Question for Open players who don't like PVP/ganking... help me understand

I have read this far and say that the last sentence is exactly where you went wrong. Or at least it was wrong when i still was involved in PvP. At that time the most efficient source of the mentioned entertainment was to contact the fight club and turn up there.

Guaranteed fights among people who also were interested in fighting. No shooting at beginners in Sidewinders or casual players in T7s. But other dedicated combat players of different skill levels, in ships set up for the task. Single or in wings. An actual challenge and actually interesting fights. On demand. No need to chase anybody, no need to interdict a victim, just go there and fight. Clearly the actually most efficient source of getting this kind of entertainment.

In contrast ganking is defined by attacking people who are not interested in being attacked. Also, you mention Deciat. A system with a not combat oriented engineer. It indeed seems to be the primary place for ganking. Did you ever ask yourself, why it would exactly be that system? The simple answer is: because there you have a chance to find people who are not set up to fight, neither in mentality nor on their ship layout. Easy targets. This and nothing else is why Deciat is such a ganking hotspot: To be able to kill people while reducing the risk of actually having to face somebody who's optimized to fight back.

If what you write is true, that you do it for the challenge, then look up the fight club. (I actually don't know if it still is active, but i would be very surprised if they have shut down their operation. ) Use the terms "duels", "wing fights" or "PvP" in general. Leave the term "gank" to what it means: trying to get easy kills on targets which are not prepared to fight back.

Of course, the fight club also has one massive requirement, which many gankers are unable to meet: being able to communicate. That all by itself is way above and beyond the capability of most gankers, effectively blocking them from ever accessing it. (Which on the other hand, when i turned up there, was the big advantage for me. Communication is what changed my opponent there from "an NPC with variable challenge rating" to an actually interesting person. You fight and you talk. The banter before the fight as well as the "congrats" in the end, the commeradrie instead of the lust for the primitive kill of a weaker target is what, at least in my eyes, puts it on a higher level. )

Never heard of the fight club in ED but I agree with the general sentiment.
 
Gankers aren't a threat to experienced players. So calling them a difficulty level is pretty ridiculous.

They are a trap that can diminish the fun of new players. Not something I'd pat myself on the back for.
Actually, how does one become an experienced player, able to denude gankers of any threat?

This is, in fact, exactly how difficulty works in video games. When you're at the start of the game - either at a low character level, or literally in the first "level" of the game, or both - enemy mobs, minibosses and bosses are meant to be challenging for your level.

Once you improve - you learn how to get past them, for example, and get better gear and skills (in-game and IRL), you are no longer challenged by them. Or, not challenged as much, anyways.

I'd argue your own terms counter your point, if you think about it.
 
Last edited:
Never heard of the fight club in ED but I agree with the general sentiment.


And yea, i just looked it up. Based on the postings in the thread, it looks like it dried up a few months ago. Too bad. While i was only there a few times, years ago, it actually was fun. I hope it's just the thread which kind of died out, not their operation itself.
 
Last edited:
This is, in fact, exactly how difficulty works in video games. When you're at the start of the game - either at a low character level, or literally in the first "level" of the game, or both - enemy mobs, minibosses and bosses are meant to be challenging of your level.

Yea, but where is exactly the challenge in being blown up in 5 seconds in Deciat while flying a starter ship with no engineering at all?
They dont even get what happened to them. One moment they are at 10km trying to align with the base, the next moment is Eject Eject.

The only thing they will learn would be not to fly in Open anymore.
 
Yea, but where is exactly the challenge in being blown up in 5 seconds in Deciat while flying a starter ship with no engineering at all?
They dont even get what happened to them. One moment they are at 10km trying to align with the base, the next moment is Eject Eject.

The only thing they will learn would be not to fly in Open anymore.
Except you CAN teach basic evasion techniques and outfitting solutions even to noob sideys. Or just tell them to use a suitable mode until they are ready.
Still I believe the number of players open loses by this is greater then the number of open (pvp) players it generates.
So I won't do it or preach it either.
 
Actually, how does one become an experienced player, able to denude gankers of any threat?

There is one fundamental issue. Many people diving to ED don't have free for all MMO background. They don't expect GTA Online, but in space experience. Rather they expect that if you don't carry anything particularly valuable, don't pick a fight, don't participicate on PP or war, don't have bounty, they are left in peace to do whatever business they have. I expected that.
Well I'm partly right on that expectation. Flying my engineered Cutter or FDL is mostly peacefull experience, even in Shinrarta. Doing so with my paperthin exploration Krait Phantom is not. As people outside free for all style MMO's generally think there should be reason why they are attacked. People thinking that way will in essence never really like or tolerate for the lulz ganks.
 
