It's time to revisit the PVP rebuy. Distant Ganks 2 makes the point.

[Rubbernuke]

When a bunch of PvPers see a group of explorers, why not wing up with them and head out into the black?

I think I will and kill the shrill noises from the explorers with my guns.

 

[Vedmo]

I think I will and kill the shrill noises from the explorers with my guns.

You're obviously afraid you can't discover life supporting ammonia worlds as well as them due to skill/outfitting deficiencies you don't care to overcome.

 

[Amargosa]

it does seem logical that you should be able to span at the nearest port with a shipyard.

I got a much better idea.

Remove exploration data loss from destruction in any case. But keep the current rebuy options, with a notable difference. If you choose the free option, you respawn in the last docked station with your current fully fitted ship. But if you choose to pay the full rebuy cost, you'll get to respawn in orbit of the nearest planet/moon you lost your ship at, or at least at the main star.

 

[Chaparral]

Do they have motivations? Really? Seems to me like they throw stuff at the wall to find out what sticks.

More play time is always the goal of developers. More exposure, more skins, more accounts, more paid updates. More.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

I got a much better idea.

Remove exploration data loss from destruction in any case. But keep the current rebuy options, with a notable difference. If you choose the free option, you respawn in the last docked station with your current fully fitted ship. But if you choose to pay the full rebuy cost, you'll get to respawn in orbit of the nearest planet/moon you lost your ship at, or at least at the main star.

When an explorer dies, they should drop a scannable data cache that their attacker can turn in for credits and first discoveries.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Would a better idea instead of all this is to provide a social combat feature such as Open Powerplay?

 

[Rubbernuke]

When an explorer dies, they should drop a scannable data cache that their attacker can turn in for credits and first discoveries.

You should be able to use a limpet to steal discovery data too.

 

[Burke]

When an explorer dies, they should drop a scannable data cache that their attacker can turn in for credits and first discoveries.

This is a very good idea. It would also mean if you faceplant in high g in the middle of nowhere you got a chance of going back and collecting your blackbox and there is a chance others might come by and scan the thing out and take it.

 

[Zaphod Hawke]

DW2 has reintroduced the argument of PVE Open to the forums in a big way.

FDEV seems unwilling or unable to embrace a PVE Open server.

So the PVE community is stuck with the Private Group solution, with the overflow being grist for the mill in Open.

One of the core features of a collaborative PVE experience is that it shared between players with similar goals and expectations.

PG population caps, related instancing restrictions, and being pk targets all reduce the basic biochemical reward for positive social interaction that is a reasonable expectation of an MMO experience.

PVP players are simply playing within the rules outlined by FDEV when they attack any other player within Open instances.

The PVP players are NOT the reason that PVE players are restricted from a collaborative positve social experience.

The game design has established these conditions.

Currently, the consequences for PVP character death represent an insurance rebuy, loss of all exploration data, loss of cargo, loss of all missions, loss of all bounties, loss of all combat bonds, and a reset of your ship to the last station visited.

It is fair to say that the threat of character death at the hands of NPCs or pilot error is VASTLY LOWER than the threat of character death by an actual PVP player.

The consequences of charater death seem appropriately punishing given the minimal threat in solo or PG.

So the calculation a player must make is:

Is my desire for collaborative positive social interaction worth the loss of personal time the threat of PVP death represents?

FDEV has demonstrated a passion for design that prolongs player time on repetitive tasks.

FDEV has embraced the model that players will accept the character death risk because the biochemcial reward is such a positive incentive.

FDEV likes pvp player death because it demands a players invest more time in the game to recover from the setback.

In my opinion, this is an extremely sinister and mean spirited design.

My plea to FDEV is that they reconsider the heavy handed rebuy and character losses for PVP deaths.

It is probably too late to develop a PVE Open offering, but it is certainly not too late to reduce the costs of PVP death.

The problem here Dannicus, is that you are completely forgetting (or ignoring) that we are ALL PvE'ers in this game.

What makes your time any more valuable than mine?

You have all of the same tools at your disposal as any "PvP'er", yet still you're here complaining about a non-issue.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that you've been around long enough to have seen all of the major C&P changes. Yet still you persist.

Maybe you could consider learning to play the game before clamoring for it to be changed.

Braben knows... you've had enough time.

 

[Amargosa]

Black box recovery is useless if you lose your ship where I lost mine, inside the jet of a White Dwarf.

I tried to include White Dwarves in my path, because since Neutron Stars are so easy to use, I thought White Dwarves were the same easiness. Didn't know that it's nearly impossible with them because their jets barely extend beyond their oversized exclusion zones. Those stars are death traps. Type-Y brown dwarves have a way too oversized exclusion zone too, but at least they got no jets to die in.

 

[Brrokk]

I spent all my time at the DW2 mining CG in Solo or PG. If we had Open-PvE I would have played in that for a more social experience.

