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Faction Penalty Improvement
The current faction system is mostly centered around death. Kill somebody and you take a penalty. The only considerations given to damage are exempting the damage party from faction penalties if they defend themselves, and triggering the NFZ if the damage happens within the NFZ.
This causes several problems. One is that people can damage you nearly to death outside the NFZ and then just fly away, and if you can't catch up with them, they suffer no consequences. Another related issue is that fun things like ship-to-ship collisions, mining beam damage, and engine wash damage, could all be exploited if they were implemented. And I very strongly want ship-to-ship collision damage back. It made up-close fights more exciting.
My proposal is to have the factions pay more attention to damage. Using weapons to damage somebody beyond some threshold within monitored space should carry more repercussions. I'm not actually a big fan of having it immediately result in faction loss (though I'd accept that), but I do think that if the damage contributes to the other person dying while still within monitored space, it should then result in faction loss. For non-capships, the scale should be something like >75% damage = 100% of the normal penalty, 50-75% damage = 75% penalty, 25-50% damage = 50% penalty, and <25% = no penalty (accidents happen). Capships would have an additional 5%-25% = 25% penalty category, with only <5% being excused. Successfully docking with a station/capships (regardless of whether you actually rep), being hit by a repair gun, or getting repaired for completing a race would all reset the damage tally.
So for example, if you dropped 80% of their armor in Dau and then some other player killed them before they can dock, both you and the other player would take full penalties for killing the victim, but if they docked and re-launched and then the other player killed them, only the other player would be penalized. Another example: if you dropped 80% of their armor and then the victim simply crashed into the station and exploded without anybody else killing them, you would still take the full penalty. Yes, this would mean they could intentionally crash to penalize you. Don't like it? Don't shoot them in monitored space.
This change permits bringing back ship-to-ship collisions, keeping the bump-kill itself unpenalized. The exploit was never to kill people exclusively through bump damage, after all; they would instead shoot the victim until they were near-death and bump them to finish them off. This is because bumping people who don't want it is hard unless they're in a heavy ship, and heavy ships have more armor so you'd die first if you only relied on bumps. So for example, if you shot somebody down to 5% and tried to bump-kill them, you wouldn't be penalized for the bump-kill itself, but you'd still take the full penalty once they died since you softened them up first.
This also means that if your friend does the 95% damage on the victim and then you perform the bump-kill, your friend will take the penalty. You won't be penalized since the game doesn't know whether you did it on purpose or not, but at least your friend will be. And that's fine; he's the one who did most of the damage anyway. It's his fault. And he might as well have finished them off; having you do it serves no purpose.
Meanwhile, if somebody damages themselves down to low health and then collides with you (or parks in front of your heavy nigh-unstoppable behemoth or trident) so that they die, you don't take any penalties since you hadn't caused them any significant damage via weapons.
Bump-kills of AFK miners would still go unpenalized, but other than that it would be pretty hard to exploit. And AFK miners don't get to complain -- this isn't EVE where you get to level up without actually playing the game.
This change also works for other types of damage that could be dealt in accidental ways, like self destruction, mining beams, engines, etc. (Though in the case of mining beams, I'm only talking about beams that are targeting something else. Beams targeted at a ship should be treated as weapons, obviously.) So I think it's worthwhile to add.
This causes several problems. One is that people can damage you nearly to death outside the NFZ and then just fly away, and if you can't catch up with them, they suffer no consequences. Another related issue is that fun things like ship-to-ship collisions, mining beam damage, and engine wash damage, could all be exploited if they were implemented. And I very strongly want ship-to-ship collision damage back. It made up-close fights more exciting.
My proposal is to have the factions pay more attention to damage. Using weapons to damage somebody beyond some threshold within monitored space should carry more repercussions. I'm not actually a big fan of having it immediately result in faction loss (though I'd accept that), but I do think that if the damage contributes to the other person dying while still within monitored space, it should then result in faction loss. For non-capships, the scale should be something like >75% damage = 100% of the normal penalty, 50-75% damage = 75% penalty, 25-50% damage = 50% penalty, and <25% = no penalty (accidents happen). Capships would have an additional 5%-25% = 25% penalty category, with only <5% being excused. Successfully docking with a station/capships (regardless of whether you actually rep), being hit by a repair gun, or getting repaired for completing a race would all reset the damage tally.
