I've been playing for a little over a month now, and I'm beginning to see what feels like, to me, the biggest problem with Elite
angerous' combat system. The mechanics are done properly, and dogfights are genuinely fun. Some turn into REAL nail-biters. The problem comes either before the dogfight, or when friendly fire inadvertently happens.
If a player has been fighting alongside system authorities for a while, the system authorities show up to me as green on scans, and they're ALL shooting at a ship, I don't believe a player should gain a "Wanted" status for shooting that same ship before the scan completes. Points in my defense:
1- That ship has clearly offended the system authorities, to which I am allied. I'm helping them eliminate a threat. Tagging me as wanted for this is akin to your friend turning around and knocking you out after you stopped someone from beating him up.
2- The player IS wanted, regardless of what your scan has yet shown or not shown. If he's wanted in the first place, what's the big deal? Not to mention, it would be a much more interesting game mechanic to be able to sort of "roll the dice," and attack whoever with the risk of it NOT being a wanted ship.
3- If a player accidentally does some damage to a friendly ship, or even a neutral but non-wanted ship while in the course of attacking the wanted ship, I feel like either the limit to that damage before becoming wanted yourself should be higher or the AI needs to be more... "I," and stay the hell out of the way. They regularly fly in front of you, STAY there, and prohibit you from firing. If you do hit them, you gain a teeny, tiny bounty that automatically results in a system authority attack on the player.
Toward this end, I also don't think the system authorities should be blowing you up as the first course of action against a 200Cr bounty. My ship costs 105,000Cr, I have over 1,000,000Cr in bounties in my hold. If I get blown up, that's hours of work gone, demoralizing and disheartening a player from actually continuing bounty hunting, all for a 200Cr bounty. Perhaps there should be an escalation system for system authorities as concerns player bounties? For example purposes, I'd say up 500Cr fines/bounties receive zero attention, or a pop-up message to pay up? Perhaps up to 1,000Cr fines/bounties could result in an immediate warning to head to the nearest station and pay your dues. Over 1,000 and the nature of the crime related to it, e.g. Assault on a non-wanted ship or system authority, could result in system authorities actually attacking you.
I genuinely feel like the criminality system needs a hard overhaul. I'd also like to see the bounty hunting profession as a whole be overhauled, and this being just. Small part of it. What do you guys think?
angerous' combat system. The mechanics are done properly, and dogfights are genuinely fun. Some turn into REAL nail-biters. The problem comes either before the dogfight, or when friendly fire inadvertently happens. If a player has been fighting alongside system authorities for a while, the system authorities show up to me as green on scans, and they're ALL shooting at a ship, I don't believe a player should gain a "Wanted" status for shooting that same ship before the scan completes. Points in my defense:
1- That ship has clearly offended the system authorities, to which I am allied. I'm helping them eliminate a threat. Tagging me as wanted for this is akin to your friend turning around and knocking you out after you stopped someone from beating him up.
2- The player IS wanted, regardless of what your scan has yet shown or not shown. If he's wanted in the first place, what's the big deal? Not to mention, it would be a much more interesting game mechanic to be able to sort of "roll the dice," and attack whoever with the risk of it NOT being a wanted ship.
3- If a player accidentally does some damage to a friendly ship, or even a neutral but non-wanted ship while in the course of attacking the wanted ship, I feel like either the limit to that damage before becoming wanted yourself should be higher or the AI needs to be more... "I," and stay the hell out of the way. They regularly fly in front of you, STAY there, and prohibit you from firing. If you do hit them, you gain a teeny, tiny bounty that automatically results in a system authority attack on the player.
Toward this end, I also don't think the system authorities should be blowing you up as the first course of action against a 200Cr bounty. My ship costs 105,000Cr, I have over 1,000,000Cr in bounties in my hold. If I get blown up, that's hours of work gone, demoralizing and disheartening a player from actually continuing bounty hunting, all for a 200Cr bounty. Perhaps there should be an escalation system for system authorities as concerns player bounties? For example purposes, I'd say up 500Cr fines/bounties receive zero attention, or a pop-up message to pay up? Perhaps up to 1,000Cr fines/bounties could result in an immediate warning to head to the nearest station and pay your dues. Over 1,000 and the nature of the crime related to it, e.g. Assault on a non-wanted ship or system authority, could result in system authorities actually attacking you.
I genuinely feel like the criminality system needs a hard overhaul. I'd also like to see the bounty hunting profession as a whole be overhauled, and this being just. Small part of it. What do you guys think?
