Disclaimer, I'm a BGS murder machine. Did you know I'm utterly insane? I like to dissect security as I return my videotapes.
Disclaimer 2: the beta BGS state features may partly sort this out (being snarky the beta was far too short to see them in action).
Disclaimer 3: I'm presently a bit tipsy and attacking a rather excellent cheseboard, so I may be a bit on the rambling side today.
Anyway:
In my view, the BGS is weighted far too much in favour of positive actions. To me the reason why everywhere I go is happy, secure etc is that missions and trade are like a flood that push the sliders too hard upward. It makes the galaxy look unrealistic generally (since it makes the 'default' everywhere 'the best').
This positive push is caused by:
Easy missions (I'd love to see stats on how many missions are failed- it seems BGS players only fail them, and thats intentionally done).
Easy trade (i.e. general piracy levels are negligible and have little impact on players).
ED has some very well developed tools that make profit almost guaranteed.
(Going by the BGS matrix Dav posted on his livestream), possible positive actions outnumber ways to negative actions (I exclude random states).
Murder influence being toned down significantly over the last updates.
Admission: I don't like the concept 'surprise' BGS effects which pop up- pirate attack, the upcoming infrastructure etc. Admittedly its hard to judge because we have experienced them for only a few days, but I personally prefer direct influences that trigger direct responses (with variation to maintain unpredictability).
My idea (or rather plea for a spreadsheet tweak) is to make murder much more potent, while also making punishments and obstacles for murder much harsher. In essence its an effective tool that comes with a tremendous price. (Other negative actions like smuggling would be balanced well if drop distances were expanded (so you really have to smuggle).
For examples of making the crime and punishment work better on criminals check these out:
forums.frontier.co.uk
forums.frontier.co.uk
forums.frontier.co.uk
What this would do:
Currently murder and assault requires a huge level of grind, with flat security responses that are easy to circumvent. This is boring, and leads to stale gameplay very quickly- the 'S' curve of murder is out of whack compared to smuggling in that its a slog.
What I propose is to make murder / assault a much more focused affair- i.e. the daily player curve is much tighter (requiring less kills to top out your quota) and that murder has much more influence in exchange for increased issues and problems for that player to overcome. Done right BGS murder would become self limiting (i.e. at the top of the BGS murder curve security response is knife edge scary requiring pin sharp awareness and thus slower) but also much more rewarding since you have to be constantly aware of threats to continue.
Random ideas / observations / issues:
Assaults: currently there is a minor exploit where assaulting (but not killing) is used instead of murder. An assault is worth roughly 1/4 of a murder but does not trigger notoriety or ATR. To me an assault should count towards notoriety even if its only slightly (otherwise this penalizes pirates indirectly). Therefore I suggest every assault is worth 1/4 (0.25) of a notoriety point (which means the notoriety value needs decimals). This would stop people cheesing the system as eventually they would enter the C + P system rather than skate around it. This also clears up some other exploits too.
Unlawful interdiction should be counted as an assault with the above 0.25 notoriety rather than be a fine.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but ignoring a security order to drop down (issued by military and police forces in surpercruise) should incur a large fine, and /or temporarily increase your ships 'conspicuousness' value if you are docking (i.e. you are more likely to be scanned since you evaded the law). There should also be flavour text if this happens, like an all points bulletin "be on the lookout for a possible fugitive in [ship x]" type thing to give some zing to it.
Security waves: Currently police are like Pringles, as once you pop you just don't stop. Each wave is almost identical and boring. What I suggest:
Ditch the differing responses between civilian and security response wings.
Wave 1: light, nimble panda cars like Eagles and Viper Mk 3 (NOT wings- single ships to slow harvesting low end ships).
Wave 2: tankier ships like Viper MK4 and Vultures in wings of 3 (the bread and butter)
Wave 3: spec Ops level Vultures (single)
Wave 4: spec ops ships with larger vessels (Python)
Wave 5: elite Police commander in a high end Anaconda (with SLF/ and or spec ops vulture
Lockdown: (unless its changed recently) ALL security response is Spec ops level with Fed / Imperial / Alliance specific elite captain ships sprinkled in.
This can be attenuated by security level- i.e. low sec / poor systems delay advanced ships responding (i.e. more of low end ship waves rather than better equipped security ships. This does not change ATR).
