Player-created solutions to player-created problems

[0B]

I'm a new player, but at least from my foxhole, it seems that there's a big emphasis in ED on player-driven actions. Players kept dying due to fuel loss, so the Fuel Rats were created. Players faced piracy or ganking in exploration and the Iridium Wing, Lawfuls, etc. were created. CGs can have an effect on the universe and are all about player actions.

I decided to create a new thread rather than post in the other thread about ganking (Of which there are several) because I didn't want to steer that one off-topic and I think this is a broader topic. Basically, how do we address different problems, challenges, and obstacles within the universe of ED?

Here's my example with probably too much detail-

Problem: Ganking

• Meaningless killing that breaks immersion
• Biased against new players
• Discourages experienced players from being in open in high-traffic areas
• Shows that the galaxy is dangerous
• Is fun for the ganker.
• Gankees might find it fun if they escape, but even folks able to avoid ganking may find the interdictions tedious
• There's not a lot of options for PVP outside of heavily-trafficked areas. It's difficult to gauge if someone is significantly above your skill level so it's safer to look for ships equal or less than yours in power

I've seen a lot of solutions to this:

• Fdev should change to open-only
• Fdev should add auto-block
• Fdev should give rewards for being in open
• Fdev should add warnings/high-danger zones
• Fdev should sort players into instances based on notoriety and system security levels

There's a pattern here. Basically, players want to rely on Fdev to create a solution for a player-created problem. To be honest, as much as I dislike ganking and gankers (Both because it breaks immersion and because I dislike getting ganked), I don't think a player-created problem should require a player-created solution.

There's some player-created solutions to this that may work:

• Block gankers after they kill you, if they did so in a ganky way (not a piratey way)
• Block gankers based on lists found online, or based on ship names with "gank" or "g4nk" in them
• Hang out in Deciat/high-traffic areas and attack gankers
• Create a wing/organization of people to hunt gankers
• Cyberbully gankers on the forums/elsewhere
• Do nothing, ganking is fun
• Play in solo
• git gud

Most of these solutions revolve around either avoidance or a time sink. Some may work for you, some might not. Some of the arguments against these are:

• Blocking is against the spirit of the game
• Solo is against the spirit of the game
• I want to meet new people, but not gankers
• It takes awhile to build up the skills/a ship that can avoid all gankers, and by doing this you may sacrifice other things (Cargo space, FSD range, etc.)
• Time sink of working to hunt gankers
• Someone from Iridium Wing or other place isn't always available/sometimes you prefer not to have to coordinate with others
• Cyberbullying is wrong
• Personally, I prefer solutions that add to interactions rather than subtract from interactions
• If someone doesn't like ganking they shouldn't be playing in Open/shouldn't be playing ED/shouldn't have a ship focused on anything but combat
• My entire purpose for playing ED is to mine noob salt
• I don't like reading threads about ganking every week

I don't claim that none of these are good solutions, or that there are no good solutions, but spitballing, here are some additional things:

• Player-created bounties on gankers. The 2 main issues with this are 1) Gankers may be looking for PVP, so why reward them? and 2) Gankers can afford a rebuy. I'm not sure how valid the first argument is: if they were looking for legitimate PVP against players of equal or greater skill they would be doing PP or CGs, not whacking sidewinders at Deciat. The second seems more legitimate. A ganker can cause greater damage to a player who's hauling cargo or cartographic data than a player can do to them, and they can usually eat a few rebuys. Rather than a bounty of "kill this player," maybe "cause X amount of financial damage to this player." You could measure this as "kill them while they are in their Anaconda X times". If a player is getting killed repeatedly they may switch to a cheaper ship, after all. This sounds cruel, but I don't think it's any worse than a ganker doing the same thing to a newb. Eye for an eye, perhaps? Of course you may run into tertiary problems, as a bounty system for gankers may cause "name and shame" cyberbullying issues. To be clear, there's a difference between griefing in game and griefing out of game. However, this is convoluted (How do you prove you killed someone X times) and inconvenient (payment is from other players, so it must be made in cargo)
• Self-destruct whenever you get ganked if you can't reliably escape. If they're looking for PVP, deny it. If the power difference is large and they aren't pirating you for your cargo, why give them the satisfaction of killing you? This may bleed into the "git gud" solutions of how to avoid ganks/escape interdictions. This is easily the dumbest solution to the problem.

