So there has been a lot of talk about Open and how to stop "griefing" and if you want you can look at my post history to see where I stand on it. I don't have any desire to discuss that further, I'd like to discuss being a criminal vs clean. This has nothing to do with Open vs Solo vs Group, really the only time that comes into play is the fact that if you want to play a criminal, Open is your only viable choice because it is the only place you'll get any kind of reaction from anything in the galaxy (players).
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Some people, regardless of the threat or benefit presented by other players, want to play in solo or group, I am so glad FD implemented that. I realized a few years ago playing WoW, that while I enjoy playing MMOs I need some space. I never thought about it until after I was raiding in WoW, we'd all grouped up before the boss fight to get our food buffs and get flasks and get the pre-boss pep talk, while the 24 other toons sat in a group eating, my toon was about 20 yards off to the side sipping his drink, it happened every time. It was never a conscious decision, I was just doing it, and never even noticing that I was doing it. Some people just need a little space, I found mine in WoW by participating in all the activities (including raids) by subconsciously isolating myself spatially in the game, some people find it in ED by isolating themselves in group or solo. Good for them, the problem is, it's hard to be a bad guy in solo. You see, in Open you get a reaction from people, you get anger here on the forums and all kinds of stuff and that is great feedback if you want to play a villain! Whether it is an RP "Arrrggg, Avast ye!" pirate, or someone who just wants to kill hollow boxes (for some reason), you feel like the villain because you get feedback and reaction, as well as the ability to assume such a reaction from your opposition, I am not unfamiliar with the joy of pwning someone and knowing they know they got pwned. In solo, you just get nothing, you get an increasing bounty (that disappears quickly) and is really only an issue if you have to rebuy at a station with legacy fines and I am like 99.9% certain the string of 0's and 1's I just blew up isn't feeling the burn of my sick pwnerific skills, so I get no competitive satisfaction out of it.
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As the game mechanics stand, the consequences for crime are very lacking, you can murder a billion ships in a single system and you can still dock, and trade and repair, go next door to a neighboring system and you're all good, no consequences at all. What that means for a PvP interaction is that all the consequence is on the victim. What that means as a solo player is you can't really play and feel like a criminal, because there are no consequences. The only indication that you're wanted is the little red lettering in the bottom right hand corner of the HUD. Add on that the galaxy response to someone with 200Cr bounty is the same as someone with 5 million credit bounty and it doesn't cut it.
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I'll post the "spoiler" in the suggestion forums as it is a suggestion, here it is just an example to illustrate how an overhaul of the criminal system could improve the gameplay for people who want to be criminals regardless of mode. After all, it shouldn't be any more "wrong" to kill an NPC than it is to kill a player or vice versa! Being a criminal is a legit profession, I want it to be so in all three modes, not just open, and I want everyone to have proportional consequences for criminal actions, not just those on the receiving end of the criminal stick.
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In the end human-human interactions will always be more complex and for some, more rewarding, but they shouldn't be the only way to interact via piracy/assassination regardless of which end of the interaction you're on.
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So if you're confused, this thread is about criminal consequences regardless of who the victim is (Player or NPC) or what mode you're in and whether you see any deficiencies with it or if there is room for improvement.
A thread to discuss the how to adjust the system is posted here.
