Vindicator Jones Discusses Fundamental Game Improvements

[wstephenson]

Ok, I'd need a couple of clarifications from you then:

1) Would all stations immediately deny docking on one PF kill, or would there be some sliding scale of response to increasing levels of 'Criminal Reputation'? Do they turn up the heat first, sending out authority vessels in increasing strength and numbers to shadow or interdict you proactively as soon as you are spotted? It's the same effect as controlling the physical extent of a bad reputation - too little and no consequences, too much and there's no point playing the game?

2) You'll have to try a bit harder in justifying not having lawless (yet inhabited) zones to make me happy - a mostly-uniform response is open to allegations of wanting to punish killing other commanders out of existence.

Mindless PKing boils my urine too - it happened to me again on Tuesday night because I was engrossed in the livestream audio to notice a FdL sneaking up on me - but I wouldn't want it made impossible, just make its consequence be that its practitioners have to be as on their toes in the lawful galaxy in the same way that an unarmed T6 pilot around Lave does, e.g. find themselves having to permanently be on high alert to travel around and get things they want like FdLs or reach engineers.

 

[NeilF]

Ok, I'd need a couple of clarifications from you then:

1) Would all stations immediately deny docking on one PF kill, or would there be some sliding scale of response to increasing levels of 'Criminal Reputation'? Do they turn up the heat first, sending out authority vessels in increasing strength and numbers to shadow or interdict you proactively as soon as you are spotted? It's the same effect as controlling the physical extent of a bad reputation - too little and no consequences, too much and there's no point playing the game?

Let's spit-ball...

Accoding to your criminal reputation, you get warnings about a system before you jumped to it, as regards how they view you, and then it could simply be either:-
a) A verbal comment over traffic control if you're getting close to the level at which they won't accept you.
b) A denial of docking permission, if you've now exceeded their limit.

2) You'll have to try a bit harder in justifying not having lawless (yet inhabited) zones to make me happy - a mostly-uniform response is open to allegations of wanting to punish killing other commanders out of existence.

Mindless PKing boils my urine too - it happened to me again on Tuesday night because I was engrossed in the livestream audio to notice a FdL sneaking up on me - but I wouldn't want it made impossible, just make its consequence be that its practitioners have to be as on their toes in the lawful galaxy in the same way that an unarmed T6 pilot around Lave does, e.g. find themselves having to permanently be on high alert to travel around and get things they want like FdLs or reach engineers.

Case in hand, the "mindless destruction" taking place at The Ruins at the moment.

How is it of any benefit to the game to let such "illegal destruction" go by completely ignored? How does it make sense the same CMDRs can turn up over and over without a single blemish to their name, other CMDRs completely ignorant to their nature and intent, only to do the same all over again... And for no ingame reason?

How does it not make logical sense that the game (ED universe) should monitor/record such activity and take account of it. The suggestion that for some reason anarchy systems are off the radar as regards The Pilots Federation seems counter productive and illogical.

So as I said in my original suggestion, let's go with the notion "illegal destruction" even in anarchy systems is taken into account...

Now, what's the problem? What gameplay/mechanic is being compromised?

 

[Chaparral]

Just saw the video. I think VJ hit the nail on the head. Solution-oriented, enhanced game play-focused, community-based. I hope these solutions make it into the game. Keep it up VJ.

 

[CMDR_Elver]

Agree with most of your analysis & ethos NeilF, the Pilots Fed was pro-trader and anti-pirate when formed but over the years put more emphasis on combat. Now a bit more shadowy but serves to benefit is members (especially elite members). Agree with a lot of your points and analysis in your post. I have fleshed out my ideas a bit more on page 17 of this thread which you might find interesting to read. Basically the Pilots Fed is the key to joining the dots up to sorting C&P. Pilots Fed Reputation & piloting ability feeding back into insurance & an effective bounty system underpinned by more coherent power/faction security dynamics (which are pretty much there already). Be interested by your thoughts.

 

[CMDR_Elver]

yes I did not see your most recent post until after I posted my initial reply...

My responses to points one and two are still valid...

