I don't see anything bad in losing in a fair fight. The problem starts when one group obviously ganks the other, no matter if for ooRP hatred (wait, someone hates us?) or just to ruin someone else's fun.
I have a simple solution for ganking (or situation in which the only goal is to destroy meet-and-RP scenario): first, we politely ask people to not to do that, but we continue our roleplay with that group. Secondly, if they after several tries of ganking still do not get the point, we limit roleplay with that group and put inRP consequences.
The very last form is the situation in which that exact group (or players) are not invited (i.e. are banned to participate) to any events held by us and other party - moreover, we may refuse interaction with that group inside our roleplay (in other words: KoS label).
Thankfully, I have never seen anyone reaching the last form. Yet.
(08-02-2015, 10:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: If you are good, do you have the right to win?
Define win.
No, really - we are all winning as long as we stay and play. Only way to really lose is quitting Disco. But we all come back some day anyway.
Personally, I feel like a winner every time I log to help weaker side, mostly because I'm a coward and I can't pew well. Not all can get tons of blues. Some must "become yet another statistic for the former", as you said well. But, there's some fun in the process, no matter how short it was. Longer the better in my case *giggles*. Ofc players that log to "win" will cry rivers if they lose. They wait a bit, log to help stronger side, with best possible ships for that situation and look - they lose sometimes. Everybody else must be guilty for that - in our 10 years old game that even have no matchmaker.
So, define win.
Btw, there is something even I consider as great lose: losing a friend cuz of shooting at some silly pixels we mostly do here. It still hurts when I'm thinking about friends I lost. That's only Lose I admit, a Lose with major L.
(08-02-2015, 10:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: Are you, if you are more skilled in the pvp aspect of the game, entitled to come out on top?
Yes, otherwise there is no game. Why would anyone spend hours training to get better, then spend hours playing in the RP environment using those skills, if the game is balanced like ludo for 5 year olds and victory is random? No point in ever logging.
(08-02-2015, 10:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: However Discovery Freelancer is different.
No, it really isn't. If I wanted a pure roleplay experience, the Freelancer computer game is a terrible setting. You can type one line of text with no formatting options, while having to avoid NPC's and other stuff shooting at you. Even the scenery is terrible, planets the size of a space ship, every object is on the same plane and so on and so forth. Table-top roleplay or internet text based / forum roleplay is infinitely better.
Discovery IS a shooter, wrapped in a bit of text. Not the other way round.
(08-02-2015, 10:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: People who are bad at the pvp aspect of Disco want to be able to avoid such interaction or at least to have game mechanics where they can survive them if needed.
Not true at all. You see, at one point we were all bads. Some people are just stubborn (or motivated, depending on how you look at it) and they want to improve at everything they do. If there were a bunch of ez-win mechanics, I would have personally left after having played for just 1-2 months. If there is no scope to what you do, no means of actually getting better, why invest time in it? It's not about victory, it's about improvement. There were dudes who were god-mode to me, I just couldn't beat them no matter what I tried. To train and then being able to beat those same dudes is gratifying. There were fighting styles I just couldn't counter (there still is, which means I still have a lot of things to learn - and that means hours to spend in game), I didn't get what my enemy was doing and I died horribly with no chance of ever winning, but testing and finding my own counters and taking advice from people that are better than me helped me progress, and that's fun. I achieved something. I know I achieved that on my own, by my own investment and dedication; it wasn't handed to me by devs through bad mechanics. If it got it handed to me, I wouldn't want it.
It's not all about victory, believe it or not, but rather about how you achieve it.
(08-02-2015, 10:31 AM)sindroms Wrote: Okay, fair enough. But in that case, shouldn't players who are bad be protected and be just as well within the right not to become yet another statistic for the former?
Most decent PVP'ers would rather fight someone else that's equal to us or better. That's why we set up conn dates or log ships with the sole purpose of fighting specific players. The farming of the nubs is a thing for semi-bad PVP'ers.
I don't have a "right to win", but I don't want to play in an environment where there is no relation between the amount of time I dedicate to getting better and the actual results I achieve. That's Ludo or Snakes 'n' Ladders, and I think the majority of us have outgrown those games. As a side note, if you had spent your time practicing to get better, rather than look for shortcuts through bad mechanics (like missiles etc.) and terrible balance suggestions, you'd be an ace by now. You've only got yourself to blame.
EDIT:
(08-02-2015, 11:35 AM)Lythrilux Wrote: I don't care about winning, I only care about fun.
I guess I will play the devil's advocate here, but this is how I genuinely feel about gaming in general.
Yes, I play to win and while there might be some fun in the gameplay itself, if there's no winning, I could have probably been doing something else. And Freelancer's fighting system is very fun and very skillful, plus I've been playing this game for so goddamn long that I might just stick to it.
