Blocking in Elite Dangerous

[Old Duck]

I consider relogging to spawn materials or NPCs at least as undesirable a break in verisimilitude as logging off to avoid getting shot.

Spoiler: Off-Topic

I'm not a fan of it either, but I confess to doing exactly this at the Jameson crash site. Me personally, I'd rather a game that didn't have materials at all, or Engineers as Frontier has envisioned. Customizations, yes, but much simpler than what Frontier gave us. Crafting in ED is rubbish IMO, so "exploiting" sites like Jameson is like taking an aspirin to reduce the headache. It's my "two wrongs DO make a right" approach to dealing with ED's unnecessary grind wall.

Thankfully I'm a minimalist with a tiny fleet (even when I was on PS4) and the ability to be satisfied with G3 engineering on most modules, so I don't need to fuss with this crafting system too much.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I can think of a couple of reasons. First, many griefers and also law-enforcers use PP specifically for "exploiting" PvP. For example, if I pledge to Arissa, I can do to Deciat and shoot at "enemies" coming out of the station. I need no actual loyalty to my power, and thus I can switch at my pleasure to whatever power owns the current CG station.

Because, oddly, they are enemies. Enemies shoot each other, which is as good a rule as any in a game where there are no rules.

Another "exploit" is using PP to trick enemies into ignoring you. The guy who ended up being my escort when I took my T9 into Open was pledged to your buddy Archon (or whatever his name is). I asked him why a good guy like himself was pledged to a villain, and he said it's to confuse the griefers. I guess this works, as I saw many people doing this.

Thats your choice. But it does not void the lack of logic in blocking in a feature that is about killing on one level or another.

Forgive me, but I think your error is believing that PP is a feature-complete and popular part of ED

lol! You must be pretty new then, or have missed the threadnaughts I cause on PP.

when in reality it's just a broken mechanic that's exploited for modules and PvP totally unrelated to actual PP (despite the pledges). I personally wish PP was more than this, but that's not been my experience...

Makes no difference- on top of all the other antisocial measures you have at your disposal, you still think blocking in Open in a feature thats optional and about confrontation is OK?

Oh, and of course the obvious reason to block PPers is if they use exploits like station-ramming, are creeps, cheaters, etc.

And then, what do you do? Go to solo or PG currently if you don't like it. Plus, its down to FD to actually make robust game mechanics and punishments and not paper over the cracks with a magic wand. Or, even keep to speed limits, report them, put on the language filter.....

 

[Cmdr Nemo LXXI]

With over 7.5 billion people on this planet, some of which play ED, I'd concur that it boils down to numerous "Consideration's". Though some will be the same, and some will be different. There will always those that are not conducive to anyone else's style of play. There is an old idiom that goes, "To each their own". Reckon we will all have to agree to disagree.

 

[Vetinari]

I consider relogging to spawn materials or NPCs at least as undesirable a break in verisimilitude as logging off to avoid getting shot.

How the world turns..on this one I completely agree with Morbad and completely disagree with OD. Finally I can get some unique hand crafted put-downs aimed at me, all Ive got to do is derail or move goalposts or just plain insult OD.....damn, I wont do that.

Fdev afaik do consider re-log for mats an exploit officially but it doesn't seem enforced.

It seems a shame that people feel the need to do this, I never have and never really short of mats....apart from those damn Isolators....but its your game I suppose and even though it may mean you get your G5 weeks before I get mine, that's your choice I suppose, its just not how I want to play my game.

 

[Old Duck]

Because, oddly, they are enemies. Enemies shoot each other, which is as good a rule as any in a game where there are no rules.

My point is that PP as it is allows you to willy-nilly pick who your enemies are on any given day to exploit a system's protection. It would be like me going to Russia tomorrow and saying, "I'm pledging allegiance to you" so that I can shoot American tourists in that country, and then a week later doing the same thing in Canada so I can shoot Russian tourists, and then a week later going back to Russia and repeating... It's screwy and exploitative and broken.

IMHO, players should be required to chose both a superpower and power play allegiance (which includes independent / none) when they first start off with a new CMDR, and then be committed to that path for the life of their character. AFAIK, I can't join the civil war in Skyrim on the side of the Empire and then switch back and forth a dozen times willy-nilly. If the game enforced commitment like this, then I think all your arguments would hold much greater weight.

And then, what do you do? Go to solo or PG currently if you don't like it. Plus, its down to FD to actually make robust game mechanics and punishments and not paper over the cracks with a magic wand. Or, even keep to speed limits, report them, put on the language filter.....

... or block them. Not only is this feature in the game, it's in the game in MULTIPLE PLACES, almost as if Frontier wants us to use this feature when we feel the need....

 

[Old Duck]

Reckon we will all have to agree to disagree.

