Griefers make open impossible, and how easy the solution is.

[Nymraith]

I usually play solo, but every now and then I'll go online to find some CMDRs, and have some interaction. Every single time I did however, I have been interdicted and killed within 10 minutes of launching out of the station. You spawn, you try to fly somewhere and someone interdicts you and kills you without any thought or explanation. That's my complete experience with open. I'm fine with piracy and bounty hunting and all. But these people that just attack for no reason at all makes it that me, and a lot of people like me, don't want to play in open at all. Today I just wanted to screw around with some CMDRs at the community event. Never mind, cause they're waiting to kill you.

I have never, in a year of playing Elite, been in open and not been randomly killed by a griefer. Imagine that. Every time I played in open, a griefer has killed me (and no I have no open bounties). And the saddest thing is, I'm not even exaggerating. Open is completely useless. It has no upsides at all. Doesn't matter what you do, you risk everything on your run by playing in open. Whether you're exploring, mining, trading, bounty hunting or even pirating. All your hard work is ruined by some half-baked gently caresstard in a Challenger.

But instead of complaining, here's my solution: A scoring system. A simple one from the top of my mind: X / kills in the last X hours of play = S. If S < 3, the player is a griefer. IE 6 / 15 = 0.4 (meaning 15 innocent kills in the last 6 hours the player was online), which means this player is a real piece of poopoo griefer. This simple system can be upgraded to use the players full pvp history.

Punishment for players when the score drops below the threshold for the first couple of times:

• Not be allowed to dock at any station (no repairs, resupplies, engineering, respawns, missions, etc).
• Immediately be attacked by security forces in any inhabited system. And I'm talking constantly. As soons as the drops in the system the security forces should start interdicting. By doing this constantly, the annoyance of the griefer will be pushed to new levels and he'll stay away from inhabited systems.
• Be made a large target for bounties. Players can go to a station, go to contacts and get contracts for griefers. With the reward around 1 million per player killed, hunting griefers becomes a liable option for people to make money. Besides, the community will ridding itself of the toxicity. The contracts update to let the hunter know where the griefer is (what system and where in the system). When the hunter attacks, the griefer has 2 options, Flee or fight. If they die, they have to wait for their score to rise before they can spawn in again (cause no griefers at stations). If they fight and win, they just killed another player with no bounty. So their score goes down even more, while more hunters will be on their way. Fleeing grievers will be on the run until their score rises enough. The worse their crimes, the longer they're on the run.

Harsh, but as we say in my country, a cookie of your own dough. You ruin the game for others, the game is ruined for you to.

Punishment for players who go below the threshold more than x times:

Flatout ban these players from playing in open for a week and put a strike on their account. If the player receives 3 strikes the account is banned, GG you played yourself.

I think this is fair because it has clear warnings, you can stop and better yourself at any point. If you get banned it's cause you simply don't do anything other that ruining the game for others. This system however leaves space for killing each other for RP reasons, I mean, you wanna be able to blast some imps on sight. I'm not against PVP, but I am against consistent pointless griefing. As many people are. And it's time Frontier did something about this, cause people have been complaining for years (I've followed the games development for a long time). Elite NEEDS a system. No one stands any real consequence of losing anything if they misbehave in game. The fine for killing a player for no reason is around 150.000 credits. If I saw 150.000 credits floating in space I wouldn't even bother to try and scoop it up. It's nothing, to anyone. Imagine if we had this system in place for murder in real life? You killed a random person now pay a 15 cents fine. It is laughable. There is a reason why you don't need to worry about being gunned down for no reason when going somewhere (except maybe if you live in the US); you murder, you go to jail for a long time. And no-one (sane) is willing to risk that for a stranger. But in Elite there are practically no consequences which is why it's out of control.

Real consequences = less griefing.

Simple as that. And quite frankly, Frontier has tried doing nothing for 5 years now and it clearly hasn't worked all that well. I'd give up space legs, fleet carriers and atmospheric landings for just some peace and interaction with other CMDRs. I've played this game for a year, and have been alone for the entire time. Despite all the hype, all the enthusiasm of people of how great the community is, I have only ever encountered the business end of railguns and plasma accelerators.

