PvP Rumination on PvP: What REALLY is the difference between a player and an NPC?

Kethriss

K
A player and an NPC, when in the context of the game, are functionally indistinguishable. When in a combat scenario, they are both hostile entities attempting to kill you. Sure, a player might be more skilled, but there are many NPCs in this game that are cranked up to 11 and can kill you better than the majority of players could.

Why is it that when an NPC interdicts you when you're just trying to trade, it's just a fact of the game and you deal with and ignore it, yet when a player does it, it's "griefing"?
Why is it that when an NPC group attacks you in a HAZ RES and forces you to flee, it's just a challenge you weren't able to overcome, but when it's a group of players, it's "people being jerks"?

Both are functionally the same. You're getting attacked by a hostile entity, whether or not it's a computer or a human controlling the pretend spaceship makes no difference when in the context of the game.

So why then, do people hate PvP so much and yet will happily engage in combat with NPCs even if they have no hope of winning?

Discuss.
 

Bigmaec

Bigmaec
Your third sentence is wrong. There are no NPCs ingame (thargoids excluded) that can kill you better then a player.

If you fly your FdL against an enemy NPC FdL, you should win. Full stop.
If you fly your FdL against an enemy CMDR, you have no idea what happens.

The difference between NPCs and fully engineered CMDR ships is just too big.
Skill makes a difference, Engineering makes a fundamental difference.
 

777Driver

777Driver
No issues with getting interdicted by humans or NPC’s (except the fact that npc’s are guaranteed mindless gankers.

I guess the only difference is npc’s don’t sound like 5yr olds, also don’t stream easy kills whilst flying a ship that says ‘looool’ on the dashboard.

I’d say most people don’t have issues with pirates or power play PvP’ers. It’s just the idiots that give pvp’ers a bad name. Those cmdrs know who they are, and take pleasure out of being anti social...

@Bigmac, have met plenty of PvP’ers that are terrible pilots, Elite Eagles are more of a challenge.
 

Kethriss

K
Bigmaec said:
Your third sentence is wrong. There are no NPCs ingame (thargoids excluded) that can kill you better then a player.

If you fly your FdL against an enemy NPC FdL, you should win. Full stop.
If you fly your FdL against an enemy CMDR, you have no idea what happens.

The difference between NPCs and fully engineered CMDR ships is just too big.
Skill makes a difference, Engineering makes a fundamental difference.
Click to expand...

So the only complaint is the threat of losing? People only complain about PvP because they're angry that it's an actual challenge that they can't beat 100% of the time?

(And NPCs can have engineering too unless frontier recently took them out for some reason, and I'm sorry, but the majority of the playerbase are crap combat pilots)
 

Sylow

Sylow
Hmm... NPCs usually seem to have rhyme and reason for their attack. Also, their communication abilities are vastly superior to many players...
.
 

kofeyh

kofeyh
One is a solid triangle, the other is hollow and the balance of power is asymmetric.

I have often wondered how much better the game would be, if the game did not foolishly call out a player versus NPC. And the amount of power creep was less, whether people would have, after the usual whinging, simply adjusted to the new normal instead and went back to playing the game anyway.

If you didnt know who was NPC or player, would that have created a better outcome? It's a tricky question. There was a beta a while back where that actually happened. Everything was a solid square. I loved it. Because my entire approach to the game changed. It made me more aware and engaged.

I was so sad when it turned out to be a bug. I was hoping it was an improvement. Because it likely would have been.

Ahh well.
 

Faybs

Faybs
When FDev get rid of hollow squares on the scanner, that's when there will be no difference between NPCs and players. Somehow though the average PVPer, who's usually all for equality of the two, thinks that's a terrible idea.
 

Kethriss

K
Sylow said:
Hmm... NPCs usually seem to have rhyme and reason for their attack. Also, their communication abilities are vastly superior to many players...
.
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter what the reason is. It's an entity controlling a pretend spaceship on a screen trying to blow up your pretend spaceship. They are functionally indistinguishable.
 

kofeyh

kofeyh
Faybs said:
When FDev get rid of hollow squares on the scanner, that's when there will be no difference between NPCs and players. Somehow though the average PVPer, who's usually all for equality of the two, thinks that's a terrible idea.
Click to expand...

And PVE people whinged because they couldn't easily identify all the greifers (ie anything not a solid square). So let's assume a few from all walks of game life like to complain and that was a new thing to complain about.

I loved it (this has happened in a beta). Still think it's one of the best things Frontier could do. Primarily because the game uses the same damn ships for NPCs as us so why the heck even draw a distinction.

If we and they weren't so far apart, without the hollow/ solid square, would we even be able to be certain who was whom? That, I think, is a fascinating question.
 
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Kethriss

K
Riverside said:
This is a more interesting question imo.
Click to expand...

An actual answer to this would be:

Because there's prestige in killing another player. If they're good at the game then it's like downing a hard boss. This is still indistinguishable from PvE content, as it's the same reason people post videos killing thargoids.

If they're killing random traders, it's because of the salt factor. NPCs don't whine and scream and post reddit threads threatening to kill people's families and call people rapists. Players do.

So that brings us back around: if you didn't act like Players were functionally different than NPCs, the salt mining ganks wouldn't happen.

So why DO You act like they're different?
 

m0rl0ck

M
Npcs are a joke. I dropped into a mission specific signal source yesterday on a massacre mission to kill pirates. An elite ranked mission.
The signal source contained 6 pirates. That i remember there were 2 fdls and at least one anaconda.
I killed them all no problem. They never even got my shields down.
I was in a federal corvette with engineered shields, fsd and weapons, but no armor or other engineering or special weapons, so i didnt have the kind of engineering that a pvp pilot usually would.
Npcs have no chance against a cmdr with even light engineering.

Your equating of npcs with pvp humans is completely erroneous.
 
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Kethriss

K
m0rl0ck said:
Npcs are a joke. I dropped into a mission specific signal source yesterday on a massacre mission to kill pirates. An elite ranked mission.
The signal source contained 6 pirates. That i remember there were 2 fdls and at least one anaconda.
I killed them all no problem. They never even got my shields down.
I was in a federal corvette with engineered shields, fsd and weapons, but no armor or other engineering or special weapons, so i didnt have the kind of engineering that a pvp pilot usually would.
Npcs have no chance against a cmdr with even light engineering.
Click to expand...

So we're back to the only real reason being given to why PvP is bad and PvNPC is good is because in PvP you might lose and PvNPC you're going to win pretty much 100% of the time.

The only real reason given is difficulty. People want easy wins every single time and don't ever want any sort of challenge to overcome.

That's honestly extremely sad.
 

Screemonster

Screemonster
If I interdict and kill some random NPC ship, NPCs don't get angry about it. NPCs also don't lose any assets or have their time wasted.
 
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