I am not the best pilot in the game, and that's not the topic. I don't want to have be the best pilot in the game TO DELIVER CARGO. I did what was apparently necessary to survive in open. It's nice that you have so much time in game. I own the game since may this year. Then I should reach your level in round about 4 years.So you are the best pilot in the game? Pleased to meet youI have a little over 12,000hours in the game & know my place, having encountered quite a few players over the years, some of whom shot at me.
Your argument that you cannot reasonably expect to survive in an unengineered Krait is fair comment, but I have flown through CG systems in a Cobra MkII (22t cargo) and been ignored (so any engineering didn't matter).
The solution you found was straightforward, engineering the thing for survival (and not flying a T-9).
How could players be encouraged to put themselves into dangerous pvp scenarios, even when they don't have to?
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We're not talking about the hypothetical scenario you've proposed. That particular scenario unfolds quite regularly in solo, and i've personally sat in the top 10% doing exactly that.
We're not talking about the willingness to put yourself in harms way. We're talking about what makes a "fair" fight. The point being made is that such a "fair" fight doesn't really exist in Open. Players exist on either extreme, and nobody occupies the space in the middle because it's not fun, because nobody else is there.
Open isn't attractive because of this. There isn't any interesting PVP. There are just one sided victories and constant retreats.
The concept of a fair fight doesn't exist IRL either, that's what sport is for.
I suspect I occupy that middle ground you have in mind, most of the players I have met (a few hundred) occupy that middle ground. They just play their game in much the same way that anyone is solo does, they just do it in Open & every so often (used to be a few times a week for me before Carriers were added) cross paths with another random player & either help them, get helped by them or very, very occasionally get shot at.
When visiting player hotspots the chances of a hostile initial encounter go way up of course, but those hotspots aren't visited often & when they are, switching to solo before jumping in is always an option.
This is a video game. "Fairness" is a desirable characteristic in gameplay.
Most competitive games I've played allows you to kill other players without consent. It isn't "every game ever". I wasn't being specific enough. Sometimes I forget you have to carefully pay attention to every single word you type in an online forum.
Most do, an overwhelming majority I'd say, and ED has the most anti-pvp crowd I've ever seen in a video game. To me, this community is FAR from the norm.
Friday the 13th. Dead by Daylight. Every camper in CoD is playing a mouse. It's not necessarily about how powerful anyone is. I'm putting emphasis on attitude, and a preferred way to play for some people.
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It's an openworld game, chances are anyone you meet will either be more experienced than you & have better equipment, or less experience than you & have inferior equipment.
The situation you are looking for is what David Braben described as 'rare & meaningful'. I have had those experiences, because I was in Open & therefore it could happen. Mobius and other large PvE groups aim to emulate that but without the risk of PvP.
Those players that attack are (usually, ime) pretty nice people, they just play a different way.
The way the game is currently structured makes the rarity less than it could be otherwise.
Because the rarity is so low, a pve player has little incentive to put themselves into such a place where it is far more common (relatively speaking) that a meaningless waste of time occurs.
This is the thesis statement of this discussion.
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Hmm. I use a 750t space T9 with bad shields for powerplay in open where I have PvPers defending. I use a T7 for cargo CGs (better evasion and cheaper rebuy). I wish CGs were more like powerplay expansions where I could expect to have some top cover. Given there aren't cohesive sides in the same way for CGs, then to me, the game should give better incentives and possibilities for people to "run interference". I've suggested a couple of possibilities already.
I have done this in a T9 yes: an FDL can’t mass lock a T9, and you need a 7A prismatic G5 engineered shield generator. You can also earn yourself some time by using mines and/or an FSD reset dumbfire. Instancing (or lack of) also helps sooner or later.
So you are talking about putting oneself in harms way, and looking for ways to reduce the PvE/PvP gap.
If you want to go somewhere where there are lots of people, you are going to find lots of them are using the best equipment (for whatever their aim is). If you have the best equipment for your aim, you are much more likely to have any hostile encounter be decided by skill & experience than loadout or ship choice.
So if you are going to try going there for the first time in Open (and therefore lack the experience & probably skill), you can mitigate that risk by doing that in a 'safe' ship. Something very, very fast, or very, very tanky.
Or another way to mitigate the risk might be to go in a ship you are very familiar with, the one you can speed dock because you know just how much it drifts, how quickly you can boost turn it around the rocks in a RES.
Once you become a bit more comfortable with just being around lots of other players, and feel more able to identify which ones are an actual threat, you can start to mitigate less, optimise a bit more for carrying cargo or whatever. Eventually, with experience you will reach a point where you are reasonably satisfied that you can not only survive, but achieve objectives. Any hostile players can be treated simply as extra tough NPCs if you like, but unlike NPCs human players can be interacted with in far more ways than just shooting at them, you can gain allies & make friends, or just swap stories
The first step is just to give it a try for yourself, see how you get on (just as TobiasFuzz describes).
