive as they needed it to be, and you could easily be hundreds or thousands of km from the nearest way to escape with an FSD.

I doubt it would be challenging for them.

 

[Reina Kaede]

I've been thinking about something like this for a while.

CQC as it was implemented was a fail, but I think it lays the groundwork for something better. Imagine an Arena style mode where you could fly your own ships or Loadout Style Preset ships in Deathmatch and other modes, and actually make a decent profit off of it while also increasing Combat rank and/or "Arena" rank.

Have it be accessed in Station Services or the Comms Panel and make maybe 3 or 4 playlists. Standard, which is using your own ships in Team Deathmatch or Capture the Flag. Loadout Standard, which is how CQC currently is. Lone Wolf, which is Free for All Deathmatch in owned ships. And finally Loadout Lone Wolves which is CQC Free for All.

Add the ability for a Wing Leader or Multi Crew helm to start a matchmaking search for their group.

Add maybe missions or challenges. Missions could be found in the mission board or in some other area of station services. Make them simple and not too difficult. Kill x amount of players. I can't think of anything else that wouldn't be too ship/build specific. Or instead of missions, make them a randomly generated challenge that appears when you start a match and gives you a bonus on completion. Give credits for kills, assists, and wins, with the amounts scaling to your "Arena" rank, so you're not making insane amounts of money from the start but you're always making just enough that it's a viable career path.

If you want to go the extra mile, add Sponsorships. Either with having each Ship Manufacturer as a pseudo faction you can get rep for by doing matches in their ships, or as missions ie "Get 5 Kills without dying in Gutamaya ship" for a credit bonus or... I don't know. Can't say discounts for that manufacturer because that seems too cheesy.

 

[Truesilver]

CQC as it was implemented was a fail, but I think it lays the groundwork for something better. Imagine an Arena style mode where you could fly your own ships.

We have actually already had this - almost - in some of the Betas.

For me, some of the best gameplay I've had in ED was in Betas 1.4 - 2.2.03.

What they all had in common was that everyone was funnelled into only one or two places and everyone had instant access to any loadout of their choice.

I spent 1.4 and 1.5/2.0 entirely at Dalton Gateway (which had all ships/modules, for those without Shinrarta access), just fighting. 2.0 introduced planetary landings but I actually never drove the buggy in four weeks, lol.

Then in a portion of 2.1, 2.2 and 2.2.03 Betas we had Fish-powered RNGineering, meaning we could all RNG up any possible combination near instantly. Plus in 2.1 we all went to Wyrd, in 2.2 it was iirc Qwent, etc.

Basically these Betas all had the two fundamental components of an Arena mode: a ton of guys effectively queuing up to fight and insta-Outfitting under conditions that provided all players with equal access to the good stuff.

Now, obviously, the above lacks context, which is kind of the point of this thread. But I still so hope that we see more Fish Betas. Post 2.1, Betas without Fish are so dull because everyone only has access to whatever they sweated blood to make in the main game.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

We have actually already had this - almost - in some of the Betas.

For me, some of the best gameplay I've had in ED was in Betas 1.4 - 2.2.03.

What they all had in common was that everyone was funnelled into only one or two places and everyone had instant access to any loadout of their choice.

I spent 1.4 and 1.5/2.0 entirely at Dalton Gateway (which had all ships/modules, for those without Shinrarta access), just fighting. 2.0 introduced planetary landings but I actually never drove the buggy in four weeks, lol.

Then in a portion of 2.1, 2.2 and 2.2.03 Betas we had Fish-powered RNGineering, meaning we could all RNG up any possible combination near instantly. Plus in 2.1 we all went to Wyrd, in 2.2 it was iirc Qwent, etc.

Basically these Betas all had the two fundamental components of an Arena mode: a ton of guys effectively queuing up to fight and insta-Outfitting under conditions that provided all players with equal access to the good stuff.

Now, obviously, the above lacks context, which is kind of the point of this thread. But I still so hope that we see more Fish Betas. Post 2.1, Betas without Fish are so dull because everyone only has access to whatever they sweated blood to make in the main game.

