Karma vs PvP Piracy

[Zambrick]

I know, it's like this genius somehow forgets that that's what even the NPC's do... the same NPC's that Fdev created, (the creators of this magical karma system that will make elite as dangerous as a bag o kittens)... don't hand over cargo, get murdered, universal pirate behaviour.

This genius knows that NPCs have a set cap of non PVP modded ships. You can also drop cargo to NPCs and they stop. That is never the case when dealing with you children. This genius knows you are adults acting like children getting their toys taken away and are crying about it. Murder is not a universal pirate behavior. Its a Murderers behavior.

What cartoon version of Piracy do you want? Clearly you dont want a single thing grounded in any sense of plausibility.

Hows this for reality and or your enjoyment. One of, if not, the most notorious of Pirates in all of history by the name of Blackbeard isnt what you are trying to sell.

He wasnt a pirate for years and years and he only ever killed when trying to defend himself. Funny enough Robert Maynard killed Blackbeard after being his own ships captain for less than the span of 1 year. All of the ships he took over he left it up to the crew if they would accept him as their captain. If they did, they got a cut of the money. Otherwise he would let them off. So dont run around calling yourselves Pirates, because you most certainly are not. Pirates had risks and they eventually stopped to live off their spoils. You dont, so you are not a pirate.

Your hair brained idea of murder=piracy doesnt even stand up to human history. So if you want to live in a candy land of fakery and , then Sea of Thieves will soon be released and you can go play in your cartoon tom and jerry version of piracy there. In the meantime pucker up because you are getting this karma system if you want it or not. It is only by your actions that its even required. Had you instead actually put your time and effort into making an actual working crime system with missions for pirates and gameplay created around it, then this would be a non issue.

Calling the game as dangerous as a bag of kittens is laughable. It already is. There is nothing dangerous about Elite dangerous. You lose nothing accept for time and fake money. When you can guarantee that you will die if you choose to play in open, then what is the danger. Its only a matter of when it will happen, not if. That is not dangerous that is inevitability.

You want danger, how about you put your ships, and credits where your mouths are? If you are not willing to risk anything in this game, then it will never be dangerous. So give it up. You are neither clever or rightous in your feeble attempts at fake RP. We all know you are just a worthless murder hobo. Accept your role and move on. If not, then you can quit the game, nobody here needs or wants your cartoon version of a game universe.

 

[Zambrick]

Which is all well and good, but you need to give pirates suitable tools to extract cargo if thats the case, because in the case if lucrative large scale robberies, the threat of violence is all the pirate has on their side. If the other side know they cant follow through for karma sysyen based reasons, theyll LOL and thrust away.

Fix the murder hobos first. So we can actually get a growing player base again.

Then when that is fixed flesh out the crime system.

Allow criminals to drop out of the Pilots Fed. Allow Pirates access to take ships and sell them, provide mission types for them. Create actual pirate vessels. Create special weapon types for criminals only. Set up a ranking system within the concept of Piracy and criminal smuggling. Introduce a real notoriety system. Create the profesion of Criminal.

All of that and more can be driven off of a working karma/tracking system. Without that system in place, then becoming a pirate will be just as boring as it is now. "Hello, I am RPing being a Pirate, can you give me stuff please?"

 

[Gunnet]

It may well be that a Powerplay wide exemption is the right answer.

A PP-wide exemption from karma seems quite incompatible with Frontier's apparent desire to draw players into open. Any player who wishes to fully participate in the "living galaxy" while being unable to fly a high-end PvP ship at all times would effectively be forced into private groups or solo. Newer players in particular (by which I mean anybody with less than several hundred hours of playtime) would be completely unable to participate in open.

The current PP NPCs provide a good model for healthy PP combat. Where actively engaging in a PP activity makes the player a target for attack by enemies of appropriate strength, but a PP pledge neither dominates all their playtime nor throws totally unbeatable ships at them.

 

[jasonbarron]

A PP-wide exemption from karma seems quite incompatible with Frontier's apparent desire to draw players into open. Any player who wishes to fully participate in the "living galaxy" while being unable to fly a high-end PvP ship at all times would effectively be forced into private groups or solo. Newer players in particular (by which I mean anybody with less than several hundred hours of playtime) would be completely unable to participate in open.

