Multiplayer influences on solo mode

[TangoAlpha]

Is there a list of what "multiplayer players" effect in the universe that will have an effect on "solo players"? What of those effects could be disruptive?

Prices: Buy commodities and start journey to destination. Save game and resume game a week later, prices at destination have changed.

Exploring: Bounty for exploring is taken by multiplayer players, infrequent solo players may never discover an unexplored system.

Contracts? Can an infrequent player take a contract without worrying about having to save and resume later due to a real life interruption? Are the fulfilment time limits local to the solo player's in-game elapsed time or is the contract countdown timer "always on"?

(Note that all the above is what guesswork and what I've managed to find in the forum as I can't yet play the beta, apologies for things that aren't entirely accurate)

Anything else that is going to badly effect the solo mode?

 

[Ganjis]

Mines will get exhausted, lucrative trade routes will be fulfilled and drive price differences towards zero.

On the flip- side player pirates may disrupt trade routes so much that new lucrative routes open up. Also, if the simulation is good enough, systems where trade is fulfilled (ie prices approach galaxy average on buying and selling) they will hopefully grow, requiring more trade volume to sustain them. Also, wealthy systems should start seeding new colonies along the frontier of inhabited space opening up many new possibilities.

If it is handled properly, it will enrich the universe. If done poorly, it will drive towards equilibrium and stagnate.

Leaving the game for a while, coming back and finding things have changed could give the game lasting appeal (rather than finding the one route that always makes most money and just grinding away at that in single-player which would get boring).

Wait and see I suppose.

 

[Joe Spivey]

To put it simply, the only difference between Solo and Open is that in Solo you will not actually meet any other players. Everything else is the same for both play styles.

 

[Tronicus]

Look at it this way: Solo mode= You flying around in space, and in all your actions, you just happen to never ever run into another human player. Other than that, the universe keeps on spinning and evolving whether you are there or not.

ETA: Doh! beaten by a minute!

 

[_Flin_]

Is there a list of what "multiplayer players" effect in the universe that will have an effect on "solo players"? What of those effects could be disruptive?

Don't know what you mean with "disruptive".

But as a list I'd say:
- Background simulation events triggered by player actions. The systems will respond to the amount of trading, pirating and bounty hunting done. Population, Standard of living and wealth of the systems will respond to player actions. Kind of missions will change due to player actions. Noone hauling grain? Grain missions pop up. Everybody hauling grain due to missions? Population increases and missions cease. But other missions start to show up.
- course of events. How the events will play out (like a new station being build) will be influenced by what the players will do.
- evolving of planets and stations.

Prices: Buy commodities and start journey to destination. Save game and resume game a week later, prices at destination have changed.

That might happen. But then it isn't really hard to find new routes. Plus I don't see why someone do long journeys. Plus you usually by cheap, so there will still be a profit to be made.
A trade route is usually more a roundtrip between two stations in neighbouring systems. I hardly ever logged out with cargo in my ship.

Exploring: Bounty for exploring is taken by multiplayer players, infrequent solo players may never discover an unexplored system.

It really depends on how far you go. The "feeling" for you is: "This is a new system". Regardless of whether someone else was there. I don't know how big the first time bonus will pay. But other player's discoveries will not influence your game experience apart from the payout.

Contracts? Can an infrequent player take a contract without worrying about having to save and resume later due to a real life interruption? Are the fulfilment time limits local to the solo player's in-game elapsed time or is the contract countdown timer "always on"?

Always on afaik. Just abandon the contract before you log out.

Anything else that is going to badly effect the solo mode?

It really depends what you think of "badly". It might happen you log out in an undiscovered system, log back a month later, and suddenly you are in the middle of a colonization effort. Or a war.
Your favorite mining spot might deteriorate, because 500 other players mine it as well.
But I think going into one direction for an hour of time will greatly limit the amount of difference you will encounter in the game world.

There are positive influences as well. You can take part in "pimp my planet" projects, without playing multiplayer or fearing pirates. You can profit from the knowledge available in the community. You can find out the current hotspots, have the feeling to influence the game world by helping building up stations. And you will see them being built, even without yourself hauling stuff there for 60 hours.
Others will do expeditions and find interesting things to reach out to. Others will do the major mistakes so you don't have to do them.

I have never understood the urge to play offline in your own capsule. You can do this, the feeling is nothing different than playing solo. But there is actually stuff happening, even without you.

