Elite Dangerous Blocking System: A Call for Change

[Riverside]

Well no, PVP is mostly "tacked on" mechanic on Elite. There is very few game loops involving PVP offering any in-game rewards. Mostly one can say Elite being PVP enabled.

To be fair I'd say PvP was emergent, it is something that can happen. There was a period where the C&P rules took PvP into account, I think it was worth trying but I'm glad it has returned to being a PvE game that simply allows PvP whether in ships or on foot. It isn't an extra 'tacked on' function (that would be CQC/Arena).

I do agree there aren't really any gameplay loops that reward PvP (imo it is it's own reward) & that ED is 'PvP enabled'. Even in Mobius or other PvE private groups PvP is still enabled by the game, it's just not allowed by the rules of the group.

 

[We Are Being Hailed]

No, indeed no. The MORE players you have the more likely such a system ends in stagnation, I have seen it multiple times in multiple games, this is how human society works.

Yes tell me more how having more players in a game this large will ruin it. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and make it sound like you expect this game to be single-player only. This is a Space Sim Sandbox game highly similar to EVE. You NEED PLAYERS to run the galaxy essentially, why do you think everything else is so bare bones. They wanted PLAYERS to be the Pirates, PLAYERS to be the Security, PLAYERS to be this, and that. Do you see my point and how yours makes no sense?

Replying to the same point again, but on a slightly different front.

The thing is that there aren’t different worlds*. The whole principle of ED is that it is a single game universe, which progresses in real time, and which all players are affected by and which is in turn affected by the actions of all players.

As per my other reply, the modes are just part of the set of rules used by the matchmaking server to govern instancing.


(*As of 4.14 there is obviously the Live galaxy and the Legacy galaxy, but that’s a very different thing and they are completely de-synchronised.)

One is made so you have zero interaction with players and the other lets you play with them, just because the world updates it's progress with what other players discover doesn't change the fact that Open and Offline are two completely separate experiences. Like I said, they completely divided the community by allowing that instead of just keeping it OPEN and making you play with other players anyway and not making it so you share progress on the same character between Open and Offline. This thread is about the blocking system though and why some people are apparently upset with it, even though this system in place allows players to remain in open but remove toxic individuals from their session who would for example sit in Deciat in supercruise killing everyone they see for absolutely zero reason with nothing to be done about it. Forcing players INTO offline mode to finish whatever it is they were doing? No, a simple block and they don't exist anymore, perfect

I think I've made it pretty clear why the current block system is fine as it is.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

To be fair I'd say PvP was emergent, it is something that can happen. There was a period where the C&P rules took PvP into account, I think it was worth trying but I'm glad it has returned to being a PvE game that simply allows PvP whether in ships or on foot. It isn't an extra 'tacked on' function (that would be CQC/Arena).

I do agree there aren't really any gameplay loops that reward PvP (imo it is it's own reward) & that ED is 'PvP enabled'. Even in Mobius or other PvE private groups PvP is still enabled by the game, it's just not allowed by the rules of the group.

What I mean by "tacked on" is that, well PVE mechanics in this game are more or less thoroughly designed. PVP, it seems to be kind of half-baked afterthought. I mean if this would be real PVP centric MMO there would proper game loops rewarding PVP, most likely somekind of weighed matchmaking, to make it unlikely that beginning players meet end of game level opponents and so on and on.

About only part of game that has some PVP loops is Powerplay. And even that is well less than "stellar".

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Yes tell me more how having more players in a game this large will ruin it. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about and make it sound like you expect this game to be single-player only. This is a Space Sim Sandbox game highly similar to EVE. You NEED PLAYERS to run the galaxy essentially, why do you think everything else is so bare bones. They wanted PLAYERS to be the Pirates, PLAYERS to be the Security, PLAYERS to be this, and that. Do you see my point and how yours makes no sense?

Nope they do not want. Security tools available to players are laughable, likewise succesfull pirating is mostly mutually concented affair.

 

[Riverside]

What I mean by "tacked on" is that, well PVE mechanics in this game are more or less thoroughly designed. PVP, it seems to be kind of half-baked afterthought. I mean if this would be real PVP centric MMO there would proper game loops rewarding PVP, most likely somekind of weighed matchmaking, to make it unlikely that beginning players meet end of game level opponents and so on and on.

