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I realize comparing ED to EVE annoys some people, but on this topic it seems relevant. For better or worse, EVE has taken a path that does little to discourage players killing or exploiting each other. There can be creativity and innovation in such things. Some call it emergent gameplay. Much of it can be seen a form of griefing and is very upsetting for victims. But, my impression is that it's quite challenging to balance these different types of players.
One aspect of this path is that EVE doesn't try to force players to play the game a certain way. Instead it recognizes the players will often be smarter than the developers in finding out ways to exploit the system and coming up with goals of their own. It seems quite likely that ED will also have players like this. And, the question will be: Do we try hard to stop them or do we find some way to embrace and accept them?
I could definitely see getting to a point where the pvp pirates in ED will get very good at killing other players. They likely won't care about lack of rewards or penalties. This is the case in EVE for the most part. It's very harsh being a pirate in EVE, few rewards. But, the kills themselves are worth everything to the players who do it. It's similar in Dark Souls, to be honest. It's not just EVE. Pvp is mostly about winning the fights and some players will be very good at it. How much do we try to thwart them? Surely, they could trigger lots of ragequit posts from non-pvp players. But, taking the victims side too often can lead to problems too.
Solo play mode is an interesting solution to some of this. Personally, I think ED should keep it and maybe build on it (carefully).
I'd like to see more cooperative play in open mode. I think this is quite hard, but if ED could somehow pull it off, it would be nice.
EVE also has a core value related to risk/reward. And, I could see applying this as some have mentioned for open play mode. There's more risk since you can be ganked, thus there should be more rewards. Then, a player can have a clear choice of safe solo vs. risky open with more rewards.
Personally, I usually play in open play mode, but I've almost never encountered other players. A few times I've switched to solo to dock. Thus, the issue feels somewhat moot to me. I've been choosing to play away from the core systems for various reasons (better trade profits, quicker access to exploration, etc.)
One aspect of this path is that EVE doesn't try to force players to play the game a certain way. Instead it recognizes the players will often be smarter than the developers in finding out ways to exploit the system and coming up with goals of their own. It seems quite likely that ED will also have players like this. And, the question will be: Do we try hard to stop them or do we find some way to embrace and accept them?
I could definitely see getting to a point where the pvp pirates in ED will get very good at killing other players. They likely won't care about lack of rewards or penalties. This is the case in EVE for the most part. It's very harsh being a pirate in EVE, few rewards. But, the kills themselves are worth everything to the players who do it. It's similar in Dark Souls, to be honest. It's not just EVE. Pvp is mostly about winning the fights and some players will be very good at it. How much do we try to thwart them? Surely, they could trigger lots of ragequit posts from non-pvp players. But, taking the victims side too often can lead to problems too.
Solo play mode is an interesting solution to some of this. Personally, I think ED should keep it and maybe build on it (carefully).
I'd like to see more cooperative play in open mode. I think this is quite hard, but if ED could somehow pull it off, it would be nice.
EVE also has a core value related to risk/reward. And, I could see applying this as some have mentioned for open play mode. There's more risk since you can be ganked, thus there should be more rewards. Then, a player can have a clear choice of safe solo vs. risky open with more rewards.
Personally, I usually play in open play mode, but I've almost never encountered other players. A few times I've switched to solo to dock. Thus, the issue feels somewhat moot to me. I've been choosing to play away from the core systems for various reasons (better trade profits, quicker access to exploration, etc.)
Completely agree. Frontier made pirating one of the safest professions in the game, so it also needs to be one of the worse paying professions.
Yeah, I know it's bonkers. In a typical game trading is the safest profession and combat ones are riskier. ED is not a typical game.
But that's the tricky bit isn't it?
How do they make pirating more profitable in a way that doesn't mess up the game economy?
You keep saying people can earn better trading in solo - I can tell you it would have made no difference to me in solo.
My ship can't go any faster or hold more cargo and only once have I had an interdiction attempt from another player - which I avoided - loads from NPCs - only one from another player.
