Code Interdicting at Diso..
- Thread starter Mortifa
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Yeah; different strokes...
The thing is, there's quite a bunch of people who are not into PvP, and who were even very disappointed that you couldn't play the game offline (it was a feature many people hoped for during the early stages of development). The groups and solo mode are a sort of compromise. It won't really satisfy the ones who wanted to be able to play that game without an internet connection, and neither will the PvP aficionados be completely happy.
I for one am quite happy to see other commanders in space, having the occasional greeting or chat, but I could live without it. What i'm really grateful for is that i'm not forced into game mechanics like PvP, it's not my thing. EvE is great for that: lots of corps, organization, patrols, escorts for merchants blah blah. PvP galore. But I'm pretty sure Powerplay will you give plenty of opportunities to pew pew in a more structured manner.
Different strokes for different folks, eh? ^.^
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Snakebite
Banned
Hey commander, I share your pain, i've been on the receiving end of CODE scumbags myself.
There is only one solution, join the 'Edge Syndicate' and join the hundreds of honest spacers that are fighting back against CODE and all other robbing scumbags.
Code Basher
Banned
How does that work in practice? Have you ever come across a "Code" player operating alone?
I'm "blazing my own trail", and life is far too short to be worrying about honouring the hair pulling difficulty of the original game. I enjoyed the stress back then, but now, not so much
In 'blazing their own trail' people should realise that, in an open universe, occasionally their trails are going to run into other people's trails causing a conflicting trail, or a big trail ignition thing, like that Star Trek episode with Wesley Crusher at the academy (apologies for reminding everyone of Wesley Crusher - it's a far more heinous crime than anything code is doing.
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I wouldn't call it cowering behind solo or private groups. Playing in open in the hot zones like lugh, volungo, quivira, is like banging your head against the wall ( no point in it) because of the p2p architecture of the servers. Believe me I tried in all 3. Playing open amounted to waiting around for a red target then 20 other players scrambling to kill it, and dealing with the lag is frustrating. At volungo we went in with a wing, a couple of our group had to switch to solo to even dock to sign up after waiting 20 min. Then once in the Cz after about a half hr and a whopping 30K in bonds amassed we decided to private group and had a lot of fun. And, heaven forbid if you have a ff accident. You are not likely to make it out alive with 20 other cmdrs trying to get a red cmdr kill, even though they are on the same side. And, don't tell me proper trigger control, the cz is wild and anything can happen
If you are at all passionate about the the outcome of the cg, the only way I see to have any effect is turning in bonds and bonds in open are hard to get.
I have been in a lot of cz's in open that weren't part of community goals, and there weren't any problems. I don't seek out Pvp but I won't run from it either, nor will I combat log. I'm no stranger to the insurance screen.
And this seems to be the appropriate current solution to 'Code' using in-game tools, which can hopefully happen without the escalating 'guilds' arms race that people (myself included) would result in this game becoming like that other space MMO.
FD are in this strange situation where on the one hand they're admitting that the criminality system is fundamentally unbalanced, requiring a major rewrite for 1.3, but on the other hand they're using the official in-game news channel to highlight a behaviour whose success is being partly facilitated by the same broken mechanic. Throw in a few "loose cannons" who aren't even fully abiding by the pirates' own rules, and this sort of confusion is the result.
During the design phase there were many who defended FD's design decision to have parallel Open, Solo and Group modes against those who claimed it would lead to players going to "easy mode" to avoid PvP. With a well-balanced criminality system and good (or at least numerous) AI there really shouldn't have been any difference between the modes in terms of progression difficulty. Alas with the broken game FD gave us, "easy mode" became more or less a self-fulfilling prophecy. All of the players who want non-CZ PvP are grouping up in Open where player-on-player piracy is really the only form of piracy that's viable, while the pitiful lack of sanctions against those activities is pushing more and more players into Solo and Group which in many ways have become "easy mode", if "hard mode" is characterised by PvP where the rules are dictated by players rather than by the game.
Some say this is emergent gameplay while others decry it as exploitation of a broken game, with each camp invariably entrenching and launching brickbats at the other. In reality it's both, and the real enemy is FD for not only allowing it to become normalised but effectively promoting it through GalNet and the gaming media. Hopefully 1.3 will help rebalance things a little, but only time will tell.
During the design phase there were many who defended FD's design decision to have parallel Open, Solo and Group modes against those who claimed it would lead to players going to "easy mode" to avoid PvP. With a well-balanced criminality system and good (or at least numerous) AI there really shouldn't have been any difference between the modes in terms of progression difficulty. Alas with the broken game FD gave us, "easy mode" became more or less a self-fulfilling prophecy. All of the players who want non-CZ PvP are grouping up in Open where player-on-player piracy is really the only form of piracy that's viable, while the pitiful lack of sanctions against those activities is pushing more and more players into Solo and Group which in many ways have become "easy mode", if "hard mode" is characterised by PvP where the rules are dictated by players rather than by the game.
Some say this is emergent gameplay while others decry it as exploitation of a broken game, with each camp invariably entrenching and launching brickbats at the other. In reality it's both, and the real enemy is FD for not only allowing it to become normalised but effectively promoting it through GalNet and the gaming media. Hopefully 1.3 will help rebalance things a little, but only time will tell.
And this is the other real problem, with the p2p architecture, there need to be a large number of things scattered around the galaxy for people to participate in, as the current system leads to a) moaning about pvp play-style dominance, and b) exposing how creaky the p2p instancing is with even a few players around. Hopefully PowerPlay will at least spread players about a bit more when participating in these kind of conflicts. Code can't be everywhere.
