Beyond C&P - Must admit I'm slightly concerned about PvP piracy outcome

[Rafe Zetter]

It is fun

I need no other reason.

BUT ARE YOU MAKING ANY MONEY AT IT? Real money, the kind that buys ships money, not beer money.

So - it seems YOU are truly the one that is clueless as to the underlying argument and reasons for why piracy NEEDS A MAJOR OVERHAUL, in all areas.

You do it because you are rich, don't need the money and like mining salt for no other reason than because you can.

Other players would like to be pirates for actual RP GAME PLAY reasons as a legitimate MONEY MAKING PROFESSION and this is where the whole situation falls over.

 

[Urbanezqmo]

It might make Anarchy dangerous at last, catching up with where we were in the original game all those decades ago !

Agreed, I used like the fact Anarchy system were very dangerous places (depending on your ship and skill) in the original Elite, I liked having to try to 'tip toe' through these systems when starting out in the game. Sounds good to me [up]

 

[Marra Morgan]

Cite your reasons, otherwise it looks like you've just said the above in the manner of "you don't know what you are talking about" - right before flouncing off.

The well recognised tactic of someone who's lost an arguement, but doesn't have the courage to admit it.

He says there is no such thing a crime.

There blatantly is. They are there in the game.

He says that there are no real consequences.

He has obviously never tried a diamond heist with a 6-day PF bounty on his head.

He says there is no PvP piracy in the game.

Has my ED experience been a 3 year hallucination?

Maybe you and Mr Litchfrost should get some Cobra MkIIIs and go pirating at a CG for a week. Then you might have some credibility in your opinions on piracy.

 

[Lateralus]

Yes, the threat of death.
But if you ever follow through on that threat, then you don't get to rob that victim again - either because they are dead (RL) or because they might move to a PG or Solo or block you (E: D).

The idea is to make them think they'll lose less by complying.
If you can't make them believe that without shooting, then you've already lost the engagement.

Letting your trader escape is the worst possible outcome for a PvP pirate, as they will no doubt spread word of your ineptitude on social media or local comms.

The game does not support disabling ships that well either, so killing is often the only recourse to avoid looking incompetent.

Here's how most piracy interactions go:

• The trader immediately boosts and refuses to respond to comms, is then destroyed (no profit) : Likelihood = 25%
• The trader immediately boosts and refuses to respond to comms, logs out or kills process (no profit) : Likelihood = 25%
• The trader acknowledges your demands and drops cargo (profit yay) : Likelihood 10%
• The trader immediately boosts and refuses to respond to comms, and is then prevented from jumping (module sniped or Grom'd). Surrenders cargo at that point (profit yay) : Likelihood 10%
• The trader immediately boosts and refuses to respond to comms, is hatch broken for scraps which mostly deinstance due to chase speeds (minor profit) : Likelihood 10%
• A gank wing drops in on the wake and disrupts the robbery (no profit) : Likelihood 10%
• The trader immediately boosts and refuses to respond to comms, escapes (no profit) : Likelihood 5%
• The trader opens fire on the pirate and is destroyed (no profit) : Likelihood 5%
• An NPC pirate drops in on the wake and kills the trader before you can rob them (no profit) : Likelihood 5%
• The trader opens fire on the pirate and either kills pirate or forces a retreat (no profit) : Likelihood <1%
• [Bonus] angry rebuy trader sends you a friend request to give you a ticking off in comms : Likelihood 50% [haha]

 

[Ouberos]

BUT ARE YOU MAKING ANY MONEY AT IT?

piracy NEEDS A MAJOR OVERHAUL,

You do it because you are rich, don't need the money and like mining salt for no other reason than because you can.

Other players would like to be pirates for actual RP GAME PLAY reasons

PvE Piracy yes. PvP Piracy no.

Piracy doesnt need an overhaul it just needs bugs which have been reported over many years fixing. Clogging needs an overhaul.

Marra already said we do it for fun. That is why I play video games too.

