Avoiding Group Control...

[JeffRyan]

If they know of these threads Jeff then try and keep things focused, factual and pragmatic ( what you and others can do against them without developer support ). Going any other way will leave you guys open to a feign or sideswipe.

That is the main gist of what this thread was about. And also most of the people (if not all) who're strongest in the 'be wary of GS tactics' are ex-EVE players.

I think also that most of the KS backers are all ex-EVE players at some point. We're not as naive as we're painted.

 

[Meritz]

I agree with this. Deprived of the attention they will eventually go find some other place to get the attention they crave.

Only that won't happen. It's easy to ignore them on the forums - but when the live game comes, so will many players who have not been trained in the art of troll warfare.

So they'll wreck a system and reap the inevitable tears.

I still think Goon tactics are irrelevant in this game though, and there is not much they can do to disrupt things on a big scale. Eve is exceptionally closed compared to ED. In ED there is no way to blockade a system in the sense of having "pipes" allowing you to lock down one system and cut off entire constellations and regions even. At best you can lock down a station. Even an entire system as far as landing/takeoff goes (though that may become irrelevant with planetary landings since a player will be able to approach the planet from any side and land).

It is trivially easy to sidestep blockaded systems though. You don't have to go through them one by one.

Another thing is player detection. In Eve, a lockdown gang is immediately allerted when a player appears in the system - everybody knows you're there. Not so in ED. Until you light up your heat signature, no one knows where you are.

The freeform travel is also another evasion method. You can drop out of SC at any time and go cold - no one has any chance of finding you then, or getting to you in the time you need to hyperspace out once you sort out where you want to go.

Sure, it is possible for them to go cold near a station and set up an ambush, but that's part of the game - you can do the same, drop out of SC at extreme range and freeze-glide with FA off and silent running on most of the way. Don't fire your thrusters and you're practically invisible all the way to no-fire zone.

Point is, in Eve you can lock down systems and lock down players, so their choices are either to log off or die trying to get through the blockade. Not so in ED. In the worst case, you can always just go someplace else. The universe is too big and open for any player group to be able to do what they can do in Eve.

 

[Sumkawps]

That is the main gist of what this thread was about.

It strikes me that FD have done a lot of thinking about game design to limit the potential for group control.

Juniper, I think rightly, points out that there are many built in features and mechanisms that will help.

• Instance limit of 32 players max.
• No territorial control possible.
• No player corporations / guilds.
• No player run markets.
• No manufacturing.
• No player owned persistent structures.
• Death outside Ironman is relatively painless.
• Exponential bounty system and NPC response.
• Possible hiding of who is a player and who isn't.
• No player council to be influenced or controlled.
• Private groups
• Single player.
• Enormous galaxy.
• A watchful player base, hardened by experiences in other games, who will not tolerate griefing.
• Ignore list which works on an account (not character) basis.

So we need to continue to signal to FD that the cumulative effect of these measures is important, and that we do not want them changed or diluted. And all FD need do is know that they have our support, and continue to do what they have said they will do all along - make the game the devs want to play, the vision for which got backed to the tune of GBP 1.5 million in KS.

For anyone that disagrees because they bought in without understanding these mechanics and calls for change from ignorance, the response is a polite "caveat emptor".

For anyone who disagrees with and wants to change or dilute these mechanics because they want to play a different play-style that doesn't work within the mechanics as advertised, the response is a different two word phrase.

As ICDP correctly points out, and phrases it more politely than I might:

This isn't about me or others being unable to see your point of view, it is about playing the game the way the FD are designing it.

There is no entitlement to change that vision granted by being a customer, or a forum poster, or a group of well-organised metagamers. FD has the ultimate say, and that say should, imho, be "my way or the highway".

 

[Wescott]

Only that won't happen. It's easy to ignore them on the forums - but when the live game comes, so will many players who have not been trained in the art of troll warfare.

So they'll wreck a system and reap the inevitable tears.

I still think Goon tactics are irrelevant in this game though, and there is not much they can do to disrupt things on a big scale. Eve is exceptionally closed compared to ED. In ED there is no way to blockade a system in the sense of having "pipes" allowing you to lock down one system and cut off entire constellations and regions even. At best you can lock down a station. Even an entire system as far as landing/takeoff goes (though that may become irrelevant with planetary landings since a player will be able to approach the planet from any side and land).

It is trivially easy to sidestep blockaded systems though. You don't have to go through them one by one.