Considering that many NB pilots simply panic and don't controll at all, some of your targets are SIGNIFICANTLY easier than NPC's. Also NPC's to certain extent scale up following your combat rank. Your favoured prey generally doesn't. Also many human pilots fly WEAKER ships than common NPC. Either for reason (min maxing, exploration) or ignorance.
My "favored prey" is "any CMDR who flies into the system that I'm currently in." Well over 2/3 of CMDRs that I've engaged in "emergent experiences" (by interdicting them) have been of equal or higher combat rank to my own, and often in far "better" / bigger / more guns / expensive / etc ships.

NPCs do not combat log, and only the highest ranked ones bother to low wake when they're losing.

I take losing fights constantly, i.e. where I'm in my Krait and the "target" is in an FDL or Corvette or whatever, because I want to improve my understanding of the game and its combat mechanics in a way that NPCs can't teach me.

So, you're not wrong in some regards, but you're also not accounting for the actual pattern of my actual target selection process, nor the quality of the players I'm often finding myself in combat with. They're not all wilting wallflowers by any means. And regardless - I never know what they actually are, or are not, until I pull them. Only one way to be sure!
 
My "favored prey" is "any CMDR who flies into the system that I'm currently in." Well over 2/3 of CMDRs that I've engaged in "emergent experiences" (by interdicting them) have been of equal or higher combat rank to my own, and often in far "better" / bigger / more guns / expensive / etc ships.

NPCs do not combat log, and only the highest ranked ones bother to low wake when they're losing.

I take losing fights constantly, i.e. where I'm in my Krait and the "target" is in an FDL or Corvette or whatever, because I want to improve my understanding of the game and its combat mechanics in a way that NPCs can't teach me.

So, you're not wrong in some regards, but you're also not accounting for the actual pattern of my actual target selection process, nor the quality of the players I'm often finding myself in combat with. They're not all wilting wallflowers by any means. And regardless - I never know what they actually are, or are not, until I pull them. Only one way to be sure!
Well I'm not sayin about your target criterias, but about my experience how it goes. Last time I was in Shinrarta with FDL in open I just needed to scan some ominous lurkers near station and THEY did fast exit :D
 
If what you write is true, that you do it for the challenge, then look up the fight club.

I'm a member of the relevant Discords; there are ways to get organized fights by going to them, indicating your interest, and waiting/hoping someone is around to give you a fight.

Or, you can go to Deciat, which is and has been the de facto, ad hoc 24/7 fight club. It's where I found my competitive, consensual 1v1s last night, in fact.

Deciat is indeed a "watering hole", but the engineer's FSD upgrade is anything but "non combat related." It's related to all ships in the game, as traveling is an essential requirement affecting all players & all ships. Deciat also provides the opportunity for lawfuls to come and directly oppose the outlaws who may be preying on the "newbies" - and many lawful groups occupy it for that purpose.

So it's strategically important to all players because FSD upgrades apply to all ships. This attracts everyone there, meaning, again, it's an efficient place to find action.

I mean, if we're trying to understand why Deciat, it's because there are players there. And players, as it turns out, aren't that easy to find out in the wilds of the galaxy.
 
There is one fundamental issue. Many people diving to ED don't have free for all MMO background. They don't expect GTA Online, but in space experience. Rather they expect that if you don't carry anything particularly valuable, don't pick a fight, don't participicate on PP or war, don't have bounty, they are left in peace to do whatever business they have. I expected that.
Well I'm partly right on that expectation. Flying my engineered Cutter or FDL is mostly peacefull experience, even in Shinrarta. Doing so with my paperthin exploration Krait Phantom is not. As people outside free for all style MMO's generally think there should be reason why they are attacked. People thinking that way will in essence never really like or tolerate for the lulz ganks.
I absolutely agree with you - the theme we've been discussing throughout this thread is, in essence, the disconnect between expectation and reality that some players experience when logging into Open.

Learning what Open means - like, what it's actually like - is, as you note, harsh for players expecting something different. The very real truth is that the expectations of many players - those seeking emergent co-op PVE - are frequently underserved by the way Open and its "do as you wish" ethos have been implemented by FDev.

I guess I had the advantage of having no illusions - I came to the game expecting to be attacked anywhere, anytime. This was based on my reading of the game's marketing material. But as a combat-focused pilot, of course I read it that way, right? I fully understand that "not everyone" thinks as I do, and I genuinely wish there was a better solution for pure co-op players than shunting them off to the barrens of PG and Solo.

