Ah... Its not ganking to attack miners and haulers?... Thats certainly an "interesting" definition.  As for the other, of course it would be an arms race. Its happened in game after game that goes the guard route. The Dev's have to keep coming back to it to deal with an endless stream of "creative" antics on the part of the gankers and griefers. You said yourself its all about trying... Talk about the creation of a perverse incentive.  Far better to keep PvE and PvP separate, and save Dev time and retain the players that would other wise leave.

No its not about that. If you would have paid attention - the system is set up to make that impossible. PvP on alpha would be the non-scripted mob that would kill you in the same circumstances a mob did.

And no - there would be no arms race when guard attacks in high density areas would insta pop anybody.

And still 2 shot people who cant make their way to a beta port on lower density areas. If youd not be around with a heavy mech sitting next to a beta port - ot had 20 people remote repping you - escorting you to a station - youd be gone.

If people make that effort and coordination of investing like 30 minutes 100million in bots to kill an arkhe that was afk - well then they earned it.

Wraith, you're right, of course, and game after game has demonstrated this. But you can't compete with a guy who gains five years of gaming 'expertise' in one night. Nor can you argue with someone who thinks that when you point out how wrong he is, you "own" yourself.

Besides, as I said before, what harm could possibly come from a little German guy wanting to impose his will on everyone?

But let's get back on topic:

Wraithbane, what ideas do you have about improving PvE for those who prefer it to PvP?

Other: I think you have some great ideas- let the PvE grind have more meaning by giving the grinders some exclusive resources or recipes. Then introduce an improved economic system that increases player interaction and competition, and let us go on to flesh it out.

Also, I'd like to sell a bunch of Rivelers...

If there aren't any meathead greifers blowing them up every once in a while then I'm not gonna sell that many

NIC sinks are important to creating a decent market system.  If you use the same numbers as Eve in the proportion of the population that resides in highsec and the proportion that resides in low and nullsec (appx 85% in highsec) then the market will be permanently broken as an important part of game play.  Destruction of equipment and robots has to happen on a fairly large scale to keep the market moving.

The only other option would be constantly having to increase the size and power of equipment and robots to keep experienced players interested.  This would alienate new players and limit the game to those that have been here since the beginning as skill progression is time based.

Limited playerbase = a dead game.

Well, first off, as I mentioned in another thread, make the out posts mean something more than they currently do. Make them literally fortresses that need to be defended, expanded and maintained against the robotic clans attacks.  The expansion and up keep would involve the crafter/industrial types. The defense would require combat specialists.

They would have ascending classes(just like bots) with each class having more weapons emplacements, defense shields and other such installation mods.   Once out of the basic out post class, they would have teleporters to allow for reinforcement when they come under attack by the robotic clans(and also access by the crafter/industrial types).

Expanding and maintaining the fortress system would become literally a game within the game itself.

As far as the Alpha and Beta situation breaks down, the Alphas are the planetary strong hold necessary to allow the continued access to the planet. The Syndicate(confederation of giga corps that rule earth) has decreed that since the Alphas are the key to the planet itself, there is to be *no* conflict among its member corps there(in fact with the robotic clan attacks it would literally be suicide).  On the Betas how ever, competition is allowed, as long as it doesn't interfere with the Syndicates exploitation of the planet.

Given the on going shadow war between the member corps of the Syndicate(assassins, "regime change" and other such games) on home world, their main focus is on continued access to the resources that are necessary for their continued power. Thus anything and anyone who might interfere with that access is *not* to be tolerated(its just about the only thing that all of the giga corps agree upon).

The Syndicate Council(ruling body of the Syndicate) is the usual snake pit of sociopaths, whose only goal is personal and political power.  But that is balanced out by the reality of the situation on earth, and the need for continued access to the Alpha areas.  This could end up being something like a cross between the giga corps in Shadow Run, and the Houses in Mech Warrior.  Any way, thats enough of that for now. ^^

And concerning OPs: giving them more fluff to build and defend is nice but the actual capturing is very lame atm - could be more interesting and meaningful - minigames to shortcircuit the internal computers etc.

Also - the gain from an OP would need to be more then just lame lvl3 facilities. Youd need a dynamic item system to make the crafter and OP have an impact on the quality of same tiered items. This way thered be items of the same kind with different item quality.

