CODE blockade and roleplay

[Darkphoenix]

Way to focus on a single word you don't like, and miss the entire body of content in a post. 'wimp' is pretty appropriate. This is a game about danger, in space, yet it seems filled with commanders who cry and demand NPC intervention when blown up by the space pirates they, as 'good guy' players are expected to police and repel. This is cops and robbers in space, except more than half the time it's actually whiners and robbers in space.. you don't see endless threads made by pirates complaining about bounty hunters ganging up on them, or people hiding in solo mode.. because we can take the knocks the game has been designed to deliver to us.

- - - Updated - - -



New flash: Nobody cares what David B said he wants the game to be, we only care about the game that is actually in front of us. So he doesn't like guilds, we get it. That's not going to stop people from building them. People want to make communities, and have common ground. That desire is the reason most MMO's have a guild system in them, to ignore this basic piece of human nature us extremely naive. You will note that despite his early words, FDEV has taken zero action against player guilds, and has acknowledged them as being 'entities' within the game in various GalNet posts.

Wait....what knocks would those be? What dangers do pirates currently face? Oh yes, you're right...those traders are truly deadly and formidable foe's that need to be ganged up on 4 to 1 to effectively subdue......how silly of me.

Maybe when effective means of dealing with piracy in systems that have effectively established law and order come in to play you will then have a leg to stand on.

For your information the life of piracy is NOT supposed to be very profitable or EASY. Through history people got into piracy because they had no other alternatives (usually smugglers or someone of a legit profession that ran afoul of the law and had not the means to get out of the situation). Pirates should not be welcome at any system that isn't an anarchy devoid of law enforcement period. Also, they should by virtue of that fact have a harder time operating in any system that isn't an anarchy. You don't see endless threads by complaining "pirates" because the knocks that you say you say you stoically take are currently non-existent.

Also, I wasn't focusing on the use of your name calling and ignoring the rest of your post, I just saw absolutely nothing of relevance or value even in it worth a response. The pipe dream of separating modes is just that......a pipe dream that will never be. Part of their design is as a failsafe to allow an out for people who can't play in or have reason to want to remove themselves from open play for as long as they wish.

 

[bossbrigand]

I still don't think actions taken in solo or private should affect the background sim. There doesn't necessarily need to be a "wall" preventing you from swapping modes - though I wouldn't be opposed to it - but I don't think it's fair for players to simply cut themselves off from possible consequences for participating in a CG while reaping all of the reward.

 

[Traven Mayhem]

Try actually pirating sometime. There are plenty of armed groups escorting traders, bounty hunters protecting them, etc..

you are never going to see an overreaching police force in controlled space. The previous incarnations of elite had no such thing either -- you could be pirated anywhere in the game, even in the alliance / federaal home worlds.. you, the players are expected to combat the pirate threat. the police are under powered, and always would be. if they were going to 'stop' the pirates using npc forces, they would have done it a long time ago. these issues were raised in beta .. my guess is this is playing out exactly as FDEV intended.

 

[xondk]

We do the things we do for RP reasons. The majority can change the outcome of a CG due to abuse of the solo mode exploit, that doesn't mean we can't still have fun flying our ships, and fighting the fight. It is our hopes that FD will eventually resolve the unbalanced influence solo commanders have over CG outcomes -- there have been feedback threads they have requested on this subject, and are clearly looking to how to close the loop on this.

What we want, is to fly our ships and have fun doing it, whilst playing the bad guys. We'll do that inso far as the game mechanics permit us to. We accept the shortfalls of the game mechanics, and do our best to work within them to turn things to our favor. This is not a very challenging concept really.

Ok, I want to point out a couple of things:
1: your fun, is only possible because for some odd reason npc fleets aren't hunting you guys down, why would pirates ever be allowed to blockade a system? by your own reasoning, you yourself are using an 'unfair' a "shortfall" of game mechanics, would you still do it if you were done so? interdicted constantly by heavy police forces?
2: is it really unbalanced to be able to affect the world without having to bump into you? especially when you note the first statement I made?

