Solving the pve/pvp problem.

[CoyoteNZ]

Make money hard to earn again

Big fine, and no insurance for destroying a ship that never fires back.

Destroying modules, demanding cargo, all good but destroy a ship that never fired back, big fine, no insurance cover anymore for that ship until it’s sold (cheaply as marked as uninsurable).

If you are a bounty hunter you should be able to then call system security to pick them up and claim your reward (even if they log off once disabled).

If you are a pirate they should lose some of their cargo if they log off rather than dumping something.

If you are a griefer get lost.

 

[GlitchedVision0101]

1) Playing in open isn't an intrinsically punishing endeavor, and for you to characterize it as such tells me that you either don't have much experience with it or are counting on others to not have much experience with it.

2) Being penalized somehow for losing a ship is always appropriate, as it provides incentive for players to develop their skills- or at the very least helps them decide which mode is right for them.

The only thing that would make open more punishing than solo or pg is the unpredictability involved with randomly meeting other players who may or may not be griefers and the paranoia that some may have because of it. I stick to my PG because I don't feel the requirement to risk ratio is good enough for me to fly in an open environment. I love meeting and interacting with other players, but the risk of running into the rare one that will force my progress backwards a couple hours and the requirement to do engineering on any ship I wish to fly in open prior to even logging into the open galaxy makes for poor balance. Any time you fly, you're taking a risk in having your progress set back by NPCs and I've lost many ships to gravity, which is just as likely, if not more so. The catch is that for most, the added "human element" gives them something else to blame when things go wrong. it wasn't their own skill, or their lack of knowledge, it was the griefer.

As a final note to this post, I totally agree with having some form of punishment for ship destruction, but what makes little sense is how exploration data and combat bonds/bounty vouchers are treated so very differently than standard mission data. I could collect 2 million credits in mission data to various systems and crash all I want to while still having the ability to go turn it in, but collect that same amount by scanning a couple systems then have one mistake with a white dwarf and it's all gone. I say either make data deliveries fail when you crash, (more punishing and less favorable) or let us keep exploration data and vouchers/bonds after death (less punishing and more attractive to new players)

 

[Auronio]

Personally I don't perceive a PvP/PvE problem.
And personally I don't believe there is one.

However I sense this whole - ever repeating - discussions are based much more on emotions than on facts.

If at all, please show me data.
I would like to see the XmR charts for CMDR kils per total player base, per active player base, frequency of kills per time played for both murderer and murder victim, breakdown per platform, Pareto chart for systems the kills are happening etc.
(DW2 ganking for instance pretty sure would show up as special cause in an otherwise stable process chart.)

2.8% being killed? 0.028% on average?
For obvious reasons FDev don't share these data and without data everything is speculative and pretty subjective.

I consider myself a PvE oriented open only player flying ships prepared to survive an attack but in reality 99% of my playing time I never ever see another CMDR let alone that I'm attacked when meeting one.
THIS I know is a fact.

Not telling that in order to take sides for any party, but without data I tend to question every statement about asserted facts regardless of who made it.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Why is this so hard? If you don't want to be shot at, don't pick Open. Clicking Open is putting you in the same area as other people who may / may not share your idea of what ED is.

 

[EternalSorrow]

The broblem of the gap between combat and other ships (and between PvE and PvP builds) has rose after the SCBs were introduced, and reached it's peak after the Gringeneeres release. I've made a thread about different combat issues and possible ways to fix it.

TL;DR version:
- Remove engineering and SCBs
or
- Make a massive numeric changes to make ship building compromise-based

Both are really unlikely, and with a high probability I can say that the combat and surrounding mechanics will be in the *ss for a long time.

 

[Chaparral]

1) Playing in open isn't an intrinsically punishing endeavor, and for you to characterize it as such tells me that you either don't have much experience with it or are counting on others to not have much experience with it.

2) Being penalized somehow for losing a ship is always appropriate, as it provides incentive for players to develop their skills- or at the very least helps them decide which mode is right for them.

1) I can't know what I'm talking about because I'm inexperienced. I have 3 toons, elite on all of them, reset one of them. Elite on that one now. Tons of time in open. Really enjoyed socializing in mmos (still do in several other games). Been ganked (while not wanted, representing a faction or not carrying cargo) many many times in Open. Evaded many many times, grom bombed many many times. Yeah I have experience.

