In a separate mode, away from the main galaxy.
Solo | Private | Open | Arena | Power Play
(this should be the main menu - and PP should not give any toys that are useable in the main game)
Open-Only in PP2.0?
- Thread starter August Lagrange
- Start date
In a separate mode, away from the main galaxy.
Solo | Private | Open | Arena | Power Play
(this should be the main menu - and PP should not give any toys that are useable in the main game)
Can the average player look at a map, find the nearest expansion / BGS war /capital, fly between systems either chasing / evading? If they can, they are better than 100% of NPCs. An NPC can only try to emulate what an ordinary player can do in Powerplay, because (V1 at least) PP is galaxy wide, when NPCs are system level in scope (that is, persistence is limited). I've never had an NPC chase me from taking off in one system, track me, and come after me in the capital.
Players think and apply strategy at all levels in Powerplay. They fly ships which are largely unique and respond to actions in game. The aveage player has engineering, actually uses PP modules and uses weapons no NPC uses.
Grinding against a progress bar in identical runs is why a lot of people (yourself included) stopped doing regular PP. Now, having players support others hauling, attacking rivals or even doing everyday things is much more varied when an unpredictable player or groups are introduced. Hell, even stealth gameplay comes into it- once when I was undermining Mahon as part of a multi power initiatve we had to ensure we were not seen or scanned by other players. Several times I was stopped and chatted hoping I would not be bounty scanned.
The whole driving reason for PP as a feature is to be #1 and avoid being turmoiled. You can have fun doing activities but all paths lead to this objective. You having fun in the BGS is you benefiting the power (or the detriment of rivals). All the groups are like that- its what drives them to do things. V2 amps this up with top pilot scoreboards with rewards.
What the problem is that without a moderating force those players gain advantage. Thats not fun for the feature as a whole and why NPCs need to be more capable. Will these same players moan that the milk run gets harder because other power NPCs don't like what they do as well?
V2 will have significant hotspots- its inevitable given some systems will daisy chain from central strongholds and be prime targets. V1 has plenty of points to find others. Capitals, expansions, anything designated you can look at the UI and deduce where people are likely to be (since the UI is near real-time).
V2 is decentralized enough so that people can lone wolf and not trip each other up- no move is 'wrong'. However people alone can't compete with more players and why organised groups won't go away. In V1 groups were equally about avoiding mathmatical traps, V2 is (will) be more about marshalling as many people to a specific spot of strategic value.
Power groups by design need to be friendly to attract pledges. Its why they offer training, laughs etc. A group won't last long otherwise- PP has been like this since day 1.
I've never said people are cheating in solo- what I do think is that solo and PG remove the only real opposition in Powerplay at a gameplay level. This then provides an advantage at a strategic level because bread and butter fort / UM becomes a flat grind race where time is the only obstacle. Unfun gameplay feeds into a strategic imbalance that puts people off.
And again, I'm not lessening other modes rewards. Open gets a small bonus for the risk you take. The effort / reward in solo or PG is still the same.
These players still have a choice of solo, PG and Open and can still be in solo or PG for efficency- just now Open has an incentive where credible opposition can happen if NPCs are still poor in V2.
If solo players want to grind alone, they can.
Powerplayer and blocking enemies? LMAONot sure how someone on my block list is a threat
but if you say so
Look, let's get this clear once for all: all of them "let me sniff the spice you carry", "tell me a joke so I won't kill you" bunch are not a threat. No one is afraid of them.
They are simply annoying.
And every commander with a bit of sense will find the way to remove this annoyance from their pastime.
More or less like these pointless posts...
More or less like these pointless posts...
Exactly, that's why I'm trying to explain why you should stop treating everyone who don't adhere to your "yaargh, let's see who's stronger" attitude as weaklings and scared.
Ooof... a lot to dig in here...
Here's the thing. NPC's don't need to be able to do all that, because as far as NPCs are concerned, the Universe revolves around the individual player. They're the "My Buddy" of the galaxy. Wherever you go, they'll go. Even if common sense says that there's no reason why they should be out in the middle of nowhere.
And once again you illustrate my point. What you describe in my experience doesn’t work, thanks to the usual suspects. What should be a fun and effective on paper ends up an unappealing and frustrating experience in reality. There is something different about Elite Dangerous, something suppressing the usual suspects in Open mode which legions of programmers and paid game moderators never managed to do in other games.
And that goes double for my experiences in PowerPlay.
And I disagree. It’s one of the reasons to play PowerPlay, but not the “driving reason” for the entire feature.
And I agree with you that in my experience NPCs aren’t much of a threat to me. Where we differ is that I don’t consider myself the typical player, and that for most players even the current PowerPlay interdiction force is a threat to them.
