Griefers make open impossible, and how easy the solution is.

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Maybe FDev should get rid of ALL multiplayer elements in ED. ALL problems solved, except that ED becomes too boring to bother with.

You are forgetting that IF FD had not bothered about the MMO side of the game a huge amount of content which is not really practical in this version could have existed.

So I actually disagree that ED would be boring if it was not an MMO. Elite 1, 2 and 3 were not boring.
I am playing rebel galaxy outlaw at the moment, far more limited than ED but its great imo with an actual voiced story

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

I usually play solo, but every now and then I'll go online to find some CMDRs, and have some interaction. Every single time I did however, I have been interdicted and killed within 10 minutes of launching out of the station. You spawn, you try to fly somewhere and someone interdicts you and kills you without any thought or explanation. That's my complete experience with open. I'm fine with piracy and bounty hunting and all. But these people that just attack for no reason at all makes it that me, and a lot of people like me, don't want to play in open at all. Today I just wanted to screw around with some CMDRs at the community event. Never mind, cause they're waiting to kill you.

I have never, in a year of playing Elite, been in open and not been randomly killed by a griefer. Imagine that. Every time I played in open, a griefer has killed me (and no I have no open bounties). And the saddest thing is, I'm not even exaggerating. Open is completely useless. It has no upsides at all. Doesn't matter what you do, you risk everything on your run by playing in open. Whether you're exploring, mining, trading, bounty hunting or even pirating. All your hard work is ruined by some half-baked gently caresstard in a Challenger.

But instead of complaining, here's my solution: A scoring system. A simple one from the top of my mind: X / kills in the last X hours of play = S. If S < 3, the player is a griefer. IE 6 / 15 = 0.4 (meaning 15 innocent kills in the last 6 hours the player was online), which means this player is a real piece of poopoo griefer. This simple system can be upgraded to use the players full pvp history.

Punishment for players when the score drops below the threshold for the first couple of times:

• Not be allowed to dock at any station (no repairs, resupplies, engineering, respawns, missions, etc).
• Immediately be attacked by security forces in any inhabited system. And I'm talking constantly. As soons as the drops in the system the security forces should start interdicting. By doing this constantly, the annoyance of the griefer will be pushed to new levels and he'll stay away from inhabited systems.
• Be made a large target for bounties. Players can go to a station, go to contacts and get contracts for griefers. With the reward around 1 million per player killed, hunting griefers becomes a liable option for people to make money. Besides, the community will ridding itself of the toxicity. The contracts update to let the hunter know where the griefer is (what system and where in the system). When the hunter attacks, the griefer has 2 options, Flee or fight. If they die, they have to wait for their score to rise before they can spawn in again (cause no griefers at stations). If they fight and win, they just killed another player with no bounty. So their score goes down even more, while more hunters will be on their way. Fleeing grievers will be on the run until their score rises enough. The worse their crimes, the longer they're on the run.

Harsh, but as we say in my country, a cookie of your own dough. You ruin the game for others, the game is ruined for you to.

Punishment for players who go below the threshold more than x times:

Flatout ban these players from playing in open for a week and put a strike on their account. If the player receives 3 strikes the account is banned, GG you played yourself.

I think this is fair because it has clear warnings, you can stop and better yourself at any point. If you get banned it's cause you simply don't do anything other that ruining the game for others. This system however leaves space for killing each other for RP reasons, I mean, you wanna be able to blast some imps on sight. I'm not against PVP, but I am against consistent pointless griefing. As many people are. And it's time Frontier did something about this, cause people have been complaining for years (I've followed the games development for a long time). Elite NEEDS a system. No one stands any real consequence of losing anything if they misbehave in game. The fine for killing a player for no reason is around 150.000 credits. If I saw 150.000 credits floating in space I wouldn't even bother to try and scoop it up. It's nothing, to anyone. Imagine if we had this system in place for murder in real life? You killed a random person now pay a 15 cents fine. It is laughable. There is a reason why you don't need to worry about being gunned down for no reason when going somewhere (except maybe if you live in the US); you murder, you go to jail for a long time. And no-one (sane) is willing to risk that for a stranger. But in Elite there are practically no consequences which is why it's out of control.

Real consequences = less griefing.

