Griefing is a valid way to play

[Midnight-shadow]

People voluntarily go into an open PvP world and then complain when they encounter PvP......

Don't worry, you're not alone OP. In every single mmorpg community there are players exactly like you who complain about PvP in an open world game. And actually this is worse because a) you don't have to join the PvP and b) the game mechanics are such that even the most basic ship can out-play anyone if the player is good enough, or escape them. In most mmorpgs if a high level player finds a low level player in a PvP area, that low level player will die instantly. Really the only time PKing can come close to griefing is when a high level player spawn-camps a low level player. But this can't happen in ED because nobody knows which system you originally came from and therefore don't know where you will respawn.

 

[Celeste]

... but if you want to play the role of a sociopathic killer, the in-game authorities should treat you as such. For example:
- A 'kill on sight' order issued to all stations
- More prolific serial killers get increasingly heavy hostile NPC "kill teams" interdicting them or jumping to their location
- The most prolific of all get a mention in Galnet news
- Anarchy systems are the only places that offer refuge

I'm not taking about a meta-game hatred of griefers, or introducing gameplay mechanics to artificially stop griefing. I'm saying give grief play some validity. Let them play how they want, but beware the consequences. Some grief players may even like getting some in-game notoriety.

I don't think you are talking about actual "griefing". Greifing Is intentional repeated harassment of a player to get an emotional response or to get them to quit the game.

 

[scoda]

Murderers need to have insurance removed or set to 100%. Griefing will never happen again.

Interesting idea..

 

[deMangler]

Greifing is not a valid way to play. By definition if you are griefing you are not playing you are trying to cause another player to not have fun.
Because the inclusive nature of open play means that the ruleset of the open group may include what some people would not find fun, there is the ability to make groups with more defined rules and invite people to them. Although I have seen in other threads people try to not take this option and impose their rules on others in open play. It's only a forum thing though, in the game itself there isn't really a way to impose anything on anyone, in open play at least. Just play. It's a game. Big galaxy, go where you want.
But deliberate griefing personal to the player? - there is a report player option for that.

 

[Almighty Bob]

I am playing in open play.

I have a quick Cobra so I am pretty safe but can not earn zillions trading. I do not want to trade as I find it a bit dull after a while. I only do it if I need a bit of cash.

The people who moan about PvP ( not justified) killing may well be the people who have chosen to earn millions by flying big slow ships.

I suggest that the ease that they can be killed is a good in game balance to my low profit survivability.

I have only killed a few CMDRS and none of them innocents (since launch day anyway)

If I took my cobra with 2xbeams and 2x multis and shot up innocent players in sidewinders for fun I would consider my self to be griefing.

I reserve the right to get bored with the game and become a maniac

I would ban solo if I had the choice. But if they did then the punishments need to be a lot higher

 

[Andovar]

Don't worry, you're not alone OP. In every single mmorpg community there are players exactly like you who complain about PvP in an open world game.

Did you even read the OP? He's not complaining about PKing, sounds to me like he supports the playstyle, but thinks that there should be associated consequences for random kills of non-wanted in non-combat areas.
Makes sense to me...

 

[bassman]

"griefing is a valid way to play" is an oxymoron since if something is a valid way to play then by definition it cant be griefing.

 

[Perjoss]

I still believe that in certain situations, even though you're not breaking any rules its still causing the victim grief. Lets take this example: a trade or exploration ship minding its own business, no bounty, no demands to drop cargo or any other reason to attack, gets interdicted and blown up by someone outfitted for combat. The combat ship is not even going to get an interesting fight, you are sure to get a better fight out of the AI. Destruction of the ship will cause the victim grief as this is not a fair fight. And here I agree with OP that there needs to be consequences for mass murder gameplay. People should never be put off doing it because there needs to be danger in the universe to keep things interesting but flying a few LS and paying 6,000cr is not the right answer to this by a long shot.

The bottom line is just because something is perfectly legal and within all the rules doesn't mean there will be no grief caused by the action.

 

[Kayweg]

Did you even read the OP? He's not complaining about PKing, sounds to me like he supports the playstyle, but thinks that there should be associated consequences for random kills of non-wanted in non-combat areas.
Makes sense to me...

