That's a very good point. I hope you're right, but in other games I've played those types always seem to gain the best equipment in the shortest space of time. I really do hope ED's economics and mechanics will disadvantage those who simply choose to spoil other people's game time.
Some people dont 'get' it.
- Thread starter S.H.A.D.O
- Start date
That's a very good point. I hope you're right, but in other games I've played those types always seem to gain the best equipment in the shortest space of time. I really do hope ED's economics and mechanics will disadvantage those who simply choose to spoil other people's game time.
Try it in the stations no fire zone and you'd better be prepared to boost out of there with your tail getting shot up by the station. They mount more hardpoints than any ship does and pack BIG turrets that are a lot better at aiming than the little ones we can mount on ships. Once they open up you've got about 2 seconds to get out of range before you're toast.
In SB1 and earlier there were many many bugs in this, for example shooting ships in the NFZ from outside its perimeter didnt aggro the station unless you missed your target and singed the station walls. Those bugs are being steadily fixed.
In other areas the more "innocent" ships you kill the higher the bounty you'll rack up (unless you're rich enough to pay it all off, and if you're spending your time "playing psycho" you wont be!) This means that eventually in any system of the same allegiance the system authority ships will be instantly aggro'd as soon as they id you as well as both PC and NPC bounty hunters wanting all those nice credits from boiling your ship. Once you reach that stage, you might want to avoid stations in that allegiance too, because if you get identified by the authority ships patrolling the area and the get aggro'd, so will the station.. and once more you're in the "escape in 2 seconds or become a rapidly expanding cloud of debris" situation.
That is the opposite of our experiences in AOC
When AOC was first released, we ran about at level 20-25 attacking all the level 45-70+ (I can't remember what the max level was back then) players doing all the running from the city to the high-level zones (before they introduced insta-port, PVP-ruining travel ability) We didn't get past level 29, if I recall correctly, before we stopped playing the game - this due to the PVP systems taking far too long to release and, as such, the appeal of the game waning for us. We weren't role-playing and we weren't trying to ruin other people's enjoyment of the game; we were playing the game in a fashion that the game design allowed but, ultimately, we got bored of it because there was no reward nor risk to that element of the game.
I doubt I'll play ED this way when I buy it this week, certainly not to begin with and probably not with my main commander, but for one, I will relish these players existing in the galaxy and will likely spend the vast majority of my time in the all group to ensure maximum risk of exposure to these players; they make online games much more interesting, challenging and, ultimately, intense experiences; for two, the game will be designed with tangible risk versus reward policies in place to increase the enjoyment of both anarchic players and the players they choose to prey on (or not be able to prey on, should those players employ the options given to them to avoid this scenario).
I have yet to play the game, so I don't say this from experience of ED, but my experience of playing open-world PVP MMO games is enough to know that the design choices made in ED are relatively unique. So the existence of anarchy players should really be tolerated a lot more than in other games; encouraged, even, so as to broaden the complexity of the bounty and crime system beyond its potential.
I need not repeat the other comments above about this being beta, either. They're all valid; only those who can't see the bigger picture aren't "getting it".
Imagine the bounty he had
I for myself would take the risk and start hunting him down at any costs, even if i die in the end.
I like the idea of total psychos running around. Feels more like real life imo.
Cheers
I for myself would take the risk and start hunting him down at any costs, even if i die in the end.
I like the idea of total psychos running around. Feels more like real life imo.
Cheers
Thankfully it's a skill based game so you always have a chance to beat someone even if they have superior equipment. I really doubt someone who just flies around and blasts anyone on sight will last very long. In fact, I look forward to blowing those people up and collecting their high bounties haha
Since you mentioned everybody's favorite smuggler, albeit mis-spelling his name, you should really have added "sneaking around in space" - Consider the "Thief" series of games: They could be played as a full-on single player FPS, but the best way to play them was to sneak around so effectively that you NEVER aggro'd an enemy. Then you had ones where you could play equally effectively either way such as the "Splinter Cell" series.
I'd also consider the upcoming "mining in space" to be a distinct activity, with distinct elements of vulnerability separate from "trading" "shooting" or "sneaking"
Even your base category of "shooting" comes down to four different modes of play..
Piracy - I want to maximize my profit from stolen cargo
Bounty-hunting - I want to maximize how much I can accumulate from bounties on wanted ships.
