While I am passing by those forums, let me give you some insight on gankers, as I see that this topic is alive as ever. I got mixed in with some of them last time I was playing the game and had fun with them for a day. 4v1s aren't my thing, after all, so I didn't wing up with them again. In fact, I never played the game again after that, but shame or something like that was not the reason at all.
When you and your wing(s) gank anyone, outcomes are as follows:
See, no downsides whatsoever.
Moreover, after some time spent with those guys, I came to the conclusion that, sadly, ganker is the final form of every single PvP player.
I had dropped the game mostly due to losing hope that the situation with grandfathering will be ever resolved after some people shared their loadouts with me, but also due to realising all that I wrote above.
The situation with gankers will never change until FDev will do something to give PvP in ED balance and purpose. For now, all they do is cull PvP population. Which makes them angrier in turn. (Firstly, by intoducing engineering grind wall to PvP, where you cannot be sure that you will ever get a fair fight until you climb over this wall and dance even more on top of it, it took 800 hours for me at least, and that is in new "less grindier" engineering. Then, they did so by introducing grandfathering, a situation where you can never ever be sure that guy you fight with doesn't have something you can never get. Something like a double clip size SCBs, which allows you to use only one SCB module instead of two at the same time and conserve crapton of power).
Sure, some might say something like "omaigat nothing in this world justifies horrible horrible act of destroying my passenger FDL those evil evil baddies should be banned and executed IRL by GOD HIMSELF EEEEE" or something like that but please... calm down and use a little wisdom to understand people's motives. I gave you enough clue, I hope.
UPD.
Totaly forgot to write about lone PvP player perspective.
TL: DR
I totally agree that some people know that they will be ganking from the start. They probably picked up the habit in some other MMO. But thing is, in other MMOs becoming a ganker is the one of many outcomes for a PvP player. In ED, it is the one and only one. Sadly.
Oh, and I know that PvP roleplay communities do exist. But thing is, roleplay does not work for everyone.
When you and your wing(s) gank anyone, outcomes are as follows:
- He(they) will call his(their) friends to punish you and some fun will occur. Hands down, the main reason. After all, people in wings are looking for some wing battles. But what you gonna do if there are none of such around?...
- You will generate a crapton of salt in someone's poor fragile carebear soul, and you will delight in the smell of it. After all, he(they) are the reason game is such crap, as PvE players are no-doubt the target audience of FDev. Also, maybe their cries will make developers create at least some PvP activities in this game, at last, to redirect attention from the babies.
- You will convert your victim into the
dark sidePvP player. And I know on my own example that it works. When I bought ED, I bought it for PvP mostly, but still... When my Python got wrecked the first time, my "Things to do in ED" list instantly got shortened out to "git gut" line only. I wanted my revenge, but I forgot about it midway through my PvP path. PvP was fun, and I enjoyed every second of it, be it 1v1 or getting myself ganked 1v4. Moreover, fights with people which ganked me in the past took the form of friendly duels somehow, and at the end of them (usually with me being at 1% hull or with dead PP and no canopy) I was given some tips and left alive.
- There is like 70% chance that this guy looks for some 1v4 fun anyway, as he has nothing to lose since he is in Open. I am in that spot most of the time I fly my Cutter, and 1v4 is a great fun on that ship, once you learn how to deal with torpedoes and stuff. Also, experienced player has little chance to lose his ship anyway, escape is very easy in this game.
See, no downsides whatsoever.
Moreover, after some time spent with those guys, I came to the conclusion that, sadly, ganker is the final form of every single PvP player.
For example, there is literally nothing else to do for a group of PvP players. Sure, you can gank the gankers with your friends, but you need some gankers first. What you are going to do if there are none around at this time, meme in discord whole evening? Or slowly move to joining some powerplay faction "for real" and then ganking everyone from another power while precisely knowing that this poor soul is probably module-shopping anyways yet you prefer not to think about it? Also, after all the stuff like being ganked while dueling by losing party's friends or being ganked yourselves on unequal conditions, you really do not want to fight each other. Also, people assemble wings to get some wing fights, and they will rather search for them then fight 2v2 each other. Most of the time people will duel with each other only after the "main event" is over and most of the discord channel went to sleep or something.
