Open Play experience just blows…

[Morbad]

You'd need some kind of serious outlier, like only .1% of the kills are from griefing, to start having a real debate about people exaggerating the risks.

From my perspective, the Elite setting is clearly intended to be a dystopia, where things aren't all peaches and cream, even for Pilots Federation members. A fantasy dystopia should generally look worse than the real-life existences of a bunch of comparatively wealthy individuals from predominantly first-world nations who have copious time for leisure activities on their expensive electronics collections. A one in 17 chance of having to be picked up by the rescue rangers and needing to pay a measly 5% of the cost of the ship one totaled seems less painful from the character's perspective than some very common real world misfortunes are from a player's. "My CMDR's cutthroat life is only a tenth as stressful as my upper-middle class whitebread suburban existence...woe is she!", doesn't strike me as very risky.

The prevalence of complaints is entirely understandable...if only one in ten victims of a gank complains about it on the forum, that would drown out discussion for a while. However, it should be obvious, even if every complaint is entirely on the level and in earnest, that Open is pretty safe.

Anyway, I also reject the conflation of ganking with griefing.

Eve fails precisely because it forces players together.

Fails in what sense?

 

[TiberiusDuval]

There are plenty of people- Powerplay for example. But the threads highlight how little people actually understand Open.

Perhaps problem for some people who like shooting others is that they do not like on other hand to be shot by competent pilots with powerfull enough ships? All gankers are PVPers but not all PVPers are gankers.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Perhaps problem for some people who like shooting others is that they do not like on other hand to be shot by competent pilots with powerfull enough ships? All gankers are PVPers but not all PVPers are gankers.

Its why FD needed to (like with Powerplay) give players structured PvP.

Plus, Open does not require you to give any reasoning for your actions- its up to the commander to escape. But I do agree that you need to be able to take it if you dish it out.

 

[Alaska Sædelære]

There are plenty of people- Powerplay for example. But the threads highlight how little people actually understand Open.

You mean, how little they are inclined to follow the understanding you want to impose on them.

 

[Rubbernuke]

You mean, how little they are inclined to follow the understanding you want to impose on them.

Impose? LOL. If you can't cope with taking responsibility for yourself then you have the power to use other modes which do it for you. You can block others, but you need to first know who is out to get you...

If you think you can go anywhere in anything at any time in Open then that player is deluding themselves- the level of danger is much higher with players who don't adhere to incredibly narrow and shallow PvE rules.

This also does not take into account that other players employ the full engineering and weapons available- another symptom of limited PvE breeding a false sense of security.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Fails in what sense?

When I first saw Eve it was marketed as a space trading game. It looked interesting considered getting into it. Then I started hearing about the griefing problem. This didn't sound like something I would be interested in. As time went on all you heard about was combat and griefing, only once did I see anyone who set out as a trader and they complained about being relentlessly attacked and seeing no alternative to allowing some group to exploit them in order to gain some respite.
More recently Eve has been marketed as wall to wall griefing. If that doesn't tell you the space trading game originally touted has failed, what does?
We'll see how long it lasts.

 

[Morbad]

When I first saw Eve it was marketed as a space trading game. It looked interesting considered getting into it. Then I started hearing about the griefing problem. This didn't sound like something I would be interested in. As time went on all you heard about was combat and griefing, only once did I see anyone who set out as a trader and they complained about being relentlessly attacked and seeing no alternative to allowing some group to exploit them in order to gain some respite.
More recently Eve has been marketed as wall to wall griefing.
We'll see how long it lasts.

As a product, it's been around longer and has generally been a bit more popular than Elite: Dangerous.

I played in the beta almost 19 years ago, but was turned off by the level of abstraction (I was looking for a possible Jumpgate alternative, not a third-person game). As far as I am aware, it's always been difficult to go it alone in EvE without the protection of a large group, but it's been a long time since I payed any attention to it.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Basic problem for those full PVP games is that they are like pyramid schemes. Nice and dandy if you get to them early on. Get all nice fancy toys and lots of money. Pure nightmare for latecomers.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Basic problem for those full PVP games is that they are like pyramid schemes. Nice and dandy if you get to them early on. Get all nice fancy toys and lots of money. Pure nightmare for latecomers.

If FD had been smart you could have had the opposite, 'bad' players who kill a lot make life for themselves more difficult obtaining the high end gear as they get slowly locked out of lawful space. Eventually they'd pay over the odds for high end gear, or have to fly more basic ships. But then that requires a money scarce game.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

If FD had been smart you could have had the opposite, 'bad' players who kill a lot make life for themselves more difficult obtaining the high end gear as they get slowly locked out of lawful space. Eventually they'd pay over the odds for high end gear, or have to fly more basic ships. But then that requires a money scarce game.

