PvP The PvE <-> PvP Rift

[Lateralus]

Very true.

There is a video clip somewhere of DBOBE talking about this and saying the same thing.
However one thing Frontier messed up, they expected players to "police" players.
But didn't really add the tools for player bounty hunters and it's taken 3 years for a C&P system to be added.

So while the role of "murder hobo" is a legit one, Frontier didn't add the surrounding mechanics to make it decent game play or controlled game play.

Yep, tools for bounty-hunting and player policing would be welcomed by most most PvP players I'd imagine... There would be so much scope for emergent gampley.

Sadly Fdev have never seen the value in expanding this area of the game for some unknown reason. Logically I would have thought they would be the first features to go into an mmo space-sim, but what do I know?

I don't think they anticipated bounty cheats, and the wanted playing in solo whenever they were not actively ganking.

These are not really reasons to let that area of the game rot. Also this is where mode-options are a double-edged sword.. Every time you give players more interaction options, you give those options to ALL players, not just the 'good' ones.

No but bounty hunting and piracy are specifically listed as activities in the Frontier blurb. I'm not trying to apply any kind of moral ruleset per se, I do have an issue with a small number of players negatively affecting the experience of others though.

Yes, but it doesn't say anywhere that killing players without cause is illegitimate.

Attacking players who so not stand any chance of fighting back, especially early in their careers is basically just bullying.

It's not bullying until it becomes repeated & targeted harassment of an individual.

Also it is not possible to tell by ranks if a player is an actual noob or not (because only combat rank is displayed).. the only way to really guess is: are they Harmless in a Sidewinder/Hauler in or near Eravate or Eranin? If any of those are no then they cannot be assumed to be new players.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The only reason I can think of to explain this PvP vs PvE dichotomy, is game's lack of decision on what it wants to be.

Arguably, given the fact that PvP (of the direct, in the same instance kind) is entirely optional, Frontier made that decision long ago - as the three game modes / single shared galaxy state design published over five years ago attests plus the fact that no content is limited to Open only.

 

[Kayweg]

To be fair, I don't think FD anticipated much of the issues tied to making an MMO.

Gankers in their fortess of solidude ROFL

I think you are completely right in that they didn't anticipate it, i'll disagree about the "to be fair" part.
To be fair, they really should have, though of course one might argue that nobody is forced into open....granted.

 

[Dural]

Yes, but it doesn't say anywhere that killing players without cause is illegitimate.

It's not bullying until it becomes repeated & targeted harassment of an individual.

Also it is not possible to tell by ranks if a player is an actual noob or not (because only combat rank is displayed).. the only way to really guess is: are they Harmless in a Sidewinder/Hauler in or near Eravate or Eranin? If any of those are no then they are probably not new players.

Right, but it's very unwelcome in certain circumstances or is that a bit too moral for you?

Fairly sure bullying doesn't have to span multiple incidents to be bullying but the behaviour pattern is often repeated. It's simply mistreatment of a vulnerable individual.

OK, so that works out nicely then, it doesn't say you can't kill anyone you want whenever you like and you have no way of knowing if someone is new so you can just carry on the murder spree, good, glad we got that all sorted out...

 

[Stigbob]

These are not really reasons to let that area of the game rot. Also this is where mode-options are a double-edged sword.. Every time you give players more interaction options, you give those options to ALL players, not just the 'good' ones.

FDEV didn't anticipate how routine griefing, exploiting and cheating would be. The "bad-guys" will always just hide or exploit, so where's the point or providing them with anything.

I can't remember the last time I saw an actual PVP bounty hunting video (if ever) that wasn't just salt gathering by attacking some noob who got himself an accidental bounty (plenty of those). Or "speed limit enforcement" trolling, plenty of that.

Actual player on player bounty hunting ?, it only works if people play fair so it'll never be a thing because that's just not how the majority of people play.