 

[Krait_79]

I keep hearing people talking about how they are concerned about or don't want other people affecting their game. Thing is the affects will work both ways not just negative. Also given the size of the galaxy you will easily find places that have minimal or no impact from other players.

As I've already said elsewhere i much prefer the idea of my galaxy being affected by real people rather than randomly scripted AI.

 

[TangoAlpha]

Thank you for your answers, much appreciated. Just a couple of follow ups...

It really depends on how far you go. The "feeling" for you is: "This is a new system". Regardless of whether someone else was there. I don't know how big the first time bonus will pay. But other player's discoveries will not influence your game experience apart from the payout.

How big are the payouts compared to trading? Is an infrequent player going to lose out because they lose that method of earning?

Always on afaik. Just abandon the contract before you log out.

Is there a penalty for abandoning a contract?

I have never understood the urge to play offline in your own capsule. You can do this, the feeling is nothing different than playing solo. But there is actually stuff happening, even without you.

And I've never understood the urge to play multiplayer. Playing offline would mean I don't miss anything as the universe pauses when I do (Plus I get to avoid griefers, immature players, and anyone else likely to break my immersive experience).

 

[TangoAlpha]

I keep hearing people talking about how they are concerned about or don't want other people affecting their game. Thing is the affects will work both ways not just negative.

That doesn't mean they are wrong. What you may think is "not negative" may be very negative to someone else.

Also given the size of the galaxy you will easily find places that have minimal or no impact from other players.

I'd like a universe where I don't have to go out of my way to find places uninfluenced by other players. There's no guarantee once I'd found somewhere like that, the next time I logged in it would be the same.

I'm trying to find out if the solo mode is close enough to the offline mode to be worth playing, or if I need to go down the refund route.

As I've already said elsewhere i much prefer the idea of my galaxy being affected by real people rather than randomly scripted AI.

And there are a large number of people who don't, as shown by the "No Single Player offline Mode then" thread.

 

[Uridium]

Is there a list of what "multiplayer players" effect in the universe that will have an effect on "solo players"? What of those effects could be disruptive?

Prices: Buy commodities and start journey to destination. Save game and resume game a week later, prices at destination have changed.
Prices change all the time everywhere. How do you know that they weren't going to fluctuate based on time in the offline mode?
I guess you want a completely static universe with just you in it to make any differences.

Exploring: Bounty for exploring is taken by multiplayer players, infrequent solo players may never discover an unexplored system.
400Bazilion Systems... and you think you are never going to find an un-explored one... Sheesh.


Seems some people are trying really really hard to come up with ways to say that Offline is so important over Online-Solo.
I would go for the refund if I were you. Elite is clearly not the game for you.

 

[WeirdWizard]

Prices change all the time everywhere. How do you know that they weren't going to fluctuate based on time in the offline mode?
I guess you want a completely static universe with just you in it to make any differences.[/B]

A well made believable and fun economic model doesn't have to be either random or static. The difference between a single player and MMO marketplace is that in singleplayer the market is tuned to deliver interested gameplay for the player (realistic or not) and it only progresses while that player is in game. In multiplayer the market is at the whim of players doing whatever the hell they please which in practice could easily appear to be chaos to the individual player, especially if they don't play very regularly.

400Bazilion Systems... and you think you are never going to find an un-explored one... Sheesh.[/B]

Bazillion? Anyway its not a question of quantity, its a question of distance and accessibility. There could be an infinite number of unexplored systems but if I can't reach them in a reasonable time frame or if others are constantly pushing the envelope out father and faster than me then its irrelevant.

I would go for the refund if I were you. Elite is clearly not the game for you.

You might be right, unfortunately Frontier misrepresented the game and are now refusing refunds.

 

[_Flin_]

Thank you for your answers, much appreciated. Just a couple of follow ups...

How big are the payouts compared to trading? Is an infrequent player going to lose out because they lose that method of earning?

Not sure. But finding a good system with a earth like planet and some ressources, scanned with a detailed surface scanner, nets 100k upwards. These are the rare gems. Sun only, unscanned, nets 600. Exploring a system lazily (scanning sun and 4-5 planets) can net you 6k.

It's not the best way to earn money anyway, on a per-hour base, at least not when compared running a profitable trade route in anything from a Cobra upwards (where every semi-profitable route in a half-equipped ship nets 50k in 10 minutes). But it has it's own rewards.

