Question for Open players who don't like PVP/ganking... help me understand

Elaborations can be found in the last 5-6 pages, already did it twice. People counter-arguing me had plenty of time to read up on it, since nobody really disproven my points, I'm taking it as common ground.

If you mean the BGS scenario its common ground that it has zero or miniscule effect to the BGS for you but can seriously damage your BGS against you. Thats in zero sum terms. In none zero sum its even more sub-optimal compared to any other BGS activity.

So on the basis that your BGS faction will not reward you for it, the implication is they dont want it. If you want to play as some kind of BGS 'Enforcer' then you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
 
If you mean the BGS scenario its common ground that it has zero or miniscule effect to the BGS for you but can seriously damage your BGS against you. Thats in zero sum terms. In none zero sum its even more sub-optimal compared to any other BGS activity.

So on the basis that your BGS faction will not reward you for it, the implication is they dont want it. If you want to play as some kind of BGS 'Enforcer' then you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
It depends who you're working for.

Anarchists don't give a damn if you do a murder on their turf. If anything it boosts their security rating.
If you're not the controlling faction, ie you're looking to take over, then doing a murder can be very very beneficial indeed.
 
Do you get a bounty in Anarchy systems? If so thats just wrong unless that Anarchy specified it in the system descirption.

Anarchies shouldnt necessarily be hell holes but they shouldnt have any of the same protections either.
 
Do you get a bounty in Anarchy systems? If so thats just wrong unless that Anarchy specified it in the system descirption.

Anarchies shouldnt necessarily be hell holes but they shouldnt have any of the same protections either.

Nope, the only time you'd get a fine or a bounty is if you attack any station or structure belonging to a faction. Other ships, including player ships, are fair game.
 
Okay, maybe "murder" wasn't the right word, but if we go by the strict in-game definition, then none of the kills on Distant Ganks were murders either.
 
You have a fair point there and I will need some time to make a rebuttal your honour :)

probably along the lines of it is murder but not 'reported' or something...hmmmm
 
Bounty hunting is a waste of time in this game because if they don't want to die, it's impossible to secure a 1v1 kill a competent CMDR in any open-ready build if they are awake. It's impossible to secure a wing gank on a competent CMDR in any open-combat ready build if they are awake. The game needs a balance pass, and any log-off while in danger needs to result in ship destruction and all that entails. Then we'll start seeing some bounty hunting. Of course, it's totally disincentivized with the 2M cap.

The best proposal for meaningful pvp and a working crime/punishment system came years ago from SDC. They sent it to FDev and in response we were all gifted with the notoriety system. Yay.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/7d4mbl/sdc_presents_crime_and_punishment/
That proposal was in fact very very good, and I would be thrilled to see that in action.
 
If you mean the BGS scenario its common ground that it has zero or miniscule effect to the BGS for you but can seriously damage your BGS against you. Thats in zero sum terms. In none zero sum its even more sub-optimal compared to any other BGS activity.

So on the basis that your BGS faction will not reward you for it, the implication is they dont want it. If you want to play as some kind of BGS 'Enforcer' then you have to accept the consequences of your actions.

Encouragement? Awesome! The greater the hull hardness, the better the bounty multiplier is. Also, remove the player bounty payout cap, now that carriers markets are a thing, so people could try and collect the 400 million cr bounty off my wanted Corvette (that I gained through bgs, btw).

But no discouragement. Any further punishment would only

A.) fuel the gankers will to hunt down "carebares" even more, which would be completely valid in my book. They are getting booted out of open because of solo players, after all.
B.) destroy unconsenting PvP, that originated from bgs, powerplay, market use, etc.

Is this really that hard to find/understand?
 
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Everyone just wants to do the fun things in the game. For end-game PVPers, sometimes (usually) that means super sweaty PVP, sometimes chill, but maybe not completely mindless chill (PVE). Ganking is BORING, but it's the only activity that straddles the line between low-key gameplay (like PVE) and the element of interaction and potential surprise that comes with PVP. For some people, that's the sweet spot, and they play that way all/most of the time. The SDC proposal offers so many other gameplay mechanics that basic ganking would become obsolete overnight. Keep in mind that SDC who wrote this proposal is the most notorious gank squad the game has known.

