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

In fact I am somewhat irritated by those who post stuff saying PF being some super powerfull entity and we as PF members way over common (NPC) proles. It simply does not fit to existing Elite lore. PF is just kind of pilots guild, it has some influence, but on big picture quite little.
 

Deleted member 182079

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That's really a shame, honestly. I've only joined in mid-June of this year, after the FC update, so this is "the only life I've ever known."

I find System chat is still pretty active in certain places - like mining systems, or other heavily trafficked places. Cow and I roleplay it up with a variety of acts intended to be humorous - talking about making sure the rebuys flow, Colonia Jesus being a prophet, etc - that both advertise our presence in-system as well as give us something to do while waiting for our next "emergent content experience." I also wind up spending quite a lot of time parked in supercruise sending miniature walls of text to the players who do accept my friend requests and respond affirmatively to my inquiry if they'd like any gank evasion tips.

So I'd guess I'd say it's relatively chatty for me, but that's probably because I type a lot. I mostly try to avoid smack talking, as well, though of course that's just me and some other gankers may behave very differently.
Is this in Deciat, or elsewhere? I used to live in Jameson Memorial for years, and chat used to be quite lively (both system and local), albeit with a fair amount of smack talk which I stayed out of as I don't find it very pleasant personally - but entertaining nonetheless.

But even in Deciat I sometimes drop by, and while there is traffic, it's not huge - 2-3 ships docked at Farseer, maybe a couple shady characters about, but the place (and more so ShinDez) used to be heaving with players; while running missions out of Jameson's in my PvE builds the return leg was always quite exciting as I usually faced at least 4-6 hostile ships in SC.

As for mining systems, maybe I'm not up to date on those - haven't been to the ice box since the patch (and even prior to that traffic in Open dropped, presumably many miners switched to Solo), what was still buzzing were the Tritium selling systems, but there the same thing - no people in SC, 1-2 ships if any docked at the station. Places like Asterope, Taygeta, Maia, etc. which are popular with Xeno nerds and full of FCs - radio silence. Same goes for engineer sites (apart from Deciat). I'm playing CET evenings usually so can't be the timezone either.

Not that I mind the system chat silence per se - I often had to hide it in Borann/New Borann due to downright offensive garbage being spouted by various players. I do sometimes miss the social interaction though in-game, and I partly blame (my beloved) FC for that. CGs/IIs are desperately needed back to focus players in the same spot or group of systems at least.
 
Can't be much worse than seal clubbing (and then even bragging about it!) could have done to pirating and to the population of Open in general.
I'm sorry but seal clubbing doesn't happen anymore since the beginner systems have been locked off. The pve community just keeps raising the bar and it's ridiculous. If you're in open and aren't in the beginner systems, you're fair game and no longer a baby seal.
This is also a poor excuse because it is easy to learn how to escape a gank and two modes that allow you to play without gankers.

There is no excuse to log out of the game to avoid death, whether you're pulling the plug or waiting for the countdown. I've worked hard to put together a group to teach people how to play the game properly and anyone who supports logging is just undermining everything I'm trying to do.
 
You are blind on one eye and can't see how biased you are. Menu logging is a valid game mechanic, no matter what you or me are thinking about it (you'll never see me logging btw, no matter how). The moment FD will take this function out of the game will be the moment where they'll start to regulate ganking. Mark my words.

It’s far more subtle than that. By creating the beginner crèche, FD have effectively killed off newbie ganking.

In my view, anything an NPC may do, a Player may do as well. I’ve been interdicted by many an NPC who has shot with no questions asked.

I think we would all be pretty peeved if a mission target disappeared because the NPC “menu logged”

In my previous posting I said that ED was a game of choices - and that it is. But for me, there are more than enough choices in game to survive without having to resort to any sort of logging as a choice.

If anything it’s a lazy choice, it ruins the immersion and the player logging won’t be getting the full experience that ED can offer.

ED is one of those games where you get out what you put in...
 
Actually, you know what? Having thought about it, given that FD have nerfed seal clubbing, I’m not sure that it’s valid to describe these PvP encounters as ganking anymore.

Ganking requires a very experienced player purposely seeking out a newbie and repeatedly killing them. The OP doesn’t describe this as his aim at all....
 