I'll offer you a challenge to see if I'm right about being able to avoid players in open;
Meet up in an out the way system.
Challenge 1 - I try and prevent you from interdicting me in the first place. If I win we move to challenge 2.
Challenge 2 - I let you get a tether on me and then try and fight it off (obviously if I fail in challenge one we are in challenge 2 already) - if I lose you get to fill your hold with all the rares I have - about 50 at the mo I think.
I'm in an Asp. If you turn up mob handed I reserve the right to pull the plug.
Elite pirate?
Hehe, guess we can go with that one. But seriously, even if not killing them just making them drop their cargo, the ships with cargo scanners usually have nicer loot then npc traders. And I adore the fact how the brave shieldless sidewinder meanders up to my fully armed Asp sitting around at the nav beacon, casually flies in front of the 6 barrels, and does small talk about the new mercedes he'll buy with my precious cargo... while I K-Warrant scan him...
Besides the problems with implementation, i don't think that (PvP) piracy will ever work.
In an environment with predators and prey the numbers have to be balanced.
If the population of the prey can't support the predators, the numbers will go down and the hunters will stay hungry.
Now in this game it would take about one hundred traders per pirate to keep both sides happy. Enough victims for the one, and only being robbed every two weeks for the other.
Now if i guess that there are about 20% pirates and 40% bountyhunters out there, the number of traders doesn't even come close to what would be needed.
This wouldn't change even if there was no solo mode... numbers still way off.
So to support those 20% pirates, every trader would have to be robbed multiple times a day.
In theory, you can force them to play open... but you can't force them to play at all when there is no fun for them left (just as it is with the PvP pirates now).
In an environment with predators and prey the numbers have to be balanced.
If the population of the prey can't support the predators, the numbers will go down and the hunters will stay hungry.
Now in this game it would take about one hundred traders per pirate to keep both sides happy. Enough victims for the one, and only being robbed every two weeks for the other.
Now if i guess that there are about 20% pirates and 40% bountyhunters out there, the number of traders doesn't even come close to what would be needed.
This wouldn't change even if there was no solo mode... numbers still way off.
So to support those 20% pirates, every trader would have to be robbed multiple times a day.
In theory, you can force them to play open... but you can't force them to play at all when there is no fun for them left (just as it is with the PvP pirates now).
Due to the peer to peer architecture used in Elite: Dangerous, a player can choose open but never see anyone else if his router or firewall is not correctly set. Due to the way it chooses players to put together, if the player's connection is acting up — as it happens, for example, when torrenting something — then the player will likely remain alone even if he had chosen open.
And this can be replicated. Easily. I've even found scripts to enable and disable other players in open at the touch of a button by rewriting firewall rules on the fly, a more advanced way to pull the plug if you will.
So, how do you go about providing extra rewards or incentives to selecting open without allowing players to just exploit the architecture to get them without ever seeing another player? Do you remove those rewards from players that wanted to play with others but are having connection issues, thus further punishing them? What about players that pull the plug — or worse, use a program to drop other players while still being connected to the server? And what do you even do about group play in PvE groups, which is even more of an easy mode than solo, as not only the player won't be attacked by other players, he will have help when needed?
And what about players in open but going to the fringes of settled space? Many of the best trade routes are where you won't find other traders to exhaust your trade opportunities anyway, and if there are only a few traders going to a given system, a player pirate has little chance of ever meeting one of them, so they are effectively as safe as if playing solo. Should those players not get any extra benefits from solo too?
Given the peering architecture this game uses, I don't think there is a way to actually enforce bonuses only for those that open themselves for attack by other players; attempting to do that will only make the knowledge of how to exploit the matchmaking and instancing far more common.
And this doesn't even enter into the merit of whether it's fair to completely ruin the game for those that dislike non-consensual PvP just to appease the players that want more targets.
Indeed, that's the problem with PVP piracy - it needs skill on the part of the pirate but it also needs some co-operation on the part of the victim and as many have stated they'd rather self-destruct than give any cargo..
