This is what you get for "fixing" something that wasn't "broken".
Proposal Discussion Kill Warrant Scanner Feedback
- Thread starter Sandro Sammarco
- Start date
I would prefer that the KWS had a dedicated button so I would start using it again. Ever since I have had to have it on a separate fire group to my main guns it barely is used anymore as its too much of a hassle to swap fire groups and lose my guns mid fight just to scan someone. Until it becomes more useful I dont even care what it does.
Ohhh come on. Cut the obvious drama. They are quite easy to explain.
It is quite clear that new changes are disruptive. If you want to know how flying tables look like, read forums every time any new release (NOT beta) drops.
KWS will reveal dominant faction and aligned power bounties. I don't see it more complex than before.
Does it take something away you like? It might be.
But let's not attack C&P because it is more complex. It is not.
Fast KWS engineering makes it take 2 seconds for a scan.
Put it on the same fire group as your guns. It'll scan before the target is dead. (don't shoot until the passive scan is done and you see "Wanted")
The normal setup is to have the KWS on another group that you swap too after each group and scan then flip back (fractions of a second with proper controller setup), this has an advantage of also avoiding accidently firing too soon on a target, and is effectivly a "safety" even when your hardpoints are deployed. Somthing I've found useful over the years anyway...
I can see the changes having a significant impact on the background sim.
Take the proposed amended changes whereby say bounties are generated for all the factions that are signed up members of the controlling factions parent superpower.
This has the potential to turn systems into sterile homogeneous zones where factions not connected to the relevant superpower are shot into insignificance by players bounty hunting in res sites.
As an example take this made up system, Ill call it Samarco, its made up of the following factions.
Church of the space loach, Federation aligned controlling faction
Beige cowboy traders federation
Dont panic independents
No eta no guarantees Alliance
Naughty boiz anarchy.
Because the controlling faction is fed, the independents and alliance would gain nothing from bounty hunters, hence bgs players can manipulate the system easily by going into that system and just killing wanted npcs. The none fed factions could quickly find their system influence status reduced to single figure percentages, thereby forcing them to lose stations. The fed factions would conversely have an effective monopoly.
This situation would be further affected by powerplay as that also favours certain faction types.
I think that we could be replacing the legacy C&P murder exploit whereby commanders could easily cause lockdowns by killing cops and innocent npc's with one whereby the worm is turned and now its bounty hunters wiping out factions that dont follow their chosen superpower.
Personally hope you can do some internal modelling on test servers to see how this could affect the BGS.
Take the proposed amended changes whereby say bounties are generated for all the factions that are signed up members of the controlling factions parent superpower.
This has the potential to turn systems into sterile homogeneous zones where factions not connected to the relevant superpower are shot into insignificance by players bounty hunting in res sites.
As an example take this made up system, Ill call it Samarco, its made up of the following factions.
Church of the space loach, Federation aligned controlling faction
Beige cowboy traders federation
Dont panic independents
No eta no guarantees Alliance
Naughty boiz anarchy.
Because the controlling faction is fed, the independents and alliance would gain nothing from bounty hunters, hence bgs players can manipulate the system easily by going into that system and just killing wanted npcs. The none fed factions could quickly find their system influence status reduced to single figure percentages, thereby forcing them to lose stations. The fed factions would conversely have an effective monopoly.
This situation would be further affected by powerplay as that also favours certain faction types.
I think that we could be replacing the legacy C&P murder exploit whereby commanders could easily cause lockdowns by killing cops and innocent npc's with one whereby the worm is turned and now its bounty hunters wiping out factions that dont follow their chosen superpower.
Personally hope you can do some internal modelling on test servers to see how this could affect the BGS.
I still feel like the KWS (and all other utility mount scanners) should probably just work passively with the ships regular scan, this would both buff RES-farming a bit (something that should be closer to competitive to other credit earning methods) and it would make PvP bounty hunting a lot more viable. Since there's only two fire groups and due to submitting + high-waking being so powerful you'd have to worry a lot less about your target getting away.
Plus it'd streamline the general scanning experience by making it simpler, smoother and quicker. I understand that scanners at the moment have an in-build downside (the time and firegroup it takes to scan) but I believe that for combat builds the sheer fact that it eats a utility slot should already be a good enough downside. (that and the time current downsides don't really enhance the gameplay and decision making in a fun and engaging way)
>This freedom to attack will expire once the target leaves the location, via supercruise, hyperspace jump or the like.