Mercenary - I want lots of rewards from boiling ships from another faction.
Other - I want kill count, nothing else matters.
When you reduce it to something as simple as you do in your post, you actually devalue your argument as it is manifestly absurd to do so.
I truly do understand where you're coming from and to a limited extent I agree with you but to reduce all of the (existing and still to be implemented) Elite sandbox to "either shoot stuff or trade stuff" pretty much flies like a brick.
Mu77ley
Volunteer Moderator
I'm pretty sure there will still be psychopaths and serial killers in the future. To me it just looks like a nice juicy bounty building up to be collected...
That's the problem. Piracy, bounty-hunting, mercenary, and even a million other things you can imagine. They're only different contexts, or "modes" as you call it. You can have a million different contexts for dogfighting, but it still plays out the same each time. The gameplay experience is the same, a million times before, and a million times after. Even with two million different contexts or "modes", those are not very tangible to the gameplay experience. The dogfighting is the tangible gameplay experience.
Maybe so, but I say the same thing about many mainstream driving games in the market now. They add in all sorts of fluff; storylines, side missions, different racing and driving modes... hypothetically, they could throw in an infinite number of different contexts to driving as well. The tangible gameplay experience remains the driving itself, not the context to which you are driving.
It's the same thing with ED. And it's a matter of different tastes that decides who appreciates it and who doesn't. People who are in ED mostly or purely for the flying of spaceships would appreciate all the context FDEV can think of for their spaceship endeavours. But me, when I think space games, piloting spaceships is merely a tertiary feature. Sure, they were the ONLY features in the past, but that's 20-30 years in the past. I don't share the traditional taste or mindset.
The education begins with this statement: 'Ultimate Freedom', 'Play it Your Way'. Doesn't get it? Funny, I think he probably did. In ALL the previous games the ENTIRE ranking system was based upon mass murder. I know its been watered down in this game so now we can have Elite miners or traders (wth?) but Elite at its core was combat. QED..
Now we might wish to understand why people feel the desire to attack other players. Well, let me make a few observations. The NPCs are tedious to engage( although better since Beta2), its meaningless, no connection or relevance whatsoever. I may as well be in the forest killing spiders ad infinitum. In short, its boring and meaningless as it stands. And its pretty much been that way ever since the game was released in Alpha.
So given thats the case, can you really blame people for shooting at players? As wonderful as the game is looking there is a huge black hole in terms of engaging gameplay and I really do hope that is filled in the next 10 weeks before the game is released because otherwise I can see people leaving in droves due to boredom, bar the people at the old folks home.
So when you say some people don't get it. You're right, they don't.
Personally I don't have a problem with Elite miners or traders - it's just another class in the game, and as such can be leveled out like any PvP or PvE class. Look at Eve - you can specialise in Mining - within a few months you're flying Orca's and Rorquels, and within a year you're using mindlinks that provide specialised focus. With trading, again you can focus on those social and trade skills that bring down the overall tax and broker fees you pay - allowing you to do trading PvP (yes, this is a thing!)
Elite shouldn't be different - it's just rather than being passive skills based, it's very much active skill that are required in all areas.
In Trading, it's working out the best routes on the map to make those juicy trades and gain rank and favour with the various NPC trading factions and guilds.
For Mining, it's about staking out that juicy claim in some system and mining it before anyone else finds it so you get the good stuff on top.
As you do these you get gradually better, and as such should be rewarded with it via some form of levelling.
Well, this is where the universal life rule comes in. just because you CAN do something it doesn't mean you should. People should occasionally stop to ask themselves:
'Am I being a jerk?'
In the end it is in all our interests to have a thriving online experience and doing jerkish stuff like using a disposable starter ship to blow away new unskilled players in their starter ships for no other reason than 'because I can' will just drive people into solo or groups.
Personally i find the whole 'but i'm roleplaying a psychopath' rather pathetic. No - you're just being a jerk.
But similarly - if you're in open play you're consenting to PvP. Relogging just because you're losing a fight is also 'being a jerk'.
We all need to keep our eye on the prize - that being a long term thriving game and giving the game a bad image with jerkish behaviour won't help.
Me? If I'm in online space I expect to be attacked and will plan and play accordingly.
Trading, Mining and exploring will all involve combat too.
Against the AI and in open online other players too.
I know over the last couple of months you don't get interdicted anymore when flying about but that will be back in the full game.
