Deterrence [DTR] - Feedback

[Antonio]

Freelancer isn’t a competitive game. There is no ranked ladder to balance skill or numbers, nor are there high stakes (barring sieges) or punishment upon death. You lose a bit of ammo, that's it. You don't win anything tangible either. You don't flip Lichtenfelde Complex to the Corsair IFF if you gank the enemy out of existence.

We’re a small community where everyone knows each other more or less. If we behave like dogs there won’t be anyone left. Fun (although I don’t see what’s fun about being the ganker - you have an easy win with no challenge) at the expense of other people’s fun is a net negative. All you do is poison the well and encourage the ganked side to return the favor, or avoid playing with you until you have no one to play with.

The only way I see the situation improving is if active PvP faction leaders/HC members take responsibility to improve the status quo. You may not be able to stop 5 indies to gank 2 ships, but you can pull out your 5 faction members from participating in a 10v2. You can type "/gs EnemyGroup" and roughly estimate numbers. You can PM the other side. If you cannot do any of these things, that goes within the scope of your responsibility as a faction. Indies are another can of worms that needs addressing, but we seem to not even be able to keep (official) factions in check before getting to the indies.

This doesn't go for DTR only, nor is it targeted at DTR specifically. Most OFs have a bad PvP etiquette outside of scheduled fights. How often do you see people voluntarily sit out when they see the enemy is getting rolled? It used to be a daily occurrence when fighting certain factions/people. "If you want a fair fight go to Conn" is the worst take one can make in a game with no matchmaking.

Edit: A fitting discord quote that a community member wrote:

Nobody has ever made the game more fun by participating in the good old Ganking Doom Spiral
It has never worked and will never work
Can you really say to yourself "If we just gank them hard enough it'll make them stop ganking us" and believe it
It's like an arms race it just makes the game increasingly bad"

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