Modes How to maybe solve one of the problems of pvp in open...

[Stealthie]

OP is pointless. If you fully specialize a ship towards assassination, and spend countless hours harvesting G5 mat/data and actually min-maxing the rolls, of course You should have a much efficient killing machine, albeit unable to fuel scoop, mining, scanning or jumping. Figures.

Also, people CAN escape aggression in Open, even as of now. Here's a (ironic, I know) guide:
1. Drop some cargo capacity for shields/hull.
2. Learn to submit, boost and highwake.
3. Don't gimp your whole fit, denying yourself survivability.
4. Since you're in Open, fly paranoid. Check contacts regularly.
5. You can even emergency drop from SuperCruise when the "new contact" ping appears.

Of course these aren't 100% effective. Not should they be, you're in Open, then balance your profits against your losses.


Efficient C&P / bounties is the way to go. Not, gimping ship specialization.

Have to agree with this.

Most games give you an opportunity to achieve god-like power at some point (super-weapons for a boss-fight, a powerful ship for an important mission or a fast car for a championship race etc) and that's fun while it lasts.
I understand that ED can't really do that for the sake of balance in PvP but it's still fun to build a Corvette that can crush every NPC in a HazRes or an FdL that can hunt down a pirate-lord in an Anaconda and destroy him with surgical efficiency.

It's the same sense of achievement you get from, say, building an exploration ship with a 60Ly jump-range or a trade-ship that can make you Cr5m per load or a mining ship that can get you 500t of Painite per hour.
And I don't like the idea of nerfing any of those possibilities just for the sake of even more "balance" - especially when there's absolutely no reasonable in-game explanation for why that's the case.

The real solution is to create a C&P system that actually forces people to think about the consequences of their actions.
Go ahead and build your flying death machine if you want to.
If you use it in a fairly lawful (or at least justifiable) way, there shouldn't be a problem.
If you use it for spacing newbies then that should inflict consequences on you that prevent you from continuing to do certain things while, at the same time, allowing you to do different things instead.
Basically, if you're doing criminal stuff, I'm afraid you're not going to be welcome in civilised systems but there would be other criminal opportunities open to you instead.

 

[Han_Zen]

I disagree. That would severly limit our possibilities when bulding a ship. For what logical reason can't I make my ship a hull tank and remove the shields?

You would still be able to remove the shield.
If you like PvP you should want as large a percentage as possible of ships in space to be PvP capable. As long as an optimal PvP ship is useless for most activities in the game, this will not happen and PvP will continue on it's current death spiral.

 

[Crank Larson]

None of that suggests the OPs assertion that there is a problem with Open is true.

That's because it isn't. The only people really complaining about Open are those who want more weak targets to destroy, or those who were a weak target. The second group usually learn quite quickly how to either avoid/escape others, or they change game mode so that they can continuing playing their game their way (sometimes after leaving a rant on the forum, but more often not, I would suspect). It's why Hotel California exists. The conversation will go on forever.

 

[sollisb]

The biggest problem with/in/for open is that most of the PvP is against much weaker targets. Targets that will never win against the PvP ship. And this form of PvP is being categorised(by pvp players) as 'Piracy'.

Piracy is perfectly fine. I've been ganked many times when I played in open. Mostly by wings. And never, ever, was I asked to drop cargo. I was basically interdicted, slaughtered. And then a msg.. 'git gud'

That is not PvP. That's some kids that can't do real PvP without their mates to back them up.

One time, in my mission python, I was interdicted by another Python (player). We fought, neither was winning or losing in fast fashion. Then I got a message. 'Didn't expect you to fight!'.. That's closer to PvP.

Having never experienced it; but, I assume, that Piracy would be something like.. 'Giz cargoz or diez'. At which point a decision has to be made.

The PvP community, if they wish to continue to exist... Need to git gud themselves in how to add longevity to the genre. Killing every non interested party will leave you all with nothing to PvP with. Wait.. That's exactly where you .. right?

 

[Aashenfox]

Have to agree with this.

Most games give you an opportunity to achieve god-like power at some point (super-weapons for a boss-fight, a powerful ship for an important mission or a fast car for a championship race etc) and that's fun while it lasts.
I understand that ED can't really do that for the sake of balance in PvP but it's still fun to build a Corvette that can crush every NPC in a HazRes or an FdL that can hunt down a pirate-lord in an Anaconda and destroy him with surgical efficiency.