I believe that the target jumping into supercruise could cause some confusion. I think that it'd be a lot clearer if the scan would count for as long as the target stays within the same system, either that or you'd have to create some on-screen feedback when the target jumps to supercruise maybe some red text stating "Kill Warrant Scan link broken" or something.
Plus it'd streamline the general scanning experience by making it simpler, smoother and quicker. I understand that scanners at the moment have an in-build downside (the time and firegroup it takes to scan) but I believe that for combat builds the sheer fact that it eats a utility slot should already be a good enough downside. (that and the time current downsides don't really enhance the gameplay and decision making in a fun and engaging way)
>This freedom to attack will expire once the target leaves the location, via supercruise, hyperspace jump or the like.
I believe that the target jumping into supercruise could cause some confusion. I think that it'd be a lot clearer if the scan would count for as long as the target stays within the same system, either that or you'd have to create some on-screen feedback when the target jumps to supercruise maybe some red text stating "Kill Warrant Scan link broken" or something.
If you are going to neuter the KWS in this way, then you need to drop the insane amount of power the things consume, lower the purchase price of them radically. Now I don't mean make them use 9% of my power instead of 11% - I mean a KWS should consume 2% of my power!
And if you are going to ruin the thing using this method, then you need to raise the bounties on NPCs by a very considerable margin, so that Bounty Hunting is a valid choice for pilots as a source of income.
It boggles my mind, when FDev show their face in their own forums and they do not make sensible or reasonable offers to offset the ridiculous drop to bounty hunting incomes their latest changes will make. We don't give a flying fig about how the KWS works - WHAT WE CARE ABOUT IS CREDITS!
And if you are going to ruin the thing using this method, then you need to raise the bounties on NPCs by a very considerable margin, so that Bounty Hunting is a valid choice for pilots as a source of income.
It boggles my mind, when FDev show their face in their own forums and they do not make sensible or reasonable offers to offset the ridiculous drop to bounty hunting incomes their latest changes will make. We don't give a flying fig about how the KWS works - WHAT WE CARE ABOUT IS CREDITS!
No. The goal was to make C&P make more sense. The KWS was fallout from that due to how player bounties are collected. And .. those are collected such that all applicable bounties are collected on, in the system where the player is killed. This includes all local bounties and all empire or fed or alliance bounties.
These recent proposals are to redress the change from the C&P change mentioned above, they're not for the specific purpose of changing the KWS.
Correct. So, there is no point in going to the Nav Beacon, etc, anymore.
Even if you only KWS ships that interdict you, you will lose rep with the faction of the interdicting ship. So, why even bother carrying one?
This is a blatant nerf to PvE. Mr. Captain's Log (Gennar) may be completely correct about this (PS: He's better than Frontier is).
I have 5 fire groups on my corvette, in order to use the KWS I have to cycle through 5 fire groups for every ship, its ridiculous. I need at least 2 buttons for main guns or ill drain my capacitor too quickly.
4 fire groups on my FDL, same problem. I havent used my KWS since I moved out of my Vulture.
4 fire groups on my FDL, same problem. I havent used my KWS since I moved out of my Vulture.
I think you are misunderstanding us.
To, as purely a PvE player, me the KWS serves two purposes:
* Get a bigger payment for the kill.
* Get bounties from all the other, non-jurisdiction-owning factions, to gain reputation.
When I got to a system hunting pirate NPCs, I almost always do so with the express purpose of raising my standing with all the legal factions in that system, to allied (becoming hostile to the local crime syndicate in the process). Money used to be an issue, but as you know at some point a player may have all their ships and gear and does not need the extra money that much, but things like reputation still matter a lot.
Limiting the KWS's effect on reputation gains to only same-superpower faction or just the 1 highest bounty cripples this function. I would say if it would detect the highest secondary bounty (i.e. in addition to the bounty you would get without KWS from the local jurisdiction), and if NPCs were made to have all their additional bounties consolidated into a single secondary bounty from a randomly chosen local faction, then over time this effect would even out and the KWS would, over a large number of collected bounties, function the same as before with regards to both reputation and money.
