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Game overhaul needed? - Printable Version

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Game overhaul needed? - Redacted - 07-18-2022

Rant below - you have been warned.



I have had a great time during my few months of return to disco. Unfortunately, my time here has come to an end. Because of IRL stuff, I never had a lot of time to spend on video games, so my free time is quite precious to me. Recent encounters and subsequently responses have left me with some bad memories of disco... but video games are supposed to be entertainment.

1. The admins' response to a recent report made me rethink my time here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=193503&pid=2267052#pid2267052
"The Reporting Person provided a Video, nicely starting at the point he/she believed the offence occurred. They also provided 128 lines of Logs.
Yet if we just 'looked' at the video, it looked clear cut, but looking at the Logs we could see that there were 4 lines of RP, from the Offender, over a 94 second period before shooting occured that weren't shown at the point of the video."

Video referred to by admins above is here. The first line of RP is "Bonjour", second line is some RP about brigands. Third and fourth line which were two seconds apart were "you think it?" and "FIRE". Now according to the admin's interpretation of the rules, that's "reasonable time to react to hostilities". By their interpretation, I could be having a pleasant conversation with a neutral party, then say "FIRE" and start shooting. After speaking with other people, apparently this is something that is not against the rules. The fact that the decision was reached by consensus is disturbing, as it suggests multiple people on the team feel the same way. I'm not even the person who was shot at, just the wingman who went "what?". I wish the admins would take into account what was said during the 94 seconds. "Bonjour" <wait 30 seconds> "FIRE" is within the rules apparently.

2. I've also recently had bad experiences with the other side bringing gunboats to a snubfight, then scattering when a cruiser showed up to counter the gunboats. Our side was told "That happens when you bring a cruiser to a snub fight". Well excuse me, you never addressed the gunboats on your side.

A subsequently what-I-thought-was a 4v4 snubfight didn't occur, because a POB was supposed to be inRP hidden and the other side was "Not in the mood that they are just going to visit us here". Which is fine in and of itself - I mean, some people treasure RP over pews, others treasure pews more. You can't force people to interact with you. Then I found out (from a certain forum thread) the person who said the above line subsequently rammed a planet to avoid a pew. Okay.... what happened to treasuring the inRP experience? "I don't want to fight you so I'm going to kill myself" ??? Doesn't make RP sense.

Add to that some toxic comments thrown around in discord and on the forums, and suddenly, League of Legends seems like a better place to spend time on (for those who don't know, LoL is a cesspool of toxicity).

3. Expectations around piracy also left me with bad experiences. I keep seeing the "tips" that piracy demands must be reasonable. Great. When I play pirate, I demand 1 mil per 1k of cargo. Empty transport I demand 1 mil. So 5 mil for a 5ker. Sounds pretty reasonable.

Then I haul some plasfoam conduits. I run across a Royalist and he asks for 2 mil. Okay here you go have a nice day. Haul some more plasfoam conduits and run across two Royalists who want a total of 10 mil. What? My 4,250 units of plasfoam conduits cost me around 2 mil. So to "preserve inRP", I paid the 10 mil, and told the pirate to not expect anymore interactions. But ooRP, really it's cheaper to just die, and I get to respawn at the sellpoint and I'll just haul an hour later.

The pirate says threatening to not interact is "weak-minded". Okay, then why are pirates forcing interactions? Has anyone seen all the Royalists crawling around lately? It's been a half-dead faction until I started up a new project and suddenly everyone's logging Royalists. I forgot what MdG/- even stood for. And let's be clear here. The Royalists are clearly camping certain jumpholes, because they're opening the player list and see that I'm coming their way. There were 15 players on the server when I was stopped. Don't tell me the Royalists "just happened to be there". I log a transport and within five minutes, I see Royalists switching ships a dozen times. There are more systems on the map that I could count - if the Royalist wanted to camp a random jumphole with the highest chance of intercepting a transport, I suspect Tau-31 would have been a better spot. So if the pirate can "open the player list and camp at a convenient location to intercept a transport" - because that's not weak-minded at all, that's just part of the game, why can't the transport "open the player list and evade the pirate".

I was told later on discord that reasonable is up to 10 mil for one encounter, more if hauling high value goods. I wish I knew that at the beginning and set my expectations straight. But at the end of the day, from my perspective, I hauled some plasfoam conduits, decided to entertain some pirates instead of hitting F1 (because what transport pilot doesn't have their player list open), and left the interaction with a bad taste in my mouth.

