Normally when I'm in open and see hollow squares in the "radar" I prepare for evasive action just in case...
To Solo Play Players: If You Could Disable PVP, Would You Play in Open Play Mode Instead?
- Thread starter AMX-008 GaZowmn
- Start date
The bandwidth trick would still give you a heads up though
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Which would allow those seeking players to hide among NPCs as well - and those players are more likely to spend the time learning to identify players, even if they are solid markers on the HUD, when the bandwidth monitor indicates that the instance is shared.
Which would allow those masquerading as bounty hunters to more easily find targets in distress.
Why Open only?
This is true for any half skilled ganker. Identifying player ships by sight - especially if you look at the panel when targeting - wouldn't be too hard. And you'd have plenty of time to still interdict / intercept at station and do the deed. It's not a bad suggestion, it just doesn't actually solve any of the hub-bub around ganking no matter which side of the argument you're on.Also it would hide gankers nicely...thats the downsideIt cuts both ways.
I still contend the greatest salve for ganking - and many other woes in Elite - is to rework rebuy. Because as it stands, rebuy is just guaranteed 95% value insurance that you don't even pay for. And that seems silly.
We charge outrageous sums to maintain a mobile station most of us don't need, but get handed billions of credits for free on loss. Let that sink in. I mean, it's no secret credit-balance in Elite is an oxymoron, but rebuy is probably the worst offender.
Because when you remove rebuy, or replace it with an actual fee-based insurance program a la EVE Online, you suddenly create a very important dynamic from the start of a player's career: don't fly what you can't rebuy. Because we say that, but honestly? It takes a lot of work to run afoul of this Rule #1 after your second ship. Certainly as a veteran player, not because you're smart but because credit sinks essentially don't exist.
The first real credit sink ought be the loss of ships. Because when a ganker's target loses that ship - insured or not - they learn a valuable lesson. You think they learn that lesson now, but they don't. Hardly ever. Rebuy costs nothing. Literally. The ability to rebuy has zero cost. That is beyond silly! As for the ganker, the loss of their ship suddenly has more weight, too. Anyone that engages in PvP knows it can be an expensive sport - murdering or just jousting to 10% - so the removal or serious rebalance of rebuy will have a huge impact on this community.
I contend that impact would be positive. Because it validates the meta of lesser (cheaper) ships, where the DBS and Imperial Courier suddenly have more weight because of sheer economics. Which makes sense and deepens player choice. You can fly that shiny FDL, but are you prepared to eat the cost when a superior opponent - or their friends - show up? What else is the essence of PvP but the thrill of battle against an unknown foe?
For gankers, that thrill only rises. If they're trolls...and I suspect not as many gankers are what I term a troll...they'll move away from Elite. The economics of being a jerk simply don't work out. That is how you preserve PvP, ganking included because this is Elite DANGEROUS, remove the trolls, and most importantly of all: teach your PvE crowd to fly dangerously or prepared for danger.
We charge outrageous sums to maintain a mobile station most of us don't need, but get handed billions of credits for free on loss. Let that sink in. I mean, it's no secret credit-balance in Elite is an oxymoron, but rebuy is probably the worst offender.
Because when you remove rebuy, or replace it with an actual fee-based insurance program a la EVE Online, you suddenly create a very important dynamic from the start of a player's career: don't fly what you can't rebuy. Because we say that, but honestly? It takes a lot of work to run afoul of this Rule #1 after your second ship. Certainly as a veteran player, not because you're smart but because credit sinks essentially don't exist.
The first real credit sink ought be the loss of ships. Because when a ganker's target loses that ship - insured or not - they learn a valuable lesson. You think they learn that lesson now, but they don't. Hardly ever. Rebuy costs nothing. Literally. The ability to rebuy has zero cost. That is beyond silly! As for the ganker, the loss of their ship suddenly has more weight, too. Anyone that engages in PvP knows it can be an expensive sport - murdering or just jousting to 10% - so the removal or serious rebalance of rebuy will have a huge impact on this community.
I contend that impact would be positive. Because it validates the meta of lesser (cheaper) ships, where the DBS and Imperial Courier suddenly have more weight because of sheer economics. Which makes sense and deepens player choice. You can fly that shiny FDL, but are you prepared to eat the cost when a superior opponent - or their friends - show up? What else is the essence of PvP but the thrill of battle against an unknown foe?
