It's a goddamn furball, plasma charger shots and thargoid propulsion wake obscures what's going on behind the interceptor; spaceships move several hundreds meters per second, the clear line of fire might not be clear by the time the projectile exits the barrel. Friendly fire happens all the time, this is why you should have Report Crimes off when fighting in an AXCZ in open or private group. You can minimize the incidents but you can not eliminate them. Plus you get a murder bounty and notoriety even if your stray shot doesn't kill the other ship, but a thargoid does a few seconds later, which is just insane. Bounties and notoriety should not be a thing in a warzone where thargoids are killing everyone around anyway. They can court martial me later if they want, let me just finish the job first.
It's probably just a bug, because when you fight in a normal conflict zone it's not like that.
It's odd because in ground CZs you can kill every one of your teammates with no penalties. They don't even turn hostile. At least that was my experience when doing bombing runs.
ok got it didnt know thats what it was
It actually seems like a bug, a stray shot on a cop in a RES or a friendly in a non-AX does incur a "Watch, it, civilian!" message but no bounty unless you really lay down on them.
Anyway, I think we both agree that notoriety as it is now is not a good system. Some more permanent escalating infamy system that you cannot just wait out docked in a station but also opens up lucrative criminal activities for those who want to RP as pirates and gangsters would be far better.
Level 1 infamy, you're warned and kept an eye on, still can pay off your homicide bounty at IF and your infamy decays after 24 hours of play after you turn yourself in or pay off at IF and don't commit new crimes, even non-violent ones (you're on probation for your misdeed).
Level 5 infamy, you're a notorious sociopath, your infamy does not decay over time and high security systems are a no-go for you, seek out an anarchy station for your ship services (and very lucrative illegal missions, everyone wants to hire a sociopath to do their dirty work). You can clean your slate by signing up for a lengthy rehabilitation program and only do lawful activities, including community service, for a period. But this would also draw the ire of your former criminal associates.
Bounties should be a baseline credit amount plus a percentage of your total asset value at the moment of the deed, capped at, say, 10 millions per murder. For example, killing a clean NPC is 5000cr baseline + 0.5% of your asset value (ships, modules, carrier services, carrier and personal account, cargo value); if you have nothing but your starter sidey you'd need to pay 5000cr, but if you have a few ships and a few millions in your account for a total of 10 millions in assets, you'd need to pay 5000+10M*0.5%=55000 credits for your deed.
Notoriety should be done away with. I don't think there's a elegant way to further weave it into the fabric of the game that isn't either overly toxic or overly neutered. You should be able to pay off your fines with things you earn in the game, be it credits, materials or other. Perhaps serving time in the war, aka turning in combat bonds up to a certain amount would clear you. Basically indentured servitude, but whatever the solution becomes, it either has to completely do away with notoriety or give it content. Shutting off parts of the game because you played other parts of the game seems like a bad business decision.
There should be no aspect of the game that differentiates between killing an NPC and killing a PC. Maybe legal financial penalties should be stiffer for all crimes, and factions would need to know that they need to sweeten the offer before you'll accept, but that's just inflation and everything would need to catch up.
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It's not punishing players for engagement it's punishing players for purposefully attacking players far weaker than themselves for the purpose of trolling them.
Yes, that's why I think about infamy as a mechanic that opens up criminal playstyle. Lawful players shouldn't be offered wetwork and massacre missions, you should have a certain reputation for this to open up.
On one hand, sure. But on another hand this creates the "Skyrim problem" where you can be a scholar, a military officer, a thief, a mercenary, an assassin and the champion of every more and less evil demonic god who often antagonize each other, all at the same time and no-one ever asks "How?". I think there should be consequences for player actions; once you go down the dark path, you're down the dark path. But there should be options for a dark character to redeem themselves--and then fall again, if they let themselves do so.
ok you get a notority,go to a intersteller away from the system pay of youre bounty ,go back to the system you got it hand youreselve in,no fines no bounties play on,the notority shoudnt effect you,i do it quite often, lol.
You are confusing fame and a bounty on your head, as long as there is fame, even 1, you can't pay a fine.
You have settlements that are under lawful jurisdictions, plump with materials laying about that you need to upgrade your suits and weapons. You can either go kill everyone and take them or you can sneak around, disable alarms, steal here and there and hope to not get caught. Two different play styles. The repercussion of each are 1) you get busted and shot, locked up but no notoriety. 2) you get notoriety and a lot of financial penalties, but also locked out of the local mission boards and locked out from the ability to pay off your fines. Either way you are encouraged to lie, cheat and steal. Make it part of the game, admit you made it that way and stop trying to play both sides by pretending you're really against murder and that the notoriety system is a deterrent. It's not a deterrent. It's like combat logging, the game refuses to play with you after you showed you have the ability to attack and thrive. The game should learn to git gud instead of taking the ball and going home for x number of hours.
Not in Odyssey. You cannot pay off fines if you have notoriety.
There's no possible way the game can know the motive for an engagement, and it shouldn't care who's weaker. I don't want a nanny watchdog trying to balance the game through punitive restrictions based on otherwise perfectly normal game play. It's really easy to avoid being ganked. I've never been ganked, not even once.
if you get a fine from a base mission go to a orbite station in the same system annon accesss hand youreselve in fine should be paid,still notroius but life goes on. i do it ALL the time,but try it od is apussy cat game try it.
No, three different playstyles: go and help out factions in bad states by restoring power to their settlements. While doing this, help out yourself with the stuffz laying about in the cold, empty place. Morally grey, yes, but a good lawyer could argue that it's legitimate salvage. And no violence has to be committed unless you get jumped by scavs.
