How could players be encouraged to put themselves into dangerous pvp scenarios, even when they don't have to?

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

If, however, the intent is to remove existing pan-modal game content from them then it's not at all unreasonable to expect push-back to the proposals.

I assume that any significant change to any game feature would get pushback. Although, this thread focuses on things outwith that. Or at least tries to . For me, I'm trying to get into some underlying motivations and tastes that shape different sides of these sorts of debates. It could be useful from the point of view of designing a feature that could have a wide appeal without alienating part, or too much, of the player base. This might be something entirely separate from powerplay, which we've somehow gotten stuck on as usual, and CQC.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

That said, the only thing there seems to be anything close to agreement on is that something vaguely CQC-style, writ a bit larger, with some effort to place it in a less artificial context, could be fun. I don't think there's agreement that it should have a central role in shaping territorial aspects of the bubble. And I feel like I've aired some justification for why the existence of organic multiplayer that features PvP should continue to thrive (whether or not everyone agrees), and the sky may not fall down. That's about it.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I'm a big fan of amping up both the costs AND REWARDS of pvp and piracy alike, making them more dangerous but more fun. I remember the terror of the Wilderness in Runescape back in the day, the fear of losing everything vs the curiosity of what was out there.

Sounds intense, much more hardcore than open PP is as a rule. But also memorable. I'm guessing the difference was that this was singleplayer(?). As in, losing everything, as opposed to "having it taken".

 

[DemiserofD]

Sounds intense, much more hardcore than open PP is as a rule. But also memorable. I'm guessing the difference was that this was singleplayer(?). As in, losing everything, as opposed to "having it taken".

Nah, osrs was mp. You dropped everything but your 3 most valuable items, it was pretty hardcore.

 

[physical0]

All this discussion is irrelevant. It is impossible to make open only function, as I pointed out in the OP.

Lacking open only, the next step would be making players willingly engage, which nobody has come up with a good idea for yet.

Lacking willing engagement, the next best solution is just rewarding players fairly for pvp.

Can we please stop ranting morals at one another? It goes nowhere.

The problem is a power imbalance. The system favors the attacker. There is little consequence for an attacker who fails to kill their mark. There is little consequence for an attacker who succeeds at killing their mark. The likelihood of the defender putting up a fight is little, because the attacker picks their fights.
There is no benefit for a player who is not attacking. Ideally, you don't want to be attacked, because at the very least, getting attacked consumes your time. There is no reward for not getting killed. At worst, you die. There is no reward for dying. The likelihood of overpowering your attacker is little, because you aren't engaging in combat activities, and they are.

Faced with a game where there is no reward for your actions and no consequences for your opponent, why play? "For the love of the game"? If they loved the game, they'd be playing it already.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

The problem is a power imbalance. The system favors the attacker. There is little consequence for an attacker who fails to kill their mark. There is little consequence for an attacker who succeeds at killing their mark. The likelihood of the defender putting up a fight is little, because the attacker picks their fights.
There is no benefit for a player who is not attacking. Ideally, you don't want to be attacked, because at the very least, getting attacked consumes your time. There is no reward for not getting killed. At worst, you die. There is no reward for dying. The likelihood of overpowering your attacker is little, because you aren't engaging in combat activities, and they are.

Faced with a game where there is no reward for your actions and no consequences for your opponent, why play? "For the love of the game"? If they loved the game, they'd be playing it already.

Without wanting to dwell obsessively on powerplay, I can give you a counter example to this evaluation from powerplay that comes from the fact that it's team play. Being a hunted hauler there gives me a low bar for entry to "PvP" due to its extreme asymmetry. Why? Because my victory condition is to deliver special cargo (which trumps my personal liability in this context), with escape still being a partial victory. This could be from a wing on FDLs - I have "no right" to win this encounter, how incompetent the hunters must be, I laugh all the way to the pad, etc. They're people I've got no hope of beating in a 1v1 fight in identical FDLs. Why else? Because while they were occupied with me, they weren't chasing the other haulers who also got through so I even helped my teammates, in a space cow against FDLs. Why else? Because those players could have been earning merits opposing (PvE) the expansion that I'm hauling to, and instead they're chasing me in vain. After enough time without success, while also potentially being stomped on by our defenders, they might even give up and log off in disgust, and we can haul in peace (which creates a nice rhythm of tough, dicey situations not being "always on").