Another thing is player detection. In Eve, a lockdown gang is immediately allerted when a player appears in the system - everybody knows you're there. Not so in ED. Until you light up your heat signature, no one knows where you are.

The freeform travel is also another evasion method. You can drop out of SC at any time and go cold - no one has any chance of finding you then, or getting to you in the time you need to hyperspace out once you sort out where you want to go.

Sure, it is possible for them to go cold near a station and set up an ambush, but that's part of the game - you can do the same, drop out of SC at extreme range and freeze-glide with FA off and silent running on most of the way. Don't fire your thrusters and you're practically invisible all the way to no-fire zone.

Point is, in Eve you can lock down systems and lock down players, so their choices are either to log off or die trying to get through the blockade. Not so in ED. In the worst case, you can always just go someplace else. The universe is too big and open for any player group to be able to do what they can do in Eve.

Every! hyper jump atm Drops you at a star, dropping out of Jump space every time at a given point provides a choke point in every system groups of raiders stationed there with some strung out along the most obvious vectors in system ready to interdict add to that another fixed point the destination station where others await to interdict, and you would end up running a gauntlet, unless you are part of the group. thus a system can be blockaded

 

[CaptainKremmen]

In the event people make "not fun" blockades the norm, the FD finger of God simply needs to tweak a few lines of code, and rework that hyperspace exit.

DB has stated previously that they eventually want supercruise to have a bit of "cat and mouse" about it.


If it's 31 cats versus 1 mouse, expect some tweaking to occur.

 

[Meritz]

Every! hyper jump atm Drops you at a star, dropping out of Jump space every time at a given point provides a choke point in every system groups of raiders stationed there with some strung out along the most obvious vectors in system ready to interdict add to that another fixed point the destination station where others await to interdict, and you would end up running a gauntlet, unless you are part of the group. thus a system can be blockaded

It drops you at a star, but at random locations. Given the distance scale involved, a far cry from being dropped in a fixed sphere 10-12km across, like you get in Eve.

So for example, an evasive maneuver would be easily performed immediately post-hyperspace. Drop out of supercruise, full throttle, boost, vent heat and go cold.

Even if anyone is precise and fast enough to drop near your location, they will have a very hard time picking you up from the stars.

*Especially* if you, as you should if you're intent on evasion, pick black decal camo for your ship paint. Might as well be invisible.

System blockades, a.k.a. camping, rely on players being forced through chokepoints. The only chokepoint currently is the station entrance. But that's a bad kind of chokepoint. Eve gates are much better since if you sit at them, you control the system. If you sit in front of a station, you just control that station.

I expect, instead, that tactics will involve active, fast system sweeps - a number of groups will hyperspace in a system and look for signatures; mission runners in combat, supercruising ships and the like. Unattentive people will likely either not have proper scanning gear equipped or will not pay attention to their ship scanner to notice a dozen new signatures flaring up. That's going to be their meat.

But I seriously doubt they could sit at a few key systems and just catch people in a net, or at worst deny access to anything but that system.

In other words, lots of fun, not boring camping and not being forced to log or lose the ship.

 

[Joe Spivey]

In the event people make "not fun" blockades the norm, the FD finger of God simply needs to tweak a few lines of code, and rework that hyperspace exit.

DB has stated previously that they eventually want supercruise to have a bit of "cat and mouse" about it.


If it's 31 cats versus 1 mouse, expect some tweaking to occur.

Didn't FD also say that hyperspace exits will become random points orbiting the sun instead of the single point as it is now? And we all know how big some suns can get so that is a lot of space to run silent in.

 

[Bromley86]

Not a huge issue anyway, I'd have thought. If it's known to players, it's also known to the vastly-more-numerous NPC authorities. So response times to distress squawks will be very fast near the emergence points. Key point is the emergence points are not a single/few precise point(s) in space that can be camped.

The advantage of having ships emerge near the sun is it makes space lanes possible, which in turn makes piracy more than just flying around for days or camping near the station.

 

[Gwyvern]

I certainly hated the "slave yourself to a huge alliance or go home" attitude that EVE supported, but there were still many people who managed to penetrate into the territories of those alliances alone.

The main problem with EVE was that there were two types of activities, PVP and PVE. All of the good PVE content was in PVP zones, which isn't all that bad, risk vs reward right? the problem stemmed from the fact that a PVE build was worthless in PVP, due to heavy use of Ewar and debuffing in PVP, likewise a PVP build could not stand up to the raw punishment of PVE, where Ewar was scarce but you regularly need to withstand the firepower of entire fleets of AI at the same time and still do enough damage to kill them.

