I like what you did there. Wast: a portmanteau of vast and waste. Was it intentional or just serendipity.
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I like what you did there. Wast: a portmanteau of vast and waste. Was it intentional or just serendipity.
I’m not selling any idea. I just think the way PvP is implemented in ED is realy bad.
If it was any good, more people would do it.
If you consider the context of the whole section you are wrong, it covers all forms of interaction, not just explicit direct communication.
You can try to weasel your way around excuses to make griefing (which does not include verbal/written communication) permitted behaviour but it is not. It is a class of PvP behaviour that clearly falls into the domains of bullying and harassment.
Sure FD may let you gank individuals till the cows come home, but as soon as you cross the line between habitual ganking and griefing don't come crying to the forums when you get your just deserts because people have decided to report you - Assuming shadow banning has any obvious or noticeable effect that is.
Overall though, the terms of the EULA and TOS are moot where the matter at hand is concerned - regardless of whether ganking or griefing (they are different things) are permitted or not, it is the fact that at least some engage in those (or similar) behaviours that is a primary driver behind why at least some of us will probably never engage in PvP in games like ED. Consequently, it is the collective behaviours of (at least some) of current PvPers that is a primary factor in PvP being unpopular in ED.
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PvP is just an enabler not a primary goal in ED. Bounty Hunting and Piracy are probably the main areas that are intended to benefit from PvP being enabled.
I personally think that if you are too focused on PvP in the main environment then you will find it wanting because it is not the primary goal of ED - Unlike the likes of proper Death Match/Team Death Match games. CQC does provide a similar gameplay experience to those games but it seems it is not as popular as some would like it to be.
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After reading through all of this thread, and seeing certain attitudes on the PvP side of things.
I am beginning to realise why PvP is not popular in Elite Dangerous. These are the attitudes of the people that want us to play alongside them?
Oddly the discussion has answered the OP from my perspective at least.
I am beginning to realise why PvP is not popular in Elite Dangerous. These are the attitudes of the people that want us to play alongside them?
Oddly the discussion has answered the OP from my perspective at least.
The same extreme views & condescension come from the fiercely PvE side too, there just aren't many of those players in this thread. I agree with your analysis about the thread title, but it's a loaded question and we don't know how popular it is compared to other playstyles. I would guess there are at least as many players who don't identify with any particular playstyle as there are players who identify with one.
I don't consider myself a combat pilot, a trader or an explorer although I am Elite in all three. I don't consider myself a PvPer but I play in open & take co-op and player antagonism in my stride. Lumping these misfits in with PvP might make PvP the biggest group, we just don't know
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Considering PvP a playstyle in itself is probably part of the problem, PvP in ED is a means to an end not an end in itself. - At least going from my experience with true PvP games and considering relative apparent design decisions in ED.
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The same extreme views & condescension come from the fiercely PvE side too, there just aren't many of those players in this thread. I agree with your analysis about the thread title, but it's a loaded question and we don't know how popular it is compared to other playstyles. I would guess there are at least as many players who don't identify with any particular playstyle as there are players who identify with one.
I don't consider myself a combat pilot, a trader or an explorer although I am Elite in all three. I don't consider myself a PvPer but I play in open & take co-op and player antagonism in my stride. Lumping these misfits in with PvP might make PvP the biggest group, we just don't know
Frontier themselves have stated that the subset of the player base who PvP, is rather small. PvP only seems larger than it is because this minority of player type are very loud squeaky wheels. And how does that proverb go about squeaky wheels...
I totally agree that PvP is a totally engaging pastime if you’re into it, nothing can substitute or mimic the human response good enough. There is always alternatives for those who do not wish to engage. The conflicts arise when you have players not wishing to engage in PvP are in an environment that allows it, then winges and whines that their unshielded T9 was sent to the rebuy screen.
There comes a time when players need to apply common sense ...Elite Dangerous can be harsh , human players even harsher, but I would never ever wish to see the day when PvP is made so accountable and discouraged that no one ever does it.
There comes a time when players need to apply common sense ...Elite Dangerous can be harsh , human players even harsher, but I would never ever wish to see the day when PvP is made so accountable and discouraged that no one ever does it.