 

[sollisb]

1. I know. However, they are either not well engineered or use the wrong mods, because they are still 100% pushovers. I mean player styled G3 to G5 modding. Just keep NPC's hand off setups with 4 moded shield boosters, otherwise people will ask to nerf shield the day after I have yet to see a NPC with G5 armored PP & two MRP's... or an iCourrier moving at 800 speed...

2. My point is that engineering has made 90% of the PvE combats about easier than space invaders...

3. The non-sense ganking NPC "pirates". Having those NPC's with G5 mods would be damn agravating.

4. This is why I argue that we should have bolt-elite NPC's and elite NPC's, marking the fact that one is fully G5 engineered, and the other is not.

5. Indeed, competitive NPC's should be present in places that one can ignore, like SS, missions and hazardous RES.

Adding a simple 'bolt' icon tot he NPC is not enough. You know Fdev, the easiest way the most random way, and it always ends a mess. These 'bolt' NPCs should not be in zones that non-horizon players can go. If they [fdev] sorted that, tehy'd be onto a winner. That way, folks can choose if they want to enter 'new hole in bottom' territory.

The NPCs in HazRez are already competitive to your average G3 build. They shouldn't even be in HazRez. How does a non-horizons player use a HazRez? FDev dropped the ball here. I actually wonder if FDev are playing with the same ball we are at times.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

FDEV didn't anticipate how routine griefing, exploiting and cheating would be. The "bad-guys" will always just hide or exploit, so where's the point or providing them with anything.

This. In real life, there are very severe consequences for killing someone for no reason - at least you are looking at a long time in prison and in some countries they will stretch your neck or (eventually) put a needle in your arm. If you are going to have real world actions unhindered in the game then they need to have real world consequences. Okay maybe not a lethal injection but if you go out ganking for no justification then your ED account is blocked for 15 days on the first offence, 15 weeks on the second offence and third strike - permaban (including any alt accounts). That would be the most effective way to stamp out ganking overnight and arrive at the happy, co-operative universe which was presumably DBOBE's original intent. Give us real NPC enemies to chase (not just the cliched Thargoids) but a new threat which would encourage PvP *co*op* play to counter the threat.

But while the murder-death-kill of fellow players in far less powerful ships remains "emergent" gameplay, many players myself included will remian in PvE and continue to mutter that ED should have been the original SP game we were promised.

 

[Stigbob]

This. In real life, there are very severe consequences for killing someone for no reason - at least you are looking at a long time in prison and in some countries they will stretch your neck or (eventually) put a needle in your arm. If you are going to have real world actions unhindered in the game then they need to have real world consequences. Okay maybe not a lethal injection but if you go out ganking for no justification then your ED account is blocked for 15 days on the first offence, 15 weeks on the second offence and third strike - permaban (including any alt accounts). That would be the most effective way to stamp out ganking overnight and arrive at the happy, co-operative universe which was presumably DBOBE's original intent. Give us real NPC enemies to chase (not just the cliched Thargoids) but a new threat which would encourage PvP *co*op* play to counter the threat.

But while the murder-death-kill of fellow players in far less powerful ships remains "emergent" gameplay, many players myself included will remian in PvE and continue to mutter that ED should have been the original SP game we were promised.

You can't (and shouldn't) ban people for shooting spaceships, anyone who'd rather avoid all that unpleasantness has group and solo already.

I've no objection to PVP.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

You can't (and shouldn't) ban people for shooting spaceships, anyone who'd rather avoid all that unpleasantness has group and solo already.

I've no objection to PVP.

For attacking someone in a smaller weaker ship for no reason, yes.

In a no holds barred game as in real life, just because I could stab someone on the street and take their wallet doesn't mean I could or should. Either that or some form of combat inhibitor needs to be put in place, at the least a victim of ganking does not have to pay a rebuy and spawns back where they were with no loss of mission progress, exploration data etc. Maybe even compensation from the gankers in game account - "I'll haz your super engineered FDL, thank you".

 

[Lateralus]

FDEV didn't anticipate how routine griefing, exploiting and cheating would be. The "bad-guys" will always just hide or exploit, so where's the point or providing them with anything.

