PvP PVP as a 'feature'...

[Truesilver]

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.

In fairness to Morbad, Ryan, he's made his contribution to FdL PvP building. Iirc, back around 1.4 he was credited (by Melon? Nyxi? Someone. Memory fails) with inventing the lightweight 2 ton fuel tank, c4 shield, c4+c5 SCB build that went on to become the PvP standard and actually had to post the build on reddit because Verax accused him of shield hacking after a failed gank attempt, lol. (Accusation retracted.)

Morbad's the guy who flies at CG's under his Backer name, so frequently lacks forum namecheck, though.

 

[CMDR GTR2014]

Hum... Interesting...

 

[ryan_m]

In fairness to Morbad, Ryan, he's made his contribution to FdL PvP building. Iirc, back around 1.4 he was credited (by Melon? Nyxi? Someone. Memory fails) with inventing the lightweight 2 ton fuel tank, c4 shield, c4+c5 SCB build that went on to become the PvP standard and actually had to post the build on reddit because Verax accused him of shield hacking after a failed gank attempt, lol. (Accusation retracted.)

Morbad's the guy who flies at CG's under his Backer name, so frequently lacks forum namecheck, though.

Ahh word. I'll retract my criticisms, then. His vette build is good.

 

[NecoMachina]

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?

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding the point. If you're asking for players to be able to join factions so that PvP has an in-lore purpose, and a reason for factions to pay out for kills, then that makes perfect sense. It would also incentivize PvP against other people who are looking to PvP, and not as much just ganking someone in an unarmed exploration ship just for the lulz.

If you're asking for ANY player kill to pay out, so you can fund your PvP activities then I would have a serious problem with that. Because then you have the murder hobos (I'm not calling all PvP'ers murder hobos - I think you know the types I mean) who are able to grief people AND get paid for it - we don't need that.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

OK, maybe I'm misunderstanding the point. If you're asking for players to be able to join factions so that PvP has an in-lore purpose, and a reason for factions to pay out for kills, then that makes perfect sense.

If you follow the chain of quotes back (3 or 4 levels...), yes, the context was PvP in relation to the BGS. (Though could equally apply to Powerplay)

That said ... while in my line of work I much prefer it when people don't try to gank unarmed explorers because it makes my job easier, there are on some occasions perfectly sound BGS reasons to do so, given the high power of exploration data as a BGS manipulator and the sheer amount a single ship can carry and gradually feed into a system. Indeed, it's probably the only case at the moment where you can get more net benefit from having a PvP defence patrol than you would from doing your own PvE BGS work with that ship.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

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?)

It's a shame, because PP would lend itself excellently to PvP based gameplay. But as is, you'd only need one CMDR with 2 accounts, aligning the garbage account with the faction they want to screw and kill that repeatedly. That's the trouble with humans. They be sneaky.

A solution might be to have Powerplay Faction Ranking. The more influence you gather for a PP faction, the higher you PP rank will get. When you are being shot too many times, in effect losing influence, the rank drops. The influence you gain by killing a CMDR of an opposing faction is based on that rank. Which makes sense, since it would be a bigger achievement killing a skilled PvPers instead of ... well, me. So that second account would only yield minimal influence if it's green. In order to get a bigger influence boost, the second account would have to gather a lot of influence for the opposing faction, which defeats the purpose. And once that rank is attained, you can't just serial kill that account to farm influence, because it's rank will drop, so you will have diminishing returns.

 

[Truesilver]

Getting right back to the basics of this thread, I'm really sorry to be a naysaying wet blanket, but ...

a. Even if (which they won't) Frontier were to introduce in-game rewards for killing each other, it will always be optimal to min/max via PvE, meaning that PvP rewards will always be an irrelevance unless they were otherwise unobtainable (again, unrealistic);

b. Even if (which they won't) Frontier were to introduce special BGS effects for PvP kills, these will always be mere raindrops compared to the PvE flood (so long as we have the single-save-mixed-modes model, which we always will). If they weren't raindrops they would be exploited to Sag A and back.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me therefore that all discussion of rewarding/incentivising PvP via beneficial effects upon our Cmdrs' wallets or guns, or the BGS or Powerplay, are just pleasant yet idle moonshine.