The current PP NPCs provide a good model for healthy PP combat. Where actively engaging in a PP activity makes the player a target for attack by enemies of appropriate strength, but a PP pledge neither dominates all their playtime nor throws totally unbeatable ships at them.

Could this be the first sign that Fdev is not trying to create a de facto nanny state with their c&P system? Personally, I think exempting PP pledges only makes sense. Why shouldn't I be able to attack and destroy a ship aligned with a rival power?

 

[Ozram]

A PP-wide exemption from karma seems quite incompatible with Frontier's apparent desire to draw players into open. Any player who wishes to fully participate in the "living galaxy" while being unable to fly a high-end PvP ship at all times would effectively be forced into private groups or solo. Newer players in particular (by which I mean anybody with less than several hundred hours of playtime) would be completely unable to participate in open.

The current PP NPCs provide a good model for healthy PP combat. Where actively engaging in a PP activity makes the player a target for attack by enemies of appropriate strength, but a PP pledge neither dominates all their playtime nor throws totally unbeatable ships at them.

Sorry but that is simply untrue. I fly solely in Open and much of the time in ships made for things other than pvp. Turning Open into a �� park will hurt the game more in the long term than any pk ever has, because without the challenge it's simply boring. PP alignment exemptions is fantastic. Why shouldn't you mind where you're going and who the ships around you are aligned to? Many people are not even aligned to a power in the first place. It creates an opt in within Open. Frankly, I worry these changes run the risk of going too far in the "may as well be Möbius" category.

 

[Gunnet]

Could this be the first sign that Fdev is not trying to create a de facto nanny state with their c&P system? Personally, I think exempting PP pledges only makes sense. Why shouldn't I be able to attack and destroy a ship aligned with a rival power?

I think the public discussions Sandro has had on the topic is a good sign that they're trying to strike a balance.

I outlined some of the reasons I think powerplay PvP needs to be subject to a degree of regulation in the post you quoted. If you can attack and destroy any ship aligned with a rival power at any time, it limits participation in open PP to a minority of players who are always willing to be targetted by other players, up to and including gank wings killing, say, a harmless Hauler.

If open is going to be a shared space for all playstyles and the galaxy is going to belong to all players, there needs to be consideration in PP towards newer players and those who get involved for its RP and PvE aspects.

 

[Riverside]

I think the public discussions Sandro has had on the topic is a good sign that they're trying to strike a balance.

I outlined some of the reasons I think powerplay PvP needs to be subject to a degree of regulation in the post you quoted. If you can attack and destroy any ship aligned with a rival power at any time, it limits participation in open PP to a minority of players who are always willing to be targetted by other players, up to and including gank wings killing, say, a harmless Hauler.

If open is going to be a shared space for all playstyles and the galaxy is going to belong to all players, there needs to be consideration in PP towards newer players and those who get involved for its RP and PvE aspects.

That Harmless Hauler may be trade Elite & an Admiral

I agree that some sort of limit would be sensible, but I don't PowerPlay precisely because I don't want a target on my back, as Ozram implies. I don't know enough about PP to contribute more than that though.

 

[Cosmos]

Not the same as "murderers", apparently.

Pilots Federation members never get murdered, they instead jettison in the escape pod. Last time I checked murder requires people to die.

 

[Ozram]

Pilots Federation members never get murdered, they instead jettison in the escape pod. Last time I checked murder requires people to die.

The poor NPC crew will die...



But yes, in the end, we keep saying PKs and murderes, when really we're talking about vandalism. There's no "pod" killing in Elite.
Frankly I wonder how bad my Karma will get. I don't attack harmless traders or go in looking for wanton player ship destruction, but I do have my peeves. I'll attack a clean player who steals my kill at the last moment if I think I can destroy their ship (and deny them that booty) and I keep names of pad hogs so I can run down their ships after. I've also taken a liking to piracy.
I do this and I don't sidewinder kill or put myself in front of their lasers so they get wanted before I attack. I accept repercussions and I think now we are discussing how to manage those I am even more tempted to commit player on player violence (specifically because there will be repercussions). If those get too heavy though, then it's oddly out of tune with the rest of the game. As I mentioned before, we are in a galaxy where a parking infraction gets a death �� warrant. We run slaves and commit state sanctioned mass murders.
FD, you're doing the right thing looking at C&P actively. It's been a long time coming. Just remember to keep the galaxy dangerous. Discriminate heavily between where the crimes are committed. Tier it down from high sec to anarchy. Do what you are proposing, because it sounds awesome, but don't do it with the thought of morals and punishing players. Create consequences and close loopholes for commanders. I'd rather feel it's my pilot and his actions that bring about repercussions and not that my behaviour as a computer game enthusiast is being punished by developers who feel I am being morally questionable.