So I cannot answer this. But I'd guess you make about 80-100k with a basic explorer setup, just discovery scanning, looking for interesting planets on the system map and scan them. This is probably a lot more with detailed surface scanner and advanced discovery scanner, where 1 ping lets you discover the whole system. But I haven't done that yet.

Is there a penalty for abandoning a contract?

Don't know about bounty contracts. The long time hauling missions where you are wanted to deliver goods do not have a penalty, afaik.

And I've never understood the urge to play multiplayer. Playing offline would mean I don't miss anything as the universe pauses when I do (Plus I get to avoid griefers, immature players, and anyone else likely to break my immersive experience).

AI is dumb and predictable. Many other players are dumb as well, but sometimes in a funny way. And finding a good player is always a bigger challenge than a good AI, which usually just involves to find those 1 or 2 strategies to easily defeat them.

Plus you can talk, do stupid things, achieve goals you can never do alone, and basically have more drama than you could possibly have alone. Then of course, with others one is seldomly "the special one", as one can imagine to be when playing alone.

 

[TangoAlpha]

I guess you want a completely static universe with just you in it to make any differences.

Yes, just as you want a multiplayer universe. It doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong or vice-versa.

400Bazilion Systems... and you think you are never going to find an un-explored one... Sheesh.

No, but with 1000, 5000, 10000...? players in the universe, my odds are significantly reduced, and even more so as an infrequent player who might only play at the weekend.

Seems some people are trying really really hard to come up with ways to say that Offline is so important over Online-Solo.

Why shouldn't it be? It might not be to you, but it is very important to me.

Try thinking about it the other way around, you might start to understand:

"Frontier Developments are cancelling the promised online multiplayer mode and focussing entirely on solo/offline mode.

For all those of you who backed us expecting a multiplayer game, that's not going to happen (oh, and we're not doing refunds either)."

Would you still be backing it? Would you still play it?

Elite is clearly not the game for you.

I played BBC Elite when it was first released, along with the PC sequels, for more hours than I care to remember. Elite is very much the game for me but, unfortunately, Elite Dangerous is not following the same path as the earlier iterations.

 

[Zphinx]

Is there a list of what "multiplayer players" effect in the universe that will have an effect on "solo players"? What of those effects could be disruptive?

Prices: Buy commodities and start journey to destination. Save game and resume game a week later, prices at destination have changed.
Prices change all the time everywhere. How do you know that they weren't going to fluctuate based on time in the offline mode?
I guess you want a completely static universe with just you in it to make any differences.

Exploring: Bounty for exploring is taken by multiplayer players, infrequent solo players may never discover an unexplored system.
400Bazilion Systems... and you think you are never going to find an un-explored one... Sheesh.


Seems some people are trying really really hard to come up with ways to say that Offline is so important over Online-Solo.
I would go for the refund if I were you. Elite is clearly not the game for you.

Sorry to tell you, the original Elite was Offline, I could play my game my way. Elite Dangerous, is online ONLY, and if I want to make an impact on a Fraction or corporation I have to play online or go with the masses (Same as in EVE), I cannot influence the game enough in Solo Mode to flip a station, because as soon as lets say an Online player group sees that an Independent station is going to Flip Empire, they will rattle the cage and hinder the game from flipping. That is what most people are talking about.

So lets say I want to make an impact in "My game" that I bought to play "my way" as it was advertised, I will have to deal with inmature griefers and that will ruin the game for me.

That is the bottom line as I see here.

 

[Herik]

Is there a list of what "multiplayer players" effect in the universe that will have an effect on "solo players"? What of those effects could be disruptive?

Prices: Buy commodities and start journey to destination. Save game and resume game a week later, prices at destination have changed.

Exploring: Bounty for exploring is taken by multiplayer players, infrequent solo players may never discover an unexplored system.

Contracts? Can an infrequent player take a contract without worrying about having to save and resume later due to a real life interruption? Are the fulfilment time limits local to the solo player's in-game elapsed time or is the contract countdown timer "always on"?

(Note that all the above is what guesswork and what I've managed to find in the forum as I can't yet play the beta, apologies for things that aren't entirely accurate)

Anything else that is going to badly effect the solo mode?

No, and all those things you mention don't bother me. Of course when I'm playing, it's been several days consecutively and I finish my journeys during a session.