It's the same sense of achievement you get from, say, building an exploration ship with a 60Ly jump-range or a trade-ship that can make you Cr5m per load or a mining ship that can get you 500t of Painite per hour.
And I don't like the idea of nerfing any of those possibilities just for the sake of even more "balance" - especially when there's absolutely no reasonable in-game explanation for why that's the case.

The real solution is to create a C&P system that actually forces people to think about the consequences of their actions.
Go ahead and build your flying death machine if you want to.
If you use it in a fairly lawful (or at least justifiable) way, there shouldn't be a problem.
If you use it for spacing newbies then that should inflict consequences on you that prevent you from continuing to do certain things while, at the same time, allowing you to do different things instead.
Basically, if you're doing criminal stuff, I'm afraid you're not going to be welcome in civilised systems but there would be other criminal opportunities open to you instead.

You still haven't understood the mechanics of what I'm talking about and neither had Eve4eva when he wrote that post. REad this....

Thanks for taking the time by the way. And writing such a considered post.

Take away 2 of the FAS's HRPs and you have taken a massive chunk of pure armor and a big chunk of resistance. They are no longer near impervious to pve weapons, a very important part of this.

A fat trade elephant can never stand and fight, being one resigns you to the brave sir robin playstyle. They are not factor in this equation, I would even probably give them a buff to their running away abilities if they asked me for one. Running around doing data missions and assassinations in a pve spec combat ship, you are going to get WRECKED when interdicted by someone specced for pvp, not carrying a disco scanner, or a fuel scoop, or a KWS or any cargo racks. Thats just silly. You're in an optimal pve ship for combat, but still the pvp ship has 50% better defense than you. That's all I'm saying. When military slots were added, if they had actually been the opposite, normal slots restricted, this problem wuld never have arisen. Too late now.

this...

They introduced military slots together with MRP (module reinforcement pack) and reducing weight of all HRPs by 50%. It was supposed to increase survivability of ships when shields fail, as this was tested together with stacking limits on shield boosters. But the shield booster changes didn't happen so we just ended up with all combat ships getting incredible hull strength with barely any downsides, while still having incredibly strong shields with barely any downsides.

And BTW the next round of proposed shield booster changes has resulted in much increased shield regeneration rates and, again, no change to shield strength.

So after 2 "balance" passes the gap between combat and non-combat ships is much bigger than it was and ships that were already indestructible got even stronger.

And this...changing just those two military slots (on the FAS for example) to foced NON-military slots and doing the same on other ships provides ALL the following benefits and no downsides except that you won't be literally invulnerable to everything except another ship specced like you any more, a bad thing?

* Means you can be optimal and still be able to do SEOMTHING other than kill players.
* Makes the loadout choice menaingful again because you won't be able to get 55% resistance to EVERYTHING, you'll have to choose a direction of specialization.
* Means that the difference betwen a PvE COMBAT spec ship and a PvP combat spec ship is no longer 50% in terms of defence just because the other person doesn't want to play the game, they just want to stack military modules so they know that anyone else not similarly specced is nothing but a victim, and kill players who don't ave a chance. How many advantages do they need in order to win?? More military modules, better engineering AND more skill? Couldn't we reduce ONE of those to make it a little more 'interesting'?
* With the resistances down, the PvP ships won't be completely impervious to PvE weapons. You won't be 'helpless' unless you use PAs and Rails or a specialised special effect build suddenly, this would be very nice.
* In open a combat fit ship's only option when faced by a pvper won't be just 'run away'
* The PvPers will have more content, they will still be better min maxed, they will still have more skill, they just won't have a 50% gear advantage, which is something they certainly shouldn't have over someone COMBAT specced who's running an assassination mission (and therefore probably has a disco scanner and fuel scoop)

And the most important thing of all. Are these PvPers saying they NEED a 50% afvantge to take out a pve specced combat ship? Couldn't they do it if both ships were forced to carry at least 2 non military modules? This will also dramatically increase the viable builds and go someway toward reducing the huge and unreasonable power creep. BEtter dimishing returns as stated by another poster would also help.

Elite PvP has a VERY VERY VERY high skill cap. PvPers who don't want to be able to be touched by anyone are basically cowards saying that if the playing field was more level they wouldn't be interested. That's the ones that actually understand impact of the proposal, most of them can't be bothered or lack the gumption it seems.

 

[Vasious]

On the contrary, YOU are the selfish one saying don't change my game for everyone's good, 'I' like it how it is.

