even without a glass ball, i know what will happen, the PvP Death squad (you know, those guys, who kill traders for fun) will also join the iron man mode and will just kill everyone
I really don't think that will happen. Why?
Because they are playing by the same rules, if they are destroyed they are back to square 1 in the starting system. If they want to kill someone then they will have to build up their ship again, and whilst they are doing so, they are also vulnerable. There would/should be no hiding in solo. I think it would take much more effort for far less rewards to grief in Ironman mode.
Of course some of this would depend upon what the rules were exactly. There must not be any carry over of resources. Randomised starting systems would be good.
Also don't forget that those who are playing in this mode have already accepted that they will be killed. It's a totally different mindset.
I would support this idea with one addition. We need an escape pod to give a realistic chance of survival. It wouldn't save you if you crash into a neutron star 10k ly from Sol, but if attacked by pirates in a populated system you would have a good chance to live if your ship goes.
The game needs this anyway. The original Elite had this. Now we get a self-destruct button.
This thread has turned interesting, so I'll give a serious reply. I personally don't think a character needs to "die" when shot out of the sky. Read the original Elite story, "The Dark Wheel" (it's free). The following happens in the first chapter, but just in case:
Jason Ryder and his son Alex have their ship blown to bits. Jason pushes Alex into an escape pod before this happens, but the assassin turns and destroys the escape pod as well. Is Alex dead? No. Here's an excerpt: In space, everyone can hear you scream . . . As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask. An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a skin of plasFibre had been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him against the void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart and brain. Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions according to circumstances. And the RemLok screamed through space for help. Long story short, Alex lives to fight another day.
So one does not need to die in the Elite Universe when their ship is destroyed. Perhaps instead of waking up all happy-go-lucky back at the station, we wake up in a station hospital and have to stay in bed and read GalNet for the rest of the day. You could simulate this yourself if you wanted.
I think the real problem for someone who wants a serious challenge is the rebuy. Number one rule, don't fly without a rebuy. Unless you want a serious challenge. While perhaps not "Iron" man, you could play Tinman or Hardwoodman by never purchasing insurance. This insurance feels a bit gimmicky, anyway. IRL, insurance is never so easy. Perhaps I get insurance on my first car, but if I make a habit of taking my cars to the smash-up-derby (or war-torn Iraq), my premiums will skyrocket and eventually my agent is going to point me to the door.
So play Tinman, throw out rule one, and always fly without a rebuy.
This thread has turned interesting, so I'll give a serious reply. I personally don't think a character needs to "die" when shot out of the sky. Read the original Elite story, "The Dark Wheel" (it's free). The following happens in the first chapter, but just in case:
Jason Ryder and his son Alex have their ship blown to bits. Jason pushes Alex into an escape pod before this happens, but the assassin turns and destroys the escape pod as well. Is Alex dead? No. Here's an excerpt: In space, everyone can hear you scream . . . As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask. An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a skin of plasFibre had been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him against the void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart and brain. Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions according to circumstances. And the RemLok screamed through space for help. Long story short, Alex lives to fight another day.
So one does not need to die in the Elite Universe when they are shot down. Perhaps instead of waking up all happy-go-lucky back at the station, we wake up in a station hospital and have to stay in bed and read GalNet for the rest of the day. You could simulate this yourself if you wanted.
I think the real problem for someone who wants a serious challenge is the rebuy. Number one rule, don't fly without a rebuy. Unless you want a serious challenge. While perhaps not "Iron" man, you could play Tinman or Hardwoodman by never purchasing insurance. This insurance feels a bit gimmicky, anyway. IRL, insurance is never so easy. Perhaps I get insurance on my first car, but if I make a habit of taking my cars to the smash-up-derby (or war-torn Iraq), my premiums will skyrocket and eventually my agent is going to point me to the door.
So play Tinman, throw out rule one, and always fly without a rebuy.
The thing is... as per "So play Tinman, throw out rule one, and always fly without a rebuy"
Its self imposed and the Op has already pointed out why, thats not what people are asking for.
A mode for Tin or Iron man is whats being asked for.
It's too bad, too. I think that's probably the best way to realize David B's original concept for PvP - that it would be 'rare and meaningful' (paraphrasing).
Completely idiotic and infantile suggestion, IMO !!
You can clear your own save any time you want, amirite?
So your suggestion smells in the direction of you only feel "satisfaction" in that other may be punished likewise in case of death?
Play as you want and let others do the same!!
But you need the "salt", amirite ?
