Notoriety - The negative outcome on NPC combat related gameplay?

[NeilF]

Right. Plenty of assassination missions have you take out a wanted target. Pirate lords, deserters, terrorists and for reasons unfathomable venerable generals. If you want to assassinate a politician then of course that should get you wanted and bump up your notoriety.

The only thing that needs to adapt are the wishy washy mission descriptions. If performing a mission will get you a bounty, then it should be clearly stated in the description, and this goes for things like planetary scan missions too.

Then why do such missions...? If your rebuy snowballs up, + you risk other negatives too... Why bother?

You going to incur a bounty. You're going to incur risk. Why this requirement to keep twisting the knife to risk penalising more than the funs worth?

I second this idea. There should be ways to reduce notoriety other than the rebuy. Of course it could be made really interesting if some of those ways reduced your notoriety but had other repercussions as well.
But definitely should be a way to redeem yourself etc.

I floated the idea that your notoriety for example drops by one a month... Or something like that. Just as a spit-ball idea...

 

[Faded Glory]

Then why do such missions...? If your rebuy snowballs up, + you risk other negatives too... Why bother?

You going to incur a bounty. You're going to incur risk. Why this requirement to keep twisting the knife to risk penalising more than the funs worth?

I don't know, I suppose you would choose the illegal missions if you wanted to play a criminal. But if one wants to play a criminal, then one has to accept the consequences.

We had similar discussions around the PF bounty, which I recall you felt should apply to NPC killing as well as player killing. At the time I argued that if that were the case, then FD would see a significant drop off to players taking illicit missions for exactly the reasons you are now stating. That the consequences moved too far towards punitive and stopped being fun, made playing the game not fun.

Frankly, so long as FD make clear that by performing a certain action a player will become wanted and have to pay the penalty, I no longer really care. I think, and have said for a long time, that they are trying to stop something they don't want to see using the same tools used to 'punish' players for in game, perfectly legitimate naughtyness, and I don't think it will be without issues.

FD are good with metrics. If they see a whole tranche of missions and other gameplay (see perhaps their mega-ship raiding) largely ignored because players don't find the consequences fun, then I guess they will revisit it.

Edit: Just noticed your other comment re. notoriety. Notoriety does decay with time (although presumably the player must refrain from criminality during that time), kind of like superpower reputation decays. In fact, from what I've read, it drops just as fast as reputation. A player logged off for a short time and their notoriety returned to zero.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So, after demanding more heavy responses for Crime and Punishment, we're now asking for lesser responses for a PvE playtype?

Nice to see the agenda's going strong here.

I'm not. I'm fine with it applying equally. It will help against those who try and tank a faction's influence by shooting a faction's ships.

I do my bad boy business in Anarchy systems.

 

[obliterator]

A simple solution would be to adjust the criminal missions/raids payouts to balance them out. That way it would make pve crime pay more without actually discriminating npc from commanders. Crime should be a very high risk/high reward thing in my opinion, so the answer shouldn't be to make it easier. Harsher consequences and better rewards are the way to go.

Anyone who is actually trying to be an actual ingame assassin, not just some casual NPC farmer.

If someone doesn't want the danger or hassle that comes from being a criminal, then don't be a criminal. If someone wants to be a criminal in order to spice up their game instead of the same-old bland and boring nothing-can-ever-happen, then he can be a criminal. There, choices for both types of players.

Yes, but being a criminal should not only be an option for roleplayers. For most players, even though they like the concept, crime just isn't an option because the rewards are not worth the additional dangers.

 

[NeilF]

A simple solution would be to adjust the criminal missions/raids payouts to balance them out. Crime should be the most high risk/high reward thing to do in the game in my opinion, so the answer shouldn't be to make it easier.

Thing is, for many players, the gameplay involved is more important than the CR reward. ie: If undertaking missions/activities they enjoy means painful rebuys, or painful security attention, that may detract enough such that those activities an no longer enjoyable.

 

[obliterator]

Thing is, for many players, the gameplay involved is more important than the CR reward. ie: If undertaking missions/activities they enjoy means painful rebuys, or painful security attention, that may detract enough such that those activities an no longer enjoyable.

The main gameplay difference between criminal and non-criminal missions should be the painful rebuy and security attention. That's the whole point of a criminal career. If the dangers of getting caught makes it less enjoyable for someone, then that person never really enjoyed being a criminal in the first place. In that case he should simply stop committing crimes.

 

[jasonbarron]

You have a choice for room-mates. A notorious murdered or a notorious parking violator.

Which do you chose?

For mew it would depend on who my new roomy murdered.

 

[Ziljan]

The increase costs and the rebuy being associated with ships would solve one of the lore mysteries: it explains why NPCs seem to always attack us with cheap ships. [haha]

 

[Morbad]

I am, personally, massively pro there being no gaming difference between the penalties of killing an NPC or a player. I would rather the mechanics were designed this way.

My sentiments as well.

I'd like their to be no combat difference at the higher end either, but that's wishful thinking.

You have a choice for room-mates. A notorious murdered or a notorious parking violator.

Which do you chose?

The murderer. I don't drive, so someone will have to.