Being an RP pirate sort of suggests money isn't the issue.

 

[CMDR-AD]

He says there is no PvP piracy in the game.

Has my ED experience been a 3 year hallucination?

Maybe you and Mr Litchfrost should get some Cobra MkIIIs and go pirating at a CG for a week. Then you might have some credibility in your opinions on piracy.

While these things are possible, and do happen in Elite... It's the actual gameplay career viability that I have always seriously doubted.

Going with the Cobra MkIII example, mine cost about $9 million to spec for my needs. I don't do piracy in it, but the build is not far off from what I'd spec for the role. Based on my own and my friends PvP experiences, I never would have imagined being able to earn back the cost of my ship via PvP piracy in any realistic span of time, at least as compared to other career paths.

Have you been able to successfully pirate $9+ million from PvP during a standard week long CG?

 

[DaveB]

Let's turn all this on its head for a minute and ask ourselves why do ED players play as pirates?

It isn't because of the credits. Traders, explorers even miners make much more money than they do. You can out-earn a pirate by PvE bounty-hunting or haunting a CZ with ease.
It isn't for progress towards Elite rank - They are neither making the credits to progress speedily in trade rank nor collecting the stellar data for exploration rank. Making any credits at all requires them to not kill their victims so combat rank is going to be slow at best too.
Their upticks in faction rep will be primarily with criminal factions.
Piracy affords no progress in either fleet rank to unlock ships.
Piracy is ineffective in gaining pp rank for any of those shinies either.

So why do they do it?

For the Yohohos and giggles.

They do it because they want to be pirates and they are rewarded by being pirates!

This being the case, the proposed enhancements to C&P should surely be welcomed? As pirates you are about to get the best persistence around your individual gameplay in the ED universe. You'll have to keep an eye on which set of cops has seen which ship before, you've got to deal under the radar in any law abiding system, getting a "name" as a pirate will progressively make the more secure areas of the galaxy quite dangerous places to hang out in. More immersion, more challenging gameplay and more persistence. All this stuff that hitherto you had to "use your imagination" for, to justify why you based yourself around low-sec and anarchy systems or why your particular BGS interests were focused around criminal factions will now be IN THE GAME. And you STILL get to enjoy "being a pirate"

 

[bigity]

This!

We've heard the Stick, now where is the Carrot?

Soon. No promises, no deadlines, no guarantees.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…
I'm all up for consequences, and I suspect most people (except murder-hobos) are. So let's just discuss was useful/meaningful/fair consequences are best?
…

I want consequences that make the decision to become a criminal meaningful and force me to change the way I play and making me think about how I can achieve what I want to do.

Doing something that the game says is "illegal" without treating it as a crime is pointless for me. NPC security, bounties and maybe NPC bounty hunters are no real consequences for me. I can dock in any station I want without trouble (ok, without real trouble).

Player bounty hunters would be something, but currently it's quite easy to avoid other players (without switching mode or combat logging, just to be clear).
PF bounties are a step in the right direction.
Station services not available for criminals, as in 3.0, is good - but not enough, in my opinion. A "criminal" can still dock at stations controlled by the faction that issued the bounty.
That tactical response NPCs might be something, we will see how good those are.


What I would want, but I don't expect it to happen, would be game mechanics that put me in a situation where I have to decide between becoming a criminal and doing something I might not want to do to become clean again.
Gameplay that rewards for being a criminal, but makes legal gameplay close to impossible.
Anarchy systems could offer very high prices for all goods (because no legal trader goes there and only criminals support the economy of that faction), but for that the consequences for being a criminal need to be very harsh and restrictive to push players into that direction.
Otherwise they would just sell the illegal cargo wherever they want.

Wanting to be a "criminal" while having all the access and options a "clean" CMDR has is wanting to be a criminal without consequences - in my opinion.
Wanting to pirate ships at a CG system and then contributing to that CG is not wanting consequences - in my opinion.

