This. OK, the galaxy looks alive with BGS factions bobbing up and down. Some players choose to attach themselves to particular factions and want those to bob up. FD have provided levers to do this: "inf" missions, and three modes to do those missions in. So doing the missions in the mode of your choice is intended gameplay, not "trashing" anything.
Will Colonisation Attract Gankers?
- Thread starter Cmdr Travers
- Start date
100%. I can build an empire of 50, 100 systems all I like, just as readily as another person or group could take it away just as readily. The BGS is far too static and controllable imo... but that's a whole other topic.
The sad part here is.... I never wanted to attach myself to a particular faction. I only wanted to attach to the Empire. And in that context, there's virtually nothing (and powerplay sure isn't it)
From what they've said about colonisation so far, I don't really see how the "attackers" could work at all - in the last livestream they said that they didn't see colonisation as a competitive feature.
You establish a colonisation platform, you haul cargo to it, you get a new station, repeat. There's no way for other players to haul negative cargo to put you further behind, once you've got your claim (provisional or confirmed) that's not possible to interfere with, they can try shooting you directly but that's easily avoided if you don't want that. Frontier have said "no upkeep" so there's nothing in that respect they could do to make the system more expensive for you to "maintain".
They can do BGS manipulation but it's not clear if that will have any effect on the colonisation process itself at all, and other than Lockdown the faction and state is more about variety than disruption.
Bottom line... destroying another players ship, affecting the BGS or doing anything, without cheats, and without further context, is always within the rules as far as I'm concerned.
Thing is, things like an individual literally stalking another player's every movement in game and destroying them constantly is almost never without other context... whether it's a falling out between two players, stream sniping or what-not. Grim reality is doing such behaviour and never indulging anything that could even very remotely reveal a motive would, bluntly, be incredibly boring for an average Joe.
The real problem comes about imo when people impose unwritten rules on others and expect them to be adhered to, or pass judgement on the behaviour of others by inferring things which are simply untrue.
That's the real griefing and harassment. But context is king.
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I think we get this with every new game feature: "I want to blow stuff up because other players have made it". It was definitely a strong narrative at the launch of carriers. It was explained again and again that carriers were stations existing in all modes so had to be indestructible, but that wasn't enough for some. No doubt colonies will also have pan-modal stations or bases and the same will apply, but there will still be those who think only wrecking stuff is gameplay. The rest of us can just roll our eyes and get on with colonising something I expect.
Im sure they did...I'm having a different conversation with forum members about colonisation in a different thread, but one person did make an interesting point. @Alaska Sædelære said "And least of all do I want the creation of attraction points for gankers out there."
Now I almost always play in Solo so I'd not even considered this, but with so many commodities needing to be hauled about by so many commanders to make colonisation happen, will those systems become magnets for gankers when the colonies are being set up?
We can assume these systems will show in the system map, and if they do show as "under construction" I wonder if gankers won't just sit there and pick off any Type-9 or Cutter that comes in carrying millions of credits in cargo?
I wonder if FDev have thought of this
Unless specific "under construction" system would attract atleast CG's level of cmdr traffic (be it really juicy system, or player initiative effort etc.), its unlikely to have gankers flowing in numbers... since most of colonization will be done by loner cmdrs and mostly they might be simply in solo or PG. The colonization will be all around bubble, I can see it already once it goes live - it means that cmdr traffic will be much spread than already it is. Outside of known hotspots, there is quite rare to see any cmdr at all.
Why I should camp random system that is being "colonized" by not more than cmdr or two, waste hours patrolin supercurz, with rather high chance I might not see any cmdr at all. Donno hows others, but I am not that much desperate for targets, neither I found lack of such... I would rather go to Sol, Deciat or Shinratra or any ongoing CG's, so I can find atleast some targets to play with, instead... Yep, thats what I would do.
The amusing thing to me is that Powerplay is the feature where players are actively expected to compete and try to cancel out each other's work ...
