At best you can slow down people flying in and blast some noobs.
Another solution to ganker problem
- Thread starter Condor
- Start date
For the most part I agree with you which is why my ideas to help provide a solution focus on giving those soft targets more of a chance to counter/escape or provide better warning/info about entering a particular system whilst being a target, and finding ways to differentiate actions in relation to security/status of the aggressor and target.
I get this example, and in principle I completely agree, however, in practice, realistically, there's no way that a system sponsored event like that would allow for a group acting in consort or individually to just hang out in full view and engage in that sort of activity. There would be system security buzzing around looking for ships with bounties etc.. That's where it can be said that it's not balanced and favors the aggressor too much.
It seems to me that on both sides there is a desire to keep it easy for themselves.. let the PVP'ers not have to work harder to achieve their goal and also the PVE'ers not ever be disrupted. Right now, I would agree that, in open, the pendulum is too far against towards the PVP folks. However, I would also agree this advantage is 100% countered by PG/Solo, those who don't play in open shift the pendulum completely in favor of the PVE player. Hence why some say that you default agree to this sort of thing by choosing to play in open.
However (again), I think the problem is less PVE vs PVP so much as balancing out the interactions between the two, and being informed about what it is one is about to do when jumping into a hotspot system, as I've said before. The whole thing reminds me of what this article speaks of:
Worth pondering IMHO.
True, but people do that already when they go fishing and that's a very popular activity.As ineffective as spending 6+ hrs per day waiting for haulers to appear?
It stil probably doesn't mean you're wrong, but at certain points during a CG I imagine the traffic in open is way higher than just that.
It's a shame that higher class FSDs can't be made or engineered to actually get you to your destination faster, but I guess we're talking about seconds rather than the timescales that the old Frontier games worked in, so it's probably not worth it unless standard FSDs are slowed down considerably to allow for the extra speed to count, and I don't think that's a path anyone wants to go down..
Have a survey at the rebuy screen:
Were you ganked?
Well, sometimes...
Yeah, it's an Anaconda, not a Vette coming for my efficient beamed thermal resistant bi-weave Corvette, but close enough.
On a related note, that's where I met Replicant and he's actually a pretty cool guy.
I'm a big fan of uncertainty and even, to a degree, randomness. Elite: Dangerous doesn't have many opportunities for this in combat though, not any more.
The way the game treats shielding is the overriding (though far from only) problem here. Shields are a nearly absolute protection, that has gotten geometrically stronger over time, while any potential counters that have cropped up have rapidly been nerfed into the dirt.
Yes, by whoever left that capital ship here:
Also, does it count as a gank if my CMDR fires first?
I'm not sure surveys would be very meaningful, except to note the subjective delusions of each individual player.
Regardless, I'm pretty sure that most of the times my CMDR has been ganked or, much more commonly, attempted ganked, the players were friendly, even if their CMDRs weren't.
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thissssssssssssssssssssssss
Stacking boosters was a mistake. I guess pre-engineering wouldn't be so bad at only a max of 20% per booster, but current engineering gives you a frankly insane 70%+ for every utility slot.
I'd much rather see the overall benefit of boosters capped at their unengineered combined total or the single largest booster, whichever is greater.
Personally I think it would have been better if shield boosters didn't increase the raw health pool at all and boosted the regen rate instead - that way, overall benefit would be capped at whatever your distro could put out no matter how many you slapped on, and it'd make biweave/standard/prismatic more of a tactical choice - go standard and slap some boosters on to make up the rate, or go biweave to save the utilities at a cost of a weaker overall shield?
Only works with a complete overhaul, otherwise every T class would die to one frag salvo, even if built properly (skipping almost all cargo for hrps excluded).
We need a complete rebalance, otherwise every solution will just screw over the less shielded ships.
True. The low end is a problem, the high end is absolutely ridiculous. Ships go so far beyond "gankproof" and into "if you're not a complete tryhard, don't even bother deploying hardpoints".
Guess what kind of shields gankers tend to have.
Ganking wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't so utterly pointless to try and fight back. Even "hold them off until the cops arrive" is pointless since the cops till take about 20 minutes to bring their shields down too.
I guess I've been deliberately avoiding talk of things other than the unreasonable nature of the OP's request or similar requests which don't go to the root cause of the problems... for example @Screemonster 's comment is something I was aware of but avoiding because it spirals out into a totally different thing; as there's no concept of "deep space" crime where there's no witnesses unless you're in a jurisdictionless system. Interestingly, the way C&P used to work was also more aligned with FFE in that you could just pay bounties off. That obviously doesn't work, since FD changed how C&P works to be explicitly against that concept.
So let's bite this bullet. There are massive, systemic issues with the game as it currently stands, and suggestions like this completely miss the point and just seek to trivialise an activity down to "something that you're not meant to do"... again... if there's no point to it, why even allow it.
