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To Solo Play Players: If You Could Disable PVP, Would You Play in Open Play Mode Instead?
- Thread starter AMX-008 GaZowmn
- Start date
In my experience @Robert Maynard is famously evasive on what his main points are. Often seen as defender of the status quo, they rarely state what they advocate for.
@TiberiusDuval the points you raise are very much along the lines of many players. The effects of a "clean kill" should absolutely be a function of the government type and security of the system they occur in.
Say not then, it's a PvE Open server that is needed, but instead a rework of cause and effect of actions depending on system type that is mode independent.
E.g. there's no way a killer of clean ships should be able to easily escape a high sec system - in the same way a trader in low sec or anarchy should expect some serious opposition.
Again, this should be independent of median player skill - I'm not a fan of grading difficulty against player skill (like in Skyrim/Fallout 3) but rather the environment acting as the different zones of hardness.
@TiberiusDuval the points you raise are very much along the lines of many players. The effects of a "clean kill" should absolutely be a function of the government type and security of the system they occur in.
Say not then, it's a PvE Open server that is needed, but instead a rework of cause and effect of actions depending on system type that is mode independent.
E.g. there's no way a killer of clean ships should be able to easily escape a high sec system - in the same way a trader in low sec or anarchy should expect some serious opposition.
Again, this should be independent of median player skill - I'm not a fan of grading difficulty against player skill (like in Skyrim/Fallout 3) but rather the environment acting as the different zones of hardness.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Not really - while the fundamentals of the game are sound, e.g. PvP entirely optional; everyone affects game features from any game mode, there are changes to the implementation that I'd like to see (and have done for years).
Supporting the status quo in some cases does not preclude proposing improvements to the game in others (not that every player would see them as improvements of course).
What would be the point of a PvP flag in open, where you already can do PvP?
PvP is optional but effectively Open is a PvP server. I can optionally do PvP in the PvP servers of other MMOs. ED just labels it "open" to sell it to unsuspecting players.
** warning: wall of text to follow. Pack a sandwich and keep an external link handy so you can safely eject **
Here's a disjointed, rambling of my musings on the topic.
A world without gankers is great. About a year ago, I read of a group of cmdrs that separately embarked on a trip to Guardian ruins. They were in two groups: a more experienced commander leading a group of friends they had met weeks before in the starter system, and a total noob out of the Matet cocoon.
The group came upon the noob's SRV stuck below, unable to move. They used their own SRVs to push the cmdr out, successfully freeing them. They formulated a plan to cover each other from Sentinels while one of them cycled through the relics. Instant bonding experience and friendship possible only because they were in open.
Just last week, I came upon an ED Redditor in a system. He was broadcasting that he had a shared mission worth 50M credits for anyone that wanted in. He switched to open, found a couple of noobs in dire need of cash, and made their day. We shared some jokes and now they're in my friends list. Again, made possible by open mode.
On the flip side, there's a least one story per week on Reddit of a cargo, explorer or noob that's quitting the game due to gankers. These are players that like the game enough to take the time and air their grievances on the forums. I can only imagine how many players simply quit in rage or disappointment. From an FDev perspective, this is money walking out, and a new megaphone telling their friends ED is plagued with gankers and not to bother with it.
As a white hat role player, I hate pirates ;-) They leech on other's hard work and that's wrong. But being a pirate is in the gameplay. It's coded in the game and NPCs do it. There's no significant money in pirating, and they know it. They just do it for the thrill of it. The professional pirate will detain a cmdr, ask for a token amount of their cargo and let them go. What is the point of killing them? That'd be risking to send that cmdr to solo or have them quit the game. Some of the most hilarious in-game exchanges I've seen have come from pirates. They're a good mood bunch of black hat actors.
Gankers have all but decimated the pirate role as there are too few cmdrs in open. Those still in open are newbies that don't know any better and have little or no cargo to steal. They end up being a coaching case for the pirate who suddenly finds themselves babysitting a noob instead of robbing them.
About two months ago, I participated in a 5ly (business) trip to Rackham's Peak. We belong to a private trading group and flew there in that group. The expected BGS didn't materialize so we were left looking around the tiny system wondering what else was there to do. I jumped to the beacon for some bounty hunting and saw a cmdr in his Krait. We tagged to take turns and together take down NPC pirates.
After ~1200 hours in the game, this was the first time I had encountered another player. It happened only because we were confined to a tiny system that's only accessible via fleet carrier, and a BGS situation that left us nothing else to do but to go bounty hunting in the local nav beacon. Private groups are no substitution for open mode. They are limited in size and this leads to geographical limitations of instancing.
The Fuel Rats and Hull Seals are two examples of how positive open can be. How many more of these would we have if we didn't have the ganker threat? How many impromptu meetings would we be having if we all worked in open mode? How cool would it be to wait just outside the noob system to welcome new players and offer in-game help. Think back to when you first started and how overwhelming ED felt. A helping hand would go a long way to climb that initial steep learning curve and fall in love with the game we all do now.