That’s my hope as well. And I hope that what’s at those hot spots will encourage PvP. I’m just skeptical about whether or not this game’s network architecture and instancing rules will produce good results on a consistent basis for players who are not willing to jump through technological hoops and manipulate said instancing rules to promote PvP.
I agree.
In my experience, the organized groups whose idea of “laughs, etc.” come at the expense of others have been conspicuously rare in Open in general, and all but absent in Open PowerPlay specifically. It doesn’t take many of these groups to ruin the experience for everyone, and you are quite fortunate that this is your first experience with a mixed PvP/PvE MMO.
That’s why I used “quotes.” You think that players who don’t follow your self-imposed rules have an unfair advantage, and you want to be rewarded extra for following them. An extra reward to playing in Open is functionally identical to a penalty for playing in other modes. Those who don’t already follow your self-imposed rules are not going to suddenly follow them if they feel like they’re being forced to do so… especially those who are willing to go to any length to gain a competitive advantage.
I have no issue about not being rewarded for my self-imposed rules, which I’m pretty sure are harder than yours. My reward is a more interesting game. And while I’d love play exclusively with like-minded people, I really doubt those rules will be popular among the general population, and forcing others to so would not only kill any chance the game receiving further development, but would also result in an increase in the types of behavior I don’t particularly find fun.
And I still think that your solution to what is in my opinion a minor problem is one that not only won’t fix the problem, but create more problems as well.
But I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that front.
And I’m really hoping we’ll get some proper information about PowerPlay 2.0 next week!
Here's the thing. NPC's don't need to be able to do all that, because as far as NPCs are concerned, the Universe revolves around the individual player. They're the "My Buddy" of the galaxy. Wherever you go, they'll go. Even if common sense says that there's no reason why they should be out in the middle of nowhere.
And once again you illustrate my point. What you describe in my experience doesn’t work, thanks to the usual suspects. What should be a fun and effective on paper ends up an unappealing and frustrating experience in reality. There is something different about Elite Dangerous, something suppressing the usual suspects in Open mode which legions of programmers and paid game moderators never managed to do in other games.
And that goes double for my experiences in PowerPlay.
And I disagree. It’s one of the reasons to play PowerPlay, but not the “driving reason” for the entire feature.
And I agree with you that in my experience NPCs aren’t much of a threat to me. Where we differ is that I don’t consider myself the typical player, and that for most players even the current PowerPlay interdiction force is a threat to them.
That’s my hope as well. And I hope that what’s at those hot spots will encourage PvP. I’m just skeptical about whether or not this game’s network architecture and instancing rules will produce good results on a consistent basis for players who are not willing to jump through technological hoops and manipulate said instancing rules to promote PvP.
I agree.
In my experience, the organized groups whose idea of “laughs, etc.” come at the expense of others have been conspicuously rare in Open in general, and all but absent in Open PowerPlay specifically. It doesn’t take many of these groups to ruin the experience for everyone, and you are quite fortunate that this is your first experience with a mixed PvP/PvE MMO.
That’s why I used “quotes.” You think that players who don’t follow your self-imposed rules have an unfair advantage, and you want to be rewarded extra for following them. An extra reward to playing in Open is functionally identical to a penalty for playing in other modes. Those who don’t already follow your self-imposed rules are not going to suddenly follow them if they feel like they’re being forced to do so… especially those who are willing to go to any length to gain a competitive advantage.
I have no issue about not being rewarded for my self-imposed rules, which I’m pretty sure are harder than yours. My reward is a more interesting game. And while I’d love play exclusively with like-minded people, I really doubt those rules will be popular among the general population, and forcing others to so would not only kill any chance the game receiving further development, but would also result in an increase in the types of behavior I don’t particularly find fun.
And I still think that your solution to what is in my opinion a minor problem is one that not only won’t fix the problem, but create more problems as well.
But I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that front.
And I’m really hoping we’ll get some proper information about PowerPlay 2.0 next week!
You miss the point. Being able to take part in the game in either solo, private group or open is a key feature applied during the kickstarter period and can not be removed.
You cannot block enemies, they are the NPCs the game provides and are available in all modes.
You can only block players - because the game advertises the fact we don't have to play with people we don't want to play with.
I'm not your content, you're not my content.
On the other hand, I’m perfectly willing to be content, as long as they’re willing to return the favor. In my experience, there’s far too many players who insist that I should be their content, but are unwilling to return the favor. This does not make for a fun experience in my opinion, and then they’ll wonder why nobody wants to play with them.
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I'm a terrible combat pilot and I tend to spend my time in private groups but powerplay should absolutely be open only or at the very least there should be a substantial bonus to CC and merits earned. You shouldn't be able to influence a competitive game system without competition.