The only form of PvP incentivisation we can ever hope for is some kind of recognisable 'honour' system, whereby like if Chongo's wing successfully defended their side of the hypothetical PvP asteroid field, the game would recognise their achievement with some kind of accolade.

The three seasons of the PvP League have all been fought for nothing more than 'unofficial' honour and I know that all participants found this highly motivating. 'Official' honour could perhaps work. But I really don't think we can hope for anything more than that.

(Blanket and hard hat on...)

 

[Martian Successor]

Getting right back to the basics of this thread, I'm really sorry to be a naysaying wet blanket, but ...

a. Even if (which they won't) Frontier were to introduce in-game rewards for killing each other, it will always be optimal to min/max via PvE, meaning that PvP rewards will always be an irrelevance unless they were otherwise unobtainable (again, unrealistic);

b. Even if (which they won't) Frontier were to introduce special BGS effects for PvP kills, these will always be mere raindrops compared to the PvE flood (so long as we have the single-save-mixed-modes model, which we always will). If they weren't raindrops they would be exploited to Sag A and back.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me therefore that all discussion of rewarding/incentivising PvP via beneficial effects upon our Cmdrs' wallets or guns, or the BGS or Powerplay, are just pleasant yet idle moonshine.

The only form of PvP incentivisation we can ever hope for is some kind of recognisable 'honour' system, whereby like if Chongo's wing successfully defended their side of the hypothetical PvP asteroid field, the game would recognise their achievement with some kind of accolade.

The three seasons of the PvP League have all been fought for nothing more than 'unofficial' honour and I know that all participants found this highly motivating. 'Official' honour could perhaps work. But I really don't think we can hope for anything more than that.

(Blanket and hard hat on...)

Yeah, pretty accurate pragmatism I'd say. Still, if we can just get Chongo's detailed outline of a PvP hub with the two stations and super thicc asz-teroid field, et al into the game that would add a lot of QoL to the PvP experience in ED.

 

[AnotherVoice]

I can think of a cool way to revive CQC: make it so we can import our "main" PvP ships in the Arena. No rebuy cost, and adjusted credit / mats rewards.

Also, add customization of Arena match, like ship tier limits, engineered / stock module etc....

 

[Truesilver]

I can think of a cool way to revive CQC: make it so we can import our "main" PvP ships in the Arena. No rebuy cost, and adjusted credit / mats rewards.

Also, add customization of Arena match, like ship tier limits, engineered / stock module etc....

Yeah, whether associated with CQC or just as a Private Group admin thing, what would be sublime would be some really powerful admin tools, eg:

I set up a PG and have a UI that day by day permits me to say (e.g.) OK guys, today your only permitted mods will be to Drives and Distributors, which will be capped at +35 each etc. Corrosive box is checked, healing beam box is unchecked, etc. etc.

This would actually permit events such as the PvP League to have a much more sophisticated ruleset, if for example everyone could turn up with their god rolls but for the purposes of the session be artificially capped at Admin-specified values.

 

[ryan_m]

Yeah, whether associated with CQC or just as a Private Group admin thing, what would be sublime would be some really powerful admin tools, eg:

I set up a PG and have a UI that day by day permits me to say (e.g.) OK guys, today your only permitted mods will be to Drives and Distributors, which will be capped at +35 each etc. Corrosive box is checked, healing beam box is unchecked, etc. etc.

This would actually permit events such as the PvP League to have a much more sophisticated ruleset, if for example everyone could turn up with their god rolls but for the purposes of the session be artificially capped at Admin-specified values.

That would be incredible.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Yeah, whether associated with CQC or just as a Private Group admin thing, what would be sublime would be some really powerful admin tools, eg:

I set up a PG and have a UI that day by day permits me to say (e.g.) OK guys, today your only permitted mods will be to Drives and Distributors, which will be capped at +35 each etc. Corrosive box is checked, healing beam box is unchecked, etc. etc.

This would actually permit events such as the PvP League to have a much more sophisticated ruleset, if for example everyone could turn up with their god rolls but for the purposes of the session be artificially capped at Admin-specified values.