About only part of game that has some PVP loops is Powerplay. And even that is well less than "stellar".

Ah then no, can't really agree with that

Back in 2015 and early 2016 a lot of work was put into balancing PvP, and the PvE/PvP gap (which has only grown with power creep). Looking at yout forum join date perhaps it was before your time.

PvP is very much not tacked on in that respect, it is emergent from the basic rules of play & quite a lot of the game has been developed with unrestricted adversarial multiplayer emergent gameplay in mind, just as exploration, mining or many other activities have.

I have no problem with PvP being possible, and if it were not I am 100% confident that the kind of player that wants to be as irritating to others as possible will continue to find ways to do so.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Ah then no, can't really agree with that

Back in 2015 and early 2016 a lot of work was put into balancing PvP, and the PvE/PvP gap (which has only grown with power creep). Looking at yout forum join date perhaps it was before your time.

PvP is very much not tacked on in that respect, it is emergent from the basic rules of play & quite a lot of the game has been developed with unrestricted adversarial multiplayer emergent gameplay in mind, just as exploration, mining or many other activities have.

I have no problem with PvP being possible, and if it were not I am 100% confident that the kind of player that wants to be as irritating to others as possible will continue to find ways to do so.

Had game about late 2016, so that earlier era was something I have never experienced Seems to me though that they really failed up in balancing department.

 

[Riverside]

Had game about late 2016, so that earlier era was something I have never experienced Seems to me though that they really failed up in balancing department.

No disagreement from me there

There is one area where the gap has closed, shields. There was an experiment during one beta to limit the effectiveness of multiple shield boosters. It was never implemented in live game so power creep for defence has outpaced that of offense making it relatively easier to defend against attack than to attack. The motivation for not implementing the change is unclear, I believe official word is still that it is under consideration (lol).

So for us squishy PvEers it's not as hard to survive as it could have been

 

[Thatchinho]

I think I've made it pretty clear why the current block system is fine as it is.

No dispute on this from me. And fwiw, you’ve made a lot of other good points in your posts.

One is made so you have zero interaction with players and the other lets you play with them

Zero direct interaction. But indirect interaction is there, even if it’s not obvious.

What's more, Open doesn't mean you will directly interact with other players, it just means you might. You can still end up not getting instanced with other players even though you're in Open and in the same system.

Like I said, they completely divided the community by allowing that instead of just keeping it OPEN and making you play with other players anyway and not making it so you share progress on the same character between Open and Offline.

I completely disagree with this. They didn't divide the community. They retained a bigger community by doing it. And very arguably the game wouldn't have got made if they hadn't.

For background to that - when they were considering making ED, FD ran a kickstarter. That was partly to generate some extra funds, but primarily to see whether there was much of a market for the game.

In the original pitch there was actually going to be an Offline mode. FD eventually had to remove that, and issue refunds to people who had backed the kickstarter on the basis of their being an Offline mode.

If they had then gone to Open Only and cut out the other remaining modes they would have lost a lot more backers and yes, there's a substantive chance it would have meant the game wouldn't have got made.

This thread is about the blocking system though and why some people are apparently upset with it, even though this system in place allows players to remain in open but remove toxic individuals from their session who would for example sit in Deciat in supercruise killing everyone they see for absolutely zero reason with nothing to be done about it.

Personally I just take that situation as a challenge to be overcome and a gauntlet to be run, and I've never blocked a player. But there genuinely is a bit more to it here.

It's useful to know how blocking works though - and it does so the same as the modes, by applying instancing rules on the matchmaking server.

The way the block rules are applied does cause problems though, and it can effect instancing for other players not just the blocker and blockee.

It can also be used as a tool to remove opponents. This is a problem in the same way that the modes can be.

So yeah, it's not without it's problems.

As I said on the first page though, what was being proposed by the OP was just going to swap one set of problems for another (probably worse) set of problems.

So while it's definitely not perfect, it definitely still needs to be kept. (Unless someone comes up with something that is a genuinely better solution for everyone. - But that's not happened yet in the history of all these types of discussions.)