- and Frontier doesn't really "get" competition, so peaceful building is incentivised over attacks on other Powers in multiple different ways
- and even the organised Powerplay groups are generally so risk-averse that "this lets you Reinforce a bit too fast" gets a shrug while "this lets you Undermine a bit too fast" gets a "Frontier must stop this now!"
So anyone expecting a feature that Frontier haven't designed as competitive to include any competition is really going to be disappointed.
But, equally, you get players who will spend months haunting the Guardian Ruins sites, for example, and destroying ships and SRVs that appear in Open.
As Brokk says (to paraphrase); there are people who just want to pee on other folks bonfires.
Don't want to get too "Doooooom!!!!!!" by moaning about this before it even launches.
Suffice to say that I hope FDev are prepared to deal with any flaws they haven't spotted... because if they exist, players WILL find them.
And this conclusion explains why FDev decided to make it a live BETA and limit the colonisation range (for the time being).But, equally, you get players who will spend months haunting the Guardian Ruins sites, for example, and destroying ships and SRVs that appear in Open.
As Brokk says (to paraphrase); there are people who just want to pee on other folks bonfires.
Don't want to get too "Doooooom!!!!!!" by moaning about this before it even launches.
Suffice to say that I hope FDev are prepared to deal with any flaws they haven't spotted... because if they exist, players WILL find them.
Yep... this is what i call Elite: Best Friends.
When it comes to the BGS... what's the best way to get one lawful faction to topple another? Go gank pirates in an unrelated system via Assassination or Massacre missions (or salvage, or hijack, or all the other ones which seem to hurt anarchy because screw that type in particular). Go trade goods to wherever a mission will send you, regardless of who the recipient is. None of this ever pits antagonistic behaviours against sympathetic ones. It's just a race to see who can do the most actions sympathetic to their chosen faction, or antagonise the bejeezus out of neighbouring pirates.
Instead of being seen as the variations they are meant to be, Famine, Lockdown, Civil Unrest, Bust... they're perceived as a result of "player failure" only.
Being Mr Grumpy right now, FD have bred a cohort of players that just can't tolerate outright hostility and fundamentally misunderstood crime, criminal gameplay and its role in creative destruction. Everything is dialed back to the point where its just who can mine more, rather than feeling that other powers NPCs or players are always minutes away. There is too much value placed on holding something rather than smashing someone else and reveling in the chaos. PP went through a (IIRC) near two year spell where exactly nothing happened bar BGS flipping and it was cripplingly dull.
Its really strange because FD compartmentalised negative actions via missions, rather than nurturing ad hoc criminal gameplay. Everyone has a lane, just like Tesco.
Sure, you can always shoot someone if you're in the same instance as them, but I don't think that really counts.
1) It's completely avoidable and always has been using the existing instancing-control tools
2) It doesn't affect the Ruins sites themselves. There's no way to stop someone else downloading the data by stealing it first or by blowing up the transmitters.
And so with colonisation - sure, you can, if they let you, shoot someone hauling to a colonisation destination. But that's likely all you can do, and it's implausible that it will be a more widespread problem than being shot down by a player on some no-name trade route in the existing bubble is.
Oh, I expect there'll be a bunch of flaws in terms of both individual systems and the aggregate consequences of rapidly expanding inhabited space. They're absolutely right to go for a limited-scope launch to let them tune things up and fix things like "I single-handedly built twenty stations in a week with this silly loophole".
I don't expect the flaws to be in terms of players A and B being able to harm each others' work from their separate instances (beyond only one of them being able to claim system X first, obviously).
I think it's fair to say that everything needs to be dialed-back, to some extent, until FDev manage to devise a meaningful system of C&P.
I know this is an old drum to bang on but it's absolutely fundamental to achieving an organic balance of power within ED.
If I play ED because I like mining and you play ED because you like blowing up other players' ships, you're always going to get your jollies at the expense of me not getting my jollies.
Fundamentally, I can't challenge you to pit your Murder Lance against my T10 in a mining battle to the death.
Currently, the only choice for those who don't want to get exploded is to not play in Open and I'd hope everybody would accept that's not really a fair situation.