 

[Jukelo]

Your missing the real point. FDEV is using the human need for positive social interaction to extract more playtime. The PVP players are simply a tool used by FDEV to take away progress and extract more play time. The argument is about FDEVs motivations - not about game difficulty.

This doesn't make any sense. In the past 4 years, Frontier have done nothing but increase the rate at which players progress, they even went as far as pretty much removing the only credit sinks that existed, with the (virtual) removal of maintenance cost and the removal of rebuy costs via the Engineers powercreep.

Also this isn't a F2P game with predatory monetization inextricably intertwined with the progression system to entice you into spending more: the only money Frontier gets from you is when you buy the game and when you buy paintjobs. Once you've bought the game you are only going to cost them money, unless you buy paintjobs which you aren't going to do if you aren't progressing fast enough to unlock new ships.

And considering how rare deadly PVP encounters are , even in the hottest spots like Engineer bases, even in Open, and how insignificant even a 50m rebuy is nowadays, now that nobody will do anything unless it pays a couple dozen millions per hour, I have a hard time seeing how Frontier would be relying specifically on PvP rebuys to do what you accuse them of trying to do.

Surely they have much better tools for that nefarious plan of forcing their players to play the game. For a start not everybody plays in Open, so why target only those players "who need positive social interaction"? Not everybody even plays in private groups... so if the idea is to slow down progression, wouldn't it make more sense to make NPCs, which everybody has to interact with, more dangerous, and simply to reduce the payouts throughout the game?

I'm afraid yours is just a crazy conspiracy theory that makes no sense before we even get to the issue of it being unsubstanciated.

 

[Chaparral]

The problem here Dannicus, is that you are completely forgetting (or ignoring) that we are ALL PvE'ers in this game.

What makes your time any more valuable than mine?

You have all of the same tools at your disposal as any "PvP'er", yet still you're here complaining about a non-issue.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that you've been around long enough to have seen all of the major C&P changes. Yet still you persist.

Maybe you could consider learning to play the game before clamoring for it to be changed.

Braben knows... you've had enough time.

Ah - the PVPr does PVE activities to advance the quality of the PVP experience. The PVE experience does not "reset" PVP progress at any point. The PVP experience to a dedicated PVE player represents a significant time setback. FDEV likes that.

It is fair to say that PVE for the PVP player could be perceived as a time tax since the game is not dedicated as at PVP game.

 

[Zaphod Hawke]

Not everyone enjoys PvP, just as not everyone enjoys combat - in a game where PvP is an optional extra and two of the three paths to Elite rank don't require the player to fire a shot.

Quite refreshing to see you tell someone to git gud or go solo!

o7 Commander!

 

[Stealthie]

I find it weird that the conclusion the OP comes to is that PVP death needs to be less punishing, when everything they describe should lead one to conclude that it is PVE deaths that are way too easy to avoid.

It's not that players are inherently more dangerous that is the problem, it's that the rest of the game isn't.

Said the same thing myself.

I'd like to see, at least, a beta server set-up where NPC ranks mirror player ranks so that if, say, 30% of players are Elite or Deadly then there'd be a 30% chance that you'd meet NPCs of those ranks too.

That'd certainly close the "jeopardy gap" between PvE and PvP but I dunno whether or not people would appreciate it.

 

[jasonbarron]

When an explorer dies, they should drop a scannable data cache that their attacker can turn in for credits and first discoveries.

I fondly remember the early days when you first started posting on this forum, at the time thinking about how much raw potential you had. Fast forward a couple of years and it's like I'm watching you graduate.

I'm so so proud right now.

 

[Lightspeed]

When an explorer dies, they should drop a scannable data cache that their attacker can turn in for credits and first discoveries.

And, to be fair, the attacker's bounty increases by the same amount

 

[zeke312]

Would a better idea instead of all this is to provide a social combat feature such as Open Powerplay?

This is the answer. Have some rep

 

[dm06]

Not everyone enjoys PvP, just as not everyone enjoys combat - in a game where PvP is an optional extra and two of the three paths to Elite rank don't require the player to fire a shot.

Buy Type 10, all internals - heavy duty hulls, couple of mrp, all heavy duty shields and boosters, all weapon long range g5 pulse laser turret. Ten of such ships will be a pain. Select target, press fire once. Do not even move just slightly rotate toward target.
This is an Open, group with other people. Just fight back.

 

[Zaphod Hawke]

Ah - the PVPr does PVE activities to advance the quality of the PVP experience. The PVE experience does not "reset" PVP progress at any point. The PVP experience to a dedicated PVE player represents a significant time setback. FDEV likes that.

It is fair to say that PVE for the PVP player could be perceived as a time tax since the game is not dedicated as at PVP game.

I see you have learned nothing since your last experience.

Your insistence upon using such labels is an impediment to your enjoyment of the game.

PvE is not antithetical to PvP. It is simply a necessary component.

You are free to ignore PvP, but you do so to your own detriment if you insist on playing in open.

All I have ever seen is targets.

The hollow ones just squeal a lot more.