Sadly that is not going to change things. That will draw the pvpers, but not the griefers. There are always going to be those sad little people that can't have any fun unless they are ruining somebody elses fun, and no matter how many conflict zones there are those people are still going to hang about in newbie zones to harass people.
please don't confuse PvPers with griefers
- Thread starter ReaperAlex
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Sadly that is not going to change things. That will draw the pvpers, but not the griefers. There are always going to be those sad little people that can't have any fun unless they are ruining somebody elses fun, and no matter how many conflict zones there are those people are still going to hang about in newbie zones to harass people.
look at it this way, generally players of any type dont want to lose their ship. so when i'm playing i don't pick up the 150K hunting missions as i don't feel ready for an elite anaconda yet. though i do hope to get an average anaconda spawn at my hunting grounds especially if there are some feds to soak up the turret fire. i gravitate towards fights i can win and avoid ones i feel are too risky
the exact same happens in pvp. players will make a judgement call as to if they think they can win. if they don't they try to escape.
as for the seal clubbing, that comes from another problem. when i log on tonight i know that i can rock up at a nav beacon and be pulling in the bounties within 5 mins. a pvper on the other hand might go all night looking for a fight, so that newbie in a sidewinder might be the only fight they get that evening. i've spent plenty of nights in eve not getting into a single fight in the lawless regions of space (thankfully in eve those who do not want to pvp can stick to the lawful regions of space, we've got a bit of a problem in that regard in elite as things stand).
heck one night in eve some of us took industrial ships (think something to size of type-9 with regards to cargo capacity but with the defences of a hauler) and went out looking for a fight. there were about 10 of us and we were hoping to find a few smaller ships or a lone bigger ship to surprise. the only thing we found was a fleet of about 100 players, some in cruisers (think viper/cobra) and some in frigs (thing sidey/eagle). the thing to note about frigs is they are much much faster than cruisers and industrial ships and they can be built to stop a ship from escaping.
10 of us vs 100, and they had the speed to pounce on us and stop us from escaping
but the 10 of us were a close knit team. the time it took us to race from system to system even in our lumbering ships was faster than that massive fleet just due to our efficiency as a unit. the lumbering fleet was taking an age to get organised for each jump to the next system. what they should have done is let the frigs lose on us then caught up with whatever they managed to catch.
that nicely sums up open pvp. you want a fight, once in a blue moon you get a fair fight, but most of the time one side is going to out match the other side, and despite the unfair odds the better side will give chase as that might be the only fight they get that night.
so, does that explain the mentality somewhat behind why a pvper might attack a sidewinder? it really is not about lording it over the weak, or about ruining some ones day. it's about being a fish in the big ocean hoping to catch some prey you can take down while avoiding the bigger fish that can take you down.
that's what i'm trying to get across here. it's not that i don't understand the way pvp can upset people, i have been there myself. it's that those doing the hunting are just looking for a fight, and with slim pickings they will take what they can get, and no you can't expect them to roll over and play dead when they meet a more powerful opponent.
it's not malicious, and right now the mechanics of the game supports the pvp play style far more than it does the coop play style. solo is catered for, but we don't play MMO's for the silent solo experience.
so by all means call for a proper coop mode beyond player organised ones. but please stop calling pvpers griefers and assuming they are getting kicks from ruining your day. that's really not fair to a group of players who would gladly teach you how to fight and be happy to fight by your side. most pvpers are friendly people. i'm fighting to have their name cleared from the association they currently have in elite with griefers. also the mechanics suck for both parties.
The answer could be relatively simple, have more conflict zones, somewhere where the people who want to indulge in PVP can go safe in the knowledge that all players there are wanting to PVP.
Come to think about it I haven't seen any conflict zones since the betas, I must have missed them?
My one experience of a conflict zone back in the betas was going to a conflict zone where the was a massive ship with smaller ships buzzing around it like bees around honey, and laser fire every where. You had to go to your system panel and choose a faction, which I did, however I didn't do this until I was in the action, so as soon as the blips on my screen changed colour to red and green I was blown to bits. It was over in seconds, what I should have done is choose my faction whilst away from the throng and then dived in picking a target on my way in.