It's a good idea but I think it might break inmersion. Since when CMDRs have control over weapon and module control over a whole system?

 

[sovapid]

It's a good idea but I think it might break inmersion. Since when CMDRs have control over weapon and module control over a whole system?

I get enough immersion to last several lifetimes when I transfer a ship. I'm ok with losing some immersion for these features.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Isn't the PvP its own reward? The challenge, the thrill?

Can't think of many PvP games where there is any sort of in-game reward. Arena games the reward is the win, and maybe some extra virtual points to spend on cosmetics or something. In Ark, the reward is killing the other tribes. Yeah, you can nick their resources, but its not like you can't get those resources most of the time elsewhere and easier. Territory control can come into it i suppose, like with EvE, but that's not really going to work in ED very well as long as territorry control is also affected by PvE activities. And i don't see FD ever changing that.

I think the discussion of PvP rewards (except for some sort of virtual point system - you know, number of PvP kills, or virtual medals) is pretty moot.

Perhaps what PvPers can try and get out of FD is some way of making PvP easier to achieve and less grindy for them.... perhaps some sort of mode or matchmaking system in game, a find an opponent system perhaps. In special areas where no rebuy is incurred. Or at least a better bounty hunting system where wanted CMDRs are found through notifications.

Not sure, just rambling i suppose.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Wow. A self proclaimed forum-dad PvE'er / moderator thinks PvP would be better if it were more like Eve. Item drops from player ships would be a good thing, FDEV, and engineers made PvP too grindy.

Even Agony_Aunt recognizes this, FDEV. Why don't you?

Item drops would be a spectacularly terrible idea, and you are misrepresenting Aggie's post.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I misrepresent nothing, sir. How dare you even suggest the merest hint of the possibility of such a horrible thing ever crossing my mind?

I'm wearing my big boy pants. Makes me fearless.

You must be one of those terrible griefers I keep hearing about.

On the contrary, I'm emerging you in forum content in order to add to your enjoyment.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Big boy pants make everyone fearless. That's why they should be illegal. So much unnecessary violence is attributable to this very thing.

You want me to take them off? Ahhh, I see where this is going!

It's not going to work. My mother always warned me not to take my pants of for strange men. Strange women on the other hand ...

You always make me laugh, Ziggy. Bravo.

[haha][haha][haha][haha][haha]

Mission accomplished. I blame Bran. He puts me in a good mood.

 

[sovapid]

Isn't the PvP its own reward? The challenge, the thrill?

Can't think of many PvP games where there is any sort of in-game reward. Arena games the reward is the win, and maybe some extra virtual points to spend on cosmetics or something. In Ark, the reward is killing the other tribes. Yeah, you can nick their resources, but its not like you can't get those resources most of the time elsewhere and easier. Territory control can come into it i suppose, like with EvE, but that's not really going to work in ED very well as long as territorry control is also affected by PvE activities. And i don't see FD ever changing that.

And I can't think of any games that have pvp that don't give some sort of reward, but you answer/contradict the first statement in the 2nd paragraph. Yeah, at the very least you get loot off of players you kill in any game I can think of. Killing someone who was stacked with gear was quite rewarding in DayZ. And I agree, the forums would go into a meltdown if that happened in Elite.

I have ideas on how it might be able to work in Elite, building on Mongo's posts. If I get time I'll write it up.

That said, yeah, PVP in itself is fun, otherwise no one would do it in Elite.

 

[Chongo]

Item drops would be a spectacularly terrible idea, and you are misrepresenting Aggie's post.

I could be wrong, and I'm admittedly skimming, but I think he was referring to the idea I threw out there which was a single unsellable item we could purchase which would drop on death - the sole purpose would be to play pvp capture the flag with. I could actually entertain a lot of hobos with that for a good long period of time with regard to events.

 

[jasonbarron]

Item drops would be a spectacularly terrible idea, and you are misrepresenting Aggie's post.

Why would it be such a bad idea? I think having a player's ship erupt into a fountain of rare materials & data packets is a fantastic idea; not only would that be really useful and kind of consistent with what happens to NPC's when they pop, it would also put to bed all of the accusations from people crying that they were blown up "for no reason at all!"

It's what I call a "win win" scenario.