PvP Aliens are ruining PvP

[ALGOMATIC]

Yes, I think at this stage it would be a good course of action to reconsider the options. It is quite obvious that players do not want to play the way that FD originally intended.



I am not sure you fully understand the way the game architecture works in respect to modes.
It would be possible, it would take some work sure, but it is not 'impossible'

Enlighten me how will it be possible. Damage from players neglected completely? what about ramming? Comms? Think it over, make sure not to break much of the immersion.

 

[Ozram]

Says the moderator who promotes a PvE only mode in the PvP subforum.



People keep saying that, but I keep shooting them anyway.

I’m a pvper (albeit a mid tier pvper) and I fully support an open pve mode.

Enlighten me how will it be possible. Damage from players neglected completely? what about ramming? Comms? Think it over, make sure not to break much of the immersion.

Instancing. Open pve mode players will not instance with open pvp players. Same as private group and solo works, no?

 

[Kerrash]

Enlighten me how will it be possible. Damage from players neglected completely? what about ramming? Comms? Think it over, make sure not to break much of the immersion.

Impossible is not the antithesis of 'easy'. I said it would 'take some work' to implement.
And please don't bring the immersion word into play, it is a weak argument when we are all flying around FTL and shooting visible lasers.

 

[Ozram]

Impossible is not the antithesis of easy to implement. I said it would 'take some work'.
And please don't bring the immersion word into play, it is a weak argument when we are all flying around FTL and shooting visible lasers.

Of course the lasers are visible. They light up all that thick fog of space dust when they are activated.

 

[ALGOMATIC]

I’m a pvper (albeit a mid tier pvper) and I fully support an open pve mode.



Instancing. Open pve mode players will not instance with open pvp players. Same as private group and solo works, no?

Really? So what is to stop a pve player from shooting at another pve player.
Mind you mobius supports PvP, SDC tried it successfully.

Impossible is not the antithesis of 'easy'. I said it would 'take some work' to implement.
And please don't bring the immersion word into play, it is a weak argument when we are all flying around FTL and shooting visible lasers.

If we dont need immersion than why on earth ship transfers are not immediate?

 

[Ozram]

Really? So what is to stop a pve player from shoot at another pve player.
Mind you mobius supports PvP, SDC tried it successfully.

If we dont need immersion than why on earth ship transfers are not immediate?

They’d have to make it so players cannot damage other players. Hard but not new and certainly not impossible.

I don't hold it against you for supporting an open PvE mode, but I don't want one myself. I've never been a fan of games with PvE only modes (although my MMO experience would be considered limited by some).

It breaks my immersion to have someone swing a sword or take a shot at me to no effect at all.

Eve Online has it right in that regard. One universe delineated into multiple types of areas with different rules for each. They will ban you there for killing new players in starter systems. They have god mode police in high security systems, limited protection around gates and stations in low security systems, and anything goes in null security systems. Then you have wormhole systems, which are like null sec with even fewer rules and godlike NPC's for the truly hardcore.

If they had managed to integrate Valkyrie into the main universe, I'd probably still be there.

The first person mode they did manage to come up with was pretty sad.

A space game shouldn't be all point and click. I like to feel like I'm actually flying my ship, which ED does very well.

That’s the thing. You and I would not be in the Open PvE mode, only those adverse to PVP.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Except you seem to have an over-broad definition of "jerk", and you apparently have a very narrow definition of antagonist.

And I have every right to my opinion.

Although, given that I still play mostly in Open, I personally think I have a rather high tolerance for jerks. FWIW, I'm also frequently accused of being a gaming masochist.

Some people just can't play by the rules. That's my problem.

I would have absolutely no problem with them if they were playing in another mode. But they'd still be breaking the rules when they inevitably combat logged on an NPC.

On that, we agree.

 

[ALGOMATIC]

I don't hold it against you for supporting an open PvE mode, but I don't want one myself. I've never been a fan of games with PvE only modes (although my MMO experience would be considered limited by some).

