I've seen a lot of in-game discussion on this topic, but i haven't seen much focused stuff on these boards. Everything seems to come down to 'my valk is more uber than your valk" kinda stuff.

It seems to me that the assumption is non-consensual PvP should be encouraged, or at the very least, allowed. My opinion differs, but I would like to know why this assumption exists in the first place.

Can somebody please give a clear, concise reason why non-consensual PvP should be allowed by the game rules? At what point does the opinion of the attacker have more validity than the opinion of the victim? What is so evil about a ship design that can't be destroyed and can't blow things up (thus requiring a pilot to refrain from all combat-related issues and allowing said pilot to focus on non-combat pursuits)

Anyway, i'm just looking for some justification for the idea that every pilot should have to focus on combat. Why shouldn't a pilot be able to ignore combat, at least in a game in which "The gameplay philosophy is centered around giving the player as much freedom as possible" - quoted from www.vendetta-online.com/h/universe_general.html

Thank you for your help,

BushiNo

You can refrain from combat. Just stay in guarded sectors. The chances of getting killed there are low.

Plus, in case you didn't notice, this game is pretty boring without combat. ;P

I agree; You should be able to become an excellent trader with excellent eqiupment without firing a shot.

Yeah, see, I don't really want to side track into "how to avoid combat in the current game". I'm looking for "why is combat a necessary element to every play style".

In open-ended games such as this, game boredom is more a result of the pilot than the game.

That said, if you find a lack of combat to be boreing, then engage in combat. There are a lot of pilots who agree with you, and would welcome the PvP aspect of the game. Why is it necessary for you to attack weak opponents, who would choose to not participate in your combat-based play style?

Um. Because what's the point of being a pirate if all the traders can use invincible ships?

BushiNo...I am one of the least aggressive players in the game but, I recognized early on that PvP is a major part of this game. Not only consential but non-consentual as well.

Initially, there was a scoring system in place that gave points for player kills. This was the reason for PvP. Along with the fact that there was only one other activity rewarded (trading) made it a two faceted engine while it was a 26 sector universe.

The point system has been replaced by a faction standing system and the universe has grown to 7,680 sectors. While curbing PvP quite a bit, it has not eliminated it because testers realize that there will be another reset either when stress testing starts or when the game gets released or maybe both. Until there is a reset, players have nothing to lose and will continue doing PvP. And, well they should. It's a test and that is one of the activities that needs testing.

Eventually, the last reset will make everyone think hard about what their character does. It is not much fun losing standing and cutting yourself off from 1/3 of the universe. As the engine stands now, it is also not lucritive to make a living being a pirate. All these factors will limit the amound of non-consentual PvP.

HOWEVER...there will always be players who, for whatever reason, will take advantage of an unguarded moment. For the chance at getting a fat trader full of cargo for nothing or to eliminate a possible threat or, in some cases, just for giggles some will shoot you. If they are willing to pay the price for the faction hit if successful or the monitary price if they fail, there will always be killers in the game.

I hope this helped.

You have about as much freedom ingame as you have in real life, when it comes to choice whether to be agressive or not.

In real life, if you wander through city district which is known to be dangerous, you have to expect danger, and have to run away from there sometimes.

The same applies in vendetta - if you travel between systems, you come across areas where criminals lurk.

I can imagine, that as in-game population grows, there will be entire systems mostly safe, as player criminals won't dare to wander there, as well as systems where dangerous people reside. It's (or will be) your freedom of choice to go there or not.

BushiNo,
There are two reasons why non-consensual PvP combat should be allowed.

First the AI of the bots is not strong enough to create interesting twitch style fighting.

The second reason is based on the assumption that there will not be a hand of god approach to PvP which would make people incapable of damaging one another (this is pretty reasonable as the devs have said they don't want to do this).
The second reason is that newbs and low level characters will always be vulnerable to attacks of high level players, therefore high level characters should also be vulnerable to attacks from each other in order to both give the higher level characters something to do other than attacking newbs, as well as enabling higher level characters to provide protection or at least retribution against other high level characters who chose to harass newbs.

