Another solution to ganker problem

[babelfisch]

There still is neither risk nor reward for PvP, as long as there aren't incentives it doesn't make sense to talk about punishment.

Sure, you can make rules that only allow PvP in anarchies but that would basically remove that playstyle from the game.

If you want PvP to take place in anarchies the 'prey' needs a good reason to go there and the 'hunters' need a good reason to go there too. Attacking other players should be rewarded, not punished. And the prey should be rewarded for exposing themselves as well.

 

[Bigmaec]

And then somebodies wonder why players with other playstyles consider them as jerks, whose main purpose is to ruin play sessions of others.

Every player whose game session is "ruined" by another player shooting at them in a spaceship shooting game in the one of three modes where it is possible and where he/she consciously clicked to partake should consider another game, honestly.

 

[Chaparral]

Yet another brave person going to come to the Forums to request that some sort of meaningful consequence be applied to out of game setting context player killing.

Yet another stream of suggestions about how to more effectively police or partition game play to permit positive social interaction between players.

Yet another stream of naysayers that go on about how everything is perfect and how the OP should be removed from social interaction by only playing in PG or solo.

How about FDEV gets off of their Donkey and does something consistent with the 20+ years of solutions to PVP PVE partitioning in multiplayer games?

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Every player whose game session is "ruined" by another player shooting at them in a spaceship shooting game in the one of three modes where it is possible and where he/she consciously clicked to partake should consider another game, honestly.

Well for some people it is spaceship shooting game. For others it is spaceship trucking game. Or spaceship sightseeing game. And so on. Basically people are playing pretty different games, and do not like that shooting game part forced down their throats.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

That's not their main purpose though.
They only want to have fun playing a cool space game. If you give them salt, that's only the cherry on top.

Considering that they know pretty well that getting repeatedly shot up in T9 is not particularly "fun" game time, they pretty well try to purposefully ruin others gameplay.

 

[Fizzatron]

The reason the C&P system lets people get away with it "scot free" is twofold.

• There's no incentive for committing the crime in the first place, therefore the punishment can't be far beyond that; because
• There needs to be an ability to go "Well I did that, deliberately or not, and I don't like the outcome" that isn't "Potentially lose everything you own".

The first point is critical to making crime an actual viable activity. If an activity has no outcome other than unavoidable punishment, then people probably won't do it, but it begs the question why on earth even have that mechanic in the game?

That question is reinforced by the second point; even if C&P were that way, the people who will be ultimately tripped up by this aren't the ones who do crime on the regular... those players will already have made plans to avoid or mitigate this issue (or even just be content with their fate). The only ones who will be affected negatively are those who accidentally fall afoul of these rules. This literally already happens in the game, countless "I did crime X, now I'm wanted and notorious and can't play the game anymore, game is broken" threads exist out there from people who dabbled in crime and simply had no idea what they were getting into (incidentally, this kinda implies that the current system doesn't let people get off scot-free, if it's such an inconvenience to a one-time criminal).

I appreciate your position and perspective... however my post certainly wasn't considering positions like yours in mind, rather at suggestions like the OPs and a multitude of others in a similar calibre that aim to do nothing more than make crime literally an activity one does not, and can not reasonably undertake[1]. Which, ultimately, is just a suggestion to remove crime from the game.

I'd be happy to talk about reformation of punishments and C&P as a whole, in a discussion that opens up with incentivising crime, because right now, there's next to no incentive, whether it's PvE or PvP, and that's why the punishment aspect can't be ramped up. This is an old post i whipped up ages ago, but it's still relevant (if a bit dated) to the current crime system.... but ultimately, the current system punishes casual/accidental criminals who don't know how to manage their criminal profiles, and is managed well by career criminals, because the rewards of crime come from coming out clean at the end of it, instead of being dependent on wearing a bounty at the end of it in order to access those rewards.

[1] Let alone how crazy-exploitable this particular suggestion is.

I see better what you mean, and I agree that the crime play style should not be removed from the game. But I think it's fair to say that there is a difference between those who want to engage in the crime play style to be the outlaw type and those who play it to be the psycho mass killer. I'd say that the gankers fall into the latter category, even if they also do the former.

However, I understand that any solution to the ganker issue by its nature could very likely affect legit crime play styles too, so it's not possible to totally separate the two either. Or maybe that's what could be a part of the solution; to better distinguish the two by making the crime play style pay/play better by encouraging pirating without killing, and having the greater punishment for those that are just racking up kills, or if an interaction leads to a kill. This could be helped by better tools to incapacitate a ship temporarily - maybe some keen engineer could reverse engineer the Thargoid shutdown field or something? Or that effect being part of an active offense/defense interdiction sequence, like I proposed. Stuff like that.

The other part is Power Play leading to PVP scenarios, and I think maybe the better solution to that, and also above too, is to better inform unwitting players that they are entering territory that makes them a target by default, if they're pledged to an opposing super power, being told that this is a piracy hotspot etc.. These flags in the game, when aligned with according to Power Play status of both the aggressor and target could trigger a different response to straight up PK'ing. This may help the feeling of 'what just happened' on the part of someone who just got shot up if they were warned upfront before entering the system that they were in hostile/enemy territory.

Another part of the overall issue for non pvp players could be that once outside of the bubble, or even just hotspots in the bubble, the game can be pretty serene. Giving players a warning before entering a system might go a long way to help them either plot a route around the trouble or go back and switch up some outfitting to be better prepared.

 

[Sakashiro]

If you are in an engineered FDL, and you interdict a T-9, by definition, you are not looking for a challenge. Period.

Is it wrong to assume that the T-9 pilot is looking for a challenge?