 

[Riverside]

Pilots Federation members never get murdered, they instead jettison in the escape pod. Last time I checked murder requires people to die.

Doesn't the PF pay out on our insurance claims? Presumably they don't for NPCs. So having one PF member pop another PF member's ship isn't good for business.

 

[Ozram]

Doesn't the PF pay out on our insurance claims? Presumably they don't for NPCs. So having one PF member pop another PF member's ship isn't good for business.

Indeed. It should be a vandalism warrant.

In the real world, often a bank robber will get a worst penalty when caught then a murderer.

 

[StarfireIX]

Hello Commanders!

With regards to Powerplay and karma: our initial thoughts are that it's likely that karma will not track valid Powerplay engagements as that system is overtly consensual player versus player, and not initially available to new starters.

Thank you so much for this! As much as I enjoy PvP, I would've hated to get a global bounty just for the sake of defending my power. Can you guys also look into BGS as well? There seems to be a lot of PvP in Conflict Zones. Although, this may be tricky if you need to defend your own faction from underminers so you have to destroy them anywhere in the system. I'd imagine this could be avoided by pledging to your own faction, so it registers as a valid kill. And will this global bounty effect players with their "crimes off"?


Many Thanks!


CMDR StarfireIX
Legate of Lavigny's Legion

 

[Cosmos]

The poor NPC crew will die...



But yes, in the end, we keep saying PKs and murderes, when really we're talking about vandalism. There's no "pod" killing in Elite.
Frankly I wonder how bad my Karma will get. I don't attack harmless traders or go in looking for wanton player ship destruction, but I do have my peeves. I'll attack a clean player who steals my kill at the last moment if I think I can destroy their ship (and deny them that booty) and I keep names of pad hogs so I can run down their ships after. I've also taken a liking to piracy.
I do this and I don't sidewinder kill or put myself in front of their lasers so they get wanted before I attack. I accept repercussions and I think now we are discussing how to manage those I am even more tempted to commit player on player violence (specifically because there will be repercussions). If those get too heavy though, then it's oddly out of tune with the rest of the game. As I mentioned before, we are in a galaxy where a parking infraction gets a death �� warrant. We run slaves and commit state sanctioned mass murders.
FD, you're doing the right thing looking at C&P actively. It's been a long time coming. Just remember to keep the galaxy dangerous. Discriminate heavily between where the crimes are committed. Tier it down from high sec to anarchy. Do what you are proposing, because it sounds awesome, but don't do it with the thought of morals and punishing players. Create consequences and close loopholes for commanders. I'd rather feel it's my pilot and his actions that bring about repercussions and not that my behaviour as a computer game enthusiast is being punished by developers who feel I am being morally questionable.

Yeah reading between the lines it does come off as 'lets punish and blame the customer for not playing the game 'right' - even though we told them they have infinite freedom to blaze their own trail.

Its odd how things work out. It used to be called being good or skilled at a game, now they call it griefing..

 

[flyauburn41]

Hello Commanders!

Just to add, there's no way we're going to make piracy obsolete. Pirates in Elite Dangerous want to steal booty, not sink ships, so there's a clear distinction already to work with That's not to say that piracy is perfect - hopefully there are some changes that will improve agency, reward and equity for both parties, but that's not really the remit of karma.

On the other hand, pirates that go on to destroy their victims are not (though they might fulfil historical criteria) what we class as pirates in Elite Dangerous, which does potentially fall into the remit of karma.

Not what you class as pirates? In what context did the pirate go on to kill their 'victim'? It's a ROBBERY not a negotiation. What happens when someone doesn't give up the loot to a robber in RL? That's right, nothing good. It has nothing to do with being historically accurate Sandro, and everything to do with the fact that a pirate's threat needs real teeth otherwise it's no good.