400 hours into the game and I still have no idea how PowerPlay or the BGS are supposed to have any meaningful impact on my experience. In fact, I'm convinced that BGS and PP are actually irrelevant. Because if they were relevant, they would have impacts on my gameplay that I couldn't ignore or remain willfully ignorant of. But that is not the case at all.

I would definitely appreciate if combat in general were more meaningful to the game. I've never even been to a Conflict Zone or seen what one looks like - because you can literally get to endgame happily ignoring that these features exist. I've never hunted a Thargoid or been affected by their presence in any way. They exist only in myth and legend, for all my character knows. I've done plenty of massacre missions, but they're just a slightly more interactive form of farming, and about as rote and boring once you have geared for them sufficiently. Yawn.

And consequences for my gameplay choices around ganking other CMDRs? Essentially irrelevant. I won't be able to dock in a handful of stations controlled by the faction in the system where my crimes were committed, meaning I'll have to hop a system or two over to rearm and refuel. No big deal. Or just land on a fleet carrier - even easier. Notoriety means I can't pay my bounties off at an Interstellar Factor, but who cares? Having a bounty just means I get a brief "immersion timer" thrown at me via an NPC interdiction from time to time. Absolutely trivial to evade and go right back to my criminal activity.

If and when I get blown up, I get "sent to Brazil" (aka a nearby detention facility) where my ship is returned to me, and I can repair and rearm. And within minutes I can be back in the same system, doing the same things, much the same as before. I did mention I ground out a bunch of credits from mining, right? Like most players, credits are a resource I have in great abundance.

So yes, TLDR - the longer I spend in this game, the more meaningless the core gameplay "features" appear. Even a short time into the game - hundreds of hours of playtime ago - I'd latched onto these meta-games between lawful and outlaw players as the only place where "real" meaning could be derived.

But as this thread has shown, the core decisions around lumping PVP and PVE players into the same game mode, and then making it virtually consequence-free, has created a breeding ground for toxicity. Making the outlaw playstyle more challenging - by adding suggestions outlined in the past few pages - would help make the game more interesting for me, but it wouldn't address that fundamental issue.

Elite's Open mode functions almost exactly like being in Human / Embered form in Dark Souls. You can get help from co-op partners, but you can also be hampered by "invaders" - gankers, essentially. The difference is that Dark Souls has cultivated a reputation for extreme challenge, and players come to it seeking that. Elite, on the other hand, has failed to really convey clearly that Open is the "Dark Souls mode" of the game, leading to huge amounts of salt and bad feelings. And unlike in Dark Souls, where the community culture is 100% dedicated to self-improvement and surmounting challenge, here in Elite it seems different. Which only throws fuel on the fire of bad feelings.

I don't have any answers to the above, but I will say that this thread continues to help me better understand this game and the choices that have lead to the present moment.
 
Elite, on the other hand, has failed to really convey clearly that Open is the "Dark Souls mode" of the game, leading to huge amounts of salt and bad feelings.
No, the game and the design of the modes have not led to salt and bad feeling. The actions of some players trolling unprepared new players in game for the lols leads to bad feeling. If they stopped doing it of their own accord, that would be the only solution. But that won't happen because some people just have no consideration for others. There's no solution, game design or punishment, to fix that.

There's also no RP'ing ganking/trolling new players. It is what it is. The attempted rationalisations are what amuse me. But there's no solution, beyond players taking responsibility for their own actions.

As always what we have is players overlaying the game THEY want to play on to the ACTUAL game that Frontier Developments created (which is just an updated version of Elite 1984). And saying amusing things like (paraphrasing) Elite has "failed to convey clearly that how I play is how it's supposed to be played".
 
Maybe because PVP is not the response to counter the BGS activities?

Let's assume it's a one on one.
One commander is actively working against your PMF. And it is only you to counter his activities.
If you try to get him in PVP you lost. Because killing commanders have no positive effect on your faction whatsoever.
If you try to get him in PVP you don't win anything, at best you will reduce your losses.
To counter his activities you need to work your BGS, better/more that your opponent.

Yes and no.
You can contact the opposition and negotiate. Depending on the outcome you could try to blow them up, go separate ways, or work together. All 3 things happened to me already and is part of the fun playing in open. If your "opposition" stops working your tiny slice of the galaxy you don't need to fill your buckets as much, if at all. This can happen through PvP or negotiations. PvP is a valid bgs tactic if it's some random or uncoordinated activity, especially if you are alone or a small group. But I do agree if used alone it is a recipe for loosing even against the most bgs ignorant person.
Stop thinking on only filling buckets. You can also empty them or make your opposition fill theirs less. It's always a multipronged approach that provides the best bang for the time invested.