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Some people, regardless of the threat or benefit presented by other players, want to play in solo or group, I am so glad FD implemented that. I realized a few years ago playing WoW, that while I enjoy playing MMOs I need some space. I never thought about it until after I was raiding in WoW, we'd all grouped up before the boss fight to get our food buffs and get flasks and get the pre-boss pep talk, while the 24 other toons sat in a group eating, my toon was about 20 yards off to the side sipping his drink, it happened every time. It was never a conscious decision, I was just doing it, and never even noticing that I was doing it. Some people just need a little space, I found mine in WoW by participating in all the activities (including raids) by subconsciously isolating myself spatially in the game, some people find it in ED by isolating themselves in group or solo. Good for them, the problem is, it's hard to be a bad guy in solo. You see, in Open you get a reaction from people, you get anger here on the forums and all kinds of stuff and that is great feedback if you want to play a villain! Whether it is an RP "Arrrggg, Avast ye!" pirate, or someone who just wants to kill hollow boxes (for some reason), you feel like the villain because you get feedback and reaction, as well as the ability to assume such a reaction from your opposition, I am not unfamiliar with the joy of pwning someone and knowing they know they got pwned. In solo, you just get nothing, you get an increasing bounty (that disappears quickly) and is really only an issue if you have to rebuy at a station with legacy fines and I am like 99.9% certain the string of 0's and 1's I just blew up isn't feeling the burn of my sick pwnerific skills, so I get no competitive satisfaction out of it.
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As the game mechanics stand, the consequences for crime are very lacking, you can murder a billion ships in a single system and you can still dock, and trade and repair, go next door to a neighboring system and you're all good, no consequences at all. What that means for a PvP interaction is that all the consequence is on the victim. What that means as a solo player is you can't really play and feel like a criminal, because there are no consequences. The only indication that you're wanted is the little red lettering in the bottom right hand corner of the HUD. Add on that the galaxy response to someone with 200Cr bounty is the same as someone with 5 million credit bounty and it doesn't cut it.
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I'll post the "spoiler" in the suggestion forums as it is a suggestion, here it is just an example to illustrate how an overhaul of the criminal system could improve the gameplay for people who want to be criminals regardless of mode. After all, it shouldn't be any more "wrong" to kill an NPC than it is to kill a player or vice versa! Being a criminal is a legit profession, I want it to be so in all three modes, not just open, and I want everyone to have proportional consequences for criminal actions, not just those on the receiving end of the criminal stick.
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In the end human-human interactions will always be more complex and for some, more rewarding, but they shouldn't be the only way to interact via piracy/assassination regardless of which end of the interaction you're on.
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So if you're confused, this thread is about criminal consequences regardless of who the victim is (Player or NPC) or what mode you're in and whether you see any deficiencies with it or if there is room for improvement.
A thread to discuss the how to adjust the system is posted here.
My proposal isn't about making griefers pay, it isn't about giving trade ships a sure way out, SCBs/chaff/high wake are there already, you just need to be willing to sacrifice the cargo room. I want a system that makes sense from a logical point of view, and adds gameplay value for people in any profession they want to play by adding consequences and richness for the way you interact with the galaxy and the people in it. I realize some of this would take a lot of development, but as it touches on almost all of the way we play (trading, combat, who we fight, how we outfit), and our satisfaction with those activities, I think it is a pretty big deal.
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As a reference point, this is how I view things, I am elite-explorer, dangerous-combat, broker-trading, so the NPCs I face are usually fairly well ranked and I've dabbled quite a bit in all the professions.
There are 2 main systems in the game that govern criminal acts, fines and bounties. How would I see these changed to make solo feel more dangerous as well as open more "fair".
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Criminality needs to have a long lasting status effect (with positive and negative repercussions), otherwise it has no consequence, regardless of if it is vs a player or an NPC.
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Any numbers I put in are really highly subject to debate and may need to be changed by an order of magnitude even, just there to give an idea.
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I know this was long and somewhat involved, but I think it would add depth and rewarding gameplay, most of it would not need to be visible to the player the same way most of how we get rep/rank isn't visible to us, it would all be summed up in a few nice status bars on the right hand panel.
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As a reference point, this is how I view things, I am elite-explorer, dangerous-combat, broker-trading, so the NPCs I face are usually fairly well ranked and I've dabbled quite a bit in all the professions.
