Protection for newer players from veteran players?

[Venombrew]

its just not new players, veterans also can be just as targeted by a group of players as easily as a new player.

My opinion is this, if your that worried about being ganked in this game, regardless of experience, than this GENRE of games may not be for you. Anyone that has played any and i mean ANY sandbox survival game with combat knows this. The risk factor is what makes these games great, all the other stuff is cool, but for most its all about the risk. That is why those players orbit around games like Eve, ARK, Rust, etc., it is all about the Risk.

You got a couple options, make friends, join a company and faction, or become a safezone citizen. Because the constant catering to carebears and people who are already afraid to venture out in a game that isn't even out yet ruins these kind of games. Constantly changing things to make those players happy is what drives off other players.

The risk is what excites people, makes things interesting, and even more enjoyable when you sneak by, break through, or fight your way in. There are no mob npcs(at least right now), without that pvp element this would be a pretty boring game.

So if your someone freaking out about getting ganked, may want to look for another game, cause veterans and new players will all have to suffer the same way when it comes to solo play.

 

[Durtle02]

Because the constant catering to carebears and people who are already afraid to venture out in a game that isn't even out yet ruins these kind of games.

The devs can make whatever game they want and cater to whoever they please. IDC which side it is but saying it should be one way rather than another is unfair to the devs and those who hope it might not be like other games in the "genre".

 

[Venombrew]

IDC which side it is but saying it should be one way rather than another is unfair to the devs and those who hope it might not be like other games in the "genre"

hope all you want, it is what it is. These GENRES of game's formula is extremely simple, Risk vs Reward. You add a bunch of safe zones, precautionary barriers, and limits that make the Risk irrelevant is the opposite of the game's design. You remove or hinder the Risk to much and you lose the players who like to pirate, be mercs, soldiers, bounty hunt, etc., and you also risk the players who enjoy the excitement of running from outlaws, enemy factions, hunting outlaws and enemy factions, etc, for what the few who are to scared to venture out?

 

[Meetbolio]

There needs to be something in between a newbie who never leaves the safe zone, and a top tier group of veterans who can dominate a whole region. Two of those steps: Players who live in the safe zone but visit the outside should be able to retrieve more in ore than they lose to piracy, and sometimes win when they go pirate hunting.

Ships are extremely rare in space. Hell I think I've clocked in a solid 30 hours of flying outside of the safezone, and never in my life have I met another player's ship. That's with everyone living in the same safezone and same station! Imagine how spread out people are going to be when player-made stations go live and everyone will expand out into the borders of space. In my opinion, the safezones are already good enough to protect new players. If you don't want to lose your ship, you don't go out of the safezone. It doesn't pay well there, it's a bit boring, but you can't lose your ship to a nasty pirate. However if you'd like to reap more profit, you need to go for a risk. That's the thing that fuels many MMOs, the risk-reward game. This is it. No need to change it. You either earn less safely, or risk to earn more.

 

[Quinc]

These GENRES of game's formula is extremely simple, Risk vs Reward...

"Risk vs. Reward" is misleading. That phrase suggests that you are taking a calculated risk for each reward, that the developers implemented a certain ratio of Risk vs Reward into the game, certain areas have more of both, or less of both, that risk and reward are directly correlated. However in EVE Online 0.1 systems are both safer and more rewarding than 0.4 systems. As you progress through to higher technology in Rust it becomes easier to get reward AND easier to deal with risks. The phrase implies a trade off, these games often present to opposite of a trade off. The reward and challenge from NPCs are carefully set by the developers, but they exert limited control over what the player do to each other, thus they don't control the amount of risk you face when pursuing a particular reward. The thing they have in common is "Open World PvP". Don't equate two different game concepts, at best it is confusing.

The only way that a game could both be a "Risk vs. Reward" game AND an "Open world PvP" game is if the developers had some way to control who attacked who. If players killing other players is the main part of the risk then the developers would need to control the players who kill players. Make it so that Veterans rarely choose to attack newbies. Naturally everyone attacks newbies because they are easier, so real "Risk vs. Reward" games would need tons of incentives to do the opposite. EVE online tried to do that, but the outlaw players found it was pretty easy to work around the penalties for ganking people in Low-sec. Unless you have a way to deal with other players, low-sec PvE results in a net loss once you lose your ship.