LOL, you know better than this. There's a reason the forum is called "Dangerous Disagreements" after all

 

[Rubbernuke]

My point is that PP as it is allows you to willy-nilly pick who your enemies are on any given day to exploit a system's protection. It would be like me going to Russia tomorrow and saying, "I'm pledging allegiance to you" so that I can shoot American tourists in that country, and then a week later doing the same thing in Canada so I can shoot Russian tourists, and then a week later going back to Russia and repeating... It's screwy and exploitative and broken.

Then don't pledge, since what I'd like to see is blocking removed in PP. In the last proposal modules would be from tech brokers, and shopping would be a thing of the past. What you advocate is such an edge case it practically lacks a third dimension its so thin.

... or block them. Not only is this feature in the game, it's in the game in MULTIPLE PLACES, almost as if Frontier wants us to use this feature when we feel the need....

But, whats the logic in being able to block an enemy in a mode about having defined enemy groups? Elsewhere in the game I agree blocking is fine- in a mode where you have opponents and a whole raft of ways to avoid or report whats the point?

 

[Old Duck]

Then don't pledge

I thought that was implied when I said I don't care about PP.... So, you have no argument with me! I'm nobody's "enemy", nor do I have any use for these PP modules. In fact, if a petition were made to remove PP from the game to help clean up ED's code base, I'll happily sign it

 

[Morbad]

I'm not keen on the PP system either, not because I'm adverse to the confict it supposed to promote, but because it tries to segregate such conflict in arbitrary ways.

My point is that PP as it is allows you to willy-nilly pick who your enemies are on any given day to exploit a system's protection. It would be like me going to Russia tomorrow and saying, "I'm pledging allegiance to you" so that I can shoot American tourists in that country, and then a week later doing the same thing in Canada so I can shoot Russian tourists, and then a week later going back to Russia and repeating... It's screwy and exploitative and broken.

IMHO, players should be required to chose both a superpower and power play allegiance (which includes independent / none) when they first start off with a new CMDR, and then be committed to that path for the life of their character. AFAIK, I can't join the civil war in Skyrim on the side of the Empire and then switch back and forth a dozen times willy-nilly.

In real-life I can fight (directly or indirectly) for anyone at any time I choose to. I can even oppose both sides in a conflict. And the less obvious my affiliation is, the more likely I am to get away with it.

In ED, my CMDR has occasionally fought to support or oppose certain PP factions when his interests were affected by them, and he's never been pledged to any power.

 

[Old Duck]

In real-life I can fight (directly or indirectly) for anyone at any time I choose to. I can even oppose both sides in a conflict. And the less obvious my affiliation is, the more likely I am to get away with it.

You might be able to fight for your country this week and then defect to the Taliban next week, but if you think you'll be able to switch back again, well, good luck with that...

Anyway, PP has zero influence on my personal use for the block tool.

 

[furstreak]

Interesting to say the least. I will admit that I do tend to pirate and rp a lot in game and run into gankers a lot. Sadly a lot more than I like and have blocked a hand full of them to prevent them from killing me all the time. As a pirate though I follow the same routine but only, I I mean this, ONLY pirate ltd, painite, and opals. If a person has something else I will let them go and give my rp schpiel about the cargo not being worth my time and to have such and such the next time they come through, give them a 24 hour pirate pass and then let them go. IF they submit. Fighting is different as I never kill my target. Unless they continue fighting after they reach 20% I stop firing for 10 seconds hit a shield cell bank and wait. If they run or atop firing I'll let them go. Keep firing and kaboom. Having a gankers drop in and kill you just because they can ruins the game imo. They may have worked hard to get their ship to that point yes. But seal clubbing isn't worth it because as one with a hardcoore ship with a lot of time invested in, youre ing off people trying to reach that point and possibly deterring them from wanting to play anymore. There are many private groups that offer gank free services where communities of like minded players join private geoups and work together then join open to kill gankers for any given reason. I know of 7 different ones ATM. No I'm not telling either as we had 2 gankers join and start killing people and were immediately banned. But not before they killed several people. Which we helped to replace all credits lost within an hour. And factions etc...

Gankers are a serious problem in open though and weeding them out is hard. I have only blocked 3 people in total due to them killing me on multiple occasions. I think devs should make moderators for the servers that have good reps. Id love to be one. Especially since I run into battle loggers daily that need to be punished.

 

[zombieapocalypse]

I blocked my mum once. Turns out she doesn't even play ED, pfff...

 

[Old Duck]

QUESTION (don't make me start a new thread!)
Why does Mobius exist?

In recent discussions about the block feature, I've been left wondering why people just don't block anyone who attacks them, thus creating their own version of a safer "private group", but with none of the limitations. For example, if I block everyone who attacks me, I'll still encounter everyone else in Open, as long as they are not in the same instance as the gankers on my block list. Switching to Mobius, however, I am effective "blocking" both gankers and peaceful players, at least peaceful players who are in Open. I'm also confined to a regional group (due to PG size limitations), and I have to jump through hoops and wait for days to be approved. Wouldn't blocking be easier and result in me crossing paths with more players?