Meh!!
A shame, you have no clue what you are talking about and immediately start throwing insults. Multi-play IronMan doesnt work if other people dont have ironman, as they can take way more risk and only have to succeed once to kill you, while being immortal themselves. Having an optional Ironman server fixes that, and it was indeed discussed way back. No idea where your response comes from...
The thing is... as per "So play Tinman, throw out rule one, and always fly without a rebuy"
Its self imposed and the Op has already pointed out why, thats not what people are asking for.
A mode for Tin or Iron man is whats being asked for.
No arguments from me. But what we want and what we have.... The "no rebuy" option is perhaps closer to what OP wants than manually deleting a save. If there are cookies in my house, I'm going to eat them. So to keep my diameter within the parameters of my current wardrobe, I don't bring cookies into the house to begin with. No cookies, no problem. No rebuy, no temptation to take the easy way out when my ship is destroyed. Again, I'm roleplaying a pilot who always has his RemLoc nearby (I survive the destruction of my ship).
Now if OP wants to role-play being dead when his ship is destroyed, don't delete the save, delete the entire game. Dead is dead.
The point OP is also making is that it'd be good to see how EVERYONE collectively plays in an environment were risk means something...so the interaction you have with others is different because they are subject to true risk...
Very true, I did notice that; but I would expect that the potential population of said 'mode' would be negligible at best.
Again, much better for FD to focus effort's where the rewards are greater
Very true, I did notice that; but I would expect that the potential population of said 'mode' would be negligible at best.
Again, much better for FD to focus effort's where the rewards are greater
Yeah of course, no doubt about it. A lot of ED is shaped on how we handle risk though, and I'd love to see the landscape when people actually take risk considerably.
Given "griefors" in my experience are actually some of the quickest to combat log, I suspect in an environment where CLing is monitored, many aspects of Open would work better than they do now...players would need to band together more for survival, and the skill-less picking on a a wing that turns around to kick their backside...not saying it WOULD be better, but I daresay the communal spirit would need to be stronger to survive.
Yeah of course, no doubt about it. A lot of ED is shaped on how we handle risk though, and I'd love to see the landscape when people actually take risk considerably.
Given "griefors" in my experience are actually some of the quickest to combat log, I suspect in an environment where CLing is monitored, many aspects of Open would work better than they do now...players would need to band together more for survival, and the skill-less picking on a a wing that turns around to kick their backside...not saying it WOULD be better, but I daresay the communal spirit would need to be stronger to survive.
I completely understand why people are asking for this dedicated mode, though I wouldn't play it myself (well, maybe, if i had a second account)
But I think the biggest "breaker" of a dedicated ironman server would be the combat logging. If you're only in a cobra, no big deal. But if someone that actually made it to a fully engineered large ship, I can see how there could be the temptation to CL. A perma loss like that would be painful.
Then again, maybe the mindset would be different to the point where people wouldn't bother going for vettes and cutters, and the majority would stay in small/medium ships.
Would certainly be interesting to see how it played out.
I would support this idea with one addition. We need an escape pod to give a realistic chance of survival. It wouldn't save you if you crash into a neutron star 10k ly from Sol, but if attacked by pirates in a populated system you would have a good chance to live if your ship goes.
The game needs this anyway. The original Elite had this. Now we get a self-destruct button.
Yes to escape pod! I think it should be standard that you have to wait for it to get to the nearest station where you can pay your insurance and rebuy your ship. This means in unpopulated systems you're pretty much dead... but would be interesting to allow a rescue option for another player to come and get you (new thing for the fuel rats to do) There should also be a chance your pod won't make it as well, meaning complete death/start over. Your other option, if you don't want to wait.... clear save and start over.
This thread has turned interesting, so I'll give a serious reply. I personally don't think a character needs to "die" when shot out of the sky. Read the original Elite story, "The Dark Wheel" (it's free). The following happens in the first chapter, but just in case:
Jason Ryder and his son Alex have their ship blown to bits. Jason pushes Alex into an escape pod before this happens, but the assassin turns and destroys the escape pod as well. Is Alex dead? No. Here's an excerpt: In space, everyone can hear you scream . . . As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask. An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a skin of plasFibre had been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him against the void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his heart and brain. Needle-doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready, just within the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his body functions according to circumstances. And the RemLok screamed through space for help. Long story short, Alex lives to fight another day.