And I understand the system I mentioned with regards to insurance - the risk checking... comes with an unseen advantage...

Systems and locations can be risk weighted as well to make the calculation easier - this would be necesarry for determing risk... this has a benefit of placing a potential weighting which could be used for commodity prices making higher risk locations / systems pay more for commodities being imported and less for commodities being exported... Yes I know this has nothing as much to do with your end aim... but it is a nice side benefit... suddenly we are giving incentive for traders to go to riskier systems... which brings rise to more potential piracy play...

I do think a risk assessment can also be used in conjunction with the combat / defensive strength stats of ships... so when gankers in high end combat ships sit in a starter system taking out newbie commanders in sidewinders then there is further options for manipulating the reputation of the ganking pilots... if the newbie ship has a good risk assessment - has shields and is in what is a relatively safe system, and the ganker has a good risk assessment, but is in a vastly stronger combat ship then they suffer negative rep in that system for actions performed against the newbie winder... This of course would also take into consideration the pilots combat rank etc...

Your idea of PF rep is a good one and should be used for added granularity along with the other reputations and legal status etc IMHO

The system location could work regarding insurance, would have to think about the logic of it a bit more. The Pilots Fed is not really concerned with local system security issues, after all they are galactic, one star jump and the laws if any might be completely different. The system security level is important for other reasons but less so with insurance. Assessment of risks and defensive strengths is a little bit over complicated in my opinion, especially for the devs. Putting that aside, what's happens if you have a good defensive rating but feel silent running is your best option, would that then invalidate your insurance? Also the Pilots Fed is run by elite pilots for all pilots but presumably more for elite pilots. I don't think they would be over supporting noobs for the sake of it. http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Pilots_Federation . Having said that though it would be nice to tie C&P up with the general economics of the galaxy if possible.

 

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

Cheers VJ for putting this video together.

I agree in that you make some excellent points about how a better C&P system would enhance the gameplay of the game.

On the other hand, I do kinda reject this premise that more players need to be herded out of PvE into PvP play in the first place. Whilst I don't blame players who love to play in Open for thinking that way, I certainly don?t want that mindset permeating into the developer's minds. Honeslty speak, it reeks of a sense of Open mode being the more "legitimate" way to play elite, especially with comments like "I think FDev need to prioritise this over engineers, ship launched fighters and multi-crew".

One look at even the statistics on this forum (i.e. poll in the other thread", will tell you that the prevailing majority of players are not interested in PvP, and whether the game gets a better C&P system or not to fix the ganking issue, these players will not be lured into playing in Open over Solo or PG play. With a lot of the recent changes FDev proposed for the game and then backed-down on, a huge part of the criticism was that a lot of players felt that FDev were trying to artificially herd players towards a certain style of play. That's a bad idea, especially since ED is a game that supports lots of different styles of play that accomodate lots of different types of gamer.

I can appreciate that PvP has issues and needs some work, but PvP player must accept that they are a minority of the playerbase, and so demanding a higher dev priority for the modes/mechanics that are geared around their specific style of play just makes them comes across as elitist and a tad entitled.

Sorry in advance if this upsets some of you in here. The intention is just to try to get the PvP gamers to see the bigger picture, i.e. there's more to ED than just PvP combat, and so it shouldn't be top of the list of FDev's priorities.

 

[NeilF]

I'd consider the follwing thread of mine as a sort of cousin to the point VJ's has raised in the very least as it suggests a "Criminal Reputation" to reign in mindless/pointless/illegal destrucion (not stop/prevent it) - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Reputation-quot-and-quot-Risk-Hot-Spots-quot

And then most importantly, make certain systems obvious places for PvP to take place by offering missions and rewards to promote the food-chain ED is surely trying to base itself on (Traders vs Pirates vs Bounty Hunters). ie: Get hundreds of CMDRs into a few systems by promoting/rewarding PvP specifically in them so they are obvious goto locations if you're interested in PvP.