Simple as that. And quite frankly, Frontier has tried doing nothing for 5 years now and it clearly hasn't worked all that well. I'd give up space legs, fleet carriers and atmospheric landings for just some peace and interaction with other CMDRs. I've played this game for a year, and have been alone for the entire time. Despite all the hype, all the enthusiasm of people of how great the community is, I have only ever encountered the business end of railguns and plasma accelerators.

Open is impossible, inhospitable, toxic and frustrating , and quite frankly, it's beyond me why Frontier is not doing anything about it. The player pressing alt-f4 when he encounters a griefer is liable for a ban but the griefer is not. It's poor game design and it's poor community management. Frontier should be called out for it. Every other gamestudio actively fights toxicity, Frontier should as well.

Instead of having all these private groups and solo mode, just have a PvE server to replace those modes. Simples.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Instead of having all these private groups and solo mode, just have a PvE server to replace those modes. Simples.

No need to get rid of anything
The group's and solo mode offer something different again. (Not against a PvE mode however). No matter what happens solo is here to stay, for multiple reasons but not least because without it ED would have to be a subscription game on console with live gold or psn+.
Each mode has to be able to stand on its own feet without carrots to get people into them or sticks to force.people out of other modes. Deleting some modes WOULD force some folk into a different one.... But it would equally force some out of the game which is not a good outcome for frontier.
These discussions will go on for the entire life of the game however

 

[Just Paul]

There are four main role-playing roles within Elite, which are fighting, trading, mining, and exploring. Each role requires a completely different ship optimisation. (I happen to like trading myself)
In open-play, unless your ship is optimised for the fighting role, you will have your gameplay ruined by sociopathic gankers. (In-game NPCs are a minor hazard by comparison)
This breaks the game's nuanced role-playing elements and reduces "open" to a simple shoot-em-up game.
This also undermines the fundamental point of playing any game which is to have fun, (which is NOT at the expense of other player's misery!)

The argument that "people should just get a fighting-optimised ship, or suck-it-up" goes completely against balancing the game for the different role-playing roles.
It's like having an RPG dungeon crawler where everyone in the party has to be tank. It would be incredibly dull.

There are several ways that this could be remedied. (aside from the apparent impossibility of people actually being kind and considerate to one another)

I potter around in non-meta ships all day and saw the rebuy screen once due to non-arranged interaction. Nobody says you should fight a combat ship in a trade or mining ship, that's just silly. A successful escape is and should be the goal for any non-combat ship. Same applies to a combat ship if you outnumbered or outskilled.

My mining ship is a Cutter, it's a grind to get it, but in just one trip (2-3h) of painite mining it pays for itself plus a few rebuys. Drop the mining equipment and put cargo racks in and voila a nice trading ship. Until now I always could escape in it.

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

is.gd

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I potter around in non-meta ships all day and saw the rebuy screen once due to non-arranged interaction. Nobody says you should fight a combat ship in a trade or mining ship, that's just silly. A successful escape is and should be the goal for any non-combat ship. Same applies to a combat ship if you outnumbered or outskilled.

My mining ship is a Cutter, it's a grind to get it, but in just one trip (2-3h) of painite mining it pays for itself plus a few rebuys. Drop the mining equipment and put cargo racks in and voila a nice trading ship. Until now I always could escape in it.

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

is.gd

Well of course you can. You just picked the most extravagant ship in the game. I am 2000 hrs in and because I refuse to do any exploits or do anything in game that feels out of balance. As such it will be another 2000 hrs before I have either a cutter or a corvette.

You do touch on another issue for another thread however.... (A cutter should not be a practical mining ship, it is hugely overkill or would be were it not for the outrageous profits of mining). I look back and remember David Braben explaining how important it was to make sure there were not crazy outlier professions which made.all other earnings irrelevant.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Sorry, but if a trading/mining/exploring role-player meets a fighting role-payer in-game they will always lose that fight encounter unless they have also fully-optimised everything in their ships for fighting. In which case they can't then effectively do the trading/mining/exploring they enjoy.
There is no compromise position possible because the ships don't have enough internal-space to multi-purpose for both viable defence and to enjoy their chosen trading/mining/exploring role.

I beg to differ, minor 'sacrifices' in cargo carrying can equip a ship (assuming that the outfitting already includes a shield) to survive long enough to escape a hostile encounter, unless said ship has been under specified in everything bar carrying...
Of course, if a player wishes to avoid worthwhile defense then options are available to minimise the risk.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

I can’t equip shields because it would ruin my immersion.