None of this may convince you it's fun, but I do think it creates a massive distinction between solitary hauling/PvE dodging gankers, and powerplay hauling toward a communal goal against opposition that might otherwise be your friends except for the fact of their different pledge; you have the same type of pilots defending you in FDLs, whose support also makes the whole thing feel a lot less like a hopeless hiding to nothing. I also think it highlights why we roll eyes so hard at the outraged claims that open powerplayers are "just a bunch of gankers looking for soft targets".

 

[Ted Striker]

There is literally nothing you could offer me. Any game where PvP is mandatory is a game I don't play.

unless it's a PvP game. Playing World of Warships and only wanting to play the PvE scenarios would be odd. A rare few people do it but it's odd.

 

[DemiserofD]

Without wanting to dwell obsessively on powerplay, I can give you a counter example to this evaluation from powerplay that comes from the fact that it's team play. Being a hunted hauler there gives me a low bar for entry to "PvP" due to its extreme asymmetry. Why? Because my victory condition is to deliver special cargo (which trumps my personal liability in this context), with escape still being a partial victory. This could be from a wing on FDLs - I have "no right" to win this encounter, how incompetent the hunters must be, I laugh all the way to the pad, etc. They're people I've got no hope of beating in a 1v1 fight in identical FDLs. Why else? Because while they were occupied with me, they weren't chasing the other haulers who also got through so I even helped my teammates, in a space cow against FDLs. Why else? Because those players could have been earning merits opposing (PvE) the expansion that I'm hauling to, and instead they're chasing me in vain. After enough time without success, while also potentially being stomped on by our defenders, they might even give up and log off in disgust, and we can haul in peace (which creates a nice rhythm of tough, dicey situations not being "always on").

None of this may convince you it's fun, but I do think it creates a massive distinction between solitary hauling/PvE dodging gankers, and powerplay hauling toward a communal goal against opposition that might otherwise be your friends except for the fact of their different pledge; you have the same type of pilots defending you in FDLs, whose support also makes the whole thing feel a lot less like a hopeless hiding to nothing. I also think it highlights why we roll eyes so hard at the outraged claims that open powerplayers are "just a bunch of gankers looking for soft targets".

The question is - is that a good thing?

Like I said and you've illustrated pretty well right here, powerplay actively discourages actual pvp, because actually fighting another player in a ship capable of fighting back is only wasting time that could be spent killing haulers.

If we want a model based around one side defending something and the other attacking it, I would much prefer a mode that required the attackers to kill the defenders first, and then the hauler gets destroyed.

Unfortunately, the design of Elite makes that difficult, if not impossible. And with the addition of fleet carriers, even interdicting the haulers at all essentially requires being in exactly the right place at the right time with a 24 hour watch.

This desired gameplay mode, with haulers sneaking through while being hunted by defenders, just doesn't have the right infrastructure to exist, even if the game ran on a server and you could 100% guarantee you could see all players in the instance. And we don't even have that!

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Here is the only way that I might be tempted to go perma-open.

Default:

• Remove CMDR prefix
• Remove hollow squares
• Remove CMDR prefix in coms

'Camouflage' CMDRs. Make all CMDRs look like AI and AI to look like CMDRs. Make the ganker work to even find a target. The longer the ganker is scanning to find something that looks like a CMDR, the more time the CMDR has to reach destination. Force the ganker to behave more like a pirate.


To address gankers ganking in SC - maybe only in medium to high security systems:

• Increase AI traffic everywhere, especially in high risk areas to assist the CMDR to blend in with AI
• Reprogram AI traffic to crudely mimic CMDRs e.g. flying parabolas to destinations, fuel scooping then jumping etc.
• Have numerous strategic bubbles of high combat rated security ships dotted along space lanes for fast response. These should include a range of ship roles with multiple fixed beamed SLFs

To address gankers ganking near engineer bases etc:

• Remove the smart round or whatever it is called
• More security
• More AI traffic

With regard to coms:
If I don't know the pilot interdicting me is a CMDR, I feel less personally attacked so remove any tells that the interdicting ship is AI - delay any coms until after interdiction, and even after maybe wait a couple of seconds. Make AI behave like a clueless noob or a ganker. Mostly silent. But on the 30% or so that do fire out a coms then -

• Make AI behave like an annoyed human, leave a delay then include censored expletives, typos, broken/non-English, pressing return too soon breaking up sentences etc.
• Use a number of common algorithms, mixing up sentence structures, to reduce sentence patterns. They don't have to be perfect English.

That would help address some of my concerns anyway.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Here is the only way that I might be tempted to go perma-open.