This effectively cut PVErs off from all the good high risk high reward content unless they slaved themselves to a large alliance that already owned some of the territory where this PVE content was located.

 

[JeffRyan]

Didn't FD also say that hyperspace exits will become random points orbiting the sun instead of the single point as it is now? And we all know how big some suns can get so that is a lot of space to run silent in.

Not quite... the FIRST person to jump into an instance creates a random entry point in that system. Every other person will jump to that point in that instance until that instance no longer exists...

 

[Space_Killer69]

Not quite... the FIRST person to jump into an instance creates a random entry point in that system. Every other person will jump to that point in that instance until that instance no longer exists...

Way to enable spawn camping an re-create gate camps.


Oh well I guess FD know what they're doing.

 

[graham.reeds]

Not quite... the FIRST person to jump into an instance creates a random entry point in that system. Every other person will jump to that point in that instance until that instance no longer exists...

The way I understood it was that all traffic between A..B would come out in roughly the same location while traffic between C..B would come out in a different location.

 

[NoirWolf]

Way to enable spawn camping an re-create gate camps.


Oh well I guess FD know what they're doing.

They could just enlarge the exit area by a few hundred cubic km. Not much of an issue then.

 

[Bromley86]

The way I understood it was that all traffic between A..B would come out in roughly the same location while traffic between C..B would come out in a different location.

That'd be really good if they're doing that graham. As long as each emergence point is a random spot in a set sphere of space, there can't be any insta-death camping.

 

[Meritz]

Not quite... the FIRST person to jump into an instance creates a random entry point in that system. Every other person will jump to that point in that instance until that instance no longer exists...

I think you misinterpreted what kind of instance - do we know the total limit of the number of players in the "system instance"? We know the local instance, for example around a station is set to be limited to 32 players. How many players are allowed to be in the same system in general, for example in supercruise, or in various locations throughout the system?

Regardless, since you exit hyperspace at superluminal speed, in a matter of a second or two you can travel thousands of kilometres in any direction. In Eve that is not an option, and you can get your warp drive disabled, by dedicated tacklers who are expecting you, virtually immediately upon arrival insystem.

 

[Andrew Sayers]

If they know of these threads Jeff then try and keep things focused, factual and pragmatic ( what you and others can do against them without developer support ). Going any other way will leave you guys open to a feign or sideswipe.

Could you expand a bit on "without developer support"? In the video you linked to in another thread, CCP's CEO referred to them as "the janitors of EVE Online". Were you referring to that hands-off thing or something else?

 

[OillyRag]

perhaps someone should compile and maintain a 'goon swarm' ignore list that we can all load up.

they can then cause as much havoc amongst themselves as they like, and we can get on with playing the game.

 

[Juniper]

perhaps someone should compile and maintain a 'goon swarm' ignore list that we can all load up.

they can then cause as much havoc amongst themselves as they like, and we can get on with playing the game.

Undoubtedly something like this will occur.

 

[Storagebod]

Undoubtedly something like this will occur.

It probably will but it has some unfortunate side-effects...don't like a player, out them as a GS member. So we'll all have to be careful....

It's a bit sad really!!

Remember when games were supposed to be fun and about enjoying yourself? Then some idiot went and invented online gaming!! I blame Trubshaw and Bartle!

And yes, this sort of thing does go back that far...different scale but probably the same proportion of the community.

 

[NoirWolf]

Could you expand a bit on "without developer support"? In the video you linked to in another thread, CCP's CEO referred to them as "the janitors of EVE Online". Were you referring to that hands-off thing or something else?

Yes frankly. FD probably know that they need to set limits and to enforce them strictly but they also need to know the rules have to allow for the spark of a sandbox to occur. CCP may have gone to far in giving freedom or they may just be at the right place the point is assume the worse, prepare for it and meet the goons, should they choose to invade piecemeal at any point, like the Ancient Athenian Navy met the Persians at Artemisium and Salamis. With guile, speed and maximum effect we can check their advance.

Know though that while the Goons of the rank and file level are no better, or worse, than likely any of us their leadership is brutally efficient when required so do not underestimate them lest we become Tyre and they the Romans.

Note: Yes I love ancient history and while I enjoyed the latest 300 movie I knew about the battles during the Persian invasion of the Peloponnesian peninsula .
Note 2: I would help lead a resistance if Mittani is not leading the Goons simply because then it would get weird considering who Themistocles and Artemisia would be.