I made a similar thread on reddit yesterday to vent my thoughts on the matter with the promise to post it to this forum if it gained any traction. (Which it sorta did..)
So I'll be pasting a large part of the original message down here, along with some thoughts that sprung from the resulting discussions.
The key point is simply this:
Elite: Dangerous still lacks any kind of core mechanics aimed at bringing people together to play WITH each other instead of AGAINST one another.
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Meanwhile players like the Fuel Rats, Canonn, Elite Racers and Powerplay groups still have to rely on reddit/discord/out-of-game apps to facilitate or even validate their way of playing the game.
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Now if anything, reddit's playerbase unanymously agreed that getting killed for no reason is a pain in the behind, and murderhobos tend to be a nuisance. Yet this is also just the way some people play MMO type games and this problem will not be solved by any kind of measures put into the game.
However, there's plenty bounty hunters willing to hunt down these criminals or protect traders, as well as plenty people who would enjoy the thrill of braving these risks (the game is called Elite: Dangerous after all, provided there was any incentive for doing so.
And that's where a very large part of this issue lies. Recent additions to the game, engineers in particular, have only widened the gap between players who prefer non-combat roles and those that prefer shooting other players.
To maintain parity with a PvP-fit ship I have to:
Basically I'd be spending a lot of time doing things I don't enjoy just to survive an unprovoked attack from a guy who's doing exactly what he enjoys doing.
Players like myself are literally gambling their rebuy fee for the enjoyment of others.
Yet nothing in the game rewards me for doing so in any way beyond perhaps personal satisfaction.
Meanwhile it offers a one-click way to avoid all of this risk at no penalty but at the cost of severely fracturing the community, thus limiting the potential for social interaction and a living, breathing universe even further.
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That said, I'm not saying Open should be the absolute way of playing the game, I understand that some players just don't want the hassle and risk of having to avoid pirates and murderers.
However, Frontier themselves keep advertising Open with their events as the place for community interaction to arise, but I've yet to see gameplay changes aimed at bringing players together instead of pitting them against one another.
Right now Elite Open is similar to what DayZ turned into.. With the way Insurance works it has becoming more and more apparent that players stand very little to gain and increasingly more to lose in interactions with others. (Not to mention Explorers can lose upwards of months of progress in a second)
A harsher crime system won't stop this, as players that have become bored enough to just go about murdering folks usually have more than enough money to make any kind of fine trivial to the point that you would have to implement measures so harsh it will just deter people from playing altogether... and not just the criminals.
As brought up on the reddit numerous times, having ways for player groups like Iridium Wing or your odd bounty hunter to easily advertise their services or respond to requests for help without having to go onto the forums or subreddits would do so much more to get a healthy ecosystem in place than any crime system would.
There's a sizeable group of players that don't want to run any risk of being randomly murdered, and that's fine, that's why PG and Solo exist, good on you if that's your playstyle!
This goes beyond simply making Open play more attractive by encouraging positive interactions though, players in Private Groups would benefit just as much from functionality allowing them to work towards cooperative goals.
I just really hope changes can be made to make Open not to deter criminals, but to encourage cooperation and make the risks worth the rewards for those that want to be involved in the advertised "cutthroat" side of this galaxy.
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TL;DR Going forward I would hope that Frontier invests significantly more resources into developing ways to play the game WITH each other instead of AGAINST each other.
While it won't solve wanton murder, I believe it would go a long way at making Open play a more enjoyable place for a wide variety of players as well as creating a more healthy and dynamic player ecosystem.
Here's a defenceless space potato that we can all go shoot together.
- CMDR Noctrach
So I'll be pasting a large part of the original message down here, along with some thoughts that sprung from the resulting discussions.
The key point is simply this:
Elite: Dangerous still lacks any kind of core mechanics aimed at bringing people together to play WITH each other instead of AGAINST one another.
----
- Wings could've allowed for cooperative mission and group jobs, but what was intruced was primarily a way to bounty-hunt together at reduced profit, or fight one another in semi-coordinated groups.