2) If you lose your ship to npc's or bad flying in open, you definitely deserve significant consequences. The risks vs. npcs and the environment are exceedingly low irrepspective of mode. If you lose your ship in open do to pvp gankage "just because" - you are essentially paying a time tax to have access to socialization. That's bad design.

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

1) I can't know what I'm talking about because I'm inexperienced. I have 3 toons, elite on all of them, reset one of them. Elite on that one now. Tons of time in open. Really enjoyed socializing in mmos (still do in several other games). Been ganked (while not wanted, representing a faction or not carrying cargo) many many times in Open. Evaded many many times, grom bombed many many times. Yeah I have experience.

2) If you lose your ship to npc's or bad flying in open, you definitely deserve significant consequences. The risks vs. npcs and the environment are exceedingly low irrepspective of mode. If you lose your ship in open do to pvp gankage "just because" - you are essentially paying a time tax to have access to socialization. That's bad design.

1) Then you should know better.

2) You accept the risk of PvP adversity when you click on "open". Don't blame the game for your lack of preparation or choosing a mode less suited to your playstyle. If you insist upon socialization without the risk, private groups are there for you.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Engineering makes it easier to escape and avoid getting blown up, way more so than it affects offense.

It's not even close!

Any time I see someone suggesting the opposite, it just indicates they don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Kotuma]

1) Then you should know better.

2) You accept the risk of PvP adversity when you click on "open". Don't blame the game for your lack of preparation or choosing a mode less suited to your playstyle. If you insist upon socialization without the risk, private groups are there for you.

I wish we could have this conversation without the advocates of "Open equals no-holds-barred PvP" arguing that all others need to change playmode. There are things that are preferential about open that are not present in other playmodes. No PG rivals the size and available players of Open; the proliferation of PvE PGs divides players interested in PvE among multiple exclusive environments. Plus, there are many who want to have PvP encounters, but desire a set of game mechanics or community rules enforcement that address the proliferation of griefing, which the majority of MMO developers consider to be part of the job. And making the positive argument that we *do* accept the risk of PvP when we play in Open doesn't answer the normative critique that the risks of griefing *should* be adjusted within that environment.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I wish we could have this conversation without the advocates of "Open equals no-holds-barred PvP" arguing that all others need to change playmode. There are things that are preferential about open that are not present in other playmodes. No PG rivals the size and available players of Open; the proliferation of PvE PGs divides players interested in PvE among multiple exclusive environments. Plus, there are many who want to have PvP encounters, but desire a set of game mechanics or community rules enforcement that address the proliferation of griefing, which the majority of MMO developers consider to be part of the job. And making the positive argument that we *do* accept the risk of PvP when we play in Open doesn't answer the normative critique that the risks of griefing *should* be adjusted within that environment.

It's supposed to be a dystopia.
You get blown up for loitering in a parking stall, lol!

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

I wish we could have this conversation without the advocates of "Open equals no-holds-barred PvP" arguing that all others need to change playmode. There are things that are preferential about open that are not present in other playmodes. No PG rivals the size and available players of Open; the proliferation of PvE PGs divides players interested in PvE among multiple exclusive environments. Plus, there are many who want to have PvP encounters, but desire a set of game mechanics or community rules enforcement that address the proliferation of griefing, which the majority of MMO developers consider to be part of the job. And making the positive argument that we *do* accept the risk of PvP when we play in Open doesn't answer the normative critique that the risks of griefing *should* be adjusted within that environment.

Here's the thing, though: open does mean exactly that. It is each player's responsibility to prepare themselves for such, and not insist that the game be altered to suit their own skill level or playstyle. And as for saying "people want PvP but not griefing", well... all I can say is good luck with that, since you're dealing with terms that can't possibly defined (much less coded into the game's mechanics) in any meaningful, consistent way.

 

[Chaparral]

1) Then you should know better.

2) You accept the risk of PvP adversity when you click on "open". Don't blame the game for your lack of preparation or choosing a mode less suited to your playstyle. If you insist upon socialization without the risk, private groups are there for you.

I don't disagree that open is a choice that has inherent risks. I have no problem with the behavior of other commanders. They did not build the box - they live within it. My complaint is with the designers not matching risk and reward. There is something creepy about pitting the human need for socialization against a time tax. I don't think it is a healthy design.

I play many pvp wvw games, and they all have partition mechanics that permit/promote socialization.