At max notoriety after each 'real space' murder spree & return to supercruise (i.e. low wake) you trigger a massive security wave scramble (i.e. one vary large (6- 8) wing) of mid to high end security who are dispersed in supercruise and are actively looking for you. This would be in addition to my idea for a scan (at notoriety 10) that triggers an ATR ship popping in. Each time you low wake the wing refreshes and spawns sec vessels all over the system (near major POis like stations, haz res/ megaships etc). If you high wake the search is called off (since its triggered by killing). However remember 1 scan would still bring ATR coming whereever you go at notoriety 10). Another variation is that the manhunt wing size is reflected in your notoriety rating- so five kills = wing of 5, notoriety 10 = max size.
Together what this would do is be like a manhunt, with you having to evade security interdiction (slowing / complicating killing) plus if they catch / drop you it forces you to kill them since a scan = ATR. See it as an escalation: the more you kill the more they look for you- forcing you to be ever more ruthless (and ever more skillful) to keep up the BGS murder but done in a fair gameplay enhancing way.
STOP STOP STOP ATR resetting when you jump out when they are triggered. Just stop it please because they are currently nothing more than an inconvenience. This cannot be done in isolation however and this change has to be with the rest of these ideas to work (otherwise it makes BGS murder impossible- i.e. imposes a hard cap).
Please remove the silly rescue POI USS. It makes no sense, is inconsistent and random (and very, very exploitable). Instead make it a mission where you know where to go, what to take. This avoids the ship changing every time you drop into that POI, and works with the instancing rather than against it.
Do sanity checks for NPC rescue ships because:
1: I am fully fueled, I do not need help.
2: I will kill them (since they are coming to me! Its like accepting a dinner invite with Hannibal Lecter).
Does it honestly look like I need fuel?
3: Make this some sort of perk related to allied status to make it mean something.
To close, this is a plea to make unlawful killing actually a proper part of ED- a pathway in the game that has become sanitized, compartmentalized and so damn predictable it needs a firm, skill based kick up the bum to make it interesting again. The BGS is far too stable, encouraging gardening and almost mindless expansion. To me, the default should be instability and disorder.
Take a bit of advice from the Joker:
After all, this is Elite Dangerous- Its not a happy place. If anything, it should be true to this:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever,”
Disclaimer 2: the beta BGS state features may partly sort this out (being snarky the beta was far too short to see them in action).
Disclaimer 3: I'm presently a bit tipsy and attacking a rather excellent cheseboard, so I may be a bit on the rambling side today.
Anyway:
In my view, the BGS is weighted far too much in favour of positive actions. To me the reason why everywhere I go is happy, secure etc is that missions and trade are like a flood that push the sliders too hard upward. It makes the galaxy look unrealistic generally (since it makes the 'default' everywhere 'the best').
This positive push is caused by:
Easy missions (I'd love to see stats on how many missions are failed- it seems BGS players only fail them, and thats intentionally done).
Easy trade (i.e. general piracy levels are negligible and have little impact on players).
ED has some very well developed tools that make profit almost guaranteed.
(Going by the BGS matrix Dav posted on his livestream), possible positive actions outnumber ways to negative actions (I exclude random states).
Murder influence being toned down significantly over the last updates.
Admission: I don't like the concept 'surprise' BGS effects which pop up- pirate attack, the upcoming infrastructure etc. Admittedly its hard to judge because we have experienced them for only a few days, but I personally prefer direct influences that trigger direct responses (with variation to maintain unpredictability).
My idea (or rather plea for a spreadsheet tweak) is to make murder much more potent, while also making punishments and obstacles for murder much harsher. In essence its an effective tool that comes with a tremendous price. (Other negative actions like smuggling would be balanced well if drop distances were expanded (so you really have to smuggle).
For examples of making the crime and punishment work better on criminals check these out:
At notoriety 10, each full NPC / player scan spawns an ATR vessel
A half though out idea, but: If a player is at notoriety 10, they have to be very careful about being scanned by random ships, security or other players as if they are, an ATR security vessel drops in to hassle them. The handwavium being that a scan is like a sighting of you thats disseminated...
Some C + P suggestions, tweaks and ideas (part 2)
Some ideas: Security response times are based on the attack position in that system. So, security response in close proximity to stations, traffic corridors etc are much quicker (and practically instantaneous in high sec close to traffic lanes) than in deep space. This logically simulates how...
Revert no fire zone / drop distances to stations to pre gamma(?) distances and other C + P tweaks
Currently its far too easy to never see an NPC opponent from missions. Commanders drop far too close to stations and enter the no fire zone (NFZ) almost instantly, making any NPC bounty hunter or pirate instantly fly off (making them redundant). A distance like 20Km (or perhaps shrink the NFZ...
What this would do:
Currently murder and assault requires a huge level of grind, with flat security responses that are easy to circumvent. This is boring, and leads to stale gameplay very quickly- the 'S' curve of murder is out of whack compared to smuggling in that its a slog.