 

[Screemonster]

In almost every game I have played where such systems have been implemented they end up as dead systems, they don't work, nothing ever happens. Player controlled cities for instance in one MMO I played where a clan could declare war and take over cities, cities banded together, formed empires, made agreements with other player empires and no wars every took place, any new clans and players that appeared in game were soundly smacked down by the controlling empires if they dared start anything, no cities ever changed hands, the entire system just sat there unused, a major part of the game was just dead and unused.

Any system that relies on players has to take into account the way players behave, and that can vary wildly depending on the number of players actually playing the game.

you mean like what happens with PMFs in some parts of the bubble and very much happened in colonia?

 

[CMDR thefezzer]

I am a long-time player of Elite Dangerous and would like to express my concern regarding the current blocking system in the game. While I understand the need to protect players from harassment and unwanted communication, the current system of unlimited blocking is causing more harm than good.

As a game with a strong emphasis on player interaction and open-world exploration, Elite Dangerous is unique in its genre. However, the current blocking system has created a divide between players and has the potential to severely damage the player experience. With the current system, players can effectively disappear from each other's game world entirely, making it difficult to engage in player-vs-player combat or even participate in player-run events and activities.

I would like to suggest a more reasonable solution to this issue. Given that the game already has a solo mode, which essentially blocks all player interaction, I believe that the blocking system should only affect communication, rather than the entire player. This means that blocked players would still exist in the same game world, but communication between the blocked and blocking players would be restricted.

I strongly urge you to consider this proposal, as I believe it would help to maintain a healthy player community and prevent further division among players. Thank you for your attention

I hate this so much.

 

[Chaparral]

This is such a fundamentally false representation of things though.

Game makers should be trying to set things up in a way that suits the game they’re making. And that’s exactly what FD have done.

Now some people might want a different kind of game to the one FD have made, but that in no way means that FD should change their game to suit those people. Trying to portray that as a lack of capacity or interest doesn't help anyone.

FDEV had no experience with MMO / PVP / PVE games prior to this offering.

If making money for shareholders matters, capturing a wider audience would make sense (using established PVE PVP partitioning mechanics).

Would you say that the design choices to restrict the participating open game audience to those with a tolerance for 24/7 PVP (thereby restricting the pool of multiplayer gamers) makes good business sense?

Clearly they have tried to introduce mechanics to manage the PVP free-for-all with modifications to C&P, and those efforts did not moderate the PVP effectively (read non-game contextual ganking). This is a failure of design - a lack of capacity.

Could they have hired designers with experience in the AAA MMO world - of course. Did they - no.

I didn't start this thread. Countless times players have come to this forum saying the same thing. There is always an army of posters that say - Nah - everything is fine go about your business - nothing to see here. Then there are others that acknowledge their experience and call for a change.

Where do you stand?

 

[Darkfyre99]

I am a long-time player of Elite Dangerous and would like to express my concern regarding the current blocking system in the game. While I understand the need to protect players from harassment and unwanted communication, the current system of unlimited blocking is causing more harm than good.

In what way? How are most players harmed by being given the option to block a player who they deem to be harassing them, using unwanted language, or interacting with them in a way they find unpleasant?

I've played a lot of MMOs, and before them MUDs, that tried for the proverbial "holy grail" of an open mixed PvP/PvE environment, and almost all of them have either eventually died due to players quitting en masse, or decided that they needed the inevitable PvP switch after all. Nothing else has worked: harsh punishments for criminal actions, hard coded "justice" systems, and so on. Even "PvP" servers inevitably died out due to a lack of players on them. And it's because of one simple reason:

There is a type of player who requires other players to be their content, but is unwilling to provide other players content in return. They simply do not understand that even when players may have opposing objectives in the game, the best way for everyone to have fun is to play with other players, rather than being antagonistic towards other players. As a result, this type of player is simply not fun to play with. They drive other players away, and then wonder why nobody wants to play with them.

As a game with a strong emphasis on player interaction and open-world exploration, Elite Dangerous is unique in its genre.

You've got it backwards. This game has a strong emphasis on deciding who you want to play with, on a session by session basis. This concept was baked into the Kickstarter, and is unique in its genre. Rather than trying to code that most unpleasant of player types from ruining the game for others, Frontier has decided to try a social approach. And it has worked wonders.

This has created an environment which I find to be rather unique: an open mixed PvP/PvE environment that I find to be fun. Despite playing a decidedly non-combat oriented Commander, I have had mostly positive, or at the very least benignly neutral, PvP encounters.