Exploiting is not something exclusive to 'baddie' players, the sudden massive spike in player activity on the 'skimmer weekend' is testament to that. So are you saying that players who use solo are hiding? interesting...

I can't remember the last time I saw an actual PVP bounty hunting video (if ever) that wasn't just salt gathering by attacking some noob who got himself an accidental bounty (plenty of those). Or "speed limit enforcement" trolling, plenty of that.

You initially argued that the tools aren't there because of exploiting and griefing, and now you are asking why there are no PvP bounty hunting vids? You are arguing with yourself here..

Actual player on player bounty hunting ?, it only works if people play fair so it'll never be a thing because that's just not how the majority of people play.

Playing fair has nothing to do with the decline in PvP bounty hunting, its simply to do with Fdevs implementation (or lack of) of it. They see bounty hunting as an NPC farming exercise, nothing more.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

The guld of difference between PvE and PvP is quite possibly the biggest factor preventing this game from achieving any amount of balance in the realm of combat. This has been an issue since before horizons, but the massive increase in power afforded by engineering, without a similar increase in power in NPCs, has changed a gap into a chasm. PvE became all about "farming" as many vastly technically inferior ships as quickly as possible, while PvP remained all about killing one (or a very small number of) ship(s). What this leads to is people basically playing two different games. What might seem fine for one person will seem like a mess to another, and vice versa. Mechanics that are of great importance to one person, may be completely irrelevant mysteries to another. Beyond the obvious challenge of balancing things to work in two vastly different environments, this huge gap also drives a wedge into the community. It all comes down to "PvE players vs. PvP players" in discussions, with ridiculous things like someone accusing someone else of being one or the other. It shouldn't be like that. It should just be people discussing COMBAT, not one type or the other, or which one is "better" than the other.

It doesn't need to be like this. If frontier would make a concerted effort to make top-ranking NPCs as close to fully optimized PvP fit ships as possible (and scale all other ranks evenly between that, and "harmless" NPCs remaining like they are), this division could go a way. Yes it would be a mess at first. Yes payouts would need to be adjusted, and cr/hr would be thrown into flux again. But guess what? That's because things are currently not in a good place. This craziness would be a pain, but it would get everyone on the same page. Real productive discussions could take place, with everyone now facing the same challenges and dealing with the same mechanics. Talks could change from "PvP vs. PvE", and instead become, "How can we make the game better?" Will this ever happen? I'm not sure. I tend to be doubtful. FDev has proven themselves to be quite hesitant to upset a given apple, much less the whole apple cart. I can hope, though, and we can all encourage them to take the hard steps that need to be taken.

I know this is (more than) a bit of a rant. I'm just exasperated. I'm tired of all the bickering, and I'm tired of myself and others needing to defend themselves, instead of their ideas. I plan on taking a leave from the forums for an indefinite amount of time. I fully intend to keep playing the game as I enjoy it (despite it's increasingly large amount of unrealized potential). If you feel like chatting, feel free to hit me up there (CMDR Frenotx). I may also still post videos to my youtube channel, since that's kinda fun to do. I need to disengage from the forums for a while, though. It's just too blasted frustrating and disappointing. So celebrate, I guess. You chased off another dirty "PvP player" trying to ruin the game.

Edit: against my better judgment, and against what I told both myself and everyone else in this thread, I came back and looked at this. Jesus Christ. Half this thread is just talking about me being some "PvP player that doesn't understand the game." Good god. While I play in open and occasionally fight players when the moment arises, THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF MY GAMEPLAY IS PVE COMBAT. Half the reason I made this thread was me getting sick of people constantly ACCUSING me of being a PvP player "out to ruin their have" (consider the absurdity of that statement) any time I make a balance suggestion. And yes, making NPC ships just like player ships would be A MESS. But you know what that is? BECAUSE BALANCE IS F'd. The whole point is so that everyone can see that, and all WORK TOGETHER to fix it. Reading the replies to this thus far has completely reaffirmed that I need to make myself stay away for a good while.