The point I'm trying to make is PVP is so disconnected from the game objectives, that it simply does not make any sense.
Sure, you can use any pretext to engage in PVP, but there is still not a single game objective that will ask you to kill a Commander and there is no direct win in terms of game objectives if you do so.

PVP is slapped over a PVE game, with little consideration i may say.

Fully agree with that and I hope with the new expansion things chance a little bit by integrating PvP into game activities.
 
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400 hours into the game and I still have no idea how PowerPlay or the BGS are supposed to have any meaningful impact on my experience...

Well, the way I saw Powerplay when it was released, was as their first test run of an "expansion pack" that can work in an optional manner. Doesn't matter if you own the pack, you can still play the base game and it doesn't matter. (Powerplay was just an update for the base game, but my point is they were designing around a bolt on optional expansion ethos to test it out)

I actually utterly hate the ethos of making expansions this disconnected from the base game, as it really does seem to limit the interconnection between the parts of the game.
I wish expansion packs were just... required.
 
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This looks to me very much like an attempt to blame the players for the weaknesses of the rulebook. That won't get you anywhere, because you're basically putting the rules of the game in the hands of the players, with morale as the only instance. This is an incredibly stupid concept, not least because the game has no effective means of enforcing this morality. I suppose hardcore players of the old school wouldn't even dare to call it a game without blushing. To swallow that, you'd probably have to be a new generation player...
Not really, I just don't think we (well, the game) can stop trolling/ganking. I'm not talking about pvp, I'm talking seal clubbing trolls. All the c&p changes in the world won't stop ganking, every design choice will still result in some players trolling others. Every change to try and mould the game to prevent trolling but allow/encourage pvp will have unforseen consequences and will elicit more salt from players who have no involvement in pvp, or ganking for that matter.

I'm just saying in game systems won't work, changing (to use your term) the rulebook, it won't work.

It's the trolls that are to blame for trolling. I mean, they know what they're doing. Only they could stop. In no way am I suggesting they ever will, rulebook changes or not.

It is what it is. I'm here to lol at the convoluted pseudo-intellectual rationalisations for the trolling.
 
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Not really, I just don't think we (well, the game) can stop trolling/ganking. I'm not talking about pvp, I'm talking seal clubbing trolls. All the c&p changes in the world won't stop ganking, every design choice will still result in some players trolling others. Every change to try and mould the game to prevent trolling but allow/encourage pvp will have unforseen consequences and will elicit more salt from players who have no involvement in pvp, or ganking for that matter.

I'm just saying in game systems won't work, changing (to use your term) the rulebook, it won't work.

It's the trolls that are to blame for trolling. I mean, they know what they're doing. Only they could stop. In no way am I suggesting they ever will, rulebook changes or not.

It is what it is. I'm here to lol at the convoluted pseudo-intellectual rationalisations for the trolling.

A lot of players will just go to where the action is. That place doesn't have to be where newbies are, nor does it even have to be somewhere players of all types will want to go. It can be a place where there is a good chance anyone you meet will also be looking for PvP.

So Deciat - full of newbies because youtube tells them it's the first engineer to unlock.
Founders - full of players looking for a one-stop-shop.
San Tu - lawless space with good outfitting not far from founders, nice rings & an installation to zoom around. More PvP here means less newbies & other players to get in the way.

Now there's a fourth option of course, any unpopulated system if you have access to a carrier there.

Then, 5th & last is actually meaningful PvP - which is where it starts to get interesting for me.
 
A lot of players will just go to where the action is. That place doesn't have to be where newbies are, nor does it even have to be somewhere players of all types will want to go. It can be a place where there is a good chance anyone you meet will also be looking for PvP.

So Deciat - full of newbies because youtube tells them it's the first engineer to unlock.
Founders - full of players looking for a one-stop-shop.
San Tu - lawless space with good outfitting not far from founders, nice rings & an installation to zoom around. More PvP here means less newbies & other players to get in the way.

Now there's a fourth option of course, any unpopulated system if you have access to a carrier there.