Newbies are not Carebears. These are two different things. While a feature could benefit both that isn't true of everything. A carebear would want to remain safe indefinitely, and thus need player progression that is safe throughout. The NPC safe zone is large, but tiny compared to the rest of the game world, so I doubt there will be as many as EVE. A newbie would remain safe for a limited, definite length of time; i.e. however long it take them to get a combat ship and become familiar enough with flying that they don't feel overwhelmed by their first combat experience. Then the amount of safe time they need is shorter if their first combat experience is easier. Indeed you would get more Carebears in a game where your first PvP experience is always overwhelming. A safe, welcoming, PvP experience seems like a contradiction but it can and should be done; though that might require instanced arena combat, or a quasi-safe zone around the actually safe zone. A proper learning curve is vastly more difficult in an open world game, but that doesn't mean the developers shouldn't try.

 

[Venombrew]

no the Risk vs Reward is very simple, your over thinking it. We all know there is ores around the safe zone you can mine in safety, we also know you can sit in the safe zone and work the mining jobs. They don't pay out no where near as well, we all know this, infact the ores around and within the safe zone will become even more scarce as the numbers grow in EA and FL. So therefore a player would need to venture further out with a ship that can substain a large shipment. Once you load up the risk factor comes into heavy play, do i lose all my goods and ship? or will i get back in safety with a very large payload? Do i not only lose everything i worked for but also my ship i spent hours grinding away to get? While you can make profit the safe way, it is general knowledge that this is not as effective as going out into possible dangerous areas where mining is much more vast.

So yes that is a calculated risk, you can talk your way around it to try and make your point valid but it is what it is. Players who don't find a community and stick only to safe zones will not make what other players make when they take the risk of going out and coming back. CA players are already and have been stating this as a fact. And capping the pvp with restrictions and more safe zones when flight time is a real long thing in this game, is gonna destroy the pvp aspect of SB when players can just fly into an area where they 100% safe or worse flagged for non combat so they can mine and do as they please. PvPers will get bored very quickly when they fly around for half and hour to an hour to find players just to have them simply slip off into a safezone or can't even be targeted for combat cause they are technically "new players". So that is an incentive for new players to join communities and gain way more out of the game. Throwing up tons of safety nets is just gonna piss off a huge population of players and gives no incentives to new players to join communities, it be just like ESO everyone running around solo cause the need of others isn't in high demand.

Naturally everyone attacks newbies because they are easier, so real "Risk vs. Reward" games would need tons of incentives to do the opposite.

this is a contradiction to the whole point of risk vs reward, since doing the opposite removes the risk making it no longer Risk vs Reward. if you constantly keep removing the risk from the game than what are you left with? The devs dont want a giant world full of pvp restrictions so everyone can be a solo player and cake walk through the game with no risk of loss, they want you in communities building and working together.

So basically its like this, if your new, learn the game mechanics then make friends, your gonna need both, thats what the already implemented safe zones are for. You want to start a company and make profits, your going need friends. You want to pirate other players, your gonna need friends. You want to bounty hunt pirates and outlaws, your going to need friends. You want to travel around from station to station, moon to moon and feel safe, your gonna need friends. And the players who will play more as nomads and solo will have a much more difficult time than those rooted into communities, regardless if your new or a vet. A solo vet's chances against a crew of players and multiple ships is not much better than a new player.

EDIT: Also thats why this is in the game, https://wiki.starbasegame.com/index.php/Insurance, "
Summary
Insurance is used throughout the galaxy as a means of protecting financial loss in the case of stolen, lost or destroyed property or decommissioned endoskeletons.
Most commonly insured objects are ships, stations and endoskeletons.
Insurance terminals can also be used as a means of transportation, as it is possible to activate another endoskeleton at a different location.
".
This alone removes tons of stress on new players, no need for all this pvp restrictions.