Consider right now if you want to PvP in ED, what would you do and where would you go? And for how many players how simply randomly interdicting and attacking is all that PvP is in ED? The suggestion above tries to orchestrate, reward and promote the different avenues that surely PvP should consist of in ED - Piracy, Trading and Bounty Hunting/Protection - both for regular gameplay, and Powerplay and CGs if appropriate.


In short, PvP in ED at the moment is all too often just seal clubbing for no purpose/outcome, mainly because there's little/no alterative or reward for anything else... Is that really a good state of affairs? What if the game simply promoted and offered more structured PvP gameplay/mechanics?

 

[Frank]

I agree with 99% of what Mr Jones said. Anarchy systems should be anarchic, and I should be there plotting my route wondering if I should chance a shortcut through the more dangerous areas of the galaxy.

Where I disagree.. You said that Arena CQCC is useless and should be abandoned. I think that Arena CQCC is useless and should be fixed.

Last week we cancelled our fighter club meeting because we were all too far apart to meet up. If CQCC worked better we wouldn't have had that problem, we could've arranged a private invite-only map so that we could have all put aside our current goals, whether exploring the galaxy, or stuck in the middle of an asteroid field with half a cargo bay full of rocks. We could've had a quick bash of PVP action then carried on doing what we were doing.

Of course the usual corollary applies. Crime and punishment is a much more pressing problem than the fact that CQCC doesn't work. If there are any time constraints, Frontier should work on the most important aspects first.

 

[NeilF]

I agree with 99% of what Mr Jones said. Anarchy systems should be anarchic, and I should be there plotting my route wondering if I should chance a shortcut through the more dangerous areas of the galaxy.

Where I disagree.. You said that Arena CQCC is useless and should be abandoned. I think that Arena CQCC is useless and should be fixed.

Last week we cancelled our fighter club meeting because we were all too far apart to meet up. If CQCC worked better we wouldn't have had that problem, we could've arranged a private invite-only map so that we could have all put aside our current goals, whether exploring the galaxy, or stuck in the middle of an asteroid field with half a cargo bay full of rocks. We could've had a quick bash of PVP action then carried on doing what we were doing.

Of course the usual corollary applies. Crime and punishment is a much more pressing problem than the fact that CQCC doesn't work. If there are any time constraints, Frontier should work on the most important aspects first.

I can understand the premise that anarchy systems should mean anarchy, but there's a problem. By treating them so, too much of the gameplay falls into anarchy.

Let's consider The Ruins, which is "a busy zone" in the game at the moment. Plenty of CMDRs are going there predominantly for exploration purposes. We end up with the following:-

• Given the fact it is busy we get (excuse my definition but it fits) seal clubbers going there for little/no reason other than to destroy other CMDRs. And is this suprising when in truth what else is available in ED for people interested in PvP to do? How else can you easily/quickly participate in PvP than find a busy area and blow up any CMDR you find there?
• Common thinking would suggest we should call upon other players then to defend the location but this is full of holes. Said players cannot be there 24/7, they need to eat, sleep, go to school/work. They may well be in different instances.
• A CMDR who has been at the ruins every day destroying any/all CMDRs he can could fly in to that area today, and no one there would be any the wiser. There is not a mark/blemish to his record. And this make logical gameplay sense because?

Ultimately we're left with :-

• With little/no easy way to participate in PvP, a large number of players simply resorting to mindless interdiction/destruction. This alone should be cause for concern surely?
• No way for CMDRs to truly effectively self police the matter - Indeed why should they when the game makes little/no effort to help with the matter, yet alone truly offer viable alternatives for PvP?

Introduce a Crime and Punishment mechanics such that "illegal destruction" of any Pilots Federation member, no matter where, is noted and builds up a negative reputation. If this reputation gets too negative, the game starts imposing more and more negative outcome such that you really would not want to illegally destroy a significant number of CMDRs in a given period. This means you can still kill any CMDR you wish at any time. You can pirate another CMDR and still threaten, and indeed even destroy them. But make it a common habit and there will be a serious quick increase in negative outcomes such that you would be swayed from continuing. In short, behave like a psycho and you will get notice and treated like one.

Now, what is so bad or unrealistic about that?


