Piracy in 3.6.2
- Thread starter Mastersan
- Start date
That would be kind of funny if someone found me and tried that. I'm usually flying a ship with a lot of missiles, and I'm not adverse to collisions. I discovered that a mining laser makes an incredible weapon a while ago too, and there's virtually no risk there because I don't lose anything but time.
Nice one. What if they just log out? Or what would happen if they log back in, but into a different server?
I guess they could try and log out in bed. If you just exit game you still lose your ship and cargo.
mostly because they are truly fed up with the 12 year old pad rammers and others that sit outside an armistice zone just so they can try and ruin someone else's fun.
I find that these are the players least likely to engage in true pvp because there is a chance at them losing.
I get it that PvP can be really fun at times. But the difference between a legitimate PvPer and a griefier...to me...is the PvPer wants to have fun with others who feel the same way, while the griefer ONLY wants to ruin someone else's day, be it in chat trash talking, or pad ramming...
I guess mostly griefers are people who aren't good enough for real PVP and/or bored.
While the definition of what exactly griefing is is very broad and something CIG needs to consider sooner than later, for their game.
Personally griefing for me starts when a single person is under constant harassment by a single player or group, which prevents him from gaming.
So currently to me a single pad ramming is no problem. While blocking PO for several hours with pad ramming might be.
A single pad ramming, or maybe a couple in a row might be a player trying to learn how to fly. Some are awful, in fact once I ... being kind of distracted due to a teenager crisis behind me... crashed into PO and my ship stuck into the lobby.
To me, griefing in a PVP game is more about how you play. If you play to deny other players the ability to play you're probably a griefer. That would include camping, but camping can be regular game play too. The difference is the amount of chance you give to other players - do they have a way out other than not playing the game? CIG needs to define this.
The most interesting anti-griefing I ever saw was implemented by Linden Labs in the game Second Life. You got banned... which did not mean you could not play. But when you logged in, you found yourself in a field of grass. That could persist for a number of days. Enough in a row they just cancelled your account and you had to appeal to get the account back. Eventually they let players manage most of this and only intervene if an real life law was broken, or it cost someone real money.
I think that's probably it. While we are in alpha, players don't care about security much, things like escorts for instance. Some mechanics are not in place, bugs are here and there, and so on. When you run a million UEC worth of cargo, it's probably not unwise to spend 20k or so on escort and another 20k on freight insurance (both are not in place yet). If a "pirate" is stalking you, put a 20k bounty on their head, and if you put 40k, the "pirate" may also experience some "grief".
There should be a balance of what "bad" things can be done, and how these may be countered. Holes in the game design, that can be exploited to cause the denial of play, need to be ironed out.
A thought passed through my brain... don't ask... At what point does the pirate turn himself in for the bounty?
That's well said by the way.
Thanks.
I can try defining this point as... when the probability of a gang bang by the whole server converges on dead sure.
yeah, it had just struck me, a little slowly, but what is the safety against gaming the bounty system?
Intent is the key. If someone rams a ship or two at a pad at PO and apologizes for it, that's one thing. If they keep doing it, I would probably heartily and politely suggest they go learn to fly in Arena Commander.
If they hit a single ship and then start bragging about what they did in chat, that person's a griefer.
A person who shoots you dead as you lower the ramp or elevator on your ship so they can steal it...that's a pirate. I might hate it, but it's legitimate gameplay.
A person who forces their way onto your ship at a major port so you have to sit in the pilot seat and watch Netflix until the ship despawns due to inactivity because they refuse to leave is a griefer because there is no legitimate gameplay loop to remove them. Even if you do move out of the armistice zone, they will shoot you in the pilot's chair as soon as you leave it.
Someone tries that at a non-armistice zone and you shoot at them or they shoot at you. Again, legitimate gameplay. It's splitting hairs, but when rules prevent you from defending your own stuff and someone uses those rules to put themselves at a distinct advantage, then that's griefing.
Someone sitting outside an armistice zone with long range weapons threatening to destroy ships in the zone if they don't put up an escort tag are the same. Sit in an area where you are both exposed? Legit gameplay in my mind....even if you shoot at them while they are running to their ship. Sit where the person can't fight back? Griefer. Again, those are my personal definitions. Others may think differently and that's ok. The only thing that my definition means is I won't help that player again. If they ask a question, if they ask for help, it's a big silence from me. Let them get someone else to help them.
Even this gets messy. There have been times where I am sure the player thought we where griefing/camping their corpse as they kept coming back and we kept killing them on sight. In truth, we were just protecting the second group that was trying to accomplish a difficult task without raising too much attention to it and thus be attacked by lots of players wishing to deny us.
Indeed how does one know what the intention of the other players are? It's not like new players are going to be vocal in chat or voip. Most of the time they are lost in all the things that can be used and done that they ignore it most.
I agree these are annoying but so satisfying when you can engaged and destroy their ships. For now, the game has lots of broken aspects and the whole armistice zone as a stop-gap is tedious. I cannot wait until true persistent crime stats and law are implemented.
Here it gets difficult as the cargo might be worth multiple millions but the profit off the sale could just be worth thousands or 10's of thousands so if you end up spending 50 to 60k on defending the cargo then you'll not be trading much longer.
As to my initial statement, it had nothing to do with the current state of the playable universe as the game itself is missing so many critical features for any sort of meaningful player interaction. It was simply a disappointment in the desire of a vocal hopefully minority that wishes to make the whole game pvp lite or pve only. Where they can go anywhere and not worry about combat unless they so choose to engage (some sort of pve/pvp flagging) . To me any time there is no deep end to the game the player base becomes purely casual and with a few exceptions dies quickly. There needs to be areas with high risk/reward that gives everyone even if they never achieve it something to look forward to if nothing else dreaming about.
SoloFlyer
Grand Admiral
Yeah that's how I'm looking at it for myself. I fully get that with the way I want to play, I'm not going to get the most lucrative opportunities or visit the most interesting locales without an escort or two. I'm fine with that, that seems reasonable to me. As long as they're giving both types of players ways to enjoy the game the way they want to then that's great for everyone.
DontTouchMyHoHos
Space Marshal
Pirates kill for simply territorial reasons as well. Gain is subjective. What do I gain by simply killing people in a region over and over again? Notoriety by sending a message. "We own this region, gtfo."
So you would not deny your actions were intended to keep peoples out of a region, and when they left you would not chase them down and continue killing them wherever they went... That over-the-top nature is greifing, no matter what flag they fly it under in the end the actions speak louder than words. You defend your patch, fair enough. You personally persecute one player over and over hunting them down repeatedly no matter what they do or where they go until they get bored and log off. Not fair enough.
I am of pretty much the same opinion.
To me, that isn't really piracy, that's an invasion and occupation (maybe by people who see themselves as pirates) ... but that is not necessarily describing griefing, that's a legitimate claim and challenge in a PVP game.
DontTouchMyHoHos
Space Marshal
That is the thing about piracy, no one can dictate what it is. Neither you, nor I can dictate someone else's piracy. There is no written rule on piracy.
Wait I can't continue to chase you down and smother you in a manly embrace?