I do understand that RPing a criminal is fun. I think adding more and harsher consequences that restrict the options for the player is more fun, than just flying around with a "wanted" tag and having all the options someone has without being wanted.

 

[Jukelo]

@OP: the coming changes might be beneficial to the experience of piracy as, hopefully, we will be forced to rely a lot more on anarchies, adding some much needed depth to the game IMO.
Of course these changes will also reduce profit until Frontier gets around to throwing us a bone, but that's nothing we pirates aren't used to. Piracy has always had the highest skill floor (not that it's saying much in the context of ED) with some of the lowest rewards. Still I'll take a more challenging, more interesting game even if I'm not being showered with millions of credits for merely undocking and flying out of the airlock succesfully like most other activities.

Of course it wont fix the combat logging issue which before anything else prevents PVP piracy from being a thing at all.

Making the wanton destruction of another human pilot a serious offense is long, long, long, long, long, long overdue.

Although there is some truth there,

No longer being able to simply and quite easily BLOW UP their victim to obtain their cargo sounds like a definite step in the right direction.

I have to wonder what your experience of piracy in ED is, since ships have never left cargo behind after being destroyed. Succesful piracy has never involved blowing up the victim.

 

[NeilF]

Let's turn all this on its head for a minute and ask ourselves why do ED players play as pirates?

It isn't because of the credits. Traders, explorers even miners make much more money than they do. You can out-earn a pirate by PvE bounty-hunting or haunting a CZ with ease.
It isn't for progress towards Elite rank - They are neither making the credits to progress speedily in trade rank nor collecting the stellar data for exploration rank. Making any credits at all requires them to not kill their victims so combat rank is going to be slow at best too.
Their upticks in faction rep will be primarily with criminal factions.
Piracy affords no progress in either fleet rank to unlock ships.
Piracy is ineffective in gaining pp rank for any of those shinies either.

So why do they do it?

For the Yohohos and giggles.

They do it because they want to be pirates and they are rewarded by being pirates!

This being the case, the proposed enhancements to C&P should surely be welcomed? As pirates you are about to get the best persistence around your individual gameplay in the ED universe. You'll have to keep an eye on which set of cops has seen which ship before, you've got to deal under the radar in any law abiding system, getting a "name" as a pirate will progressively make the more secure areas of the galaxy quite dangerous places to hang out in. More immersion, more challenging gameplay and more persistence. All this stuff that hitherto you had to "use your imagination" for, to justify why you based yourself around low-sec and anarchy systems or why your particular BGS interests were focused around criminal factions will now be IN THE GAME. And you STILL get to enjoy "being a pirate"

Yes and no?

Yes player perform piracy for the gameplay experience, but certainly not the money, as there is precious little of it to be made from the mechanics. And some of the mechanics are just clunky and indeed have got worse IMHO over the years - The Hatch Breaker now going through shields was a poor choice. You should instead have to reduce the victims shields say down to 50% (2 bars) before the Hatch Breaker will lock.


As for the proposed enhancements being welcomed? Yes and no?

It'll be nice murder-hobos are finally being tracked/penalised. But TBH there's precious little in these changes that improves piracy as such? A few things cause more faff such as having to go to other system to repair/reammo, but that's fair enough.

TBH, until the game more pro-actively orchestrates PvP in OPEN, with the BGS and game mechanics for example more actively pushing traders and pirates into a small number of locations (hot spots), and gives pirates some mechanics to actually make more CRs, the game will only be a shadow of what it could by IMHO. eg: The BGS and missions push traders and pirates into a few systems. Specifically pirates with higher reputations get missions to steal specific cargo from traders for higher reward etc.

 

[bigity]

What? Hatchbreakers ignore shields? That’s just about the dumbest change ever?

Welcome to months and months ago.

 

[bigity]

Yes, the threat of death.
But if you ever follow through on that threat, then you don't get to rob that victim again - either because they are dead (RL) or because they might move to a PG or Solo or block you (E: D).