Absolutely right, notoriety system is not a deterrent. It's a mere annoyance. That's why it should be done away with and replaced with an actual criminal reputation system which opens up real gangster/pirate playstyle. I as a (mostly) lawful player should not be offered jobs killing political activists and massacring lawful settlements by pretty much every faction I become allied with. I should have a certain violent reputation for these avenues to become available. And this violent reputation should mean cops in low- and medium security system get really nervous around me and visiting a high security system should be very risky if I'm wanted there.
This really isn't much different than looting anarchy systems. Same killing and stealing minus the penalties. If you need a good lawyer to navigate the morality maze, you might as well be up for murder.
I can see this implemented only in a restrictive way, meaning you won't get those job offers but they won't be replaced by alternatives. You'll get the filtered ones that suit your reputation from the pre-created batch of missions. So in that instance at least it could be just handcuffing yourself while you could simply do that on your own by selecting only the missions that align with your code of conduct.
There's a difference between turning yourself in and visiting an IF though. IF will not do business with you if you have notoriety, the law still will. That will not clear any major power bounties though.
It is fundamentally different--there are no natives present in shut down settlements and you help the owning faction instead of hurting it. That's a very big distinction for roleplay. Scav drops are not a given, either--I've done plenty of restorations with no disruptions whatsoever.
Crimes against property and crimes against life are fundamentally different. Property can be replaced, a life not. Again, a big distinction for roleplay. A morally grey character (like mine) could be OK with theft, espionage and sabotage but draw a hard line at murdering innocents. A goody-two-shoe "Gee, isn't that immoral?!" character would abstain from all funny business and, of course, have a harder time at getting the stuffz; but as the saying goes: "No-one gets rich with honest work".
That a lawful player would have access to missions that a criminal one doesn't and vice versa should be a given.
By that logic we should also do away system permits, better paying missions for players allied with a minor faction, tech brokers and engineer unlocks. A game should allow the player to set goals, should reward the player for playing and the rewards should depend on how you play and what choices you make. That's game design 101.
Sorry for getting personal, it was mostly the bringing up of gankers in the context of notoriety that set me off..
I have no idea when you started playing, just hovered the mouse over your avatar and saw that you joined in 2016. Yes, I know that the playing of the BGS was unintended and emergent game play, still it's one of the facets of the game that some enjoy and keeps them in the game, especially after Frontier added player factions.
My fear with your proposed change is that it would make people afraid of notoriety even more prone to harvest mats at anarchy settlements. On the other hand I suppose those harvesting anarchies are unlikely to change, and for us trying to defend them or at the least not exploit them the change would mean absolutely nothing, as instead of paying them off at an IF, I could always turn myself in or get my ship blown up.
And in the end what is crime and punishment in this game? Is it normal that one can go to an anarchy settlement and just wipe everyone out without any repercussion at all, while doing the same in a lawful settlement results in bounties and notoriety? Wouldn't it make more sense that if you wipe out an anarchy settlement you become shoot on sight for them?
For me they could make notoriety permanent but it ought to come with consequences and opportunities. Go to a high security system and you get ATR after you. On the other hand if you go to an anarchy squeaky clean you ought to become an instant target of their pirates, while if having notoriety they'd respect you and even offer you special missions and business opportunities, and maybe special modules available nowhere else.
As far as ganking is concerned I can't really blame the players, IMO Frontier is much more at fault. There are practically no consequences for hanging out at Farseer's to pop noobs. How about if ATR spawned around planetary ports or the engineers had their own souped up security forces? Possibly give planetary port long range guns so that the ganker has to stay 7.5 km away or get blown to smithereens, while players that learn to come out of glide 2.5km away can basically ignore them?
Maybe sending ATR after them whenever they go into policed systems making it hard or impossible to just camp at Deciat to wait for the next noob to come along. Or maybe an online bounty board with realtime location updates, turning those who use others as content into content themselves.
Oh well it's a long discussion that's been going on for ages and I'm just scratching the surface of the topic.
And as saving the game seems to be such a popular topic, I for one would buy an Elite Criminals DLC in the blink of an eye. There's so much in the game already, that giving BGS/PP/C&P and the mission boards a face lift making the content more engaging could turn it into something much more interesting without even having to add ship interiors or big game hunting on ELW. It's all there for the taking without having to spend massive amounts of money on graphics and development on new stuff.. But keep in mind that I'm not a game designer nor is this a well thought out proposal considering all the ramifications it would have on gameplay.
How do you think that your proposed change would improve the game? What would be the reason to even change anything at all if it doesn't create more interesting gameplay?
The traditional DnD RPG has character classes, race and the whole good/evil/lawful/chaotic thing. Your choices affect your gameplay and imposes various restrictions on said gameplay.
Elite could have you start as a "neutral" type character with a wide range of gameplay options and rewards, but as you make choices you are taken down a particular path. Or you could select a career. Want to be a trader, then as you progress the better trade opportunities open up, but there will be fewer and less rewarding combat opportunities. Want to kill innocent npcs and pcs*, fine, but few will want to hire you for legal stuff and there are increased threats as well as more places being no go areas for service/repair. Changing career path should be hard and not done quickly.
* For me, destroying other peaceful CMDRs should be a really heinous crime and punished more harshly, but I do acknowledge that there are issues identifying the aggressor in some incidents.
Steve
Elite could have you start as a "neutral" type character with a wide range of gameplay options and rewards, but as you make choices you are taken down a particular path. Or you could select a career. Want to be a trader, then as you progress the better trade opportunities open up, but there will be fewer and less rewarding combat opportunities. Want to kill innocent npcs and pcs*, fine, but few will want to hire you for legal stuff and there are increased threats as well as more places being no go areas for service/repair. Changing career path should be hard and not done quickly.
* For me, destroying other peaceful CMDRs should be a really heinous crime and punished more harshly, but I do acknowledge that there are issues identifying the aggressor in some incidents.
Steve