Well your OP contains

I know if this was implemented, I would play in open from that moment on, it would FREE me to play in open and LOOK FORWARD to my next interdiction.
.

So it really does feel like all about you.

Is it really change the "status quo to make you look forward to interdiction" or call me selfish for not putting your enjoyment first?

By what do you claim making a change that benefits you but changes the game for me negatively is a better and non selfish choice by everyone over not changing the game, when there are people happy with the status quo?

Why is change the non selfish choice?

And why the deriding comments to anyone who disagrees with you

You only have to read the posts in this thread with your brain turned on instead of your "nobody could possibly ever have a better idea than me!" cap on.

Is it really necessary to say that, can you not cope with disagreement?
Where does that hostility come from

Am I not even allowed to dislike your ideas
It the only possible explanation for anyone disagreeing with you is that their brain isn't on
So anyone who isn't thinking exactly like you may as well be brain dead?

Have fun

 

[Stealthie]

You still haven't understood the mechanics of what I'm talking about and neither had Eve4eva when he wrote that post. REad this....

I've read all that stuff and I'd like to think I've understood it too. I just don't agree with it.

As I said, I don't like the idea of arbitrarily nerfing combat ships any more than I'd like the idea of arbitrarily preventing a ship from, say, carrying more than Cr2m of cargo or preventing a ship jumping more than 40Ly or preventing a ship from mining more than 50t of ore at once.

Unless you can come up with a reasonable explanation for why a ship shouldn't be capable of doing a thing then it should be up to the player to decide how single-minded and extreme their build is.

It should be up to other factors within the game to limit that stuff (assuming it's actually desirable to do so) in a plausible way.
If, for example, the likelihood of being attacked by pirates increased dramatically when you carry a lot of valuable cargo or ore that'd be a plausible way to deter people from carrying large amounts of valuable cargo.
If bad things happened when you tried to make >50Ly jumps then it might deter people from building ships with massive jump range.

And, by the same token, the way to deter people from "griefing" in their flying death-machines is to make that have serious consequences rather than simply not making it possible to build the ship at all, for reasons that aren't clear.

 

[Aashenfox]

Well your OP contains




So it really does feel like all about you.

Is it really change the "status quo to make you look forward to interdiction" or call me selfish for not putting your enjoyment first?

By what do you claim making a change that benefits you but changes the game for me negatively is a better and non selfish choice by everyone over not changing the game, when there are people happy with the status quo?

Why is change the non selfish choice?

And why the deriding comments to anyone who disagrees with you


Is it really necessary to say that, can you not cope with disagreement?
Where does that hostility come from

Am I not even allowed to dislike your ideas
It the only possible explanation for anyone disagreeing with you is that their brain isn't on
So anyone who isn't thinking exactly like you may as well be brain dead?

Have fun

I'm not hostile, I'm just passionate and repeating myself a lot. Of course you're allowed to dislike an idea, but you need to show you understand it, your concerns about my implementation show you haven't understood it, therefore your saying that this is all about me and trying to troll me into a personal disagreement is neither helpful nor relevant. This is about a dry mathematical mechanic of the game, not you OR me, as I said before. I want this for the good of Elite, I genuinely believe this would make the game better for the PvPers and their victims. I have only that motivation, and I CLEARLY understand the mechanics and implications of what I'm talking about. If you want to disagree, be my guest, disagree, but be able to articulate why without creating attributes that have nothing to do with the the proposal (the things you mentioned in your first post on the subject about the ships at the CG). I'm not trying to remove specialisation AT ALL, I have a ridiculous OP combat ship and I can sort of fly it, I have no problem playing the game as it is now, however, I think something that would encourage more people to 'play the game' in open, in a wider variety of ships because they knew they weren't going to get minced and humiliated without having a chance, and have the video posted on youtube, would be a 'good thing', no?

 

[Aashenfox]

I've read all that stuff and I'd like to think I've understood it too. I just don't agree with it.

As I said, I don't like the idea of arbitrarily nerfing combat ships any more than I'd like the idea of arbitrarily preventing a ship from, say, carrying more than Cr2m of cargo or preventing a ship jumping more than 40Ly or preventing a ship from mining more than 50t of ore at once.

Unless you can come up with a reasonable explanation for why a ship shouldn't be capable of doing a thing then it should be up to the player to decide how single-minded and extreme their build is.

