How Frontier Empowered Gankers, and How to Fix It

[ryan_m]

I generally agree with your view (don't be greedy) but there is little to be learned from a very quick death. More TTK means more time to see what's going on & learn from it situationally as the scenario plays out. Too much TTK leads to complacency I agree.

There's absolutely a balance to it, but those changes severely tilt the balance. If you submit to an interdiction, you have a short cooldown, and then you're out in 15-ish seconds. If those defense modules make TTK 30 seconds for a trading ship, now there is no risk.

The real problem here is that NPCs are no threat at all and allow traders to do their thing without actually having to learn how to survive. They're braindead, don't respond to actual piracy situations properly, don't have competent weapon loadouts, and don't subtarget. If NPCs would attack the way a player attacks, traders wouldn't die in open because they'd be ready.

It makes more sense if you consider solo/PG to be the beginner area and open to be the level 100 area. NPCs should prepare you for the end-game.

 

[Riverside]

There's absolutely a balance to it, but those changes severely tilt the balance. If you submit to an interdiction, you have a short cooldown, and then you're out in 15-ish seconds. If those defense modules make TTK 30 seconds for a trading ship, now there is no risk.

The real problem here is that NPCs are no threat at all and allow traders to do their thing without actually having to learn how to survive. They're braindead, don't respond to actual piracy situations properly, don't have competent weapon loadouts, and don't subtarget. If NPCs would attack the way a player attacks, traders wouldn't die in open because they'd be ready.

It makes more sense if you consider solo/PG to be the beginner area and open to be the level 100 area. NPCs should prepare you for the end-game.

IMO the problem is not that the NPCs are no threat at all, it's that players are too much of a threat. The game is played & enjoyed by many different types of player, not all are here for the challenge of combat & even fewer are specifically looking for PvP.

I agree on the general principles that players need to learn how to survive, but I also believe players need to learn how to get along with others too, and I think that getting along with others (tolerance) is more important than adapting to power creep.

Tolerance goes both ways, it means the capable pilot needs to understand and be prepared to accommodate the less capable, not just have everyone adapt to the way the capable pilots choose to engage.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I don't think that structuring the OP in this manner can be interpreted as a mistake. This is just OP's way of starting a discussion and raising awareness about issues.

I can easily imagine a new thread listing just the issues, followed by a quick series of whitish posts "whine! whine!" followed by swift moderator action titled "ok we've had enough of these" on page 2.

Ok, so FDEV may even acknowledge OP's points as problems and have their own solutions for them. That still doesn't make the thread useless - if there are more of us thinking the same way, and by a glance in this thread, there are, then I welcome those that stand up together and say: "look Frontier, we care less about your Krait and whatever other Q2 tomfoolery you have lying around, we care more about these issues which make the game unplayable for some of us!".

Maybe there is no solution. Maybe it was a bad idea to throw the sharks into the same bucket with the trouts to start with. SP interests and MP simply don't mix well. Or coop interest and competitive ones.

 

[ryan_m]

IMO the problem is not that the NPCs are no threat at all, it's that players are too much of a threat. The game is played & enjoyed by many different types of player, not all are here for the challenge of combat & even fewer are specifically looking for PvP.

I agree on the general principles that players need to learn how to survive, but I also believe players need to learn how to get along with others too, and I think that getting along with others (tolerance) is more important than adapting to power creep.

Tolerance goes both ways, it means the capable pilot needs to understand and be prepared to accommodate the less capable, not just have everyone adapt to the way the capable pilots choose to engage.

The power creep has gone in the opposite direction, though. With engineering, it is trivial to create an unkillable ship. Here's a T6 that is essentially ungankable. Players aren't too much of a threat, because with 5 engineered modules only, you now cannot be killed in open if you submit to your interdiction and high wake away. For reference, a meta PvP FDL has around 500mj of shields. The problem here is that many traders just want to trade and don't want to make their ships survivable, they put on a 2D shield so they don't have to pay hull repair costs when they mess up their landing.

If you are not OK with the potential of PvP, open is not for you. Full stop. Play in solo or PG if you want guaranteed safety from other players. It is not my responsibility to make sure that you are prepared for the risks of open, it's yours. There are dozens of reasons for shooting at someone in open, and it's your job to be able to defend yourself.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The power creep has gone in the opposite direction, though. With engineering, it is trivial to create an unkillable ship. Here's a T6 that is essentially ungankable. Players aren't too much of a threat, because with 5 engineered modules only, you now cannot be killed in open if you submit to your interdiction and high wake away. For reference, a meta PvP FDL has around 500mj of shields. The problem here is that many traders just want to trade and don't want to make their ships survivable, they put on a 2D shield so they don't have to pay hull repair costs when they mess up their landing.

