Design 101 - Players must ALWAYS have choice to avoid or run instead of fight

ALWAYS avoid no. Sometimes life sucks.
Players must have a mechanism to avoid even if that mechanism is "don't go into that system, there be dragons".

Some people will vote with their feet no matter what. Right now ED has a lot of bored people voting with their feet. If you are the type who will vote with their feet if they are not 100% in complete safety playing a game with "dangerous" in the title, I want you to leave. [redacted]

LMAO at that last part. You base your life around videogame challenges? HAHA
 
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Dunno. I think making it always possible to escape is unfair on pirates and bounty hunters. I think players maybe just need to get used to a bit of dying. As long as you're insured getting killed is only a temporary setback.
 
Their goal for interdictions is fine and it will ultimately benefit the game. All they need to do is ensure there are viable defense mechanisms in place so that a well defended trader has a reasonable chance of evading critical damage long enough to cool the FSD. Most of these are in place now, and at worst fine tuning will be necessary.
 
LMAO at that last part. You base your life around videogame challenges? HAHA

I was making a funny but I think its true too. Most people are so afraid of risk in life they never go anywhere. Good thing too, I need employees. In RL though risk has REAL consequences, that makes sense being cautious. People who don't want risk in a GAME though? Must be afraid of their own shadows in RL.
 
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For me, both. Safe systems should be very safe, and come down hard police response wise, on any offender AI or player, and I'd ramp up rewards for trading certain goods in anarchies/feudal/dictatorships.

I agree that Police response could be faster in "safe" systems, and what would be cool would be to have a broadcasting system where an interdicted player would send out a distress signal to other commanders in the area for help. Right now unless you are trailing a pirate who is interdicting other ships, it's really hard to catch them in the act and help the defenceless traders (which was my main goal in becoming a bounty-hunter). The best part about a system like that is it could become a double-edged sword where you send out a broadcast signal and instead of getting help, you instead get another pirate appear to deal with.
 
I was making a funny but I think its true too. Most people are so afraid of risk in life they never go anywhere. Good thing too, I need employees. In RL though risk has REAL consequences, that makes sense being cautious. People who don't want risk in a GAME though? Must be afraid of their own shadows in RL.

Satire I understand. It just didn't sound like it at first. But I have a lot more "risk" IRL with my other hobbies but recently I'm a complete care bear in most games I play. So your statement is just untrue. I'm sure a lot of other people are the same. Gaming preference has no real bearing on your RL exploits. That's just hilarious and am glad you were joking.

OT I don't think there should be a way to always avoid interdictions. I personally beefed up my Annie and always submit and fight because it's just fun. I like fun in my games and that's not always just determined by "risk".
 
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The only choice for me is to submit to prevent hull damage, then escape as fast as I can.

My view on it is the second part of that statement is the only real issue. I think submitting to Interdiction resulting in no damage is a reasonable thing to happen regardless of any other changes. The only unintended aspect was that players could evade piracy before it even begins by doing this. FD put the low cooldown for voluntary submission in place for Security force interdictions, and clearly didn't foresee how critically it would affect piracy interactions.

The change will more than likely have a knock on effect to how pirates have to interact as well. Rather than feel pressured to come out guns ablazing, pirates will have time to engage in comms and their marks will know they are stuck there long enough to take the offer seriously. If a trader still chooses to run, that's their choice but I suspect the number of pirate interactions ending in trader destruction by default will drop significantly, whilst the number of gunboat diplomacy scenarios will rise. Granted it will never prevent a real murderous player but no system will do that.
 
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You absolutely shouldn't be able to run from every encounter, how is the game supposed to challenge you? Furthermore very few games realistically give you that option, unless the only other game you play is pokemon or something. You either defeat the challenge that's put in front of you or get kicked back to the start until you can handle it. That's how I like it, that's how it is, and that's how it should be.
 
Oh no, the pirates can't kill as much as they want to? Stop developing new content! Nerf everything now!

There's nothing wrong with a pirate having the upper hand at the outset of most interdiction scenarios where they are the instigator. This isn't about pirates being able to blow everyone they see to smithereens, it's about making the player role feasible, and raising the gameplay of the Interdiction mechanic above the difficulty level of noughts and crosses.
 
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Well, as soon as we are able to jump in flightgroups, providing escorts for traders, the lone pirate will surely think twice about interdicting a six ship convoy. On the other hand pirates will fly in groups as well, so if an interdiction happens its always the choice for the trader to run while the combat ships holding off the attacker.

In general i see nothing wrong with being interdicted and landing in a dangerous situation, being a trader or whatever. As long as i can get out using skill and whits and no regulated game mechanic, its totally fine.
However i agree, that damage done to interdicted ships is critical... being interdicted 3 times on the way to a station can easily shrink your millions, when piloting a big vessel. Probably the larger ships should simply suffer less damage. And avoiding interdiction in the first place? No. But an option to minimize the chance of being interdicted would be a cool thing... Hiding your signature in SC or using other pieces of interdiction chance reducing hardware that only fit the largest ships would be a nice addition to the game. [edit]... if there is a way to counter such measures of course [/edit]

Did you play in the ArcheAge alpha/beta. Or at release. I was an alpha/beta tester. I actually _like_ PvP. I just like PvP that is balanced and offers each player the agency and choice to decide what they want to risk.