The truly unpleasant players that dominated my PvP experiences in similar games? Have been vanishingly rare to date. It's truly a breath of fresh air. And according to Frontier, a significant majority of players agree with me, choosing to play in Open as well. It's a far cry from similar games I've played, where all but the 1% of hardcore PvPers choose to opt out of PvP entirely.

However, the current blocking system has created a divide between players and has the potential to severely damage the player experience. With the current system, players can effectively disappear from each other's game world entirely, making it difficult to engage in player-vs-player combat or even participate in player-run events and activities.

Not really. Instancing has always sucked in this game, which is what's keeping most players from interacting with each other in Open. You need to actively cooperate with other players if you want to instance with them with them: adding them to your friends list; making sure that your ports on your firewall are open; using virtual private networks to spoof that everyone lives near each other... that's the kind of thing you need to do to increase the odds that you'll be instanced with another player.

Block lists? Quite frankly, if a friend of mine has blocked another player for a reason, I'm inclined to trust that friend's judgement. I won't encounter players who play at different times from me. I'm also not very likely to encounter players who don't live on the North American continent. And I hopefully won't be instanced with players with lousy connections or are hosting the instance on a potato. What's one more?

I would like to suggest a more reasonable solution to this issue. Given that the game already has a solo mode, which essentially blocks all player interaction, I believe that the blocking system should only affect communication, rather than the entire player. This means that blocked players would still exist in the same game world, but communication between the blocked and blocking players would be restricted.

I strongly urge you to consider this proposal, as I believe it would help to maintain a healthy player community and prevent further division among players. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The worst kinds of interactions in this game don't require communication, and quite frankly actions speak louder than words. If a player has been so repeatedly unpleasant in their actions that enough of the player base has blocked them, then they're getting what they deserved, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Darkfyre99]

You can't have an adversarial conflict between players if one of them is unarmed. That's like saying a person tied up to a chair is engaged in a fight if he is being punched repeatedly by an unrestrained person. A combat ship, by definition, is armed, if a ship has no weapons then it shouldn't be targetable, mind you that would make CG's in open a bit easier.

Adversary: one's opponent in a contest, conflict, or dispute.

Can't be an opponent if you aren't resisting, you are just a target.

I beg to differ.

Just because I'm unarmed, doesn't mean I'm helpless. And just because I'm armed, doesn't mean I'm a threat. An unarmed ship can still have strong enough defenses to escape and accomplish their goals. And a multi-role ship that can easily destroy an NPC won't be able to destroy a PvP-meta ship.

If I'm being opposed by a player, whether it is because of Powerplay, because I'm manipulating the BGS in "their" system, or they're simply attacking me for the LOLs, I'll be resisting every light second of the way to my destination. I don't have to kill them, or even shoot at them, to resist them. All I have to do is not get killed by them, accomplish my goal, and I win.

And if I'm expecting PvP opposition while manipulating the BGS, I also win if I do get killed by them, and they're supporting the controlling faction. BGS play is funny that way.

And I can still win even if I get killed, if I had fun along the way. Which is far more likely if that opponent treats me as an opponent worthy of respect, as opposed to belittling or insulting me, which is usually the norm in similar games I've played in the past.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I don't see why it would be rigged either way, as far as I can tell it's always come down to who can stay on point of the escape vector better, but it seems to me that any time I'm ever interdicted by a player there is no "fight" or "struggle" it's just the red bar screaming to the top regardless if I'm flying damn near perfect which makes me believe they are locked onto the center of the escape vector somehow and never leaving it even though it will twist and turn and literally throw you off of it at random times while you pitch to recover.

Speaking personally, most of the player-interdictions I've been in either ended with me escaping quite quickly, or there was a long enough struggle that reached a point where it was fairly obvious I would eventually lose, and could submit safely. That's because I don't fly like my grandmother, God rest her soul. I don't fly slowly through the ecliptic plane, in a straight line, and completely oblivious to my surroundings.

I fly out of the ecliptic plane, where I can fly faster, and concentrate all the mass of a system to one side of my scanner, allowing me to easily see if another player (or NPC) is also rising out of the ecliptic plane towards me. If I see a player where they have no reason to be in my general vicinity, except for attacking me, I will target them, so I can see how they're maneuvering. If they're maneuvering to get into my six, I will maneuver my ship to remove them from there, while still trying to reach my destination. If I think there's a good chance I can't safely make the approach, I can always high wake out of the system... usually leading the would-be attacker into deep space, so they'll leave others alone.

