Beyond C&P - Must admit I'm slightly concerned about PvP piracy outcome

[Kyokushin]

There was never a pvp piracy in game because a job need to be done in few seconds, before a guy will combat log.
Only what you can do is to kill a folk then drink his tears.

And, nobody sane will bother of someone else worthless cargo when he can do 500mln/hour by passenger mission exploit, without a risk and effort.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Does piracy make any in-game sense under those conditions? To me it doesn't make any sense.

The problem I see here for Frontier is what to do about it.

1) Make piracy vastly more profitable (somehow) so that it does make in-game sense. -- But I can't see an obvious way to do that (even for PvE / EvP piracy) that wouldn't involve basically starting over with things like outfitting and the economy.
2) Make piracy even more difficult by increasing the "consequences" side of things, so that it goes from making no in-game sense to ... something even worse? -- As popularly demanded in every pirate thread by traders
3) Just admit defeat and take piracy out of the game. -- But it's called Elite: Dangerous, not Unrelated Space Game: Dangerous, so that makes about as much sense as taking trading or bounty hunting out.

 

[NeilF]

I’ve no problems with people playing pirate so long as they don’t mind being treated like Somalian ‘fishermen’. Hunted down like dogs by vastly superior forces and denied safe harbour anywhere in the civilised world.

Give me an alt and I’d jump at that gameplay.

It’s the part time, dilettante, consequence free criminality that’s both irritating and tedious.

Why not just take that extra step and say on each Thursday morning's server tick, anyone with a bounty is just destroyed? I mean it's not like people playing as a Pirate deserve a leveled, reasoned and fair experience.

Penalties and hurdles are fine, but people spouting stuff like, "Hunted down like dogs by vastly superior forces and denied safe harbour anywhere in the civilised world," makes me wonder if such individuals are maybe just getting a tad carried away and are losing sight of balanced gameplay?

 

[NeilF]

The problem I see here for Frontier is what to do about it.

1) Make piracy vastly more profitable (somehow) so that it does make in-game sense. -- But I can't see an obvious way to do that (even for PvE / EvP piracy) that wouldn't involve basically starting over with things like outfitting and the economy.
2) Make piracy even more difficult by increasing the "consequences" side of things, so that it goes from making no in-game sense to ... something even worse? -- As popularly demanded in every pirate thread by traders
3) Just admit defeat and take piracy out of the game. -- But it's called Elite: Dangerous, not Unrelated Space Game: Dangerous, so that makes about as much sense as taking trading or bounty hunting out.

If you click the first link in my sig I try and promote the premise of the BGS constructing "hot spot", where there's just a few good trade locations being promoted, maybe even missions to back it up, and likewise missions for pirates then to pirate commodies enroute there. In effect to push CMDRs into a few "hot" locations.

The pirate missions could then offer at long last some reasonable profits. The issue as I think I mention there is ensuring it can't be exploited. ie: Just give cargo to pirates to make more than normal CR from it.

But anyway, take a look at my "[ Improve PvP+C&P ]" link in my sig

 

[spuddymarvel]

That's cool if you have fun playing the game, but Lavian brandy is a low price commodity easily available.
Modular terminals might be harder to get, but you only need a few units of those things and then they are absolutely irrelevant.
How much time did you spend getting that Lavian brandy and Modular Terminals and how much credits did you spend on ammo and repairs?
Now consider that you could have earned 3000 cr/ton by hauling grain or basic medicine from A to B with an time investment of 10 minutes.
(Not to mention earning easily 10 Mcr/15 min with passenger missions)

Fair points, but I think what your'e missing here is that most pirate have done the passenger missions - I've got ~300 million, which enables me to spend my time doing low earning but fun things like piracy. My motivation is partially the role play, and also the player interaction. If you try to make it fun in chat, then it's adding to the game. Because I'm not doing it for credits I tend to only run 16t of cargo in my ship... meaning that I'm not asking for impactful amounts of cargo from the "customer". So in my view there's no real negatives to the target that they don't bring apon themselves. I'd usually let someone know they're being pirated prior to interdiction, and then give three very clear warnings before even firing on them. If they charge FSD, I'll reboot it and resume negotiations.

So in general, it's a really fun roleplay activity for the "late game" commander, if you feel you'd rather run and die than sacrifice 10t of cargo then that's on you.

 

[spuddymarvel]

And, nobody sane will bother of someone else worthless cargo when he can do 500mln/hour by passenger mission exploit, without a risk and effort.

Not all in game activities are about credits. To be honest, there's a lot of players like me that don't enjoy doing missions, and will spend a day grinding upsilon so you can play for a couple of months eating rebuys and playing what I would consider "The Game". Fair play to people that enjoy running cargo and shooting NPCs, but for a lot of people It's not nearly as fun as the thrill of combat. I have a stack of credits and spend my time either roleplay pirating or learning to fly better against other commanders in San Tu.

I have so much more fun flying basically salt free because if I get ganked or system security catches my pirate cobra, who cares? I have 50 rebuys.

There's a lot of people like this.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

The problem I see here for Frontier is what to do about it.