I really don't get how people can't grasp this. Make a player group, come up with a politic/agenda/angle, use your spaceships to make your dream come true -- this is the meat and potatoes of an open world multiplayer sandbox. It's unbelivable that people are still whining about player pirates 'being mean' and 'not caring about other commanders feelz' 4 months after launch.. What is wrong with this community, did FDEV somehow corner the market on wimps?

Creating a wall between solo/private and open would be the best strategic move FDEV could do, it's unfortunate they are so invested in their original three mode, all can influence design plan. It really needs to go.

I do not agree, 'make a player group' is not as easy as you claim it is, and you cannot demand that people do this in order to have fun, some people just want to do stuff on their own, others want a small group only?, that said no one is saying you need to stop being mean, but perhaps, just perhaps, things are right now quite heavily in your favor? again see above.

New flash: Nobody cares what David B said he wants the game to be, we only care about the game that is actually in front of us. So he doesn't like guilds, we get it. That's not going to stop people from building them. People want to make communities, and have common ground. That desire is the reason most MMO's have a guild system in them, to ignore this basic piece of human nature us extremely naive. You will note that despite his early words, FDEV has taken zero action against player guilds, and has acknowledged them as being 'entities' within the game in various GalNet posts.

So what you are saying, is that when the game changes, the new crime system comes in and pirates begin being hunted by npc's because they build up a bad rep, for being pirates, something which a system might not want in them, you won't be complaining?

 

[Traven Mayhem]

We already get hunted by NPC's at an accelerated rate when watned. The new crime mechanics won't have a very big impact on us. There has been no mentrion of an increased police response, they are just restructuring how bounties and fines work. Most of us don't bother paying them off, we just don't dock in stations where we are wanted.

As mentioned earlier, you'll never see a heavy handed police response -- elite has never been about that.

" is it really unbalanced to be able to affect the world without having to bump into you" -- yes, IMO. there should only be 'one' world, a world populated by players.

 

[xondk]

We already get hunted by NPC's at an accelerated rate when watned. The new crime mechanics won't have a very big impact on us. There has been no mentrion of an increased police response, they are just restructuring how bounties and fines work. Most of us don't bother paying them off, we just don't dock in stations where we are wanted.

As mentioned earlier, you'll never see a heavy handed police response -- elite has never been about that.

" is it really unbalanced to be able to affect the world without having to bump into you" -- yes, IMO. there should only be 'one' world, a world populated by players.

Exactly, so right now the situation heavily favors pirates, if the situation did not, and the npc's hunted and could destroy you, wings attacked you or such, you know, heavier police, would you still be doing this? or would your fun be ruined?

 

[bossbrigand]

Exactly, so right now the situation heavily favors pirates, if the situation did not, and the npc's hunted and could destroy you, wings attacked you or such, you know, heavier police, would you still be doing this? or would your fun be ruined?

Would you still enjoy trading if invincible pirates with one-hit-kill-weapons showed up as soon as you took off?

Come on, this is not a good argument. The "police" in Elite are not the bobbies, or the fuzz, or the 5-0. They're effectively deputized bounty farmers, they get paid per-kill, they aren't interested in going out of their way to deal with small fries. If they spot you around a patrol route they'll fry you, if they're nearby when you attack someone they'll show up to see what the fuss is about, if they see you flying around they'll interdict you and shoot you up. But they aren't going to hunt you. Bounty hunters already chase you down, but the ones that are capable of hands-down killing anyone (usually Elite Anacondas) are rare.

 

[Traven Mayhem]

Exactly, so right now the situation heavily favors pirates, if the situation did not, and the npc's hunted and could destroy you, wings attacked you or such, you know, heavier police, would you still be doing this? or would your fun be ruined?

How does it benefit pirates? We get interdicted by police, they show up to defend players when we interdict them. They are the same strenth as other NPC's, we've just figured out how to kill them. You think it's unfair becuse they aren't some unbeatable police force that can kill us 100% of the time. They regularly drive us off from collecting our loot as is. This is not EVE, please don't try to make it EVE with some sort of 'concord response' -- it won't happen.

