DeletedUser191218
D
Cool story bro
In what way is griefing a good thing to have in a game?
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Cool story bro
Ever have an NPC assassin wake up his or her intended victim to explain why they were having their throat slit?
Ever dock experience points from a player whose character didn't explain to the BBEG's minions why they were about to be bathed in magical fire?
I'd imagine anyone with any sense at all would understand how keeping one's mouth shut would often better serve their interests, especially someone with experience in table top RPGs. Even if you were running or playing in an over the top campaign filled with tropes, surely you'd realize those tropes as implausible and that such behavior would neither be conducive to survival nor make for believable characters in a more gritty setting, such as say...the universe of Elite?
I have never had my CMDR do anything with the goal of inflicting misery on another player.
My CMDR always has his reasons, always ones I consider damn good, and probably even one's you'd consider good, for what he does. However, he feels exactly zero incentive to resort to words when action would serve his interests better.
Lack of communication of motive doesn't even begin to imply lack of motive, which is the nonsense you've implied.
I have utterly no idea how you came to the conclusion that I was engaging in, defending, or referring to such as roleplay.
You are making the wild presumption that anyone who doesn't have their CMDR pontificate about their motives for engaging in an asymmetric encounter with another CMDR must be engaging in that encounter to irk the player of that other CMDR. You are ignoring a vast spectrum of possibility in favor of your own narrow and paranoid assessment of other's rationales. I don't know why you would jump to these conclusions, or why you'd never given anyone the benefit of the doubt, but if you cannot see how silence best serves an individual, and by extension, a character, then you are beyond hope.
When my character defends himself, his interests, or takes revenge for harm done to him, he doesn't feel the need to tell the other party why he's doing what he's doing any more than I would. Indeed, the only people that do this are attention seekers and fools. Since I'm not playing a fool, my character would rather spend his time engaging in action conducive to his profit or survival than waxing poetic.
I can show you plenty of actual examples to the contrary (Woo Bum-kon, the Akihabara massacre, the Hungerford massacre, dozens of other examples that have made it into the media). Frustrated, nihilistic people, who believe they have been wronged by society, or humanity, at large may have motive to kill anyone and everyone within reach.
Regardless, this is neither here nor there. Most CMDR on CMDR violence, even completely lopsided encounters, in Elite: Dangerous have no resemblance to the situations you've been using as a exemplars. There is usually motive, you just never cared to look.
Welcome to my ignore list, destination of all who presume to know my thoughts better than I, or who think they can dictate the nature of my motivations to me.
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DeletedUser191218
D
Mike drop moment right here. It's fine to debate the benefit of changing the current system. But arguing the current system can't be changed because the current system exists as the current system....well that's just ridiculous. It's also a VERY common line of argument round here
It is Frontier's issue to solve because they 'police' their own game, they create the gameplay compromises available to players. In this case the policing is laughably inadequate/trivial (compared to say Fallout) and the gameplay compromise is 'guns v butter' aka the more cargo you carry the fewer shield cell banks you can have. This was there from the day the game was released. Who thought this trade-off was a good idea? Where a trade Cutter has literally zero chance against a non trade Cutter (neither engineered even).
You cannot escape a fully engineered death machine because of things like FSD interrupt missiles (yes, we all know about 250m/s etc), double shot screening frags, superpenetrator rails, ion disrupters etc. That's before we even get to the minor issue of most gankers operating in wings of 4 ships each armed with these. Even if you do escape, this is not a solution to the problem - you were trying to go to system A for engineering, mission, racing etc and now can't. You're now in rando system B, with enough fuel for one more go at system A which is futile because nothing will have changed and again your best outcome will be a high wake. This is spun by the ganker apologists as 'winning' or 'the panacea to ganking'
You understand wrongly; at least, based on my discussions with other PvPers who have been very kindly assisting me in outfitting "survivable" ships.
The builds are always engineered (and the person assisting was saying how much of a challenge my build was based on the relatively few Engineers I've unlocked so far).
They always contain an excessive (for a general-purpose ship) amount of defensive equipment.
Things such as removing defensive module stacking (to allow for more free modules for other purposes) and reducing weapon power to suit would help as you'd no longer have the excessive disparity between a full offensive ship and a general purpose defensive ship.
Currently full offence requires full (or nearly so) defence, which leaves little to no slots left over unless flying one of the big ships.
Anyway; circular discussion. Time to head home, enjoy a coldie, and fire up the beta.
There's a word for that. 'pwned'.