I agree engineering is too strong in elite.
G3 engineering is quite accessible now by just playing the game tbh, and a G3 engineered Krait mkII should survive almost any attack.
The equipment gap need a better solution than "just get the best equipment too". The skill gap needs a better solution than "just get the best equipment too".So you are talking about putting oneself in harms way, and looking for ways to reduce the PvE/PvP gap.
If you want to go somewhere where there are lots of people, you are going to find lots of them are using the best equipment (for whatever their aim is). If you have the best equipment for your aim, you are much more likely to have any hostile encounter be decided by skill & experience than loadout or ship choice.
So if you are going to try going there for the first time in Open (and therefore lack the experience & probably skill), you can mitigate that risk by doing that in a 'safe' ship. Something very, very fast, or very, very tanky.
Or another way to mitigate the risk might be to go in a ship you are very familiar with, the one you can speed dock because you know just how much it drifts, how quickly you can boost turn it around the rocks in a RES.
One you become a bit more comfortable with just being around lots of other players, and feel more able to identify which ones are an actual threat, you can start to mitigate less, optimise a bit more for carrying cargo or whatever. Eventually, with experience you will reach a point where you are reasonably satisfied that you can not only survive, but achieve objectives. Any hostile players can be treated simply as extra tough NPCs if you like, but unlike NPCs human players can be interacted with in far more ways than just shooting at them, you can gain allies & make friends, or just swap stories
The first step is just to give it a try for yourself, see how you get on (just as TobiasFuzz describes).
It seems the global solution to every problem in this game is to just keep grinding away at getting better gear until all the threats and challenges disappear.
Improving skill is a novelty only afforded to the folks who have paid their dues and spent the endless hours grinding away at the best equipment, just to they can pretend they don't have it.
The first step is to understand how the system is imbalanced to favor gear above all else and how to mitigate that issue.
The traditional solution is to sort players based on their skill and gear levels into similar areas. Be this through matchmaking or zones of increasing difficulty. If you are more likely to encounter a similarly equipped player, you are more likely to have a meaningful interaction with that player.
Interesting idea but I think very difficult to implement in elite as it is difficult to gauge the strength of a ship. For example a courier with remote release flechhettes might destroy a corvette in the right hands, or might get destroyed, according to what particular loadout the corvette has, and you can’t really use the pilot rating either, due to the number of ALT accounts in the game.
Yes, there is some complexity involved.
A simple approach would be to provide incentive for players to play in areas that are inside their skill/gear range by making areas beneath their ability unrewarding and by making areas above their ability too difficult. Players would be equipped to handle threats appropriate their skill/gear level and other players would be appropriate threats.
Sure, you'll still have people slumming it and hanging out in areas below them, and for such problems there needs more complex solutions.
The current game design isn't well suited for such an implementation though. I believe that is part of the problem. The current implementation isn't designed to encourage any meaningful player interaction, except in a vacuum. It hardly encourages any meaningful PVE interaction.
Yeah fdev have taken the stance that’s it’s up to the players, and I think they realize they have a substantial solo only portion of the player base.
However there have been CGs that involved shipping rares for example, and for those a lower cost fast ship makes a good fit, for running a blockade, all the better when part of a wing. I have done this a few times in a python or clipper and we made it through the blockade more often than not, often simply by overshooting the station, crashing into the nearest planet, then waiting for the right moment to make a dash for the station. Fun times.
That's not an open-specific issue, that applies to any private group too, and anecdotally one is even less likely to encounter strangers in even the largest of groups than in Open.
I have had plenty of social interactions with other players I have met in the game, arguably the chance of encounter is low (and filtering instances by experience or equipment would reduce that even further) but only because I was willing to put myself out there, able to be found & interacted with myself.
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They'd need a mechanism where a wing is treated as a single entity in hyperspace. As it is, there's too much of a gap between one member of the convoy getting interdicted and the rest of the wing dropping into the same instance.
Clearly, your mileage may vary, but... Any time I've ever been interdicted in Open (PvP) its been by well engineered dedicated combat ships. I generally fly Cutters for trade, but for some reason when I fly with the 8A Prismatic (engineered) I rarely if ever see interdictions, but when I run the 6A Prismatic its fairly common. Its almost like the attacker is using his most capable combat ship and he's choosing his targets. Granted my experience is anecdotal, but the general point holds up well.
They can't see what size shields you have so yeah, not sure what to say.
But just out of interest: have you normally escaped successfully in the 6A version? As a pirate I find that an engineered cutter is usually able to just ignore me and wake out at his leisure, unless I have reverb mines or torpedoes, and even those are easy to avoid. Even a well equipped gank squad would probably have to bring reverb weapons and an fsd reset missile.
I agree, it isn't an open specific issue. It's an issue that plagues all game modes, including solo.
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