Space Force Presents: Operation Drag Queen

[Agony_Aunt]

Despite what the carebear brigade thinks, the overwhelming majority of PvPers aren't gankers. The biggest PvP groups in the game spend most of their time going after eachother or organizing PvP events. The only exceptions to this is when a major event is going on (see Distant Worlds/Salome/etc) and the top few want to continue their reputations as being the Galaxy's super villains.

So yes, if the change is rolled back, the vast majority of people currently engaging in the massacres will indeed go back to PvPing among themselves.

Most random "ganks" that happen are by unaffiliated people who never post anywhere, the occasional anti-PvP player who gets the urge to try it themselves without telling anybody because they feel guilty, people who are just gasp playing the game they paid for in the way they want to, and a small handful of people who set out to be as notorious as possible.

Ah, the carebear brigade. Who do you incluide in that group? Is this the people sending death threats? Is it people who just enjoy playing the game solo?

I can speak, as someone who prefers PvE in ED to PvP, that I do not believe that the majority of PvPers are gankers. Likewise, i'm fully aware that some gankers are also compent PvPers, and can hold their own against competent opponents.

It doesn't change the fact that it is ganking happens, and those who are pushing this particular point about killing people until this change is reverted, are gankers already, and will continue to be gankers afterwards.

 

[Duc_Mallard]

"Cancer protests the use of chemo therapy. Claims to have a right to exist."
More news at eleven.

wat a guy

 

[Morbad]

I'm perfectly aware that a small subset of players has some trouble understanding what "annoying other players" means.

Whatever my CMDR does he does to other in-game characters, not players.

A good rule of thumb is seeing if you end up on several block lists independently from each other.

There is no overt in-game indication of what block lists someone is on.

This and some work on self-awareness might lead you to a better understanding why people see you as griefers and block you.

Who sees me as a 'griefer'?

 

[znôrt]

good morning, y'all!
just a thought, maybe we are dragging this too far?

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

Whatever my CMDR does he does to other in-game characters, not players.

That may be true for you personally, yes.

There is no overt in-game indication of what block lists someone is on.

Which is too bad, really.

Who sees me as a 'griefer'?

You personally, probably no one. I was adressing several people, however.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

So yes, if the change is rolled back, the vast majority of people currently engaging in the massacres will indeed go back to PvPing among themselves.

Maybe within the circles you hang out with, but I'm seeing other CMDRs indiscriminately attacking others on a daily basis. I'm not judging them (although I can't see the appeal of sitting in SC waiting for new cannon fodder day in, day out - but if they have fun, fair enough) but I certainly wouldn't call them a small minority.

And blocking, as proven time and time again by many people, doesn't actually stop you from instancing with that person, and because Frontier works in spaghetti code, in most cases if somebody instances you in with somebody you have blocked, they'll be invisible to you, and you'll still take damage from them.

Blocking works very well indeed. You might still share an instance with a blocked player, but if that player interdicts you (and thus opens a new instance) the block will take effect and no ships spawn together. Happened to me a while back with a player I had blocked at the time, and it only happened once, despite having blocked other players for months.

Another side effect is that if you manage to block specific individuals who are quite famous for their antics, it also means you're less likely to share an instance with their mates because they tend to play together. Win win.

(For the record, I unblocked all players bar one recently as I felt a bit lonely, but removing the blocks of a handful of players certainly opened the flood gates in terms of being interdicted a lot more again).

 

[Morbad]

That may be true for you personally, yes.

And how do you tell one from the other?

Surely, somethings my CMDR has done have annoyed players at various times, or appeared, lacking other context to be wantonly beliggerent, no matter how justified my CMDR's actions from an in-character perspective.

For example, a story, in pictures:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33mKFGZCTJ4

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH1r3yIVoAc

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHqhHBuH_8Y


The above three are in chronological order, but I left the beginning of this story, where a wing attempted to claim a 200cr bounty on my CMDR while he was hunting in a RES, for last:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdFLjpxtzo0


My CMDR does not like be shot at, especially without provocation (and he does not consider being wanted for reckless discharge of firearms sufficient provocation for attempted murder), so was quite aghast at being attacked by these individuals. Understandably, my CMDR sought revenge, and over the next couple of months successfully downed at least two members of the wing that originally attacked him.

I have zero animosity against any of those players, they were all good sports; didn't break any game rules, didn't even try to talk OOC crap. And even if my CMDR doesn't like being shot at, I as a player, love it when my CMDR is shot at.

Now, I'm operating under the assumption that these players, by virtue of having selected the Open mode, were ok with this sort of gameplay, and even if they didn't remember trying to shoot down some random wanted FDL weeks or months past, wouldn't get bent out of shape or take it personally when my CMDR showed up to try to send their CMDRs home in escape pods.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

For example, a story, in pictures:

I don't have time to watch through the videos right now, but as you described it, it sounds fine to me. As I said many times before, I don't have any problem with PvP, as long as there is some ingame / in-world context to it and as long as it doesn't lazily exploit certain game mechanics (like spawn camping, station camping etc.) to mindlessly rack up kills.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

good morning, y'all!
just a thought, maybe we are dragging this too far?

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I got done in an AX CZ the other day, in my AX fitted ship which had no chance against a player Cutter (I think it was one... fight was over before I could even turn and target them...), two Thargoid Interceptors and half a dozen scouts. It was a cheap attack and I lost my trained SLF pilot (which I wanted to test in AX combat), but the player at least threw me a line of text justifying his actions (Far God such and such).

