Multicrew trolling - it works!

[Sunleader]

Yesterday i've joined several ships, for bounty hunting and exploring.

Joining ships and just sitting there, doing nothing and get money for it, perfect for me.
If they ask why i'm not fighting, i said....oh i'm new to the game, need to figure out how everything works. (If they only would check my profile lol)

Now i found the option to deploy SCB's, which i did....oh nice, 3x cell banks.....enough to make the ship overheat.
The CMDR were slightly distracted and worried why all the SCB's are gone.
I said, obviously a bug *gggggg
Finally they figured it was me...but it was almost too late...they had to leave the haz res.

Found it more enjoyable instead of actually fighting.

I then tried to find some exploration vessels.....one were near Sag A.
Oh see, there are heatsinks to deploy.....the ASP CMDR hasn't realized it was me.
Another CMDR was even further away, heading to beagle point......and after my telepresence visit he lost all his heatsinks, i told him he need to restock and left.

What we have learned today?
Multicrew has flaws.....terrible flaws....which needs to be fixed. I might join some other ships today again, coz it was fun to troll innocent CMDR's.

Multicrew does not have Flaws.
Mutlicrew is a Flaw in itself.

Its useless, Bugged and not worth the Memory it takes up on my Harddrive.
Not going to use it even once.

Not as Crew and not as Pilot.
Because lets face it.
I can Earn 5 times as much by just Winging up with some Friends.
And aside from Combat there is no use for it anyways.

So why the heck would anyone even use Multi Crew in the First Place ????

 

[Agony_Aunt]

because the game actively encourages criminal behaviour;

Even as someone who pirates from time to time, i'm having trouble squaring this statement with the reality.

 

[Teldja]

Hello Commanders!

I just thought I'd drop my own two cents in here.

The concept of Multi-crew, at its core, is about cooperation, and trust. If folk are going to troll each other, there's a limit to how much protection we can (or should) put in place.

One of gunner's abilities is to be able to fire countermeasures. Gunner can be effective at this, poor at this, or deliberately bad. Anyone who would want to go down the last track is, in my opinion, someone I would not want to Multi-crew with, or wing with.

To some degree, folk have to take responsibility for their own actions. There's no mechanical upside to this unpleasant behaviour, so I see this as different from say, crime, because the game actively encourages criminal behaviour; when folk complain that the justice system is not fair enough, we say "OK", how can we address the balance and make it fairer.

Firing shield cells repeatedly for no good reason is just an unpleasant thing to do. And I'm fairly certain it is more likely to be detrimental to the community than helpful.

I agree with you to some extend, taking responsibilities of something implies that you can make a reasonable decision.
Trust is not something that everyone grant automatically to anyone, it is something that needs to be earned in the first place for most people.
So, please, would you consider adding the option for the Helm to fine tune what each crewmembers can or cannot have access to, for each relevant subsystem ?

That way, the Helm can truly act as the commander of his ship and put the amount of trust he sees fit, to each crew member, by granting them access to whatever part of his ship subsystems, he really wants/needs.

 

[Whitehair]

So why the heck would anyone even use Multi Crew in the First Place ????

I've tried it.
It's Fun.
In a game.
I know, Revolutionary thought, but Try having some Fun!

 

[K-Rose]

As you say, this really isn't about "gameplay", it's more about human behavior...

Years ago, I read an article about trolling, it was during the time online gaming was still a relatively new concept. The article was talking about how people underestimate the capacity and ability for people to troll. The writer cited a possible online version of The Sims as a great example of this (this was before there was any online functionality in that game). In the writers envisioned version of this game, there would be no possibility for conflict as that is not what the game is about. Further still, as the characters talk in emotes, there would be no way to be hostile to another player...yet he cited there would still always be people that will want to troll others. He said, all he would do if he wanted to troll would be to go visit another persons house, and simply stand outside the window looking in for hours at a time. It's simple, but would be effective trolling. Without tools for players to control their own property (in the example here, if a player cannot prevent others from entering their grounds), then trolling is 100% certain to occur.

This is exactly what is now happening in Elite, and the gates have been opened wide to unending trolling. During beta people were joining a ship and then opening the guns on a station to get the ship destroyed, or they would launch a fighter to do the same. They were joining ships in RES sites and attacking the cops to cause trouble, or joining in Conflict Zones and attacking the friendlies.

That this isn't good for the community, goes without saying. Isn't it Frontier's job as a game maker to ensure all players have the necessary tools to have effective control over their environment to prevent these things? Whilst a player can disable their Heat Sinks, or disable their guns - doing so also prevents the ship owner for using these things. To me, that seems extremely ineffective.

I honestly don't feel this is a gameplay issue at all, but rather a "gaming environment" issue, and sometimes players need tools in order to manage how others can treat their property...

Listen to this man please FD, he speaks sense!