After some time with a crew, you get sick of powderizing lone noobs or too much of your friendlist will drop the game, and you will move on to doing same stuff solo, as you will get more challenge, and you already have enough skill to win some of 1v4s. That's it. Your final form. There are literally no other outcomes. Or is there anything else to do in this game for a PvP player?
After some time with a crew, you get sick of powderizing lone noobs or too much of your friendlist will drop the game, and you will move on to doing same stuff solo, as you will get more challenge, and you already have enough skill to win some of 1v4s. That's it. Your final form. There are literally no other outcomes. Or is there anything else to do in this game for a PvP player?
I had dropped the game mostly due to losing hope that the situation with grandfathering will be ever resolved after some people shared their loadouts with me, but also due to realising all that I wrote above.
The situation with gankers will never change until FDev will do something to give PvP in ED balance and purpose. For now, all they do is cull PvP population. Which makes them angrier in turn. (Firstly, by intoducing engineering grind wall to PvP, where you cannot be sure that you will ever get a fair fight until you climb over this wall and dance even more on top of it, it took 800 hours for me at least, and that is in new "less grindier" engineering. Then, they did so by introducing grandfathering, a situation where you can never ever be sure that guy you fight with doesn't have something you can never get. Something like a double clip size SCBs, which allows you to use only one SCB module instead of two at the same time and conserve crapton of power).
Sure, some might say something like "omaigat nothing in this world justifies horrible horrible act of destroying my passenger FDL those evil evil baddies should be banned and executed IRL by GOD HIMSELF EEEEE" or something like that but please... calm down and use a little wisdom to understand people's motives. I gave you enough clue, I hope.
UPD.
Totaly forgot to write about lone PvP player perspective.
TL: DR
When such player is finally confident enough in his loadouts, he starts out PvP at CG area. By spamming "PvP?" in chat to every ship with good enough loadout. Or interdicting every single wanted player you see (and get wrecked 99% of the time, but you will not care at that point). You get some fights, starting to win some while later. Getting ganked sometimes, but never destroyed cause of that. Things are moderately good. Your skill is growing. Your winrate vs pilots of MO similar to yours gets to 50% and climbs over it...
But thing is, there are almost no solo pilots such as you till 12 AM or so. You see some pilots you know, but you win fights against them consistently, and neither you nor he wants to waste a precious opportunity on a pretty much predetermined fight, so you look past each other. While all the veteran gankers you bothered earlier are no longer killing you, they share some valuable advice with you instead, and just pulling them witout asking is simply rude. As they do not want predetermined fights either. Not more than once a day.
Most of the players are responding to you something like "sorry, wing stuff, later". And that is, without any sarcasm, the worst response you can get, as his wing will most likely ignore you instead of ganking you (although, you still can get pulled by his other wingmates and low/high wake out, at least getting some practice on evading and pip management). The best response would be "Sure" and then "although not a duel" after interdiction is complete. You will get some PvP fun at least, and you will get some valid targets for yourself for later.
Then you start to patrol CG extraction sites. You will start to maul wanted targets, but you will get yelled at for interrupting 2v2 or 4v4. Or you will get ganked by some people, and get a bit furious when those gankers have "report crimes against me" turned on, and you become wanted yourself. With luck, you will manage to win some 1v4s against a gank wing consisting of total noobs, for a great boost of combat confidence, but this will happen with about 0.1% probability, as you are still way too green for 1v4s.
And on some CGs with no RES in-systems, you will get no activity whatsoever. For a whole evening. You start to kill NPCs out of boredom, at nav beacon or at RES in a nearby system. All you will see around is targets with ridiculous loadouts, which include a "docking computer" module most of the time. No point on picking on them. Second evening - same stuff. You are a bit angry. And your trigger finger starts to twitch, as you see said docking computer (with the help of attendance to this forum). Then some of those people steal your AspX kill or whatever. You produce some warning, but it happens again. You wreck their pathetic Vettes but without killing...
