How to "force" commanders (of equal Combat ranks!) into player vs player combat engagements!

Tzeff [NL]

Tzeff [NL]
After weeks of daily space-trucking, I've barely seen actual players and was only attacked by non-player characters.
Here's how to improve this without turning it into a daily affair:

Occasionally, (once a week? More often?) a commander should receive a message from his affiliated factions saying, for an example: "There's a rival commander in the Ngaliba system who's hurting our economy. We will reward you if you would stop him."
Or, if you're affiliated with Pirates: "There's a well-known merchant on a trade route in the BD-1942 system. I'm sure you know what to do!" (If you're a Pirate, you could attack him and steal his cargo!)

Important details:
1. The message will only show the location of ONLINE commanders.
2. The "rival commander" is of equal COMBAT rank!
3. The "rival commander" gets NO WARNING of the (possible) in-coming attack!
4. The "rival commander" should be not more than *1000LY away! (*In my opinion, further than that would take way too long to get there!)
5. Everytime the "rival commander" has jumped to another system, you'll receive a message
6. Only if you're in a wing, you and your wingmen should receive messages to attack "rival commanders" that are also in a *wing! (*2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3!). The highest Combat ranked "rival commander" is equal to the highest Combat ranked commander on your wing!
7. If the dispatched "rival commander" was Clean and you become Wanted, you can easily pay your fee and become Clean again.
8. Since MOST readers don't understand my "OP", I want to clarify that the word "FORCE" is incorrect. I meant 'INCOURAGE"! And this also means that commanders who don't want a piece of the action can simply IGNORE these messages. And after 60 seconds after the commander have not accepted the mission, It will go away and the rival commander's location won't be updated anymore.

This should increase the amount of player vs player combat engagements!
And...you'll always be on your guard....knowing that you could be attacked by a random player of equal strength at any time...although it doesn't happen everyday!

EDIT: If you think it's a good idea, click the "like" so it can get noticed by the developers!
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From the angry comments below, I take that the majority prefer NO PVP but rather be attacked by NPCs instead....what has been happening to me for a couple of weeks now. The game feels like a singleplayer...with no other commanders in sight for weeks. But this doesn't mean the game should only encourage players to only FIGHT each other...which gives me another idea for another topic! Check it out!
 
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Velixar

V
Your topic a epic fail. Players DON'T want to be forced into something they don't want to play. This game is about blazing YOUR own trails. Not forced into playing someone else game. I have to say no.

Why don't you post on the forum. I am unbeatable and the star location. Bring it on. You can't beat me.
 

RolloTreadway

RolloTreadway
The third word of your title is the problem. After that, everything else is irrelevant.

A system like you say could be feasible if players could enter it voluntary, putting their name forward for a pvp attack. But that's probably handled a whole lot better by groups. So no point.

Other players are not your content (unless they want to be).
 

Whyy

Whyy
Yep here I am running my T6, trying to get engineering mats. And the system gives you my location so the you can jump me with your best murder boat. Sure, sounds like 'fun'. /s.
 

varonica

varonica
Whyy said:
Yep here I am running my T6, trying to get engineering mats. And the system gives you my location so the you can jump me with your best murder boat. Sure, sounds like 'fun'. /s.
Click to expand...

Yep I'm elite in combat (no I'm not, I'm useless, but for the purposes of the question lets say I am elite) but for the moment I am mining in my lightly armed T7 to get some cash to upgrade my FDL, you, an elite combat pilot in a fully engineered killing machine gets told where I am, arrive there without warning and proceed to destroy me in about 2 shots, just trying to work out where the fun is for the receiver in this encounter.

This is why CQC exists, and how popular is that? So no people don't want this, you do!
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
The problem with this sort of setup is the other player doesn't have to cooperate to allow a fight, even if they like PvP. Here's how it would go if the game picked me as your target.

1) The game gives you my location.
2) By the time you've flown to that system and transferred your PvP ship, I'm not in that system any more
3) By the time you've jumped your ship to the system I'm now in, I'm not there either.
4) By the time you've got there, I've probably logged off for the day

If you do somehow catch up with me, the odds are very high that I'll be flying my Cobra III, and will just boost-dodge-high-wake if interdicted. I won't know you're on a mission to get me, so I'll just assume you're a random attacker, and unless I have a lot of time to spare I won't come back with my FDL to see if you're still about.

And if I do come back with the FDL, I'm still not going to let you kill me. I'll either kill you, force you to flee, or high-wake if the fight looks unwinnable and I'm running out of SCB charges. So your mission will still be a failure even then.


The reason you've not been attacked by players is two-fold:
1) The galaxy is big enough that in most systems there aren't any other players, at least not at the same time.
2) More importantly, the player base is generally not the aggressive sort that will attack even if they do see you - the vast majority of players who received one of these mission offers would ignore it, just as 99.9% of the players who see me in game don't attack me.
As FrogsFriend says, if you want to see some attacks, move so one end of your trade route is Deciat. You need to go where the attackers are if you want to meet them.


As far as encouraging PvP and giving it a reason to exist in game goes, I'm all for that. But any proposal I think needs to meet three requirements to be a success:

1) It needs to attract sufficient players to both "sides" that there's a virtual certainty that someone on the other side shows up, at the same time, in the same place, on the same platform, expecting a fight. This probably also requires having a very small number of "flashpoint" locations - the bubble as a whole is far too big for this compared with the size of the player base.