Now, in anyway possible, the game MUST start to offer more logical means of participating in actual orchestrated PvP, because frankly the current goto mechanics of fly around randomly interdicting other CMDRs is surely far from ideal? Create some simple mechanics and rewards to push CMDRs into a few key systems rewarding each of the key roles we need in the suppose ED PvP food chain - Piracy, trading and bounty hunting/protection. If PvP is easy to find and participate in, in a number of guises, ideally for logical reasons and outcomes, isn't that better state of affairs than ED's current state of PvP?

 

[excalibus]

The system location could work regarding insurance, would have to think about the logic of it a bit more. The Pilots Fed is not really concerned with local system security issues, after all they are galactic, one star jump and the laws if any might be completely different. The system security level is important for other reasons but less so with insurance. Assessment of risks and defensive strengths is a little bit over complicated in my opinion, especially for the devs. Putting that aside, what's happens if you have a good defensive rating but feel silent running is your best option, would that then invalidate your insurance? Also the Pilots Fed is run by elite pilots for all pilots but presumably more for elite pilots. I don't think they would be over supporting noobs for the sake of it. http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Pilots_Federation . Having said that though it would be nice to tie C&P up with the general economics of the galaxy if possible.

if you have shields fitted on leaving dock, then silent running would not affect insurance at all... FDEV have stated that comparing combat strength of ships is already in the games code some time ago... So extrapolating, one can reasonably assume defensive strength is also in the same code... crimes and punishment responses need to be tied in part to the economics and state of the system they occur in... along with the players criminal history...

I think having risk factors could also be a way of rewarding sound decision making when it comes to ships, systems travelled to, etc... going to sell something imported at an anarchy system where there is a lot of disorder should bring a definite benefit over taking the same goods to a well policed and regulated system

 

[Snarfbuckle]

crimes and punishment responses need to be tied in part to the economics and state of the system they occur in... along with the players criminal history...

Not only that.

Since systems are SOMEWHAT autonomous the laws should reflect it as well so while a Democracy might have a certain set of laws in the Federation a Dictatorship in the federation might have more lax laws and report less crimes.

Democracy
- Attacks against any system faction = Crime
- Attacks against independent ships = Crime

Dictatorship
- Attacks against ruling faction members = Crime
- Attack against non-ruling faction members = Ok

The ruling faction has enemies in the system by rebels and opposing factions that can take control and have no problem if we kill them

Monarchy
- Attacks against any minor faction in system = Crime
- Attacks against independent ships = Ok (while the crown protects them it does not mean they prohibit combat and duels unless if affect the monarchy and state itself)

Anarchy
- Attacks against ruling faction members = Ok (But your relation to said faction will be affected and could be problematic at their controlled stations)
- Attacks against any faction = Ok
- Attacks against independent ships = Ok

Minor factions would be a monarchy's vassals so it would be an attack against the rulership

This would mean that we would also have to inform ourselves of the systems security status and aproximate laws.

 

[Albert Madullier]

eve onlines security system would work perfectly in ED, but i guess that is too much common sense

 

[Sterling MH]

Generally speaking, you can go anywhere and almost never have to worry about PvP. I go literally everywhere in any of my ships and have been interdicted by hostile CMDRs once (1) in the last 12 months. One time. And I simply boosted away and went about my business. But let the forum tell it, there's a 50/50 chance that you'll get murdered in Open just by logging into the mode.

What were you driving? A trade ship without guns or an armed combat vessel?

Many "I RP pirate!" have no stomach for a fair fight, or even a fight at all, they've made clear (and proud of it) that this is just an excuse to blow up other players, because the AI doesn't get upset.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

eve onlines security system would work perfectly in ED, but i guess that is too much common sense

While i like it's simplicity it should only be one factor of several, EVE security system is good for calculating speed and force of the response.

Security rating: Affects the response time of security services (SOL and Achenar would be a 10 would have an instant arrival upon a crime detection)

Government: Government type would indicate what kind of laws would apply and how their response would be (Several of them will be almost identical in security response)

State: System state like Civil War, Blockade and other effects should influence laws and security response and in the case of Civil War could mean Anarchy or a temporary switch to Dictatorship in regards to laws as they stamp out rebellions

Criminal History: A history of crime on a CMDR should influence law response as they would be suspicious towards the CMDR if he has been a notorious murderer.

