PVP balance - problem(s) and solution(s)?

[Antonio]

the classic debate of sportsmanship - its straightforward.

1. do not gank
   
2. do not restock (carrier is ok)
   
3. do not combatdock (unless ganked)
   
4. do not acestack - you know who you are
   
5. do not wait for more enemies, take the initiative and switch sides
   
6. do not engage in a fair fight - sit it out until your side starts losing. alternatively, engage the opposite side's reinforcements
   

feel free to add more onto my list

most importantly, DO NOT CONTINUE THE GANKCYCLE, sometimes shit happens, we cant control indies, if you see that a rowdy bunch of them are not listening, take the initiative and disengage yourself, let them take the heat. THE COMMUNITY HAS TO SELF-REGULATE, if it doesn't then it will downspiral to some of theawful engagements the event had.

oh, and don't be afraid to get blued, its just a VIDEO GAME.

Spot on, as jammi pointed out rarely does the very first reply convey the right message when it comes to finding root causes of the issue.

That is only the first step however. On top of what you, Haste and jammi wrote, which I agree with, what comes next is putting all the "theory" into practice. One of the biggest issues why very little changes every time that a discussion such as this arises is because not enough people are there to put in the effort into improving the status quo. It's sadly easier to dig your head in the sand and go back to the never-ending gank cycle. Two reasons stand out for me:

1. Lack of care for the opposing side.

Everyone wants to have fun playing videogames. When you don't enjoy a particular game anymore chances are you should step back, take a break and find some other hobby to entertain you and bring you joy. In today's day and age it is effortless to find another source of entertainment; by continuing to spend valuable free time on something that isn't even enjoyable you are only doing yourself a disservice. In a multiplayer PvP environment fun can come at the expense of the person you're playing up against. Professional games solve this via matchmaking, but since Discovery doesn't have any it is forced to self-regulate on the matter in order to provide at least somewhat of a fun experience to the opposing side. The simple rule of thumb is this: when you are mid-fight that is likely to start snowballing one way, put yourself into the point of view of one of the players on the receiving end. Would you have fun playing this fight out? If the answer is no, you should ask your group leader to start pulling people out or pull out yourself, as indies cannot be controlled. If enough people start having this mentality I have no doubt the PvP etiquette would change rather fast. That brings me up to the second point.

2. Lack of responsibility.

In order to enforce any kind of a self-regulating environment, someone has to take responsibility on themselves to do it. In the past these were official factions, who put their hard-earned reputation on the line and upheld a higher standard of both roleplay and PvP etiquette. If you weren't behaving, your feedback thread, PMs and Skype/Discord would be on fire quite fast. People were far more willing to talk it out and try to make the experience fun for both sides. Was it perfect? Far from it. But it worked. The problem nowadays is that most activity comes from noname indies. And I don't mean just indies, I mean indies with zero roleplay background or paper trail regarding the character or the player behind the characters. If some indie had twenty roleplay threads behind their char and it was well known, they'd have that char's reputation on the line when repeatedly engaging in poor PvP behavior.

When official factions are in the minority, and indies don't have any responsibility, it is very difficult to get the critical mass to make a change even when you personally are willing to do it. People are taking the easy route of logging a random indie, quickly ganking someone to death, getting their adrenaline spike and logging off knowing nobody can do anything about it. When there is an official faction and players transparently talking about PvP etiquette it's an entirely different story, as you have someone vouching for the whole faction. Official factions are at their lowest point they have ever been, and it's not only their fault for it. They barely get any advantages over indies, with all the paperwork and responsibility regarding upholding a reputation, roleplaying, having minimum active time, etc. which naturally means many players simply have no incentive to join OFs. I don't have a magical solution for this, but I'm confident that official factions are the ones who can spearhead self-regulation coming back to Discovery. It worked fine for years and years in the past, it can work again. This deserves a dedicated thread on how to make official factions more appealing as well as increasing the general effort one puts into their character so I won't go too much off topic, but some ways OFs can be made more appealing are unique perks (buffed tlagsnet for police, /nodock for law enforcement bases on law enforcement IDs, 5.2k transport for official corporate factions), better ID lines (larger ZoI, better engagement rights) or unique commodities and ships.

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