That sounds fun and everything but that sounds more like another game to me. ED isn't about insta reward. For what I've read, an arena in ED would be more about a place where PvP is the law and the playing field is ready for that, not a magical place where you can skip all the grind to get your money for insurance and materials for your modifications.

 

[Rob At Work]

Ding Ding - round 2742

 

[Chongo]

Ding Ding - round 2742

This imply you're still pvp'ing?

 

[ryan_m]

Ok, then why is SDC, SDC?

SDC spends the vast majority of our time shooting other PvPers.

 

[Martian Successor]

It is not fair that you're generalizing the 'majority' of pvp'ers in such a way. It reduces the argument in a way that marginalizes anyone supporting pvp. This is in no way hostile, I'd simply like to clarify things: Let's meet up in the stock ship of your choosing in game sometime. Next week maybe? - I'd like to finish up the current cracktrain first. CMDR ICBMongo. If you'd like to do this earlier, I'm happy to randomly throw anyone from my wing at you. Whatever conditions you prefer, though from the high ground you appear to be standing on I assume it'll be stock ships fa off with fixed weapons in an asteroid field, correct?

I can comfortably say that I've run across ~500 legitimate pvp'ers on the english speaking side of things, many more if you pull in the russians/ brazilians/ eastern euros who tend to keep to themselves. I ran Season 3 of the League so I have direct access to that data. Unfortunately many have been leaving the game as of late, so the population is admittedly dwindling. Not dwindling maybe, just scattering around in the game waiting for... something interesting to come up. Gametime is down, people are discouraged.

But you are very incorrect that pre-agreed matches are uncommon and it illustrates how much you unfairly presume in your efforts to disparage. Yes, most people that pvp also spend their inbetween boredom hours asserting themselves at CGs with varying degrees of misanthropy. I'm not trying to refute this. But throw whatever you think is a noble pre-arranged setup and I'll probably be able to tell you we've tried it. Stock sideys with rails matches are years old ideas to us.

Were FD to create a hub as I've laid out, the majority of 'murderhobos' would migrate there. They'd still head to CG's when they were combat oriented or interesting in the slightest, but the inbetween would certainly be at this hub. Those that are easily discouraged after a loss would likely return to picking off keelbacks at CGs, but they are not the majority. The dynamic I would predict would initially be prearranged fights. SDC, RNG, AA, RSM, NMDS, RoA, 51th, and the horde wings and individuals at GCI would likely spearhead this - I would assume an initial population of 150. And after the initial 4v4 to 20v20's got some momentum in a dedicated ingame hub with natural features to enhance combat, the larger RP style pvp'ers a la LL or ze germans et al would likely join the fray and it would migrate from prearranged to a steady game of dominating the instance between the two stations. PVP'ers and their wings would camp out the asteroid fields and engage in assaults where sides would naturally migrate to one station or the other. It would almost certainly devolve into one sided dominance as the community is fairly tight and might team up at times, but outsiders would be drawn into the communication chains available through discord, and just as it occurs at CGs, the pvp community would acknowledge the onesidedness of any situation and organize the largest available XvX they could. Minigames would present themselves, just as they have for years now with organizations like GCI coordinating events: capture the flag style events, protect the trade ship, king of the instance, thunderdomes, etc. But it'd be in a veritable playground with that many natural features to hide or engage in. And again, you can't reduce this to a 'well if you want a playground use cqc'. CQC does not evolve with the game and it was designed to be a limited representation of the available game assets. Game over, cqc is dead. I don't know how many brain cells are needed to comprehend this.

Bottom line is, I've coordinated hundreds of wingfights that you say pvp'ers don't really like. I can direct you to the footage. I know exactly what I am talking about. I've coordinated these events and thought about the competitive mechanics to the point of having refs at a canyon lip using force shell to keep people in the challenging constraints of the natural terrain features. We know how to make things fair and fun and there is a substantial community that engages in prearranged fair and competitive fights. So yes, there is a population that would not only utilize an idea like this, but they would enhance the game and foster a larger community were the environment setup correctly. As it is, the 'hub' becomes CGs, and they're usually really lacking in one significant way: we are forced to poke around the system to find something outside open space. Sometimes there are rings to work with, sometimes decent canyons. But there's no intuitive 'everyone goes here' outside what we can communicate to each other over discord. And it changes every week. And so we show up, try to find something to pitch at everyone, and then have to start asking around for people to log in, or stop their grinding, get their 40 minute transfer done, meet up at whatever coordinates, and hopefully we can get enough people logged on at the right time for a 4v4. So it just devolves quickly into the same old routine with no natural gravity attracting this subgroup of players. It takes a lot of work just to try and contrive something each session, and people burn out. The fact that I have to explain how a natural hub enhances gameplay is frankly surprising.