Deleted member 182079

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What would be great in my view would be if the AI would be a bit more unpredictable and pack more of a punch (other than just being bullet sponges - and maybe carry the occasional experimental effect on a weapon just to throw you off) - in the beginning when you fly your E-rated Sidey you do still get that sense of "oooh I'm not messing with that Expert Cobra!" but it would be good if the game would bridge the gap between NPC & PvP combat at least a little bit better; as it is now, the gulf is way too large and for a new player who gets attacked by a player in an engineered combat ship doesn't know what's hitting them - I can still remember my first encounter, it was quite an eye opener... and was over so quick there was really no lesson to be learned there apart from "what is this even possible - yes it is".

Then new players might be a bit more prepared for what's to be expected down the road, because realistically unless those noobs fly directly to the busy systems (Deciat aside) it's unlikely they'll run into hostile players willy nilly. I've reset my alt account twice already, always flying in Open, and at times a whole week could pass without seeing any hollow squares.
 
A few month ago I started a new Alt and went through the starter zones. You have no idea how soon you are popped out of this zone by accident. You can't seriously assume that anyone who has left the starter zones is now a somewhat 'experienced' commander.

I’m not.

I’m suggesting that FD have shown their hand by what they consider to be a fix for ganking.

It may seem like a short period, but exactly how much hand holding should new players get? It’s a game. It requires learning and skill acquisition. If you have a game with a mix of experienced and inexperienced players then you have to expect play styles of all kinds.

That’s the two sides of the coin - lots of freedom in an unrestricted universe and no guided story led play means players will experiment, do things they enjoy and make their own way. Not all players will play in a way that every other player likes. That’s just the way it is. It makes the universe diverse and rich, as well as making it frustrating at times as well.
 
Actually, you know what? Having thought about it, given that FD have nerfed seal clubbing, I’m not sure that it’s valid to describe these PvP encounters as ganking anymore.

Ganking requires a very experienced player purposely seeking out a newbie and repeatedly killing them. The OP doesn’t describe this as his aim at all....

No, that's harassment. The term Ganking has devolved into many meanings, depending on situational context. I'd say ganking is more like: Purposefully using an advantage to defeat another player character (no one has ever ganked an NPC). The advantage can be something as intended as a combat ship popping a trade vessal, to an attack on an already engaged target (the initial definition of the term in my experience), all the way up to using a cheat. Ganking has nothing to do with frequency of an attack, nor the experience level of the victim.
 
No, that's harassment. The term Ganking has devolved into many meanings, depending on situational context. I'd say ganking is more like: Purposefully using an advantage to defeat another player character (no one has ever ganked an NPC). The advantage can be something as intended as a combat ship popping a trade vessal, to an attack on an already engaged target (the initial definition of the term in my experience), all the way up to using a cheat. Ganking has nothing to do with frequency of an attack, nor the experience level of the victim.

That’s the very definition of piracy. Using an unfair advantage. Hiding weaponry. Only picking weaker targets. Back in the 17th century some pirates attacked weaker vessels for the thrill of the kill - not for the loot. Sometimes they did it for experience and practise.
 
I’m not.

I’m suggesting that FD have shown their hand by what they consider to be a fix for ganking.
There's no down sides to the starter systems, as mentioned new players often find themselves out of it accidentally in any case, and it stops starter systems being a complete turnoff for new players due to instant ganking.

There's no down side.
 
I see your feelings about the nature of ED are as mixed as mine...
Indeed. Real pirates are usually not as nice as some of our more romantically oriented pirates often seem to suggest.
The problem with that is - and what makes it so unreal - that there's no real justice possible in the game, neither by NPCs nor by players.

Yes. I do have mixed feelings. That’s probably why I had a couple of years off.

Coming back though, I’m reminded of just how rewarding it can be. I’m primarily an explorer. I love pushing the boundaries. I’m 20k ly out from the bubble and just as likely to die by a crap landing on a high G planet as by a PvP in the bubble.

That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the bubble because I do.

However, I do agree with your point on crime and punishment. Personally I think FD missed a trick to make the universe even more realistic. Want to hunt out players for PvP? Got really big bounties and finally get caught out? Your assets are stripped and you end up on release day in a sidey in a far off detention centre. Want to get your ship back? Go to a known pirate base, do some dirty deals and get your stuff back - but perhaps it’s a deal with the devil and there are consequences to that set of choices..
 
I'm not forgetting that all this arbitrariness is also the source of complete freedom. Without it I could not build up my own ego trip, which is only remotely influenced by other players. And yet sometimes I miss obstacles. Real, hard obstacles to overcome and not only those I have chosen. A very difficult balance, I'm not sure if both would ever be possible in one and the same game...

I don’t think it would be.

If real life was a game, imagine the salt the devs would be getting right now for their botched 2020 content release......
 

