You'd have to see PvP abuse in several different games and appreciate the impact they have on the environment to understand some of the fundamental things that FDev absolutely nailed in this title.i would facepalm but this guy really cracks me up!
The mode system is actually quite brilliant, and allows differing styles to exist as long as proper mode is chosen. Of course some people have always disagreed with this core philosophy in the game design
As far as the next two on the list I am not sure how big an issue they are but with the expansion to Colonia and now The Witch Head area we shall see.
The bounty cap while it may anger some it is a needed restriction since some commanders simply cant help themselves from collusion and exploiting the mechanic. Of course if people could be trusted....
Never trust anyone in a PvP game
Typical Ganker Logic:
Game has too much money available; therefore, I gank noobs because the money on criminal bounties isn't high enough.
It interests me that the mechanics have to condone player behavior for so many. We all want the reward for the time playing the game when in fact the game itself should be the reward or the joy. What I mean by that is whatever happened to "It's the journey, not the destination?"
I ganked because it was fun. Then I found stuff that was more fun than ganking. I'm glad I know the dark arts, as it were, because those still come in handy sometimes.
I'm not a ganker and I don't care for the play-style; however, this right here is the only justification that makes any sense.
If 'fun' isn't the top reason on your list then you're doing gaming wrong. Period.
All this weird nonsense about 'PvP is broken; therefore, I gank.' and 'teaching the develoeprs a lesson' and all that goofiness is posted by two types of players:
1: Those that like to gank and just are afraid to admit it.
2: Those who've not woken up to the fact they need to move onto a different game.
That is why I never bought into the conclusions of the gank filter (original op) while at the same time admitting it had several valid points.
Powderpanic
Banned
Lol the development team is killing the player base way better than the best gankers ever could
Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing
Powderpanic
The Voice of Griefing
I think it is pretty safe to say that about the time a person becomes a ganker they've reached end-of-life for the game.
That person has gotten to the point where everything else is boring and it isn't long before ganking is boring.
Then one day the person is like, "Wait, I'm not having fun."
Cue new game.
I'm excited about the new content they've planned for 2020.
I'd be surprised if I'm still here in 2021 - I usually don't stick with a game for more than 2 years.
Out of curiosity, Morbad, what is the experience you want? Would it have a player driven economy? Ability to build, own, and conquer assets? Is such a game viable and possible with a game whose forte' is its flight model and with a game with relatively little lore (unlike say Lord of the Rings)?
I must say that creating a history of a brand new, albeit virtual brave world would be intoxicating. I am hoping and guessing that is what is happening to a small extent in Colonia?
Hopefully the next year's expansion may address some of these wishes.
o7
And what are wing missions where you can do completely nothing and receive 30mln share? Most of my elite trade rank comes from this. Capping bounties on pvp kills is ridiculous, it makes no sense given difficulty of killing experienced players in engineered ships, i think FD is fixated about piloting skills not having too much impact on game in general, it's also seen in pve, where game doesn't reward skills, whatever it's is undermining, bounty hunting or assassination missions, it's all flat, and it's look like made for purpose and i wonder what is it...
My guess is that the PvP bounties are capped to create a money sink for the bad guys.
If you and I are evil and each of us has a 500 million bounty, which we end up paying when we die, then we could just murder each other to start over again at 0.
The 500 million bounty I'd collect on you would cover my rebuy costs and vice versa.
I've seen this in other games - that is, where bad guys end up collecting their own bounties.
FDev is avoiding that loophole.
Ultimately, I want a first person life-simulator in a setting that features at least one spacefaring civilization and personally owned/operated spacecraft. I want the setting to have it's own internal consistency, that while not following our reality precisely, takes verisimilitude seriously, allowing gameplay to stem from the rules of it's setting rather than defining them. I'd be fine with most aspects of this simulation being abstracted (but they should still be simulated and persistent), but I want the piloting and direct player-character interactions to be largely non-abstract.
I think player characters actions should have whatever impact they would rationally have on the setting, but I'd also want the setting to be able to carry on without player input.
As far as the lore vs. game mechanics dichotomy...I don't see them as opposed. Ideally, they would be intimately intertwined, just like history and physics are in our reality. The lore would define much of the game's mechanisms, and the games mechanisms, used by player characters and NPCs would be the means through which new lore was created.
Of course, what I want is largely beyond the purview of ED, or at least highly impractical.
I'd settle for some bug fixes, enforcement of existing rules, the fleshing out of mechanisms we should always have had (an actual economy and a demographics simulation), and some consequences.
It absolutely does throw a wrench into open competitive PvP with the BGS and PowerPlay mechanics.
Let's take powerplay, where 99 percent of your enemies are in solo mode grinding merits. That makes PvP absolutely irrelevant. The only way to win is to grind. Since solo grind mertis/influence are worth the same as open, it's a disincentive to play open.
Irrelevant PvP means it has no point or effect on the game. If it has no effect, then it's not any fun. So, instead of doing something pointless, PvPers go and do other things. Usually bad things to other players.