So what needs to change? heaps. I don't want to waste time going into the solution space, suffice to say I've written solutions to all these ad-infinitum. So here goes.
- Defensive fits for haulers don't detract from offensive fits for aggressors. That is... regardless of if my hauler is a zero-shield paperthin wafer, or T10 with nothing but tank surrounding just 2t of cargo rack, the fitting for an aggressor does not change. There is no "trade off"... all the trade-off is with the defender, who has to change their fit and lose ability, but the offender loses nothing in return.
EVE Online, whether you like it or not, deals with this fantastically. Attackers have to consider three aspects; damage, tank, and tackle. Haulers consider these: ability, tank, evasion.
What's this mean? It's the old tethered radar chart, where pulling one towards optimal efficiency drags the others away from that position. Tank and damage are straightforward... how much damage you put out and how much defense you have (noting tank in this case means shield, armour and speed). Tackle is your ability to capture and hold a target. This looks like fitting web nullifiers, warp scramblers/jammers, energy drain, deployable warp bubbles.... all of which takes away from fitting for tank and defence.
Meanwhile, (hauler) ability refers to fittings to achieve whatever you want to do; hauling, salvage, mining, even PvE fighting all require specialised fittings that don't necessarily help much in a PvP fight. Evasion is fittings that make it harder to actually get a hold of you to attack in the first place; warp core stabilisers, energy drainers/batteries, microwarpdrives, bubble immunity modules, cloaking devices.
For the most part, these evasion fits are not combat-viable. Take Warp Core Stabilisers. These simply make you immune to a particular amount of warp jamming... but they also decrease your lock time on a target by 50%... in EVE terms that effectively takes you out of the fight. More WCS = More immunity.
Looking at it from the attackers side, you can fit jammers... and the more jammers you fit, the more WCS you can overcome... but, each fitting takes away from your tank, making you a softer target which could actually be destroyed quite easily by a hauler who just happens to pack some guns instead. But if you don't fit anything and focus entirely on tank and damage, a single WCS is enough to mean you can't take that target down. And that's the trade-off.
What's this mean? It's the old tethered radar chart, where pulling one towards optimal efficiency drags the others away from that position. Tank and damage are straightforward... how much damage you put out and how much defense you have (noting tank in this case means shield, armour and speed). Tackle is your ability to capture and hold a target. This looks like fitting web nullifiers, warp scramblers/jammers, energy drain, deployable warp bubbles.... all of which takes away from fitting for tank and defence.
Meanwhile, (hauler) ability refers to fittings to achieve whatever you want to do; hauling, salvage, mining, even PvE fighting all require specialised fittings that don't necessarily help much in a PvP fight. Evasion is fittings that make it harder to actually get a hold of you to attack in the first place; warp core stabilisers, energy drainers/batteries, microwarpdrives, bubble immunity modules, cloaking devices.
For the most part, these evasion fits are not combat-viable. Take Warp Core Stabilisers. These simply make you immune to a particular amount of warp jamming... but they also decrease your lock time on a target by 50%... in EVE terms that effectively takes you out of the fight. More WCS = More immunity.
Looking at it from the attackers side, you can fit jammers... and the more jammers you fit, the more WCS you can overcome... but, each fitting takes away from your tank, making you a softer target which could actually be destroyed quite easily by a hauler who just happens to pack some guns instead. But if you don't fit anything and focus entirely on tank and damage, a single WCS is enough to mean you can't take that target down. And that's the trade-off.
- FD have taken the position that PvP and PvE crime are identical. This is a big source of consternation for a lot of people... as the two concepts are fundamentally different.
- Criminal activities are, incidentally, criminally under-rewarding and under-baked. PvE crime... a smuggling mission pays out less than a legitimate trade mission for the same goods to a comparable location... being wanted or, heaven forbid, hostile, locks you out of further criminal activities. PvP crime has virtually no rewards, especially when you see that PvP piracy is essentially a 15s game of "can i beat the clock to someone menu logging". The only time it works is when there's mutual agreeance to protocols which simply don't exist anywhere in game mechanics.
- Success in crime relies on staying clean. I won't disagree that makes sense for smuggling, but for everything else, it's a fundamental flaw. It rewards evasion, instead of facing the danger. HIP22460 is actually a great example of going in to a high-risk system for a potential reward (good salvage, lore exposition etc)... obv you can't have similar damage effects, but the concept is same. Ramp up the difficulty for criminals, provided there's a reasonable reward to accompany it.
- Notoriety is global. This is a huge pain post-Odyssey, because cross-jurisdictional fines can't be paid when Notorious anymore.... but beyond that it's pretty daft to have, say, your whole Imperial access situation tarnished by the fact you have a horrid criminal history with the Federation (which was probably bankrolled by the Empire anyway) and then got tarnished by one misdemeanour against the Empire (which was also probably bankrolled by the Empire). Notoriety should be superpower-based.