ED could have made solutions to heavily hint that criminal playstyle works best in anarchies. But no, and certain community is dead against any C&P with any teeth to it.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

ED could have made solutions to heavily hint that criminal playstyle works best in anarchies. But no, and certain community is dead against any C&P with any teeth to it.

The Gankers never cared about C&P while pirates and to some extent smugglers got driven to the fringes. (though smuggling continues throughout Delaine Space)

 

[TiberiusDuval]

The Gankers never cared about C&P while pirates and to some extent smugglers got driven to the fringes.

Because consequences are toothless. Heavy financial losses and loosing all engineering mats and engineered modules on bankcruptcy would be wholly another business.

 

[Sylveria]

If FD had been smart you could have had the opposite, 'bad' players who kill a lot make life for themselves more difficult obtaining the high end gear as they get slowly locked out of lawful space. Eventually they'd pay over the odds for high end gear, or have to fly more basic ships. But then that requires a money scarce game.

That would indeed require a greater depth of gameplay experience than we actually received.

Alas, the reflection of "ganking" demonstrates just how shallow the gameplay experience really is.

 

[Fenwe]

ED could have made solutions to heavily hint that criminal playstyle works best in anarchies. But no, and certain community is dead against any C&P with any teeth to it.

I'm not an open player. Crime and Punishment will also punish new players the most, because it takes a while to not shoot neutrals and friendlies in Rez. With Carriers, Notoriety isn't as big a deal anymore, not that it was ever much of a deterrent.

High, Medium, Low and No sec systems with corresponding 'real' response times seems the simplest approach.. But heck, I run stacked station transport and boom missions specifically because I earn additional bounty credits, and it relieves the boredom.

Everything is ED is give and take and anything that changes the current rule set will anger some group or other. I do though think the Eve approach would work well in ED.

 

[Rubbernuke]

ED could have made solutions to heavily hint that criminal playstyle works best in anarchies. But no, and certain community is dead against any C&P with any teeth to it.

The irony is, the hard core PvP guys wanted stuff like this, actual consequences for being bad because it adds challenge.

 

[Rubbernuke]

That would indeed require a greater depth of gameplay experience than we actually received.

Alas, the reflection of "ganking" demonstrates just how shallow the gameplay experience really is.

It is a shame, because the system I describe would punish rando killers but reward true criminal players who slot into the underworld aspect (and adapt to lesser ships / availability).

 

[Sylveria]

It is a shame, because the system I describe would punish rando killers but reward true criminal players who slot into the underworld aspect (and adapt to lesser ships / availability).

We've agreed on this in the past many times, too.

Problem will always be those who don't want more depth, but rather a more casually entertaining QT Events type experience without having to put effort into it.

Sadly, we're a dying breed in gaming culture... Perhaps someday in the future decades, those who called for this type of experience will realize how bland it has become and learn the lessons of their ancestors, bringing the deeper experience back to not only video games, but entertainment in general.

 

[Fizzatron]

Well, you know, I rarely play in open after having been blown to bits by some small **** wonder interdicting scout ships. Hundreds of millions of exploration data and hours upon hours of gameplay gone in a flash because I forgot to go into solo before getting home with it.

Was there ever an effort to offer a Fuel Rat type service but as an escort for players returning from trips etc.. where they could reach out to them, wing up and they clear a path for an incoming commander to reach their final destination? I feel like that would be a cool community endeavor for the more combat minded.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Because consequences are toothless. Heavy financial losses and loosing all engineering mats and engineered modules on bankcruptcy would be wholly another business.

Except it doesn't have the effect you think it will as has been demonstrated across numerous games.
Blocking is the only thing that has been seen to be effective as it actually targets the aspect that the ganker/griefer actually seeks.

 

[Unknown Zombie]

Was there ever an effort to offer a Fuel Rat type service but as an escort for players returning from trips etc.. where they could reach out to them, wing up and they clear a path for an incoming commander to reach their final destination? I feel like that would be a cool community endeavor for the more combat minded.

The problem with that is a fully combat fit ship is going to wax an explorer build in seconds. Whether they have "protection" or not.

The only real protection is to fit a beefier hull and use a shield in at least your 2nd largest slot, and just suck it up for the few lightyears lost. Or play in solo.