 

[Kelster87]

Oh? I didn't know they run races during rush hour.

They don't.. But there's nothing to stop you planning a full speed run around it, though, at rush hour..

 

[M00ka]

One of the most common retorts in this thread is to advise anyone complaining that all they have to do is ensure their ship is fitted with a few defensive measures so it can submit, boost and wake out and all is good in the world, problem over. But therein lies the crux of the matter, the problem isn't over in a lot of cases, it is just delayed a bit. The attacker is still in the system, and if the player has to continue in that system then they are well and truly screwed.

Think of this scenario:
Commander Blogs is in his T9 cargo ship. He has done the right thing configuration wise and the ship is fitted with a 6A Shield Gen (G5 engineered of course), two OA Shield Boosters (again G5 Engineered), his LW Alloy hull is likewise G5 Heavy Duty and all the Core Internal Modules have been Engineered as well. Yes the Commander has followed all the advice here, he plays in Open because that is the 'right thing to do', he knows he can't outgun anyone, all he can hope for is surviving enough to wake out. As one may surmise, Commander Blogs is pretty damn smart, knows his little area in space, knows the good trade routes. His favourite is a triple jump transporting Mil Grade Fabric as there is a certain station that pays near record amount for it - massive profits are to be had. The only downside is this station is the ONLY station for LYs that pays decently for the commodity.

So there is our good Commander, his T9 full of 704T of Mil Grade Fabric, making his last jump to enter the system so he can sell his wares. But of course there a griefer in an FdL hanging around and interdicts our Commander as soon as he clears the primary star. Our unlucky Commander now has a few choices:

1. Go through the motions: submit, boost, low wake out and hope like hell the griefer finds a better target and leaves him alone long enough for him to get to the station
2. Go through the motions: submit, boost, high wake out and forgo selling the cargo for an hour or so because he knows that the griefer will be hanging around
3. Go through the motions: submit, boost, high wake out, quit Open and rejoin in Solo, seriously considering never to venture in Open again
4. Go through the motions: submit, boost while trying to find out if the griefer just wants some of the cargo but as usual, doesn't get any responses to his chat.
5. Go through the motions: submit, boost, low wake out, blocks the Commander, relogs and continues in the system. Later he finds he is being abused for 'cheating' by blocking the griefer.

So what option would you take?

 

[Just Paul]

Well of course you can. You just picked the most extravagant ship in the game. I am 2000 hrs in and because I refuse to do any exploits or do anything in game that feels out of balance. As such it will be another 2000 hrs before I have either a cutter or a corvette.

You do touch on another issue for another thread however.... (A cutter should not be a practical mining ship, it is hugely overkill or would be were it not for the outrageous profits of mining). I look back and remember David Braben explaining how important it was to make sure there were not crazy outlier professions which made.all other earnings irrelevant.

I have around 2000h too, never grinded, just was in imperial space doing imperial stuff, so the Cutter came natural.
The Cutter is the perfect imperial mining ship. Nothing more imposing than a huge sleek ship slowly drifting next to you and depleting the roid you were mining for minutes in a few secs and vacuuming all valuable fragments before you can deploy your limpets.

I know the Cutter is not the best ship to make the point, but you could as easily build a tough mining Python or Krait. As a matter of fact you can make almost all ships "open-ready", meaning they have a high chance to survive a hostile encounter and still perform their intended purpose.
More important the best ship or build is nothing if the pilot doesn't have or want to acquire the necessary skills to deal with adverse situations. There is no god-mode ship in open. You could have the meta-flavor of the day and still die to a "lesser" ship if the pilot has more skill.

For example here is my mission runner Krait: https://is.gd/LLCqV2 and my exploration Beluga: https://is.gd/RsLOe9. I use both in open all the time. I wouldn't go to Shinrarta, a CG, or other hotspots in them, but anywhere else is fine and I never had problems. I do other stuff in shieldless builds, or go pirate in an iEagle, all in open. Even my combat-ships are not min-maxed as I need some creature comforts in my parts of the galaxy.