There is absolutely nothing that preevents good guy players from banding togehter and shooting us, escorting traders etc.. Except greed. Traders don't want to be slowed down by having to hire, pay and coordinate with a wing of other players.. We gave up that greed when we decided to pirate, knowing it is very difficult to make a profit doing it, taders are unwilling to sacrifice their profit margin, but if they did, they could repel us and travel in safety

risk vs reward -- exactly what this game should be about (in open).

if you just want to trade in peace, fly solo or mobius.. absolutely *nobody* is trying to stop you.

 

[Jezzah]

Well really, the only bit you could put in bold would be "to start with"
.

those words say it all mate. To.Start.With.

The rest of it is his jumbled (and they are jumbled as written so faithfully by you) feelings on the subject. While jumbled he's also trying to answer the question politically he knows that a significant majority here (at the moment debatable) want the game to be like the old game and he's giving that majority something to cling to which they are for now. But what happens in 6 months...A year when big guns like SC and other space sims come out? The business head will come on and guild loyalty is big business for games like this you can't deny it it works for every other game this ilk.

 

[smsKONG]

When a goal is 'trade x amount of stuff to station y' and the counter goal is 'kill the traders', or a pvp CG has a goal of 'kill the members of clan x' and the counter goal is 'defend the members of clan x' the problem of people playing these CG's in solo mode becomes blisteringly clear. This will only get worse in 1.3 when power missions *actually* have goals and counter goals.. FDEV will eventually have to confront this issue. They may very well do it in 1.3.

Would never happen like that, if competing goals are to kill x number of ships then npcs will form the bulk of the targets

 

[bossbrigand]

Would never happen like that, if competing goals are to kill x number of ships then npcs will form the bulk of the targets

The problem is more clear when there's one CG for players to bring cargo to such and such station, but no opposing CG. The only way for someone who opposes the principle of the CG to "fight" it would be to interdict and destroy traders in the area, but if the majority of participants are hiding in Solo...

There was also a combat CG for Federal pilots (no counter goal) where Imperial pilots were ready and willing to kill Federal pilots in Open (and outnumbered them in CZs) but the Federal goal still won due almost certainly to Solo players.

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

Hi Commanders,

I'm the OP for this thread. I did not want to see the discussion evolving in an argument (though with a title mentioning "CODE", that was expected) but want to thank all pirates/psychos/weirdos who have explained why they play their way, their motivation and share their thoughts.

From my side, I am "only" Master/Merchant/Pathfinder but have done almost any kind of possible activities in ED, including piracy (on a break for now until the collector drones show up) and trading (I am even now back on the most popular rare route in a shieldless A thruster mirrored Cobra silent running, waiting for someone to catch me). First of all I want to tell: thank you to anybody who makes Elite a dangerous and challenging place! I mean, pirates, psychos, weirdos, you make the game feeling like a real world, where real things happen!

However I believe we all agree that, whether you play a honest trader or a bad guy, we all like to see as many players as possible in open play. Arriving to a system and seeing only 1-2 hollow icons on the scanner is like...meh...
For this reason, don't you think that any actions driving players out of open mode should be avoided?

You want to PvP/kill for fun, fine but shouldn't you select a challenging opponent and/or drop a line telling him to be ready to fight/die? This should bring them a smile when their ship pops and think "hell yeah, Elite is dangerous!".
You are doing a blockade and ask a T6/7/9 to drop all cargo related to the Community Goal, fine. But telling them to never come back or be killed on sight, why? You know they will not abandon the CG and are basically pushing them to do it solo for a while.
Doing this kind of stuff leads to less players in open play, meaning less fun for everybody including you, no?

One more time, I do not want to argue here, just want to hear your thoughts.

 

[xondk]

Would you still enjoy trading if invincible pirates with one-hit-kill-weapons showed up as soon as you took off?

