There should be some measures of leniency for players like myself who refrain from killing clean NPC but are bound to make mistakes.
The more I think about this the more inclined I am to agree with those who advocate some sort of two-tier system for NPC and player assaults. Not because it's a great idea in principle; I still think all galactic citizens should be treated equally and that Pilots Federation crimes should be handled by the Karma system. But because, despite some progress on the road to a sensible system, FD continue to make such a cat's dong of the whole C&P system that we need some interim solution until they get their final act together.
Exactly what form this two-tier system might take is complex and no decision will meet with universal approval. Off the top of my head I came up with:
- Adjust the non-linearity curve (see my earlier post) to be more aggressive for player-on-player crime, especially at low Notoriety levels, and more lenient for small numbers of NPC kills.
- Have a two- or three-strikes policy with a cooldown for accidental NPC kills before Notoriety kicks in, but keep it instantaneous for player kills.
- Allow NPC-kill Notoriety to be "paid off" either with a credit donation or by doing a mission for the victim's faction.
This. I don't recall much squeaking about murdering npc's over the years. It was the so-called pvp seal clubbing.
A few years ago there was lots of talk about NPCs being treated the same as players, but a lot of that stemmed from the DDF proposals in which NPCs would have had more persistence and agency. The lack of NPC persistence has diluted this a lot, leading to the perception of them being nothing more than cannon fodder. The structure of the game hasn't helped, with a constant stream of NPCs flying into RES and NAV kill-zones. The tendency for players to see them as "bots to be farmed" is understandable, even if it's one with which I don't personally agree.
Again with bgs comment. Seems when ever someone can't make a legitimate argument they say it hurts the bgs.
He's not wrong, though. It does affect the BGS greatly. It's not something most players will be aware of, but for some people it's a very important facet of the game. Whether he's one of these people, or is just using it as an excuse to shine you on, is for you to decide. But the argument is a legitimate one.
I still believe unless you target and actually kill a ship with your own fire it shouldn't get classed as murder. Tagging them a couple times and then a npc murders them doesn't mean that you murdered them.
It is problematic. If you introduce a blanket rule of "not targeted, no crime" then it opens the door for player-on-player exploits. It's not difficult to deliberately hit a ship you haven't targeted.
On the other hand we do have this silly situation where tagging a clean ship and hanging around the instance gets you a murder rap if the ship is subsequently destroyed, but waking out before it has a chance to go pop gets you off scot-free. It's a consequence of the instanced nature of the game. Maybe this is also something that could form part of a two-tier criminality system, if such a thing was brought in.
- Kill "assists" on NPCs don't count towards Notoriety, but those on players do.
I'm still not a fan of a two-tier system but the more I consider it the more I'm coming to the conclusion that the current edge cases can't be addressed without treating NPCs and players differently, at least as a stopgap until the additional Pilots' Federation (Karma) systems are brought in.