For gankers, that thrill only rises. If they're trolls...and I suspect not as many gankers are what I term a troll...they'll move away from Elite. The economics of being a jerk simply don't work out. That is how you preserve PvP, ganking included because this is Elite DANGEROUS, remove the trolls, and most importantly of all: teach your PvE crowd to fly dangerously or prepared for danger.
The only players dropping in on beacons would be armed and ready and most likely in a wing, it could add some great flashpoints in CG systems and give some really good PVP seal clubbers would probably steer clear tbh
to encourage open play but I see no problem adding them to the other mode as well
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
... and, given that players would like to punish other players by making them lose their ship, probably don't fly in Open either....
I will tell what lesson they learn: Don't play in open. Especially with your most expensive ship. Second lesson, always block the ganker. Some will even get the lesson that don't play at all. And rage quit the game for good.
Plus biggest change: add even more credit grind to game.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Any player could claim to be a "bounty hunter" - regardless of their motives.
Bounty hunting is anyways pretty dead, due to impossibility of destroying properly flown PVP ship unless its commander risks it and actually fights.
The guilty party would be flagged as wanted and most likely under attack by systems ships by that point u could make a KWS scan mandatory which should be integrated into every ship along with wake scanners
You say that, but I think you're wrong.
They may play in solo/PG with their fanciest toy, but they'll also grow accustomed to loss there. Coupled with a larger rebalance of NPC difficulty - I know, we're getting into development bloat - rebalancing rebuy could have a massive cultural effect on the population. PvE players wouldn't fear Open if they don't fear loss in the first place. Gankers, while they do exist, are hardly that common.
You may point at that last statement and say, "Yeah! And look how the carebears are acting now with a free rebuy!"
Again, they don't know any better because the game fundamentally fails to teach them loss mitigation.
You solve open's woes by solving the player's perception of it. Open isn't scary because of gankers. Open is scary because loss of ship is scary, despite costing almost nothing. The perception of danger in the game is completely upside-down. Besides being ironic, it's also bad game design and it shows in the prevalence of community dissonance on topics like this.
Look, I'm a PvE guy myself but support non-consent PvP (EVE bittervet if you couldn't tell). I understand the risks and accept them, not because I like the risk or the thrlll - I don't, that's why I like exploring and passenger missions - but because those risks just don't bother me. Why would they? In an hour of play I can instantly cover the loss of my G5 Vette several times.
That is beyond stupid. Losing a Corvette, especially one I hadn't had more than a year, should feel like something. And making me, the player, make choices about mitigating that loss should also feel like something: development of skill, deepening of character immersion, and a sense of mastering the game. A free rebuy undercuts all of these aspects for retention of players.
That's because as it stands there's no mechanics for them to exist in the game
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Remembering the last significant change in NPC challenge - and how quickly it was reverted - I doubt we'll see a significant increase in challenge in the non-optional PvE game.
Ship loss is time wasted (for players doing things other than just combat) - there's no "fear" involved in not wanting to have ones time wasted.
All removing the rebuy would do is add to the total cost of loss when destroyed - increasing the time to recoup - which would likely discourage those for whom PvP is already a waste of game time from playing among those who would waste even more of their time.
Which players - given that the game wasn't designed to be EVE-like?
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
With an increased TTK on all ships, the system ships would be even less likely to be successful.
There are mechanics, but for properly built ship death is mostly optional as long as its commander knows the drill, quick get away when things turn sour...only trick is to know exact point when they turn sour
I'm no pvp'er my timing is on end of the submitted interdiction.a simple hud message could warn those in the decoy instance that the player who just dropped in is wanted in the system and has a notoriety level of x a real bounty hunter would/should be clean, Also a bounty hunters guild where players sign up in the system before going hunting would be great along with a similar thing for pirates ala go hunt in that system missions
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
They'd already be under attack by the ship(s) that caused them to send a distress call - so a warning that another potential attacker had arrived wouldn't help much.
Notoriety is trivially removed, as are bounties - so "clean (at the moment anyway)" wouldn't be much of a measure of how trustworthy any respondent to the distress call would be.
That just shows how broken the game is right now, all I'm getting at is that the game needs to give players the option to police it themselves it could create some amazing PVP
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It'd take a vast number of "police" to play the waiting game, i.e. waiting for the distress call - and, given the size of the galaxy and the time taken to travel between systems and in-system, they'd arrive too late much, if not most, of the time.