When players can interdict you'll see more PVP combat.
Combat is a central pillar of this game, it's the very first thing they tested and wanted to get right.
If you don't want to be shot at by other players your only recourse is a private PVE only group or single player but you will still be shot at by NPCs. You will never have a game where you just fly between stations trading watching a virtual account balance go up, you will need to fight at some point.
do you read galnet? what better way to get your name in the news than having a HUGE bounty? they say the original elite inspired grand theft auto. maybe grand theft auto fans are now inspired to play elite DANGEROUS. not elite HUGS or elite CUDDLES but elite DANGEROUS. nothing dangerous about playing in solo mode tooling around in a lakon dropping 50 fish off at an outpost. that just sounds like the job i have now irl. if you ask me he sounds like one of the few people doing it right. haha.
People not wanting to play with people like you does not mean they're nappy-wearing carebears who should HTFU. Perhaps they want to be able to enjoy the game as well, not as cannon fodder for someone with very little social skills.
EDIT: Or more likely, people are currently playing solo due to the godawful connection issues.
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This is a valid point to a degree and I know what you're getting at but this specific example shouldn't play out in reality most of the time and, when it does, it's easy to bypass it.
This can't happen in the starter system because the station will respond and destroy the player so it can only occur in a system that has no jurisdiction, if I'm not mistaken. If a new player has made it this far they have a. Accepted the risk of this happening and b. Have the option to avoid it by temporarily entering solo mode to get to safety and then enter all group again.
If it puts them off playing in all group altogether then they're the sort of player who will benefit from that mode in general, anyway - indeed, that is what it is there for.
It's normal to think that killer is a jerk. In all reality they are. But, so long as they're not exploiting, they're a legitimate part of the game, playing the game in one of many legitimate roles.
They aren't missing the point of the game, they're playing it in a fashion that is enabled by the developers. It's largely irrelevant if they're role playing or not. They're playing the role of the jerk. And they will have enemies. If people choose to take that enmity out of the realms of the game then they're missing the point of it being a game.
It's so easy to avoid in ED. Certainly compared to many other games. This is the equivariant of "corpse camping" and ED has a built in mechanism to let us totally bypass it.
I know people hate Eve being mentioned around here, but in one sense the Crimewatch stuff they got I think is close to spot on:
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/73443
http://www.eveonline.com/retribution/crimewatch/
* Attack a player anywhere in highsec (except where you have a corp war declaration) and it's an instant response from Concord. In Eve's case, they are unstoppable - but in Elite there is a distinction here in that they player has a choice to attack the police and face further large fines or retribution.
* Attack a player in low security, and for the most part the only effect it will have is on your status. This is slightly different around stations (and gates, but these are not in this game) - the station will attack you if you do it within the No Fire Zone. Also attacking any player makes you marked as criminal, it means any other player can attack you without worry of retribution to them (i.e. a police action)
* Attack a player in Nullsec, there is no effect except to mark you as non-logoffable for 15 minutes - this means any player can attack you and you cannot escape by simply logging off. You also cannot dock at stations or jump through gates right away so there is no instant escape - you may have to face up to your actions.
Now, is it perfect? No. It MASSIVELY fails when it comes to gankers who sit and pop ships leaving stations, or sit on gates. It fails because any player can get to just above -5 or -10 sec status, then go off and buy tags to repair their rep.
In this sense this is where Frontier need to make this different, so if you have a bad rep in game then it should be *very hard* to repair it. Unlike CCP, perhaps Frontier will ban these players - or banish them to some kind of forbidden zone where they can't ever join open play again?
But in another a sense it deals an appropriate response based on where the players are involved in the infractions and that's what is important here. I am in no way suggesting Frontier implement the exact same system, and in fact I have read what they want to implement on the DDF - for the most part I think it's pretty spot on.
But what it must too is deal an appropriate response.
A player like that would be considered mad in the real world and would have to receive treatment and a straightjacket.
I have watched several video's like that myself. It is one of the reasons that I am more and more leaning towards single player. Ridiculous, and in my opinion childish, behavior like that destroys immersion.
I also think perhaps in iron man mode players might be more careful.
Give it a chance as the mechanisms fall into place. We test them and explain why they don't work.
Getting killed ISN'T a problem to the player killed. To be expected, what should happen is rampant killing will become a problem for the killer.