I am absolutely confident that if the punishment barriers of pvp death were lowered, we would see an expansion of players in open - which would be a healthy development for the game. The "open is full of gankers" narrative can't be changed for this game at this point. What can be changed is the consequences for gankage.

 

[Scubadog]

To be fair, statistics don't mean squat if you're in the 2.8% getting killed. It's that simple. Now, I play open. I don't necessarily feel there is an imbalance, although I agree that the NPC ships don't behave (nor are they configured) close enough to what real players are doing/using. I could be wrong, but I should think that FDev could modify the game to aggregate the data of real players and meld that into the NPCs. This would drive us build out our ships so that PvE really IS Player-versus-Everything. I also think the frequently used suggestion is a good one and should NOT be discounted just because some of us are hurt by the "git gud" cliche': engineer your ship for evasion and escape and train accordingly. There are great YouTube videos on exactly that. I have taken these tips to heart and I rarely lose a ship unless I just get careless or cocky. Now, having said all this, I wonder if a good change to the game might not be that any time a player destroys your ship they pay the insurance costs Seriously, we do this with car insurance, essentially. If someone wrecks your car, they (their insurance company) pay for repairs/replacement of your car. If we're already punishing murderers with fines, why not make that a part of the game, too?

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

I don't disagree that open is a choice that has inherent risks. I have no problem with the behavior of other commanders. They did not build the box - they live within it. My complaint is with the designers not matching risk and reward. There is something creepy about pitting the human need for socialization against a time tax. I don't think it is a healthy design.

I play many pvp wvw games, and they all have partition mechanics that permit/promote socialization.

I am absolutely confident that if the punishment barriers of pvp death were lowered, we would see an expansion of players in open - which would be a healthy development for the game. The "open is full of gankers" narrative can't be changed for this game at this point. What can be changed is the consequences for gankage.

I think, perhaps, you are giving them credit with more foresight than they possess?


But that said, if you read my sig and have actually listened to Bartle, you'd see that would be pretty congruent with gamer type MMO design goals.

That narrative about open is false, so I don't share your pessimism.
And I will speak out when people promote that particular falsehood, as you seem to be tacitly doing now.

 

[CMDR M. Lehman]

I don't disagree that open is a choice that has inherent risks. I have no problem with the behavior of other commanders. They did not build the box - they live within it. My complaint is with the designers not matching risk and reward. There is something creepy about pitting the human need for socialization against a time tax. I don't think it is a healthy design.

I play many pvp wvw games, and they all have partition mechanics that permit/promote socialization.

I am absolutely confident that if the punishment barriers of pvp death were lowered, we would see an expansion of players in open - which would be a healthy development for the game. The "open is full of gankers" narrative can't be changed for this game at this point. What can be changed is the consequences for gankage.

It's unfortunate that there are those who insist that open equates to "all gankers, all the time", since there are virtually none to be found save the hotspots (and even then, I've engineered and participated in CGs largely trouble-free for years). Still, we homo sapiens are far more likely to remember the one gank more readily than the ten-thousand non-ganks, aren't we? It's simply how our brains work.

Still, I stand by the idea that there should always be negative consequences for losing one's ship, no matter the reason. It's a simple enforcement mechanism that has existed in virtually every game in history- git gud and suffer fewer setbacks, or don't and suffer more. PvP is already remarkably easy to avoid- there are modes for those who don't want to risk it, and simple evasive maneuvers and awareness habits for those who still want to play in open.

Finally- and this is my own opinionated observation- there is a remarkable phenomenon that I've witnessed in the last five years, wherein more and more people are convinced that to face adversity in a video game is to violate some liberty to which they are entitled (barring obvious cheating like hacks and combat logging, of course). I can't say why this is, but I can say that a steady drip-feed of saccharine validation and kid-gloved hand-holding does no favors to either an individual or a game community.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

It's unfortunate that there are those who insist that open equates to "all gankers, all the time", since there are virtually none to be found save the hotspots (and even then, I've engineered and participated in CGs largely trouble-free for years). Still, we homo sapiens are far more likely to remember the one gank more readily than the ten-thousand non-ganks, aren't we? It's simply how our brains work.

...

That is very true.

From a biological/evolutionary standpoint, it is ok to mistake the stick for a snake, but not the snake for a stick.
"Nocebos" are also possibly permanent, or at least much harder to extinguish than placebo.

Anyone who has drank to illness or eaten food that made them sick has experienced this.
It can make a certain food or drink intolerable for a very long time.

