Killstealing NPCs and the 10 second rule
- Thread starter Tar Stone
- Start date
Personal attacks aside, I respectfully disagree with this.
Sometimes, realism in a game allows us to do things we might not be able to do IRL. Flight sims are a good example. The more realistic, the better. This game is somewhat of a space sim, albeit not at a level like DCS or MS FSX, etc. I guess it all depends on your idea of "fun" and what the game dev is trying to do.
True, I didn't just tag that Cobra once in the recording. I'm happy to record something to order, but I don't need to be goaded into it. Just ask.
The system is indeed working as intended. If a player and an NPC bounty hunter are both shooting at a WANTED target when it pops, the player is guaranteed the bounty, because they are a player. My case against this Ten Second Rule is that I dislike getting special treatment in the galaxy. It makes me feel like The Chosen One... as opposed to a mere pilot, who expects no favours from the powers that be.
I'm one of those "in between" types. Realism is a great foundation to give you something to base the game off of. But there comes a point where if you go to hardcore realistic, you start to alienate too many players. While catoring to the hardcore crowd was fine back in the Commodore 64 days when games had smaller budgets and were only played by a few of us outcasts, that was fine and dandy. In today's world, you just have to make concessions in order to make back your budget.
No disrespect intended to you. I'm just sick of people making generalizations about "special snowflakes" and "mental kids".
Frankly, I think it's better than last-hit-claims-all, but not by a lot. The current system allows ridiculous cheese like using turrets near a Farragut to get credit for the battlecruiser's kills, and it still allows NPCs to killsteal anacondas and pythons that die from module damage, so your best bounties can be stolen by a crummy ship that made virtually no contribution to the fight.
What I'd like to see is one of the two approaches:
1. Winner-claims-all:
When an NPC dies, determine if it was by hull or module damage, and determine which attackers are present. If by hull, award the credit to the attacker that dealt the most hull damage. If by module damage, award the credit to the attacker that dealt the most damage to that specific module.
2. Pro Rata:
When an NPC dies, determine if it was by hull or module damage, and determine which attackers are present. If by hull, divide the credit among all attackers who dealt at least 10% hull damage, proportional to the amount of hull damage dealt. If by module damage, divide the credit among all attackers who dealt at least 10% damage to that module, proportional to the amount of module damage dealt.
What I'd like to see is one of the two approaches:
1. Winner-claims-all:
When an NPC dies, determine if it was by hull or module damage, and determine which attackers are present. If by hull, award the credit to the attacker that dealt the most hull damage. If by module damage, award the credit to the attacker that dealt the most damage to that specific module.
2. Pro Rata:
When an NPC dies, determine if it was by hull or module damage, and determine which attackers are present. If by hull, divide the credit among all attackers who dealt at least 10% hull damage, proportional to the amount of hull damage dealt. If by module damage, divide the credit among all attackers who dealt at least 10% damage to that module, proportional to the amount of module damage dealt.
Again, we're the Pilot's federation, they are not. We're special.
My point remains: If you want the bounty guaranteed, you need to take the target down to a few percent, because you can't trust the NPCs to reliably take out the rest within 10 seconds. If you were to stop shooting at around 30%, you'd probably lose most bounties. So outside of the gamistic argument of "we shouldn't receive special treatment just because we pay FD for the game while they bots don't", you can at best discuss at which percentage you start gaming the system at up until what percentage the system is just doing what it is supposed to do.
If you want to enjoy the beauty of having your kills sniped from you, I suggest you participate in the Tanmark CG, in Open play.
I myself would heavily favor a total damage comparison instead of this last hit nonsense, but the current system clearly is superior to having taken down a bounty from fully shielded to 5%, then having it sniped by an NPC with his only hit in the fight.
Last edited:
Tar Stone
Banned
NPCs should then turn on a player federation ship joining the combat. Or stop firing.
It makes no sense to me.
The only thing that makes sense (to me) and addresses killstealing is to award a percentage of the bounty based on percentage of hull damage dealt.
Full bounty if you are lucky or skilled enough to pop it with module damage, eg power plant.
This resolves NPC killstealing, is simple, allows you to pick a fight by judging damage already dealt, rewards skill, rewards damage, and isn't arbitrary.
Thoughts?
So does the system we already have. Dev time can be spent better on other areas.
Those can be remarkably exciting.
Last edited:
Tar Stone
Banned
Current system is arbitrary
Doesn't reward damage dealt
Doesn't reward skill by targeting subsystems
Thanks for your feedback.
Anyone else want to comment?
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Award a percentage of the bounty based on percentage of hull damage dealt.
Full bounty if you are lucky or skilled enough to pop it with module damage, eg power plant.
This resolves NPC killstealing, is simple, allows you to pick a fight by judging damage already dealt, rewards skill, rewards damage, and isn't arbitrary.
I personally don't care at all about how this might be unrealistic etc. It just feels 100x better to play both while hunting pirates or fighting at conflict zone, because what the 10 second rule does is effective remove what could just as well have been a dice roll whether you get rewarded for your work or not. And I could not care less whether some players try to just shoot the target once and let NPCs finish it - so what? If they have fun like that, let them do it. I have fun shooting and chasing a target to death, and I greatly prefer that to be consistently rewarded.
Well, the current system also means anaconda and python kills will often still be stolen by NPCs, because the 10 second rule only applies if the target dies of hull damage. If the target dies from module damage, it's still last hit only - so you can take out 99% of the Anaconda's power plant, and have a lucky NPC steal your kill with a chance blow.
dogfight is teamwork, last hit = take it all is stupid.
The bounty no problem you can only see your part of the bounty. Or how you know thats your bounty is the full bounty? ;-)
Most damage is nonsens, a bullet catcher has no bounty or what is: One shoot the shields down, because than he fly back to reload his own shields, and the next one make the hull/subsystem damage and so repeat?
most damage take the bounty? than most ships can delete, only Pythons and Anas. will stay. Really?
With Dreadnaughts or any Cap.Ships to defeat you perhaps needs Viper to destroy rocket launcher/laser but this never will be the big Point damage for the kill.
The bounty no problem you can only see your part of the bounty. Or how you know thats your bounty is the full bounty? ;-)
Most damage is nonsens, a bullet catcher has no bounty or what is: One shoot the shields down, because than he fly back to reload his own shields, and the next one make the hull/subsystem damage and so repeat?
most damage take the bounty? than most ships can delete, only Pythons and Anas. will stay. Really?
With Dreadnaughts or any Cap.Ships to defeat you perhaps needs Viper to destroy rocket launcher/laser but this never will be the big Point damage for the kill.