1) Make piracy vastly more profitable (somehow) so that it does make in-game sense. -- But I can't see an obvious way to do that (even for PvE / EvP piracy) that wouldn't involve basically starting over with things like outfitting and the economy.
2) Make piracy even more difficult by increasing the "consequences" side of things, so that it goes from making no in-game sense to ... something even worse? -- As popularly demanded in every pirate thread by traders
3) Just admit defeat and take piracy out of the game. -- But it's called Elite: Dangerous, not Unrelated Space Game: Dangerous, so that makes about as much sense as taking trading or bounty hunting out.

There's already blueprint how to make piracy matter - Engineer goods. NPC ships react on them. It is quite obvious FD wanted to see them shipped around by players and desired by player pirates too. But player find goods required for Engineering annoying as hell so here we go.

That said they can still create other such special goods (or even reuse rares) that desired for their value purely.

Piracy should be either about scooping something really rare 4 or 5 units - or getting something en masse which is desired relatively high.

As for balancing against current passenger exploits - which I expect will be gone in Q1 - that's not how game design works, that's not how to balance things against.

I also don't expect piracy to earn same level as legit earning. However, FD should look for fun and challenging ways that well rewarded to extend piracy gameplay. What we have seen in Q1 seems to give some interesting raiding gameplay which might be finally something new for those looking not only pirate measly traders.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Not that I cared much about playing ED anyway, because the engineers thoroughly quenched any desire to do so - I also don't care about the MP aspect either anymore, so you can make it out among yourselves.

 

[Lennox Dantes]

"Proper Piracy"? The snowflakes have gone completely mental. What a bull philosophy.

Why would anyone drop their cargo? Why would they do it now? Why do it after the update?

The only piracy you get jn this game is the over-abundant and extremely corny NPC interdiction.

Player piracy is a total joke because Elite SJWs have whined so hard that FD refuses to allow any player interaction in open.

This is a solo game. Lets just stoo these threads. There is clearly one right way to play the game and if you dont thr devs will design everythibg around preventing it. Clearly an immersive experience.

 

[NeilF]

"Proper Piracy"? The snowflakes have gone completely mental. What a bull philosophy.

Why would anyone drop their cargo? Why would they do it now? Why do it after the update?

The only piracy you get jn this game is the over-abundant and extremely corny NPC interdiction.

Player piracy is a total joke because Elite SJWs have whined so hard that FD refuses to allow any player interaction in open.

This is a solo game. Lets just stoo these threads. There is clearly one right way to play the game and if you dont thr devs will design everythibg around preventing it. Clearly an immersive experience.

You seem to be quite emotive


Anyway, why would a CMDR drop 10-20t of cargo? Well, they might drop 10-20t of cargo for four reasons?
1) It's quicker than being chased and repeatedly interdicted for 10 minutes?
2) It might be "cheaper" to do that than lose 20-30t of cargo to a Hatch Breaker?
3) It might be "cheaper" than paying for any repairs?
4) It might be "cheaper" than paying for a rebuy (if they happen to be dealing with a Pirate on a bad day).

 

[Kaocraft]

Why not just take that extra step and say on each Thursday morning's server tick, anyone with a bounty is just destroyed? I mean it's not like people playing as a Pirate deserve a leveled, reasoned and fair experience.

Penalties and hurdles are fine, but people spouting stuff like, "Hunted down like dogs by vastly superior forces and denied safe harbour anywhere in the civilised world," makes me wonder if such individuals are maybe just getting a tad carried away and are losing sight of balanced gameplay?

I'm fine with that. I just think that the "hunting down like dogs by vastly superior forces" should be done by player bounty hunters. Which means we need an overhaul to bounty hunting, which in turn means we need to put a stop to combat logging, which - oh well there you go. Never mind.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Piracy should be either about scooping something really rare 4 or 5 units - or getting something en masse which is desired relatively high.

As for balancing against current passenger exploits - which I expect will be gone in Q1 - that's not how game design works, that's not how to balance things against.

I also don't expect piracy to earn same level as legit earning. However, FD should look for fun and challenging ways that well rewarded to extend piracy gameplay. What we have seen in Q1 seems to give some interesting raiding gameplay which might be finally something new for those looking not only pirate measly traders.

Oh, nothing is going to balance against the current passenger missions. But there are plenty of legal ways with non-exploitative stuff to earn 30-50MCr an hour. Trading can earn 15-20MCr/hour in reasonably common circumstances, probably quite a bit more. Mining can earn over 30MCr/hour if done optimally (and that's *before* Beyond's improvements to it). Piracy is like those two basically about obtaining cargo and selling it ... and in absolutely favourable circumstances which are more glorified mining than piracy (an unshielded harmless NPC T-9 in an Anarchy system with a hold full of Diamonds which can be disabled and siphoned legally at leisure) earns a fraction of that.

It absolutely shouldn't pay as high as trade once "it's illegal" is taken into account ... which means it probably needs to pay more than trade before that's taken into account (i.e. it would pay better if you always got away with it, which you won't). If crime pays less than similar honest work *before* the consequences for breaking the law are taken into account, then people don't tend to bother in the first place. (Or alternatively, people should be deterred from becoming pirates by it being illegal, not by it being unprofitable)

Piracy-based missions about recovering a very small quantity of unique cargo for a multi-million payout per tonne, that might be worth it, I guess. Can't see how anything less extreme would work.

 

[UFO Reality]

After the ED Beyond the next season/DLC will be ED The Gauntlet of Anarchy.....[haha]