2 stations. Perma-anarchy. Very wide asteroid field between them, whatever the engine can handle. Throw a couple planets in the system with terrain features, decent canyons is enough. This will create a hub. It will enhance the quality of pvp in this game. It will reduce the number of bored people looking for fights at CGs. Sure, it won't eliminate the lowest rung of hobo - but it definitely will change that landscape for the better.

That would be so very awesome. If FD ever decides to find the inclination to create a PvP hub for its playerbase they need look no further than Chongo's post.

 

[MJC]

PVP in elite is meaningless, there is nothing to gain except pride.

In order to have meaningful PVP FDEV MUST remove the 3 modes, or make a PVP galaxy and a PVE

Pride for some is more important than credits. Winning a PvP fight against odds (I only fly small ships in PvP) is the best gaming experience one can feel. For me my clan (BIG) winning the tie-breaker vs RSM at PvP league season 2 is the best gaming experience ever. It would be similar to watching my country win the football World Cup. From time to time I go back to watch that video on my YouTube channel and it fills me with great pride. Priceless.
I am all for PvP and PVE modes which would be separate and have no effect on each other in terms of market, BGS etc...

It is not fair that you're generalizing the 'majority' of pvp'ers in such a way. It reduces the argument in a way that marginalizes anyone supporting pvp. This is in no way hostile, I'd simply like to clarify things: Let's meet up in the stock ship of your choosing in game sometime. Next week maybe? - I'd like to finish up the current cracktrain first. CMDR ICBMongo. If you'd like to do this earlier, I'm happy to randomly throw anyone from my wing at you. Whatever conditions you prefer, though from the high ground you appear to be standing on I assume it'll be stock ships fa off with fixed weapons in an asteroid field, correct?

Were FD to create a hub as I've laid out, the majority of 'murderhobos' would migrate there. They'd still head to CG's when they were combat oriented or interesting in the slightest, but the inbetween would certainly be at this hub. Those that are easily discouraged after a loss would likely return to picking off keelbacks at CGs, but they are not the majority. The dynamic I would predict would initially be prearranged fights. SDC, RNG, AA, RSM, NMDS, RoA, 51th, and the horde wings and individuals at GCI would likely spearhead this - I would assume an initial population of 150. And after the initial 4v4 to 20v20's got some momentum in a dedicated ingame hub with natural features to enhance combat, the larger RP style pvp'ers a la LL or ze germans et al would likely join the fray and it would migrate from prearranged to a steady game of dominating the instance between the two stations. PVP'ers and their wings would camp out the asteroid fields and engage in assaults where sides would naturally migrate to one station or the other. It would almost certainly devolve into one sided dominance as the community is fairly tight and might team up at times, but outsiders would be drawn into the communication chains available through discord, and just as it occurs at CGs, the pvp community would acknowledge the onesidedness of any situation and organize the largest available XvX they could. Minigames would present themselves, just as they have for years now with organizations like GCI coordinating events: capture the flag style events, protect the trade ship, king of the instance, thunderdomes, etc. But it'd be in a veritable playground with that many natural features to hide or engage in. And again, you can't reduce this to a 'well if you want a playground use cqc'. CQC does not evolve with the game and it was designed to be a limited representation of the available game assets. Game over, cqc is dead. I don't know how many brain cells are needed to comprehend this.