 

[Quinc]

I think me and Venombrew actually agree on most things, but I'm really annoyed because you (Venombrew) 1. assume that everyone interested in the game wants exactly the same thing you do. 2. Ironically you seem to agree with my interpretation of Risk vs Reward but you ignore my counter examples and arguments with "Your overthinking it." 3. You accept the restrictions that the developers have already announced, but you seem to be paranoid that any additional PvP restrictions will ruin the game.

1. While it is a niche game with a HEAVY focus on open world PvP there is still a lot of value in appealing to a variety of players. Just because it focuses on certain things doesn't mean it has to actively avoid having other things. There is plenty of middle ground between a wide appeal game and a narrow appeal game. Just because the game is open world PvP doesn't mean it has to focus on a specific kind of open world PvP, and yes there are different kinds. My point is that the specific PvP where veterans attack new players until they quit is cancer. If you can kill the cancer with minimal damage to the rest of the patient you should do that. Veterans can attack Veterans, newbs can attack newbs, newbs can attack Vets (but they will usually lose), Vets can attack newbs (but not too much).

2. If the game is a "Risk vs Reward" that relationship should be a constant. One, going from the safe zone to outside is a huge jump in Risk and a relatively small jump in Reward. Two, if you keep traveling you will reach areas with a lower population density, which means lower Risk but the same Reward. Thus the relationship between "Risk vs Reward" isn't constant in Starbase either. Is it really a Risk vs Reward game if that aspect is only present in a few places?

3. I specifically complained about gaming forums where somebody brings up an issue and everyone else just provides player level solutions, rather than admit that the game might have a problem. The fact that the game isn't even out actually increases the viability of suggestions form this forum. The developers have a certain vision for the game, but there are still things they are trying to figure out. More so than most games the developers have indicated that they know they will have to test things out in early access and closed alpha. I've never seen anything to imply they want to follow any genre. Genres are not rules, merely patters. Those patterns include lessons, but for Open World PvP one of the lessons is that new players tend to get targeted a lot, and tend to get frustrated and leave. Failing to protect newer players is a mistake that has been repeated. Even if it means slightly compromising the purity of the genre Starbase shouldn't repeat the mistakes.

Be aware that even though there are no levels, classes, skills system or equipment tiers there are still ways for one player to be more powerful than another. They can have more money, a bigger ships, more back up ships, a bigger faction, more friends, etc. The fact that everybody is competing with everybody means that my power can be an impediment to you. Of course a newer player CAN defeat an older player, and that will happen a lot, but their chances are not going to be 50% - 50% overall. Losing more often than you win has the same effect regardless of the reason. They need a clear path from newbie to veteran, a way to even the odds eventually. It can't be as clear and steady as in a linear game, but again the devs should try.

While it is natural for "make friends, lotsa friends" to be a requirement in Open World PvP it is also true that people like to play solo. Having an army behind your back shouldn't be a requirement. 1. MMOs always have people who want to play solo. Ironic but true. 2. Even if you have friends they are not always available. Do you just log back out, or stay near the station until your friends log in? 3. Newbies don't start the game with friends. They should be given time to find friends, and be able to play the game during that time. Yelling "Get in a relationship NOW!" is a good way to generate abusive relationships, regardless of what kind of relationship you are talking about. Most people want to be more than a pawn in another player's game.

Note, I am not even giving specific suggestions. The devs have already done some things to avoid the mistakes of previous Open World PvP games; but we should acknowledge the possibility that it might not be enough. Lauri has plenty of Trine money, early access is for the sake of testing alone. Of course on day one everbody will be a new player, so this specific problem won't appear until later. So really it is a matter of "wait and see". Reading Meetbolio's post it sounds like closed alpha has too little ganking. I mean there should be SOME newb ganking, just not too much.

 

[Venombrew]

you are literally talking in circles, restating the same points over and over again when actual CLOSED ALPHA PLAYERS have replied on this topic, that this is not a good idea. And you and I are far from close on this topic, far from close. No I don't agree with your interpretation of Risk Vs Reward, your original reply about it contradicts everything I said about it. And you are contradicting your own words over and over again, what is the point your trying to make?

