Elite Dangerous Blocking System: A Call for Change

[Shabine]

Oh, Frontier does care a lot. That's why there is a block function. Every RP player can (and should) exclude non RP players. Frontier gave us this possibilty because they right fully anticipated that not all players would get the sense of the game. The solution is not perfect but works... and ensures (very smart of Frontier) that even people who bought ED without understanding of its in-game purpose pay for the game, but can not disrupt it for all the other players who seek a enjoyable, social and fun game experience.

You know what? I give up.

I have tried to explain that what we as individuals want or expect and reality are two different things. In Open, assuming I don't block everyone who tries to shoot me, or combat log, or hide in a different mode, I can be killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can be killed for my cargo, or just because. I don't bother trying to rationalize the actions of others or push for them to play the game according to the rules of some fake in-game organization.

I quite like the danger, and I have no problem dying in a fire because CMDR Ganksalot caught me in a big, slow, defenseless boat. I avoid this by flying around in ships that boost to 850+ and are essentially ungankable because of it. I have adapted to the fact that people in Open don't play by my rules or the rules of the PF.

All I can say is that, again, a lot of people here seem to be complaining that they've gone swimming with sharks and that they have lost arms and legs, and because of that, that sharks are big meanies who aren't being nice.

It's all very silly, because it's based on wants and desires and emotions rather than the reality of what Open represents; existence in a galaxy that is dangerous.

 

[Brrokk]

OK, I give this thread the award before it gets closed and sent to the Hotel:-

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wish we could use threads like this to help create a better Crime and Punishment system. We have enough combined brain power here we should be able to spot most of the difficulties before they happen.

Sure.

Difficulty 1: the word "Punishment". This is a mainstream power fantasy computer game, so punishing people for playing it isn't part of the design objectives. Therefore, committing crimes and dealing with the in-game consequences of such should be fun.

Difficulty 2: the word "Crime". In-game, crime refers to actions which a local minor faction wishes to deter. Those don't bear very much relation to inter-personal behaviour that players might wish to deter others from taking against them. For example, picking the attacking side in an Installation or Megaship scenario is a crime, as is scanning a private data point, or assassinating most Odyssey mission targets ... but blowing up explorers at a Guardian site in an uninhabited system is not, and neither is going AFK on the only large landing pad at a station, and neither is sitting outside a station scanning people in the hopes that they had fail-on-scan missions.

I can think of various ways in which the in-game crime system could be made more fun to interact with, but they all start with everyone completely giving up on the idea it has any responsibility for inter-player interactions.

So no, a murder psycho is not a role recognised by PF.

Are you sure you don't get combat - or mercenary? - rank for player kills? If so it's changed recently since there was at least one person trying to get to Elite solely from PvP kills a while back. They do give rank for random murder of apparently innocent NPCs so it'd be a weird moral distinction for them to make, and minor factions will give out all sorts of rewards for the same. On the other side, NPCs will quite happily destroy your ship for no money at all - the average NPC pirate has forgotten to pack hatchbreakers and can't subtarget, so has no choice but to blow you up in the hope that your wreckage contains something of value, which it won't.

But this isn't I think a useful route - the PF gives no ranks for buckyball racing either, and we're not suggesting that speeding should be a bounty-level crime or otherwise discouraged in-game even if you don't hit anyone else. Conversely, if you hang around a RES site (or an AX CZ, ahem) quietly waiting for other players to pick up a 200 credit assault bounty and then flattening them with G5 frags, you're not doing anything that the NPCs discourage and you'll even get a token reward but I'm pretty sure you'd still get complaints out-of-game if you bragged about your work "clearing up the criminals".

The problem with player-vs-player kills is not that they don't fit with the (highly dystopian) ED lore and setting, or that specific groups of (canonically really dubious) NPCs don't give direct rewards for it.

 

[Brrokk]

...

All I can say is that, again, a lot of people here seem to be complaining that they've gone swimming with sharks and that they have lost arms and legs, and because of that, that sharks are big meanies who aren't being nice and doing what they've been told is the way they should be playing this game.

...