Bottom line is, I've coordinated hundreds of wingfights that you say pvp'ers don't really like. I can direct you to the footage. I know exactly what I am talking about. I've coordinated these events and thought about the competitive mechanics to the point of having refs at a canyon lip using force shell to keep people in the challenging constraints of the natural terrain features. We know how to make things fair and fun and there is a substantial community that engages in prearranged fair and competitive fights. So yes, there is a population that would not only utilize an idea like this, but they would enhance the game and foster a larger community were the environment setup correctly. As it is, the 'hub' becomes CGs, and they're usually really lacking in one significant way: we are forced to poke around the system to find something outside open space. Sometimes there are rings to work with, sometimes decent canyons. But there's no intuitive 'everyone goes here' outside what we can communicate to each other over discord. And it changes every week. And so we show up, try to find something to pitch at everyone, and then have to start asking around for people to log in, or stop their grinding, get their 40 minute transfer done, meet up at whatever coordinates, and hopefully we can get enough people logged on at the right time for a 4v4. So it just devolves quickly into the same old routine with no natural gravity attracting this subgroup of players. It takes a lot of work just to try and contrive something each session, and people burn out. The fact that I have to explain how a natural hub enhances gameplay is frankly surprising.

2 stations. Perma-anarchy. Very wide asteroid field between them, whatever the engine can handle. Throw a couple planets in the system with terrain features, decent canyons is enough. This will create a hub. It will enhance the quality of pvp in this game. It will reduce the number of bored people looking for fights at CGs. Sure, it won't eliminate the lowest rung of hobo - but it definitely will change that landscape for the better.

One of the best ideas I have read on this forum ever. +1
If we didn't have all this "immersive" ship transfers and wasting time to travel between places looking for PVP I am sure a lot of the old guard casual PvP-ers would return. I miss some of the old household names which are no longer with us. Imagine if you were guaranteed some great PvP within your 1-2 hr evening playtime I am sure a lot more people would have ships parked here and just logon for a bit of last minute pew pew. I wish you best of luck with this great idea. Maybe we should get all the PvP clans to petition ED with this request? I am sure if Colonia could be made then why couldn't we have a PvP anarchy system? o7

 

[Truesilver]

That sounds fun and everything but that sounds more like another game to me. ED isn't about insta reward. For what I've read, an arena in ED would be more about a place where PvP is the law and the playing field is ready for that, not a magical place where you can skip all the grind to get your money for insurance and materials for your modifications.

Understood, but the thing is that before 2.1, complete outfitting and all ships was available to everyone - eventually. You did your grind (I did my first 700 million old school, ultra-slow, and even my first 1.3 billion still as Braben would have intended). At the end of that you had complete PvP freedom. You could fly an FAS with one outfit ... switch to an FdL with another for the next hour ... then take the Anaconda out next day ... then deploy the Python the day after that.

After 2.1, rebuys are still irrelevant but not one single player of this game can simply switch from PvP ship to PvP ship. Even the hardest of the hardcore, guys who play 60+ hours per week, do not have apex PvP ships of every kind, not anything like. And even if they did, they still wouldn't have the full range of loadouts to swap between.

Let me put it another way - from about halfway through ED 1.3 to the end of 2.0 my game was 0% PvE acquisition and 100% pure PvP gameplay.

Since 2.1 to date my game has, perforce, been 90% PvE acquisition.

Basically the freedom we took for granted up until the end of 2.0 can now only be had - by anyone - in Fish Betas.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Understood, but the thing is that before 2.1, complete outfitting and all ships was available to everyone - eventually. You did your grind (I did my first 700 million old school, ultra-slow, and even my first 1.3 billion still as Braben would have intended). At the end of that you had complete PvP freedom. You could fly an FAS with one outfit ... switch to an FdL with another for the next hour ... then take the Anaconda out next day ... then deploy the Python the day after that.

After 2.1, rebuys are still irrelevant but not one single player of this game can simply switch from PvP ship to PvP ship. Even the hardest of the hardcore, guys who play 60+ hours per week, do not have apex PvP ships of every kind, not anything like. And even if they did, they still wouldn't have the full range of loadouts to swap between.

Let me put it another way - from about halfway through ED 1.3 to the end of 2.0 my game was 0% PvE acquisition and 100% pure PvP gameplay.

Since 2.1 to date my game has, perforce, been 90% PvE acquisition.

Basically the freedom we took for granted up until the end of 2.0 can now only be had - by anyone - in Fish Betas.

I see, I think I agree here..