So for example, if you dropped 80% of their armor in Dau and then some other player killed them before they can dock, both you and the other player would take full penalties for killing the victim, but if they docked and re-launched and then the other player killed them, only the other player would be penalized. Another example: if you dropped 80% of their armor and then the victim simply crashed into the station and exploded without anybody else killing them, you would still take the full penalty. Yes, this would mean they could intentionally crash to penalize you. Don't like it? Don't shoot them in monitored space.
This change permits bringing back ship-to-ship collisions, keeping the bump-kill itself unpenalized. The exploit was never to kill people exclusively through bump damage, after all; they would instead shoot the victim until they were near-death and bump them to finish them off. This is because bumping people who don't want it is hard unless they're in a heavy ship, and heavy ships have more armor so you'd die first if you only relied on bumps. So for example, if you shot somebody down to 5% and tried to bump-kill them, you wouldn't be penalized for the bump-kill itself, but you'd still take the full penalty once they died since you softened them up first.
This also means that if your friend does the 95% damage on the victim and then you perform the bump-kill, your friend will take the penalty. You won't be penalized since the game doesn't know whether you did it on purpose or not, but at least your friend will be. And that's fine; he's the one who did most of the damage anyway. It's his fault. And he might as well have finished them off; having you do it serves no purpose.
Meanwhile, if somebody damages themselves down to low health and then collides with you (or parks in front of your heavy nigh-unstoppable behemoth or trident) so that they die, you don't take any penalties since you hadn't caused them any significant damage via weapons.
Bump-kills of AFK miners would still go unpenalized, but other than that it would be pretty hard to exploit. And AFK miners don't get to complain -- this isn't EVE where you get to level up without actually playing the game.
This change also works for other types of damage that could be dealt in accidental ways, like self destruction, mining beams, engines, etc. (Though in the case of mining beams, I'm only talking about beams that are targeting something else. Beams targeted at a ship should be treated as weapons, obviously.) So I think it's worthwhile to add.
Overall +1 I think this would be a more immersive system.
The only abuse I can foresee initially would be for cases of players returning to the station to repair during botting or station conquest with <25% health caused by bots or turrets. Someone would be able to kill them without any penalty.
The only abuse I can foresee initially would be for cases of players returning to the station to repair during botting or station conquest with <25% health caused by bots or turrets. Someone would be able to kill them without any penalty.
+1 as for returning botters, if you kill someone you take full penalty, if you damage someone to 25% or less you take full penalty if they die.
Interesting idea, but how do I mine a ship?
+1 and I nominate this suggestion to the best post of the year so far :) (off the top of my head). As to fluffy's concern, I doubt there would be much opportunity to bump kill someone returning from botting, but I see the concern. Maybe the person botting shouldn't let the bots hit them so much ;)
How about the starting point for percentage damage occur when the player damage was first committed? That way if a player took bot damage or partially wrecked the ship while attempting to mind a rotating asteroid (believe it or not, the very time I died in game was due to a rotating asteroid ;) ), the percentages outlined by Rin would begin at that point. e.g. a player loses 75% of his armor in a Hive Skirmish, then is killed by another player while returning to a station. The killing player would still receive the full penalty marks because he'd done 100% of the damage from the beginning of their encounter. The tough part about this would be that all forms of damage (and their sources) would have to be tracked.
+1
Hey, send strike force to attack the bots then!
"The only abuse I can foresee initially would be for cases of players returning to the station to repair during botting or station conquest with <25% health caused by bots or turrets. Someone would be able to kill them without any penalty."
If the killing was done with normal weapons, no. Making the killing blow would carry the normal penalty (I'm not asking for that to change; I just want people involved in assists to also be penalized). I think you probably understood that and just weren't precise, but it sounds like maybe Keller didn't.