What I propose is to make murder / assault a much more focused affair- i.e. the daily player curve is much tighter (requiring less kills to top out your quota) and that murder has much more influence in exchange for increased issues and problems for that player to overcome. Done right BGS murder would become self limiting (i.e. at the top of the BGS murder curve security response is knife edge scary requiring pin sharp awareness and thus slower) but also much more rewarding since you have to be constantly aware of threats to continue.
Random ideas / observations / issues:
Assaults: currently there is a minor exploit where assaulting (but not killing) is used instead of murder. An assault is worth roughly 1/4 of a murder but does not trigger notoriety or ATR. To me an assault should count towards notoriety even if its only slightly (otherwise this penalizes pirates indirectly). Therefore I suggest every assault is worth 1/4 (0.25) of a notoriety point (which means the notoriety value needs decimals). This would stop people cheesing the system as eventually they would enter the C + P system rather than skate around it. This also clears up some other exploits too.
Unlawful interdiction should be counted as an assault with the above 0.25 notoriety rather than be a fine.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but ignoring a security order to drop down (issued by military and police forces in surpercruise) should incur a large fine, and /or temporarily increase your ships 'conspicuousness' value if you are docking (i.e. you are more likely to be scanned since you evaded the law). There should also be flavour text if this happens, like an all points bulletin "be on the lookout for a possible fugitive in [ship x]" type thing to give some zing to it.
Security waves: Currently police are like Pringles, as once you pop you just don't stop. Each wave is almost identical and boring. What I suggest:
Ditch the differing responses between civilian and security response wings.
Wave 1: light, nimble panda cars like Eagles and Viper Mk 3 (NOT wings- single ships to slow harvesting low end ships).
Wave 2: tankier ships like Viper MK4 and Vultures in wings of 3 (the bread and butter)
Wave 3: spec Ops level Vultures (single)
Wave 4: spec ops ships with larger vessels (Python)
Wave 5: elite Police commander in a high end Anaconda (with SLF/ and or spec ops vulture
Lockdown: (unless its changed recently) ALL security response is Spec ops level with Fed / Imperial / Alliance specific elite captain ships sprinkled in.
This can be attenuated by security level- i.e. low sec / poor systems delay advanced ships responding (i.e. more of low end ship waves rather than better equipped security ships. This does not change ATR).
At max notoriety after each 'real space' murder spree & return to supercruise (i.e. low wake) you trigger a massive security wave scramble (i.e. one vary large (6- 8) wing) of mid to high end security who are dispersed in supercruise and are actively looking for you. This would be in addition to my idea for a scan (at notoriety 10) that triggers an ATR ship popping in. Each time you low wake the wing refreshes and spawns sec vessels all over the system (near major POis like stations, haz res/ megaships etc). If you high wake the search is called off (since its triggered by killing). However remember 1 scan would still bring ATR coming whereever you go at notoriety 10). Another variation is that the manhunt wing size is reflected in your notoriety rating- so five kills = wing of 5, notoriety 10 = max size.
Together what this would do is be like a manhunt, with you having to evade security interdiction (slowing / complicating killing) plus if they catch / drop you it forces you to kill them since a scan = ATR. See it as an escalation: the more you kill the more they look for you- forcing you to be ever more ruthless (and ever more skillful) to keep up the BGS murder but done in a fair gameplay enhancing way.
STOP STOP STOP ATR resetting when you jump out when they are triggered. Just stop it please because they are currently nothing more than an inconvenience. This cannot be done in isolation however and this change has to be with the rest of these ideas to work (otherwise it makes BGS murder impossible- i.e. imposes a hard cap).
Please remove the silly rescue POI USS. It makes no sense, is inconsistent and random (and very, very exploitable). Instead make it a mission where you know where to go, what to take. This avoids the ship changing every time you drop into that POI, and works with the instancing rather than against it.
Do sanity checks for NPC rescue ships because:
1: I am fully fueled, I do not need help.
2: I will kill them (since they are coming to me! Its like accepting a dinner invite with Hannibal Lecter).
Does it honestly look like I need fuel?
3: Make this some sort of perk related to allied status to make it mean something.
To close, this is a plea to make unlawful killing actually a proper part of ED- a pathway in the game that has become sanitized, compartmentalized and so damn predictable it needs a firm, skill based kick up the bum to make it interesting again. The BGS is far too stable, encouraging gardening and almost mindless expansion. To me, the default should be instability and disorder.
Take a bit of advice from the Joker:
After all, this is Elite Dangerous- Its not a happy place. If anything, it should be true to this:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever,”