I get what you are saying but that depends on how you define PvP, it's a very loose definition that arguably could include every player who ever clicked on 'Open'.
If we define it as players who self-identify as PvPers yes it probably is a relatively low population, and I guess by Frontier's definition (iirc they just said the majority didn't participate in PvP) less than 50% ever have.
While I certainly agree about the squeaky wheel getting the grease that happens across the board & I wouldn't attribute that as a poor trait of 'PvPers' as a group. Right now they are all (sweeping generalisation alert) engineering the biowaste out of their modules to stay competitive in the new engineering system with little complaint, and provide good quality feedback on specific stats that are imbalanced etc.
PvP and Exploration are essentially the only real end-game activities - they are the reason why you earned all that money & did all that engineering. FDev have tended to gloss over what players do after levelling up, focusing almost entirely on the progression part of the game instead. Personally I'm waiting for Atmospheric Landings & maybe getting out of my seat, with much the same tolerant frustration as many here are wanting 'meaningful' PvP.
We are all end-gamers, but whether that's a bigger group than the ones still ranking up is unknown too.
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Yes apparently PvP is a minority in the game. Certainly a relatively loud proportion of the playerbase.
Plus evidently not a popular one because of it, and I suspect the attitude that comes from them.
The OP asked us why PvP is not popular in Elite Dangerous? I believe their comments in this thread go a long way to pointing out why.
Yes but... the game client connectivity mode called Open, isn't "PvP Mode[tm]" - all it means is your game client will try to communicate with other game clients also in that connectivity mode. This means you'll probably encounter all sorts of player types from the Explorer to the Pirate to the Bounty-Hunter to Trader who are playing within the "spirit of the game".
Then there are those who want to purely pit their ship loadout and skills against other players. They either do this within the spirit and context of the game (e.g. they're part of a group who inhabit a star system, and/or participate in Powerplay). This is one subset of PvP.
Then another subset of PvP players: those players whose sole purpose in loading Elite: Dangerous is purely and simply to go head to head against other players, only playing the other parts of the game in order to gain credits and outfit/engineer their ships. This group generally won't blast at other players out of context or if the other player is unwilling, because they prefer fights which present a challenge.
And then there's another subset of PvP players: those whose sole purpose in loading Elite: Dangerous is purely and simply to kill other human players indiscriminately. This is the minority who in my opinion go completely against the "spirit of the game" and treat it like it's Galaxy: CQC instead of Elite: Dangerous. This is the small minority of players who pee in everyone else's cornflakes and are sneering, arrogant, and mocking about it.
Oh I agree with that entirely - all the subsets of PvP players above will all be scrambling to get everything G5 engineered (some will be happy with what they have as some ENG 2.0 in no way match yet the 'god-tier rolled' RNG 1.0 engineered modules/weaponry, but Frontier said they will be tweaking ENG 2.0 to fix anything which doesn't).
This is where I diverge from you
IMO it is a misconception to think there is an end-game in Elite: Dangerous. You can't "win the game" and there is no "end of level boss" to defeat. Building yourself a God Ship only means you have a God Ship. Building an Exploration Ship only means you have an Exploration Ship. Gaining billions of credits only means you have billions of credits. A rabid PvP'er who indiscriminately blows up every other player ship they can encounter, isn't "winning the game" nor are they "playing the end game" - that is only in their mind. It is not in everyone else's mind. A subjective experience, in other words. It doesn't matter if you destroy 1000's of other player ships - you'll never get that You have won the game message because there is none. The ED Galaxy trundles on as before.
So we are not all end-gamers, as there is no such thing as an end game. The phrase "end game" is meaningless in Elite: Dangerous.
Regards o7
If they are a minority how come the whole game is balanced around PvP?
The last update was mainly about PvP (C & P rework) and arguably the less grindy engineers were also developed to have PvP to be more accessible.
It seems to me that the development revolves around "minority" which to me doesnt seem to be a minority at all.
We have mobious PG that was created because of PVP.
Go to any busy area with other cmdrs and in OPEN mode you are guaranteed to have PvP. Guaranteed.
I dont buy the whole "PvP is not popular" cliche, I am involved in PvP 100% of my time playing ED so at least from my prospective it is very popular.