Many CMDRs have stated "The Code will only kill if you run or don't comply" because they know this to be true. Why? Because we make good on our threats.

I feel this was an irresponsible statement from you as the Lead Designer. Do you speak for everyone at Frontier? Did you consider the implications of such a statement? Are you saying that you don't classify CMDRs that will kill when their mark refuses to surrender the booty as 'real pirates'?

 

[Moritasgus]

I'll start by saying one of the most fun MMO experiences I've had was in Ultima Online (before they put in a pve world) and seeing the red name of a PKr appear at the side of the screen indicating they had found you.
That was in a time when you lost everything except your character stats and what you had in the bank each death. The adrenaline was amazing and you played conservatively to make sure if you did get caught you didn't lose everything.
It also contained real consequences for the PKrs not the half baked WoW stuff, as a murderer you could't go to towns as the guards would actually kill you and you had to resort to living in the wilderness.

Back to present day.... I've always felt the problem with legitimate piracy play is the ability to identify players and single them out. The hollow marker was a bad idea from the start to make the world feel less empty and devoid of real players.
This leads to a situation where non-aggressive playstyles feel victimised by players trawling systems looking for other players. If i'm playing as cattle (a trader) i should be able to blend in with the herd to avoid the lion.
This then moves to the second problem, NPCs not providing enough of an 'experience' and acting in the same way players do (spawning at the star and predominantly moving to stations).

While i think piracy should be a career with consequences and would quite happily see pirates resigned to anarchy systems like the PKrs of old, i can't help think that improving PvE piracy would cut down on a lot of the "i'm getting ganked" complaints.

TLDR
Remove the differentiation between players and NPCs, remove the bandwidth meter from being a tool for player spotting (still have it in some debug menu), improve piracy experience in a PvE setting.
See most of the complaints disappear.

 

[Gunnet]

remove the bandwidth meter from being a tool for player spotting (still have it in some debug menu)

As much as I agree in principle, this is another of those more or less insurmountable peer-to-peer things. There are far more effective ways to see your connections to other players than the bandwidth meter.

 

[kofeyh]

One of the problems frontier is going to face, is the concept of 'motive', which is literally impossible to programatically do. Frontier mean well, but I am pretty comfortable with the notion that the system being suggested, will absolutely make piracy virtually impossible in all but the most narrow of circumstances, without being the actual stick it's supposed to be. It will create a competition, with bounties that will be capped because people will complain about profit potential. Which will, essentially, make the PF bounties ineffective.

How do you discern the difference between a pirate and a PKer, if the outcome the game has to contend with is [1 contact lost]; if that's your context, one ship is lost, whilst not wanted, then who is at fault? The guy/ gal shooting obviously? Okay. But were they a pirate, or was it simply a short-sharp gank? The game doesn't know. In exactly the same way that the game doesn't know 'who' is the at-fault party in a ship collision at high speeds. Because it can't know motive.

Ergo, the game has to have some way to simplistically track basic 'motive'. So I think, honestly, before Frontier introduce 'the stick' they need to work out 'carrot'. This equates to two fundamental things:

- actual UI for performing, and responding to a heist
- in game tools to locate repeat offenders for bounty claim

We have a basic UI now, for passengers demanding goods (because they are literally pirates, because they expect you to provide the goods free of charge) so could this not be extended to throwing the same thing for piracy? Send a demand for goods. When the player, or AI is successfully interdicted (since we might as well make this a universal change for all) then another demand can be sent for the goods amount.

The AI can randomly respond, and the players, well they can make a decision with a whole lot less confusion. Because I think it's reasonable to understand that the vast-majority of traders will interchange piracy and ganking as the same thing. This changes the dynamic because now it's actually got some basic parameters associated. And it's using the same mechanics as other tasks such as missions and this creates a consistent outcome.

Now, this is going to need some tweaking, it's going to need some factors that the karma system considers; for example, the UI won't allow piracy if certain modules are not fitted, if the player demands someone submit for piracy reasons, sends them to Valhalla and then immediately wakes out, and does this repeatedly, then they haven't collected any loot, so this creates a big karma hit. This does tend to encourage the pirate to exhaust all means of extraction, before taking the ultimate response; if it's a sliding scale (so more kills equals faster karma loss) then pirates are far less impacted. For example.