I don't suppose it helped that I was in a bog standard sidewinder
I'm not saying ban PVPers to conflict zones, just give them somewhere to go and play, then honorable PVPers will go there for their fix or engage in honorable pirating elsewhere.
Griefers will be delt with accordingly
This would totally eliminate pirating and bounty hunting as playable roles in the game. No traders would go to the PvP areas and no pirate is going to risk bounties to engage a person that is set up to fight. The point of the ED experience is to have a completely open universe where you write the story. Want to be a trader then learn to deal with pirates, hire a player to be security for you. I'm sure there are players that will escort you from station to station and get paid with some cargo.
Tiered game play is the only answer to this issue.....
Game option which you select to only have interaction with none hostile players, if a player selects this and is hostile to another player repeatedly (5 or more shots to the hull etc) then they are automatically destroyed by the pilots federation inbuilt ship self destruct mechanism!
You then have 3 game options at the start of play:
1) Billy No Mates Mode - Solo play for the people who want to be completely alone
2) Open Friendly Mode - People who want to interact with other players but don't want to fight them (mechanic described above)
3) Fully Open Mode - Cut throat universe anything goes within reason i.e. you can kill other players all you want, but be polite about it
Game option which you select to only have interaction with none hostile players, if a player selects this and is hostile to another player repeatedly (5 or more shots to the hull etc) then they are automatically destroyed by the pilots federation inbuilt ship self destruct mechanism!
You then have 3 game options at the start of play:
1) Billy No Mates Mode - Solo play for the people who want to be completely alone
2) Open Friendly Mode - People who want to interact with other players but don't want to fight them (mechanic described above)
3) Fully Open Mode - Cut throat universe anything goes within reason i.e. you can kill other players all you want, but be polite about it
I may just like blowing stuff up.
Listen to you, young one.
Respawned arena deaths hardly count if we're talking videogame death-proofing, that's for little girls. Literally; my six year old can into FPS. Death is meaningless in an environment like that, it's not like people can undo your unlocks if you die hard enough. But as long as we're making generational gamer assumptions, I'd flip your pin and stick it to the console kiddies who only understand video game death consequences as "wait five seconds then go again".Really, I find this dislike of gamedeath is a certain mindset that "progression" is sacred in games. Go look at the amount of data for savegames on any given HDD and tell me otherwise; it's been reinforced for a long time. So for gamers who find the games like this, where other players can directly influence that progression to the negative, it's a big paradigm shift. Nothing to do with age; old games used to kick you in the teeth because that's how they were made, and new gamers got Dark Souls sequeled.
Or just request a pvp toggle or an open server with pvp restricted to conflict zones like just about every other mmo ever, which is the route Ill go. In the long run they are only going to hurt their own playerbase if they don't implement this solution.
Or you can always play Solo.
Listen to you, young one.
Really, I find this dislike of gamedeath is a certain mindset that "progression" is sacred in games. Go look at the amount of data for savegames on any given HDD and tell me otherwise; it's been reinforced for a long time. So for gamers who find the games like this, where other players can directly influence that progression to the negative, it's a big paradigm shift. Nothing to do with age; old games used to kick you in the teeth because that's how they were made, and new gamers got Dark Souls sequeled.
hear hear! these young uns and their fancy schmancy gimballed lasers... back in my day we had to WALK to Zaonce! in the snow!
People aren't "forced" into pvp, they made a choice to play open. No matter how you look at it they CHOSE to consent to at the very least the chance of being involved with pvp. I'll admit its a bad choice they are being forced to make because of a bad system but being able to turn pvp on and off whenever it is most convenient is equally bad. Frontier should have and still should set it up so pvp in policed systems is dealt with harshly and at the very least a pvper is likely going to lose as much as the victim in the attempt. This also allows frontier/anarchy systems feel much more distinct and lawless.
I agree, but we can make it less fun for them, and I have found they tend to have a short attention span and get fed up fairly quickly.