Day three of the same stuff. Somehow, your main activity, until midnight that is, becomes patrolling of CGs, but... with the purpose of finding some scrubs to punish for stealing your kills. Then, going to wash out your crimes becomes too much of a chore, so you just fly wanted for the rest of the evening. While noticing that you can gankbait noobs like yourself flying like that, for some great Cutter autistic fun. And around that time, you remember that Powerplay exists...
Oh, and around that time, when there was a shtty CG in the middle of nowhere, I decided to rush one-stop bus driver Elite and go to Founders. My intuition was right, all the PvP people I saw were there that week.
And during that time, I interdicted some wanted Vette with 12kk bounty at one of the nights there. I no longer believed that Wanted status means anything, but bounty was telling. We fought, my Cutter was built around 1v1 big ship fights, and he had no chance of winning vs my phasing weapons and 20 skill cells. We laughed a bit about how fat my ship is, and I told him to go when his hull was a 5%, but he wanted to see if phasing damage really can or can not be lethal I guess. You will not see phasing weapons fully kill anyone ever as it does no FSD/engines damage, so escape is not restricted whatsoever. So he told me to finish him off, and I recieved... was it 2 mil? After that, I no longed considered myself a bounty hunter.
And one of those days, someone I asked to PvP asked me to help out in a wing fight instead. It was the best experience so far, a good 4v4. Some of my sudden wingmates were tagged by [NACL], but whatever. After that fight, I hanged in a wing and in Discord for a while. And next fight was against some Type 6. I just low-waked out, said that 1v4s ain't my thing. Honestly, I already felt nothing by that time about people hunting targets of such profile, but didn't do it myself as it would not benefit me skill progression-wise. I left wing but stayed in discord, there were totally ok with it, and next target was "HOLY COW, 13th, wing of 4, pulling"... Some wing of 13th tried to gank me recently in a hilarious manner, with 8 packhound modules on 4 FDLs. Probably because I was with Hudson at that time, for his frag cannons. I simply laughed as I could not fight whatsoever as my FDL canopy was covered with explosions and I could not see anything. And I was a bit sad that I dropped a wing just now. Immediately rejoined, then had not left afterwards, and soon I got my first fully-deserved bounty. Not on a trade ship, but he was alone in a non-wanted FDL. I rammed him to death in one stroke, so I was not a 4v1 much. But still...
And after some while, I had a duel vs some Russian CMDR, was a good and close FDL-FDL fight, we exchanged friends. Afterwards that week, some of his wingmates pulled my Cutter with his own, and then two more Cutters and my friend's FDL started to hammer me. I had no bad feeling about such thing whatsoever by that time. Moreover, some weird bug happened and my shields were stuck in a limbo state. I saw them fully red but not failing, and asked my friend "tf just happened". He invited me to their Discord, they told me that my shields were falling and then reappearing constantly so they could not get my FSD and they were really mad about it. We laughed about it and then I ganked/wingfought with them for a whole evening. Targets were mostly full wings, but thing is, we had two of them. Soon, some adequate response was assembled, and that was my best fight in the game. Then they gave me some insighst on PvP situation in ED afterwards and I understood everything about the PvP here. And that was my last evening in ED.
But thing is, there are almost no solo pilots such as you till 12 AM or so. You see some pilots you know, but you win fights against them consistently, and neither you nor he wants to waste a precious opportunity on a pretty much predetermined fight, so you look past each other. While all the veteran gankers you bothered earlier are no longer killing you, they share some valuable advice with you instead, and just pulling them witout asking is simply rude. As they do not want predetermined fights either. Not more than once a day.
Most of the players are responding to you something like "sorry, wing stuff, later". And that is, without any sarcasm, the worst response you can get, as his wing will most likely ignore you instead of ganking you (although, you still can get pulled by his other wingmates and low/high wake out, at least getting some practice on evading and pip management). The best response would be "Sure" and then "although not a duel" after interdiction is complete. You will get some PvP fun at least, and you will get some valid targets for yourself for later.
Then you start to patrol CG extraction sites. You will start to maul wanted targets, but you will get yelled at for interrupting 2v2 or 4v4. Or you will get ganked by some people, and get a bit furious when those gankers have "report crimes against me" turned on, and you become wanted yourself. With luck, you will manage to win some 1v4s against a gank wing consisting of total noobs, for a great boost of combat confidence, but this will happen with about 0.1% probability, as you are still way too green for 1v4s.