 

[Screemonster]

I'd certainly like the balance of the system shift from always being caught, but never suffering a meaningful punishment, to rarely being caught, but if you are, your CMDR actually gets stung pretty bad.

I think this would serve both verisimilitude and provide for more actual gameplay. There could skill-based ways in which CMDR's could get away scot-free, but attempting and failing would be a real possibility, with consequences severe enough to actually serve as a deterrent to wanton criminality in regulated space. Of course, the downside is that casual players, who for whatever reason think it should be ok to even accidentally shoot police or fumble over landing pads in sensitive high-traffic areas, would probably have a hard time.

It shatters my immersions that areas with no system link allow people to report crimes but not for the cops to come.

Crime would be much much much more interesting if you were given ways to get away with it that took a little more effort, so you can shoot someone loudly and publicly and get a bounty and spend some time as a fugitive, or carry out the hit in a dark location with no witnesses and get off scot free.

And it's not like you can just raise the bounty figures to give crimes consequences - bounties for non-notorious criminals are pitifully low now because they have to be because the all-seeing-eye offers no way to avoid them.

I ran into a similar dilemma a while back in Space Station 13 - they had a mechanic called Abandoned Crates, where a miner could uncover a buried crate with a little puzzle-lock on it. But you could also just shoot the crate open. Nobody bothered solving the puzzle to open them because shooting it open was easier - but even then people rarely bothered, because the loot in them was absolutely terrible - and the coders absolutely refused to put something actually worth having in them, because "people can just shoot them open", and they refused to actually do anything about people shooting them open because "the loot isn't worth doing the puzzle".

Right now, bounties are too low to make it worth doing anything to get rid of or avoid them, but raising the base value of bounties would make it too punishing not to have a way to avoid them.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Is it wrong to assume that the T-9 pilot is looking for a challenge?

Yes, I would hazard 95% of the time that would be a false assumption.

 

[Sakashiro]

Yes, I would hazard 95% of the time that would be a false assumption.

Maybe the T-9 pilot made a false assumption about the safety of open mode.

 

[EdzUp]

Nothing can stop you from hardening yourself and interdict them at every turn.
The hand of God is not going to do it for you.

That would go against the play it your way style of Elite, why should a trader have to arm up to the teeth because a murderer want to go on a killing spree. If we all armed up we would be wasting cargo space for guns we may never use, its easier to play Solo that way there is no need.

Unfortunately then we get the chorus of the PvP that there is no targets, i would have thought the reason would be obvious

 

[EdzUp]

Maybe the T-9 pilot made a false assumption about the safety of open mode.

Maybe he didnt expect the at who wants to kill for lulz, after all he was just delivering cargo. Its the reason that most traders play in solo now which single handedly killed the piracy RP we used to have with "The Code" etc

 

[galahad2069]

That would go against the play it your way style of Elite, why should a trader have to arm up to the teeth because a murderer want to go on a killing spree. If we all armed up we would be wasting cargo space for guns we may never use, its easier to play Solo that way there is no need.

Unfortunately then we get the chorus of the PvP that there is no targets, i would have thought the reason would be obvious

Ofc, you don't have to use weapons if you don't want to. And you don't even need a sturdier ship if you are in Solo, where they cannot possibly follow you. So what's the problem?

Maybe he didnt expect the at who wants to kill for lulz, after all he was just delivering cargo. Its the reason that most traders play in solo now which single handedly killed the piracy RP we used to have with "The Code" etc

Solo wasn't what killed piracy. There are enough players in Open, it's just that they spread out over a huge Galaxy, so it takes a lot of time to find them and half of them just clog on you and block you if you interdict them. And the profit you could make would be ridiculously low anyway.

 

[EdzUp]

Ofc, you don't have to use weapons if you don't want to. And you don't even need a sturdier ship if you are in Solo, where they cannot possibly follow you. So what's the problem?

The problem is playing in Solo is fine but then the Pvp brigade keeps saying "oh open is so empty" and the BGS troupe moans about not being able to stop xyz from doing anything as they are in Solo. If you want people in open its simple "Pick your targets" a trader isnt thwre for your target practice

 

[galahad2069]

The problem is playing in Solo is fine but then the Pvp brigade keeps saying "oh open is so empty" and the BGS troupe moans about not being able to stop xyz from doing anything as they are in Solo. If you want people in open its simple "Pick your targets" a trader isnt thwre for your target practice

PvP brigade? Who would that be?
I certainly never said that Open was so empty.

 

[Hamurd]

Maybe the T-9 pilot made a false assumption about the safety of open mode.

I think you're forgeting that this discussion is generally about why Open is dead. Open is dead because, in general, most people don't like jerks. Question is, are you one of the jerks here making excuses for being a jerk?

 

[galahad2069]

I think you're forgeting that this discussion is generally about why Open is dead. Open is dead because, in general, most people don't like jerks. Question is, are you one of the jerks here making excuses for being a jerk?

Open is not any more dead than the whole game itself.

 

[Riverside]

I think you're forgeting that this discussion is generally about why Open is dead. Open is dead because, in general, most people don't like jerks. Question is, are you one of the jerks here making excuses for being a jerk?

I think the player that goes into a hotspot in a T-9 then complains that someone blew it up might be a jerk too

 

[Hamurd]

I think the player that goes into a hotspot in a T-9 then complains that someone blew it up might be a jerk too

That's why the majority of people play in Solo, because we aren't jerks. And Open remains less populated because of that.
It just baffles me that people wonder why Open isn't more populated, when the answer is easy.

 

[Hamurd]

Open is not any more dead than the whole game itself.

The number of posts complaining about the population in Open that pop up on a regular basis would seem to disagree with you. I really wouldn't know, I rarely play in Open, as there is zero benefit to doing so.