The associated consequences will become apparent when the griefer gets reported, because in the end it's FD who decides what is a "valid way to play" and what isn't.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Getting shot for "no reason" in Open, that's not griefing. Frontier has said quite a few times, there's space for psychopaths who just want to see the world burn here. If Frontier wanted to implement a consensual PVP only system, they have PLENTY of different models to pick and choose from. They decided on a generally open PvP world, tho.

No point in yet another going-round-in-circles debate about what the G word means. However, your selective half-quote is not helpful. Yes, FD have said there is space for a psychopaths play style (and it would probably cripple the game if they were to try to take steps to prevent it), but they also said 'but with consequences'. The problem is that even after lots and lots of discussions in the DDF, etc., and FD appearing to agree what, in general, they had to do, they failed to do it.

You can play the psychopathic role in real life if you wish. However, the overwhelming majority of us are sufficiently aware of the risks and consequences of doing so, that we choose not to do so. In E: D the risks are low and the consequences are minimal. So, surprise, we get a lot more psychopathic behaviour than we see in real life.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Harsher consequences for naughtiness are a must.

In Elite, if you managed to upset the five-oh enough you were kippered, unless you were already milspecced up to the nines.

I'd like to see the police in hot pursuit, and maybe some way of flagging known criminals in system while you're in SC. Maybe not for the lesser crimes, but once you've started popping haulers left right and centre, you should expect to get hounded out of the system.

Then you can start to make anarchy systems the hives of scum and villany that they should be.

This exactly.

 

[schuesseled]

... but if you want to play the role of a sociopathic killer, the in-game authorities should treat you as such. For example:
- A 'kill on sight' order issued to all stations
- More prolific serial killers get increasingly heavy hostile NPC "kill teams" interdicting them or jumping to their location
- The most prolific of all get a mention in Galnet news
- Anarchy systems are the only places that offer refuge

I'm not taking about a meta-game hatred of griefers, or introducing gameplay mechanics to artificially stop griefing. I'm saying give grief play some validity. Let them play how they want, but beware the consequences. Some grief players may even like getting some in-game notoriety.

Do you kill only players or any ship you see? The latter is the only valid way to play as a "physco"

 

[deMangler]

No point in yet another going-round-in-circles debate about what the G word means. However, your selective half-quote is not helpful. Yes, FD have said there is space for a psychopaths play style (and it would probably cripple the game if they were to try to take steps to prevent it), but they also said 'but with consequences'. The problem is that even after lots and lots of discussions in the DDF, etc., and FD appearing to agree what, in general, they had to do, they failed to do it.

You can play the psychopathic role in real life if you wish. However, the overwhelming majority of us are sufficiently aware of the risks and consequences of doing so, that we choose not to do so. In E: D the risks are low and the consequences are minimal. So, surprise, we get a lot more psychopathic behaviour than we see in real life.

I have seen in some other threads that this is being looked into by FDEV though. Stiffer penalties for killing and so-on. Sandro said something about it recently. Sorry too tired to google it now... zzzzzz

 

[Andovar]

The associated consequences will become apparent when the griefer gets reported, because in the end it's FD who decides what is a "valid way to play" and what isn't.

Yup, and they've already decided...

Griefing:


So, we've said we don't mind bad guys. In fact, we go further; we have bad guy gameplay options (piracy, smuggling etc.) By default, this includes psychopathic behaviour - randomly attacking other player "because you can".

 

[Quineloe]

That would dramatically increase the risk involved with perfectly legitimate PvE assassination missions. Occasionally your target will be clean, in lawful space. If you attack and kill the target (the only way to complete the mission), you will have a murder bounty placed on your head.

Or you can choose not to carry out the mission. Or do the alternate path (do these exist for assassin missions?) Usually if it's a criminal organization giving you the mission, the target will be clean.

Yup, and they've already decided...

