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

[Screemonster]

Would the game be better if the information regarding engineering had of been more concealed?
This might have lead to humans not wanting to share info...

If anything, the game would be better if there were less concealing all around. Your average joe player (remember, by definition anyone who posts on a forum or subreddit is already more invested than 80% of players) would be on far more even terms if the game gave them useful information rather than having to hunt down the serious diggers to find it.
Like.. BGS stuff? Your average joe casual who's just adopted a faction in a quiet backwater to pump up and does missions for them but never read the BGS forums, winding up in the path of someone like me or @Riverside, is going to be just as much of a gank as Danquememe pulling an asp in Deciat. A different kind of gank, sure, more of a slow-burn in comparison, but either one of us could steamroll a weekend player without even realising there's someone there trying to defend it - and that's solo, never mind what an organised group is capable of.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Your average joe casual who's just adopted a faction in a quiet backwater to pump up and does missions for them but never read the BGS forums, winding up in the path of someone like me or @Riverside, is going to be just as much of a gank as Danquememe pulling an asp in Deciat. A different kind of gank, sure, more of a slow-burn in comparison, but either one of us could steamroll a weekend player without even realising there's someone there trying to defend it - and that's solo, never mind what an organised group is capable of.

Okay, i have not read the reddit, learnt for myself and started 5 1/2(3 bgs) years ago, more fun though i did take some things from here tbh..
I'm not really into bragging but we, not just me, did some good things and were proud of our efforts.
If i told you all i know, would you care to know more?

 

[Screemonster]

Okay, i have not read the reddit, learnt for myself and started 5 1/2 years ago, more fun though i did take some things from here tbh..
I'm not really into bragging but we, not just me, did some good things and were proud of our efforts.
If i told you all i know, would you care to know more?

I'm always up for knowing more about how to efficiently apply effort in the BGS, but the point is that the way it works is deliberately hidden from the players, leading people to have to figure out the rules by experimentation - and groups that share their discoveries among themselves will always be more effective.

Imagine if your ship's stats weren't actually displayed in-game and players were left to figure out for themselves what weapons did more damage, what effect upgrading your shield had, and so on. I have no doubt that PvP players would figure it out and share the secrets, and tools like EDSY would be created, but casual players that don't check the forums to find out about these tools would be in an even more hopeless position than they are now.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

stuff and...
Imagine if your ship's stats weren't actually displayed in-game and players were left to figure out for themselves what weapons did more damage, what effect upgrading your shield had, and so on. I have no doubt that PvP players would figure it out and share the secrets, and tools like EDSY would be created, but casual players that don't check the forums to find out about these tools would be in an even more hopeless position than they are now.

Yet, is the secret of knowledge to be found and not given? Knowledge is power after all. and to share it only makes one weak.
Maybe this a human concept but do you not fear treachery from your own kind?
If one wants to be "great", they should perservere and learn for themselves in due time so they have better understandings of how things work. Then they become legend.
Knowledge passes down, best...not so much.
Enough to sustain the species though.
.

 

[Danquememe]

So, what exactly are the benefits of pvp?
1. In gameplay terms?
2. In human terms?
Just curious.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo9buo9Mtos


(I'm joking, of course. But it was too perfect an opportunity)

 

[Nikephorus Phocas]

I'm joking, of course

I'm not

 

[Danquememe]

An actual serious answer to the PVP question I've laid out elsewhere in this thread, but in summary: human opponents are all unique, even from engagement to engagement. They bring a creativity and variety that "bots" cannot replace.

Nearly all of the NPCs in Elite fight more-or-less identically to one another, with some pretty obvious variable-driven variety. They literally read your stick input and adjust to break aim, though if you reverski on them they'll stupidly follow, allowing easy shots. Two people can attack them and basically shut down their offensive capability as they get "stuck" trying to decide which to target, as their aggro continually resets. Basically, they aren't awful, but they're about as bad as typical flight sim AI, which means they are a far cry from a human opponent.