So one does not need to die in the Elite Universe when their ship is destroyed. Perhaps instead of waking up all happy-go-lucky back at the station, we wake up in a station hospital and have to stay in bed and read GalNet for the rest of the day. You could simulate this yourself if you wanted.
I think the real problem for someone who wants a serious challenge is the rebuy. Number one rule, don't fly without a rebuy. Unless you want a serious challenge. While perhaps not "Iron" man, you could play Tinman or Hardwoodman by never purchasing insurance. This insurance feels a bit gimmicky, anyway. IRL, insurance is never so easy. Perhaps I get insurance on my first car, but if I make a habit of taking my cars to the smash-up-derby (or war-torn Iraq), my premiums will skyrocket and eventually my agent is going to point me to the door.
So play Tinman, throw out rule one, and always fly without a rebuy.
ED runs on AWS instances which scale with demand. You don't buy servers in 2017 unless you are a billion dollar company or locked into a legacy architecture
I would be I interested in an iron man mode, so long as it was locked down:
1. You select iron man mode when creating a CMDR
2. Once selected, only the iron man galaxy was available. No solo, group or open, ever
3. No non iron man players could access the iron man galaxy
4. Ship destruction returns you to the CMDR creation screen
So, an entirely new game mode needs to be developed, because a player does not want to hit 'restart' themselves?
Scalable resources do not make this a 'free' change to FD.
If even ten percent of the community are clamouring for it, then maybe it's worthwhile... but what percentage of CMDRs would use the feature?
And as usual, it's easier for players like yourself to complain about it than say do something about it.
So I'll rephrase: I'd like to see what happens in such an environment when players actually handle things in-game and are capable of fighting back, rather than Mobius 2.0 where players just combat log again and sob even more loudly about "the PvP death squad".
Yes, it absolutely is given that the initiative is completely in the hands of the aggressors and the force disparity between prepared PvP wings and traders. If you are talking about armed response, then by the time prepared defenders get there, aggressors will be gone. It's never going to be anything but massively asymmetrical. I'm not whinging; just stating the reality.
Except that IS NOT the same as a dedicated ironman mode. Playing a self-imposed ironman on the same servers with players that have a rebuy available is completely different.
And saying an "entirely new game mode needs to be developed" is a bit misleading.
It would just be separate instances with the same game code, except the rebuy mechanic is removed. They're not reinventing the wheel here.
Very true, I did notice that; but I would expect that the potential population of said 'mode' would be negligible at best.
Again, much better for FD to focus effort's where the rewards are greater
The population of HC for any game where it's optional is generally around 10% (based on experience of playing several games that offer it)
Granted then that the population would be small ... perhaps the same as any private group out there today.
Chance of meeting someone else ? Pretty much how it is now in open - other than around CGs you rarely meet anyone given the vastness of space; timezones; instancing problems; etc.
All that aside, IMO the change proposed for an Iron-Man mode would be relatively light:
- Enable a tick box during character creation to enable IM mode .. default if off
- Put you into a private, non select able and non changeable group (called IronMan) to ensure you're only matched with other IM characters (and in doing so nothing new is required for the game as you're leveraging the groups function that's already present)
- Upon death remove you from the group so in effect you're permanently removed from the IM universe to continue in normal if you want (or to rejoin wipe & clear your commander)
Done.
Everything else could remain the same .. nothing special or extra required just for IM - It's how a lot of current HC enabled games work (see Diablo 3 for the most obvious) - the game devs build the world around the normal immortals and the HC people simply live with it, bugs and all !
It would also go a long way to honoring some of the pledges Frontier made when taking peoples' money back in 2012
I'm down. I most likely wouldn't get any use out of it, but I'm for people getting modes that suit how they enjoy playing a game. I like a good roguelike game myself from time to time, I'm just not up for losing progress in Elite.
That's the beauty of it .. Frontier themselves when presenting their ideas on Ironman listened !!
There are 2 main types of HC:
- Permanent death. Total loss - game over. (Diablo 3 for example)
- Removal from HC mode. Semi loss in that you can't be "in" the HC universe anymore but can continue with playing your char in normal (Path of Exile for example)
Frontier themselves went for the 2nd option so that at least you could continue .. ED doesn't lend itself to permanent death due to the sheer amount of time you need to invest to get anywhere.
Anyway, like everything else, this wouldn't cater to the $$ making machine as after all .. that's the only thing that counts these days for FD
The reason why i would not play is not because i'd get killed and lose ships. It's the rep grinds which lock away content and are tuned to doing them once and then having dreadful memories and relief.