- Hostile rep is pointless. It's nothing more than a punitive state, locking you out of stations. It would be much better to have access when hostile much the same as when wanted, using anonymity protocols (the current system itself is absolutely incongruent as it stands), and access with anonymity protocols providing access to criminal networks where the worse your reputation, the better.
This is even more apparent with Hostile Superpower rep; it has no effect, and in fact has better outcomes... if you have hostile superpower rep, you take less rep damage when offending aligned minor factions.... that means you can commit more crime against a target before suffering the major negative consequence of station lockout.
- Essentially; the entire system is geared to managing your criminal image such that you either stay clean/easily become clean at the end of your session, or your activity is geared in a way that the consequences don't matter (especially if you just flip to a clean ship). This only inconveniences lawful players, who have never planned how to keep playing when hit with a bounty, or simply can't continue lawful activities because they got pinged with a crime.
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The solution here is not a straightforward one-shot fix; it's a systemic overhaul of many game mechanics which are all interlinked. Unless C&P 3.0 is slated, I doubt that's ever going to happen, so we need to work with what we've got.... and simply ramping up punishment of players who engage in a legitimate aspect of the game (i.e killing other players) without any actual rewards going in-hand with that activity is simply the wrong way forward.... which leads neatly to this.
I definitely agree, though argue people like the OP with these kinds of suggestions who should consider it. This sword cuts two ways... and it doesn't help anybody to use one way exclusively.
Incidentally, the common greivance seems to be "people getting killed for no reason", and is therefore griefing/trolling/whatever. So maybe the solution is to give a reason to kill people. Have them drop their cargo on death, or get a "criminal voucher" in some new reworked crime mechanic equal to the value of the ship you took out.
That sounds like it would solve the perception of "killing for no reason", right?
I'm not even going near the solution space much here, suffice to say I edge near it in a few points. tl;dr though, in the current system, PvE and PvP crime are very similar things, and until we talk about increasing the rewards for crime writ-large, we can't talk about increasing the punishments.
EDIT: If this post sounds a bit rambly and jumping topic to topic, I blame that on the convoluted mess we have for C&P right now.
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It doesnt. Only in your imagination.
It's not that easy I'm afraid. In the current state of the game nerfing shields in itself would only make the situation worse. As things stand now, potential damage output is very high, not even prismatic shields take very long to drop, and hull underneath is basically useless.
With meta FDLs (3000+ MJ prismatic shields) on both sides, if a 1v1 duel lasts more than 5 to 6 minutes or a 4v4 wingfight takes more than 7 to 10, then it usually just means that people simply weren't good enough (their dps was way lower than it should have been).
Hull and exposed modules are extremely vulnerable to all kind of things like missiles, magic effects like corrosive and scramble, SRB rails and especially plasmarams, most of which are not even happening from your POV (shadowrams because desync).
Not even heatsinks and/or silent running willl save you, because they are easily counterable. You cannot really expect to be able to evade forever, becuse opponents will be able to see you thanks to night vision, and even if they don't have an emission laser/multicannon, you'll still be visible and targettable on their scanner, they will know that they only need to stay close to you, which they will be capable of doing since range control is the key to high damage anyway, so that's exactly what they are practicing all the time.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Not the way that this game was sold to every player, no.
The single shared galaxy is there for players in all game modes to experience and affect, whereas other players (including gankers) are an optional extra. Needless to say, some players don't want to play the ganker mini-game so choose not to play among them.
That's not how the game works and even making BGS / PP open only wouldn't change that. In Elite flying missions will always be more effective than blockading systems and that is not going to change unless you completely change the network infrastructure and the rules of the game. So essentially you want to create a completely new game that already exists. Have you tried Eve?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
While some players want a herd to attack, provoking a response from players who want a herd to defend, neither group considers what the herd wants.
In this game the herd does not need to play with those who would attack them, if they don't want to.
PANOPTICON. DELENDA. EST.
Crimes used to time out. The C&P update changed that, making it so that bounties never go away because some people just couldn't stand the idea of people getting away with a crime.
Coupled with that fact that it's impossible to not receive a bounty means that the only crime that can be performed undetected is smuggling.
EVEN IF THE SYSTEM LINK IS JAMMED. EXPLAIN HOW IT MAKES SENSE THAT THEY CAN REPORT CRIMES WHILE THE SYSTEM LINK IS JAMMED.
I can still hear the pitched squeals when FD went near shield and hull re-balancing, only to back off.
Focused feedback threads in general. Especially the one for you-know-what.
So many suggestions in that thread that were universally loved, but all lost to time under an avalanche of hotel california posts...
Its a tale as old as time here. Depth and complexity (even when it might not even affect certain people) is like eating puppies live on air while delivering Hutton Mugs. Another is people gatekeeping features that they themselves don't play.