The current item system is again pretty lame - its like from another century. MMOs 10 years ago had dynamic item systems.

Actually - the list is so big - youd need an interconnected concept - which should have been there 2 years ago. If you come up with it now - youll see it realized in 1-2 years.

Additionally, any partial implementation of interconnected designs makes the seperate elements fail each on its own.

Well, they should get some help. Otherwise all those playermade ideas will break the game.

Ok - have you read about the part with decreasing pvp dmg the nearer you are in social areas? This way even a heavy mech wouldnt kill an arkhe with 5 volleys.

Problem solved. Youd just need to connect the max dmg output value as a modifier to the decrease of pvp damage when coming closr to a terminal w/e - and the game autobalanes this itself.

Anyway - i just thought about that OP hacking minigame idea - make it a professian  -and even PVE could be more interestin when you have to hack the kernels to reveal their information OR to get them out of the PVE corpse. Hacking reqs would increase with increasing kernel quality, so that youd need a dedicated hacker for certain parts of the game - within your group.

@the motives for this simply is a well rounded coherent, non artificially devided system to not devide up the playerbase. To give people possibilities to try things. Thats what makes up a sandbox after all. I dont play a sandbox mmo to be restricted.

Not being able to defend myself against a greater number of enemies because pvp flags inhibit jumping - is a reason for me to leave the game - i never seen such bad design. Its gamebreaking.

Oops... Double posted

Other, as you mentioned in  a different post, the 'broken' market could be addressed through a combination of more economic competition and greater interdependence between crafters and fighters.

What do you think about Wraithbane's idea of outpost defense, and the various resources it would require? It sounds like a good solution to me, as it would provide a sink rather than lead to a gear grind. I think it could also be flexible enough to cater to large and small corporations.

Let me see if I have this straight. Say within a KM(1000 meters) of a alpha terminal, even locking on to someone gets you killed by flying guards.  Say at 2km you have time to lock on and fire off a volley or two before the guards show up.  That means that we have the usual gank squads roaming around looking for victims among the miners and haulers, and those trying to run assignments.  Just so long as they stay out of the guards reach, they can have their jollies at the other players expense. 

Thats supposed to be an "improvement" over the current system??  Not to mention, how long will it be before the gankers start howling that the guard system is too limiting? We need more options! You need to keep the guards inside the One KM limit!(then half that...Then half that...). Long before this of course, most of the PvE types would have left to play another game, which means much less money for the Dev's... This is not a good direction for the game to take.

Lets try a thought experiment shall we? Suppose a group of PvE players starts in with the same thing. Its not fair that the best ores are on the betas! We need more options! We need more sand in the sand box! Expand the no kill zone to the beta ore areas!

That would go over with the PvP types, just about as well as some of the proposed "solutions" for the Alphas have with the PvE crowd.  But you know, I've not seen many, if any of the PvE crowd proposing such a "solution"... Once again, I question the motivation of those who want to inflict PvP on those who have no interest in it.

Here's a question...

Why is it worse to be blown up by a player rather than an NPC?

For the market to have any importance things have to break and break often.

The market has to work if you're going to be an industrialist.

If equipment and robots are not destroyed at a very fast rate by either NPCs or players then either industrialists will be a very small niche of the game, ammo will need to be very expensive and require an extensive skillset to create or, the developers will need to constantly add more and more powerful robots which, as i explained earlier is game breaking.

So, if you want industrialists to play a large role in the game, whats better, to be blown up by a player or an NPC?

No wraith there wouldnt be unprotected areas, just a decreasing density as a measure to reflect security increasing while getting closer so inhabitet structures.

And again - theres no talking about actually successfull ganking approaches rather the ability to fire your weapons at anythnig you can aim and to zone with a flag. Those 2 missing last polints are just crap.

If you implement decreasing pvp dmg like metioned above there wont be a problem with arms races - it couldnt be. Also you could prevent suicide attacks.

Letting attackers be something like a clever scripted mob with a still greately reduced possibility to succeed sounds like a fair idea for abandoned alpha outskirts. This has nothing to do with pvp rather then making the system more logic, more coherent, less immersion breaking.

Safezones at beta would be part of the concept the other way round. Its rather doubtfull that there wouldnt be more safe zones in a conflict zone.

As long as there are objectives like OP fights - and safezones are remote enough to prevent synch-whoring at OPs.