It breaks my immersion to have someone swing a sword or take a shot at me to no effect at all.

Eve Online has it right in that regard. One universe delineated into multiple types of areas with different rules for each. They will ban you there for killing new players in starter systems. They have god mode police in high security systems, limited protection around gates and stations in low security systems, and anything goes in null security systems. Then you have wormhole systems, which are like null sec with even fewer rules and godlike NPC's for the truly hardcore.

If they had managed to integrate Valkyrie into the main universe, I'd probably still be there.

The first person mode they did manage to come up with was pretty sad.

A space game shouldn't be all point and click. I like to feel like I'm actually flying my ship, which ED does very well.

Combine the content from Eve with the first person flight mechanics and combat from ED, fps from SC and planets from NMS.

 

[Kerrash]

I was mostly referring to the above quote...

Well I don't want to detract too far from the point, but to clarify perhaps it would have been better for me to say 'not ALL players' in that previous point.

I was not trying to advocate that people should give up and go play PVE mode. Merely that presenting the players with the clear choice at the mode selection screen would leave less room for confusion; and hopefully as a side effect help alleviate the issue in your OP.

EDIT:

...That’s the thing. You and I would not be in the Open PvE mode, only those adverse to PVP.

See this is a very good point, I don't see how giving other players options would be an affront to anyone else if they are not there to see it?

 

[Jack Schitt]

Enlighten me how will it be possible. Damage from players neglected completely? what about ramming? Comms? Think it over, make sure not to break much of the immersion.

Here's a simple starting point:

• Game plays as normal.
• Player ship is destroyed.
  • Was it destroyed by another player?
    • Respawn victim in last instance, cargo / data / bounties / bonds restored, zero rebuy.
    • Respawn attacker at last station, rebuy equivalent to victim's rebuy, locked out of Open PVE for x days where x starts at 1.
    • Double the value of x.
• Has the attacker played in Open PVE for x days with no further PVP kills?
  • Decrement x.

Minimal changes to the game client, no changes at all to the mechanics of ship or weapon interaction. Deals with the majority of direct PVP incidents, removing the worst consequences for the victim (rebuy, loss of time invested) and limiting recidivism.

I don't give a fig about immersion in this scenario. YMMV.

If anyone's tempted to start listing exceptions, or hinting at the various ways in which it's possible to be a jerk without actually blowing another ship up, I draw your attention to the bold text. This is a simple band-aid, not a panacea.

FD could implement this in a wet weekend. They won't of course, but don't kid yourself that it's anything to do with technical limitations. Historically it's been about face-saving, because they launched the game with no meaningful criminality rules in place. These days they won't touch Open PVE because it would step on the toes of their new C&P / karma systems. It has nothing to do with the existing modes.

 

[Gunnet]

True, but simply enhancing security in high and medium security systems would alleviate the biggest issue for most players who may otherwise prefer a PvE mode. Designating starter systems as starter systems and strongly discouraging the ganking of new players in those systems would probably help too.

Those mechanics are more complex to make than a real PvE flag/mode, and aren't as good as one for the significant fraction of players who want purely cooperative multiplayer.

 

[Kerrash]

...
You do have a bit of a habit of sounding like you're condoning combat logging...

Well that is certainly not my intention, perhaps I need to work on the clarity of my assertions.

My key point is not to further divide but to find an amicable solution for all that solves your initial premise.
Anything new, be it AX weapons or any other change, will undoubtedly upset the balance of PvP in the game.

My key point here is to remove all reasonable doubt. The game should make it crystal clear that Open = PvP; and as a result sanctions against players who CLog could and should be more forcefully applied.

 

[Gunnet]

My key point here is to remove all reasonable doubt. The game should make it crystal clear that Open = PvP; and as a result sanctions against players who CLog could and should be more forcefully applied.

A PvE flag/mode would help with that. Frontier can't currently sanction players who allegedly combat log, because thanks to p2p it can never be more than an allegation. But they could say that playing in PvP requires a stable connection and limit access to players who don't regularly lose connection in combat.