Here are some recommendations:
By far #1: Someone please get rid of the player list. Yes, I am aware that some interactions are "forced" because people log in response to who they see on the player list, and that getting rid of the player list will reduce the number of interactions. On the other hand, it would eliminate a lot of grief from: "you logged a pirate because you saw my transport coming" "your smuggler logged off because you saw police" "your transport hit F1 because you saw my pirate". People can organize and have been organizing fights through discord and group chat. It can be done. Pirates can still camp jumpgates.

#2: Rules should be clearly spelled out. Yes I understand that RP thrives on having loose rules which allows for more unpredictable interactions. Having loose rules also gives rise to differing expectations. Don't even get me started on all the "unwritten rules" and "unwritten etiquette" of disco - how do players join this game and learn all of this anyway? Cringe means "not against the rules but ewww".

Anyway, rant is over, I wish everyone well and all the best. I hope I have wrapped up any loose ends w.r.t. communications with other factions. For factions that I'm HC in, please contact other HC members if you require assistance. Who knows, I may return in the future to play as an indie and say "Bonjour" <wait 30 seconds> "FIRE", but at this point, unfortunately I don't expect a Freeport 7.

RE: Game overhaul needed? - sharkboy - 07-18-2022

farewell man, had genuine fun times

sad to see you leave but fair reasons Sad

good luck dud

[Image: 451-4513747_fifth-grade-farewell-sad-emo...oodbye.png]

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Tenshi Kuonji - 07-18-2022

Even if you pick in my side, you are now seeing Horo Kenrou and whole =CR= with sanctions cause ... RP (?) man, that thinks is stupid cause even with her logs and evidence they shoot first ... cause "Assisting allies (AI) in Gamma" ...
Discovery community have a lot to rework, rules are not meant sufficent to clarify ...
Anyway ... if you are still interested
please, tip me a Private Message and i will cover and aid you to get back as you deceive ...
Even if i can change your mood right now ...
If you needed, you have a friendly in here and i will give you everything you need for anything you want ...
Vengeance, Trading, PoB Building, even aiding you in fighting anything you want, even Battlezones ...
Smile
For now i think you have a really bad experience, but this done by bad RP engagement ...
but before you go let me to clarify something about your post

1.- Link 1

As about this report, well, they send to intercept it and gonna kill it, they declared attack on him when writting "Let's kick his ass" ... man, if you get deep into RP thing, well...
Tell that to a military commander and seeing he get against to, then, he will just kick yours before you even try it ...
Having a bounty is kinda weird...their intentions was damn clear what they wanted is to him to break rules, he can even dock and even leave the battle, enter cloak or something...but it seems that is what he is going to be doing, and checking where players in system that we haven't seen too...kinda smart right? well that isn't fun anyway...

2.- "I've also recently had bad experiences with the other side bringing gunboats to a snubfight, then scattering when a cruiser showed up to counter the gunboats. Our side was told "That happens when you bring a cruiser to a snub fight". Well excuse me, you never addressed the gunboats on your side."

Well, people can bring whatever suits better, i have seen some factions sending it just cause Discovery Freelancer SERVER isn't perfect ...
Lot of people play with less than 100ms of ping (cause Server apparently is somewhere in Europe) but some people here is Latin-American so playing with 100+ even 200+ms of Ping well, what can't bring fighter ammo, core and armor can bring it with a gunboat or crusier because you can "do something and last longer" ... that is the very reason, aha, put the server in my country in my city and i will blow them all easily cause "ping"

3.- Piracy is kinda ... broken ... rules say you cannot ask more than the profit of the cargo like: Cargo cost 2 million for 5K and you are gonna be paid 10 million for 5K so, you have an actual profit of 8 million, whatever amount asking more than 4 million will be rendered useless, and even you can report it ... more than 50% of the profit does not justify, of course if you hauling ore or something that is "not allowed to get" like EFL Blue Packs or Ageira White Packs even Cardamine or something "Illegal" they can ask whatever they want ... like drop it, drop it + pay it or even drop it + pay it 100% profit ... but is kinda fun as high risk involved ...

Trust me, is not what you think when you say this, since is not really how it happen to say "I may return in the future to play as an indie and say "Bonjour" <wait 30 seconds> "FIRE", but at this point, unfortunately I don't expect a Freeport 7."

And even i can show you that log if you really want.