Overall as far as disco's RP is concerned (I'm massively oversimplifying here, but that's the essence of it), if we use it as an analogy to any paper RPG - in those all the conflicting decisions are based around your character's stats and the dicerolls. The better your stats, the easier the diceroll is to get a favourable outcome. In discovery the stats are replaced with however many people you can bring to the scene and diceroll is replaced with the pvp skill of each individual player. Sometimes there are random elements, like people eating nukes and whatnot, but they don't often change. If you want to influence your outcome in events and even general, spontaneous RP - you gotta #GetGud or you gotta have enough people.
@Edit: And while sure, writing stories and RP is fun and games, if Disco's snub pvp was removed or dramatically changed in some way, you wouldn't see me here anymore.
You raise an interesting point about effort. Discovery 'matchmaking' does not exist, it is as if in DotA all kinds of players from 1k MMR and 8k MMR are thrown together. Practice is everything in competitive games, and I will fully agree with anyone saying that if practice makes you better, you should come out on top. The problem is that neither Freelancer itself nor Discovery are really designed to be competitive like that.
And with that comes another problem that I believe to be another big reason for the popularity of capital ships amongst newer players: You can have the same impact and fun all of the skilled snub-enthusiasts have without having to put effort into practice.
Then again, it all comes down to what you define as winning and what you consider fun. If you getting a blue message is what you define as 'winning' and 'fun' and the point of Discovery then you are missing out on a lot, anyway.
First of all, to the OP, was there any need for your third line? It is rather derogative.
As a Trader you can easily RP yourself as either a very good, knowledgeable Trader or even a poor Trader that knows nothing of where places are other than where he has started from. (Not everybody Trades to make money).
With the System, we have it, is impossible to RP yourself as a very good fighter if you are no good at PvP. On the other hand you can RP yourself as a poor PvPer (this is unlikely to happen as the good PvPers aren’t going to let go of their egos).
In the latter example the RP really falls over. Once you have achieved the PvP skills to be an ‘Ace’, suddenly all your characters become an ‘Ace’ as well.
In other RP Games if one of your Characters becomes very good at some aspect, your other characters don’t automatically achieve this greatness.
I have no problem with people being better than I at PvP (most I have met are). I get ‘stuck in’ when fights happen and I feel good if I survive (this is my satisfaction as I am not looking for the ‘blues’ as I spend a lot of time shooting empty space, unless it is a big ship). What I do object to are the ones who constantly go around finding people to ‘kill’ so that they can prove to the world how good they are. This, in my opinion, then becomes a one sided enjoyment for the ‘Ace’ as he/she has no regard for the other people other than having some self-gratification.
I have no idea why each Ship has a Level, because the only bearing in the Game is how much the Ship is worth or the amount of money it carries. This should be, in my opinion, got rid of as it appears very ooRP. In the RP Games that I play (around a Table) Levels indicate how experienced your Character is and not how much wealth he/she has.
So really to answer the question - it is the System we have, imperfect as it is, and one we must all get along with. Each of us get enjoyment from it in different ways and maybe we should all stop being selfish and sometimes think about others.
And seeing as the topic has added ‘Ganking’ in to itself.
What is ‘Ganking’?
Is it when one side has more ships than the other?
Or is it when one side has bigger ships than the other?
Or the one than most people don’t seem to complain much about, both sides have an equal amount of ships and of equal composition – but one side has a few very good PvPers whereas the other side has average to below average PvPers?
Not everybody knows the other Players on the other side so it is very hard to decide which side is actually being ‘Ganked’. Looks can be deceiving.
Just recently 2 PvP ‘Aces’ came in to a Sector and in System Chat called for a certain Faction to send out 10 Fighters. If the ‘called out’ Faction had responded, then to an outsider it would appear that the 10 would be ‘Ganking’ the 2. In this instance nothing happened but having seen this Gauntlet thrown down I am inclined to believe the 10 would have been the ones who were being ‘Ganked’.
'I would like to be half as clever as some people like to believe they are' Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person
There is nothing wrong in getting or becoming a blue.
The problems starts when stronger players hunt all day long weaker players for no good reason except their own personal fun in complete disregard for the other side enjoyment of the game. On the other hand this leads to this ...the weaker side either quits the game or want to impose its own rules and wants to bind the pvp superior player with them. And so starts a very ..dishonorable circle which must be avoided or broken.
If disco was supposed to be a truly pvp environment like a MOBA , then stations, weapons platform, lane turret and so on..., must hurt like hell and deal way more dmg, not the symbolic one they are doing now.
As i see it Disco is a hybrid build around the concept of players being considered for each other and not to spoil one another enjoyment of the game .
At the end is about respect . Are you superior in something (pvp, writing lore, writing cool RP and so on..) ? Should you demonstrate it all the time and shove it down peoples throat constantly ? Its rude and does not do the one that does it any justice.
So are we entitled to win ? Nothing wrong in wining , just we should not make our community smaller by doing so.
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