The two obvious downsides I see is that if I like PvP (I do on occasion), I can't just quickly turn blocking on and off. Now there's an idea! New feature request!! Anyway, switching from PG to Open and back makes it easier to switch between PvE and PvP in ED. The other downside is that there will always be risk, especially when building that block list at the start.

Because I actually like PvP on occasion, I don't think the block list will work for me to turn "my" Open into PvE. But considering how many people use a PG like Mobius or Solo and never go into Open, I'm left wondering why these alternatives were considered better than using the block tool.

 

[Marshall...]

Blimey are people still talking about this? It's a computer game for cry out loud, do what you like, who cares. I would worry more about instancing being crap and all the other tech problems/limitations.

 

[KillaALF]

I think nobody knew much about the block tool when Mobius and other like minded PGs were set up. I also think it's less of a hassle to kick malcontents from the group than to block griefers and even "normal" PvP players in open. At first, it was even allowed to PvP in CZ in Mobius, but people being people this was misused and so now PvP in Mobius is strictly forbidden.

 

[Old Duck]

It's a computer game for cry out loud, do what you like, who cares.

You do, as evidenced by your post here.

 

[Morbad]

For example, if I block everyone who attacks me, I'll still encounter everyone else in Open, as long as they are not in the same instance as the gankers on my block list. Switching to Mobius, however, I am effective "blocking" both gankers and peaceful players, at least peaceful players who are in Open. I'm also confined to a regional group (due to PG size limitations), and I have to jump through hoops and wait for days to be approved. Wouldn't blocking be easier and result in me crossing paths with more players?

PG is a nearly perfectly reliable white list. Block is a blacklist that has both significant holes in it's protection and the potential for collateral effects on non-blocked players.

There is no way you could possibly block everyone who's play style you disagreed with, and you'd certainly see issues well before you were able to...either by excluding yourself from contact with people you hadn't blocked, or other instancing weights allowing blocked players to interact with you.

I doubt most of the the people in Solo or PG to avoid confrontation with other CMDRs would find block to provide adequate protection.

 

[Stigbob]

PG is a nearly perfectly reliable white list. Block is a blacklist that has both significant holes in it's protection and the potential for collateral effects on non-blocked players.

There is no way you could possibly block everyone who's play style you disagreed with, and you'd certainly see issues well before you were able to...either by excluding yourself from contact with people you hadn't blocked, or other instancing weights allowing blocked players to interact with you.

I doubt most of the the people in Solo or PG to avoid confrontation with other CMDRs would find block to provide adequate protection.

Nobody would want to block everyone whose playing style conflicted with theirs, you are taking your own concerns about what people do with their video games menu and assuming others think the same way.

I'm only bothered about the behaviour of the people I actually meet in the game and I'll happily block anyone who falls short of my personal version of Wheaton's law. No concerns at all about what all the others are up to in other instances/timezones/geographic servers/platforms/modes/blocked instance.

 

[Pseudo_Sapiens]

Blimey are people still talking about this? It's a computer game for cry out loud, do what you like, who cares. I would worry more about instancing being crap and all the other tech problems/limitations.

I'm just here watching people fall for clickbait

 

[Deleted member 182079]

During my early days of venturing into Open I would get 'sploded in my barely engineered Corvette by a gank wing in ShinDez, so I decided to block the 4 or so individuals. This happened a few times so my block list was maybe just shy of 10 players.

Things went pretty quiet from then on in. I cooled down in the meantime, and decided to unblock them all. Lo and behold, things have been a lot busier again since. I think I even have a couple of them in my friend list now.

I don't know if there's relatively few numbers of players in Open but at times Elite feels like a village - you walk down the main street and you bump into the same people on a regular basis. Maybe it's caused by my friend list, who knows. There are a number of PvP'ers that I regularly come across (who are not in my friend list, and while none of my friends are in the same location let alone are online) so it's a mystery to me how this all works. It's kinda nice all the same in an "oh there's CMDR xyz again pulling his usual stunts" kind of way.

I'd have to think really hard now, but I think the last time I blocked someone was on my way to Farseer's in Deciat where the same player interdicted me 5-6 times in a row, and when I escaped every single time he decided to send some unflattering comms. I just found him a nuisance so I blocked him until I finished my business, then unblocked him again afterwards.

My threshold for adding someone to my block list has increased quite a bit now. I'll reserve it for persistent players that don't know when to let things go, things like blocking the mailslot (although I would take that as a challenge to bypass them... so yeah maybe not!) and verbal abuse.

The latter is particularly interesting one - the vast majority of taunting and smack talk is coming from those who are attacked (or switch to Solo and then taunt others... seen that more often recently) rather than the ganksters themselves.