Back to ArcheAge. They had exactly the core design mechanic you are describing. And if you go look at what many of us were saying in (pre)beta, and what has been going on since launch, you'll see that it's a chaotic mess full of hackers. And that's a game with a centralized server architecture that is more hack-resistant than ED.

Here's the bottom line in ArcheAge: all risk and loss is on the traders, whether lone or in convoy. All the potential gain and zero risk is on the pirates, whether lone or in convoy. The risk/reward equation is simply not balanced in ArcheAge. I said I'd avoid the pirate issue here in ED and keep the OP to a core design principle, but if you read my post history the same exact risk/reward balance issue in ArcheAge exists here today in ED. But thats a different kettle of fish to solve.
 
In Principle; a game to trade superstructure does not work without the dealer!
I would like to mention Jumpgate (who else knows) at the end there were about 30 to 40 dealers and over 800 pirates and other criminals.
The dealer then disappeared altogether, and the pirates were too cowardly to put in a tow and act as they were then attacked (looool).
They then went even so was this Game history !!

And what can we learn from ??? (Probably not!), The dealer must get a fair chance to protect yourself, or you will need to unsubscribe pirate wars among you.

as simple as that.
 
You absolutely shouldn't be able to run from every encounter, how is the game supposed to challenge you? Furthermore very few games realistically give you that option, unless the only other game you play is pokemon or something. You either defeat the challenge that's put in front of you or get kicked back to the start until you can handle it. That's how I like it, that's how it is, and that's how it should be.

The "running" mechanics can be part of the challenge, if designed right. Nowhere in my OP did I say "avoid 100%" or "run successfully 100%". I simply brought up the issue that the _choice_ to avoid or run should be there. That said, it follows logically that the avoid/run mechanics should be successful _most_ of the time when applied with _skill_.

But as interdiction stands right now?

* The interdiction _attempt_ is unavoidable. You can't see it coming most of the time and take steps to avoid even the atttempt.
* If you choose to fight the attempt (play the minigame), the faster, more maneuverable ship has a 100% inherent advantage.
* The above bullet by itself is bad enough, but the salt in the wound is that losing the minigame is an instant 10% hit on your hull which cost big credits to repair.
* Whether interdiction is lost or submitted to, in the current state of things, at least a player who _chooses_ to run can do so successfully, some skill is still required, regardless of what some of you may claim. Especially if it's an interdiction by another player who is geared specifcially for interdiction PvP.

The problem I have is largely with the fourth bullet above. What FD has been describing is making the choice to run once you've been interdicted essentially impossible. It's the equivalent of making snares or stunlocks last much much longer than they already do. Which is the wrong course of action if that's all that changes. Instead, they first need to either balance the cost element and/or add more intelligent counters to an attempt to snare-lock or stun-lock you.l
 
Insentivise the trader to stick around and take the chance on a fight instead of making them feel the only viable profitable option is to run away to safeguard their goods.

System friendship bonus: for making the system a little safer we will offer a small bonus multiplier on goods sold in our system. Bonus multiplier depends on number of pirates killed in our system and will reset if you change ships for whatever reason. (In the interests of maintaining our system economy we reserve the right to cap this bonus depending on economic stability and other factors). Thank you commanders for trading with us and also helping to keep the peace in our system.

Just an idea off the top of my head and I am sure it will be picked apart but its always better to lead behaviour with carrots rather than beating them into submission with a stick. Just my opinion ;)
 
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A trader's only defense against piracy, should be planning. Once the pirate has chosen a target (that is, a target that is within the rage of waht he should be able to pirate in a given ship obviously), the trader shouldn't have much say in what happens next, apart from deciding to give in or to die.
A trader's job should be to make sure he doesn't get in a situation where he becomes a target. That means flying the right ship, in the right place, hauling the right stuff and maybe with the right friends.
Of course, that requires a game world and economy able to support that kind of interaction and planning. So sadly not yet.
 
Dunno. I think making it always possible to escape is unfair on pirates and bounty hunters. I think players maybe just need to get used to a bit of dying. As long as you're insured getting killed is only a temporary setback.

You don't fly anything bigger than an Asp, if even that. Do you? Come back after you've been operating in a Clipper or Python or T9 or Anaconda for a while.
 
OP - feel free to submit your resume to FD. :D

AFAIK - FD haven't said anything about not allowing players choice when it comes to interdictions. What you do when interdicted might have to change. Looks like me, what its going to do (if they change like has been suggested), that traders who fly without shields and defenses are going to be boned. In other words, fly naked, you're taking risks. If you sacrifice a little cargo space and get some defenses on there, you will be able to run from interdictors. Which sounds about right to me.

Risk vs reward. You aim for the bigger reward, you better be ready for the bigger risk. Come on, haven't people been saying trading is totally out of whack with other professions?

Now, if they could sort out the insanely high level of interdictions, especially around remote unpopulated systems, that would be cool. But i'm guessing that will come in a patch soon.
 
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