I can't believe you read this far. Go play the game instead!! lol.
Here's a disjointed, rambling of my musings on the topic.
A world without gankers is great. About a year ago, I read of a group of cmdrs that separately embarked on a trip to Guardian ruins. They were in two groups: a more experienced commander leading a group of friends they had met weeks before in the starter system, and a total noob out of the Matet cocoon.
The group came upon the noob's SRV stuck below, unable to move. They used their own SRVs to push the cmdr out, successfully freeing them. They formulated a plan to cover each other from Sentinels while one of them cycled through the relics. Instant bonding experience and friendship possible only because they were in open.
Just last week, I came upon an ED Redditor in a system. He was broadcasting that he had a shared mission worth 50M credits for anyone that wanted in. He switched to open, found a couple of noobs in dire need of cash, and made their day. We shared some jokes and now they're in my friends list. Again, made possible by open mode.
On the flip side, there's a least one story per week on Reddit of a cargo, explorer or noob that's quitting the game due to gankers. These are players that like the game enough to take the time and air their grievances on the forums. I can only imagine how many players simply quit in rage or disappointment. From an FDev perspective, this is money walking out, and a new megaphone telling their friends ED is plagued with gankers and not to bother with it.
As a white hat role player, I hate pirates ;-) They leech on other's hard work and that's wrong. But being a pirate is in the gameplay. It's coded in the game and NPCs do it. There's no significant money in pirating, and they know it. They just do it for the thrill of it. The professional pirate will detain a cmdr, ask for a token amount of their cargo and let them go. What is the point of killing them? That'd be risking to send that cmdr to solo or have them quit the game. Some of the most hilarious in-game exchanges I've seen have come from pirates. They're a good mood bunch of black hat actors.
Gankers have all but decimated the pirate role as there are too few cmdrs in open. Those still in open are newbies that don't know any better and have little or no cargo to steal. They end up being a coaching case for the pirate who suddenly finds themselves babysitting a noob instead of robbing them.
About two months ago, I participated in a 5ly (business) trip to Rackham's Peak. We belong to a private trading group and flew there in that group. The expected BGS didn't materialize so we were left looking around the tiny system wondering what else was there to do. I jumped to the beacon for some bounty hunting and saw a cmdr in his Krait. We tagged to take turns and together take down NPC pirates.
After ~1200 hours in the game, this was the first time I had encountered another player. It happened only because we were confined to a tiny system that's only accessible via fleet carrier, and a BGS situation that left us nothing else to do but to go bounty hunting in the local nav beacon. Private groups are no substitution for open mode. They are limited in size and this leads to geographical limitations of instancing.
The Fuel Rats and Hull Seals are two examples of how positive open can be. How many more of these would we have if we didn't have the ganker threat? How many impromptu meetings would we be having if we all worked in open mode? How cool would it be to wait just outside the noob system to welcome new players and offer in-game help. Think back to when you first started and how overwhelming ED felt. A helping hand would go a long way to climb that initial steep learning curve and fall in love with the game we all do now.
I can't believe you read this far. Go play the game instead!! lol.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The point of the flag would be to be able to switch PvP off if one so desires.
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I won't argue against this advice for a trader carrying a cargo in Open. Or someone in PowerPlay.
But what's the excuse for shooting unarmed newbie with no cargo? Or a D-rated explorer? Or anyone else whose destruction doesn't give ANY in-game reward? If it's just "lol, ship go boom", then the onus is on the attacker, not the victim.
So it's an invincibility flag on a de facto PvP server? Lol, I don't know but that is really backwards. You flag for PvP in an PvE environment. The other way round doesn't really make sense.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Invincibility from player damage - not to other forms of damage.
Discussions around such flagging arise due to Frontier's choice not to provide a multi-player co-op game mode in a game where playing among players who may shoot at ones ship is not required when engaging in any game feature (apart from CQC).
Look, the point of a flag is to use it to mark the exclusion - not the standard. But that may just be me.
TBH I don't think anyone here really thinks it's a good idea. A better solution has been advanced.
That's a simple position of power.
The real question is: would you pvp in a ship that's not optimized for pvp?
Because that's Open demanding for any non-pvp cmdr: to fly ships that are not optimized for exploration, trading, mining, whatever, but instead to fly ships optimized to survive a pvp-encounter.
And anyone that is interested in social play, but have no interest in pvp, is forced to do that.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
If it's a nomenclature issue then it could be called a NoPvP flag....
I have heard this quote a lot as an excuse for ganking. That the explosions were so nice, etc. So I tested it to see if there are any differences in the explosion of a player ship and a npc ship. I was very surprised that there are no visible differences. So why for God's sake should someone target player ships (that are very rare to find) to watch explosions? There are plenty of npcs out there that "go boom" in the same way as player ships.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It is certainly a learning experience - that some players aren't worth the time to play among and that correct mode choice is the first decision to get right at the beginning of each play session.
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