The Problem with Notoriety (and how to make it work)

[cool_lad]

The idea behind notoriety, to allow for player killing to have tangible consequences, is good. Unfortunately, the actual effect of this system is more often than not, less than desirable. The problem with notoriety comes from the fact that the actual system for detecting bounties in the game is extremely oversensitive and therefore can not distinguish between accidents and genuine crime.

This, more often than not, punishes players who did nothing more than accidentally hit or bump into an NPC. Such players are then forced to spend 2 actual hours twiddling their thumbs while their notoriety decays and they can resume their normal activities. Worse, this system can be easily evaded should someone wish to do so by simply leaving the game logged in, while the people who this system actually sought to punish don't really have any issues with having a bounty on their head in the first place.

The end result of the notoriety system is that while the players it sought to target are barely affected, the gameplay of many players who in reality had minor infractions at best is adversely affected through little to no fault of their own. The system is thus failing to really fulfill its main goal and has become a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.

There are however, some steps that can be taken to mitigate and improve this system:-
1. Make notoriety only accumulate and apply to Pilot's Federation bounties (ie Player killing)
2. Remove notoriety altogether from normal PvE gameplay till the system for actually assigning such bounties is fixed and doesn't give out murder bounties for accidental friendly fire and
3. Allow players to forgive bounties accumulated in cases where they were the victim (to make the system capable of dealing with the actual majority of cases, which involve accidents and minor infractions, especially in light of the inability of the system in telling crimes from accidents)

These changes would make the system both less frustrating to deal with, make it more focused (and therefore less onerous to innocent players) and more robust overall (as it becomes more context sensitive through the ability to forgive offences)

At least till such fixes are added into the game, I would suggest disabling the notoriety system altogether as it's current form is beneficial to no one and detrimental to everyone.

 

[xondk]

The idea behind notoriety, to allow for player killing to have tangible consequences, is good. Unfortunately, the actual effect of this system is more often than not, less than desirable. The problem with notoriety comes from the fact that the actual system for detecting bounties in the game is extremely oversensitive and therefore can not distinguish between accidents and genuine crime.

This, more often than not, punishes players who did nothing more than accidentally hit or bump into an NPC. Such players are then forced to spend 2 actual hours twiddling their thumbs while their notoriety decays and they can resume their normal activities. Worse, this system can be easily evaded should someone wish to do so by simply leaving the game logged in, while the people who this system actually sought to punish don't really have any issues with having a bounty on their head in the first place.

The end result of the notoriety system is that while the players it sought to target are barely affected, the gameplay of many players who in reality had minor infractions at best is adversely affected through little to no fault of their own. The system is thus failing to really fulfill its main goal and has become a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.

There are however, some steps that can be taken to mitigate and improve this system:-
1. Make notoriety only accumulate and apply to Pilot's Federation bounties (ie Player killing)
2. Remove notoriety altogether from normal PvE gameplay till the system for actually assigning such bounties is fixed and doesn't give out murder bounties for accidental friendly fire and
3. Allow players to forgive bounties accumulated in cases where they were the victim (to make the system capable of dealing with the actual majority of cases, which involve accidents and minor infractions, especially in light of the inability of the system in telling crimes from accidents)

These changes would make the system both less frustrating to deal with, make it more focused (and therefore less onerous to innocent players) and more robust overall (as it becomes more context sensitive through the ability to forgive offences)

At least till such fixes are added into the game, I would suggest disabling the notoriety system altogether as it's current form is beneficial to no one and detrimental to everyone.

Last I checked notoriety was never meant to be only affecting player vs player so yeah, its meant to be a consequence to your actions?

 

[wakko151]

I agree. I tested notereity since it came out. I murdered 7 npcs in low sec or higher systems. It took 4 days of activly playing the game to lower my noteriety to zero. At which point I could not even pay off my bounty or fines. Someone said I might be at 0.8 notereity. Now its been 6 hours since I reached zero and I still can not pay off my fines or bounties. Ok so this is a bug. It will be fixed. I can also not access outfitting in anarchy systems. Another bug. It will be fixed. I use a python and once I change my outfitting I will never have to change it again. I can play the game getting chased by pirates, bounty hunters, cops, and players. I don't mind the bounties or fines. Even being locked out of outfitting isn't a bad thing. Once your ship is setup there is no reason not to murder every single person you come into contact with. This change doesn't really effect me.

So who does it effect? If criminals and murderers are not really effected by this and will be even less effected by this when they fix the bugs then who is actually going to get screwed by this change?

The new guys. They are going to accidentally shoot someone. They will now be hunted until the jump from system to system or enter instance after instance to make sure the game is registering they are playing and lowers there notoriety. They will be unable to outfit. They can not afford to get into a new ship. They may not even be in open. Now they will have to wait flying for 2 hours in a direction occasionally leaving system to make sure the game is registering they are active so there notoriety goes down.