VO can be quite grindy, and it doesn't help that in hive/deneb skirms that friendly NPCs will swoop in and steal kills. This can be the difference between getting full credit for the kill, and only getting an assist which rewards far less license xp. I propose that dibs system be implemented.

How this would work, is that when an command /dibs (or something more technical like /claimtarget) is activated, all friendly fighter class npcs will ignore the claimed target.

To be claimed, the target must be at 100%.
The target is only claimed until the target dies, or the player dies. The target can not be unclaimed.
Only one claimed target per minute.
Capital ships will not ignore targets.

Other players in the mission will get a notification that target is claimed, and will not get rewards for killing a claimed target.
Instead of being red, the claimed target will have a yellow box around it.

This will allow pilots the knowledge they have more of chance to get a kill when they put the most work into killing the enemy npcs. Resulting in less frustration.

I don't foresee any negatives, as this will only be used against fighter class ships. If capital ships were included, the mechanic would be exploited. It has to be only fighter class for this reason.

Thoughts?

To make sure I'm understanding you right, your main concern is that players get exp proportional to the percentage of health they do to a target. Why not simply change the proportion of exp that players get? I.e. if the proportion is currently linear, instead make it a curve instead.

Would I be able to use an alt of an opposing nation, claim dibs on my main, and then avoid enemy fighters completely?

I think it would be better to up whatever XP and credits you get, then make the rewards weighted more towards player damage.

I don't know about Deneb, but in hive skirmishes, when NPCs steal kills it also causes the bot to drop nothing. Not good when you're noodle farming, which is already a very tedious process.

@Sid, it's been my experience that if you do damage to the bots shortly before an npc kills them you still get drops.

I like this idea because bots can dodge multiple sources of fire seemingly simultaneously making them extremely annoying/hard to hit when NPC's decide to engage your target. Obviously, you should not be able to claim players as a target.

Aryko,

I may have left it it out, as I wrote this late at night, but this is only against NPCs in a mission.

I think being able to command and control NPCs is something that should be a reward for achievement on the battlefield, such as via Deneb trackable stats or Hive incursion trackable stats.

Low level players should *not* be able to do something like this to "maximize" their rewards over the current system, which is rightly "he who does the most damage gets the most reward".

This suggestion ignores the fact that many players engage with already-damaged NPCs over the course of their missions, or interfere with fights between NPCs that have already been "targeted" by each other, in pursuit of the overall mission goal of getting more kills than the enemy.

I don't think new players would care about the differentiation suggested here and thus it strikes me as a suggestion aimed more at reducing the grind for vets leveling up alts. Given the speed at which this can be done under current conditions, I don't see why this is necessary.

-1

"he who does the most damage gets the most reward". that's not the current system. Even if you get a bot to 10% and then an NPC steals the kill, you don't get 90% of the xp you'd get if you'd killed the bot all by yourself. The one to land the last hit gets more xp.

I see. Well that might be worth discussing, but it doesn't change my opinion overall.

+1 for npc and -1 for player. Useful in capship fights so ppl can keep their targets with a player capship.

I think if this were to be implemented, the called target should immediately disengage whatever it is attacking, and turn to attack the player who called it out.

I'd let people call out as many targets as they want. If some lunatic wants to fight the entire fleet on their own, well that's their problem.

+1 to look... no hands

LNH's amended suggestion is creative but also highly exploitable. -1