TL;DR: I think player-created problems should be solved with player-created solutions. What are some player-created problems you know of? What are things that other players can do to solve them, and/or what have they already done?

I'm not really looking for a debate on the merits of ganking specifically, there's dozens of threads on that already (Though I fear this may add to the pile). I'm more looking for "what are the ways players use to shape the universe of ED? what has worked, what hasn't worked, and when has Fdev had to change the game in order to 'fix' problems? Is it plausible that some problems aren't problems, or they aren't meant to be solved?" Although player-created problems are the most interesting to me, I'm sure there's in-game problems that have driven mass player response (Such as fuel rats)

 

[Edwyndham]

Although I see where you're coming from, the problem is that FDev has low-player-effort solutions in place that circumvent the need for players to do anything in a social and emergent sense.

And besides, even if you form a ganker-hunting squad, guess what? The gankers can block you.

The reason for asking FDev to fix it is because it's FDev's design that makes it fruitless, at most impossible, for players to have any meaningful impact on it.

The reason Fuel Rats exist is because there isn't a client-side, low-effort way circumvent the issue of running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere with a broken fuel scoop. I can't log into solo from open and magically have a half tank of gas.

 

[Gully Foyle]

We need loosely organized good guys that pick on the gankers that's all.

I'm so glad there's no magic.
I was a final fantasy Edge Lord I've had enough magic.

 

[Edwyndham]

We need loosely organized good guys that pick on the gankers that's all.

I'm so glad there's no magic.
I was a final fantasy Edge Lord I've had enough magic.

block list = casting Banish on a player

 

[Mohrgan]

People that want that kind of play know just where to find it. Those that don;t know too. Open has no value over any other mode, and doesn't need coddling. No player is obligated to the game play of another. Find what you like, and let everyone else do the same.

 

[Gully Foyle]

block list = casting Banish on a player

Sheer numbers of lawfuls could fo it, just in a granulized way.

 

[Misty_Dark]

I do still think that for most players, the block function is rather ok solution. this does not really differentiate between getting random killed by another player, or that mission NPC that came after you and killed you. in both cases you have to face the rebuy. The difference is that you can block the player, and wise up regarding mission spawned NPC's.

I do not believe in telling people to avoid playing in Open is a good solution, or require players to play a certain way, or outfit their ship a certain way, etc, etc. play how you like, but if you complain on unfair things might be, etc , there are plenty here that can advice, explain what the issue was, and how you can avoid it in the future. I personally believe anyone flying their Cargo Haulers without a shield is making dumb choices, despite that, two of my friends insists on doing just that.. one of them do this in Open at CG's! he likes the challenge of flying his Cutter with no shields... the other one , lost his Python, he had just left the no fire zone near station and went to get something from the kitchen, and when he came back someone was putting new holes in his ship and before he could do anything, his ship went kaboom.


The thing is that one core philosophy in Elite Dangerous seems to be about player choice and control, by that I mean, this is why we have 3 game modes, and the block function, it is there to allow players to choose who they prefer to play with. So you decide, and many players like to encounter other players,and most players are really friendly. So there is no wonder why so many players want to play in open, and there is no good way to stop PvP without breaking the game. so block is a great addition to playing in open, as this allows you to exclude players that ruins your fun. and let you go on with playing and meeting other players that is not set out to destroy you just because they can.


Then since Elite Dangerous is designed around the peer-to-peer (p2p) network design, to cut down on the costs for servers, there will be no player based solutions to ganking... as there are already so many technical issues with how to create any such environment for a player based solutions. Add to this the very clunky mechanics to try and follow a player from system to system, and this is before we even consider that player in no danger can almost instantly switch game mode...

 

[0B]

Although I see where you're coming from, the problem is that FDev has low-player-effort solutions in place that circumvent the need for players to do anything in a social and emergent sense.

And besides, even if you form a ganker-hunting squad, guess what? The gankers can block you.

The reason for asking FDev to fix it is because it's FDev's design that makes it fruitless, at most impossible, for players to have any meaningful impact on it.

The reason Fuel Rats exist is because there isn't a client-side, low-effort way circumvent the issue of running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere with a broken fuel scoop. I can't log into solo from open and magically have a half tank of gas.