And on some CGs with no RES in-systems, you will get no activity whatsoever. For a whole evening. You start to kill NPCs out of boredom, at nav beacon or at RES in a nearby system. All you will see around is targets with ridiculous loadouts, which include a "docking computer" module most of the time. No point on picking on them. Second evening - same stuff. You are a bit angry. And your trigger finger starts to twitch, as you see said docking computer (with the help of attendance to this forum). Then some of those people steal your AspX kill or whatever. You produce some warning, but it happens again. You wreck their pathetic Vettes but without killing...
Day three of the same stuff. Somehow, your main activity, until midnight that is, becomes patrolling of CGs, but... with the purpose of finding some scrubs to punish for stealing your kills. Then, going to wash out your crimes becomes too much of a chore, so you just fly wanted for the rest of the evening. While noticing that you can gankbait noobs like yourself flying like that, for some great Cutter autistic fun. And around that time, you remember that Powerplay exists...
Oh, and around that time, when there was a shtty CG in the middle of nowhere, I decided to rush one-stop bus driver Elite and go to Founders. My intuition was right, all the PvP people I saw were there that week.
And during that time, I interdicted some wanted Vette with 12kk bounty at one of the nights there. I no longer believed that Wanted status means anything, but bounty was telling. We fought, my Cutter was built around 1v1 big ship fights, and he had no chance of winning vs my phasing weapons and 20 skill cells. We laughed a bit about how fat my ship is, and I told him to go when his hull was a 5%, but he wanted to see if phasing damage really can or can not be lethal I guess. You will not see phasing weapons fully kill anyone ever as it does no FSD/engines damage, so escape is not restricted whatsoever. So he told me to finish him off, and I recieved... was it 2 mil? After that, I no longed considered myself a bounty hunter.
And one of those days, someone I asked to PvP asked me to help out in a wing fight instead. It was the best experience so far, a good 4v4. Some of my sudden wingmates were tagged by [NACL], but whatever. After that fight, I hanged in a wing and in Discord for a while. And next fight was against some Type 6. I just low-waked out, said that 1v4s ain't my thing. Honestly, I already felt nothing by that time about people hunting targets of such profile, but didn't do it myself as it would not benefit me skill progression-wise. I left wing but stayed in discord, there were totally ok with it, and next target was "HOLY COW, 13th, wing of 4, pulling"... Some wing of 13th tried to gank me recently in a hilarious manner, with 8 packhound modules on 4 FDLs. Probably because I was with Hudson at that time, for his frag cannons. I simply laughed as I could not fight whatsoever as my FDL canopy was covered with explosions and I could not see anything. And I was a bit sad that I dropped a wing just now. Immediately rejoined, then had not left afterwards, and soon I got my first fully-deserved bounty. Not on a trade ship, but he was alone in a non-wanted FDL. I rammed him to death in one stroke, so I was not a 4v1 much. But still...
And after some while, I had a duel vs some Russian CMDR, was a good and close FDL-FDL fight, we exchanged friends. Afterwards that week, some of his wingmates pulled my Cutter with his own, and then two more Cutters and my friend's FDL started to hammer me. I had no bad feeling about such thing whatsoever by that time. Moreover, some weird bug happened and my shields were stuck in a limbo state. I saw them fully red but not failing, and asked my friend "tf just happened". He invited me to their Discord, they told me that my shields were falling and then reappearing constantly so they could not get my FSD and they were really mad about it. We laughed about it and then I ganked/wingfought with them for a whole evening. Targets were mostly full wings, but thing is, we had two of them. Soon, some adequate response was assembled, and that was my best fight in the game. Then they gave me some insighst on PvP situation in ED afterwards and I understood everything about the PvP here. And that was my last evening in ED.
I totally agree that some people know that they will be ganking from the start. They probably picked up the habit in some other MMO. But thing is, in other MMOs becoming a ganker is the one of many outcomes for a PvP player. In ED, it is the one and only one. Sadly.
Oh, and I know that PvP roleplay communities do exist. But thing is, roleplay does not work for everyone.
Last edited:
![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
)