But ultimately, what prevents us from making the KWS behave different against NPCs than against players? Use the new system on players, the old on NPCs. It is not like some of the game's rule apply in different ways already anyway.
Correct. So, there is no point in going to the Nav Beacon, etc, anymore.
Even if you only KWS ships that interdict you, you will lose rep with the faction of the interdicting ship. So, why even bother carrying one?
This is a blatant nerf to PvE. Mr. Captain's Log (Gennar) may be completely correct about this (PS: He's better than Frontier is).
I call this effect Magical Reputation Armor, because it effectively protects the NPC from player retaliation (or initiative attack) if the NPC belongs to a faction the player is working on improving their standing with. If you care about the reputation, what this means is that whether a ship is wanted is only half of the part that determines whether to shoot at it *at all*, the other is whether it belongs to a genuine criminal faction, or the local jurisdiction (because that means they are wanted by their own faction and thus, you lose no rep for the kill).
Not just stop reputation loss, but enable actual reputation gain. Now that would be an interesting feature however: what if the KWS makes it so you don't lose reputation with the target faction regardless whether their own faction has a bounty on them, with the only exception being genuine criminal factions, which of course should always hate you for attacking their ships because they don't want to uphold the law in the first place. This would defeat the aforementioned Magical Reputation Armor effect and, to me, personally, make it 100% worthwhile to use regardless what kind of or amount of extra bounties it may draw up.
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Turjan: In politics, what Frontier is doing now is called "backpedaling".
They realize they have taken something away, they have enraged a part of the playerbase, and are desperately trying to justify it, and hand out minor goodies to compensate for the condolence telegrams from the Defense Department...
"The Defense Department regrets to inform you that your loved one is dead because *we* were stupid..."
its offtopic, but if you mod a C-grade KWS with grade 3 or 4 "fast scan", you can just group it into your weapon groups.
you scan your target as you kill it. unlike years ago, re-starting the scan wont reset the result anymore
Hi Sandro. Tangential to the KWS matter, but on topic for this post.
Have you considered the beta feedback, from Vindelanos & myself, regarding both increasing base bounties, as well as applying multipliers for system security level & repeat offences? This would help to make criminal gameplay more meaningful, as it would be much more expensive to clean bounties, even after all your notoriety has disappeared. It would also help Bounty Hunters by keeping it as a more lucrative career-as I suspect NPC bounties would need to be increased accordingly.
Lastly, please consider retaining the 25% mark-up for cleaning bounties at IF. These guys are very shady characters.....if not outright criminal.....so a mark up would be totally in keeping with their character.
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To prevent a PVP player stampede to the exits, as their pasts catch up with them. It would be effectively a clean save, and the PVP players would riot, then quit the game.
On your answer to point 4, one of the things I loved about Beta 3.0 testing was how my criminal commander was getting pursued by bounty hunters in jurisdictions outside where the crime was committed. Knowing those NPC's won't end up Wanted as a result makes it even *cooler* IMHO. Do I make a run for it, or do I stay & fight.....knowing it will make me wanted here too?!?!
.Thinking about this further, the easiest solution to preserve both the old ways of PvE bounty hunting and the new ways of only paying for some of the crimes immediately when you are the destroyed criminal yourself, why not make it so that the KWS reveals all bounties from all factions that have a presence in the current system, and only if there are none (i.e. an uninhabited system) go with the new method and pick the single highest bounty from anywhere.
This effectively means where you are caught matters which crimes you have to pay for. If you are wanted in a dozen systems spread all over the bubble, getting caught in one corner plausibly has no effect on your criminal status in a faraway system of all different factions. And if you go on a killing spree in a particular system, you will have to pay for all the crimes you committed in that specific system.
This would also nudge criminals towards not just sticking to one single place, but after their bounties there get too high, move somewhere else where they don't yet know about your criminal ways.
This effectively means where you are caught matters which crimes you have to pay for. If you are wanted in a dozen systems spread all over the bubble, getting caught in one corner plausibly has no effect on your criminal status in a faraway system of all different factions. And if you go on a killing spree in a particular system, you will have to pay for all the crimes you committed in that specific system.
This would also nudge criminals towards not just sticking to one single place, but after their bounties there get too high, move somewhere else where they don't yet know about your criminal ways.
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