 

[M00ka]

… snip … I wouldn't go to Shinrarta, a CG, or other hotspots in them, but anywhere else is fine and I never had problems.... snip

I agree with the rest of what you said but the sentence I quoted struck me as a little strange. Of course flying anywhere else about from those places you mentioned any Commander is safe 99.999999999999999999% of the time. Heck I could be flying around in a shieldless T-9 with a full cargo of Void Opals and I doubt I would be interdicted by a player if I am away from the hotspots. So the build then is meaningless as the threat has diminished to nearly zero. If you were truly building for survivability then you should be able to take your ship into a CG, into Shinrarta, into any Engineer and expect to survive.

 

[Just Paul]

One of the most common retorts in this thread is to advise anyone complaining that all they have to do is ensure their ship is fitted with a few defensive measures so it can submit, boost and wake out and all is good in the world, problem over. But therein lies the crux of the matter, the problem isn't over in a lot of cases, it is just delayed a bit. The attacker is still in the system, and if the player has to continue in that system then they are well and truly screwed.

Think of this scenario:
Commander Blogs is in his T9 cargo ship. He has done the right thing configuration wise and the ship is fitted with a 6A Shield Gen (G5 engineered of course), two OA Shield Boosters (again G5 Engineered), his LW Alloy hull is likewise G5 Heavy Duty and all the Core Internal Modules have been Engineered as well. Yes the Commander has followed all the advice here, he plays in Open because that is the 'right thing to do', he knows he can't outgun anyone, all he can hope for is surviving enough to wake out. As one may surmise, Commander Blogs is pretty damn smart, knows his little area in space, knows the good trade routes. His favourite is a triple jump transporting Mil Grade Fabric as there is a certain station that pays near record amount for it - massive profits are to be had. The only downside is this station is the ONLY station for LYs that pays decently for the commodity.

So there is our good Commander, his T9 full of 704T of Mil Grade Fabric, making his last jump to enter the system so he can sell his wares. But of course there a griefer in an FdL hanging around and interdicts our Commander as soon as he clears the primary star. Our unlucky Commander now has a few choices:

1. Go through the motions: submit, boost, low wake out and hope like hell the griefer finds a better target and leaves him alone long enough for him to get to the station
2. Go through the motions: submit, boost, high wake out and forgo selling the cargo for an hour or so because he knows that the griefer will be hanging around
3. Go through the motions: submit, boost, high wake out, quit Open and rejoin in Solo, seriously considering never to venture in Open again
4. Go through the motions: submit, boost while trying to find out if the griefer just wants some of the cargo but as usual, doesn't get any responses to his chat.
5. Go through the motions: submit, boost, low wake out, blocks the Commander, relogs and continues in the system. Later he finds he is being abused for 'cheating' by blocking the griefer.

So what option would you take?

So long the station is not in Shinrarta, CG, or some engineers system he would have more interdictions and annoyance from npc pirates. He would be lucky to actually see or even interact in any way with another CMDR.

I would go for option 6.
Go through the motions: submit, boost, low wake if close enough to the station, high wake otherwise, if high wake let shields rebuilt or go for repair, jump back into system, take long route to station, check if FdL is still onto me, if yes do the loop thingy until I can drop at the station, land not going over 100m/s, open a cold one

 

[Just Paul]

I agree with the rest of what you said but the sentence I quoted struck me as a little strange. Of course flying anywhere else about from those places you mentioned any Commander is safe 99.999999999999999999% of the time. Heck I could be flying around in a shieldless T-9 with a full cargo of Void Opals and I doubt I would be interdicted by a player if I am away from the hotspots. So the build then is meaningless as the threat has diminished to nearly zero. If you were truly building for survivability then you should be able to take your ship into a CG, into Shinrarta, into any Engineer and expect to survive.

These builds are not open-ready, but I fly them all the time in open, that's why I put the disclaimer. Nobody should copy these builds and think they are ok to fly save in open. For the mentioned systems I would put a bigger shield and some more boosters on them. The Krait would get dirty drives for more speed. The Cutter I take everywhere, maybe I swap some 8a dirty drives in, if the system is really busy (20m/s more fully loaded).
I posted them as a counterpoint to the other post before, which stated that you need a combat-build ship to do other activities beside combat in open, which is not true at all. As you said 99.999999999999999999% of the time outside hotspots you could be in a paper airplane and be fine.

