Beware of the griefers at the alien crash site...

[Deathwatch]

Are there any player groups that offer paid security so people can enjoy open until FDEV get's their Crime and Punishment system sorted? Seems like some combat pilots could make a good career out of selling their services to non-PVP players in open.

edit: But of course I forgot that FDev made it so players can't give credits directly to other players. So scrap that idea a guess. boooo.

Edit II: We used to do this in SWG before it was ruined by the devs. Combat builds would offer MOB security to traders and merchants. It was great player-generated content.

The issue is you can't protect someone, the fragile target gets fragged instantly, if its a 4 v 4 wing battle and you've got 3 escorts vs 4 attackers they are at the disadvantage etc.

Also you can't easily pay people.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

It was pitched as a hunt other cmdrs in a cut throat galaxy but so many seem to forget that part when it is convenient to them

So killing a Cmdr in an SRV whilst in a Cutter is fine with you?

If my family played this game and I decided I wanted to shoot them I wouldn't care if they were in a sidewinder, SRV or an other vehicle the carebears wanna say shouldn't be shot at. I would shoot in a heartbeat. Though I tend to be a pirate I sometimes kill cause I want to. There is no rule that says pvp has to be equal or fair, life is not always fair so deal with it.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

If my family played this game and I decided I wanted to shoot them I wouldn't care if they were in a sidewinder, SRV or an other vehicle the carebears wanna say shouldn't be shot at. I would shoot in a heartbeat. Though I tend to be a pirate I sometimes kill cause I want to. There is no rule that says pvp has to be equal or fair, life is not always fair so deal with it.

And it is perfectly "fair" and right within the rules of the game. whatever gets your kicks. But now a majority of us would also want a way to identify you, a means to pursue you and to kill you for what you did, which would be as fair. Problem is that pk are mostly anonymous and unaccounted for. it's too safe a business for you out there. No real bounty on your head, no way to track you, pin you and make your commander suffer. That's sorely lacking

 

[Arguendo]

Edit: Ninja'd way back.

 

[Ozram]

Easy to solve, don't gank people for the lulz. PvP is good, even great, when it's on a level playing field. When it's not, it sucks, and is akin to pranking sleeping dogs. People being        at being trolled is natural.

There's no reason to call names unless you're mining salt, and that goes for both sides. If name calling bothers you so, I suggest you avoid the Internet in general.

I think you've missed my point entirely.

 

[Arguendo]

There is no punishment nor reward for criminal PvP combat so it is fine.

...for the criminal (you forgot that last part).

So yeah, not cool that people don't take this gameplay in concideration and ask for punishment because they can't face it and want to stop this gameplay.

What Gameplay? "Kill all players" isn't Gameplay. It's "I doez it 'cuz I canz".

Bring a wing of ships that can compete?

Really? Sorry, shouldn't have expected the "attacker" to blame anyone but the "victim." My bad.

sorry but if you go to somehwere that has been so widley broadcast recently, then you will get exactly what you deserve. I know in this instance you may not have much of a choice, but you pick your potatoe.

And then people adapt by leaving Open for PGs or Solo, and the "attackers" complain that there aren't people in Open anymore and demand that PGs and Solo mode are removed from the game. Nice circle.

Just LOL, he make an MMO but he don't sell a PvP game... just lol ! It prove a total unknow of the multiplayer game world ! If you don't want or think about PvP when you are creating a game, just make it Solo or Coop, like skyrim or TW or some others, but saying : we'll make a sandbox univers multiplayer game " and after told it's not a PvP game, it's just ridiculous...

Are MMOs and PvP inextricably linked? Can't have one without the other? Yeah, too bad Braben thought people were going to see ED for what it is; a co-operative multi-faceted game, not "Kill all and win".

I agree that the comparison is a bit far-stretched in this regard ; it was just to show that if some games work well with such rules, other games work well without. It's also a question of community, they're very different- and hanging around both forums, I can tell that I feel more at home here than Eve one. Not to say there are no good guys in the latter - they're just muffled by a crowd of not-so-nice spacefarers.

Not a hit on you, but you do know that the most prolifique of the groups we are talking about were founded by people coming from that other game? And bringing that mentality with them.

If my family played this game and I decided I wanted to shoot them I wouldn't care if they were in a sidewinder, SRV or an other vehicle the carebears wanna say shouldn't be shot at. I would shoot in a heartbeat. Though I tend to be a pirate I sometimes kill cause I want to. There is no rule that says pvp has to be equal or fair, life is not always fair so deal with it.

I think that says more about you than you realise. (Oh, sorry. I forgot. "It's just a game")

 

[Toumal]

You people who gank other players with the sole purpose of causing them grief are ruining PvP, nothing else. And the legitimate PvP players who defend this sort of behavior are blind to the fact that open play is in danger here.

 

[Jon flint]

You people who gank other players with the sole purpose of causing them grief are ruining PvP, nothing else. And the legitimate PvP players who defend this sort of behavior are blind to the fact that open play is in danger here.

What do you qualify as a ganker or griefer though?

I was interdicted in the last hour while hauling gold to the current cg by a cmdr in a modded cutter. He announced his intention with a "prepare to die" message and immediately opened fire.

Thing is, I don't really count that as griefing or ganking purely because he was alone and we were in roughly evenly matched ships. Although it was rather depressing that his cutter could fly faster in reverse than I could boost forward! Anyway, after a brief exchange of fire I figured I was outmatched and high waked, cutters are very formidable ships, especially when loaded to the gills with thermal shock weapons!