Come on, this is not a good argument. The "police" in Elite are not the bobbies, or the fuzz, or the 5-0. They're effectively deputized bounty farmers, they get paid per-kill, they aren't interested in going out of their way to deal with small fries. If they spot you around a patrol route they'll fry you, if they're nearby when you attack someone they'll show up to see what the fuss is about, if they see you flying around they'll interdict you and shoot you up. But they aren't going to hunt you. Bounty hunters already chase you down, but the ones that are capable of hands-down killing anyone (usually Elite Anacondas) are rare.

On bounty hunters I would agree, however if someone is clearly pirating a system, heavier police forces would show up to make them stop doing that, we are talking about system security, in anarchy systems there would be none of this, but in a heavily populated system, there would be a lot of them and would they really allow pirates just to go about their business withotu sending heavier forces after them, pythons and above of more skilled levels, then just the random eagle/viper maybe wing?

How does it benefit pirates? We get interdicted by police, they show up to defend players when we interdict them. They are the same strenth as other NPC's, we've just figured out how to kill them. You think it's unfair becuse they aren't some unbeatable police force that can kill us 100% of the time. They regularly drive us off from collecting our loot as is. This is not EVE, please don't try to make it EVE with some sort of 'concord response' -- it won't happen.

There is absolutely nothing that preevents good guy players from banding togehter and shooting us, escorting traders etc.. Except greed. Traders don't want to be slowed down by having to hire, pay and coordinate with a wing of other players.. We gave up that greed when we decided to pirate, knowing it is very difficult to make a profit doing it, taders are unwilling to sacrifice their profit margin, but if they did, they could repel us and travel in safety

risk vs reward -- exactly what this game should be about (in open).

if you just want to trade in peace, fly solo or mobius.. absolutely *nobody* is trying to stop you.

You said it yourself, risk vs reward, where is the risk you take? because the npc's right now are not a threat, since they do not come with heavier ships that actually can challenge you.
Where is your risk when you jump a lone maybe small trader with your big battle ready ship?

I fly in open when not playing exclusively with friends, I enjoy open, so please. I do both combat, exploration and trading, and enjoy meeting other people it makes things interesting, however that hardly changes the situation that I just mentioned, and just to point out, you are trying to stop it, you do not want those people to affect 'your' open, your fun, even though you affect potentially affect others fun?

I want to point out that I do not mind pirates in general, I'm more referring to the people that randomly jump people and kill for no reason, and some have falsely or not identified themselves as pirates and CODE.
Also I really do not understand why big ships don't interdict big traders, but no, what you hear about is mostly the smaller traders that get interdicted by imperial clippers and such other large ships, again, where is the risk for the pirate?

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

The problem is more clear when there's one CG for players to bring cargo to such and such station, but no opposing CG. The only way for someone who opposes the principle of the CG to "fight" it would be to interdict and destroy traders in the area, but if the majority of participants are hiding in Solo...

There was also a combat CG for Federal pilots (no counter goal) where Imperial pilots were ready and willing to kill Federal pilots in Open (and outnumbered them in CZs) but the Federal goal still won due almost certainly to Solo players.

Solo players who... paid just as much (if not more) for this game as you did?

 

[Traven Mayhem]

Would never happen like that, if competing goals are to kill x number of ships then npcs will form the bulk of the targets

Dude the singular example FDEV gave for power play was: '1 power will want X number of items delivered to a system, Y power will want those cargo transfers stopped/blockaded' please wake up and smell the coffee

 

[I_Am_Static]

So what you are saying, is that when the game changes, the new crime system comes in and pirates begin being hunted by npc's because they build up a bad rep, for being pirates, something which a system might not want in them, you won't be complaining?

No? Most of us are Wanted anyway and when sitting in SC waiting for traders get interdicted by the cops already.....

 

[bossbrigand]

Solo players who... paid just as much (if not more) for this game as you did?

In most cases, no, they did not pay more than I did, but that's not relevant. Using Solo to avoid counteraction to CGs is an exploit in all but name. I would even say it's worse than combat logging - at least when you combat log you can't continue to benefit while abusing a game feature to avoid all danger. You have to pop back in first.