The "safe space" design is horrible, and people who want PvP to matter in the game versus those who don't are never going to agree on how to fix it. But it needs to be fixed somehow.
It's the same premise and the same argument.
Ganking is suboptimal for Kaim. It's also the best he's got, so that's what he does. If he had better options for his proclivities, he'd utilize them, but ganking provides some degree of entertainment for him in the meantime.
Those using Solo play as a place to hide from the consequences of what they do in other modes shouldn't be here, IMO.
It's not other modes I have a problem with, it's the ability to switch between them, especially on short notice.
Something being on a 'lawful' shouldn't put it out of reach of anyone.
Still a moot point in ED, since assets are not a limiting factor except in extreme cases.
Modes and instancing issues are vastly more likely to be a barrier than travel time itself.
If I had my way, crossing the bubble would be a weekend long adventure of uncertain outcome and getting to Colonia would essentially be a one way trip.
Nothing about a system that would be able to provide an incentive to claim a bounty need imply that doing so would be a zero sum game. As long as it costs the CMDR of the destroyed vessel substantially more than the bounty value, it would prevent the abuse you describe.[/QUOTE]
So again some commanders just cant be trusted to not game the system. At least the bounty cap stops one of the ways to collude.
The only honest answer and the only answer needed. All this waxing lyrical about high-and-mighty motivations and "ohhh I want to have proper fights but my hand has been forced" and blah blah blah blah blah, the endless whinging to the effect of "I can't go in open because I'll I'll get INSTANTLY GANKED by A MILLION FDLS OUTSIDE EVERY STARPORT" from the pve crowd, the constant "A BLOO BLOO BLOO, PEOPLE ARE PLAYING THE GAME AND I CAN'T RUIN IT FOR THEM" from the open-only crowd, everyone bashing out the unaganker's manifesto about how wronged they've been by what-the-hell-ever-seriously-who-CARES to "justify" whatever they do.
"I do it because it's fun" is the only honest reason that exists, and it's the only one that's needed.
Have gun, will travel.
Wouldn't 99 percent of your allies also be in solo grinding merits?
It seems to me the sort of thing that would balance out for the most part.
Mabye PowerPlay was always intended to include both PvP and PvE players?
Ganking noobs is about the most pointless thing in the game.
I don't believe that people leave the other PvP options behind, with the excuse that they're pointless, only to embrace something even less meaningful.
Naïve? I don't think so. I think the basic premise was "Look at this scientifically accurate galaxy we created by procedural generation!"
Then they said "go out there and do whatever the hell it is that takes your fancy!"
I believe this 'anarchy' that sparked so many discussions was quite deliberate. No narrative. Just a galaxy to play around IN. Not to play WITH. Which makes it different from a lot of other games. But I always liked and still like that premise.
Now, people encountering other people and be able to engage them in combat has always been on their roadmap. Which is prefectly fine in the context of what I mentioned above.
Personally, I feel they slipped up hugely by introducing engineers. Or more specifically, engineered weapons / shields that don't improve the standard design by a few percent and have a few drawbacks, but just flat-out increase damage dealt / shield strength by 500%. Now that was a ridiculous choice. It reduced all pvp combat to a rock-paper-scissors game. And they made any PVE-build immediately inviable when put up against a PVP-build.
And that's the major fault Fdev made in my opinion.
I hardly ever get into PvP, but am not averse to it, and I like those guys generally. Fdev just made a huge mistake with the engineers, as it only worked towards splitting the community. It really is one of their greatest mistakes, and I bet they know it as well, but they always underestimated the fact that it's really hard to reign-in a certain gameplay aspect once you have introduced it. Just imagine how much more you would be prepared to face a random commander if we were still "stuck" with only non-engineered A-rated ships. I know I'd be fighting other cmdrs a lot more..
Still, there's a lot more besides PvP to do. And fortunately, I seem to be able to fill my playtime with those things well enough. And I still enjoy the game. But it doesn't take away from the fact that I'd be engaging a lot more commanders on a level foot when engineers wouldn't have been introduced.
I agree with Screemonster if you enjoy your style of play what other justification do you need, trying to convince other players ,regardless of the differences in your styles of play, is simply tilting at windmills. As per the developer there is no correct way to play. If you are having fun you are playing correctly.
Trying to browbeat other players to your playstyle is a waste of time.
Complaining that the developer made the game the wrong way (when they stated what it was intended to be) is also a waste of time.
Asking for improvements is not a waste, but you also need to consider everyone who plays the game just as the developer does.
Now if it is true that you just hate the game and dont get any enjoyment out of it why continue to play?
Perhaps its like the saying the worst day of fishing is still better than the best day of work. So there must be some fun, right?
Trying to browbeat other players to your playstyle is a waste of time.
Complaining that the developer made the game the wrong way (when they stated what it was intended to be) is also a waste of time.
Asking for improvements is not a waste, but you also need to consider everyone who plays the game just as the developer does.
Now if it is true that you just hate the game and dont get any enjoyment out of it why continue to play?
Perhaps its like the saying the worst day of fishing is still better than the best day of work. So there must be some fun, right?