It should be up to other factors within the game to limit that stuff (assuming it's actually desirable to do so) in a plausible way.
If, for example, the likelihood of being attacked by pirates increased dramatically when you carry a lot of valuable cargo or ore that'd be a plausible way to deter people from carrying large amounts of valuable cargo.
If bad things happened when you tried to make >50Ly jumps then it might deter people from building ships with massive jump range.

And, by the same token, the way to deter people from "griefing" in their flying death-machines is to make that have serious consequences rather than simply not making it possible to build the ship at all, for reasons that aren't clear.

Your first sentence shows you don't understand, it's not about nerfing combat ships, it's about making more combat ships and builds viable. It's not about making traders fighters or anything like htat.

Its not about restrictions, or rather it is, but in a reverse psychology kind of way, it's about REMOVING the RESTRICTION to have EVERY module a military item in order to be anything but lunch. If you understood the implications of the proposal, you would see at least that this is the goal, and you could then critique it on that level. Tell me in game mechanics why you disagree. I can think of a few holes that would need balancing that you can cite, that I would have a great trouble explaining how they would be fixed, but the goal is to get there and as I keep saying, simply level the playing field a little. Currenlty the choice is either run missions and CGs in solo, or accept that if you do get attacked by another player in anything but a perfectly min maxed ship, your only gameplay choice is run away or be slaughtered without a chance. That's just counter productive.

Do you think it's right that a ship can get 56% resistance to all types of normal attacks and no weapon is a counter to it except PAs and rails, which can only be used in cqc by the most skilled players? At least if they had to choose TWO resistances of the three (or a balanced but lower set of resistances), there would be someone that could damage them with a weapon other than rails and PAs, which you are currently RESTRICTED to using against these ships to be optimal (excepting various pure specialist builds like frags and mine bombers), due to either massive regen and shield resistances or huge armor and resistances. The dude who said about increasing diminishing returns is a guy who gets it. That would work too, make it hardly worth it to use the last two slots as military.

 

[Stealthie]

Currenlty the choice is either run missions and CGs in solo, or accept that if you do get attacked by another player in anything but a perfectly min maxed ship, your only gameplay choice is run away or be slaughtered without a chance. That's just counter productive.

I don't really see anything especially wrong with that TBH.

I'm struggling to think of a real-world comparison where a civilian vehicle, vessel or aircraft would be in a position to do anything other than run away when confronted by a militarized opponent.

 

[EvE4evah]

I'm hesitant to reply to this thread. The problem, imo, is the lack of balance. For "proper" PvP, the game needs to be more like OverWatch: No rebuys, similar power and defenses, so that it's a fair match. FD tried that with CQC, which was a good idea in principle, but completely missed the mark.

Overwatch is just the same. You can't really expect a Mercy to fight a Tracer. Actually OverWatch is harsher in that case, since a Mercy can't even escape from a Tracer. Unless she gets help from her team. Same applies to any Support character against an Attack character. Even most Tanks in that game won't be able to kill a similarly skilled Attacker. For example, a Zarya, a Reinhardt, an Orisa, will all be chewed by a Reaper.

 

[Crank Larson]

I'm hesitant to reply to this thread. The problem, imo, is the lack of balance. For "proper" PvP, the game needs to be more like OverWatch: No rebuys, similar power and defenses, so that it's a fair match. FD tried that with CQC, which was a good idea in principle, but completely missed the mark.

There is no way to balance PvP in the main game, for the very simple reason that has been pointed out many times, that a trader is simply cannon fodder for a combat ship. There is nothing wrong with this.

If people want balance, CQC is the environment for that. It missed the mark because FD never fixed the glaring issues with it (no chat in matchmaking, no big ships, and lots more). Personally, I think FD should spend some time fixing CQC and then announce that if anyone wants balanced PvP, that is where they should go. Trying to balance anything in the main game simply won't work.

EDIT: I should add that I've been getting into CQC recently. It really is good fun, and there seem to be enough people playing it at the moment that I can usually get a game.

 

[Aashenfox]

I don't really see anything especially wrong with that TBH.

I'm struggling to think of a real-world comparison where a civilian vehicle, vessel or aircraft would be in a position to do anything other than run away when confronted by a militarized opponent.

That's still not what I'm saying, and the reason you don't have an issue with that particular point is because you have no interest in the mechanics of the game as pertains pve/pvp, you're happy to stay in solo, which is fine. But a lot of people are always saying open is dead, everyone plays in pg or solo except the griefers, I know it's not exactly true (it's a mild exaggeration), but there's no smoke without fire, wouldn't it be nice to get a few more people out into open for a scrap?

