One of the problems with being able to toggle pvp off is trading. So you're flying across the galaxy in a giant trading ship, you'll make a huge profit when you sell. Where's the risk? And for those that don't want to trade, is there another easy safe way for them to make money?
I agree and I dislike open world pvp for a lot of the same reasons that others have said. PVP is part of this game though and not going away. What's needed is NPC factions, station security patrols etc. GrimHex is run by pirates, they would not take kindly to people blowing up ships near them and risking their station. etc. etc.
The crime system needs a full rework and I don't envy the team trying to do it. It's a huge sprawling thing to get right. And tied in to the Bounty system as well. As an example; If someone shoots you a couple times, no crime, what if 10 people all shot you a couple times? Does the person who get the kill get the crime stat and everyone else get off free?
The risk/threat in PvE would be the same as any other PvE game like Skyrim or CyberPunk, you have a variety of actors who fulfil different roles within the universe. Some are friendly, while others are hostile, but the key distinction i'd make between NPCs and PCs is that someone defines the acceptable choices the NPC will take, so their actions should be logical to the role they're fulfilling, so you wont get the AI equivalent of the sort of person who enjoys pulling the legs of spiders.
I very much doubt that any players who are interested in PVE are looking for the finished game to contain no criminal/hostile actors, personally im just looking to avoid people who are looking to create negative experiences, or arent particularly fussed about whether their actions ruin other peoples enjoyment if they can get away with it, and i know a PVE experience will live up to that, while still having threats and being a challenge. We can have pirates, criminals, and hostile races like the Vanduul, all acting as intended (following lore).
PVP can have all of that, too, but they're welcome to communities like 4chan, all logging in and playing like they're Vanduul wiping the universe of all humankind, in the middle of UEE space, and just being a bunch of 4-letter words with their only intent being to disrupt the game and annoy people.
My hope is that CIG are able to get the NPC balance right, and implement easy IG methods for the community to create gameplay loops that allow it to solve many of my concerns by itself.
Things like large *friendly* orgs being able to operate as protectors of certain zones/systems, and they patrol those areas and charge people to pass through, either a rolling fee or a 1-time fee each time you pass through and are stopped etc.
Players like myself would basically be paying for protection in their controlled area, and in exchange they'd act as a deterrent to lowly criminal actors, as well as against large organised threats. They'd get paid for the combat orientated gameplay they want, and industry-focused players like myself should be safe to stick within those zones, with PMC and UEE law enforcement in the area.
The risk also being that the game could also end up being divided up by a handful of huge orgs, all fighting each other for control of more space, and you're either an ally or you're a target, no in between.
My concern with the 10:1 ratio is how authentic that ultimately ends up being. Being obtuse to make a point, i could argue that the game is already more than 10:1 NPC vs PCs, and they're almost exclusively T-posing planetside as filler population. '10:1' can be both true and utterly meaningless to us as players in what we're hoping for.
That 10:1 needs to be across the board to ensure that every aspect of the game operates as needed, because if something is so dull that no player wants to fulfill that role, and more money cant fix it, then NPCs absolutely will. The game cant be held hostage by 10% of the life within the game deciding to manipulate the market without the other 90% vastly outnumbering them where needed. Whether thats everyone going rouge as criminals, or everyone deciding they want to mine but nobody wants to haul it anywhere.
Im sure it'll be much closer to what we all hope it'll be, than the doooom scenario, but if NPC actors end up being far too intensive to populate the game as CR intended, its a very easy out for CIG to say "well, there are 10 times more NPCs than PC" and just ignore the distinction that most of those are collecting litter, shop vendors, tourists etc, an predominantly found planetside, rather than meaningfully impacting the universe like players are.
Hopefully they act as a solution to my concerns about PVP, however my initial concerns were resolved by the game getting a PVE/PVP slider, and thats unlikely to materialise now, so it'd be foolish to blindly believe another promise couldnt fade away and be quietly revised as needed if someone actually sits down and considers how plausible their initial plan was.
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