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May I say that your entire post is brilliant and hits the nail squarely on t'head.
Thanks.
Seeing another Anaconda in SC is now the only thing that get's my attention. Quick scan to see if they are carrying an interdictor and then it's high alert.
Your people had an Orca the other night I guess that can't mass lock an Anaconda - but yes - if you dropped a Conda on me it would be drop the gear or high wake it. There is no way I could tank that much damage under mass-lock. Player Anaconda's are becoming much more common these days so sooner or later I will need to revert to my pre-Anaconda tactics of staying well clear of any player in SC (unless I'm in wing myself) but right now it's pretty much anxiety free.
There are options for the lone trader against pirate(s) in open - I'd list them as follows;
1. Eyes on swivels in SC - if you're going shieldless or in a very weak ship don't let anything get too close behind you - if they do drop out and wait or re-route. That kept me out of trouble ironically all the way until I got my Anaconda - when I got jumped by an infamous pirate - made a string or poor decisions under pressure and lost my ship.
2. Submit and boost escape or if really stuck and mass locked - high wake jump.
3. Get an Anaconda - with 5 shield boosters you can tank damage from 4 ships - including high powered FDLs, Pythons and Vultures - for long enough to even sit out a long cooldown. You won't be able to beat them but you definitely can get away - repeatedly from serial interdictions if needed.
Obviously if you are short of play time and CBA with all that then solo or private group would make sense. But honestly you can survive even in very hostile environments with any of the above.
Just comes down to personal preference in the end.
Exactly, that's all it is, a complete waste of time. If being constantly killed is your idea of fun, then by all means go right ahead. I'm sure the CODE will be really happy.
It's funny how people try to make rules in an "open" pvp world? There are no rules in "open". Just kill anything and everything, because that's what it is all about.
Snakebite
Banned
And this seems to be the appropriate current solution to 'Code' using in-game tools, which can hopefully happen without the escalating 'guilds' arms race that people (myself included) would result in this game becoming like that other space MMO.
One interesting feature of our group is that we are pretty casually organised and have no intention of 'controlling' any sectors of the Galaxy, our mission is to do what the Federal and Imperial security forces are reluctant to do and take on the bad guys that hide behind their official status of 'clean' even when we all know that they are robbing scumbags.
Snakebite
Banned
How does that work ?
Simple. It goes something like this.
CODE scumbag robs an innocent trader.
Trader reports the encounter to the Edge Syndicate and places a bounty on his head via the bounty boards.
Edge members and registers bounty hunters go after the CODE pirate.
The Code pirate gets his (English version of the American term ASS which is oddly not censored whilst the English version is) kicked.
Simple.
But there are plenty of other routes out there, far away from CGs and the old worlds anyway, so no one really needs to flee into solo or private groups either. IMHO.
Depends what we are talking about. Actual piracy (i.e. getting a trader to drop an appreciable amount of cargo, without ship destruction) seems to be the hardest profession and completely stacked against the pirates, given ether the trader is going to be able to boost away, or is going to be vaporized by a wing, with nothing in-between. If course the issue is compounded currently by the lack of penalty borne for PC or NPC ship destruction, and the general lack of reliable mechanisms to track ships through systems to promote bounty hunting due to the whole instancing thing.
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However, the game seems far more stacked towards the solo trader overall, given the amount of money made by trading outside of CGs or the old worlds, and the Python and Anaconda being trade-gunboat-cruisers, rather than actual trade ships requiring escorts. Worrying about one or two areas where a guild might have dominance is fairly pointless. So what if Code or whoever can muster forces in Lave or Diso? 'Tis a big universe out there. The fact that people are in this thread saying 'I've got an Anaconda in solo', but (with the implication as you say) that they can then bring it into open to make the pirates powerless' is also one of the strongest arguments I've seen that the game is unbalanced more by the ability to swap between solo and open, than by the existence of 'pirates'.
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A lot of these issues I lay at Frontier's door, for the still clunky comms system, by seemingly releasing ships piecemeal as and when they get completed, rather than considering in-game implications, by not having protection for traders in the form of AI wings at the same time as player wings were introduced, and by not having the crime system fully in-place etc. etc. But we're getting there... slowly.
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I agree that talking about 'cowardice' or 'challenge' in a one-sided fight is pretty pointless though.
I agree that the pirate role as a whole is difficult - I haven't tried it but from what I gather pirating NPC traders is fruitless as they mostly carry a few tins of crap it would seem. I don't understand that actually - why they don't just give them decent stuff like the player traders carry on the same routes.
I disagree with the open v solo thing - but we should probably leave that there else this thread will be in danger of disappearing into that thread.
It would be good to see NPC escorts and maybe a bulletin board method of hiring player escorts - but as you say things are improving - everything crossed for 1.3...
Why would they let you go on your merry way with the cargo? You entered a blockaded zone and are supporting their enemies. You're lucky the code are decent enough to let you leace with your life. Plenty of blockaders would just blow you out of the sky.
Soooo... you think if you had an Offline mode, Community goals would be a thing for you?
Well said, sir! I play computer games as a form of escapism on MY terms, not someone else's.
I still wonder what happened to that 'mini-elite' thing they showed governing AI trading back in one of the earlier newsletters - does it still have a role today? All trading reported on the galactic map just seems to be player-based AFAICS?
Agreed.
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Snakebite
Banned
And that Sir, is why FD implemented a SOLO Mode, so that you don't have to.
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