- Powerplay could've united the community under a handful of different banners, fighting as a group to shift control and power for any of three major factions. Instead the result turned out to be a fractured set of minor powers that have no influence over the main game and derive their popularity from the tier 3 rewards they offer and the level of "not broken-ness" of their respective ways to expand.
- Mission reworks could've been focused on synchronising missions between players and the introduction of "group" scenarios. But what it did was add a few more variations of blowing up for money (Now with new and improved "random encounters" that will try to blow you up instead!)
- Engineers could've added alternative ways to play the game and roles to fulfill as a ship. But the end result was primarily the introduction of new ways to minmax your vessel of destruction.
- Multicrew could've added fun ways to crew and manage a single ship's systems, route planning, targeting and so much more. But what we got was 2 free pips to shields and turret/fighter control.
Meanwhile players like the Fuel Rats, Canonn, Elite Racers and Powerplay groups still have to rely on reddit/discord/out-of-game apps to facilitate or even validate their way of playing the game.
----
Now if anything, reddit's playerbase unanymously agreed that getting killed for no reason is a pain in the behind, and murderhobos tend to be a nuisance. Yet this is also just the way some people play MMO type games and this problem will not be solved by any kind of measures put into the game.
However, there's plenty bounty hunters willing to hunt down these criminals or protect traders, as well as plenty people who would enjoy the thrill of braving these risks (the game is called Elite: Dangerous after all, provided there was any incentive for doing so.
And that's where a very large part of this issue lies. Recent additions to the game, engineers in particular, have only widened the gap between players who prefer non-combat roles and those that prefer shooting other players.
To maintain parity with a PvP-fit ship I have to:
- Give up the multipurpose functionality that I love my Federal Science Dropship for.
- Grind for hours minmaxing my modules.
- Invest hours into gitting gud at PvP combat versus ships inherently more suited for the job than my own.
Basically I'd be spending a lot of time doing things I don't enjoy just to survive an unprovoked attack from a guy who's doing exactly what he enjoys doing.
Players like myself are literally gambling their rebuy fee for the enjoyment of others.
Yet nothing in the game rewards me for doing so in any way beyond perhaps personal satisfaction.
Meanwhile it offers a one-click way to avoid all of this risk at no penalty but at the cost of severely fracturing the community, thus limiting the potential for social interaction and a living, breathing universe even further.
----
That said, I'm not saying Open should be the absolute way of playing the game, I understand that some players just don't want the hassle and risk of having to avoid pirates and murderers.
However, Frontier themselves keep advertising Open with their events as the place for community interaction to arise, but I've yet to see gameplay changes aimed at bringing players together instead of pitting them against one another.
Right now Elite Open is similar to what DayZ turned into.. With the way Insurance works it has becoming more and more apparent that players stand very little to gain and increasingly more to lose in interactions with others. (Not to mention Explorers can lose upwards of months of progress in a second)
A harsher crime system won't stop this, as players that have become bored enough to just go about murdering folks usually have more than enough money to make any kind of fine trivial to the point that you would have to implement measures so harsh it will just deter people from playing altogether... and not just the criminals.
As brought up on the reddit numerous times, having ways for player groups like Iridium Wing or your odd bounty hunter to easily advertise their services or respond to requests for help without having to go onto the forums or subreddits would do so much more to get a healthy ecosystem in place than any crime system would.
There's a sizeable group of players that don't want to run any risk of being randomly murdered, and that's fine, that's why PG and Solo exist, good on you if that's your playstyle!
This goes beyond simply making Open play more attractive by encouraging positive interactions though, players in Private Groups would benefit just as much from functionality allowing them to work towards cooperative goals.
I just really hope changes can be made to make Open not to deter criminals, but to encourage cooperation and make the risks worth the rewards for those that want to be involved in the advertised "cutthroat" side of this galaxy.
----
TL;DR Going forward I would hope that Frontier invests significantly more resources into developing ways to play the game WITH each other instead of AGAINST each other.
While it won't solve wanton murder, I believe it would go a long way at making Open play a more enjoyable place for a wide variety of players as well as creating a more healthy and dynamic player ecosystem.
Here's a defenceless space potato that we can all go shoot together.
- CMDR Noctrach