I also think if a player elects to submit to accept the demand for goods, and accepts the request, then some of the costs like full mission loss need to be changed (as an offset for throwing cargo overboard); not electing to comply after the fact, really doesn't need anything because they have elected more risk instead. However this is done, it will require some sort of in-game function so the game can more reliably track motive.

If there is a UI, this could then tie into missions, so complying with a request means the mission does not fail but instead changes the payout (since when does a wholesaler turn away an entire order, because 5 out of 100 items are missing, for example? Who even does this? That's never made any sense to me at all). This is just, to my mind, a bit of common sense here.

By giving the mechanics context? Suddenly it's a lot easier to apportion blame, or to reward/ balance others.

Lastly? I strongly believe very negative karma should result in considerable bounties. Bearing in mind this now means some AI may be worth a packet, so cruising SC, hunting for bounties, or new in-game ways for commanders to get APBs for those that are quite notorious (AI and Commander alike, this really needs to be a global thing) may be far more effective than simply farming res sites. It also means the very best PVP gankers will have a real challenge to gain & retain mammoth bounties, that a lot of commanders will want to come collect.

Capping the PF bounty, if it comes to that, 100% will make it just as ineffectual as the existing bounty system. Let's try to learn from that mistake, to make the stick actually mean something.

 

[Schmack]

The question of how piracy could fit in with the proposed 'karma' system has come up a few times recently, I'd like to see if we can come up with a solution.

PvP Piracy is obviously illegal according to the in-universe laws (lets call this 'lore') but positively encouraged by the game itself (the 'game') because it can be a lot of fun for both participants if done well.

So for example, I think killing the victim after cargo has been dropped could become a karma flag, but I can see flaws in that rule.

What rules do you think a karma system could use that would differentiate 'proper' pirate behaviour from ganking dressed up as piracy?

Please explain how PvP piracy is encouraged by the game itself. I get it that NPC pirates exist, for a reason, and you are often warned of them ahead of time (hostile ships will be sent against you) and you know there are random mid level pirates about the system that will attempt to interdict you from time to time. How does that encourage real players to become pirates? Do the NPC pirates accept you into the fold? Are there any missions that require you to pirate real players?

It seems to me that people who insist on player vs player exchanges will find a reason to do so. Piracy is just one of those borderline role playing/ganking activities that allows a player to gank players otherwise minding their own business, and do so under the guise of emergent gameplay.

I have never seen a game related aspect that even hints that PvP piracy is encouraged. Please enlighten me. (honestly, I've been wrong plenty so I'd be happy to know).

 

[Schmack]

But to take a different angle, the commodities aren't what they used to be, not for me anyhow. Still, I can make 5 or 6 million for a one way, very short run (one jump) with biowaste because of delivery missions. So a pirate interdicts me and wants biowaste? It's basically worthless to him, since he doesn't get mission credits for delivering it. I can see delivery missions starting to increase in many systems I visit. So much so that I don't really even look at the commodities boards any more. When I can get 10K per ton pure profit on biowaste, no commodity that I can move in bulk is going to come close. Even then, the "haulage" cargo can't be stolen anyhow, correct? So now you have a ship full of haulage that cannot be stolen, but is set to make the carrier a lot of money. Why not just kill the carrier?

Otherwise I don't care how they punish gankers. If I ever accidentally gank someone, I'll pay the price.

 

[Ozram]

But to take a different angle, the commodities aren't what they used to be, not for me anyhow. Still, I can make 5 or 6 million for a one way, very short run (one jump) with biowaste because of delivery missions. So a pirate interdicts me and wants biowaste? It's basically worthless to him, since he doesn't get mission credits for delivering it. I can see delivery missions starting to increase in many systems I visit. So much so that I don't really even look at the commodities boards any more. When I can get 10K per ton pure profit on biowaste, no commodity that I can move in bulk is going to come close. Even then, the "haulage" cargo can't be stolen anyhow, correct? So now you have a ship full of haulage that cannot be stolen, but is set to make the carrier a lot of money. Why not just kill the carrier?

Otherwise I don't care how they punish gankers. If I ever accidentally gank someone, I'll pay the price.

The extraordinary pay for hauling "biowaste" is baffling.