As a result, they're rarely in a position to make an interdiction, even when I'm on my final approach to my destination. They're either at a very bad angle, which makes it easier for me to evade, at a very bad distance, which also makes it easier for me to evade, or both. If they're trying to interdict me during a gravity braking maneuver, it's fairly easy to in front of me as I decelerate "faster" than I'm supposed to. And sometimes, they'll even crash into the world I'm using to gravity brake during the process.

That being said, the player doing the interdicting will always have an advantage: they're behind their target, and needless to say they will have the other person targeted, so they can see what how their target is maneuvering, and can react to it accordingly. If the player being interdicted hadn't targeted the interdictor before the encounter, they have no way of reacting to their attacker's actions, even in the best of conditions. Add to the ludicrous maximum interdiction angle that engineering permits, with no available counter, and it's easy to see how a player who is caught unawares will lose the interdiction game quickly, perhaps even before they can react.

I just think it's fairly trivial not be caught unawares myself. But that's just me.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I think it would be quite funny if they removed the block, let's say tomorrow for funsies...
So, "if" this was to happen... how would y'all feel about it?
Just curious and no need for big rants... keep it simple.

In all honesty? It wouldn't change a thing for me. I don't think I've ever bothered to block someone, because most of the PvP encounters I have had weren't unpleasant, and my attackers didn't behave in a manner I would've considered to be beyond the pale... and if they did act in such a manner, I would've reported them to Frontier, rather than simply blocking them. Unlike similar games I've played that I've played over the last 30 years, I haven't encountered very many I would classify as "griefers," and PvP attacks haven't been frequent enough where I stopped having fun.

It helps that this game, especially compared to similar games I've played, also has a fairly low bar, time commitment wise, when it comes to PvP defense. It also helps that much of the action takes place in an "arena" where a player's personal skills and experience, not a character's stats, determines much of the outcome. But its mostly the ability for players to choose who they're instanced with, using lists both white and black, that has greatly reduced the potential "griefer" population of this game. After all, when it's hard to even find people to "grief," all but the most diehard (or inexperienced) "griefers" look for greener pastures otherwise.

 

[CMDR thefezzer]

I think it would be quite funny if they removed the block, let's say tomorrow for funsies...
So, "if" this was to happen... how would y'all feel about it?
Just curious and no need for big rants... keep it simple.

Never ever ever play in Open again. All of my work for my chosen PP person and BGS would have to happen in PG or solo.

 

[Chaparral]

I think it would be quite funny if they removed the block, let's say tomorrow for funsies...
So, "if" this was to happen... how would y'all feel about it?
Just curious and no need for big rants... keep it simple.

Imagine that you are infamous in game.

Imagine that your reputation is built on thousands of lines of text in game that designates you in game as a lulz ganker.

Imagine that you end up in your own private Idaho in open because you are blocked on sight in game by hundreds or even thousands of players.

Such a tragedy for this imaginary person.

I imagine they might beg to be allowed to return to the Open they knew before on the forums.

Maybe FDEV will listed to this imaginary person and override all those blocks because Open should be dangerous.

 

[CMDR thefezzer]

Imagine that you are infamous in game.

Imagine that your reputation is built on thousands of lines of text in game that designates you in game as a lulz ganker.

Imagine that you end up in your own private Idaho in open because you are blocked on sight in game by hundreds or even thousands of players.

Such a tragedy for this imaginary person.

I imagine they might beg to be allowed to return to the Open they knew before on the forums.

Maybe FDEV will listed to this imaginary person and override all those blocks because Open should be dangerous.

Oddly specific...

 

[varonica]

Imagine that you end up in your own private Idaho in open because you are blocked on sight in game by hundreds or even thousands of players.

Such a tragedy for this imaginary person.

Such a self inflicted tragedy for that imaginary player. Mind you that imaginary player could always change thier player name, then not indulge in the same behaviour that got them blocked under their previous player name.....problem solved!

 

[CMDR thefezzer]

player name

what is this player's name, so I can be very careful to not ever block them right now.