Open is impossible, inhospitable, toxic and frustrating , and quite frankly, it's beyond me why Frontier is not doing anything about it. The player pressing alt-f4 when he encounters a griefer is liable for a ban but the griefer is not. It's poor game design and it's poor community management. Frontier should be called out for it. Every other gamestudio actively fights toxicity, Frontier should as well.

I've played since the start, you have to be smart about open if you really want to play with others, i too mainly play solo or with friends on a private server, my suggestion is, do all your ships and engineering and grinding in solo, and if you want to join other players to do community goals, take your ship to the goal system in solo or private first, then log on to open, griefers and some "pirates" whatever they want to be called usually hang around places of interest where alot of players may be, like jameson memorial, or guardian and thargoid sites, you may even see pirates at community goals, but these usually are not griefers and most are roleplayers, you will also have players actively hunting them to protect the community goal, i dont know what else to suggest, other than open in its current state is a minefield, use solo and private, there are lots of very big groups that have private servers that only do consensual pvp to, try looking up one of those, merry xmas

 

[Amanojaku]

Most important of all however. Who is Clark Barrow?

The Bug Killer. You can look it up and go see the site yourself. His audio logs are pretty entertaining. A cross between Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead and Roddy Piper in They Live.

The point I was making with him is he bit off more than he could chew.

I am actually going to make an Anti-Xeno Krait MKII and name it "Barrow's Revenge".


EDIT:

Pssst... Coincidentally, the Bug Killer site is probably the best place I've ever been to for farming Raw and Encoded mats.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The Bug Killer. You can look it up and go see the site yourself. His audio logs are pretty entertaining. A cross between Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead and Roddy Piper in They Live.

The point I was making with him is he bit off more than he could chew.

I am actually going to make an Anti-Xeno Krait MKII and name it "Barrow's Revenge".


EDIT:

Pssst... Coincidentally, the Bug Killer site is probably the best place I've ever been to for farming Raw and Encoded mats.

Thanks for the info... and always interested in in game stuff, I loved visiting Jamesons crashed ship (even if I was in a way visiting an alternate reality version of my own grave)

 

[BL1P]

For me the thing there is the danger zones are all on their head. It isn't gonna change and I have given up asking if to be so, but places like Sol or Founders or (insert any other hi sec system) are meant to be the safe zones... It is out in the deep black in an anarchy system near a pirate faction base.... That is where the danger should be .... Not at the home of the pilots federation. Given it is the PF who pay the insurance costs for all the ships blown up, does anyone think they would side idly doing nothing whilst their own members ran up huge insurance bills right under their noses.

Yay my sig is relevant again

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Yay my sig is relevant again

Not sure how Canon it is but I think of the Pilots Federation pretty much like the Mafia.
killing someone outside the "family" they dont really care about, but they look down very badly at its own members killing other members without it being blessed internally.

TBH I actually think it would be better if the PF cleaned up its act somewhat - and there is nothing stopping FD from doing it in the future.

get rid of the illegal stuff - certainly publicly anyway, dirty PF business would be done outside of main stations via a shady contact of some description.

but most of the illegal stuff should be handed out by the Dark Wheel (DW), which would be the opposite of the PF, an organisation which actively promotes dirty deeds and is an enemy of the PF.... ideally with its own elite rankings (smuggling / piracy / Assasination) - the latter of the 3 would effectively be the same as combat elite in the PF but ED needs more buckets to fill imo for the old hands. the PF and the DW should kind of be at a cold war kind of level... not out and out hostile to each other but defintely not like each other and with covert missions against each other which then leads me to......................

This would also give a lore friendly and totally sensible reason for PvP as well...... because certain players could actively take on missions to do something which they know would paint a target on their back when in open. (ie am not saying the game would promote CMDR killing against all PF or DW members as that could well kill open if it forced too many out of it ,but optional missions only offered in open to directly attack certain targets - and these targets would be players who take the opposing mission from the opposite side)

and then you have your lore friendly, totally sensible and also completely optional PvP that everyone clearly would want IF they took on such a mission. imo ideally some (perhaps not all) of these would be in mission assigned vessels as well.

 

[Ezren]

As long as people can vaguely discern nouns from verbs and dont imply I dont even own the game, I have zero reason to doubt they dont tell the truth.

Oh I hope they can accurately quote themselves, it would be quite embarrassing if they couldn't. They'd have to go on quite the tangent to try and save face.