-Sincerely Tenshi Kuonji-

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Binski - 07-18-2022

To reply to a couple of points, this place has always been pretty tough. People are often torn between the stance of sticking to only balanced fights, or an 'anything goes' perspective. I usually lean towards the latter, sometimes you just have to deal with surprises and accept that everyone is trying to do their best to come out on top.

As to the chat list, I always wished it would be changed to show only a person's 'region' instead of system. It would be much better all around, there would still be the same ability to see who and how many are online, and generally where, but not work well for direct camping, or avoiding of others. It would mean there would be little point to waiting out others, people would be forced to just trade. Pirates would be forced to just choose a spot (jump point/mining field/trade lane) and take their chances. All around trade would flow better. Might even bring back the use of freelancers for scouts!

As to your plasfoam conduit problem, remember that they are also a useful commodity in building bases and their core upgrades. So, sometimes their value can be construed as higher than their market value due to their functional value, which can contribute to a base/player/faction's tactical and strategic situation. If it means the survival and increased defensability of a real base, the value most certainly goes way up, despite the low profitability. The value is in the real achievement possible, and the player risks going in the negatives in the short term for the chance it will pay off on the other end, like a successful POB (which can make or break a faction).

Most problems here could be fixed by bringing up the player population in general. All of the effort was shifted into weekend events, short term, one time events that hinged on some 'thing' that goes wrong and it gets ruined anyways. They need to go back to long term events that last weeks, and allow for a player faction driven challenge system where they can earn siege events of NPC bases, finally let players make some purpose for themselves and drive more of the story. Give people something real to do, worth logging in at any given time to work on, outside of just POB's. If effort is being made to keep the place alive, make it truely worth everyone's time, and add that basic system to bring up population. Make it enticing enough for players to stick it out and keep at it. The current set up makes making official factions barely worth it. People would play far more any day of the week, or time of day, if the system we all used to determine story was the actual game, with some guarantees around what can be achieved.

Thus far, after more than a decade, this place has a pvp environment, and commensurate roleplay, but really we only pretend to play discovery freelancer, mostly flying around aimlessly hoping for a decent encounter. No wonder so many leave after hitting the 'ceiling'. If we added a player driven system, every encounter would be caused by a necessary activity, or actual sieges that would last days, requiring supply, and all kinds of consumption. If only we had a team of people willing to administer and develop such a system....

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Darius - 07-18-2022

"yeah bro just let remove the one thing allowing for interactions to occur it'll be very epic and certainty will make a difference" (hint: system names in playerlist)

You will never be able to intercept anybody in Gallia, Kusari and Bretonia that way. I can tell you from experience that especially in the first two you need the playerlist to even know if it's worth logging or if you'll just fly around aimlessly for hours on end without meeting anyone.

PS: Binski go away with your siege system, it's like the 300th time it gets mentioned and (soon enough) denied.

RE: Game overhaul needed? - LuckyOne - 07-18-2022

I'm sorry to hear about the salt-inducing situations you've encountered.

Note that not everyone is toxic on the server, and some regions have a significantly larger proportion of toxic players.

On the removal of the player list. I'm afraid removing this vital tool would not be possible without providing a replacement gameplay mechanic akin to the TLAGSNET, else the encounters in the game would be very very rare with the current sector size and pop numbers.

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Venemon - 07-18-2022

I know both you and Ambasada have been under big pressure about faction responsibilies since Lemon took a break writing those sheets are mentally tiring
Take a break and like you said, when you are back I advice you do play for fun and yourself only

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Arcana - 07-18-2022

They may remove only the names of the players in the current system and just put some numbers how many players are there or display our names with numbers or something else, then we won't know which faction is there, but we still know how many are in the system. So when you go to the desired system you won't know what you will encounter.

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Arcana - 07-18-2022

(07-18-2022, 08:10 AM)Venemon Wrote: play for fun and yourself only
+1, don't get anything in game too serious, just play for fun

RE: Game overhaul needed? - Emperor Tekagi - 07-18-2022

Actually sad to see you quit once more, especially given it is mostly due to the same reasons.
Hope you find somewhere to spend your scarce spare time with fun experiences!

PS: Binski, no. - And whoever demands 10 mill for 4.2k PoB materials is a douchebag. Legit. And whoever told you 10 mill for 4.2k PoB materials is reasonable probably pirates Ore haulers for 25+ mill and wonders why he gets interaction avoided afterwards.