Then, 5th & last is actually meaningful PvP - which is where it starts to get interesting for me.
It's been a while since I've been to Eravate. Does that still get traffic since the new player zone got moved? Are Adle's Armada still about, those guys seemed pretty cool from what little interaction I had with them - mostly telling new players how to outfit for open.
I can't even remember where the newbie system for the Horizons start location was. Eranin? That rings a bell? Last time I went there it was empty though.
 
It's been a while since I've been to Eravate. Does that still get traffic since the new player zone got moved? Are Adle's Armada still about, those guys seemed pretty cool from what little interaction I had with them - mostly telling new players how to outfit for open.
I can't even remember where the newbie system for the Horizons start location was. Eranin? That rings a bell? Last time I went there it was empty though.

Eranin is at the extreme edge of my stomping ground & is controlled by TCF, who usually play in Open but otherwise no, I don't think so. Wyrd is quite an amicable atmosphere, I've had people ask if I mind them testing out their weapons on my mission runner python (I'm happy to go to shields down), Wolf 397 has some pretty toxic people at certain times of the day (not brave enough for Deciat maybe?) but most engineers systems you are more likely to meet just another equally nervous PvEer ;)

Carriers have largely killed supercruise traffic in most systems I visit, I'm guessing the players are still using open but spend far less time actually flying their ships in supercruise now so the opportunity to meet new randoms has plummeted, which removes a lot of the fun of playing in Open for me. I have met a lot of cool people over the years, a small portion of which have shot at me ;)
 
The actions of some players trolling unprepared new players in game for the lols leads to bad feeling. If they stopped doing it of their own accord, that would be the only solution. But that won't happen because some people just have no consideration for others.

So, in Dark Souls, you can get an item that lets you invade other players. Depending on your own player level, you will be matched with players of a similar level, within a percentage above and below your own.

Why invade? Because it's basically the way that PVP happens in that game. You can only be invaded if you, as a player, consume a specific item. This item will allow you to invite other players into your instance (using Elite -relevant terms here) and have them help you beat the level and bosses. However, using this item also allows a random stranger to invade you, and directly oppose your effort to work through the game.

It seems like, in Elite, a similar approach was taken when changing the game from a purely solo / PVE experience (in the original games) into a multiplayer game. By playing in Open, you are essentially doing the same thing that a Dark Souls player does; you're creating the opportunity for spontaneous co-op, but also spontaneous PVP. You can't have one without the other. You can have arranged co-op in a PG, but this thread has demonstrated that a lot of players are looking for spontaneous experiences, or at least seeing other CMDRs so the game doesn't feel so empty (I guess NPCs don't count).

Anyways, one big difference is that there's apparently little or no level matching in Elite. Meaning you can have an extremely experienced CMDR matched with a newbie, and vice versa.

But, from my own experience, combat rank alone is not a very good indicator of actual player skill. If it were, a Novice and now Competent level CMDR like me wouldn't be able to take down Dangerous and Elite level players in combat ships, but even in my short time in the game, those are things I have done multiple times. In other words, CMDRs whose ranks reflect a lot of PVE grinding, and/or whose builds are designed around PVE instead of PVP, may be as easy to destroy as a newb in a Cobra.

So really, the fundamental issue here is, as you note, that some players enjoy treating Elite as a combat flight sim. I'm certainly one of them. I don't consider it griefing or whatever to engage another CMDR via interdiction. I am engaging in PVP in the only mode of the game in which it is explicitly possible, and in which the mode's intrinsic "Do as you wish" ethos is truly the whole of the law.

The fact that my interdiction is meaningless - because the CMDR isn't a PowerPlay enemy or whatever - is more a symptom of a game in which all PVP combat is essentially lacking in larger meaning. This is a failing of the game design, pure and simple.

But I promise you - even if there was a "valid" in-game rationale for PVP, there would still be players who felt like they were getting harassed or griefed when subjected to PVP that wasn't of their choosing. This is another fundamental game design issue, because of FDev's choice of forcing PVE and PVP players into the same game mode. Part of learning the game, then, becomes learning to accept that Open play means that PVP can happen anywhere, anytime, whether you're ready for it or not. That's apparently what FDev wants?
 
Yeah, last time I went to Shinrarta there were people there but certainly not what I was used to. It felt more like what I was used to seeing in Ray Gateway - on one of my hops through the system there was someone in supercruise, three or four people in the station instance. I wonder if the people that previously made their bases there have started moving out since they can't park their carriers there?

It could have just been the time of day though, like just before noon UK time on a Friday.
 
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