Disconnect (intentionally or otherwise) in PvP and you're limited to playing in PvE; grief in PvE and you're limited to playing in PvP. The modes mutually benefit each other.

 

[Gunnet]

What makes you the authority on this topic? I seem to remember a time when they created near god-mode NPC's on accident. Just think what they could have done had they actually been trying.

A simple sort of timed system permit would seem to be an easy way to keep all but new players out of starter systems.

No authority is needed. It's self-evident that players who want purely cooperative multiplayer are better served by a PvE mode or flag than by adjusting NPC security. Even if they added Eve-style god mode security ships, Eve-style suicide ganks would surely also become a thing. Not to mention the fact that it would limit PvE players to secure systems.

You're correct that they could easily create a walled starting area. But that would prevent legitimate players helping new players, encourage griefers to buy new accounts to harass new players with, and still fail to provide a PvE environment for new players who aren't interested in fighting other new players.

I think they could sanction players who combat log enough to form a clear pattern. Who knows? Maybe they already do. It's not like they've ever been all that open and forthcoming about the topic.

Although I'm sure we'd see a lot of "why was I banned" posts if that were the case. But if it was a shadow ban, the affected player might not even notice.

Sure, they could do that if they could reliably identify combat logging. They wouldn't even need to look for a pattern. But the issue is that a combat log is indistinguishable from a genuine connection issue, or a p2p disconnect caused by the player who was winning the fight.

Malicious players can easily disconnect a player they're beating in order to fabricate "evidence" of combat logging. At the moment all that allows them to do is post slanderous videos on Reddit (and Discord channels and so on) encouraging others to persistently harass the victim, the last thing we need is for it to be expanded to getting innocent players sanctioned by Frontier.

 

[Gunnet]

I could have been a little clearer, but I meant from a development perspective. As in how can you say any one thing might be easier to implement than another. Honestly, I think they should have a GM monitoring the starter systems anyway. As it stands, the systems are treated the same as any other... which probably isn't so great for new players.

I went on a small scale gankfest myself when I bought my secondary account. Named my CMDR after a particularly nasty serial killer too, but nobody seemed to catch on to it... It gets old quickly though. I deleted that save and started another to harass AA for a bit. Cascade torps from a "harmless" player can be used to hilarious effect. Now it just sits unused...

Sure suicide ganks might become a thing in high security systems, but they already are to some extent. And they almost certainly would not be on the level of Eve. Some there just do it for lulz, but I've met plenty who do it for the loot.

You are probably right that it would be easy to force another player to disconnect via any number of dos type attacks, but I would hope that FDEV is good enough to figure such things out when they happen.

I've personally never known anyone to do any such thing. You are mischaracterizing the Reddit sub though. Nobody is encouraging a witch hunt there (at least not normally). It's more of a name and shame sort of thing.

Ah, in that case I could have been clearer myself. I wasn't trying to say that enforced PvE would be easier to code than crime mechanics, just that it's far less complex to design. A PvE mode is conceptually very straightforward, whereas crime mechanics in a single shared mode are a fine (perhaps even impossible) balance between the needs of different types of player.

You don't need to attack the other player at all to force a disconnect, although it's certainly a possibility. Player interaction is p2p; you only need to sever the connection from near your end. Frontier couldn't identify it without turning the ED client into outright malware.

As for the sub (and similar), everybody knows that there are groups which persistently harass players who end up on their "lists". I don't think anybody who helps add names to them can claim ignorance. Especially not the players who have fabricated the things they post.

 

[Kerrash]

...
Disconnect (intentionally or otherwise) in PvP and you're limited to playing in PvE; grief in PvE and you're limited to playing in PvP. The modes mutually benefit each other.

I can't help but imagine people getting stuck in some perpetual flip flopping mode switch hell or only able to play solo. Perhaps it would be warrented but it still seems broken