As usual I can't rep you more, it's a pity your voice of quality wouldn't get heard, neither in Hawken (when you joined as it was already a revived zombie of a game) but ignoring the fact that you stated you'd be gone fro mthe forums for a while, I still reply:

IMO the gap between PvE and PvP ships isn't that large. For instance I use most of my PvP ships/loadouts for PvE as well. Why? Because the DPS is insane and what the "PvE" ships have in durability and stamina (lasers .. no ammo, etc.) the "PvP" ships have in DPS and burst. I do WAY more damage than a "PvE" loadout and the limited ammo capcity isn't as much of an issue. In a RES I do atleast one million credits for a full ammo load and max. 3 million. However, considering my ammo pool is depleted after 20 minutes this sums up (ignoring refills) to 3m - 9m cr/h ... setting that down to 2.5m - 7.5m cr/h with refilling my ammo pool (alone from RES hunting).
But then again, missions offer a significant higher payout than that and this is where combat isn't the most traditional activity for missions.
So I wouldn't say that there are PvE and PvP ships, there are combat ships, explorer ships, smugglers, haulers, etc.
Sure, half of my fleet is for PvP but I also own a large quantity of passenger, multipurpose, freighters, etc.

But since we are focusing on pure combat my point stands: there is n oreal difference between PvE and PvP ships ... only engineered ones and vanilla ships. That said, I support your idea to engineer NPCs starting from master or dangerous to Elite whereas Elite ranked NPCs equal a fully engineered PvP loadout that is designed to suit its role (if it's a bounty hunter, equip FSD disruptor missiles, if it's a pirate, stack prismatics, if it is a regular terrorist (BGS), go for full killing potential, if it is a hauler, go for stacked prismatics, if it is an explorer, go for low emission loadouts, etc.)

 

[Old Duck]

Well one thing I take away from this and countless other threads is that Frontier does not know how to make a multiplayer game. Look at all the energy they've invested in things CQC, multicrew, winged missions, C&P, Engineers, Power Play (all arguably designed with multiplayer gaming in mind) and yet here we are....

 

[WorldsGreatestForumDad]

Well one thing I take away from this and countless other threads is that Frontier does not know how to make a multiplayer game. Look at all the energy they've invested in things CQC, multicrew, winged missions, C&P, Engineers, Power Play (all arguably designed with multiplayer gaming in mind) and yet here we are....

http://emmascrivener.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Failure.jpg

One awesome thing about this thread. Is the community from all sides is agreeing on something. They may not agree on how it could be done. But there is somewhat of a mutual handshake about objectives and "direct pvp" here.

So thats progress I guess.

 

[Riverside]

One awesome thing about this thread. Is the community from all sides is agreeing on something. They may not agree on how it could be done. But there is somewhat of a mutual handshake about objectives and "direct pvp" here.

So thats progress I guess.

Yep

 

[Stigbob]

Exploiting is not something exclusive to 'baddie' players, the sudden massive spike in player activity on the 'skimmer weekend' is testament to that. So are you saying that players who use solo are hiding? interesting...

Exploiters exist across all modes and playstyles.

Anyone who preys on other players as game content but scuttles off into a different mode to grind the ship/money, clear bounties, do engineering is definitely hiding rather than play with the risks players like themselves present to others. It's a hypocrisy thing, when those same players ask for mode removal it's a blatant hypocrisy thing.

You initially argued that the tools aren't there because of exploiting and griefing, and now you are asking why there are no PvP bounty hunting vids? You are arguing with yourself here..

No I initially argued that the tools don't work. I then used the lack of bounty hunting videos against salt gathering to demonstrate the game has far more murder trolls than actual bad-guys, I'm using the term bad-guy to refer to people who actually play the game as a villain not guys who are bad. I haven't met a real pirate in game in about three years, I think they both left.

Playing fair has nothing to do with the decline in PvP bounty hunting, its simply to do with Fdevs implementation (or lack of) of it. They see bounty hunting as an NPC farming exercise, nothing more.