However, unless those players are willing to engage in the rough-and-tumble of spontaneous PVP, that's unfortunately the only option that FDev have left them. Because the rest of us are here for what's advertised on at least a good portion of the tin, which is a dangerous galaxy yadda yadda yadda.
 
Also there is that little fly in ointment that current game works like prequels only in solo and in some PG:s. Say for example in Frontier First Encounters one was generally safe in high security systems. And flying to anarchies, well that was quite sure way to get bloody nose unless done in combat oriented ship. Many old time Elite fanciers thought about something similar, system security keeping rifraf out and criminals lurking in anarchies when logged in open in ED. Little did they know that now whole galaxy is essentially anarchy.
 
I'm a member of the relevant Discords; there are ways to get organized fights by going to them, indicating your interest, and waiting/hoping someone is around to give you a fight.

Or, you can go to Deciat, which is and has been the de facto, ad hoc 24/7 fight club. It's where I found my competitive, consensual 1v1s last night, in fact.

The consensual fight by definition is not a "gank". Which also seems to be one of the core problems here: you don't seem to use the term "gank" as what it means: attacking a weaker target, looking for an easy kill.

Deciat is indeed a "watering hole", but the engineer's FSD upgrade is anything but "non combat related."

Meh. When i fight somebody, i don't care if he jumped to me by many hops of 7 LYs or if he traveled here on two jumps. Just as well, i don't care if he leaves in a few jumps or again does in small jumps. So really, the combat relevance of the FSD is a joke. Only when you speak of indirect PvP (see: BGS and PP), the FSD range might become of interest. But those people who professionally operate the BGS and PP you won't find in open, anyway. So really, it's a moot point.

And yes, it is true that you find people there. It's also true that the gankers do sometimes attract people who try to protect regular pilots from them. I approve of that, but i also know that the games mechanics are heavily weighted in favour of the gankers. (See some postings i did a little above. ) Anyway, would the focus ever have been on fair combat, there are other engineers around. Not far away. They provide combat upgrades, so people going there usually are in a combat ship.

But surprise, surprise: those are not the places the gankers go to. I mean, somebody who goes there may have guns! That's way too dangerous for the normal ganker.

Just to round this off, someting i did a few years ago. I went to open, to one of the well known hotspots.
  • First i went there in my FDL. Several times i jumped into the system, flew to the station. I saw some player ships on the scanner, but nothing ever happened.
  • Then i switched to my imperial courier. Of the several times i jumped into the system, a few times i was interdicted, most of the times i managed to fly through. The few times i was interdicted, i low-waked (so not high-waking, despite mass lock), as i wanted to see how it is to get to the station. I was not interdicted every time i made the trip and never was i interdicted twice.
  • Last i took a T6, filled it all up with HRPs (so, no cargo at all) and also went there. I was chain interdicted each time i tried to make it, in the end i had to high-wake out.

So really, it's quite obvious, those people were not looking for an easy fight against an FDL, but the challenge of a fully armed T6 with a massive two small hardpoints, that's what really sparked their interest. (Or where they after my valuable cargo of "really nothing, just HRPs instead"? )

Sidenote: at either time, i went through the system and greeted people. When i was in the FDL and i targeted them to greet them, they avoided me, sometimes even high-waked out. On the T6, i also didn't any other communication out of them than by fire button. So really: how dull can you be, if the firebutton is your only means of communication?
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 121570

D
However, unless those players are willing to engage in the rough-and-tumble of spontaneous PVP, that's unfortunately the only option that FDev have left them. Because the rest of us are here for what's advertised on at least a good portion of the tin, which is a dangerous galaxy yadda yadda yadda.

In a way - you're right. Learning what Open actually means is one part of learning the game. However, it mostly means never seeing anyone, but it can also mean having awesome experiences that don't involve tiresome and boring combat.

As you're relatively new, and have been very focused on PvP - you appear to have not yet learned this. You seem to imagine it's just a gank playground and mosly about combat. This is not so.

Running the risk of encountering a gank is part of the open game, but those who get ganked will either just die and move on, clog on you, or if they're experienced - laugh at you and leave you sitting there waving your guns in futility. I'm guessing relatively few want to learn how to be like the ganker and treasure the experience as a learning opportunity to that end. I get you're one of the few though.

Gankers are an overall small portion of the playerbase, and they shouldn't forget that plenty of people (as evidenced in this thread) consider them the equivalent to stuff you might unfortunately step in at the dog park. That's likely to get in the way of the other stuff you might encounter in Open, with people who'll prefer to spend their time doing other things than merely having to avoid you.
 
