Seriously, what's the point in open play?
- Thread starter DjVortex
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A week's worth of data isn't that much, but it's plenty enough to be a damn good reason to pop a ship. A few billion CR of exploration data, distributed strategically, can undo weeks of concerted influence shaping.
An unknown ship, configured like an explorer, with evidence that it's returning from a trip, is a rare threat, and a rare opportunity to save one's self a lot of grief. There are few ways Open can be a practical match for the efficiency of other modes, stumbling across an explorer might actually lose something meaningful before leveraging it in an unpredictable or undesirable way, is one of them.
Just one thing, Check your Power play. Not all Players attacking you are Ganker's. They're actual enemies. As I found out the Hard way. Ah Good Times
Don't need to be signed up for Power Play for one's CMDR to have actual enemies.
Anyone could potentially be harming the work one is attempting, or collecting information for those who are.
Reasonz tier justification for blasting explorers.
Nobody is condoning it here, but it is a valid justification for finding out what a random stranger is doing in a system. If the station they are headed for is 'yours' they are helping you by selling data there, if it's owned by an enemy that's a problem that will need to be countered. By doing compensatory work there, by persuading them to sell their data to one of 'your' stations... or by shooting them (only way to be sure a Cmdr has no explo data to sell).
The chances of this actually happening (or being a successful strategy) is minimal, but it's a valid justification.
Sounds quite like bullying to me. When I want to play a coop experience I don't want anyone to come up with any notion to coerce anything. I want a bloomy field of flowers, basically. Anything that doesn't resonate with that disturbs my experience and thus I eliminate such mistones where I can. Mute, block, log. This interaction simply is undesirable.
It could be used as an excuse for bullying sure, or intimidation, or gunboat diplomacy, or making a new friend. Depends on the situation, depends on the Cmdrs reactions.
Are you likely to be carrying a large amount of data (or bounties, or cargo) into a politically contested region? If so, be extra careful. Seems like prudent advice to me
If you are not interested in helping a specific faction in a specific system there are plenty of much safer places to sell that data, not least of which is any of the thousands of carriers that allow docking access & have universal cartographics/vista genomics modules fitted. There is a 25% cut in the credits for selling on the carrier but risk of loss is all but eliminated even in Open.
I think the major barrier here is simply language, if i ask people not to sell data to a station on english they might not understand because its not their first language.
We need to address the language barrier before we can start demanding people offload data anywhere.
Is that a common issue for you while hunting other Cmdrs in enemy territory? It isn't for me. But then there's no need to demand anything when (hypothetically) popping them guarantees they will have no explo data to sell.
EdzUp, you asked if there was ever any justification for blowing up explorers. You have your answer.
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then don't play in open
You are not the only one for sure, and this is why I will keep arguing that the current open mode should stay as is.
When I was more interested obtaining control over a little empire of systems with a group of players we did have a number of interactions with other players, some who were obviously fighting us, others who were just 'passing through' doing trade or bounty hunting or just a few missions.
We would always ask them what their intentions were, and if they were against our interests, would explain why and ask them to leave or change alliance, whatever.
To me this is where BGS conflict can actually get interesting and add a much needed extra role play dimension: is role play bullying still bullying? I think there is a difference, as long as we weren't just shooting on sight without actually interacting first.
Personally, I do quite a bit.
Then don't build an exploration ship with weak shields. Mine has A rated shields, A rated thrusters, and an engine-focused distributor to keep it boosting for days. It's an exploration ship, not a taxi. It should be rugged enough to allow you to survive the unexpected... not that there's a lot of unexpected out in the black.
You can also transfer ships once you're at the edge of the Bubble. I always keep an Imperial Courier in an isolated system so I can use it to actually deliver my data where it'll do the most good.
They're also very bad at the game, generally speaking. You practically have to cooperate with them in order to for them to blow up your ship. Don't follow their "script" (AKA the common "wisdom" about how to play this game), and they don't know what to do.
Just one thing, Check your Power play. Not all Players attacking you are Ganker's. They're actual enemies. As I found out the Hard way. Ah Good Times
@Shabine : There is one, a huge one, mentioned many times. What is the main reason to play in Open ? Social interactions.
So what is the main issue in Open ? PvP ? PK/Bullies/Gankers ? Both ?
IMHO, creating a Open PvE set of servers would create the issues when Legacy and Live had to be in sync. More of that having seen games with the two kind of environment, with Elite population, PvP set would probably be closed a few weeks/months after launch. So I don't think it's a viable idea.
Can FD implement a flag preventing damages and collisions between players ? I'm talking about realistic programming, not about the will to do it. For me it's the main question to answer to Open. As Purged said and many other times, I also believe Power Play should be PvP only but not only that, It may replace current Open, if and only if, Frontier implements the "PvE" flag and adds a new PvE mode called Open. I think it might work.
Notes :
- *About the state of "Dangerous" in Elite. I do think buyers would have bought it even if the name had been "Elite : tasty space pepperoni pizzas" "Do your own cooking in a 1:1 galaxy"
- DarkFyre99 placed my kind PvP is ok but if and when I want. (no grind, no PvE stuff in PvP, Elite is not GW2)
- Please don't talk about realism in a game which reminds us "It's only a game" every seconds.