Default:

• Remove CMDR prefix
• Remove hollow squares

'Camouflage' CMDRs. Make all CMDRs look like AI and AI to look like CMDRs. Make the ganker work to even find a target. The longer the ganker is scanning to find something that looks like a CMDR, the more time the CMDR has to reach destination. Force the ganker to behave more like a pirate.


To address gankers ganking in SC - maybe only in medium to high security systems:

• Increase AI traffic everywhere, especially in high risk areas to assist the CMDR to blend in with AI
• Reprogram AI traffic to crudely mimic CMDRs e.g. flying parabolas to destinations, fuel scooping then jumping etc.
• Have numerous strategic bubbles of high combat rated security ships dotted along space lanes for fast response. These should include a range of ship roles with multiple fixed beamed SLFs

To address gankers ganking near engineer bases etc:

• Remove the smart round or whatever it is called
• More security
• More AI traffic

With regard to coms:
If I don't know the pilot interdicting me is a CMDR, I feel less personally attacked so remove any tells that the interdicting ship is AI - delay any coms until after interdiction, and even after maybe wait a couple of seconds. Make AI behave like a clueless noob or a ganker. Mostly silent. But on the 30% or so that do fire out a coms then -

• Make AI behave like an annoyed human, leave a delay then include censored expletives, typos, broken/non-English, pressing return too soon breaking up sentences etc.
• Use a number of common algorithms, mixing up sentence structures, to reduce sentence patterns. They don't have to be perfect English.

That would help address some of my concerns anyway.

Some good points, certainly food for thought, although it’s worth noting that the bandwidth monitor is a good indicator of the presence of a cmdr in your instance, and even if it were removed there are other tools to check the network.

 

[enonymous]

Because while they were occupied with me, they weren't chasing the other haulers who also got through so I even helped my teammates, in a space cow against FDLs

It doesn't make sense for that space cow to put themselves in a position to put up with a player in a FDL because, unless they just enjoy running away, the right choice is to not be in open. Your teammates' most valuable contribution is their time. They're picking an option where they can be forced to spend time running away instead of delivering cargo. That's the wrong choice. That's how the game is designed.

The only way they can get value for the time is to kill the attacker, but that's not possible. They can build a trade ship that can survive a fight with a combat ship; they're damn sure not killing the combat ship. This isn't pvp combat; it's pvp attack/escape. They win via escape. Failure costs the time spent getting the cargo and the credit value of the cargo. They've given merits to the enemy. They have to spend even more time in the boring travel mechanics to recover. If they win; they're still punished with more time in the boring travel mechanics. It's bad if they win and worse if they fail.

NPCs are different because the trade ship can fight them. They're balanced for it. Any half competent player can just opt out of combat and the NPC goes away. If they want to spend the time, they have a fair chance to 'win'. Success provides mats, rep and money. NPCs have value.

Winning attack/escape with a player is worse than not participating because the reward structure (kill the ship for a bounty) is not aligned with the design of the interaction. Their goal is to deliver stuff. They can deliver X tonnes per Y minutes. If Cmdr Richard is there to stop them, they can deliver the same X tonnes in Y+n minutes. Regardless of the outcome of the interaction, they're in an objectively worse position for having the interaction. Cmdr Richard has no value.

Open only doesn't change that. Having a wing with them doesn't change it. A player bounty board doesn't change it. In all cases, if your goal is anything other than having the interaction; winning the interaction is worse than not having the interaction. That's the issue. The design is fundamentally broken. You're being forced into an interaction where every possible outcome is negative.

I'd consider myself an end game player. I have billions. It would take 100 rebuys before I'd notice a change in my balance. I'm usually out of storage for mats. I can't remember the last time I've bought a ship and wasn't able to G5 everything before the first flight. I'm not worried about dying. I'm worried about spending time on a worthless interaction. Time is the main currency and I'm not running a charity. I'm not letting someone force me into an interaction where winning is worse than not having the interaction. They have to fix that. Don't add incentive or force people to participate in a broken mechanic. Make winning the interaction worth the time given to the interaction.

Mouse vs Cat vs Dog. Build mechanics where each has the chance to win. This isn't difficult; but if you don't want people to exploit it with an alt account, they'll have to add a penalty for attacking and failing to kill a target. Yes; it means that 'attackers' have consequence for failure. That isn't a bad thing. They can't treat players' time as a free resource.

 

[Diesel_Thunder]

unless it's a PvP game. Playing World of Warships and only wanting to play the PvE scenarios would be odd. A rare few people do it but it's odd.