That makes a lot of sense. I might frame ganking as a player-created problem, but it's only a subset of players and it relies on mechanics in the game (interdiction) to be successful. And I think you're right that we can't really treat solo as a "creative", "god", or "easy" mode for gameplay since not all gameplay is about PVP.

I think the other part of the ganking issue is that it's trivial for experienced players to avoid ganking, but difficult for new players. That's something that applies to many aspects of the game, and I wonder how we'd treat the issue if it were thargoids spawn-camping in Deciat instead of other players

 

[Alex Korr V]

It looks like player-created solution in a way of forming retribution squads won't help to create effective player-based Crime & Punishment system with player-created bounties etc, because malicious commanders can simply block such squads as well. Also, I don't think that we want to promote social isolation for Open, because there is already Solo mode for that, and there is even Mobius option for folks willing to exclude PvP but keep meeting other commanders.

So effectively, if to elaborate OP problem statement on ganking the way I see it, it is not only about being able to avoid unwanted risk of being killed by malicious commander when you don't want it (e.g. carrying months of exploration data), but also being able to take this risk when you do.

What if we look into this from another angle?

Player-created solutions don't consist only of social organization methods. There are already multiple community-created software solutions like Inara, EDDB and so on. These software tools get information from other volunteer commanders traversing the galaxy on the background, contributing to the DB.

What if similar community-created software solution would exist, giving the below outputs:

• showing global PvP activities in one common DB or log without revealing CMDR names (quantity & time of CMDR-CMDR attacks & CMDR-CMDR kills per system)
• giving a red alert indicator if there was any commander attacked by another commander within last 20 minutes in the current system

Effectively it would allow to assess real system security level from PvP standpoint.
Thus I'd be aware of the danger and able to make a decision to either tactically take the risk or flee.

 

[Nadreck]

I don't know if this is already happening, but theoretically the blocklist could be used to provide a "protective umbrella" for other players.

Example: a "lawful" player patrols Deciat in a warship. He has a blocklist of notorious gankers, so everytime he gets instanced with defenceless noobs, gankers can't instance with them. If he sees a "wanted" CMDR, he blocks that one too, and then attacks. If he wins, the defeated CMDR can't re-enter the instance after rebuy while he is still around.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

I don't claim that none of these are good solutions, or that there are no good solutions, but spitballing, here are some additional things:

• Player-created bounties on gankers. The 2 main issues with this are 1) Gankers may be looking for PVP, so why reward them? and 2) Gankers can afford a rebuy. I'm not sure how valid the first argument is: if they were looking for legitimate PVP against players of equal or greater skill they would be doing PP or CGs, not whacking sidewinders at Deciat. The second seems more legitimate. A ganker can cause greater damage to a player who's hauling cargo or cartographic data than a player can do to them, and they can usually eat a few rebuys. Rather than a bounty of "kill this player," maybe "cause X amount of financial damage to this player." You could measure this as "kill them while they are in their Anaconda X times". If a player is getting killed repeatedly they may switch to a cheaper ship, after all. This sounds cruel, but I don't think it's any worse than a ganker doing the same thing to a newb. Eye for an eye, perhaps? Of course you may run into tertiary problems, as a bounty system for gankers may cause "name and shame" cyberbullying issues. To be clear, there's a difference between griefing in game and griefing out of game. However, this is convoluted (How do you prove you killed someone X times) and inconvenient (payment is from other players, so it must be made in cargo)

Well player created bounties have mainly problem that they really would be available only for pretty rich players. Yeah, I could issue bounty/kill mission for say 100-200 millions worth without hurting my finances much, newbie not so much, not even in same range.

 

[0B]

Well player created bounties have mainly problem that they really would be available only for pretty rich players. Yeah, I could issue bounty/kill mission for say 100-200 millions worth without hurting my finances much, newbie not so much, not even in same range.

That's true. And what I suggest is an awful lot of effort for another player to go through simply for the thrill of PvP against the "right" type of player

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I don't know if this is already happening, but theoretically the blocklist could be used to provide a "protective umbrella" for other players.