Edit: Griefers that is. Not PVPers
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i'll clarify that for you. i'm talking about playing in a game mode that has open pvp built in. in such a case the consent is in joining such a game mode. the main problem we have here is there is no MMO option that is not also open pvp. we have private groups, as have solo, we do not have MMO coop with random strangers. so right now everyone what wants anything from an MMO is stuck in the pvp pit.
players can avoid the pvp in a few ways, but ultimately the game does not offer the full set of options the player base wants.
lets make another analogy. lets say you take call of duty or battlefield. both games have a singleplayer game and multiplayer pvp. imagine if all those who wanted to play through the missions and explore the single player story had to do so in the multiplayer pvp mode. then you'd get what we have here right now, 2 communities clashing, lots of name calling and very little understanding. ultimately though it's the single players who'd get the short end as the game mechanics would be against them
now, as you know single players in elite are catered for. it's the coop players that have the short end of the stick. if they want the fun of interacting with other random players (just as i do when i play random groups in DDO) then they are stuck in the open pvp world. that we can't fix
what we can fix however is a bit more understanding
pvpers are not evil social rejects who get kicks from upsetting other people, that should be what the word griefer is reserved for. pvpers can be just as warm and friendly as anyone else and i've seen a lot of generosity from them over my time in eve. heck i've seen a bar in Copenhagen drunk dry of all beer from a mix of pvpers and non-pvpers in an eve meet.
in elite the pvpers and non-pvpers are currently clashing due to game mechanics. that doesn't mean they can't learn more about each other
The people who complain about being forced to do PvP are the people *who don't like PvP*, how that can be even remotely difficult to understand for anyone, mystifies me.
I have a personal theory, hear me out here:
The real issue is that there are two distinct sub-categories of PvPers: those who enjoy the thrill of fighting against equals (ie. other similarly equipped, prepared, dedicated PvPers), and those who enjoy the thrill of the easy kill (ie. PvE equipped players with no interest in PvP).
The second group likes to claim (and even convince themselves) that they're in the first group, but in fact consists of players who enjoy PvP but are unable to compete in the first group and so have to look elsewhere for their kicks.
It's just a theory, but it explains a lot; the anger, the defensiveness and the general lack of ability to defend their position that the second group exhibits.
Many PvPers are quite happy to let others choose PvE because they're secure in themselves; it's only the PvPers that feel they have something to prove that want to force lesser opponents in to the space.
I have a personal theory, hear me out here:
The real issue is that there are two distinct sub-categories of PvPers: those who enjoy the thrill of fighting against equals (ie. other similarly equipped, prepared, dedicated PvPers), and those who enjoy the thrill of the easy kill (ie. PvE equipped players with no interest in PvP).
The second group likes to claim (and even convince themselves) that they're in the first group, but in fact consists of players who enjoy PvP but are unable to compete in the first group and so have to look elsewhere for their kicks.
It's just a theory, but it explains a lot; the anger, the defensiveness and the general lack of ability to defend their position that the second group exhibits.
Many PvPers are quite happy to let others choose PvE because they're secure in themselves; it's only the PvPers that feel they have something to prove that want to force lesser opponents in to the space.
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this is exactly the type of behaviour i'm trying to highlight
I completely understand but on Open mode you is fair game don't matter what you want.
This whole talk of griefers is vastly overstated. I've played ED far too much since beta and I've been attacked unprovoked exactly once in all that time. (And I nearly got him, he had to run).
What PvP enthusiasts seem to constantly forget is that there are three types of players:
(1) Those who prefer PvP.
(2) Those who prefer PvE and are happy to do so solo or with friends.
(3) Those who prefer PvE with strangers.
It's that type (3) that currently has no adequate niche in ED. Yes, they can join a large group of like-minded people, but then why not build such a group into the game itself, so that anyone interested in this style of play knows exactly where to go?
As for people who explicitly oppose such an idea, I am compelled to presume that all they care about is an abundance of easy prey, and that they give a pair of dingo's kidneys about how their opponents feel about it.
(1) Those who prefer PvP.
(2) Those who prefer PvE and are happy to do so solo or with friends.
(3) Those who prefer PvE with strangers.
It's that type (3) that currently has no adequate niche in ED. Yes, they can join a large group of like-minded people, but then why not build such a group into the game itself, so that anyone interested in this style of play knows exactly where to go?
As for people who explicitly oppose such an idea, I am compelled to presume that all they care about is an abundance of easy prey, and that they give a pair of dingo's kidneys about how their opponents feel about it.
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