You keep claiming this and you keep being wrong about it. The game is balanced around ships and weapons and defences (as well as the BGS/missions etc. balancing). The game doesn't care if a G5 weapon is being fired by an NPC or a human. Human players are just along for the ride, whether they're PvE or PvP players.
And as a 90% PvE player (yes I do occasionaly PvP and I'm not particularly good at it but oh well
) I welcome the C&P changes because they're doing their primary job which is to give more meaning to criminality and more meaning to those PvE players who want to have careers in criminality.Again, this is delusional thinking. The C&P updates were about fleshing out the rather ineffective old version. The C&P update affects everyone not just PvP players, and you're either very much mistaken about this or are being wilfully ignorant whenever you repeatedly post misinformation here.
Frontier have stated that only a small minority of players do PvP. Now who to believe? Let me think... *a millisecond later*... yeah it's not you
Amen to that. I keep trying to explain to them the problem isn't PvP - it's this ultra-toxic attitude that nobody seems to be willing to face up to. I wouldn't want to have anything to do with these people, their behaviour is repellent in game and out of game.
The whole idea that PvP is an "endgame" activity is very wrong IMHO. It being all that's left that you're interested in absolutely does not make it an endgame activity, just the end of that person's interest. With no leaderboard or high score table to dominate though the players whose mentality is limited to seeking "I am better than you" have to find ways to try and make that so.
I'm going to leave the 'Open = PvP mode' aside, and as far as 'end game' is concerned, I agree it's got a different definition for every player. My definition is that it's the reason why the player earns the money or levels up - it's what they want to actually do once they have obtained the equipment they covet. You also reminded me that BGS manipulation is an end-game activity - an ongoing playstyle with no end. PvP can be a part of that & it can be a justification for PvP as you say.
Needless to say I agree there is no point at which you win or complete the game, you just keep playing until you are bored.
Griefers however. This an important point of contention in this topic. As a rule players don't like to be griefed, the point of doing it is that it will upset other players. It is however a necessary part of the holistic environment, just as mice don't like being hunter by housecats but without any cats there will be too many mice, and with too many cats the wildlife is decimated. There needs to be balance for this, and it's difficult in our position to say whether the balance is right. FDev can see this from their stats, we can't.
Richard A. Bartle has a lot to say about this balance:
http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
Richard A. Bartle said:
Making the Elite ranks relatively meaningless (as has been a long term trend) reduces the number of achievers (I am an achiever).
Adding puzzles & complex interactions like engineers increases the number of explorers (exploring game mechanisms, not just being a tourist as it's commonly defined on this forum)
Not adding social tools doesn't encourage socialisers.
I'd say FDev are generally moving the game in a direction which decreases the number of griefers.
You keep claiming this and you keep being wrong about it. The game is balanced around ships and weapons and defences (as well as the BGS/missions etc. balancing). The game doesn't care if a G5 weapon is being fired by an NPC or a human. Human players are just along for the ride, whether they're PvE or PvP players.
And as a 90% PvE player (yes I do occasionaly PvP and I'm not particularly good at it but oh well
Again, this is delusional thinking. The C&P updates were about fleshing out the rather ineffective old version. The C&P update affects everyone not just PvP players, and you're either very much mistaken about this or are being wilfully ignorant whenever you repeatedly post misinformation here.
Frontier have stated that only a small minority of players do PvP. Now who to believe? Let me think... *a millisecond later*... yeah it's not you
Healing beams and heat cannons were rebalanced only because of PVP.
The latest engineer rework buffed the engineered modules in order to compete with previous god rolls, again, only because of PVP.
The game is in constant rebalance iteration with each update in order not to create an absolute META for PvP.
None of the above points have any meaning in PVE combat, NPCs wont complain that your healing beams are OP etc.
Without pvp to rebalance the damage vs counters this game would be a disgusting power creep giving the player an ultra god mode abilities being unkillable by anything while npcs becoming even a more floor wipe.
That PvPers abuse/hammer everything forcing FD to rebalance doesn't prove that the game is built around PvP - if anything it demonstrates the opposite was done but then PvPers forced the universe to rotate around them again.
Quite a bit of confirmation bias going on there Algomatic
You are pointing out stuff that favours your argument & ignoring stuff that doesn't.- Status