 

[Morbad]

After 2.1, rebuys are still irrelevant but not one single player of this game can simply switch from PvP ship to PvP ship. Even the hardest of the hardcore, guys who play 60+ hours per week, do not have apex PvP ships of every kind, not anything like. And even if they did, they still wouldn't have the full range of loadouts to swap between.

To put this into perspective, I have ~5k hours in game, well over 3k mods generated, more than 2k of them grade 5s (actual grade 5s, I didn't exploit the five-for-one bug) and I have two ships (a Corvette and Vulture) that I can fit to 'apex' quality, with a handful of loadouts for each, and a half dozen more in various states of modification (my FDL is close to complete, but still needs a better DD5 roll to get what I want out of it).

 

[ryan_m]

To put this into perspective, I have ~5k hours in game, well over 3k mods generated, more than 2k of them grade 5s (actual grade 5s, I didn't exploit the five-for-one bug) and I have two ships (a Corvette and Vulture) that I can fit to 'apex' quality, with a handful of loadouts for each, and a half dozen more in various states of modification (my FDL is close to complete, but still needs a better DD5 roll to get what I want out of it).

So you can fit a Corvette which is pretty much useless in PvP and a Vulture that is only barely viable in PvP. Both of those ships would get worked by a middle-of-the-road PvP fit FDL.

 

[NecoMachina]

...and what good does that PVP play do for the BGS? How do you make money with PVP play? Shouldn't you receive some kind of reward for these activities?

If the other player has a bounty you do get money for killing them. If they don't have a bounty, then give me one logical, in-lore reason why anyone would give you money for killing a ship with no bounty on it? That'd be like giving Charles Manson a stack of cash for "good kills, bro".

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I
What I would like to see is a discussion of how PVP can be made into something that would rival other PVP games, where skill is needed, and losses don't require tons of time to return to your previous level of ship and credits.
..

give me a C give me a Q give me a C............................. CQC

the games you list are totally not like Elite. Elite is more like an RPG game than those and throw away billion credit ships would not work in elite as it just makes a mockery of the economy.

now, could FD implement a "real world" CQC which is some underground fight club where you "buy" a scrap ship to fight to destruction (not covered by insurance) after paying an entrance fee, winner takes all???? sure that could be ace.
some "in game" sponsorship could be added who supply your ship and maybe better sponsers will give you a cheeky upgrade to your ship - some specialise in engines, or weapons or shields or .. etc....

but making ships like cutters and the like as PvP to descruction ships just cant work without killing the rest of the game (imo)

 

[ryan_m]

If the other player has a bounty you do get money for killing them. If they don't have a bounty, then give me one logical, in-lore reason why anyone would give you money for killing a ship with no bounty on it? That'd be like giving Charles Manson a stack of cash for "good kills, bro".

1. Shady salvage company wants to make some more money on well-fit ships

2. Stock broker with a vendetta wants you to kill all Core Dynamics ships so that negative news stories about their survivability allow him to profit off of their stock collapse

3. A rival faction wants to help plunge the ruling faction into civil unrest to help their political goals

4. A low-brow video production company wants to make a compilation tape of ships popping and will pay for footage

There's 4 off the top of my head.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If they don't have a bounty, then give me one logical, in-lore reason why anyone would give you money for killing a ship with no bounty on it?

There are plenty of factions which will happily pay you several million credits to kill clean civilian ships belonging to other factions, or assassinate clean-but-disliked members of other factions, or carry out various other forms of illegal activity in exchange for money.

So if there are logical in-game reasons to kill Clean NPCs for pay, why not logical in-game reasons to kill Clean players for pay?

 

[ALGOMATIC]

There are plenty of factions which will happily pay you several million credits to kill clean civilian ships belonging to other factions, or assassinate clean-but-disliked members of other factions, or carry out various other forms of illegal activity in exchange for money.

So if there are logical in-game reasons to kill Clean NPCs for pay, why not logical in-game reasons to kill Clean players for pay?

The ONLY reason that we dont have PVP missions to assassinate other cmdrs is because DB is terrified of exploits, same reason that PP kills from cmdrs worth 1 merit and npc - 30 merits (PP was supposed to be PVP oriented game-play yes?)