Thats not a justification really seeing as most explorers fly unshielded and unarmed it must be a real challenge to kill those cmdrs
PP explorer data sales aside its not a justification to kill a cmdr tbh
Thats not a justification really seeing as most explorers fly unshielded and unarmed it must be a real challenge to kill those cmdrs
PP explorer data sales aside its not a justification to kill a cmdr tbh
I've sold exploration data strategically almost every time after returning from an exploration trip. It's an easy way to prep a theatre of operations for some BGS manipulation. A little data can go a long way of getting alliances with factions in the area. In addition, it's powerful tool for quickly boosting the influence of a single faction (assuming they own a station or port). Alternatively, it can be used to tank a faction's influence if they don't own most of the ports in a system.
It's one of the few instances where PvP can actually be used effectively to defend a controlling faction, though actually talking with the player and asking them to sell their data at a better station would be a wiser move.
If you don't want to be seen as a potential threat to BGS players, then don't fly in Open with exploration data. Other modes exist for exactly that reason. Or sell it at the DSSA carrier out in the black. Or choose a system on the edge of the bubble that isn't likely to have players in it.
That's basically the gist of it.
Elite is a poor choice for a bloomy field of flowers experience; hostility is an explicit and near omnipresent part of the setting. Even if one has no direct CMDR opponents, NPCs will attempt to bully one's CMDR at some point, and unless one has no attachment to anything dictated or derived from the BGS one will find competition from other player characters here, even if it is indirect and abstract.
In the rare case the situation arises, I tend to have my character observe and interact, in order to get the feel for someone's designs, if any. However, this presents risk, because any attention can spook someone, and anyone wise will deny having exploration data at all, or just tell one what they want to hear, then do whatever they were going to do anyway.
Anyone doing anything that has the potential to be a major influence dump where my CMDR is currently operating is likely going to causing me a vastly larger setback than if they had shot my CMDR down. If self-defense from direct violence is any justification to destroy a CMDR's vessel, preventing these transactions is a better one.
Challenge is nice and all, at least from my perspective as a player, but it's only occasionally the main motivation for what I have my CMDR do and I am not going to refuse a victory that advances my CMDR's goals just because someone made it easy. Indeed, such lofty standards would pretty much rule out anything that involved violence against NPCs and my CMDR has killed something like seventy-thousand NPCs.
Old example from back in the day...these CMDRs were bounty hunting/mission running for the wrong faction in an area my CMDR had taken interest in, so when the opportunity presented itself to erase some of their bounty vouchers, my CMDR took it (the bounty on that ship was incidental and irrelevant, my CMDR would have shot it down regardless):
Of course, being fools, they mistook my CMDR's willingness to kick them while they were down with an inability to kick them while they were standing:
Challenge was never the point for me; zeroing their bonds/vouchers/data/missions and maximizing the odds of my CMDR's employers coming out on top was the only consideration. My CMDR is also a pragmatic, path of least resistance, kind of guy...not some pseudosuicial 'dost thou even joust' knight errant with a sense of chivalry that has been outmoded for two-thousand years. And I never had anything against these players, at least not until they started with the contextually dubious insults.
But the irony of this is that the explorer remains a "potential thread" to BGS players in Solo as well, so what's the point of blowing up the random Diamondback Explorer in Open, if not for the "lulz"? Pretending that this is some noble defense of the BGS is disingenuous, though I suppose you can argue that it gives a roleplay "stamp of approval" to such actions.
The truth of the matter is that people blow up other people for the fun of it. Even I, when I would target an enemy player as defined by Powerplay, really didn't care about Powerplay itself. No, I just wanted to engage in some PvP for the enjoyment of unpredictable combat (something NPCs don't provide), and the Powerplay system is, by Frontier's own declaration, designed with PvP in mind. I see "ENEMY" on my screen the same way I see "PvP Flag Enabled" in other MMOs. There is no noble purpose beyond this, because of those other modes. Now if the BGS and / or Powerplay were Open-only...
OO PP has been oft requested.But the irony of this is that the explorer remains a "potential thread" to BGS players in Solo as well, so what's the point of blowing up the random Diamondback Explorer in Open, if not for the "lulz"? Pretending that this is some noble defense of the BGS is disingenuous, though I suppose you can argue that it gives a roleplay "stamp of approval" to such actions.
The truth of the matter is that people blow up other people for the fun of it. Even I, when I would target an enemy player as defined by Powerplay, really didn't care about Powerplay itself. No, I just wanted to engage in some PvP for the enjoyment of unpredictable combat (something NPCs don't provide), and the Powerplay system is, by Frontier's own declaration, designed with PvP in mind. I see "ENEMY" on my screen the same way I see "PvP Flag Enabled" in other MMOs. There is no noble purpose beyond this, because of those other modes. Now if the BGS and / or Powerplay were Open-only...
Personally (and only speaking for myself) IF PP was decoupled from the BGS, the unicorn modules removed and put in tech brokers and most importantly all the totally pointless PP targets removed from all modes other than open and replaced with other useful ones......... then i would have no problem with PP going open as the defacto PvP gameplay in elite.
anything less than that however and i would be pretty cheesed off.......
Nah, i disagree with Openonly PowerPlay since defacto it's a PVE activity.
Do player ship give any merits when destroyed?
Edit: the only way Open PP would make sense if merits would come strictly from PVP activities
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