PVP encounters include everything from blowing up an E-rated Asp Explorer (or whatever) to full-on 15 minutes+ battles of attrition between equal opponents, where the one who makes the least mistakes will win. The encounters are frequently imbalanced in terms of skill and equipment, but actually dying to a PVP encounter - meaning, actually being able to kill someone before they get away - can be difficult once a player learns to build and fly their ship skillfully.

Uniquely to Elite - at least in my experience - is this attitude that PVP is "imposed" on players who just want to be left alone. I come from a combat flight sim background, as noted, and in those games, you attack whatever target you see, and if you can catch them unaware - and "bounce" them, killing them in a single pass - so much the better.

My understanding of the Elite universe, from the marketing materials, lead me to having the impression that it was more akin to a type of you-against-the-world "deathmatch" game than anything else. As in any game, you don't have to attack, but in Elite, the way the game presented itself was that you could be attacked anywhere, anytime - and vice versa.

And so I've played the game that way, and in fact my intention to play as a ganker was due to my desire to attack - and be attacked - as often as possible. So far, it's working out about how I expected, though I'll be honest that the strong hatred of this playstyle from some quarters has caught me a bit offguard. Thanks to this thread, I now better understand why that is the case, but I still do feel a bit of a disconnect from the viewpoint, if I'm being honest. It's not a lack of empathy, per se... because in fact, I know very well what it is to be ganked, and I have accepted that it will continue to happen to me as long as I play the game. It's more just a feeling that I'm accepting the game as it presents itself, rather than wishing it be something it isn't?

Of course, that last statement will anger people, and that is not my intention - it's more just my honest appraisal of the situation.

 

[Chrystoph]

So, just a quick question, what originally attracted you to this game? I don't mean what originally convinced you to acquire it, I mean what were the original draws to look at it?

 

[Deleted member 257907]

Combat is probably my least favorite thing to do in the game together with mining. I enjoy racing and exploring.
Imagine if everytime you wanted to do PVP a random Miner or cargo hauler could interdict and force you to do mining/hauling instead for x amount of time.
maybe that explains why some ppl frustrated with gankers.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

So, just a quick question, what originally attracted you to this game? I don't mean what originally convinced you to acquire it, I mean what were the original draws to look at it?

Apologies for butting in (is me, after all), but I just wanted to share this: I loved the Wing Commander: Privateer games and it scratched that itch right off the bat.

Still does!

 

[Chrystoph]

Yeah, I was extremely disappointed with the SNES Wing Commander build being broken, but I enjoyed those games generally. If you liked WC, I recommend Starlancer. Good game aside from an ongoing desire to space my passenger co-pilot.

 

[Screemonster]

Apologies for butting in (is me, after all), but I just wanted to share this: I loved the Wing Commander: Privateer games and it scratched that itch right off the bat.

Still does!

I actually put off getting ED for the longest time because what I really wanted was something more like Privateer 2 - as in, a singleplayer game with an actual story, but with perhaps a more complex story than P2, along the lines of New Vegas. You know, where "I wanna know what happens if I do the other branch of that quest, time for a new playthrough" is a thing that happens. I'd love to see some proper branching missions happen in Elite, especially if they're generated so you can get a similar mission later (ie. the same quest with the names filed off) and take the other branch.
Honestly these sorts of progression quests would have been way more interesting for the engineer unlocks than "fetch me enough booze and cigars to resurrect Winston Churchill".

 

[Chrystoph]

Starlancer

 

[MishaTX]

Freelancer. I loved that game, for all of its flaws.

 

[Bigmaec]

Apologies for butting in (is me, after all), but I just wanted to share this: I loved the Wing Commander: Privateer games and it scratched that itch right off the bat.

Still does!

Privateer was a fantastic game!

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

My understanding of the Elite universe, from the marketing materials, lead me to having the impression that it was more akin to a type of you-against-the-world "deathmatch" game than anything else. As in any game, you don't have to attack, but in Elite, the way the game presented itself was that you could be attacked anywhere, anytime - and vice versa.

Well, they did pretty poor job with their marketting it seems, heh. Thing is, in Elite, to be able to participate in combat you have to build very specific ship, with very specific upgrades, which will suck donkey balls at everything else other than fighting. We can safely assume that multirole builds dominate by popularity, plus it's important to note taht specialized builds are far more efficient at their jobs than hybrids, and these ships virtually can't do jack in PVP, maybe run at best. To have a game as PVP free-for-all arena, they should've designed all ships to be viable for combat, or ahve some equipment for protection, which isn't the case.