We need the tools to do the job, and you know what, those tools will actually go a little way to adding more "depth" to the game. Allowing us to feel like we have some control over our ship & what's going on when we take Crew onboard our ship.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

And this is why the 'Block player' feature was added...

You can't block a troll before you know they are a troll, and once they have burned up your ship and used up your heat sinks it's all a little bit too late.

 

[JonLuis69]

People like the OP just want to break things. I hope you get banned. And I say that with as much glee as you wrote your OP.

 

[wenkman]

i just imagined: the player owning the ship just does rights-management to control what the others do.

since he can't pilot and do rights-management another player plays pilot.

so the host-player is the effective "captian", just issuing commands, not participating in the real action...

 

[JetsonRING]

Yesterday i've joined several ships, for bounty hunting and exploring.

Joining ships and just sitting there, doing nothing and get money for it, perfect for me.
If they ask why i'm not fighting, i said....oh i'm new to the game, need to figure out how everything works. (If they only would check my profile lol)

Now i found the option to deploy SCB's, which i did....oh nice, 3x cell banks.....enough to make the ship overheat.
The CMDR were slightly distracted and worried why all the SCB's are gone.
I said, obviously a bug *gggggg
Finally they figured it was me...but it was almost too late...they had to leave the haz res.

Found it more enjoyable instead of actually fighting.

I then tried to find some exploration vessels.....one were near Sag A.
Oh see, there are heatsinks to deploy.....the ASP CMDR hasn't realized it was me.
Another CMDR was even further away, heading to beagle point......and after my telepresence visit he lost all his heatsinks, i told him he need to restock and left.

What we have learned today?
Multicrew has flaws.....terrible flaws....which needs to be fixed. I might join some other ships today again, coz it was fun to troll innocent CMDR's.

Sort of slow, isn't he?

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

You can't block a troll before you know they are a troll, and once they have burned up your ship and used up your heat sinks it's all a little bit too late.

I wish there was a way to open your ship like you can now..... but only to those on your friends list.

Say I open my ship to friends.... when my friends look at their friends tab, they will see a little blue multicrew symbol next to my name, and then have the option to join...

That way you can have the, "hey I'm open" function of multicrew but advertised to people you trust.


I suggest this because there is no group chat in the game so if you wanted currently for a friend to join you, you have to direct message spam them one by one...

 

[Pyrotiger]

You can't block a troll before you know they are a troll, and once they have burned up your ship and used up your heat sinks it's all a little bit too late.

You know this too well. I'm watching you Obsidian...still watching you...

It could be worse. They could steal the emergency chocolate from the glove compartment.

 

[Darth Krayt]

I'm a bit far away from any station to test this myself (no fighter bay equipped) but am curious about what kind of mischief a crew member in a fighter can get up to?
The scenario is an Exploraconda with minimum shields (usually powered off unless I'm landing on a planet) and no weapons. No SCBs or heat sinks either in case the OP gets any ideas.

 

[Minoo Minou]

When you change your weapons loadout you get a pop-up message reminding you to configure your fire-groups.

How about, when somebody enables MC, having a similar pop-up message reminding people to disable anything they don't want a crewmember to have access to?

The game sure lacks information regardless new features; I spend some free time crewing with people to explain them all this (keeping full control of the ship).

And a lot of them don't know anything about that.

 

[K-NINE]

I'm a bit far away from any station to test this myself (no fighter bay equipped) but am curious about what kind of mischief a crew member in a fighter can get up to?
The scenario is an Exploraconda with minimum shields (usually powered off unless I'm landing on a planet) and no weapons. No SCBs or heat sinks either in case the OP gets any ideas.

If you're unfortunate to have an a***hole like the OP in one your fighters, they'd just turn it on you and ram you once their lasers had overheated.
If they destroy themselves in the process, they can just switch to a new fighter (unless, of course, you've got the presence of mind to disable the fighter bay before they can do that.)

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I'm a bit far away from any station to test this myself (no fighter bay equipped) but am curious about what kind of mischief a crew member in a fighter can get up to?
The scenario is an Exploraconda with minimum shields (usually powered off unless I'm landing on a planet) and no weapons. No SCBs or heat sinks either in case the OP gets any ideas.

Well, you can get up to mischief in your fighter even without multicrew.

Currently fighters do not get trespass warnings or timers, so you can park your ship 29km out fly into a station with fighter, and squat on top of a pad for as long as you want

and the speed police works with the fighters too, you can disable your shields on your fighter, then suicide the fighter onto another ship and they get tagged as being a killer (Tested this in beta, not in live... but if the trespass thing made it to live, I'm sure this is too)

 

[Conch]

i hope the OP keeps playing on her childish xbox..

 

[Lightspeed]

I am wondering if a Reputation system would help. Get a positive rep from a Commander and your rep score goes up. Negative rep increasing is a warning. A bit like on E-bay, which was intended to reduce troll-like bidding with no intention of paying.