1. While it is a niche game with a HEAVY focus on open world PvP there is still a lot of value in appealing to a variety of players.

in Open World PvP it is also true that people like to play solo. Having an army behind your back shouldn't be a requirement. 1. MMOs always have people who want to play solo. Ironic but true. 2. Even if you have friends they are not always available. Do you just log back out, or stay near the station until your friends log in? 3. Newbies don't start the game with friends

And yes newbies start games with friends, either newbies with their friends or newbies joining current friends already playing. That statement alone is ludacris for the online gamers. Infact that is one of the biggest seller for games on steam is your friend base! Most of the games in many peoples steam library are there because of people you know referenced it to you, thus giving you a person(s) already invested in the game. Most people get turned onto games because of the friends they have playing them, that sir is a fact. As for the rest of the statement, well dude that is what a MMO is, "Massive Multi Player" game, look at all the classics. Everquest, WoW, ESO, GW2, and many others, you can solo level and solo quest but you can't solo heorics, raids, battlegrounds, arenas, and most of all WPvP. Ark, your number 1 survival in Ark is numbers, ask the chinese and korean players who flood a server and wipe it clean. Rust is no different and from what i know of Eve, its the same way as well. Solo players will always be at a disadvantage in any MMO, they are literally not designed to be a solo played game and thats a fact, hence the MMO part, just ask Kirito.

Be aware that even though there are no levels, classes, skills system or equipment tiers there are still ways for one player to be more powerful than another. They can have more money, a bigger ships, more back up ships, a bigger faction, more friends, etc. The fact that everybody is competing with everybody means that my power can be an impediment to you.

Again I have no idea of your point cause you make one like this and than contradict it with the statement above you made. Your all over the place with this. Two thirds of that paragraph is defending the idea of needing to join communities, but you want it more solo player friendly? And in SB if you want to meet any of them real requirements just like Raiding, Heorics, BGs, Areans, in most classic MMOS, your gonna need people. Same with this game, no one can build and work an entire space station solo, most players won't be able to fly and maunever a large gunship during combat as a solo player. While yes you can play solo like in all those other games but getting ganked by players is the risk you took, same as if you were in any other MMO. You run around the world in mmos by yourself the chances of getting killed by enemy players will always be high regardless of experience. Like meat said, the space station safezone is huge, the area around the station that is still safe zone is huge. How much more of a starting area do new players need to learn the game?

One, going from the safe zone to outside is a huge jump in Risk and a relatively small jump in Reward.

Where is your data on this? Because from the streamers in Closed Alpha including CaptainJack and Kenetor both said that a full hauler of ore with many storages can pull in an enormous payload. Kenetor went as far as to show you in his video during his live stream, enough profit on one trip to afford a new ship, and the prices can range well into the millions in credits. While sitting in the safezone doing ore jobs is tedious as hell and extremely low in profit when it comes to time/profit. Same with trying to mine in the safe zone area, more players, less nodes, and more runs with fewer or longer harvest times. Time of travel is a major thing in this game, many testers have streamed what its like to harvest in the safezone area, not good. Some fly 10-20 mins in one way direction to barely find any good nodes than fly it back, this is with 100 or less testers at this point, imagine several thousand players at launch and EA.

Newbies don't start the game with friends. They should be given time to find friends, and be able to play the game during that time. Yelling "Get in a relationship NOW!" is a good way to generate abusive relationships, regardless of what kind of relationship you are talking about. Most people want to be more than a pawn in another player's game.

Again no basis of fact here you giving only a single bias opinion, because if you done the research you would know that there are tons of neut factions already recruiting in mass numbers with the goals of large colonize areas and everyone of these factions are super open and inviting to all types of players. CaptainJack's faction(double check this number) Redwood has i believe over 500 people in his faction alone, while others such as Hivemind and Luna Corp have double those numbers. For months they have been setting up new recruits with job positioning and are very friendly, watch their interview videos. As for pawns, the average players are requesting mining and scraping jobs within the companies, tons of players looking to do the shit work to help the factions progress. Don't believe me, its all over discord recruitment, infact the 2 main dev Factions doing same thing.