 

[Screemonster]

I wouldn't say "any" engineer. Literally the only engineers I've ever been bothered at are Farseer and the Dweller. Farseer got me pulling the ol' wake-out-and-come-back a couple of times, and the Dweller was a corvette trying to follow my sidey around in supercruise while I memed on him and didn't show him my tail. Earlier in the thread I mentioned how I'd gone around three different engineers that day in my conda, running an undersized shield, basic alloys, undersized thrusters, and a 1D distro, just to get some experimentals put on my mamba's optionals. I went there knowing full well that I would die immediately if I met a hostile CMDR in it - but also that the odds of running into a hostile CMDR at those non-hotspots was so low that I couldn't be bothered mode-switching.

Here's how my risk assessment works:
The rebuy cost is a non-issue. I lose more money in a heavy day's mission-running from picking the material or inf instead of the credit reward, and I've got enough to eat like a hundred rebuys in that thing before it comes even close to being a problem. The only thing I lose from dying that I actually care about is time.
Being a stripped down jumpaconda, it can get pretty much anywhere in the bubble from anywhere else in the bubble in like... three, four jumps tops. Counting undocking time, I figure that's... ten minutes maximum lost time if someone blew me up?
Meanwhile, habitually mode-switching every time I got into a ship that's not "open ready" would cost, like, a minute each time, guaranteed.
So I can take a chance of losing 10 minutes, or guarantee losing 1 minute.
If I think that chance is less than 1 in 10, then it makes sense not to mode-switch.
And that's even assuming I don't get the opportunity to spot the potential ganker in supercruise, drop, and switch at that moment.

tl;dr given how infrequently I'm likely to get attacked in literally any system that isn't shinrarta, deciat or wyrd, it's literally more time-consuming than just going there in open in a deathtrap and taking the risk.

 

[Kelster87]

My Python runs a 6A shield, unengineered, for mission running and a stock 3A for exploration. I play in Open and rarely see another human, let alone get attacked by one. My last trip through Deciat? I was the only human Commander.

No, my ship is not designed for PvP, it's not my thing. I accept that there's a risk it might happen though, which is why my exploration vessel has shields and weapons.. I'm going to die, but I'm going to take a chunk of them with me.

That said, I have to wonder if some of you are playing the same game I am, I so rarely see another Commander that I'd almost welcome running in to a gank squad - the 'goid one yesterday just made me stain my underwear. I read all the complaints and I wonder where I am, many of you are clearly describing the cantina in Mos Eisley, which is not the galaxy I seem to be playing in.

 

[Screemonster]

My Python runs a 6A shield, unengineered, for mission running and a stock 3A for exploration. I play in Open and rarely see another human, let alone get attacked by one. My last trip through Deciat? I was the only human Commander.

No, my ship is not designed for PvP, it's not my thing. I accept that there's a risk it might happen though, which is why my exploration vessel has shields and weapons.. I'm going to die, but I'm going to take a chunk of them with me.

That said, I have to wonder if some of you are playing the same game I am, I so rarely see another Commander that I'd almost welcome running in to a gank squad - the 'goid one yesterday just made me stain my underwear. I read all the complaints and I wonder where I am, many of you are clearly describing the cantina in Mos Eisley, which is not the galaxy I seem to be playing in.

the most surprising thing here to me is seeing "python" and "exploration" in the same sentence

 

[Rat Catcher]

the most surprising thing here to me is seeing "python" and "exploration" in the same sentence

Without making a total paper bag from it you can get 50+ LY jump range, and all the internals needed.
Cockpit view is not the best, but reasonable.
I'd still prefer a Phantom though...

 

[Kelster87]

Without making a total paper bag from it you can get 50+ LY jump range, and all the internals needed.
Cockpit view is not the best, but reasonable.
I'd still prefer a Phantom though...

It was an impulse buy and I'm having a go at persisting with it.. It does 25ly jump for mission running, haven't done a full proper explorer build in it yet. The cockpit view is my main complaint, really. Did nice cargo runs in the recent Golconda CG - even has the nice decal.

 

[KRU BARANKI]

Now why this is not possible in Elite Dangerous?

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

As someone who occasionally dabbles in spaceship murder, I can tell you this:

If someone _

A. Is too fast to catch
B. Has a competent build, and escape method

Chances are, I'm leaving them alone after a couple tries, and moving on to someone else. The only exception is if I'm trying to pirate them.