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

Astonishing how open is impossible for the OP yet perfectly doable for those who have invested their time into outfitting properly and learning to fly.

 

[Ezren]

Astonishing how open is impossible for the OP yet perfectly doable for those who have invested their time into outfitting properly and learning to fly.

A lot of people can't run marathons but mysteriously there are some who can!

No way to know what the difference is.

 

[Spreadicus]

I tend to stick to a private group session but do occasionally venture into open to see what all the fuss is about. Never been griefed once. Honestly felt a little disappointed that nobody tried.

In my opinion, open is overrated. Especially if you play in VR like me. Every time someone messages me to say hi, I find that by the time I'm able to respond, they're already gone (keyboard issues) .

If you don't like the free aspect of playing in open play where the only rules are there are no rules, then stick to solo or private. The only reason to play on open is because you want to play with the feeling of risking loss while doing your thing, whatever that may be. If you don't like the thought of occasionally being blasted to pieces by a much stronger adversary and losing all your stuff to a rebuy screen then stay off open.

It reminds me of my old mmo where you had your pvp servers and your pve servers. The pvp servers were all open world pvp with no rules while the pve servers had limited pvp that was more or less "consensual pvp" duels, arenas etc. And yet all the time you would see people crying in global chat about being ganked on a pvp server. But then it's like bro, you chose to play on a pvp (open) server knowing the rules. If you can't handle open world (galaxy) pvp then you should stick to the pve (solo) servers.

Looks like people still cant wrap their heads around it and would prefer the game revolve around them instead

 

[Red Anders]

OP actually had the 'easy solution' in his first post; play in group or solo. For some reason though he ignored it and 25 pages of the usual circular tripe ensued. It was ever thus.

 

[Harley Quinn]

been playing 99% in open the whole year, across 4 accounts. Killed once by player in an obvious target zone, was interesting to see my Cobra's build weakness on PvP. Been attacked 3 times in CZs and they ran away. Killed a player fighting against me in a CZ. Been pirated twice, both times I complied, had no cargo and was sent on my way with a bit of banter. Ran away and avoided about a dozen others.

Can't say any of that has particularly bothered me or put me off open yet.

 

[Ezren]

OP actually had the 'easy solution' in his first post; play in group or solo. For some reason though he ignored it and 25 pages of the usual circular tripe ensued. It was ever thus.

Yeah I figured that would have been the whole intention of the OP but alas.

 

[space voyager]

I wonder... 25 pages later - does the solution still seem as easy as in the OP?

 

[Kissaki]

the fact it is in the 25th page means there is a problem.

 

[Cmdr Aeries Hunter]

No need to get rid of anything
The group's and solo mode offer something different again. (Not against a PvE mode however). No matter what happens solo is here to stay, for multiple reasons but not least because without it ED would have to be a subscription game on console with live gold or psn+.
Each mode has to be able to stand on its own feet without carrots to get people into them or sticks to force.people out of other modes. Deleting some modes WOULD force some folk into a different one.... But it would equally force some out of the game which is not a good outcome for frontier.
These discussions will go on for the entire life of the game however

I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all. Solo = PvE.
I don't see the connection that making a PvE server instead of solo/private groups would suddenly turn Elite into a subscription game. Where did you get that bit of treasure?
A PvE server would just bring more players together without having the issue of gankers/murder hobos, and people whose only intent in the game is to ruin yours. It would also make Frontier rethink and dare I hope, improve places like Davs hope, Jameson crashed craft etc and spread out the associated reasons for going to such places into more meaningful gameplay. I can only see upsides to a PvE server.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I'm sorry but that makes no sense at all. Solo = PvE.
I don't see the connection that making a PvE server instead of solo/private groups would suddenly turn Elite into a subscription game. Where did you get that bit of treasure?
A PvE server would just bring more players together without having the issue of gankers/murder hobos, and people whose only intent in the game is to ruin yours. It would also make Frontier rethink and dare I hope, improve places like Davs hope, Jameson crashed craft etc and spread out the associated reasons for going to such places into more meaningful gameplay. I can only see upsides to a PvE server.