- Trade ships ought to run some defense, you can either give up cargo on each run because you're running SCBs and a slightly larger shield instead of racks, or you can run max cargo and try to placate your pirate by "sharing", or you can give it up in big lumps because you got blown up running shield-less, but you are going to give it up one way or another. Sadly in solo, the AI pirates are so flimsy that these kinds of choices don't have to be made. For example: I walked away from a Hutton run for 10 minutes and came back to find a Courier pelting my 0% integrity python, my FSD was off CD so I'd been there for more than a minute, I ran no shields/lightweight bulkheads on those runs, I was still at 50% hull....sad. As someone who loves group with a few friends and enjoys the occasional trading stint; I wish I felt the need to make more decisions, you can only equip all that defense for so long and never get close to using it before you start to wonder why you're giving up the cargo space for no reason at all. I can trade in anarchy systems in solo and be fine, this should not be! Going to open is not the solution, all game modes are legit and I hope they can offer similar experiences for gameplay.
- Piracy is as "legitimate" a profession as trading, the pilot's federation doesn't care if you're a pirate or a trader or a bounty hunter, it just cares how good you are at it (hence the profession rankings). An act of piracy is criminal (to the point of fines) for govts. and that is good. Murder is a whole other beast.
- Bounty hunting should be a hunt, not a die roll. You should be able to actively find bounties.
- System security levels should be very noticeable. They are somewhat in RES sites, you'll see a ton of cops in a high sec res and not so many in low sec, but I can run around a high sec system just fine with a bounty on my head, as well as a low sec system, there isn't an immediately noticeable difference, just like you can feel the difference when you're in the wrong part of town vs the well lit plaza.
- Explorers, you guys are awesome, I'll be back out soon, I promise, but I don't think that profession comes into this.
There are 2 main systems in the game that govern criminal acts, fines and bounties. How would I see these changed to make solo feel more dangerous as well as open more "fair".
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Criminality needs to have a long lasting status effect (with positive and negative repercussions), otherwise it has no consequence, regardless of if it is vs a player or an NPC.
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Fines:
- The fine system gives you a bounty after a week. This makes sense at some point, because if you rack up enough fines, they'd want to make you pay with your life because you aren't likely to give them the credits.
- That should only happen in extreme scenarios, say fines totaling more than 1,000,000 (should be significantly more than what an assassination mission pays out) that last more than a week. The entire idea of fining someone is to get money out of them, dead men don't pay.
- Anything under that remains as a fine indefinitely, but has an effect on your standing with the minor faction. For very small fines (parking violations and such) they just persist as a fine indefinitely, but every time you end up in a station where that faction has a presence, the first thing that pops up is an option to pay your fine, a small annoyance for a small fine. As the fines stack up however (you get caught smuggling 500T of slaves, you have a bad habit of nailing people going in and out of the mail slot too fast) you begin to lose access to station services in stations under that factions control, in a suitable order, the bigger the fine the more services you lose.
- BB>commodities>shipyard>outfitting>repair>refuel perhaps. Contacts are always available.
- Of course it's only logical that any bounties you wish to cash in with a faction that has fined you are going to be garnished to pay off your fine.
- Piracy incurs a fine, not a bounty! Piracy is a wonderful game mechanic that adds depth and balances the high profit trading profession.
- Piracy and smuggling increase what I would call "infamy" (piracy more than smuggling) which would give you access to missions from criminal factions. See section below.
- Assault incurs a very large fine, not a bounty! Eye for an eye is one thing, eye for a scratch on the cheek is quite another, death penalty for breaking a leg is yet another. This would let pirates take action (blow out thrusters, pop hatches) to pirate and still be pirates and able to sell on black markets (at least until their huge fines turn to bounties, then it would be time to move along or make smart choices about where and who you pirate). Murder should be treated severely! See below.
- Assaulting a security force incurs a bounty as now, with modification, see section below.
- On acquiring an excessively large fine, you gain a bounty after a period of time, which is how the system works now, but in the interim you are losing station services.
