Having played the game for 2 years and staying quiet, I thought it was time to share my musings on PvP in Elite Dangerous.
First of all, I would like to state that I am just expressing an opinion and have no wish to get into a debate with anyone who has a differing view.
Secondly I would like to state that I like the idea of PvP as it adds realism, danger and depth to the game. Initially I enjoyed the idea of running a trade ship in community goals in open play, quite happy to be interdicted by PC Pirates, deciding whether to fight, run, or to pay them off with a few tonnes of cargo. I like the idea of pirating a community goal, picking my targets and evading the wing of bounty hunters that are on my tail. I like the idea of joining a power play faction and interdicting enemy factions who have been downright cheeky enough to undermine my home system. I like the idea of PC bounty hunters having the challenge of bringing a notorious player to justice. I like the idea of squadrons being at war with each other.
But none of that has ever happened in my 2 years of playing the game. I rarely encounter other players and NEVER seem to encounter like minded ones. Maybe its because they have been driven into private groups or solo play by the random PC killers. In every instance where I have been attacked by another player, they have had literally no in-game reason to do so. I am not in an enemy faction, they make no attempt to take cargo, I have no bounty on my head. The only apparent reason that they do so is that they want to disrupt my gaming experience. I am not going to get into the motivations of players who randomly attack other players, but I think there is a wide base of players who consider this to be an issue in the game that has not yet been addressed. Players hanging around in solo or private groups diminish the game, as does combat logging, but I do understand why they do so. Being ganked for no reason is not fun.
So what are my solutions? I think two changes need to be made: Firstly put mechanics in place to prevent a player from attacking a player without a genuine in-game reason and secondly encourage more players into open play and punish combat logging.
First point first: My suggested solution is to disallow a player from firing on another player that does not have a ‘Hostile’ tag on them. Without a hostile tag, the player’s weapons simply have no effect. I know what you are thinking “but hey that eliminates friendly fire!” but perhaps friendly fire can still occur as long as a player is aiming for a legitimate target. So for example, if I randomly attack another player I cause no damage, but if I am targeting an NPC pirate (ie I have him as my selected target and not aiming at an untargeted ship) and my shots go astray, I can damage my wing mate by accident.
There are several conditions that will set a player hostile which I will elaborate on:
Please note that some of these actions only set one player as hostile but not the other. For example if another player interdicts me he is set as hostile to me which allows me to attack. However I am still not yet to hostile for him, so he can not attack me unless I chose to fire upon him.
Also please note that I may not have come up with an exhaustive list of reasons to PVP so please add more.
Now onto my second point: Encouraging more players into open play and preventing combat logging. This one is pretty simple and has been discussed previously.
That ends my musings. I would like to end by saying that I know latterly nothing about programming and do not know how easy/difficult any of the above would be to incorporate. I think these ideas would create a lot more potential for fun and dynamic PvP in elite dangerous.
First of all, I would like to state that I am just expressing an opinion and have no wish to get into a debate with anyone who has a differing view.
Secondly I would like to state that I like the idea of PvP as it adds realism, danger and depth to the game. Initially I enjoyed the idea of running a trade ship in community goals in open play, quite happy to be interdicted by PC Pirates, deciding whether to fight, run, or to pay them off with a few tonnes of cargo. I like the idea of pirating a community goal, picking my targets and evading the wing of bounty hunters that are on my tail. I like the idea of joining a power play faction and interdicting enemy factions who have been downright cheeky enough to undermine my home system. I like the idea of PC bounty hunters having the challenge of bringing a notorious player to justice. I like the idea of squadrons being at war with each other.
But none of that has ever happened in my 2 years of playing the game. I rarely encounter other players and NEVER seem to encounter like minded ones. Maybe its because they have been driven into private groups or solo play by the random PC killers. In every instance where I have been attacked by another player, they have had literally no in-game reason to do so. I am not in an enemy faction, they make no attempt to take cargo, I have no bounty on my head. The only apparent reason that they do so is that they want to disrupt my gaming experience. I am not going to get into the motivations of players who randomly attack other players, but I think there is a wide base of players who consider this to be an issue in the game that has not yet been addressed. Players hanging around in solo or private groups diminish the game, as does combat logging, but I do understand why they do so. Being ganked for no reason is not fun.
So what are my solutions? I think two changes need to be made: Firstly put mechanics in place to prevent a player from attacking a player without a genuine in-game reason and secondly encourage more players into open play and punish combat logging.
First point first: My suggested solution is to disallow a player from firing on another player that does not have a ‘Hostile’ tag on them. Without a hostile tag, the player’s weapons simply have no effect. I know what you are thinking “but hey that eliminates friendly fire!” but perhaps friendly fire can still occur as long as a player is aiming for a legitimate target. So for example, if I randomly attack another player I cause no damage, but if I am targeting an NPC pirate (ie I have him as my selected target and not aiming at an untargeted ship) and my shots go astray, I can damage my wing mate by accident.
There are several conditions that will set a player hostile which I will elaborate on:
- Being in an enemy power play faction automatically sets both players to hostile and they can attack freely.
- Being in an enemy squadron automatically sets both players to hostile and they can attack freely. Squadrons would only be set as hostile if BOTH squadron leaders set the other squadron to hostile.
- You are allied to any local faction to which the other player is hostile (or vice versa).
- You or wing mates detect a bounty on another player.
- The other player scans you, or somebody in your wing, with a kill warrant scanner or manifest scanner.
- The other player interdicts you or somebody in your wing.
- The other player fires at you or somebody in your wing.
- You are in ‘Piracy’ mode. If in Piracy mode the game will announce your presence to other players by saying “Pirate Commander X demands that you pay tribute!”. The other player has the option of dropping (perhaps) 25% of his cargo, which ends your piracy mode. You then cannot re-enter piracy mode for (lets say) 5 minutes. The above is reported as a crime, the severity of which is proportionate to the value of the cargo dropped.
- The other player is in piracy mode.
- The other player collides with you above a certain velocity.
Please note that some of these actions only set one player as hostile but not the other. For example if another player interdicts me he is set as hostile to me which allows me to attack. However I am still not yet to hostile for him, so he can not attack me unless I chose to fire upon him.
Also please note that I may not have come up with an exhaustive list of reasons to PVP so please add more.
Now onto my second point: Encouraging more players into open play and preventing combat logging. This one is pretty simple and has been discussed previously.
- Power play no longer available in private groups or solo.
- Community goals no longer available in private groups or solo.
- Faction influence from missions more pronounced in open play.
- Combat logging is punishable by limiting the player to solo play for X amount of hours where X is related to the number of times they have combat logged in the last Y amount of days.
That ends my musings. I would like to end by saying that I know latterly nothing about programming and do not know how easy/difficult any of the above would be to incorporate. I think these ideas would create a lot more potential for fun and dynamic PvP in elite dangerous.