That was in 2013. In 2014 Braben said this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5hqjxmf4M

So apparently there is a style of gameplay they consider so disruptive they will ban you to solo mode.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Do you kill only players or any ship you see? The latter is the only valid way to play as a "physco"

Well, that's just a side effect of another implementation issue, to some of us at least. I want to play the game making in-game decisions for in-game reasons. Having your ship identified as being a PC prevents this: I am selectively attacked not because I am a juicy target flying expensive cargo with no defences, but because I am a PC. And even worse, even though I don't want to do it, I do notice some ships are PCs, and I inevitably react to that in a way that I wouldn't if they were NPCs. We had lots of design discussions about how to support multiple different playstyles here, but we have just ended up with the one style to the detriment of how I want to play the game.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

Did you even read the OP? He's not complaining about PKing, sounds to me like he supports the playstyle, but thinks that there should be associated consequences for random kills of non-wanted in non-combat areas.
Makes sense to me...

He's complaining about people going around killing anyone they like for no reason, i.e. PKing. This is NOT the same as griefing. There are only 2 ways to grief a player in a game like this: spawn-camp them and kill off the quest-givers or objectives. Neither of these are possible in E therefore griefing is not possible (to my knowledge anyway). PKing is NOT griefing. Now, I've played a lot of mmorpgs and there are always players who go around killing whoever they like for no reason. Yeah it's stupid and annoying but it's not griefing. It's just the way they have fun in the game. Now that we have the definitions straight, I think there should be higher penalties for PKing using some of the suggestions already given on this thread and a ton of others.

 

[Captain_Chaos]

Griefing is not a valid way to play by definition! Griefers are psychopaths who get off on causing other people misery. They should be permanently banned from the game, insofar as it is possible to determine with certainty that someone is a griefer, and until then they should be blocked by everyone so they can go and play in their own little sandbox with the other griefers.

 

[Rivka]

No point in yet another going-round-in-circles debate about what the G word means. However, your selective half-quote is not helpful. Yes, FD have said there is space for a psychopaths play style (and it would probably cripple the game if they were to try to take steps to prevent it), but they also said 'but with consequences'. The problem is that even after lots and lots of discussions in the DDF, etc., and FD appearing to agree what, in general, they had to do, they failed to do it.

You can play the psychopathic role in real life if you wish. However, the overwhelming majority of us are sufficiently aware of the risks and consequences of doing so, that we choose not to do so. In E: D the risks are low and the consequences are minimal. So, surprise, we get a lot more psychopathic behaviour than we see in real life.

It's up to Frontier to tweak the mechanics of it, if/when they decide to. I just see it as silly to call a game mechanic that is operating as intended to be "griefing".

One important thing to remember (and I think it gets lost on many people), just because a dev implements consequences for a behaviour, it doesn't mean that the devs disapprove of said behaviours. As players, we sometimes get trapped in the "player thought" box, and forget that the devs are basically gods. If they don't like a behaviour, they can shut it down totally. They aren't sitting up in Dev Land going "Gosh durn it, we hate PvP, but the only way to curb it is to implement higher bounties!"

Way back when,I used to run a MUD with PvP aspects (anyone remember those?). I decided to implement some consequences for killing other players, not because I wanted to curb it, but because I wanted to generate some new, interesting styles of play. Even with coming right out and saying that, I *STILL* had members of the playerbase saying "PKing is wrong cuz the guards chase you, obviously the staff don't want you PKing!"

 

[Madam Pomfrey]

... but if you want to play the role of a sociopathic killer, the in-game authorities should treat you as such. For example:
- A 'kill on sight' order issued to all stations
- More prolific serial killers get increasingly heavy hostile NPC "kill teams" interdicting them or jumping to their location
- The most prolific of all get a mention in Galnet news
- Anarchy systems are the only places that offer refuge

I'm not taking about a meta-game hatred of griefers, or introducing gameplay mechanics to artificially stop griefing. I'm saying give grief play some validity. Let them play how they want, but beware the consequences. Some grief players may even like getting some in-game notoriety.

I think you got it wrong. It's griefing because all those things do not happen. Otherwise, yes, being a sociopath should be a valid way to play if you can face the harsh consequences.

Also, no, anarchy systems shouldn't be a safe refugee for sociapaths, it should be safer then other systems, but even pirates and other outlaws would not like a sociopath among them. It draws to much of the wrong attention and scares away their prey.