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Bounties and wanted status:
In my opinion, if you're wanted with a controlling faction, it makes no sense that their station says "Welcome home commander, so glad you could stop by, thank you for requesting docking because otherwise we'll kill your ass dead! Never mind the dozens of our civilians and security forces you've butchered, you asked nicely. Now please excuse us as we give it to this newb in a sidewinder who neglected to hit that button!" - Docking requests are denied, stations fire on sight and police are notified of your arrival. After all, that faction has marked you for death, yet, they don't use their biggest resource (those huge guns on the station!) to mete out that punishment?
- As your bounty increases, so does your criminal status, you are after all even more wanted.
- At first you'll be dealing with the consequences of being wanted by the faction that issued your bounty, but as you continue to increase your bounty with that faction, it's allied factions (those that share station presence with it as part of the same major faction) will deny you access to their stations in other systems and will mark you for death as well.
- An example: Leesti United Steelworks (an alliance faction) held control of George Lucas in the Leesti system (I believe this recently changed), another alliance minor faction, Independent Leesti for Equality, was also present in that station. On incurring a very high bounty(>25k) with Leesti United Steelworks, you will now also find that Quator station (controlled by Independent Leesti for Equality), in the neighboring system of Quator is hostile toward you, as well as ships of that faction. As your bounty increases even further (>250k) you will soon be wanted by the major faction (the alliance in this example) and any stations under it's influence.
- The idea is that as your criminal status increases, you become noticed on a higher and higher level of authority and the consequences become harder to avoid. As a criminal with a big rep you will need a good anarchy system to retreat to or to be very careful about which factions are present in independent systems, something that seems a natural necessity but as things are now is quite unnecessary.
- Police response should be proportional to the bounty incurred, a player with a 200Cr bounty should not be targeted over a player or NPC with a larger bounty, that just adds a very artificial and flimsy sense of "danger".
- Bounties valued less than 1,000 Cr would be able to be paid off as a fine from the cockpit and police would give you a reasonable amount of time to do so before opening fire because you scratched their shield. It is a huge headache to good guys, trying to cull criminals to have an NPC take one of their bullets and suddenly you're treated like a mass murderer! Subsequent fire would void your ability to pay off the small bounty.
- Your criminal status does not magically get erased when you die, it decreases, as it would (a criminal who gets himself blown up doesn't seem so threatening), and it decays slowly over time.
- After a week of no infractions you drop down one tier, so if you were a terrifically infamous criminal wanted throughout the entire major faction after one week without killing anyone the major faction no longer wants you dead.
- After another week allied minor factions no longer want you dead (you can safely buzz around Quator again! see example above).
- After a third week the bounty goes dormant and you are left with "criminal" status (authorities don't actively hunt you and players need to KWS first to activate the bounty).
- After a fourth week you are granted access to station services again. You are no longer a criminal, welcome back to society.
- Getting killed in your instrument of destruction (not a cheesy sidewinder) has the effect of one weeks time passing (you lose a tier of infamy). If a commander claims your bounty it is no longer claimable again and you don't show up as "wanted" but instead as "criminal", what that means is that other players don't get a freebie kill on you, but the NPC factions are still at odds with you and while they won't open fire on you, you'll not be allowed to dock at their stations and you'll find the police keeping an eye on you anytime you are in their system (they follow you into low wakes, stay close to you in supercruise). This should be proportional to the security level of the system, mostly the response time, in a high sec system you would be watched nearly as soon as you jump in, in a low sec system you'd have some time before they caught on to your presence.
- Criminal status and infamy give you access to missions from criminal factions that would otherwise not be obtainable. These would be the best piracy/smuggling/assassination missions, the more criminal/infamous you are, the better the missions potentially are. Indeed, "clean" factions would be more likely to pay a mob to put a hit on someone for them, so without criminal/infamous status you aren't going to be killing any celebs for a "clean" faction, you'll need to have an in with the faction controlling the local anarchy system who takes care of this business for the "good guys". These would be the guys that get you black market contacts (erase these from the map please! Let us actually build black market networks!) expanding your network, these are the guys who give you hints about a good location to pick up some slaves, narcotics or weapons that need smuggling or another mob needing some big hits done, or a convoy of palladium being trucked through a neighboring system.