Are you a gamer or not? If so you don't need to define it, the gaming definition of what counts as griefing is rather common knowledge existign sicne over a decade already. No reason trying to create a mist about it's definition.
Heh, you'd think so.
Define gamer.
'Common knowledge' is highly subjective, and the behavior frequently implied or even flatly stated to be 'griefing' is often nothing of the sort, or depends on context that is absent from the situations in question.
Such 'mist' is precisely what I'm trying to dispel.
DeletedUser191218
D
If you're going to insist that we define every common term this could take time. Most people know what we're talking about when we refer to griefing.
I prefer the term asymmetrical PvP myself.
Is it good for this game? Personally I don't think it is. I don't have to read some essay about multiplayer game theory or over-analyse E: D's features to draw that conclusion. I can just take a look at the state of the game: ever since it has been exacerbated by you-know-what-feature, I saw less and less people to play with in Open, a player block feature?!? being used extensively, a lot of resentment on the forums and uncivilized arguments between players whose opinions I had otherwise ended up appreciating in other topics.
Meh.
Is it good for this game? Personally I don't think it is. I don't have to read some essay about multiplayer game theory or over-analyse E: D's features to draw that conclusion. I can just take a look at the state of the game: ever since it has been exacerbated by you-know-what-feature, I saw less and less people to play with in Open, a player block feature?!? being used extensively, a lot of resentment on the forums and uncivilized arguments between players whose opinions I had otherwise ended up appreciating in other topics.
Meh.
One look through this thread, or any of the others on the topic, is enough to demonstrate that this is not the case. Everyone seems to have their own definition, with varying degrees of overlap.
Even when a definition is settled on, whether or not 'griefing' actually occurred is contingent on intent and provenance that are often not clear.
Asymmetrical PvP rarely implies griefing, even going by some definitions of the latter that I'd consider unreasonably loose/broad.
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Opens popularity is directly related to the things that happen there which can be a problem, the block function is part of the solution as it provides people with alternatives (other than mode choice) to just noping out of open altogether.
Deleted member 182079
D
I've got ganked by a Clipper/Cutter wing (pledged to Hudson lol) this weekend, playing the BETA, at Founders World (where else!).
My D rated, barely engineered Keelback that I quickly built on a whim specifically to test the new exploration gameplay didn't stand a chance, and I didn't even bother trying to escape or put up a fight; the encounter was so unbalanced (both in terms of gear and skill) I realised I had no chance and it was better to wait for the rebuy screen. I did however, against my better judgement, go back out in my Railwinder after respawning at Jameson's, in order to... I don't really know what exactly haha. Suffice to say I didn't last long at all (a couple of rams did the trick) but I was at least able to identify the other wing member who I didn't notice the first time around, so it wasn't for nothing.
And yes, I'd agree this is all valid gameplay, but not gameplay I particularly enjoy, so the consequence was that I blocked both players, as I could not see any sensible reason why they would do this in the beta client (do it on the live servers and I could see several reasons why they'd do it, PP just being one example - I'd probably still block them though as ganging up on a weaker ship is poor form in my book).
I find these experiences (of which I had maybe half a dozen so far) comparable to taking out the trash IRL - it's not particularly fun but once it's done the place feels nicer again and you won't have to put up with it for another while. And in the end, it was them two players who lost - namely in another player (me) not engaging in them again in-game. They might not even notice it but I certainly do (in a positive way). And I will still be able to play the game in Open and engage with other, more pleasant players online, rather than go nukular and switch to Solo.
And just to provide another, more positive example for balance:
Same Keelback, same system (Shin Dhez), also Beta: Parked the ship facing away from the star, in order to find a specific object I heard rumours of. While I was eyeing up the FSS, a DB Scout interdicted me and opened fire straightaway. I didn't fight back, just typed something like "oh go on then at least saves me the commute back to base", upon which he stopped. Turns out he saw my ship appearing as a hollow triangle and thought I was up for combat. We chatted a bit (until useless System Security showed up) and I learned that I need to park a bit closer to the star to avoid interdictions there. Didn't block the player and we parted ways with a friendly o7.
TL;DR: the block function exists, is easy to use and works. I have several players (maybe just over a dozen?) on it and haven't run into them since, but can still play in my preferred game mode.
My D rated, barely engineered Keelback that I quickly built on a whim specifically to test the new exploration gameplay didn't stand a chance, and I didn't even bother trying to escape or put up a fight; the encounter was so unbalanced (both in terms of gear and skill) I realised I had no chance and it was better to wait for the rebuy screen. I did however, against my better judgement, go back out in my Railwinder after respawning at Jameson's, in order to... I don't really know what exactly haha. Suffice to say I didn't last long at all (a couple of rams did the trick) but I was at least able to identify the other wing member who I didn't notice the first time around, so it wasn't for nothing.
