Another C&P Rant

babelfisch

babelfisch
Stigbob said:
I was serious when I said it would make me laugh, I'm genuinely OK with this stuff. It's like a daft quest from the madgod so to me it would genuinely be emergent content and funny and lucrative as I'd explore along the way.

It probably helps that I like the game in the first place.
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I like the game too and so does Old Duck. I just don't think it's wrong to point it out when stuff doesn't work as intended.
 

CMDR_Elver

CMDR_Elver
Old Duck said:
UPDATE - Thankfully Frontier's support team granted my request and removed the fine :D They also asked me to contact QA (file a bug report), which means at least the fellow who handled my support ticket believes this is a bug / unintended gameplay.

Personally I think fines should be treated different than bounties in regards to station services. If I am wanted dead or alive (bounty), then it makes sense to use a disguise (anon protocols) to avoid arrest, but a fine shouldn't affect me in this way. Here in America, you can have a glove box full of parking tickets and still carry on as normal. However, if you don't pay those parking tickets by the due date, then your life starts becoming much more complicated. Didn't the old system work this way? Fail to pay a fine and it matured to a bounty after time? I can't clearly remember. Anyway, the anon protocols are "immersion breaking" for a 50 credit fine for what is the ED equivalent of jaywalking.
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Yes exactly the point, regarding fines and bounties. Fines are a punishment for "crimes" but you are very much still in the system/society, infact they want you to be able to pay up as it is a source of income. Bounties are the system/scoiety saying they want you dead or brought to justice. Bounties are an expense for the system/society, a criminal should definately not be able to pay off a bounty on their own head, either. It would be like Jesse James doing a bank robbery in a town, killing a couple of deputies, going to the next town and giving the law or shady lawyer, some money to clear his name, totally ridiculuous.

Anyway ED is not based on real life because there is no death in the game, so the economics of C&P are skewed from the start. The real crime is that there is not much (fun) game play asscoiated in the C&P system. It just seems to be arbitary punishments in a system that is not joined up. Maybe the case in hand was a bug or oversite in the code but there are plenty of examples, where small infractions incur bounties that probably should be fines. I like your idea of non-payment of fines leading on the bigger consquences. Perhaps, the simplest would be to have anonymous protocols for bounties only. Coupled with the idea of non-payment of fines becoming a crime, with more fines (and rep loss) being accrude, each week. Evenutaully they could become bounties if the fines get to a reasonable level but that goes back to the old systems, which, didn't really work as intented either.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Old Duck said:
I'm a bit paranoid now operating out here in deep space, because it is so easy to get a fine or a bounty by accident. For example, I love driving around the outpost in my SRV, but it's easy to "loiter on a pad" even though the SRV is nowhere near the actual landing pad. I can't remember - is that a fine or a bounty? I used to drive right up to the pad in the SRV and watch NPCs come and go, I found it relaxing, like watching planes at the airport. Somewhere along the way the "exclusion zone" for pads was extended, and if you accidentally cross that line and get hung up and can't get your SRV out in time.....

Even the firing within the NFZ is a mistake that's easily made, especially on a console controller where just one slip of the finger can fire the gun. With ships, you have to deploy hardpoints to fire, but SRVs automatically deploy the turret, and I know of no way to turn it off. I have in the past emptied the weapons capacitor while outside the NFZ in order to prevent misfires once inside, but that's a heck of a hoop to jump through.

So yeah, I'll be walking on pins and needles out here for now on (I doubt support will bail me out again). And I thought exploring in a shieldless ship was going to be the challenge! :p
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When I want to "station watch" I use the remote camera .. it's a lot safer (assuming you park in a safe position) and you get a clear image.
 

Codger

Codger
This thread is in itself a nearly perfect example of how confusing and unintuitive the C&P system really is. Look at all the varied responses, and so many of them are just wrong and/or uniformed.

I understand the system, and avoid trouble with it, so it doesn't affect my personal day-to-day gameplay that much.

I still think it's a stupid system that makes little sense, and adds nothing but annoyance to the game.

Ah well.
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Old Duck said:
UPDATE - Thankfully Frontier's support team granted my request and removed the fine :D They also asked me to contact QA (file a bug report), which means at least the fellow who handled my support ticket believes this is a bug / unintended gameplay.