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Bounty hunters: - As a standard mission (always available) players can browse the list of commanders currently wanted by the faction they are visiting. They can accept some number, say half a dozen, bounties to hunt. On accepting those bounties they are then notified anytime one of their targets requests docking with one of the factions looking for them, anytime a player friendly/allied with those factions spots the target that updates the location for the bounty hunter, anytime an NPC of a faction targeting the criminal "sees" (the NPC equivalent of what a player does when we target and do a basic scan) the wanted player the bounty hunter gets an update in real time on the location right there in his cockpit, the hunt becomes a hunt instead of a die roll! This also means that if you are wanted in fed space, the further you go into empire space, the less likely you'll be found, you can effectively hide if you want to, and possibly right next door in an independent system.
- The bounty hunter and the target should always be instanced together when they are in the same area, even if that area is on the other side of the galaxy (if you want to hunt them that far, bring a KWS).
- The bounty hunter should be notified if the target is no longer in his mode (left the group or open), there is no point in looking for something that isn't there, it's no fun and this is a game.
- The bounty mission should expire after a suitable amount of time (24-48 hrs on hyperjump), and can be picked up again if the bounty hunter wishes.
Environment:
- I'd like to see different govt types show some more life through the way they treat different crimes, dictators may be okay with piracy, presenting no fine, while democracies may give it a bounty. Even further, a corporate govt may fine you for pirating other faction ships, but give you a bounty for pirating their own. Different dictators may treat piracy differently, roll it randomly for each dictatorship in the game, I don't care, just give it some life/personality.
- Communicating this could be done through the nav beacons, on jumping in you may get a message that give a random blurb about the system. "Welcome to Leesti, please enjoy your visit, Reidhart(Reynhart...whatever it is who controls it now) Intellisys would like to remind you that piracy against corporation ships will be met with lethal force. Have a nice day." (indicating a corporate govt protecting it's own), "Welcome, as a reminder, security patrols have been doubled." (indicating a system in lockdown state) They would be similar to the loitering threats we hear in stations, but would pop up as chat messages from the nav beacon to give us an indication of what's going on in the system, they'd add life to the systems and could give cues about the political or security atmosphere of the system.
- Pump up that AI, make me need SCBs on my T-x in solo, make me need to chaff (and make it work on NPC turrets and gimbals), give me some real pirates. We're hearing about some improvements, I hope they fit the bill, I have some pretty high ranks in the professions, I wouldn't mind using the money and wisdom I earned getting those ranks to deal with NPC attacks, even if it meant getting blown up sometimes because I was dumb and ran little shields and D rated components with 450 tons in my hold!
- Give NPC traders good cargo so pirates can legitimately make a profit (despite all the fines they'll incur) and be rewarded for the risk they are taking, proportionate to security level.
- Add in proportional police response to criminal activities (lots of ganking = lots of cops in supercruise interdicting criminals and lots of them dropping into any low wake they see in the area to check on things, adjusted for sec level).
- Get some decent NPC bounty hunters for solo pirates on the run.
- Adjust the NPC activity to compensate for player action in the game, if there is a big group of players pirating a system in open, it isn't necessary for the NPCs to do that anymore, the piracy quota is being met, make it a function of security response and it shouldn't be too tough? (love you devs! )
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Any numbers I put in are really highly subject to debate and may need to be changed by an order of magnitude even, just there to give an idea.
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I know this was long and somewhat involved, but I think it would add depth and rewarding gameplay, most of it would not need to be visible to the player the same way most of how we get rep/rank isn't visible to us, it would all be summed up in a few nice status bars on the right hand panel.
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