That's also a mis-characterisation: I don't see anyone complaining like that. Again, there are people who would enjoy seeing those complaints, but with the game design we have they don't occur.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

While I understand the need to protect players from harassment and unwanted communication

The only people worried about being isolated and alone are the people doing exactly that - bullying, harassing and ganking other players for no reason other than their own weird need to do it. They are the ones getting isolated, not the ones doing the blocking.

 

[Shabine]

That's also a mis-characterisation: I don't see anyone complaining about that. Again, there are people who would enjoy seeing those complaints, but with the game design we have they don't occur.

I see everyone complaining about this. That gankers aren't playing by PF rules. That ganking and griefing aren't PvP because one of the participants is unwilling. That Open isn't being played correctly by people who kill without a reward other than another notch. On and on.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. If ganking isn't something people should be doing, why have ganking rigs been patrolling Deciat for as long as they have? It's so mainstream that even The Pilot has done ride-alongs with Deciat gankers in his videos (see Mamba). It's a reality of Elite's Open mode. There are alternatives, so use them if you don't want to potentially be a victim. It's easy. Eveything else is for the birds.

 

[Brrokk]

I see everyone complaining about this. That gankers aren't playing by PF rules. That ganking and griefing aren't PvP because one of the participants is unwilling. That Open isn't being played correctly by people who kill without a reward other than another notch. On and on.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. If ganking isn't something people should be doing, why have ganking rigs been patrolling Deciat for as long as they have? It's so mainstream that even The Pilot has done ride-alongs with Deciat gankers in his videos (see Mamba). It's a reality of Elite's Open mode. There are alternatives, so use them if you don't want to potentially be a victim. It's easy. Eveything else is for the birds.

There are no complaints from people about getting exploded by gankers in this thread. Complaints are from the other side: check the OP for the motivation.

Is Deciat still patrolled by gankers? I wouldn't label all gankers in the same way, but those are the lowest kind: hoping to meet new players on their way to the first engineer in small ships so far not engineered. Well, in Open they can do that. I can also fly around there in my Sidewinder "Griefer Blocker" to test their reading comprehension. I haven't made time for that for a while.

 

[TobiasFuzz]

I see everyone complaining about this. That gankers aren't playing by PF rules. That ganking and griefing aren't PvP because one of the participants is unwilling. That Open isn't being played correctly by people who kill without a reward other than another notch. On and on.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. If ganking isn't something people should be doing, why have ganking rigs been patrolling Deciat for as long as they have? It's so mainstream that even The Pilot has done ride-alongs with Deciat gankers in his videos (see Mamba). It's a reality of Elite's Open mode. There are alternatives, so use them if you don't want to potentially be a victim. It's easy. Eveything else is for the birds.

This thread was started by someone who complains about getting blocked, not a ganker victim.

 

[Shabine]

There are no complaints from people about getting exploded by gaskets in this thread. Complaints are from the other side: check the OP for the motivation.

You clearly have not read the last couple of pages, Brrokk.

This thread was started by someone who complains about getting blocked, not a ganker victim.

Again, please read the last few pages. My recent responses have not been to the OP.

 

[TobiasFuzz]

You clearly have not read the last couple of pages, Brrokk.


Again, please read the last few pages. My recent responses have not been to the OP.

I've seen none here complaining about gankers. We are just defending the block function. Not because of being afraid of gankers or whining... we just dont want to get interrupted while playing the game as we like.

 

[Shabine]

Elite Dangerous is a role-play game. Players are encouraged to choose one of the roles the Pilots Federation has declared as recognized roles (as every cmdr is a member of the pilots federation). Ganker, griefer, psychopath, murderer and jerk are not recognized roles by the PF.

...

I've seen none here complaining about gankers.

These two statements seem... contradictory.

 

[TobiasFuzz]

...

These two statements seem... contradictory.

They did not.

 

[Chaparral]

That's a hard no.

The C&P in this game is completely ineffective. Fix that, then won't block be necessary.

PVP PVE partitioning has been effectively addressed in MMOs for more than 20 years. It is not done effectively in ED or EDO.

