Star Citizen Players Getting Sick and Tired of Griefers & Bounty Hunting 2.0
Star Citizen is expanding out it’s gameplay Bounty Hunting 2.0 is something we should see next year BUT the PU needs better PvP, Piracy, Bounty Hunting Gameplay, anti-griefing measures and Support… There is regular drama and discontent in the community about this topic. We are going to talk about short and long term solutions and features that are coming to the game and look at a Reddit Post… that looks at solutions that could break the games CoC and is that fair?
Let’s jump into a Reddit Post – Getting sick and tired of griefers… the Original Poster says:
“Possibly just me ranting to myself whilst everyone else disagrees but I’m getting really fed up with people that show up to where you are, don’t want money to go away or for you to turn out your pockets but just rock up, blow up your ship and then kill you. Like come on dude, that’s not gameplay that’s just being “an expletive” (a cunt). Piracy is holding people or goods for ransom or wanting a payment to leave you alone but it’s none of that”… the post then tails off into profanity…
There is the long running Piracy Vs Griefing debate, what constitutes legitimate gameplay, what is griefing. I always count anything that doesn’t have me repeatedly blown up in succession by a player or group, that is targeting just me as fine, or there is smack talk which is clearly moving into bullying territory…
tho there are lots of edge cases… and when it appears that players are camping an area or just being random murder hobos that could sometimes be seen as griefing at least to some. I’d like to see things deemed actual griefing as impossible or extremely hard to do in game and it very clear cut when it is… but that’s another conversation.
There are ways to deal with these players in game and that’s Bounty Hunting… those BHs will go attack and hunt those players, hopefully reducing their activities and sending them to prison.
In that same thread I saw some players wanting to go after these criminal players and put contracts out on them more permanently, hunting them down server to server.
“just as an fyi because I’ve seen people get their accounts suspended for this, but it is against cig’s tos to hunt people server to server. i.e. if you are joining specific servers just to kill one player in particular. fully support the idea of taking out the trash, but I figured I’d point it out.”
And they are correct you “shouldn’t” actively hunt a particular player from server to server as part of the Games Rules of Conduct which outlines inappropriate behavior and content in game that can get you penalized and eventually potentially banned, the relevant part here is an example;
Stream sniping, pad ramming, or utilizing bugs/exploits to grief or continually harass others.
Hunting down a player putting a more permanent contract on their head would be seen as continually harassing…
This has further annoyed some players as this somewhat protects pirates and griefers from retribution. Attack a load of people on a server, then server jump…
That said obviously “griefing” is also against the rules… but griefing is often confused with legitimate gameplay… and sometimes someone attacking you will be seen as griefing by a player as they aren’t in the mood, didn’t expect it or are just angered by the encounter.
You can press charges on players that kill you and there is a law system that protects against unlawful attack or at least will have the aggressor get a criminal rating however where comm arrays are turned off or not in range then those crimes are not registered.
And some of this is intentional gameplay, CI want PvP, Piracy, Bounty Hunting, Threat, Risk Vs Reward and for players to bring escorts…
For me it comes down to there not being enough game enforced systems and gameplay to support proper piracy and PvP currently.
It’s easy to get out of prisons.
Piracy doesn’t actually pay out monies. You can’t really loot other ships… they just explode. So why attack / pirate in the first place… (a lot of people do just want to have some freeform murder gameplay fun OR play out what Pirate Gameplay would be)
There are bugs that mean that you can get CS’s for attacking criminals.
It’s not clear a lot of the time who an attacker or potential threat is.
There are easy low effort ways of “beating” others like an A2 suicide bombing at a Jumptown Location. That said… that can be fun for a lot of people and there are ways to mitigate that. But I suppose there are ways to mitigate at least somewhat random piracy…
Boredom / gameplay not being satisfying for players that want PvP and Piracy.
And if CI solve some of these then Star Citizen would be all the better for it.
I want a more carrot and stick approach, give players more to do with PvP, focus them in certain areas, make criminal and aggressive actions high risk vs reward, make it harder to leave prison so it actually slows players down from going murder hobo and generally more features that support this as more legitimate gameplay.
Now we do have some Gameplay Coming Soon with 3.18
There are New Prison Updates… arguably rewarding players in prison with more things to do BUT it may well make it harder to gain merits and there will be more dangers and PvP in prisons with players having more reasons to fight, as well as NPCs in the mines that can be looted.
There are various Law Updates coming, some are to help reduce accidental CS’s also CS2 or less won’t make you are “hostile criminal” and you’ll be able to land and pay off fines to remove these.
There are changes coming to SPK that will make it a hotpoint for PvP and criminal vs bounty hunter activity. High Risk and Reward, you’ll be able to dispense some very valuable loot but bounty hunters will get missions to come deal with you, and SPK has a Crusader Security presence, it will also be the only place to hack down criminal ratings.
The Cargo Refactor will make commodities more intractable and stealable from other players ships. This could somewhat help making piracy more legitimate… tho other mechanics really need to come online.
We also know that Salvage / PES will mean that ships’ carcasses will be left behind… so what does that mean about the destroyed ship’s cargo?
Beyond that & What I am Looking Forward To
Bounty Hunting 2.0 is currently being worked on now and into May 2023 – This will enable players to track criminals via a mobiGlas security app linked to distress beacons, comm arrays, air traffic control systems, cameras, and NPC informants. This will rely on various new backend tech, including Virtual AI, the NPC Scheduler, and Security Service. You can probably expect this feature to also tweak various laws, add new missions and make the gameplay more satisfying too for both Criminals and Hunters.
I am hoping we see the ability to actually “capture” bounties around the same time.
The Resource Management Feature thats also being worked on naturally leads to Physical Components and ships no longer having artificial health pools. Which is important as we want ships to be disabled… now you could argue that CI could do that now… they could just make ships only explode sometimes… or larger ships just don’t explode to allow for more piracy gameplay… and Boarding which is what I really want to see!
The addition of Pyro will help too with a Clearer Divide between secure vs wild west star systems and more focused gameplay in certain areas for players that want it.
I also want to see Game Enforced Long Term Bounties, that players and factions can set on someone. That is likely to be part of the Reputation System as it expands out tho… Persistence will apply to Reputations and that will make career criminals and aggressive PvPers finding it hard to enter systems like Stanton and they will have to make places like Pyro their base. I’d actually like the Rep System to also have factions disliking murder hobo gameplay… tho maybe a murder hobo faction might be a good shout there… I doubt even the Ninetails likes you just arbitrarily just attacking EVERYONE.
Boom! That’s it for today’s Bounty Hunting 2.0, criminal and griefing discussion.