2) It needs for there to be more reward for fighting and losing than for not showing up in the first place. If you can deal with being outgunned by working on a different objective where the attackers aren't, that's not going to attract much PvP. But on the other hand, if you only show up and fight and lose every time, that's not sustainable either in terms of morale - so there ideally also needs to be some broader medium-term incentive to join the losing side that's higher than the incentive to join the winning side ... while also not encouraging regular defections and side-swaps to take advantage of that incentive.
(Conversely, "your opponent flees" needs to count as just as much a win as "your opponent explodes")

3) Deliberately signing up to the other side, then deliberately losing fights, should not harm the side you signed up to, and should not benefit the side you're really on more than they would have benefited from them showing up to an unopposed battlefield. Signing up to a side then shooting at your own team during a fight should, again, not help you or the team you're really supporting.

I don't have a good idea for how to implement all of that - and presumably if Frontier did, they'd have replaced Powerplay with it by now. The second point is especially tricky, and most of the obvious ways to implement it break the third point instead.
 

Morbad

Morbad
While I think the game's setting should more fully integrate, and be more proactive with regards to, CMDR activities, I don't at all like mechanisms suggested in the OP.
 

Krieger

Krieger
In open world games like Elite players can't force other players into anything. Ian Doncaster explained that very well in his post. That's why in Elite it is unavoidable that players have to indicate explicitly that they want to take part in some kind of multiplayer activity (an opt-in). Then the game can set up the activity (combat or otherwise) and bring the two sides together and deal with things like matchmaking, instancing, etc (that's why wing/multicrew invites, wing mission sharing, etc. exist).

TBH I don't understand why Elite still hasn't got a mechanism that lets players set up PvP engagements. The game could then also keep the score and declare a winner (think complex wing/squadron fights) and feed the results into the BGS or Powerplay.
 

Tzeff [NL]

Tzeff [NL]
FrogsFriend said:
If you hang around in any of the Engineer systems for long, or at Community Goals (once they start up again) then you'll get attacked by as many random players as you could wish for.
Click to expand...

I don't want to do that just for PvP

Velixar said:
Your topic a epic fail. Players DON'T want to be forced into something they don't want to play. This game is about blazing YOUR own trails. Not forced into playing someone else game. I have to say no.

Why don't you post on the forum. I am unbeatable and the star location. Bring it on. You can't beat me.
Click to expand...

If players don't want to do it, it's their choice!

RolloTreadway said:
The third word of your title is the problem. After that, everything else is irrelevant.

A system like you say could be feasible if players could enter it voluntary, putting their name forward for a pvp attack. But that's probably handled a whole lot better by groups. So no point.

Other players are not your content (unless they want to be).
Click to expand...

You don't like the "third word"? How about this word:"encourage"?

Krieger said:
In open world games like Elite players can't force other players into anything. Ian Doncaster explained that very well in his post. That's why in Elite it is unavoidable that players have to indicate explicitly that they want to take part in some kind of multiplayer activity (an opt-in). Then the game can set up the activity (combat or otherwise) and bring the two sides together and deal with things like matchmaking, instancing, etc (that's why wing/multicrew invites, wing mission sharing, etc. exist).

TBH I don't understand why Elite still hasn't got a mechanism that lets players set up PvP engagements. The game could then also keep the score and declare a winner (think complex wing/squadron fights) and feed the results into the BGS or Powerplay.
Click to expand...

Okay, I think the word "force" is wrong here. but I'm certain if ENCOURAGE was used instead, it won't affect your opinion...
 

Krieger

Krieger
Tzeff [NL] said:
Okay, I think the word "force" is wrong here. but I'm certain if ENCOURAGE was used instead, it won't affect your opinion...
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It's a better word but indeed it won't change my opinion. My experience is that the vast majority of Elite players are not interested in hunting other players or being hunted by other players. They will sidestep any attack once they have developed the skills for it. To encourage PvP in Elite it must offer something that more players are interested in (progression, territory, credits, mats?). An opt-in system would still be needed though.
 

Jaggid Edje

Jaggid Edje
Krieger said:
It's a better word but indeed it won't change my opinion. My experience is that the vast majority of Elite players are not interested in hunting other players or being hunted by other players. They will sidestep any attack once they have developed the skills for it. To encourage PvP in Elite it must offer something that more players are interested in (progression, territory, credits, mats?). An opt-in system would still be needed though.
Click to expand...

This, so much this. I am not a particularly competitive person, so the current state of PvP in this game means I won't bother with it. I get pretty much no personal satisfaction just from winning a battle and ED currently has nothing else to motivate me to fight other commanders.

I've played FPS Shooters, where there is no "progression" and enjoyed them, but in all cases the gameplay involved teamwork and objectives (things like Capture the flag, Tower Defense, etc.) and not just straight up Deathmatch. There HAS to be a motivation for me to do something before I will engage in the activity in a game. Right now, ED has nothing at all in that regard for PvP. I'm a pretty ordinary gamer, so if I feel that way, a chunk of the player base feels the same.
 

lenna

lenna
Tzeff [NL] said:
Adding it now!
Click to expand...
Your idea lacks merit IMO - Wing or no wing there is no good reason to either "ENCOURAGE" or "FORCE" players to engage in PvP. In addition, points 3 and 8 are in fundamental conflict and point 8 does not allow an opt out for the target - c/f what Rober Maynard was getting at.

I see no justification to artificially "increase" PvP like you seem to want it to - you want PvP focused gameplay, that is what CQC is for.
 
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