 

[Stealthie]

That's still not what I'm saying.

Perhaps it is but you don't realise it?

 

[Aashenfox]

Perhaps it is but you don't realise it?

No, I am definitely not saying a ship not specced for combat should beat a ship specced for combat, have been since the first page, my proposal would not enable this.

 

[Crank Larson]

But a lot of people are always saying open is dead, everyone plays in pg or solo except the griefers, I know it's not exactly true (it's a mild exaggeration), but there's no smoke without fire, wouldn't it be nice to get a few more people out into open for a scrap?

What makes you think you'll persuade anyone who doesn't want a scrap to come into Open to have a scrap?

Your statement isn't true at all. It's not even a "mild exaggeration". Open is not dead, I've been playing in it around Maia all week (before the CG started) and have met many people. A handful of people may be saying that Open is dead, but they haven't provided any proof, and pretty much all of them have an ulterior motive (they want to shoot you). The rest of us just play the game, using whichever mode we want to. As designed.

 

[StevieG]

The biggest problem with/in/for open is that most of the PvP is against much weaker targets. Targets that will never win against the PvP ship. And this form of PvP is being categorised(by pvp players) as 'Piracy'.

Piracy is perfectly fine. I've been ganked many times when I played in open. Mostly by wings. And never, ever, was I asked to drop cargo. I was basically interdicted, slaughtered. And then a msg.. 'git gud'

That is not PvP. That's some kids that can't do real PvP without their mates to back them up.

One time, in my mission python, I was interdicted by another Python (player). We fought, neither was winning or losing in fast fashion. Then I got a message. 'Didn't expect you to fight!'.. That's closer to PvP.

Having never experienced it; but, I assume, that Piracy would be something like.. 'Giz cargoz or diez'. At which point a decision has to be made.

The PvP community, if they wish to continue to exist... Need to git gud themselves in how to add longevity to the genre. Killing every non interested party will leave you all with nothing to PvP with. Wait.. That's exactly where you .. right?

Yep totally agree.

 

[Kingston@#]

I don't see a problem with PVP. deal with it. life is not fair so why should gaming be. bla bla!

 

[Han_Zen]

I don't see a problem with PVP. deal with it. life is not fair so why should gaming be. bla bla!

There is a problem with PvP. It does not happen. In three years I have never been killed by or killed another player.

I'm possessive to PvP in prinsipal, but I don't go out of my way to find it. If it finds me(happens about every two months if I play in open), I will assess the strength of the opponent and act based on that.

So far this has resulted in zero fights. If ships were more evenly matched, I would probably engaged in a few fights. The ships that looks hard at me are usually 10 times stronger than mine, so I just leave. As they have zero ability to follow this works out fine, but it kils PvP in the long run.

To bad. It could have been fun.

 

[the100thmonkey]

One of the basic issues is that piracy just doesn't make any sense in the design philosophy - it's markedly less profitable than just trading, and the ships aren't sufficiently differentiated, especially with engineering. I think there's probably some mileage in locking ship class to module slot type, like the Orca with its cabin/cargo slots - no SCBs/HRPs/MRPs there. At the moment, the only ships with a clear role are small/medium combat ships and the T7. I mean, if I see an FdL or a Vulture, I know that it's not going to be worth its while pirating a T7, and can act accordingly. A Python though, you just can't tell - is it going to ignore you, blow you up or empty your cargo racks?

• Trade ships should have big shields but extremely limited offensive armaments.
• Pirate ships should be fast, have moderate offensive capabilities, and modules focussed on stealing cargo quickly. Hatch-breakers go through shields; they should work fast. In and out pronto, before the po-po in the combat ship shows up like.
• Combat ships should have extremely limited internal slots for any purpose apart from combat. Power should be an issue.
• Exploration vessels should...
• You get the picture.

If ships had a clear role, it would make sense to work on balancing the potential interactions between them. For instance something like an area effect FSD disruptor would be an offensive weapon, so should only be available for pirate/combat vessels. If it had a high power usage, this would make it unattractive for combat ships (although not impossible for them to fit; just impractical). Pirate ships, on the other hand, would have power to spare, and in conjunction with hatchbreakers (especially if they required some skill to operate effectively and to defend against, and there were negative consequences for failure) and collector limpets to grab the loot, the pirate gets their booty while the trader has some expectation that they will survive the encounter.

Just my thoughts on game "balance" - open has the rep it does because it's not balanced.