Lemme tell you, it is NOT easy to outrun an Assault III in a stock bus with only a MKI Government Issue cannon. Better engines is all we ask. Okay, all I ask : ).

Well, if it's only one a3, just turn around and start shooting. They're not that hard. They take a while, but they're not hard.

Anyway, I preffer non-consentual PvP because consentiual-only PvP offer nothing over non-consentual.

I see both combative and non-combative gameplay as requiring skill. Chasing someone down and dogfighting 'em takes skill, especially if they've got a better ship and weapons. But on the flipside avoiding someone completely or dodging their shots is also hard, especially if you've got a slower ship than them. If a player wants to be nonhostile, they need to train themselves to be more aware of their environment and locate any potential hostile targets. That's part of the skill involved. Nerfing anything that would lean more towards one or the other method of playing would IMO make the game extremely boring.

Unfortunately right now it's pretty damned hard (next to impossible, actually) to chase anyone down and kill them with the current universe. It's just way too easy to spot your enemy early and then hop on out of the sector before they can come even close enough to find out which sector (out of the many) you even went. It's quite unfortunate how PvP has faded in that respect. I mean sure, you can argue that having more players will eventually solve that, but pirating involves more than just randomly killing people. You need to be able to chase a specific cargo ship down and destroy them.

I really hope Vendetta will be revised to encourage PvP more, or at least provide some way of stalking someone easier for pirates (whether it be through providing improved scanners or getting rid of that aweful sector playerlist window). Otherwise I'm not too sure the game will be as appealing to me as it used to be in earlier test versions.

Maybe by missions Arolte? As in a trader gets a mission "Take this widget to Sol II a-4. It will decrease your max speed by 30%." Then a PvPer gets a mission to kill said trader. More challenge. :P

um... pirating is supposed to be hard... pirates in the old days found straits and made the situation so that the prey could not flee... the ppl being chased down or the ship builders(devs) did not make it so that the pirates could easily priate, if that was the case then it would lean too far in favor of pirating and trading would stop. And as was argued about removing the player list, i think ppl agreed that you would be able to fly without showing up on the player list but you could not use it either, and that ur radar would be shorter. So if that was implemented then mr. Arolte can become the jolly pirate again, but remember tho this is a RPG, it should not encourage the less... um... moral... professions, tho they should still have the chance to exist

darth out

I find your analogy to be weak. As I recall from various literature and documentaries, pirating in the olden days didn't involve watching merchant sail ships disappear into thin air and appear at the opposite end of Earth. If you spot the ship, you should have a good chance of at least stalking it. Right now that's just not possible with Vendetta.

I'm not trying to argue whether something should be easy to do or not. I don't know if you've noticed, but what I'm describing as a pirate's career is next to impossible. It should be reasonably difficult, but it isn't. That's the problem.

You know, I really wouldn't mind if the pirates just took my cargo. That's the way life works. But, I mean, do y'all have to completely ruin us and destroy EVERYTHING we worked for?

Going back to the example of olden day pirates, real pirates would in fact raze the ship after looting it. And not just because they wanted to make sure the target ship wouldn't fire back (since I'm sure they also stole or dumped the cannons/cannonballs overboard), but also because it was fun and they were complete badasses. But hey, that's life.

Anyway, for Vendetta it's just something you have to deal with. If you're a trader to begin with, chances are you're filthy rich and you can afford to buy a new ship. If you aren't, well like I said you need to learn to avoid them completely or defend yourself with a crapload of swarms and l-mines. Bottom line, though, is that the current universe is just way too generous for traders/non-hostiles.

Ever try pressing 'j'?
It's good for your health.

Very well then, give us a self-destruct weapon that hurts the ships that're attacking us. I'm sure in the olden days that was a way they could've defended themselves.

In the olden days they defended themselves by fighting back, running or traveling in convoys. Unlike the olden days, it is currently almost impossible to be pirated in open space. Pirating is essentially removed from the game at this point. I guess the only real way you could do it would be to camp a wormhole.

Or just wait in a storm. Oh wait, that's what all those Assault MKIIIs are for...