I used to play lots of Warships, not so much these days. Hated PvP (Random/Ranked battles) and was rapidly feeling burnt out playing that until I went into PvE and stayed there (Co-op and Scenarios). Tons of battles in PvE as I found that mode far more enjoyable. Like I said, I don't play it much these days as I got tired of that developer, Wargaming, and their shenanigans.

As far as Open goes in ED for me, hell no. Aside from running PG with friends, I stay in solo. I play games because I enjoy the game, not because I like dealing with other humans in said game. I don't play any other MMO because of that, nor any multiplay FPS because I don't enjoy them and suck at most of them too, on top of dealing with other human players. Partially why I don't do the FPS thing in Odyssey either because I don't enjoy it and IMO is not a well done FPS either.

 

[DemiserofD]

It doesn't make sense for that space cow to put themselves in a position to put up with a player in a FDL because, unless they just enjoy running away, the right choice is to not be in open. Your teammates' most valuable contribution is their time. They're picking an option where they can be forced to spend time running away instead of delivering cargo. That's the wrong choice. That's how the game is designed.

The only way they can get value for the time is to kill the attacker, but that's not possible. They can build a trade ship that can survive a fight with a combat ship; they're damn sure not killing the combat ship. This isn't pvp combat; it's pvp attack/escape. They win via escape. Failure costs the time spent getting the cargo and the credit value of the cargo. They've given merits to the enemy. They have to spend even more time in the boring travel mechanics to recover. If they win; they're still punished with more time in the boring travel mechanics. It's bad if they win and worse if they fail.

NPCs are different because the trade ship can fight them. They're balanced for it. Any half competent player can just opt out of combat and the NPC goes away. If they want to spend the time, they have a fair chance to 'win'. Success provides mats, rep and money. NPCs have value.

Winning attack/escape with a player is worse than not participating because the reward structure (kill the ship for a bounty) is not aligned with the design of the interaction. Their goal is to deliver stuff. They can deliver X tonnes per Y minutes. If Cmdr Richard is there to stop them, they can deliver the same X tonnes in Y+n minutes. Regardless of the outcome of the interaction, they're in an objectively worse position for having the interaction. Cmdr Richard has no value.

Open only doesn't change that. Having a wing with them doesn't change it. A player bounty board doesn't change it. In all cases, if your goal is anything other than having the interaction; winning the interaction is worse than not having the interaction. That's the issue. The design is fundamentally broken. You're being forced into an interaction where every possible outcome is negative.

I'd consider myself an end game player. I have billions. It would take 100 rebuys before I'd notice a change in my balance. I'm usually out of storage for mats. I can't remember the last time I've bought a ship and wasn't able to G5 everything before the first flight. I'm not worried about dying. I'm worried about spending time on a worthless interaction. Time is the main currency and I'm not running a charity. I'm not letting someone force me into an interaction where winning is worse than not having the interaction. They have to fix that. Don't add incentive or force people to participate in a broken mechanic. Make winning the interaction worth the time given to the interaction.

Mouse vs Cat vs Dog. Build mechanics where each has the chance to win. This isn't difficult; but if you don't want people to exploit it with an alt account, they'll have to add a penalty for attacking and failing to kill a target. Yes; it means that 'attackers' have consequence for failure. That isn't a bad thing. They can't treat players' time as a free resource.

The challenge is, how do you make a system that sufficiently rewards players for escaping, without discouraging people from attacking?

If losing an attack means things are much worse, then I'm better off not attacking at all and letting them haul in peace.

Even worse, it might encourage joining the enemy team and faking an attack, to increase the value of the merit haulers without any legitimate risk.

I'm not sure that such a system exists. If we were dealing with a more traditional game with traditional servers you might be able to make something like that work, but with the trimodal system, plus the connection architecture, you just can't balance things on the head of a needle and not fall off one way or the other.

Which is why I'm inclined towards just giving pvp its own niche and more or less abandoning the cat and mouse mechanics entirely. If you want, integrate a sort of cqc-like capture the flag mode where it needs a certain number of players to play, but they'd all be combat ships, no actual dedicated haulers.

 

[Rhino Hammer]

Here is the only way that I might be tempted to go perma-open.

Default:

• Remove CMDR prefix
• Remove hollow squares

'Camouflage' CMDRs. Make all CMDRs look like AI and AI to look like CMDRs. Make the ganker work to even find a target. The longer the ganker is scanning to find something that looks like a CMDR, the more time the CMDR has to reach destination. Force the ganker to behave more like a pirate.