Example: a "lawful" player patrols Deciat in a warship. He has a blocklist of notorious gankers, so everytime he gets instanced with defenceless noobs, gankers can't instance with them. If he sees a "wanted" CMDR, he blocks that one too, and then attacks. If he wins, the defeated CMDR can't re-enter the instance after rebuy while he is still around.

For better or worse, I think from what I hear Deciat has become a bit of a PvP hub, not exclusively a gank fest. Also, many players happily take the risks that come up in such places as part of their game. What you're suggesting would interfere negatively with a lot of people's instancing, and could ruin anyone's game who's there for perfectly "lawful" reasons (e.g. there has been a major BGS struggle going on there in open recently), not least those who might want to test their mettle or ship build against griefers, and in effect protect more vulnerable CMDRs. In fact, your post aptly demonstrates why so many have a problem with block as it currently functions in a p2p multiplayer architecture - you are messing with my instancing and my game even though I've no malign intentions toward you at all, and have no prior interaction with you or the griefer.

 

[Misty_Dark]

For better or worse, I think from what I hear Deciat has become a bit of a PvP hub, not exclusively a gank fest. Also, many players happily take the risks that come up in such places as part of their game. What you're suggesting would interfere negatively with a lot of people's instancing, and could ruin anyone's game who's there for perfectly "lawful" reasons (e.g. there has been a major BGS struggle going on there in open recently), not least those who might want to test their mettle or ship build against griefers, and in effect protect more vulnerable CMDRs. In fact, your post aptly demonstrates why so many have a problem with block as it currently functions in a p2p multiplayer architecture - you are messing with my instancing and my game even though I've no malign intentions toward you at all, and have no prior interaction with you or the griefer.

So how do you know that the griefer and the other player and you are in the same physical region in the real world? becuase if you are playing from Europe, you are very unlikely to instance with players from Asia and Australia. North/South American players are also less likely to instance with you..
How many strawman arguments about this are you going to produce without giving any real evidence about this going on a large scale, and that the blocking is the ONLY mechanism that is the cause.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Well player created bounties have mainly problem that they really would be available only for pretty rich players. Yeah, I could issue bounty/kill mission for say 100-200 millions worth without hurting my finances much, newbie not so much, not even in same range.

In a player bounty hunting situation you don't really need to "keep a score" in the usual way - you're only trying to reward/encourage/sanction a particular type of behaviour. If you realise someone is hunting griefers and you approve, friend them and next time you have a 50mil wing mission to share, send them an invite as you complete the mission. And tell them why.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

So how do you know that the griefer and the other player and you are in the same physical region in the real world? becuase if you are playing from Europe, you are very unlikely to instance with players from Asia and Australia. North/South American players are also less likely to instance with you..
How many strawman arguments about this are you going to produce without giving any real evidence about this going on a large scale, and that the blocking is the ONLY mechanism that is the cause.

No straw involved. I instance pretty consistently (I think) with EU/US players that I know*, who are, of course, playing at the same peak time as me, when I'd expect fewer Australians online. Who exactly is proffering strawmen here?

The post I responded to seemed predicated on it being effective in the way I described, hence my response. I agree it's not the only reason instancing can be bad. But what you're saying when you imply that mass blocking is okay, is like saying "you're poor, so you won't mind if I take some money off you, you never know where your next meal is coming from anyway, you're used to it." I might concede some cash (=instancing potential) for the common good, but only so much.

I won't do any more of this here as it detracts from the thread, and is well worn ground. As before I don't have proof, only logic and anecdote - the size of the problem only FDev could definitively say, unless there was some mass controlled player experiment.

*typically talking about instances involving friendslisted people in sparse systems.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I don't particularly like the characterisation of "anti-gankers" as "lawful" - the law has failed, what you need is a casual army of rough-cut rogues willing to risk their ships for the sake of their fellow CMDRs. Much more appealing.

Also, in response to some pessimism above, counter-ganking is successful if at any point you willingly instance with a ganker that would otherwise be instancing with a "newb". You're reducing the newb-kill rate of the ganker. And potentially giving the ganker the organic PvP they're really interested in. And, tbh they are your content too.

If the aim is to keep open mode vibrant and populous, then apart from a counter-narrative to the "open is full of griefers, block/PG/solo are the way" theme, you also need a behavioural counterpoint to ganking/griefing I think - try where you can to create good experiences in open with the pilots you meet; they wouldn't have happened in any other mode. People remember, often sourly, when they first got ganked, give them a reason to stick around in open.