From pretty much every possible angle, it is obvious that game wasn't intended for active Open/PVP. Meta is so mindnumbingly restricted, it hurts. I honestly cannot even imagine person coming from combat flightsim enjoying this even a little. Hell, most flight arcades I've played in my days had far better balance, combat and thousand times better variety.

 

[Brrokk]

An actual serious answer to the PVP question I've laid out elsewhere in this thread, but in summary: human opponents are all unique, even from engagement to engagement. They bring a creativity and variety that "bots" cannot replace.

Nearly all of the NPCs in Elite fight more-or-less identically to one another, with some pretty obvious variable-driven variety. They literally read your stick input and adjust to break aim, though if you reverski on them they'll stupidly follow, allowing easy shots. Two people can attack them and basically shut down their offensive capability as they get "stuck" trying to decide which to target, as their aggro continually resets. Basically, they aren't awful, but they're about as bad as typical flight sim AI, which means they are a far cry from a human opponent.

PVP encounters include everything from blowing up an E-rated Asp Explorer (or whatever) to full-on 15 minutes+ battles of attrition between equal opponents, where the one who makes the least mistakes will win. The encounters are frequently imbalanced in terms of skill and equipment, but actually dying to a PVP encounter - meaning, actually being able to kill someone before they get away - can be difficult once a player learns to build and fly their ship skillfully.

Uniquely to Elite - at least in my experience - is this attitude that PVP is "imposed" on players who just want to be left alone. I come from a combat flight sim background, as noted, and in those games, you attack whatever target you see, and if you can catch them unaware - and "bounce" them, killing them in a single pass - so much the better.

My understanding of the Elite universe, from the marketing materials, lead me to having the impression that it was more akin to a type of you-against-the-world "deathmatch" game than anything else. As in any game, you don't have to attack, but in Elite, the way the game presented itself was that you could be attacked anywhere, anytime - and vice versa.

And so I've played the game that way, and in fact my intention to play as a ganker was due to my desire to attack - and be attacked - as often as possible. So far, it's working out about how I expected, though I'll be honest that the strong hatred of this playstyle from some quarters has caught me a bit offguard. Thanks to this thread, I now better understand why that is the case, but I still do feel a bit of a disconnect from the viewpoint, if I'm being honest. It's not a lack of empathy, per se... because in fact, I know very well what it is to be ganked, and I have accepted that it will continue to happen to me as long as I play the game. It's more just a feeling that I'm accepting the game as it presents itself, rather than wishing it be something it isn't?

Of course, that last statement will anger people, and that is not my intention - it's more just my honest appraisal of the situation.

I understand that and agree that it's a valid way of playing ED. Sometimes, though, I don't think actions always match the words. The thing that I think shows this most clearly is often the choice of location. A few examples:

Eravate. No longer possible, but when it was the intention was obvious.

DG2. That said to me "We just want to fight unarmed lightly-shielded opponents and we're prepared to travel a long way to find ones with a lot of exploration data on board."

And the latest: Deciat. The best chance now of finding almost-new players in unengineered ships. Chance of maximum salt if they're arriving from a long trip with a meta-alloy.

I can better respect the choice of Shinrarta. At least opponents there will be Elite in some way.

So it's fine if the intention is exciting space combat against a worthy foe. If the intention is to deliberately pick on newbies and harvest salt, though, I find that problematic. That's when I think the player's RL personality is being revealed somewhat.

 

[Bigmaec]

Well, they did pretty poor job with their marketting it seems, heh. Thing is, in Elite, to be able to participate in combat you have to build very specific ship, with very specific upgrades, which will suck donkey balls at everything else other than fighting. We can safely assume that multirole builds dominate by popularity, plus it's important to note taht specialized builds are far more efficient at their jobs than hybrids, and these ships virtually can't do jack in PVP, maybe run at best. To have a game as PVP free-for-all arena, they should've designed all ships to be viable for combat, or ahve some equipment for protection, which isn't the case.