Faction Status: A CMDR's faction status would also come into effect towards law enforcement response and how they treat the CMDR.

Faction Power: Faction power standing should influence the military might of the security services as their manpower might be spread out when loosing power and their government is tethering upon Civil War.

 

[Kaybe]

VJ's crime and punishment video is nothing short of brilliant. These are all great ideas. And an overhaul of the crime and punishment system is looooooong overdue.

 

[Dathayn]

Even with c&p as discussed, places like the alien ruins would be free kill zones since they lie in anarchy areas. Maybe a security zone could be enforced by a capital ship above the site. Just a thought

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Even with c&p as discussed, places like the alien ruins would be free kill zones since they lie in anarchy areas. Maybe a security zone could be enforced by a capital ship above the site. Just a thought

Of course, any unclaimed system not controlled by a ruling faction would be anarchy.

And yes, if a faction claims control over an area AND can ENFORCE that control they might very well erect a safety zone.

 

[CMDR_Elver]

if you have shields fitted on leaving dock, then silent running would not affect insurance at all... FDEV have stated that comparing combat strength of ships is already in the games code some time ago... So extrapolating, one can reasonably assume defensive strength is also in the same code... crimes and punishment responses need to be tied in part to the economics and state of the system they occur in... along with the players criminal history...

I think having risk factors could also be a way of rewarding sound decision making when it comes to ships, systems travelled to, etc... going to sell something imported at an anarchy system where there is a lot of disorder should bring a definite benefit over taking the same goods to a well policed and regulated system

yeah would be good to think that the background economy sim is a bit more responsive to what is actually going on in the game. Off the point a bit but does the background sim actually run some sort of autonomus system or is NPC activity more for show. For example, does a shipment of food flown by an NPC leave an agri system for a nearby extraction system let say. Could you blockaid the extraction system of food shipments causing price rises and potential a famine. Or is the NPC ship activity just generated in system for effect? Also do you know why the Dev's coded the ship combat strengths for?

 

[Ca$hback]

Agree with all points in the video.

Consensual PvP is one thing but the very idea of consensual piracy makes me cringe. The idea of a PvP flag just makes me nauseous.

Draconian and long-term consequences FTW. In your station authority contacts, you could have a list of any assaults etc. against you and have the option to press charges, giving you some control over rewarding true pirates in the end by going easy on their rep. Like charming highwaymen. Closest thing to "consensual piracy" that should exist (except insurance fraud).
If "report crimes against me" is turned on, there'll still be a record of the incident and some loss of rep for the perp but if it really annoyed you you could optionally injure them further (superpower rep allied 100% to unfriendly 50% for an attempted murder seems to be a start, hostility from the minor ruling faction).
When a threshold is crossed you could put out a bounty of up to 1,000,000 (the more you put out, the more high ranking, incessant and numerous the NPCs, not to mention the CMDRs).

Federal scale bounty boards. Defacto banishment to anarchy systems.

You can't use violence to be friends with everybody.

 

[excalibus]

yeah would be good to think that the background economy sim is a bit more responsive to what is actually going on in the game. Off the point a bit but does the background sim actually run some sort of autonomus system or is NPC activity more for show. For example, does a shipment of food flown by an NPC leave an agri system for a nearby extraction system let say. Could you blockaid the extraction system of food shipments causing price rises and potential a famine. Or is the NPC ship activity just generated in system for effect? Also do you know why the Dev's coded the ship combat strengths for?

i think only PC actions actually cause market flucuations... as has been said by the devs and my take on it is only player actions affect the background sim...

I would think they added the code for metrics initially... but that said, I see there is a new stat on the pilot status page that lists ship defense.... They did state that they can measure ship offensive and defensive strength some time ago... It might have been put in place for NPC generation - to ensure NPC's of an appropriate strength are generated based on the players ship but that is just a guess