There are no targets for PVP bounty hunting, someone hanging around a station trying to suicide ram anyone who's speeding is just block fodder.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Step one would be to get NPCs to use the huge list of weapons, modules and others you never see in PG/ Solo giving solo players much more to contend with.

 

[verminstar]

Well one thing I take away from this and countless other threads is that Frontier does not know how to make a multiplayer game. Look at all the energy they've invested in things CQC, multicrew, winged missions, C&P, Engineers, Power Play (all arguably designed with multiplayer gaming in mind) and yet here we are....

http://emmascrivener.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Failure.jpg

The reason being quite simple and it explains much what with there now being a general dumping ground fer hotel california threads. The greatest strength of this game is also its achilles heel...to make pvp more relevant now would require quite literally gutting the entire game design and going back to the foundations. There are some changes that just require too much change to make happen, and the game is what it is now. We are now beyond the point where frontier could make those changes without gutting it down to its roots.

Ergo why they dont discuss it...theres nothing to discuss. They are trying to improve things certainly, but many of the profound changes that many want simply wont happen. Way too much work involved which could destroy what we do have in the process.

Tis a shame that players seem incapable of organising themselves and even policing themselves like many other game communities do...but yer recruitment pool belong to a game populated by single players and lone wolves with squad level being the best anyone can hope fer with the nature of instancing.

Stand back a minute and actually look at the big picture here...frankly Im amazed at what frontier have done with such a severe handicap as instancing...why now ye might actually get a dozen players to be able to play together. Which is a far cry to the scores and even hundreds that some of us are used to in other games where pvp is not only accepted, its standard sorta gameplay fer almost everyone playing.

While here...its much lesser because its been designed this way and to change things now would mean taking it all down and starting again from scratch. How likely is that to happen?

 

[Muetdhiver]

If Tools and structures for PvP Bounty hunting and piracy along with an invective for open trading existed,
I bet it would make PvP a lot more meaningfull and curb (at least partly) the PvP non sense fest we're seeing in
some popular locations. That, and a working karma system.

Problem is that it's nearly impossible to track and collect a player bounty.

open only trading/piracy/BH missions where one become a willing target might be an interesting thing to consider.

Also, policing a system is very, very hard. Did that in the early days of powerplay and the amount of effort to prevent
a few ganks and bad actors was enormous.

 

[Lateralus]

Exploiters exist across all modes and playstyles.

Anyone who preys on other players as game content but scuttles off into a different mode to grind the ship/money, clear bounties, do engineering is definitely hiding rather than play with the risks players like themselves present to others. It's a hypocrisy thing, when those same players ask for mode removal it's a blatant hypocrisy thing.

The subsection of pvp players you are referring to here is relatively small.. I would happily do everything in open if it were the only option, the game would be x1000 better for it. But as the options exist, all players are entitled to use the modes they are presented with, regardless of their playstyle.

No I initially argued that the tools don't work. I then used the lack of bounty hunting videos against salt gathering to demonstrate the game has far more murder trolls than actual bad-guys, I'm using the term bad-guy to refer to people who actually play the game as a villain not guys who are bad.

The only tools to date are Kill-warrant-scanners and system bounty boards, but they are woefully inadequate on their own to find a specific criminal player in a game this size with multiple modes. My suggestion a while back would help here.

If there was an actual system in place to find wanted players, you would see a lot more PvP bounty hunting activity on YouTube and Twitch.

I haven't met a real pirate in game in about three years, I think they both left.

1.0-1.3 was a great time for PvP piracy, but then combat logging started to run riot due to Fdev inaction on the issue... after the first year, most pirates either quit or turned into player killers. We are still out there though..

There are no targets for PVP bounty hunting, someone hanging around a station trying to suicide ram anyone who's speeding is just block fodder.

That happens when you block them all...

 

[The Replicated Man]

I could be wrong, but that just might cause lots of people to quit playing. I'm all for difficult NPCs but that might be a step too far. Would depend on how competent the NPC pilots are.

Well as it stands. A engineered vipermk3 shouldnt be able to take out a NPC Elite Conda with no issue. To engineered ships NPC's are a joke