Now if he had interdicted and fired at a cmdr in a T6, now that would be griefing. Although others would still label him a griefer purely based on his trying to kill another cmdr.

 

[Arguendo]

What do you qualify as a ganker or griefer though?

I was interdicted in the last hour while hauling gold to the current cg by a cmdr in a modded cutter. He announced his intention with a "prepare to die" message and immediately opened fire.

Spoiler

Thing is, I don't really count that as griefing or ganking purely because he was alone and we were in roughly evenly matched ships. Although it was rather depressing that his cutter could fly faster in reverse than I could boost forward! Anyway, after a brief exchange of fire I figured I was outmatched and high waked, cutters are very formidable ships, especially when loaded to the gills with thermal shock weapons!

Now if he had interdicted and fired at a cmdr in a T6, now that would be griefing. Although others would still label him a griefer purely based on his trying to kill another cmdr.

I think the difference between PvP, Griefing and Ganking must be separated by the intent of the "attacker". That's hard in a alot of cases. The ones you talk about here sound like RolePlay PvP though. You don't mention exactly what the "attacker" said over comms though, so I could be mistaken. Or, if "Prepare to Die" was all he said, it's very tricky to understand if he's playing a Blockader or just wants to kill all Open Squares.
There is however a problem with the "Griefer" definition, as it seems that there's a misconception between the "official gaming definition" and what "general players" think of when hearing/using it. The "official version" states that it needs to include some kind of exploit of the game to be considered "Griefing". From my point of view, any action that has no other intention than causing another player grief (hence "Griefing") falls into that definition. Unfortunately, the group I consider "Griefers" can throw the "official definition" at me and say they aren't "Griefing".
Ganking is going to a starter world and kill all Sideys that come out of the slot. Atleast that's how I see it.

So, depending on the intention of your attacker, it doesn't sound like griefing to me. It is a pain with those Engineered Cutters though

 

[Roybe]

I think it was intended but not in the way we see today. As many people on all sides of this discussion mention, the system for crime and punishment is a joke. That's FDs fault. Plenty of discussion available with countless suggestions for how to make it as serious as it ought to be. Actually some of the best suggestions have come from pirate groups, for rather obvious reasons. Player killers are the bane of pirates as they steal their bread and butter making PVP piracy practically non existant.

Nah, the only mistake the devs made was to make NPC piracy so rewardless. If you properly pirated enough NPC's, and were able to keep up with trading profits...everyone would be a pirate...and be more comfortable fighting.

PK'ers ARE the bane to pirates...and I always felt it was up to the pirates to police the PK players....who better? Except the game is instanced beyond the capabilities to keep up with single players...and the negative feedback loop placed in the game only works against both the pirates and the PK players. As long as Solo and Private exist...unsolicited PVP will always cause a thinning out of the population. It was fairly obvious that PVP SHOULD have only been consensual because the flight of the PvE players out of Open were guaranteed...but the PVP/PK crowd felt they knew how to play the game better than everyone else...and lost.

 

[Ozram]

Nah, the only mistake the devs made was to make NPC piracy so rewardless. If you properly pirated enough NPC's, and were able to keep up with trading profits...everyone would be a pirate...and be more comfortable fighting.

PK'ers ARE the bane to pirates...and I always felt it was up to the pirates to police the PK players....who better? Except the game is instanced beyond the capabilities to keep up with single players...and the negative feedback loop placed in the game only works against both the pirates and the PK players. As long as Solo and Private exist...unsolicited PVP will always cause a thinning out of the population. It was fairly obvious that PVP SHOULD have only been consensual because the flight of the PvE players out of Open were guaranteed...but the PVP/PK crowd felt they knew how to play the game better than everyone else...and lost.

Well, for the heck of it a buddy and I were out at the gold CG playing with the player Killers. I ended up with one rebuy on my Anaconda, but totally worth it. I'll be headed back there when I can. It's a real shame about the lack of crime and punishment mechanics but we try and make do. Hopefully my distraction allowed some less combat oriented ships to sneak by.

 

[Toumal]

A griefer is a guy who jumps into an instance with the intent of finding a sidewinder or an asp without shields or some other obvious non-combatant vessel and destroying it without any factional or monetary gain. Especially if that commander then uses the sidewinder bounty reset and combat logging, or avoiding any ship or wing they fear might be an opponent rather than a victim.

These people are who jeff cooper meant in his book "Priciples of self defense" when he estimated that one in a hundred will have no qualms attacking someone else if they feel they have no consequences to fear, and it's convenient to them at the time.

Interesting to see Elite Dangerous mirroring life 1:1...


@Roybe: Piracy should be way more lucrative, yes. And i suggested a mob contact that pays you for piracy already.

 

[Kastor]

A griefer is a guy who jumps into an instance with the intent of finding a sidewinder or an asp without shields or some other obvious non-combatant vessel and destroying it without any factional or monetary gain. Especially if that commander then uses the sidewinder bounty reset and combat logging, or avoiding any ship or wing they fear might be an opponent rather than a victim.

Compared to a pure PvP build like griefers will use, most builds are non-combatant. Sure that anaconda trader might have a lot of guns but without a hull full of SCBs it might as well be a t-6.

"destroying it without any factional or monetary gain" this is the sole requirement for being a griefer, i.e. one who acts purely to cause grief in others and for self gratification. Even a sidewinder that keeps trying to attack Cutters fits this description, which is especially important given how abusing speeding mechanics one can use a sidy to indirectly kill any other ship.

There are very few truly fair fights in this game, thus having your definition of griefer be based on fairness is always going to be arbitrary at best.