As for new players being attacked by experienced players, lets face facts, vets don't really rob newbies that much, 1 main reason, what do they really have to take? Griefing yes, it happens, but thats more on the level of not vet players but rather more experienced new players looking for laughs. And anyway, name one sandbox, open world, MMO, surival game with pvp that doesn't have the same issue with new players getting attacked? It happens in all games, you got to deal with it and most games have, its called Ranked Content.

Now i know it may seem like i might be upset or little discourage over the post, i am not, but i am not a fan of false or unchecked information given, when most of us if not all of us on here are more interested in facts of whats actually going on. So a lot of us rely on the information we are getting from the Devs and the actual CA players and we don't want untruths clogging the pipeline, specially during Testing. It just your method of posting is all over the place, you use one arguement to defend another and some how you take that same one to condemn another you were using a support. Its really confusing and at the end of it, it feels like you had a point, other people didn't agree and your doing all you can to stretch info around to make it work. I advise go do some real research on this game and you understand why tons of players don't want tons of pvp restrictions placed in the game.

 

[SixShot]

Some hard-coded protection mechanic probably isn't necessary, it's already de-incentivized by the fact that a veteran player could make 10 times the money-per-minute by just mining, not to mention there are factions who would actively hunt those players if they were reported to be hanging around their station pirating new players. This seems like a fruitless practice already, and just one that would be unenviable all around

 

[ChaosRifle]

I think this is a non-issue, a veteran player knows what things are worth money and what things are not. Why would they waste their time on a new player that has next to nothing, when they could be pirating lucrative trade routes of established companies?

 

[enjey]

This is an issue. The points that Quinc makes are very true and ignoring them would also hurt the hard core pvp community as much as anybody else. Just one thing I would emphasize: this is not just about protecting new players from veterans, but about giving a chance to new, solo and small scale players to evolve despite all the experts and old large companies residing in an area.

... And capping the pvp with restrictions and more safe zones when flight time is a real long thing in this game, is gonna destroy the pvp aspect of SB when players can just fly into an area where they 100% safe or worse flagged for non combat so they can mine and do as they please. PvPers will get bored very quickly when they fly around for half and hour to an hour to find players just to have them simply slip off into a safezone or can't even be targeted for combat cause they are technically "new players". So that is an incentive for new players to join communities and gain way more out of the game. Throwing up tons of safety nets is just gonna piss off a huge population of players and gives no incentives to new players to join communities, it be just like ESO everyone running around solo cause the need of others isn't in high demand.

It's not about "capping the pvp with restrictions and more safe zones", but as Quinc said:

... To be clear: A feature that slightly hinders veterans is completely worth it if it significantly helps newer players.

And I would add "and if it significantly helps solo and small scale players".

This is the main issue: "the need of others". It is perfectly normal to have some friends to play with, or to look for some new friends in a new game. There is a big difference, however, between "willing to play with others" and "being forced to play with others from the start". And, more importantly, how many others and how soon? Most people don't have 50 friends constantly online. Most start solo and some stay solo or with a small group just for the thrill. Because this is the real risk vs. reward. Being in a group of 50 destroying 5 is no risk, doesn't matter what zone you're in, and, it gets boring very fast. There is a tipping point though, where this risk for the new player, the solo or the small group becomes "there is no point in even trying", since (great) risk implies at least some chance at a (great) reward. And this has nothing to do with safety nets or carebears - new, solo and small scale players do like pvp a great deal, just not when they don't have any chance at those rewards, or when they get sent to the Stone Age in every enemy encounter.

I would argue that most players opposing the restrictions on pvp encounters (or rather the restrictions on the consequences of pvp encounters for the losing side, since we all love pvp) are the typical "killer" player type as defined by the Bartle's player types. However, the "killers" are just a small part of the community, there are also the "explorers", the "achievers" and the "socializers". And, by the way, the socializers would be the only ones gladly doing yet another job interview for joining a large organisation ingame after working their normal jobs for long hours and just trying to shut down and escape reality for a while in the game world. All the drama and time consuming relationship care in big organisations would not be the "best way to spend their time every night" for the other player types.