The idea is to make them think they'll lose less by complying.
If you can't make them believe that without shooting, then you've already lost the engagement.

Nobody will ever believe that as long as clogging remains. Menu driven or otherwise.

 

[Siobhan]

Nobody will ever believe that as long as clogging remains. Menu driven or otherwise.

Then what's the point? You'll never win.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Its been said to death, but piracy is impossible because people have the choice to evade it in Solo / PG, and log legally or not. Its impossible to corner someone in ED to the point where they have to comply.

 

[bigity]

- Pirate are the worst scum in the universe, evil criminal.
- It's the players choice to be a criminal.
- this is not a Disney theme park ride called "Pirates of the Caribbean" or a fantasy movie made from that (even in that move pirates face worse consequences than pirates in this game)

Pirates are criminals and now get treated in a way that might indicate that they are criminals and that could potentially cause mild inconveniences.

Currently there are no criminals in this galaxy, crime is meaningless as it has absolutely zero consequences. Why should anybody pirate, smuggle or do kill ships of evil oppressing factions if nothing happens?

Today smuggles are traders that fly fast or use silent running because it's fun.
Pirates are traders that simply too dumb to just buy that stuff they want to trade.
…

You might want to take a deep breath and realize this is a forum dedicated to a make believe game.

Its been said to death, but piracy is impossible because people have the choice to evade it in Solo / PG, and log legally or not. Its impossible to corner someone in ED to the point where they have to comply.

Without threats of destruction - if you can manage it quickly enough.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

I don't see the issues, C&P should restrict this only in the faction where the crime is related to. So all the services should be still avialable at different faction or anarchy system stations.

if thats not possible, the new C&P is horribyl designed. Pirating and worse killign should elad to serious consequences in the systems and their faction they do it, so that pirates have to choose wisely where to pirate and where to sell their stuff and havign retreat in reach. this woudl also naturally make them stay at faction edge systems instead of hunting deep in the core systems which should have high security and free of pirating.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

You might want to take a deep breath and realize this is a forum dedicated to a make believe game.

…

I know and I want this game to make it easier to "make believe".

I mean we get blow up for being slow at docking, but wanted CMDRs can dock at stations without that much problems? Makes it hard to keep that immersion.

 

[Rampant]

errr piracy is robbery with threat of death.

without the death bit you are a space begger.

Errrrr, no.

Piracy implicitly involves a threat of *some kind*, but that need not necessarily be death.

Anyone who explicitly states piracy must necessarily involve threat of destruction is being disingenuous.


How about a pirate uses some actual *skill* to disable a ship and leave it with badly beaten up and nigh-on dead-in-the-water with cargo hatch shot dead. Get cargo that way??? Victim then needs to re-boot if possible and incur repair costs. Time penalty for victim would also be a financial loss instead of time spent on the trading route...

Or is that just not what pirate players want? A game that is challenging and tests some skill and the payout is actually proportional to the skill involved? - that to me would seem to be a more appropriate gameplay reward. Bu, hey, I guess that some (so-called) pirates aren't really interested in such gameplay and would rather their target gives them some "justification" for destruction...

Yours Aye

Mark H

 

[Siobhan]

I don't see the issues, C&P should restrict this only in the faction where the crime is related to. So all the services should be still avialable at different faction or anarchy system stations.

if thats not possible, the new C&P is horribyl designed. Pirating and worse killign should elad to serious consequences in the systems and their faction they do it, so that pirates have to choose wisely where to pirate and where to sell their stuff and havign retreat in reach. this woudl also naturally make them stay at faction edge systems instead of hunting deep in the core systems which should have high security and free of pirating.

You're forgetting about reputation.
If you get infamous enough, other factions will not want you either... or they will if they like the idea of you pirating the other...

Basically, your reputation in a neighbouring faction will depend on the relationship between the factions. Get bad enough and you may find yourself on a "no-fly list" where you can't even go through their space without consequences. If the faction that does that is one or more of the superpowers then...