To address gankers ganking in SC - maybe only in medium to high security systems:

• Increase AI traffic everywhere, especially in high risk areas to assist the CMDR to blend in with AI
• Reprogram AI traffic to crudely mimic CMDRs e.g. flying parabolas to destinations, fuel scooping then jumping etc.
• Have numerous strategic bubbles of high combat rated security ships dotted along space lanes for fast response. These should include a range of ship roles with multiple fixed beamed SLFs

To address gankers ganking near engineer bases etc:

• Remove the smart round or whatever it is called
• More security
• More AI traffic

With regard to coms:
If I don't know the pilot interdicting me is a CMDR, I feel less personally attacked so remove any tells that the interdicting ship is AI - delay any coms until after interdiction, and even after maybe wait a couple of seconds. Make AI behave like a clueless noob or a ganker. Mostly silent. But on the 30% or so that do fire out a coms then -

• Make AI behave like an annoyed human, leave a delay then include censored expletives, typos, broken/non-English, pressing return too soon breaking up sentences etc.
• Use a number of common algorithms, mixing up sentence structures, to reduce sentence patterns. They don't have to be perfect English.

That would help address some of my concerns anyway.

Camo CMDRs is a great idea.

 

[Ted Striker]

I used to play lots of Warships, not so much these days. Hated PvP (Random/Ranked battles) and was rapidly feeling burnt out playing that until I went into PvE and stayed there (Co-op and Scenarios). Tons of battles in PvE as I found that mode far more enjoyable. Like I said, I don't play it much these days as I got tired of that developer, Wargaming, and their shenanigans.

As far as Open goes in ED for me, hell no. Aside from running PG with friends, I stay in solo. I play games because I enjoy the game, not because I like dealing with other humans in said game. I don't play any other MMO because of that, nor any multiplay FPS because I don't enjoy them and suck at most of them too, on top of dealing with other human players. Partially why I don't do the FPS thing in Odyssey either because I don't enjoy it and IMO is not a well done FPS either.

Warships jumped the shark and I've uninstalled it. Wargaming is not exactly my favorite developer.

I solo in ED and I tend to solo in MMORPGs unless forced to group like a PvP battleground. These kinds of games are not social experiences for me but rather games with a built-in chat, and I can group when I want.

 

[Diesel_Thunder]

Warships jumped the shark and I've uninstalled it. Wargaming is not exactly my favorite developer.

I solo in ED and I tend to solo in MMORPGs unless forced to group like a PvP battleground. These kinds of games are not social experiences for me but rather games with a built-in chat, and I can group when I want.

I agree, they are relying way too much on gimmick ships (nearly all of which only existed on paper, if at all), instead of historical ships that people still connect with. I still have it and only play sporadically, though I kicked it off of my SSD earlier this year as I needed the drive space.

And same for me, I play games because they are games, not because I'm looking for a social experience. That's what drinking beer with friends is for

 

[Brrokk]

Camo CMDRs is a great idea.

Tricky. I think they'd be a good idea in Open but I wouldn't want the same in Mobius.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

Tricky. I think they'd be a good idea in Open but I wouldn't want the same in Mobius.

Why? If you want to let people know you're a Cmdr, you telegraph that you're a Cmdr. Friends wings already look different. Why the arbitrary hollow square and Cmdr tag?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Why the arbitrary hollow square and Cmdr tag?

It was part of the design from the outset:

All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.

.... and if there was no distinction on the scanner, the game would appear devoid of other players as they'd appear indistinguishable from NPCs (and the vast majority of ships encountered in the galaxy are NPCs).

 

[Stealthie]

It was part of the design from the outset:

.... and if there was no distinction on the scanner, the game would appear devoid of other players as they'd appear indistinguishable from NPCs (and the vast majority of ships encountered in the galaxy are NPCs).

To be fair, that's a rather arbitrary justification.

Sure, the idea of being able to tell players and NPCs apart might have seemed like a good idea but, with the benefit of hindsight, I suspect other considerations might have been taken into account.

The things that always bugs me about the whole "hollow blob" thing is that we're constantly told that we're no different to every other ship in the ED universe; we're held to the same laws and limitations.
The only problem is, the existence of hollow blobs means we're not treated the same as every other ship around, by either NPCs or other human players.

The whole "hollow blob" thing means there's a fundamental disparity between humans and NPCs within ED and, IMO, FDev would do well to acknowledge this, one way or the other - either by giving us special laws to abide by (call it a Pilot's Federation code if you like)and be enforced in a special manner or, alternatively, simply make the "hollow blob" into a transponder which can be deactivated along with other ship systems so that players can run incognito if they wish to.

Surely it couldn't be that difficult to make the "hollow blob" optional?