If a lulz ganking deciat skulker wants to erase me from existence, I aid them in their quest by blocking them. They wanted me gone, so I am gone.

I don't have a problem with pvp while I'm in CZs. That is the point of CZs. I do not block those combatants. This is an example of an appropriate pvp pve partition.

If I am collaborating with other players doing AX, or Bounty Hunting or Engineering in Open - being harassed without a setting relevant cause (especially given there is no meaningful consequence for illegal behavior) warrants a block. Again, they want me dead - so I am dead to them.

After thousands of hours I have yet to meet a legit pirate that asked for cargo.

Clearly the OP is short on targets.

Perhaps the OP doesn't understand that the block erases the blocking player from the existence of the other player's game.

It is a pretty basic concept - I don't want to play with you, why would you compel me to interact with you?

 

[Brrokk]

...

If a lulz ganking deciat skulker wants to erase me from existence, I aid them in their quest by blocking them. They wanted me gone, so I am gone.

It's a win for everyone.

 

[Shabine]

They did not.

Just saying that doesn't make it so, Tobias. You went out of your way to state that ganking isn't a recognized PF role, and many others here have stated that "murder hobo" isn't a recognized playstyle and that ganking isn't real PvP, and then you say nobody is complaining about gankers. It's frustratingly transparent, and when people suddenly realize they've dug a hole, they start claiming that "No, there is no hole. You said there was a hole, not me!" and blah blah blah.

To summarize:

If you choose to enter Open, get ganked, then block the ganker, that's totally fine. You're a bit of a putz because you did something dangerous and then got upset that something bad happened to you and proceeded to block the big meanie who killed you. In my opinion. But that's fine. Block to your heart's content. The function is there for you to use. But let's not pretend that everyone here should be playing Elite by a set of unwritten rules.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

If a lulz ganking deciat skulker wants to erase me from existence, I aid them in their quest by blocking them. They wanted me gone, so I am gone.

That's in right there.

Very well said.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

If you choose to enter Open, get ganked, then block the ganker, that's totally fine.

He, along with most of us, has been saying that all along. Feel free to let it go.

You're a bit of a putz

Reported.

 

[Shabine]

Reported.

For what? I didn't call him a name. I said that anyone who does that is a bit of putz in my opinion, which is a term for a silly or stupid person. I mean, feel free to report.

I assume whoever sees it will probably get a bit of a chuckle if nothing else.

 

[Brrokk]

Just saying that doesn't make it so, Tobias. You went out of your way to state that ganking isn't a recognized PF role, and many others here have stated that "murder hobo" isn't a recognized playstyle and that ganking isn't real PvP, and then you say nobody is complaining about gankers. It's frustratingly transparent, and when people suddenly realize they've dug a hole, they start claiming that "No, there is no hole. You said there was a hole, not me!" and blah blah blah.

To summarize:

If you choose to enter Open, get ganked, then block the ganker, that's totally fine. You're a bit of a putz because you did something dangerous and then got upset that something bad happened to you and proceeded to block the big meanie who killed you. In my opinion. But that's fine. Block to your heart's content. The function is there for you to use. But let's not pretend that everyone here should be playing Elite by a set of unwritten rules.

Don't you see that you're having to reword people's views to get them to say what you want? "Upset", "something bad" and "big meanie" are your words, no-one else's. Most of us defending the status quo are just saying that the game design is good because, if other people play in ways we don't like, we don't have to take part in their play. We're not upset; we recognise that in an internet setting that sort of thing is going to crop up. We can avoid it nicely.

 

[Shabine]

We're not upset; we recognise that in an internet setting that sort of thing is going to crop up. We can avoid it nicely.

And I never said that blocking was a bad...

I say let 'em block. So they/you disappear. So what? That's just how it is.

This is from my first post in this thread. So we agree. What I find absurd is that people do this. They go somewhere dangerous in a dangerous environment and danger happens. Then they block out the danger, because they wanted all the danger but, you know, without the actual danger.

It's... weird to me. I'm not sure how else to explain it. It's quite unique to ED. I have genuinely never encountered this much entitlement to safety in what is ostensibly a very unsafe online mode.