So, by catering only to the killers (unrestricted pvp consequenses) and the socializers (the larger the group the better), the other two groups leave the game very soon, despite wanting to pvp a lot and greatly enjoying the creative side of it - building the best ship and exploring every corner while looking around their shoulder for threats and taking the fights they think they can win. And, these last two groups are probably quite a lot larger than the previous two, seeing that the most successful MMOs like ESO, GW2 and the like greatly cater to solo and small scale gameplay. There are a lot of examples as to what happens if these players get ignored, like Worlds Adrift and Last Oasis, just to name two off the top of my head. The sharp turn in the New World's philosophy is just the proof, that a company thriving on "customer retention through statistics and predictive analytics" recognized this.

I think this is a non-issue, a veteran player knows what things are worth money and what things are not. Why would they waste their time on a new player that has next to nothing, when they could be pirating lucrative trade routes of established companies?

There is a rather small chance that (some) veterans and large companies will “spare” the not so experienced or not so well organized players due to the absence of rewards. At some point, in sandbox games, there is nothing else to do for many well advanced players than to assault anyone they meet who's not in their company. At this point the loss (aka the risk), or the reward doesn't play a role anymore, since players have more than enough resources and are just looking for fun at all cost... this is the point at which small groups, new players and solos get hunted actively and eventually expelled from the game. This lands on youtube and steam reviews and there goes the retention of most players with all the consequences for the fun of the large veteran groups, who often depend on "new blood" to keep rolling. Sandbox open world pvp without extensive catering to new players and especially to solo and small scale gameplay would work with very frequent resets (see Rust), but not really on resource based persistent worlds. Even Albion just added features specifically targeted at solo gameplay, surely not because they have endless dev ressources, or are abandoning the MMO genre.

I would end this with a slightly expanded quote of Quinc: A feature that slightly hinders veterans and large groups is completely worth it, if it significantly helps newer, solo and small scale players.

 

[ChaosRifle]

Fair point, I forgot the boredom at endgame with nothing left to do. Though with a destruction system like the one we have I dont think I will get bored of PVP with real threats (I am one of those guys that plays everything on hardest available difficulty, and often then mods it to be harder, not many people can claim to have 100%'d all three witcher games on their respective hardest difficulties like I can, so I am an outlier to be sure) though I am sure many will go for any pvp they can find, and if they are near early starter areas that may be what they target. I would like to think people like myself would go defend the new people (if nothing else out of boredom too), because you are absolutely right (and I often try to get the same point across) that we do depend on the new players to keep a game alive, but not everyone can see that. I maintain I think its a non-issue for now, but it is worth keeping an eye on for sure. I also maintain that for the time being as long as it hasnt become a problem, that no measures need to be enacted.
EDIT: and in that, I mean its premature to be worried about it, and extremely premature to do anything about it. Worth keeping an eye on though.

 

[enjey]

... I also maintain that for the time being as long as it hasnt become a problem, that no measures need to be enacted.
EDIT: and in that, I mean its premature to be worried about it, and extremely premature to do anything about it. Worth keeping an eye on though.

I believe, this specific kind of a (reputational) problem snowballs very quickly. Nowadays, the moment a game hits the general audience, it is fair game (no pun intended). There is no such thing like "open beta" and "early access". Many MMO gamers are so starved currently that they buy in at the eraliest possible moment, try and if they leave, they write a negative review and rarely look back. Just look at Last Oasis, from 33100 to 1030 in four months - most of these 32k players won't be comming back at the "official" release. And the steam reviews will effectively keep most new players from even trying. The same thing happened in Archeage Unchained. Quite the different games, but in the end, it is the impossibility of new, solo and small scale players to survive, catch up and compete with the veterans in a reasonable amount of time (if ever) that is the main reason for the quick decline of the player base.