You said get rid of solo....... Solo is the only mode you can play on console without paying for psn+ or live gold. I have a PS4 but I don't pay for psn+. I am all for an additional mode for PvE and indeed such a mode was heavily intimated in the KSer (multiple open modes with different rules). But equally some players just want to play either with just friends or a curated set of players OR on their own either through choice or necessity.
So I ain't disagreeing with your premise of an open PvE but my "bit of treasure" is just a fact of life for console folk

Also when you think it through an open PvE is not as simple as you think. Is it based on trust where damage is still done if you don't police fire or what where you fly ? In which case I would use it ... But some players would certainly troll that so FD would have to spend man power policing (accidents happen so need to separate griefers from accidents) or would there be no friendly fire and ghost ships to shop ramming (the only way to fully stop griefers) in which case I would not go near such a mode. Policing fire in a furball and whatching where i fly is part of my PvE game.

 

[Old Duck]

The only reason to play on open is because you want to play with the feeling of risking loss while doing your thing, whatever that may be.

I play in Open because players are real people with real stories and motivations. I'm not talking about the griefers, but the random people I run into while just "doing my thing" in the Bubble. Unlike NPCs, they are at a certain station in a certain system doing a certain thing for a certain reason. Even if I don't communicate with them (same problem you have), it adds to the immersion for me.

Now if NPCs were more than just eye candy - if they ran routes and pursued professions and had personality, I'd be more happy with the solo experience. In fact I might prefer it, since instancing is so broken lately, and sometimes hollow squares feel more like 21st century video gamers instead of 34th century spaceship commanders.

 

[space voyager]

the fact it is in the 25th page means there is a problem.

True. Something concrete should be done about crime and punishment, though within realm of believability - where police is present, the reaction and consequences should be at least comparable to reality we have now.

But we should be looking for some way to punish other gankers, too. Perhaps a player-driven system where high-enough number of reports would send the player into solo for a week? Paired with a check that the player actually destroyed other players in a certain time (to prevent a whole another kind of ganking).

 

[lenna]

Now if NPCs were more than just eye candy - if they ran routes and pursued professions and had personality, I'd be more happy with the solo experience. In fact I might prefer it, since instancing is so broken lately, and sometimes hollow squares feel more like 21st century video gamers instead of 34th century spaceship commanders.

If you want that then you really a going to have to settle for a smaller universe or at least one that is not an instanced MMO. The best we are likely to get (in a practical sense) in ED, in terms of persistent NPCs are essentially random spawns (single job or mission spawns) or a handful of persistent NPCs that work like PC bots (possibly eating into the potential networked player count limits for any given instance) but are operated by ED that you may have a random chance of running into. The problem there is that cross-platform means that each platform would have to have it's own set of NPCs and gankers would most likely kill them off before others have a chance to see them.

I think FD (and more specifically DB OBE), were being overly optimistic with their vision for PvP in ED. Due to this error in judgement, unless they plan to change tack on PvP policing it is unlikely that we will get persistent NPCs outside of perhaps Solo mode. In Solo mode, they could cheat the persistent NPCs as fake PCs with the state of the NPCs stored against the PC account and activity computed locally on the PC machine (c/f spawned NPCs). Outside of Solo, it would get more complicated - a lot more complicated.

X4 has persistent NPCs but lacks VR and based on X-Rebirth VR I would not recommend X4 VR if it were ever done (unless they resolve certain issues with the X-Rebirth VR space legs). When/If FD introduce space legs for ED, I hope they do not make similar VR implementation mistakes - at the moment ED has done VR reasonably well but space legs could open a can of worms. But I digress...

TL;DR if you really want persistent NPCs (in terms of pilots of NPC ships similar to what we can fly) in a space setting then I would probably stick with games that are Solo without a shared universe state (e.g. X4) or player server multi-player (e.g. Freelancer) since there are a myriad of complications due to both the shared universe state and the MMO nature of ED.

 

[lenna]

True. Something concrete should be done about crime and punishment, though within realm of believability - where police is present, the reaction and consequences should be at least comparable to reality we have now.

But we should be looking for some way to punish other gankers, too. Perhaps a player-driven system where high-enough number of reports would send the player into solo for a week? Paired with a check that the player actually destroyed other players in a certain time (to prevent a whole another kind of ganking).

That would need to be counted in terms of active on-line hours (which would be difficult to measure in a meaningful way) rather than real-time to be an effective deterrent. It would also need to be a Shadow Ban rather than a Solo mode restriction, which I believe is already applied to accounts where FD deem it is appropriate to do so.