If you are not OK with the potential of PvP, open is not for you. Full stop. Play in solo or PG if you want guaranteed safety from other players. It is not my responsibility to make sure that you are prepared for the risks of open, it's yours. There are dozens of reasons for shooting at someone in open, and it's your job to be able to defend yourself.

It's not trivial when you basically start out with engineers.

 

[ryan_m]

It's not trivial when you basically start out with engineers.

If you're at that point in your game, accept the risk or don't come into open. Again, it's not my job to make sure you're safe, it's your job. If you don't think you can build a survivable ship, go to a different area until you can or don't play in open.

 

[Herbrand]

I quite like that, I had a broadly similar idea but for shields a while back:

Stronger Shields if Hardpoints are not Deployed

Absolutely brilliant idea! Why didn't they think of that?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

If you're at that point in your game, accept the risk or don't come into open. Again, it's not my job to make sure you're safe, it's your job. If you don't think you can build a survivable ship, go to a different area until you can or don't play in open.

A game is not a job.

 

[NeilF]

Absolutely agreed some serious balance issues have been introduced and ignored over the past couple of years... And I'm looking mainly at you Engineers!

The notion of having a "most wanted" table? Do we really want a league table of who can be the most toxic? Really?



I would raise my general issue with the new C&P (notoriety system). It's too rigid and basically ineffective:-
1) Notoriety should increase with each illegal destruction.
2) It should decay over days not hours. There should be no other way to affect it.
3) Once it reaches a certain level, penalties (via the Pilots Federation) should start to be applied, ramping up in scale/quantity. BUT, a few periodic rare illegal destructions should go basically unnoticed! But do it habitually and significant penalties will be applied. eg:-

• More and more stations denying you docking.
• More and more systems denying you permits
• At a certain level a Pilots Federation bounty will be applied to you making you "legal game" for anyone/everyone.
• At a certain level you will be highlighted to all as a known psycho.
• If you destroying lots of CMDRs illegally in OPEN, then you can only play in OPEN while you have a high Notoriety? (ie: SOLO/GROUP is not permitted).
• etc

And personally I think non-government/non-population ("exploration") systems should not be Anarchy systems, and therefore C&P should apply there too - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...tem)-to-rein-in-ganking-All-via-a-tiny-change

 

[ryan_m]

A game is not a job.

It's a figure of speech.

 

[PeLucheuh]

It's not trivial when you basically start out with engineers.

Well it is part of the learning process of the game.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Well it is part of the learning process of the game.

Grinding engineers is now a learning process? That's a new one. Still not buying it. Cos it's not. It's crap gameplay for needless power creep.

 

[Julio Montega]

Grinding engineers is now a learning process? That's a new one. Still not buying it. Cos it's not. It's crap gameplay for needless power creep.

Why sadly allows for some interesting customization options?

 

[ryan_m]

Grinding engineers is now a learning process? That's a new one. Still not buying it. Cos it's not. It's crap gameplay for needless power creep.

Alright man, keep arguing for the removal of Engineers. That is surely a battle you will win.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Alright man, keep arguing for the removal of Engineers. That is surely a battle you will win.

No need to remove the engineers, those juicy sweet milk dispensers players love to suckle at - could just as well remove the entry barrier entirely, so all can play with a power crutch equally again.

 

[Riverside]

Just want to say there are a lot of good points on both sides in this discussion, it's good to see some well articulated views from all angles rather than just petty sniping.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Why sadly allows for some interesting customization options?

Sadly? I sadly expected engineers would be all about customisation once. Hull stuff. Laser colours. Decals.

 

[PeLucheuh]

Grinding engineers is now a learning process? That's a new one. Still not buying it. Cos it's not. It's crap gameplay for needless power creep.

Are you telling me that you already knew where/how to farm stuff or unlock engineers and what you can do with mods before starting engineer and learning it ? much wow...

So yeah, once you learn how engineering works, it is trivial to create an unkillable ship.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Are you telling me that you already knew where/how to farm stuff or unlock engineers and what you can do with mods before starting engineer and learning it ? much wow...

So yeah, once you learn how engineering works, it is trivial to create an unkillable ship.

Ain't got no time for faffing around with "look it up on 3rd party sites" for this brainless grind activity.

 

[Han Zulu]

I'll be going in roughly chronological order, detailing the design decisions and changes that have given gankers more power. Obviously completely eliminating the problem is no easy task, but these issues have made ganking far easier and more practical.
...

Good ideas, and a good description of the problem as well.