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Since we are relying on technicalities to argue against Open-Only Powerplay, Frontier could easily get around this (If this is even a problem at all, not sure they are actually liable for anything) by making Solo/PG's contribution to Powerplay exist but reducing them 10 thousand fold or something exaggereated like that compared to what you do in Open play. This way you are technically not being prevented from taking part in Powerplay but for all intents and purposes you are not actively making any sort of difference, and in practice it becomes Open-Only.
In the friendliest, most non-accusatory way possible, I will say that you're probably not going to like this solution because I have a feeling you are not actually trying to look out for Frontier's legal liabilities regarding the kickstarter and instead are looking for an excuse to not have Powerplay be Open-Only.
At the end of the day though, Powerplay being Open-Only doesn't even force you into PvP proper. If you are irredeemably terirble at PvP and are the kind of player to just haul merits, this would probably only mean that you'd have to take out a big cargo rack from your cutter, replace it with a prismatic shield, and then take an alternative route to the station that is not a straight line from the star to the station so you have to work a bit to avoid being interdicted, become less vulnerable if/when it happens anyway, and you can boost to the station without blowing up. -250 tons of cargo and that's it.
The entire game isn't being made to be open only, just contributions to powerplay would be. Most of the people against it don't even participate in powerplay to begin with, and every big/relevant powerplay group already preaches to do powerplay in open. So I've never really understood the opposition to this tbh
The entire game isn't being made to be open only, just contributions to powerplay would be. Most of the people against it don't even participate in powerplay to begin with, and every big/relevant powerplay group already preaches to do powerplay in open. So I've never really understood the opposition to this tbh
I've just pledged allegiance for the first time, for specific modules, for what appears to be very much a 'sport' version of PvP, as you have to have the same build to really get involved.
I've been very surprised to learn that in essence the power play dynamic is most affected by transporting goods. This really has nothing to do with open or closed, it is similar to the games trade dynamic; I don't see how being in open play affects this much at all, it certainly should not be a prerequisite.
I've been very surprised to learn that in essence the power play dynamic is most affected by transporting goods. This really has nothing to do with open or closed, it is similar to the games trade dynamic; I don't see how being in open play affects this much at all, it certainly should not be a prerequisite.
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Transporting goods in powerplay isn't to random systems, and it's usually a concerted effort on a particular system as part of a power's strategy. As this is often done in direct opposition to another power, they have a vested interest in stopping that from happening and one of those ways is to kill the haulers. I don't see how PvP stopping people from cashing in merits and hauling isn't relevant to this. I don't know about petulance, sure you have the right to have an opinion, but you are very confidently incorrect
Problem is needing to haul PP merits to control systems means hostile powerplayers know where to camp.
The problem is exacerbated for certain powers where you have to haul merits from control systems to the HQ, meaning they only need to camp at a single system [the HQ].
Ah OK, so there are hot spots for attacking the supply, right that makes more sense. Well, being able to squat the HQ is an utterly unrealistic thing, seems that AI level might need to be developed further to resolve this issue, If there are not enough opposition players to do it. If a power enables some enemy power to squat their HQ, then they are not a realistic power at all, they are a power that is just about to fall, and this should be endgame for a power not the norm.
So I maintain, that wanting open only, to enforce this state, to back it up, is petulance. This gameplay state existing is breaking the realism and should be addressed. With this in mind, it appears a more lucid argument to want to diminish the effect that open has on the system and not the effect of closed. This being more a concern of equilibrium and the tuning of the dynamic, rather than anything else, and as such would far more likely be best addressed using the systems defensive AI.
I think it would be superb though, if missions were offered by powers to hunt down defectors and the likes, so that you got PvP play when defecting, as human players are sent after you. Or if you become a particularly prolific killer for one power, you then get targeted by human players who are paid to hunt you down. This could be a way of permitting PvP in solo mode, in much the same way that it happens if you go to the elite pilots retirement base, in solo mode.
So I maintain, that wanting open only, to enforce this state, to back it up, is petulance. This gameplay state existing is breaking the realism and should be addressed. With this in mind, it appears a more lucid argument to want to diminish the effect that open has on the system and not the effect of closed. This being more a concern of equilibrium and the tuning of the dynamic, rather than anything else, and as such would far more likely be best addressed using the systems defensive AI.
I think it would be superb though, if missions were offered by powers to hunt down defectors and the likes, so that you got PvP play when defecting, as human players are sent after you. Or if you become a particularly prolific killer for one power, you then get targeted by human players who are paid to hunt you down. This could be a way of permitting PvP in solo mode, in much the same way that it happens if you go to the elite pilots retirement base, in solo mode.
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I'm looking to understand, not be correct or incorrect, not bothered by the latter in the slightest, it is in communicating that we come to understand something well.