Fixing Piracy

[Pel]

Just switch out all the people in Disco.
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People ruin the game with the mentality they bring to it. It becomes a competition to make credits and buy new toys, upgrade old ones. It becomes endless arguments and quibbling. Nobody really "inhabits" the world and plays their part. Or not enough do. So the entire enterprise fails.

Why, because the devs and mods are chasing around trying to limit and control a bunch of idiots who have the wrong motivations.

...

Woot.

Game's are always about winning or losing - because, hence, it's a game after all. Piracy was always hated by traders because trading is an essential part of making moneys here to buy stuff\caps\fast women\cute cars and fly to the moon. I say again - trading is an essential process that some are staying with and most are just passing through it in order to make cash - it's almost mandatory. Piracy was hitting that activity and butts were on fire because piracy was halting the process of collecting SC to buy that shiny new capital ship. And it was fun on both sides who was enjoying the process of hide-n-seek game where trader lose when he was found and caught. Now all trader need in order to collect cash is 1) breathing 2) hitting F4 from time to time - and that's the problem. It is in place because after listening to too much cries coming from trader camp devs decided to destroy the properly balanced system into some abomination when pirate gets all the beating from traders, mercs, lawfuls, NPCs and so on and so forth just to hear something like "kill me I no pay f u cnt" - that just made everyone except very few to leave that activity and search for something else.

Well, I just want to say that you're not right and piracy needs to come back. <- tl\dr version.

or... maybe I *am* right-- for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Are they role playing trading in the Freelancer universe or just "1) breathing 2) hitting F4 from time to time - and that's the problem"? I believe you are entirely correct.

I also agree with you that the devs are "listening to too much cries coming from trader camp devs decided to destroy the properly balanced system into some abomination"-- exactly right.

But the solution isn't to get the devs to listen to complaints from the pirate side of things. The solution is for everyone to give up trying to find technical fixes to "mindset problems" and just get out there and RP. Really get into your character. Be willing to be surprised and interrupted by other characters, even if it puts you at a disadvantage sometimes. Really imagine that you are in a flimsy ship, in space. It is risky. It is exciting. It is an experience that is enhanced by good company.

So, in my POV, we can both be right. But we differ because I put the real blame on the players, not the devs. The players will never be pleased, and the devs should actually be a lot more draconian in how they run things.

If you want a technical fix, lets try "true death" like in EVE. You blow up, you lose everything (except your character, and you probly get a startup ship). Then people will start to get the true space experience and maybe think in more complex ways about what they want to accomplish in this game.

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[SnakThree]

DELETE

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[lIceColon]

Pirates are buttholes. Just because you are roleplaying a character, does not make your character any less of a butthole.
I understand the need for pirates in the Disco ecosystem, but I do not like them. So you're telling me to haul 30 minutes of ore just for a 2 minute encounter and expect to be paid half the profits for showing up in a scary ship?
I think it is general courtesy for pirate RPers to understand that they are the butthole in the encounter, and do their best to give both sides with a good RP experience so the player behind the char doesn't feel robbed. It's not like the traders want to trade, maybe they are just saving up for their own pirate ship, because trading isn't exactly the most fun you can have on Disco.
If it seems to you that Disco's balance is tipped in favor of traders, then good. Because the less confident traders are, then the less they will trade and pirates will have less to pirate, the ecosystem collapses.

[Thyrzul]

To sum it all up, the balance has tipped over to traders now and that is fine. The days of pirate lazyness is over and you should adapt by getting into better position and obtaining a heavier ship if you want to "win" such encounters. Those pirates who are pirating for the sake of playing the role have little to no problems with changed dynamics.

Stop complaining and man up. Piracy is no longer such an easy and failproof activity.

Pirates don't have to get bigger ships because the balance has tipped over, the balance has tipped over because pirates were allowed bigger ships. I think this all goes back to caps getting allowed to shoot transports again and people crying for fairness so they could do that regardless of which side of the law they are on -> bamm, cap ship piracy. And thus traders has had to be rebalanced for that, becoming unbalancedly OP against pirates using anything smaller. While I agree that piracy shouldn't be easy, nor should be escaping from piracy in my opinion.