Apart from the last two lines where we disagree, this post is entirely correct and it is very sad.
For my money, the real answer to balancing Pirates vs Traders is to build in mechanism for Traders to hire escorts. Player escorts would be great, NPC/AI escorts would be cheaper (if less effective) - but they only need to buy the trader enough time to escape.
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IMO Solo and open are both good options to play, the problem is private groups its like your in a guild and you're playing in the whole galaxy with your guild mates basically youre playing alone with a entire group to help out with whatever but zero risk aside from NPCs
Escorts won't change the fact that traders lose everything when blown up, or that traders tend to rack one hell of a repair bill whenever attacked or interdicted. If you want to allow for trading to become less profitable relative to the other professions, those are the things that need to change; the potential losses for traders, when things go as bad as they can, needs to be brought in line with the other professions.
(Less profitable relative to the other professions can be achieved both by nerfing trading or by buffing the other professions, BTW.)
Otherwise, buffing other professions will simply result in far less players being traders, making the issue of lack of player target even worse for would be pirates.
Besides, player escorts mean having to divide the profits between those players. If the trader needs to hire even a single escort, I believe the economics stop working, to the point it becomes more profitable to just change professions and go bounty hunting or something. If player escorts are to be feasible, there must be trade routes at the same time so fantastically profitable that they are still worthwhile even when splitting the profits, and so dangerous a solo merchant (even a well equipped one) has less than 50% chance of making through alone. I don't think this can be made to work in this game.
So... pirates finding such traders out there teach them a lesson... 50% hull of a lesson. Or use limpets... Then leave them to ponder whether self-destruct is really a viable option. Pirates need to make it so that the Trader feels that they can live with the losses.
Yes - but I think it just demonstrates a fundamental problem with PVP piracy - some people just will not co-operate.
It's not a complaint and I'm not saying they shouldn't do that - it's just an observation - and it can't really be "fixed" as far as I can see.
Yes, you are right. People will do want they want, think what they want. If someone wants to PK for Lulz then that's absolutely possible.
I think how it is with group/open/solo FDev have hedged their bets well. If we only had open now so many people simply would not be playing... As it is, the PvP issue can be sidelined. PvPers are forced to smarten up their game and get with the programme... PvEers can escape and play how they like and when things balance out as eventually they will, more people will be back in open later on, seeing they can swap whenever they like.
You're thinking like a trader
PvP isn't about money, most PvPers are very poor and don't really care about making in game cash. Given that trading is already the most profitable activity, I see room for a percentage to go to an escort. I'd take the contract for fuel and spares, not 50%.In Jumpgate, I was part of a PvP squad which was funded by 2-3 traders. They liked trading and had already got as much money as they could ever spend. We liked fighting so they joined our squad and got an escort wherever they wanted and they chipped into the squad funds for PvP ships and equipment. Eventually we were self funding with various traders hauling our spares on empty return trips etc etc. Sadly ED is actually still behind Jumpgate in many respects (a game produced by two coders in 1999 in their spare time) so this won't work in ED - yet.
Anyway, my point is that with cooperation in game between players the gameplay options increase exponentially and it could easily include escorts for traders. It would be fun too!
I trade in Open and have never been interdicted by a single PvP pirate. Just find a safe place to trade.
I don't really see your experience as a sign of piracy working (or not working) to be honest. If the pirates can't find you, they can't pirate you and the complaint is that a lot of people trading in solo resulting in too few targets in open.
My solution is still to make the NPC haulers carry good stuff instead of Fish Oil, that way I could actually make some kind of profit from pirating.
My complaint is, exactly, that if people trade Solo, there will be less PvP targets for pirates, and this ruins the game.
If traders want to avoid *idiots* or *psychos*, just look for a safer route! It will be difficult for pirates to find them, but this is more honest than just turn off PvP. I think it's just a coward move to switch to Solo mode to avoid other PvP players. What if NPC Pirates were really tough to beat then? People would have quit the game? I don't believe so. They play Solo just because the NPC pirates suck.
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