Yea, but where is exactly the challenge in being blown up in 5 seconds in Deciat while flying a starter ship with no engineering at all?
They dont even get what happened to them. One moment they are at 10km trying to align with the base, the next moment is Eject Eject.

The only thing they will learn would be not to fly in Open anymore.

Yeah, I heard of someone who ragequitted Skyrim because his low level character got killed by a bunch of wolves or skeevers or something like that, after the first 10 minutes of play.

Totally understandable, isn't it.
 
Yea, but where is exactly the challenge in being blown up in 5 seconds in Deciat while flying a starter ship with no engineering at all?
They dont even get what happened to them. One moment they are at 10km trying to align with the base, the next moment is Eject Eject.

The only thing they will learn would be not to fly in Open anymore.
I mean, this was me, I was in a Cobra with crap shields, the only difference was that I was in Vulganji and I had 32T of LTDs on board that I'd spent close to an hour core mining for (I didn't know about the Egg or whatever at that time, it was literally my 2nd time mining).

My response was not "oh never again in Open," it was "wow I didn't know my ship could blow up in literally 9 seconds, that's cool. I should figure out how to do that, too."

Also: oh I guess I should figure out what the radar symbols mean. I honestly didn't know how to tell players apart from NPCs, because I had never seen another player up until that point.

So I don't know, you're not wrong, but on the other hand, I'm a little leery of these variations of the old "think of the children" critique. We're all playing a video game where encountering hostile players is, absolutely, something that is an advertised feature. Some players have very negative reactions - no one is denying them their right to do so. On the other hand, I'm not that convinced that the players who actually want human interaction give up on the entire concept because they got blown up when they were a newb. Maybe some do. I didn't. The "worst thing" wasn't really a big deal for me at all, and I was a completely clueless newbie - the definition of one.

The TLDR as always is that this is a feature of Open and the way FDev has implemented it. There is an inherent conflict created within the playerbase by the way they've implemented it, and the features they've added to address player concerns are PG and Solo. I don't think they're great solutions. But this is the game we have available to us.

As noted, myself and plenty of other gankers in this thread actually do try to interact with other players, including those we've ganked, and offer them sincere help in learning the game and progressing. Before and/or after we blow them up. It's how we play the game and many - certainly me - are absolutely not hostile to the human players of the game, even if we serve as a de facto "OpFor" opponent to their in-game characters.
 
Last edited:
I absolutely agree with you - the theme we've been discussing throughout this thread is, in essence, the disconnect between expectation and reality that some players experience when logging into Open.

Learning what Open means - like, what it's actually like - is, as you note, harsh for players expecting something different. The very real truth is that the expectations of many players - those seeking emergent co-op PVE - are frequently underserved by the way Open and its "do as you wish" ethos have been implemented by FDev.

I guess I had the advantage of having no illusions - I came to the game expecting to be attacked anywhere, anytime. This was based on my reading of the game's marketing material. But as a combat-focused pilot, of course I read it that way, right? I fully understand that "not everyone" thinks as I do, and I genuinely wish there was a better solution for pure co-op players than shunting them off to the barrens of PG and Solo.

However, unless those players are willing to engage in the rough-and-tumble of spontaneous PVP, that's unfortunately the only option that FDev have left them. Because the rest of us are here for what's advertised on at least a good portion of the tin, which is a dangerous galaxy yadda yadda yadda.

You have a good attitude. I approve of it. From all you wrote, you also are a PvP player and not a ganker. In my book the one step you really need to make is to really distinguish between those two.

Seeking challenging fights: awesome! I approve!
Being engaged in BGS or PP and trying to take down ships which oppose you there: good intention. You most likely won't manage, as your opposition won't fly their cargo ships in open, but i get the idea.
You actually pirate other players, means, you fly an pirate ship WITH CARGO SPACE and all the necessary tools to actually do pirating: Great! That should be part of the games world.
You gank for no reason or are "a pirate with no cargo hold": meh. You're just out for the cheap kills. Any "pirate" with no cargo hold just shows that he's so afraid of the return fire of a few small hardpoints and probably has no other way of winning a fight than by attacking vulnerable cargo ships with his fully engineered monster.

Luckily by all you write here, you're in the very first cathegory. I respec that one and approve of the first three i mentioned. But it's the fourth which the term "ganker" is used for, and it's the one which is not worth being respected.
 
Back
Top Bottom