And now we seen all, ladies and gentlemen, a pirate arguing for harder piracy and a trader arguing for harder trading. *thumbsup*

@lIce
Your post seemingly have no relevance to this topic, could you explain how your personal feelings towards the concept of piracy, attitude of pirate characters or your own concept of "good RP" are related to Trader-Pirate balance?

You know, it is still up to the player behind the character to understand his character has been robbed or take it personal and feel his own self being robbed, players roleplaying their pirate characters properly (a.k.a. behaving like buttholes, as you said) has nothing else to do than that.

If traders doesn't want to trade, they don't have to, it's a matter of personal choice. That they decided to trade justifies no additional responsibility for pirates to be more courteous to them.

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[Curios]

I'm Merc in recent year so i don't see how I'm backing pirates. Escorting traders and intercepting pirates is a nice business, OR it was nice in before - because now trading is simply too self assured so it's hard to find a convoy or a lone trader to sign an escort contract. Heck, when I was BHG I was still voting hard for better piracy. Now it's just nothing to do for merc except jumping over to some Navy vs Navy boring facebeating - but you can do so in an indi navy craft w\o f*** hard with idiotic bounty board paperwork that I don't even want to look at.

Give piracy.

[Mímir]

I think this all goes back to caps getting allowed to shoot transports again and people crying for fairness so they could do that regardless of which side of the law they are on -> bamm, cap ship piracy. And thus traders has had to be rebalanced for that, becoming unbalancedly OP against pirates using anything smaller.

I hardly believe devs were that idiotic, capship piracy was never an issue that called for a rebalance in any way. Besides, you'd have to buff transports a hell of a lot more to withstand a cruiser in range, so that can't be it.

Here's an un-original suggestion: Keep balance as is but make commodities 5-10 times more expensive to acquire. It would make cargo-piracy or pirate bands with a transport tagging along a lot more fun, there'd be an incentive for the trader to roleplay to survive the encounter, and finally be something in the piracy again save for the blue msg.

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[Thyrzul]

I hardly believe devs were that idiotic, capship piracy was never an issue that called for a rebalance in any way. Besides, you'd have to buff transports a hell of a lot more to withstand a cruiser in range, so that can't be it.

Capship vs transport combat was so much of an issue it has been forbidden by server rules for quite long. What do you think, with what did admins substitute the removed rules?

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[sindroms]

Here's an un-original suggestion: Keep balance as is but make commodities 5-10 times more expensive to acquire.

This has been discussed before.
NPC piracy would be OP. (er)
Sadistic pirates would ask the traders to drop and shoot their cargo, because of the huge loss it involves.

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[Highland Laddie]

...Sadistic pirates would ask the traders to drop and shoot their cargo, because of the huge loss it involves.

That can happen already, can't it?

Also..the community WAS asking for a money-sink earlier this year...what's wrong with that?

[Vega]

I have no idea how piracy was before, but I'll take the risk of stating my opinion from both my miner and my trader perspectives here. I think it should be fairly simple if both parties had the same roleplaying mindset.

I'll give a couple examples. 1st: I am on my miner and get cornered, the pirate took the time either cloak, rush me into a position I just can't evade him, whatever, he just played smart. The guy comes and shows up a good roleplay. Thats it, I just RP with the guy and pay him up.

2nd: I am on a trader and same thing happens. Same deal, I just pay the guy. Now if some pirate is red flashing his IFF 15k away just sitting there, I just try and tuck tail and cruise away. If he catches me, fine, if not, its all the better.

I usually pay a lot of attention to the radar and the surroundings, yet I get cornered many times in specific spots that good pirates know they will have an advantage.

Now from what I've seen, there's been a lot of roleplaying faults on both sides. I've seen "gimme 3 million or die" from pirate side and "just kill me and Ill hunt you on my LNS char" from traders/miners, too many times now.

One particular time I even chatted ooc with the guy who just pirated me about a trader like that, which got properly blown up a few seconds later. I have a feeling that once the majority of the player base has the right mindset, there`ll be little to discuss.