 

[0B]

For better or worse, I think from what I hear Deciat has become a bit of a PvP hub, not exclusively a gank fest. Also, many players happily take the risks that come up in such places as part of their game. What you're suggesting would interfere negatively with a lot of people's instancing, and could ruin anyone's game who's there for perfectly "lawful" reasons (e.g. there has been a major BGS struggle going on there in open recently), not least those who might want to test their mettle or ship build against griefers, and in effect protect more vulnerable CMDRs. In fact, your post aptly demonstrates why so many have a problem with block as it currently functions in a p2p multiplayer architecture - you are messing with my instancing and my game even though I've no malign intentions toward you at all, and have no prior interaction with you or the griefer.

I think that's true, too. I see a lot of "gg"s in chat and that's not really how most folks react to being ganked. Though to your other point- it's true that blocking may affect your instancing, and overall game experience. It's also true that being ganked affects your overall game experience. I will say that it's certainly easier to record and observe the effects of getting ganked than it is the results of someone blocking someone else. However, I haven't tried to play in a wing and finagle instancing with friends, so I could be missing major ongoing issues in the game.

I don't particularly like the characterisation of "anti-gankers" as "lawful" - the law has failed, what you need is a casual army of rough-cut rogues willing to risk their ships for the sake of their fellow CMDRs. Much more appealing.

Also, in response to some pessimism above, counter-ganking is successful if at any point you willingly instance with a ganker that would otherwise be instancing with a "newb". You're reducing the newb-kill rate of the ganker. And potentially giving the ganker the organic PvP they're really interested in. And, tbh they are your content too.

If the aim is to keep open mode vibrant and populous, then apart from a counter-narrative to the "open is full of griefers, block/PG/solo are the way" theme, you also need a behavioural counterpoint to ganking/griefing I think - try where you can to create good experiences in open with the pilots you meet; they wouldn't have happened in any other mode. People remember, often sourly, when they first got ganked, give them a reason to stick around in open.

I exactly agree with this line of thinking. I prefer solutions that add to the overall experience, rather than ones that take away from it. There isn't a 100% perfect way to fix ganking. However, I strongly think that player activity can act as a deterrent. I don't think anyone would mind a rework to Fdev's crime and punishment system, but I doubt it would be a 100% solution, either.

Perhaps I simply am not instancing with them/on at the right time, but are there lawfuls or others that sit at Deciat to escort traders/explorers and counter-gank known gankers? I've been loving the EDRecon add-on since I got it (It provides info even beyond outlaws, etc.), since its intent is organized resistance/attack against "outlaw" players (gankers, pirates, or otherwise). I haven't used it in that capacity since I got it- I'm currently about 10k Ly between Colonia and the bubble- but does anyone else have any good experiences with it?

 

[Misty_Dark]

No straw involved. I instance pretty consistently (I think) with EU/US players that I know*, who are, of course, playing at the same peak time as me, when I'd expect fewer Australians online. Who exactly is proffering strawmen here?

The post I responded to seemed predicated on it being effective in the way I described, hence my response. I agree it's not the only reason instancing can be bad. But what you're saying when you imply that mass blocking is okay, is like saying "you're poor, so you won't mind if I take some money off you, you never know where your next meal is coming from anyway, you're used to it." I might concede some cash (=instancing potential) for the common good, but only so much.

I won't do any more of this here as it detracts from the thread, and is well worn ground. As before I don't have proof, only logic and anecdote - the size of the problem only FDev could definitively say, unless there was some mass controlled player experiment.

*typically talking about instances involving friendslisted people in sparse systems.

So many words, and yet so little information... you keep repeating this over and over,. without having anything substantial to back it up with. And then your ridiculious arguemtn about being pooor so it is ok to steal, what relevance does that have? classical example of strawman arguments.


You say you will not do more of this here, and yet it is YOU keep insiting on replying with your strawman arguments.

 

[Nadreck]

Surely using Deciat (one of only two systems in the Bubble that relatively new players must visit for FSD Engineering) as a "PvP hub", makes about as much sense as staging a car race in a crowded school carpark?

They can go elsewhere.