Hi Commanders,

I'm the OP for this thread. I did not want to see the discussion evolving in an argument (though with a title mentioning "CODE", that was expected) but want to thank all pirates/psychos/weirdos who have explained why they play their way, their motivation and share their thoughts.

From my side, I am "only" Master/Merchant/Pathfinder but have done almost any kind of possible activities in ED, including piracy (on a break for now until the collector drones show up) and trading (I am even now back on the most popular rare route in a shieldless A thruster mirrored Cobra silent running, waiting for someone to catch me). First of all I want to tell: thank you to anybody who makes Elite a dangerous and challenging place! I mean, pirates, psychos, weirdos, you make the game feeling like a real world, where ...I mean, real things happen!

However I believe we all agree that, whether you play a honest trader or a bad guy, we all like to see as many players as possible in open play. Arriving to a system and seeing only 1-2 hollow icons on the scanner is like...meh...
For this reason, don't you think that any actions driving players out of open mode should be avoided?

You want to PvP/kill for fun, fine but shouldn't you select a challenging opponent and/or drop a line telling him to be ready to fight/die? This should bring them a smile when their ship pops and think "hell yeah, Elite is dangerous!".
You are doing a blockade and ask a T6/7/9 to drop all cargo related to the Community Goal, fine. But telling them to never come back or be killed on sight, why? You know they will not abandon the CG and are basically pushing them to do it solo for a while.
Doing this kind of stuff leads to less players in open play, meaning less fun for everybody including you, no?

One more time, I do not want to argue here, just want to hear your thoughts.

In my case I only pirate or "murder" in relation to CGs or political reasons (Federal dropships showing up in Imperial systems) but I don't intend to drive anyone to Solo by doing so. Still, players who decide it's too dangerous to participate in Open and simply switch to Solo to avoid losing - feels, eh, flimsy.

There are players who murder wantonly just for the hell of it and most of them don't care if their victim goes to Solo because they're just griefing anyway - they'll find someone else to victimize and will get bored of the game before they've run out of people to kill.

 

[Darkphoenix]

Try actually pirating sometime. There are plenty of armed groups escorting traders, bounty hunters protecting them, etc..

you are never going to see an overreaching police force in controlled space. The previous incarnations of elite had no such thing either -- you could be pirated anywhere in the game, even in the alliance / federaal home worlds.. you, the players are expected to combat the pirate threat. the police are under powered, and always would be. if they were going to 'stop' the pirates using npc forces, they would have done it a long time ago. these issues were raised in beta .. my guess is this is playing out exactly as FDEV intended.

The previous incarnations of Elite had no need as they weren't multiplayer. (though in fairness around stations dozens of Vipers would swarm you for being a bad boy). Most of the pirates I have seen operate in wings in vastly superior ships ganging up on lone traders and you then blame them for not wanting to be cannon fodder saying that the different modes of play need to be removed and/or locked? I would imagine most players have different moods and some days don't want to deal with people, so they should be punished for this? Like it or not pirates regardless of police efficiency should not be allowed to operate in lawful systems with impunity and no police response or pressure to drive them out period. After like 10 minutes of being a bad boy in a system they should be harassed constantly by police interdictions and frequent armed responses. Not the way it currently is, but that is the way it should realistically be.

 

[Jezzah]

OP it's a reasonable point of view to think that pirate actions might be driving people into solo. But I have to say I think that these people would choose solo in any case mostly because "the fear of a thing is usually worse than the thing".

Many have bragged testified whatever about being in open during the Diso blockade and gotten through without nary a bother maybe that's due to their skill maybe that's due to their instancing who knows. But the one thing that seems to come across from them is that they all thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

 

[Herik]

We already get hunted by NPC's at an accelerated rate when watned. The new crime mechanics won't have a very big impact on us. There has been no mentrion of an increased police response, they are just restructuring how bounties and fines work. Most of us don't bother paying them off, we just don't dock in stations where we are wanted.

As mentioned earlier, you'll never see a heavy handed police response -- elite has never been about that.

" is it really unbalanced to be able to affect the world without having to bump into you" -- yes, IMO. there should only be 'one' world, a world populated by players.

Nope; FD got it right.