Personally I think fines should be treated different than bounties in regards to station services. If I am wanted dead or alive (bounty), then it makes sense to use a disguise (anon protocols) to avoid arrest, but a fine shouldn't affect me in this way. Here in America, you can have a glove box full of parking tickets and still carry on as normal. However, if you don't pay those parking tickets by the due date, then your life starts becoming much more complicated. Didn't the old system work this way? Fail to pay a fine and it matured to a bounty after time? I can't clearly remember. Anyway, the anon protocols are "immersion breaking" for a 50 credit fine for what is the ED equivalent of jaywalking.
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Support: Cleaning up after the game designers.... :(
 

EXE Sasser

E
Think fines such as speeding, reckless flying or accidental trespassing (forgetting to request docking which I've done several times) should be payable without the need to transport me 200 or so Ly away to a detention ship.

Things like murder bounties whether its on a player or NPC, that's reason enough to be chucked to a detention centre upon paying off fines.
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Thetele said:
And fix for this would be so simple. All crimes under 1000 cr would be fines all above that bounties. Fines could be paid without any other penalties. If frontier wanted to make this C&P system better one dev could probably do it in a day.
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But, think of the pizza/doughnut expense, that the dino's want!
 

Spacecat

Spacecat
Honestly, I have yet to incur more than a fine since the new system dropped, but it seems like a convoluted mess. When it comes to C & P, usually, the simpler system is the better system.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Spacecat said:
Honestly, I have yet to incur more than a fine since the new system dropped, but it seems like a convoluted mess. When it comes to C & P, usually, the simpler system is the better system.
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When it comes to anything, simplicity and logic (and simple common sense) are the key to doing it best. I'm beginning to see why ED is so buggy, because the same minds that conjure up convoluted gameplay are the ones that conjure up the computer code that makes the game :p

The funny thing is, we have real life C&P systems that Frontier could have modeled into the game, instead of pulling this rabbit out of Sandro's programmer brain. Frontier should bring in a local bobby to help them with the next revision to C&P (if there is one). Having experts advise in the production of a game or movie is nothing new.
 
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Whitehair

W
Old Duck said:
I'm beginning to see why ED is so buggy, because the same minds that conjure up convoluted gameplay are the ones that conjure up the computer code that makes the game....

Having experts advise in the production of a game or movie is nothing new.
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You obviously "know nothing" Old Duck.

Designers do not programmers make. Thus it has been and always shall be so.

IT projects simply do not work where one person does the design and programming. There are reasons for this, one of which is years of training and experience to 'get good' at one skill.

As for asking for experts to advise.... I'll hazard a guess that they won't be calling you after this post :D
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Old Duck said:
When it comes to anything, simplicity and logic (and simple common sense) are the key to doing it best. I'm beginning to see why ED is so buggy, because the same minds that conjure up convoluted gameplay are the ones that conjure up the computer code that makes the game..
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I'm sure people will be able to provide examples to refute this, but still...

When was the last time you played any game (other than ED) where "the law" wasn't completely intuitive or, failing that, where the game didn't provide some kind of tutorial (either formal or not) to demonstrate how things work?

I don't play a lot of games but I have been playing games for 30+ years and I genuinely can't think of any examples of a game where I've "broken the law" and been totally baffled about the reason or the consequences.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Stealthie said:
When was the last time you played any game (other than ED) where "the law" wasn't completely intuitive or, failing that, where the game didn't provide some kind of tutorial (either formal or not) to demonstrate how things work?

I don't play a lot of games but I have been playing games for 30+ years and I genuinely can't think of any examples of a game where I've "broken the law" and been totally baffled about the reason or the consequences.
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Agreed. I actually have some fond memories of the consequences of law breaking (and bending) in games like Skyrim and Dragon's Dogma. I think the problem with ED's C&P is that it's a reactionary response to the problem of griefing, which most MMOs (all the ones I've played) don't have to deal with thanks to a proper separation of PvP and PvE. It definitely feels like the meeting in which these decisions were made started with, "How do we stop griefing?" instead of the more appropriate question of, "How do we introduce a realistic crime and punishment system into the game?"
 

SiriusStrider

SiriusStrider
Oh, the joys of Colonies not having Contacts :)

I suspect they wanted to disable handing in bounties, and not being able to pay fines was just collateral damage when C&P came out. I agree that is annoying, and I hope it gets fixed.

Because you mentioned it somewhere else, the prison ship closest to the Lagoon Nebula is Mjolnir's Wrath in direction of Colonia. Astur's Vault in the bubble is 600ly further away, in case you might get tempted to utilize Prison Express Travel.
 

BurntJello

BurntJello
Repeal C&P 3.0!

I just had a run-in with this disaster myself.

Pirate NPC chaffed, my beam grazed the poor python miner. Pirates later killed it before I could kill them. => murder bounty, 1 notoriety [sour]

Bugs I can accept, they happen. But this, this entire thing is bad design from the start.
 
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