And yes, I'd agree this is all valid gameplay, but not gameplay I particularly enjoy, so the consequence was that I blocked both players, as I could not see any sensible reason why they would do this in the beta client (do it on the live servers and I could see several reasons why they'd do it, PP just being one example - I'd probably still block them though as ganging up on a weaker ship is poor form in my book).
I find these experiences (of which I had maybe half a dozen so far) comparable to taking out the trash IRL - it's not particularly fun but once it's done the place feels nicer again and you won't have to put up with it for another while. And in the end, it was them two players who lost - namely in another player (me) not engaging in them again in-game. They might not even notice it but I certainly do (in a positive way). And I will still be able to play the game in Open and engage with other, more pleasant players online, rather than go nukular and switch to Solo.
And just to provide another, more positive example for balance:
Same Keelback, same system (Shin Dhez), also Beta: Parked the ship facing away from the star, in order to find a specific object I heard rumours of. While I was eyeing up the FSS, a DB Scout interdicted me and opened fire straightaway. I didn't fight back, just typed something like "oh go on then at least saves me the commute back to base", upon which he stopped. Turns out he saw my ship appearing as a hollow triangle and thought I was up for combat. We chatted a bit (until useless System Security showed up) and I learned that I need to park a bit closer to the star to avoid interdictions there. Didn't block the player and we parted ways with a friendly o7.
TL;DR: the block function exists, is easy to use and works. I have several players (maybe just over a dozen?) on it and haven't run into them since, but can still play in my preferred game mode.
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Indeed.
Telling people who aren't interested in PvP to use a different mode is about as justifiable as telling PvPers to go use CQC or create a PvP player group.
Ultimately, the broadest possible range of activities occurs in Open and nobody should be excluded from that simply because they're not interested in one specific aspect of it.
If FDev see fit to remove the block function, I guess players will have to re-evaluate their options (and Mobius will have to expand to accommodate the influx of new members) but while it's there players are perfectly entitled to use it to help tune the game to suit their preferences.
However you define it, Player Killing isn't going to stop, short of banning it altogether. No matter what the penalty, you will have players hunting new players, and asymmetric combat.
Maybe there should be a career path for randomly killing CMDRs - I would welcome the addition of a true terrorist faction, not rum and parrots stereotypes. You'd need some stones to implement this due to all the crying and false analogies with actual RL terrorists.
Maybe there should be a career path and incentives for pirating CMDRs - robbing a CMDR needs to be massively incentivized, if this is what you want ppl to do rather than blast them into oblivion.
and then maybe there should be a career path hunting these two types.
Fundamentally this is a game and therefore any allowed behaviours should be accepted and more importantly incorporated into it.
Maybe there should be a career path for randomly killing CMDRs - I would welcome the addition of a true terrorist faction, not rum and parrots stereotypes. You'd need some stones to implement this due to all the crying and false analogies with actual RL terrorists.
Maybe there should be a career path and incentives for pirating CMDRs - robbing a CMDR needs to be massively incentivized, if this is what you want ppl to do rather than blast them into oblivion.
and then maybe there should be a career path hunting these two types.
Fundamentally this is a game and therefore any allowed behaviours should be accepted and more importantly incorporated into it.
Betas are an anything goes free-for-all precisely because it's a beta test and people are testing things. People getting bent out of shape over almost anything that could happen in the beta has always confounded me.
Right now, I'm testing the exploration and BGS content, because that's where the majority of the changes are, but as soon as the new ships drop, I will make some of them, gather the rest of my ships at a hotspot, and attack everyone I come across, using as broad an array of equipment and tactics as possible, until I run out of money...because that will be the fastest way to identify related bugs and balance issues (which undoubtedly exist even in the current phase of the test...I'm just busy with other things cause I'm selfish like that).
Best to think of the betas as a stress test for the game and all it's various mechanisms. Adhering to the same constraints one would while in character on the live game would make for a poor test.
I'm in favour of player led solutions, I understand combat logging is a bit of a fundamental show stopper though.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Indeed it is a game - and games are played for "fun". Naturally, definitions of "fun" vary between players....
.... and, in this game, there's no reason whatsoever to play among those who don't provide a "fun" experience (or apportion the "fun" asymmetrically, i.e. keep it all to themselves).
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