Personally, I'd much rather FDev impemented a more plausible, yet robust, system that created a sliding-scale of jeopardy, in both directions.
At one end, lawful players could feel secure in high-security systems and outlaws would be terrified of entering them.
At the other end, lawful players would be terrified of Anarchies while outlaws could feel secure there.
Not sure what specific stuff FDev might need to do to create such an environment but at the moment it just seems like they're dodging the issue by dialing things back to make making everything a bit inconsequential so nobody gets too upset.
To give an example, the "featured squadrons" thing that Paige ran as CM ran an LGBT friendly squad for pride month and a few people decided to "protest" that decision by showing up to that squad's home system and rack up a massive bounty and trash their influence, using some rather colourful ship names.
But sure, go off and put words in my mouth.
Besides, if you actually read my post, you'd understand that the point was that I felt it strange that people condemn ganking yet will defend to the hilt their right to kick over people's work in other ways.
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I'm talking from a pure PvE standpoint, with a particular BGS focus here (which has implications for PP).I think it's fair to say that everything needs to be dialed-back, to some extent, until FDev manage to devise a meaningful system of C&P.
I know this is an old drum to bang on but it's absolutely fundamental to achieving an organic balance of power within ED.
If I play ED because I like mining and you play ED because you like blowing up other players' ships, you're always going to get your jollies at the expense of me not getting my jollies.
Fundamentally, I can't challenge you to pit your Murder Lance against my T10 in a mining battle to the death.
Currently, the only choice for those who don't want to get exploded is to not play in Open and I'd hope everybody would accept that's not really a fair situation.
Personally, I'd much rather FDev impemented a more plausible, yet robust, system that created a sliding-scale of jeopardy, in both directions.
At one end, lawful players could feel secure in high-security systems and outlaws would be terrified of entering them.
At the other end, lawful players would be terrified of Anarchies while outlaws could feel secure there.
Not sure what specific stuff FDev might need to do to create such an environment but at the moment it just seems like they're dodging the issue by dialing things back to make making everything a bit inconsequential so nobody gets too upset.
ED combat (PvE) is a choice, its rarely imposed on you. Rather than this being a constructed 'safe space' in places like high sec / strongholds its everywhere. If you want danger you have to look for it, in essence constructing a lobby (supercruise) that feeds into POIs of your choosing and establishing a very staid galaxy.
Now, I could live with a more regimented BGS if PP was the more chaotic twin, given you supposedly have explicit territory, strongholds etc. But here again its been dialed back so hard the AI is frankly worse than in PP1. In PP2 the only reason you have territory is to change what activity you do, its never used to moderate how NPCs come after you.
Whats developed is another farming sim, primarily mining. The chaos and 'legit' murder / destruction is once again toned back.
OK, so I didn't get that at all from your post... and in that example, I bluntly don't care if it's BGS, ganking, or whatever. That sort of conduct doesn't belong at all in the community. But the mechanism is immaterial imo. It's the intent that is completely out of line.
Thanks for clearing it up... sorry for misinterpreting, but even after re-reading your post again, that point is completely invisible to me... I don't see it, sorry.
Fair comment.
Seems like FDev have always looked at individual things one at a time and tried to "balance" them individually.
It'd all work much better (although it'd certainly be harder to implement) if they could create an overaching framework for C&P that applied to everything - related to PvP, PvE, players and NPCs.
It's a bit hackneyed, now, but I really, really, want to feel the same level of trepidation that I felt when I dropped into Riedquat in Elite84, and also the same sense of relief that I felt when I arrived in a system like Lave.
In ED, it's all a bit "meh", with every system being as likely as any other to be sketchy, regardless of theoretical security levels etc.
Oh, only the first paragraph was for you, as an example of someone using the BGS for far worse harassment than a simple "I'm going to kill the first hollow pip I see". And yes, absolutely agreed. The intent is the issue. In person you can get away from it via ganking and blocking, if someone decides to circumvent those and go at it indirectly, there's not a lot to be done.
The rest of the "don't put words in my mouth" was for Ender's snarky little rant, not your post. Sorry if that wasn't clear.