Difficult for a newbie to get going, with no rep., but that's Elite's playing experience in general.

In short, the lower the rep. the greater the risk of taking that commander on board. But a look at their combat level might balance that: a player who is Harmless with low positive rep. would probably indicate an innocent newbie. A player with high rank and a lot of negative rep would indicate a warning.

In this way, the rep system would help the game police itself against MC trolling.

 

[TERMINATRIXXX]

Um, yes there is. Its on the dashboard. So I go to your profile, hit the one phrase "Block and Report". This will block your GT entirely from my XBox, AND send a troll report to Microsoft who can then, if they receive enough reports (and this can be arranged), kill your GT, AND the XBox you play from from XBox Live altogether.

Be VERY careful who you anger on XBox Live as there are some extremely vindictive people out there who can and will get your accounts and the XBox you use Banned. As well as your IP address blocked on XBox Live. Just a warning - I did this once to a COD kiddie who thought it would be fun to troll me. He only did it once(to me at least), but a friend of his later messaged me saying his account and XBox had been banned. I know all the wrong people. They don't even play the games I do.

Playing on Xbox quite a few years now, never have been blocked or banned. IP Ban doesn't help much - Dynamic IP playing via VPN anyway. He was talking about the ingame blocking feature btw.

I'm sure there is more than one post around here asking for the helm to be in control of SCS's etc, but as for the OP..even tho I may not condone your actions I do see the valid point of showing FD the error of their ways.

That and it made me laugh. [big grin]

Thank you

Hello Commander Lightspeed!

We're looking at some updates to the crime system at the moment, hopefully for the next full update (no ETAs, no guaratees!), specifically with regards to Pilot Federation bounties and ways to limit "sidewinder switch" crimes.

Before you building a new crime system, ask me. I tell you what the community need and what not. Seriously.

You could have done some serious testing for multi-crew bugs with a friend. So, yes I learned a lot actually - Some people:
1. can't have fun without spoiling someone else's fun.
2. like to brag.
3. rationalise poor manners by pretending they're helping the dev's.

Testing with friends is fake. Only live counts, the true enviroment. I don't spoil anyones fun, it's part of the game to join MC lobbies and commit crimes - accept that

Just give Helm the choice of what the gunner can and cannot have access to on their ship, and the community will be able to take responsibility.

Leave it as is (with no choice what so ever) and that poor Explorer 20,000 light years from the bubble who gets all his SCB's heat-sinks launched from a troll (as per the OP) - will never EVER open his ship up to multi-crew Exploring again.

Probably he will think about before inviting randoms next time.....assuming he will not using multicrew anymore is just rubbish

The only flaw is letting vindictive people, intent on spoling game play for others, join your crew.....

Perfectly legit to commit crimes.

Yes. Please remove telepresence from the game.

NOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Kyokushin]

i am curious.. its possible to use self destruct from a crew seat? or turn off engines/shields at least?

(i am asking cus i am a new player and still learning)

 

[GraXXoR]

Hi Sandro

I hope that this is a full on C&P update and not the bare minimum that is needed. A full on C&P update should include pirate factions, pirate only systems, anarchy systems and secure systems. Player and NPC Bounty hunting should be tied into this C&P system, as well as how factions view you. It all needs to be tied into the rest of the game. Missions could also tie into the C&P system in a really good way. It needs to be integrated into the rest of the game mechanics.

A lot of the problems people are seeing is that the features don't tie in together. Powerplay is virtually a different game to the rest of the game (I really would like to get into powerplay but the activities are too repetative and it needs to tied into the BGS more and more powers would be good, there are just too few and the differences between them need to be bigger), CQC has nothing to do with the main game, there are no in-game reasons to wing up and there are no in-game reasons to do multicrew.

For me the best update so far was Ship launched fighters and passengers, as they tied into the main game more. The NPC's are great, but should be expanded upon to crew your ship (even if it is just an avatar sitting there doing basically nothing apart from saying the odd sentence like they do with the SLF).

C&P fixed with a full system.... You're trolling, right? ;-) j/k

Name one single later correction (not new function) applied to the game that has been implemented anything beyond a bare minimum improvement, which actually, comprehensively fixes and improves an issue rather than just papering over the cracks so much that the house is now held together mostly by paste.

I suspect that C&P updates are likely tweaks and changes in the fine / blame issuing mechanics rather than adjusting the entire experience of HIGH/MED/LOW and Anarchy and persistent and severe Bounty Hunter NPCs... Galaxy wide player claimable BIG bounties to make chases worthwhile... (Which is what this game so sorely needs).
Wanted Ships whereabouts tracked in any high sec system with breadcrumbs.

My 2¢ on what we'll actually get:

Two ships crash... faster one takes the blame.
Two stray shots against a police vessel instead of one to become wanted.
Blowing up in a sidewinder no longer clears your debt.
The pair of Police Vipers arrive 30% quicker on the scene in high sec.