You can even see it expressed in ticklishness.
You can rapidly condition some people to be more ticklish to the point that the stimulus isn't required to elicit a response.
That is difficult to extinguish as well.
You can just point at them!

Tickle, like pain, is a biological defense mechanism.

 

[Chaparral]

I think, perhaps, you are giving them credit with more foresight than they possess?


But that said, if you read my sig and have actually listened to Bartle, you'd see that would be pretty congruent with gamer type MMO design goals.

That narrative about open is false, so I don't share your pessimism.
And I will speak out when people promote that particular falsehood, as you seem to be tacitly doing now.

Hi Bob - good to see you

I think I may have seen you on the Distant Ganks 2 Thread. If you don't believe that that thread and all of the related posts/threads'tubes have an impact on the gank narrative I think you may be minimizing their weight. I think you know I don't want to take away the gank, just the pinch on the gankee. If that blands your pepper, I'll have to defer to minimizing suffering as the greater good.

 

[Chaparral]

It's unfortunate that there are those who insist that open equates to "all gankers, all the time", since there are virtually none to be found save the hotspots (and even then, I've engineered and participated in CGs largely trouble-free for years). Still, we homo sapiens are far more likely to remember the one gank more readily than the ten-thousand non-ganks, aren't we? It's simply how our brains work.

Still, I stand by the idea that there should always be negative consequences for losing one's ship, no matter the reason. It's a simple enforcement mechanism that has existed in virtually every game in history- git gud and suffer fewer setbacks, or don't and suffer more. PvP is already remarkably easy to avoid- there are modes for those who don't want to risk it, and simple evasive maneuvers and awareness habits for those who still want to play in open.

Finally- and this is my own opinionated observation- there is a remarkable phenomenon that I've witnessed in the last five years, wherein more and more people are convinced that to face adversity in a video game is to violate some liberty to which they are entitled (barring obvious cheating like hacks and combat logging, of course). I can't say why this is, but I can say that a steady drip-feed of saccharine validation and kid-gloved hand-holding does no favors to either an individual or a game community.

I think you and I may differ on the rationale for pvp. I enjoy it as part of an achievement mechanic, or as part of a large scale wvw experience (which once again relates to ranking and achievement), or as a source for skins/achievement badges. I do see some pvprs in ED as a BGS mechanic, a piracy mechanic, or as a belt notch achievement mechanic. From my sample size one perspective, these all seem very reasonable. I do have a bit of difficulty with the pvp with the intent to inflict human suffering, but I again don't really want to hold the player accountable for that, I want to hold FDEV accountable for that. I do find it interesting that many posters truly embrace the "suffering has value" "consequences should be real" for other people since we are talking about an asymmetric by design system. Time lost is always a consequence, the scale of time lost should be revisited in my opinion. I would invite you to consider the upside of allowing players to get back into the action more quickly - especially within the pvp context.

I think we can see from the cyclic stasis of pve pvp posts were currently have how a quite broad community of people that are trapped characterizing the morality, work ethic, intellectual competence, etc. of others. I don't think that is healthy for the game.

 

[Marra Morgan]

I wish we could have this conversation without the advocates of "Open equals no-holds-barred PvP" arguing that all others need to change playmode.

Would you rather they lie about it?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I wonder if a good change to the game might not be that any time a player destroys your ship they pay the insurance costs Seriously, we do this with car insurance, essentially. If someone wrecks your car, they (their insurance company) pay for repairs/replacement of your car. If we're already punishing murderers with fines, why not make that a part of the game, too?

The problem with this is that it incentivises exactly the wrong sort of PvP behaviour.

If you pay more the higher the rebuy of your target, then rather than going after hardened targets and combat-fit ships (which have a much higher rebuy), they're best off going after trade-fitted T-6s, or even Noobwinders. Even within a ship class, that trade-Conda will set you back far less than the "fair fight" PvP-Conda next to it, with its pricy armour and fully A-rated components.

The current situation, where some of the *difference* between rebuys gets added to the bounty if the killer's is higher, I think provides a much better incentive: attacking ships bigger than you gives a smallish bounty, while picking on ones smaller than you gets a much bigger bounty.

There are enough complaints already about "gankers who only pick on weaker ships" without the game design saying "and those are the ones you should be picking on". Conversely, if you have the money to buy an expensive ship, you have the money to fit proper defences to it. And the big ones are the easiest to add proper defences to without compromising their non-combat ability because they have so many spare slots.