From pretty much every possible angle, it is obvious that game wasn't intended for active Open/PVP. Meta is so mindnumbingly restricted, it hurts. I honestly cannot even imagine person coming from combat flightsim enjoying this even a little. Hell, most flight arcades I've played in my days had far better balance, combat and thousand times better variety.

Adding decent defense modules doesn't make a multirole build useless. That's just wrong.
Of course you have to run then, but on the other hand the systems where you can be ganked with any calculable chance is reduced to three or four of 400 BILLION.

 

[Danquememe]

So, just a quick question, what originally attracted you to this game? I don't mean what originally convinced you to acquire it, I mean what were the original draws to look at it?

Honestly, I was aware of Elite Dangerous's existence for years, but I was so invested in historical combat flight sims - and a certain amount of snobbery for the realism and accuracy of simulation they strive to provide - that I didn't properly even know what Elite was.

In my mind, Elite and that Eve Valkyrie game from a few years back were basically the same thing (I still don't know what Eve Valkyrie is or was). I envisioned them being something like what CQC is, a sort of arcadey arena shooter with "spacey" physics. And I won't lie, the title - "Elite: Dangerous" - sounded super cringe and was a put-off.

The big irony here is that I actually really love open world world games with minimal or (ideally) no story. They're pretty close to my favorite type of game.

So a few months ago, I was frustrated because of some damage model changes that IL-2 rolled out. They were received pretty well by the WWII community, but in the WWI expansion of IL-2 Great Battles, called Flying Circus, the changes have had a really negative impact on gameplay for everyone, and the player population has tanked. I exclusively play multiplayer in those games, which is all PVP all the time, though some servers have some bots flying around for target practice.

One fun fact about those flight sims - the populations are tremendously tiny. The most popular servers might have 60-70 players on them, divided into two opposing factions, and the rest of the servers will be lucky to have 5-10 players, if that. The maps are quite large, meaning it's easy to fly for 30 minutes or more and not see someone. There are no icons or HUD or anything like what we have in Elite. You have to spot literal pixels, maneuver on them, and try to kill them before they do the same to you. It's very challenging. And you fight the same people night after night, getting killed by them over and over again until you "git gud." There may not be another server to move to, and there is no matchmaking. You start as a newb going up against people with decades in flight sims, and you die. A lot. Repeatedly. It loses all meaning except as a training aid.

Anyways, frustrated with the impact of those changes to the DM, I decided to look around and see what I might have missed, and I came across some Elite streams on Twitch. The game was nothing like I'd imagined it, and after seeing some of the PVP wingfight videos on Youtube, I was completely sold, especially after I'd learned of the open world nature of the game.

Those aspects - the "MMO-ish" elements of Elite - made me think of another game I've put a lot of hours into, a Napoleonic sailing ship game called Naval Action. That game was similar to EVE, except set in the Napoleonic era in a 1/4 scale representation of the Caribbean. I played as a privateer in that game and loved the thrill of hunting player trade ships off the enemy coast.

I guess the big difference with those games, besides the historical setting, is that they were explicitly set in wartime. Elite is basically in a weird state of near-warfare, but it doesn't really feel like anyone is really on a war footing? It's signaled strangely. Because it's not explicitly a warzone, though, I think some players feel like they ought to be left at peace, whereas in the war simulators you obviously don't expect that. There is almost no saltiness in flight simulators, win or lose you always give the other pilot a S! after an engagement (used identically to how we use o7 in Elite). There was some salt, and some legit ganking in the naval game - I would often have to run away from revenge fleets of 4+ enemy ships, seeking to destroy me for my depredations of their trade ships.

So that's the (probably too long) answer to your quick question. Basically just stumbled across it while looking for a new flight-oriented game. It's my first-ever space sim, and I dig it. The 6dof flying in FA off is the big draw. Lots to learn here, and I like it a lot.

 

[Danquememe]

Imagine if everytime you wanted to do PVP a random Miner or cargo hauler could interdict and force you to do mining/hauling instead for x amount of time.

I'd uninstall. Not even joking.