Deleted member 182079

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I should probably put together a fighty clipper sometime. I only have a miney clipper.
I recently bought a Clipper too. Even got a Graphite PJ for it to make it look all menacing and intimidating. It's quite squishy actually as I haven't engineered it much, yet. But I like the handling, and the cockpit is quite homely.
 
There's no down sides to the starter systems, as mentioned new players often find themselves out of it accidentally in any case, and it stops starter systems being a complete turnoff for new players due to instant ganking.

There's no down side.
What the starter systems did was scatter the newbies out a bit. A lot of players are creatures of habit - when I played FE2, I pretty much went to Barnard's Star then sold my guns for extra cargo space and bounced back and forth between there and Sol until I had at least an adder. Hell, when I started out in Asellus Primus, I was getting a bit "uh, am I getting too far from my base" when I took a chain of missions from one station to the next since I didn't want to lose my bearings. It took the people who'd convinced me to play the game in the first place telling me "yo, we're in Cubeo, can you afford an adder yet, strap a scoop on it and get out here" to shake me out of that habit.
Some players take a long time to move away from their starter system. Even looking at traffic figures tells you that.

With the PF district, the newbies got kicked out the door and couldn't go back to their home, and the systems they get kicked to scattered them across a wide enough area that it was difficult for any prospective sealclubbers to find them.

They could have achieved largely the same result by just picking a whole bunch of stations to serve as starting positions and starting people at one of them at random, or outright let people pick any station with a shipyard. Robert's yer mother's brother, newbies be scattered across the bubble and sealclubbing suddenly becomes wildly impractical because finding a seal to club is like looking for a very small, moving needle in a very, very, very large haystack.
 
Not that I mind the system chat silence per se - I often had to hide it in Borann/New Borann due to downright offensive garbage being spouted by various players
I have a confession to make: reading the ridiculous, sometimes offensive, and often outright gross / needlessly sexual conversation I saw in System chat while mining was one of the things that turned me to ganking.

The CMDRs making these comments were all in Solo or PG and I'm sure they thought it was "just banter" but it was enough to make me really reconsider who I thought the "bad guys" were among the playerbase.

Maybe this was my own version of "space madness," but jokes aside, I have to own that it was a galvanizing factor contributing to my decision to go to the Dark Side.
 

Deleted member 182079

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I have a confession to make: reading the ridiculous, sometimes offensive, and often outright gross / needlessly sexual conversation I saw in System chat while mining was one of the things that turned me to ganking.

The CMDRs making these comments were all in Solo or PG and I'm sure they thought it was "just banter" but it was enough to make me really reconsider who I thought the "bad guys" were among the playerbase.

Maybe this was my own version of "space madness," but jokes aside, I have to own that it was a galvanizing factor contributing to my decision to go to the Dark Side.
Interesting! I was prepared to do exactly that also, even built a couple of ships for it, until I also realised I would never find them in Open. Had to temporarily block some as their chat was deeply unpleasant. And I'm a goodie two shoes in the game normally (mostly... Trying to break bad but old dogs etc.).

Actually spent more time looking for them in Borann than mining myself ha.
 
The game - the devs - don't take responsibility about any sort of PK'ing, ganking, griefing, pirating but also not for any usage of other legit game mechanics like blocking, menu logging or simply playing in Solo/PG. The game/FDev is totally indifferent against these things and any claim from players this or that isn't right is just stupid peeing against the wind.
As much as I support everything that Sir Ganksalot does, and I do not encourage menu logging, it is as Frillop says here a "legal" tactic, meaning that menu logging will not result in ban. (Task killing absolutely will, and it's quite easy to tell the two apart - they present differently to the attacker).

It's another one of those mechanics, like toothless C&P and the meaninglessness of "high security" and the like, that results in some unfortunate responses and behaviors within the playerbase. We've gone over them already so i won't repeat the discussion here.

To me, personally, it doesn't make any sense to play in Open but then menu log when getting interdicted. It also doesn't make sense to me to play in Open and put people on your block list even if you've never encountered them in-game, just because you know they are a ganker.

However, both of these things are fully within the rules, the ones I have agreed to that in the same way that I fully expect a player in Open agrees to being engaged by me. Since that is also fully within the rules.

Where there's so much acrimony is, to me, when people either don't understand the rules, or refuse to accept them in the terms expressed by the "rulebook", aka the game and FDev.

Please note, agreeing on what the rules are, is completely different than saying someone is being a jerk or similar. Unfortunately, that discussion inevitably gets mixed in with the rules discussion, leading to more dispute.
 
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