A way to fix griefing easially.

[DTAC]

Create a new tier with regard to legal status; "Pirate".

The first time you kill a "Clean" CMDR; you are warned that killing "Clean" pilots is an offense against the Pilot's Federation and you get the usual "Warning" status.

Any subsequent time after that you destroy a "Clean" CMDR, you are given the legal status "Pirate" and a huge bounty is placed on your head.

The only way the bounty can be lifted is by another player claiming it.

Every Clean ship destroyed adds another base $100,000 to the bounty and there can be a multiplier attached to the status of the ship they destroyed.

Harmless = x 0.9 = $190,000
Mostly Harmless x 0.8 = $180,000
Novice = x 0.7 = $170.000
Competent = x 0.6 = $160,000

Etc.

A player that wants to be a professional Pirate would only pick legitimate targets, (ie. huge transports packed with goodies) because griefing newbie CMDRs in basic ships would cost them too much very quickly.

As many as there are professional Pirates looking to have massive bounties on their heads, they'll be a hundred ships (and other pirates) looking to claim it.

The result is, is that new CMDRs are just too expensive to grief, traders become the legitimate targets they should be if they want carry hugely lucrative cargo.

Anarchy systems are of course a free for all. If you are a newbie CMDR and fly into an Anarchy system, you are looking for trouble and should find it.


Griefers can troll Anarchy systems looking for newbies who really should have known better.

Everybody wins.

What do you all think?

 

[sbdags]

It's a nice idea but how do you stop friends exploiting it to make money off each other?

 

[DTAC]

You could put in a mechanic that you can only claim against a particular pirate once every 24 hours. Good point.

 

[zxaber]

I would raise it to be more than two kills. To what, I donno. Maybe five or something? There is a balance between too lax and too harsh; it is a PvP game after all. NPC ships should count towards this as well, seeing as they share all other penalties of attacking or killing them.

I'd also have all kills equal, regardless of combat level. If you mess up and lose all your money, you could end up a Competent in a Sidewinder with potentially no experience if you didn't start fighting until the Viper or something. In any case, there's no need to add arbitrary penalties when the base crime is simply griefing.

The unremovable bounty and title should still be system-dependent to stick with the theme. This would mean Fed or Empire systems are the safest from greifing since it would carry over to other systems, with independent being an intermediate between safe and anarchy's open hunt.

Finally, as an extra incentive to watch your aggression level, perhaps insurance doesn't cover you if you die in a system while labeled a murderer.


I feel the important note is that greifing should still be possible. The game is, ultimately, open-interaction focused. As an aside, the bounty and title should have a max time limit, few days, maybe, where good behavior allows you to pay it off properly without actually having to get yourself killed.

 

[Korvinus]

I can see where you're getting at, and there is a good idea behind this but... Piracy isn't about just killing (at least not proper pirates). It's about the loot. A proper pirate in this game should focus on loot stealing before straight up murder, or they're doing it wrong.

 

[lifeschool-amiga]

I say I have no issue with NPCs shooting me down as part of the game. But if I am clean they should get a 1,000 bounty immediately so I know I will get something for shooting the guy and surviving the attack. At the moment there are clean vs clean interdictions which are annoying and valueless.

On the other hand, PvP is a different matter. I play solo because I dont want some guy shooting me down for bloodsport, getting a small fine and paying that off. If I am clean then the person I think should be given a huge fine, 50k, 500k, 1M for each offence, and claims from the same kills cant be claimed more than once per week. But that doesnt stop guys making 6M on their ships and shooting each other down unless the first offence notifies all local police (like Frontier planet landings), second offence makes them pop up on the wanted BBS, so all players can find then. Third offence makes them appear as targets on the galaxy map, or perhaps a new 'bounty map?'. During PvP conflicts, this wouldnt work, so the mechanic could be switched off in conflict zones, where there is war instead of civilian rights.

 

[Tettric]

There are pirates out there with millions of credits worth of bounties on them. Increasing the bounties doesn't bother high class pirates and it won't bother the griefers either.

Whats this 'warning' status you speak of. As of now we only have 'Wanted' and that makes you a legitimate target for anyone. Taking away the wanted status for the first kill means griefers can just keep resetting their game and never become wanted.