I can respect that a lot more than the same groups of players camping in SD attacking random players for no other reason than "because.", literally day in day out. I mean, make up any old B-S at least, I'd welcome it as it'd be much more entertaining. The way things are now, it just feels like a tedious obstacle course and very gamey.

 

[cyberus]

“Space Force Presents: Operation Drama Queen”

Fixed the title for you... nothing to see here anymore

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I made a suggestion for alternatives to the new drag effect.

Drag Effect Balance Ideas

I quite like the first one.

This idea is rather than boost blocking, cause random control input failure for a second or two.
So you might not boost that instant, or you may not roll, pitch, or yaw as expected, or unexpectedly. Maybe even based on where you're struck. (Basically the shot bungs up a thruster for a bit).
Hitting boost could immediately clear the effect by overheating the thrusters to clear them out, and you will still boost, but not as effectively. So all it does really is waste capacitor, preventing perma-boost which is probably FDs intentions originally.
With a good sized cooldown obviously.

 

[Goose4291]

Jesus.

That's going to turn the Grom launcher (if equipped with drag munitions) into an absolute interdicting god weapon.

 

[Morbad]

I don't have time to watch through the videos right now, but as you described it, it sounds fine to me. As I said many times before, I don't have any problem with PvP, as long as there is some ingame / in-world context to it and as long as it doesn't lazily exploit certain game mechanics (like spawn camping, station camping etc.) to mindlessly rack up kills.

The main point was that the context can be easy to miss if one isn't privy to the whole story. In my example, the context was clear to me, but a third party observer, or even my CMDR's opponents, may have interpreted things very differently.

With regard to in-character context Operation Drag Queen's participants don't even pretend to have this, but the rules don't require them to. I personally like depicting a fairly coherent in-game character, but I'm no stickler for the hardcore role-playing aspects, and the game doesn't go out of it's way to engage players in this sort of immersion, let alone mandate it. Ultimately, terms like griefing imply some sort of malicious intent toward other players and while some of the participants in this "Operation" may well have such a goal, most will simply be indifferent, and trying to tell them apart would be futile.

As for exploiting unintended game mechanisms, I'm not too keen on those either, beyond the initial demonstrations required for a few bug reports. However, that's not really what's going on here. Using drag munitions to more easily corner and destroy vessels seems like the whole point to the changes to the effect.

I made a suggestion for alternatives to the new drag effect.

The thruster malfunction idea might work, as would a simple global thrust reduction (if possible to implement).

 

[rootsrat]

That you find it lame does not invalidate it as a reason. I find lots of role play scenarios / commander "backgrounds" pretty cringy and lame, but I wouldn't argue that a cringy reason equals no reason. You are not the sole arbiter of what constitutes "truly role play".

Correct. This is just my subjective opinion.

And I stand by it.

See? You don't have to call people "hostage takers" to make your point.

Ok, you are correct. Is blackmail better? Because that's what it actually is. "Do as we say, or else will keep ganking people" or in other words "we will keep ganking people until you do as we say".

 

[Riverside]

Is blackmail better?

Just call it a threat please Rootsrat, no point poking that hornets nest. The issue is the change to the game, not the terminology surrounding the community reaction to it.

 

[rootsrat]

Just call it a threat please Rootsrat, no point poking that hornets nest. The issue is the change to the game, not the terminology surrounding the community reaction to it.

I agree. But it's not me who has an issue with terminology, so that particular bark should be directed at other trees

Anyways, I think I'm done with this thread. It seems to be already going in circles, so no point in repeating the same arguments over and over. I've been here long enough to know nobody is going to convince anybody and I'm too old to be arguing with people that won't change their mind - just as I won't change mine

I will just reiterate what I've said in my first post here: use blocking feature to prevent playing with the people you don't want to play with. It works like a charm

o7 Commanders.

 

[B1rdy]

Whatever my CMDR does he does to other in-game characters, not players.

Since you can make players loose progress, it does affect players, because they have their time sort of wasted.

@OP: I am glad we have this huge hitpoint inflation, so I would be more likely to survive attack, if I'd still play.

 

[Rat Catcher]

So did I read this right? "Space Farce Drag Queens" threaten to gank anyone not in their gang using a newly 'modified' weapon effect to force the devs to remove said effect, then go back to ganking as usual but without the new weapon effect?

So is the game now off as some of your more respected PvP'ers have found it 'inconvenient' rather than 'game breaking'?

And in response to the amazing knowledge of one poster - actually, the change doesn't affect everyone in the game, it will not affect me in the least...

But lovely to hear the response of the folk who went and tried out the new drag effect - thanks Phisto & Bigmaec for putting some facts into the thread.

Rare for me to be outspoken, particularly in a mode I usually avoid, but it just sounds like a repeat of DG2, or any other 'initiative'... Keep it up guys, I'm sure that you'll manage something at the end of it

 

[Morbad]

Since you can make players loose progress, it does affect players, because they have their time sort of wasted.

I never discounted the potential effect on the player, I simply stated that actions I have my CMDR perform are generally targeted at other in-game characters. Any negative impact on a player is an unintentional, and generally unavoidable (if I am to play my CMDR without overt out-of-game influence) side-effect.