You are correct in the case of bump-kills though. And it doesn't actually matter which damage bracket the victim was in either, because bump damage wouldn't be tallied at all in my proposed system. Of course, you do have to be heavily damaged for bump-killing to be practical, so this would only be a significant risk when heavily damaged, and the window of opportunity while you dock is pretty short. I don't see it being a huge issue.
I should probably point out as well that trying to amend the suggestion to tally and penalize non-weapon damage is a terrible idea. For example, I could start from 100% and ram myself to death against a trident to hit that trident pilot with a faction penalty. If I got a few other people to do it at the same time, that trident pilot would become KOS.
That is why it should only tally weapon damage.
I'm relying on the fact that non-weapon damage is impractical to use offensively on anybody who isn't already severely wounded, and dealing with that situation by penalizing people who severely wound somebody using conventional weapons. That only really leaves the edge cases where the wound didn't come from any players, like returning from hive skirms or rough mining sessions, or returning to the station after a battle in unmonitored space.
If the killing was done with normal weapons, no. Making the killing blow would carry the normal penalty (I'm not asking for that to change; I just want people involved in assists to also be penalized). I think you probably understood that and just weren't precise, but it sounds like maybe Keller didn't.
You are correct in the case of bump-kills though. And it doesn't actually matter which damage bracket the victim was in either, because bump damage wouldn't be tallied at all in my proposed system. Of course, you do have to be heavily damaged for bump-killing to be practical, so this would only be a significant risk when heavily damaged, and the window of opportunity while you dock is pretty short. I don't see it being a huge issue.
I should probably point out as well that trying to amend the suggestion to tally and penalize non-weapon damage is a terrible idea. For example, I could start from 100% and ram myself to death against a trident to hit that trident pilot with a faction penalty. If I got a few other people to do it at the same time, that trident pilot would become KOS.
That is why it should only tally weapon damage.
I'm relying on the fact that non-weapon damage is impractical to use offensively on anybody who isn't already severely wounded, and dealing with that situation by penalizing people who severely wound somebody using conventional weapons. That only really leaves the edge cases where the wound didn't come from any players, like returning from hive skirms or rough mining sessions, or returning to the station after a battle in unmonitored space.
Yes this is a much better system, +1
That's a much cleaner definition, Rin. Thank you for the clarification.
Having a repair gun hit reset the damage count is not a good idea, unless the repairs are all the way up to 100%. Otherwise an aggressor could damage another player down to 1%, repair them up to 2% with a repair gun, and then not have to worry about the damage penalty anymore.
I'd also add that logging off should also reset the damage counter, as it doesn't make sense for the server to track damage across sessions. Plus if a player were to allow themselves to take significant damage before running away, logs off, then a week later intentionally crashes into a roid, it would be confusing to the aggressor as to why a penalty is suddenly incurred.
And while it hasn't been explicitly stated, it seems rather obvious that if an aggressor were to shoot another player down from 100% and then land the finishing blow, that the aggressor should not receive a double penalty. But what about the case when the aggressor shoots them down 50% in Aeolus monitored space then makes the kill in XX monitored space? In that case it makes sense to have the full penalty with XX and a partial penalty with Aeolus.
The other obvious exception that hasn't been explicitly stated is that retaliation damage incurred against an aggressor in the NFZ (when a player is permitted to defend themselves) should not be tracked.
I'd also add that logging off should also reset the damage counter, as it doesn't make sense for the server to track damage across sessions. Plus if a player were to allow themselves to take significant damage before running away, logs off, then a week later intentionally crashes into a roid, it would be confusing to the aggressor as to why a penalty is suddenly incurred.
And while it hasn't been explicitly stated, it seems rather obvious that if an aggressor were to shoot another player down from 100% and then land the finishing blow, that the aggressor should not receive a double penalty. But what about the case when the aggressor shoots them down 50% in Aeolus monitored space then makes the kill in XX monitored space? In that case it makes sense to have the full penalty with XX and a partial penalty with Aeolus.
The other obvious exception that hasn't been explicitly stated is that retaliation damage incurred against an aggressor in the NFZ (when a player is permitted to defend themselves) should not be tracked.
Yes, good points.
1+
+1