Open-Only in PP2.0?

[Rebel Yell]

After you get your shields you can pledge to whoever you actually want to pledge.

Indeed... the module shopping is another issue that we all hope gets solved with PP 2.0 (for a number of good reasons).

I do agree 100% about the use of resilient builds as there's always a % of being destroyed, but this % is inversely correlated to the powerplay hauling efficiency. So, less efficiency means higher survivability in all those cases where enemies might end up on your tail.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I get you have had bad experiences, but you are being far to cautious in an established game and feature. Making Open have slightly more rewards is not going to suddenly destroy all that- if anything it will enhance the feature and make it distinct.

Most, if not all powers have pledges that do everything so 'willing to be content' is frankly a silly thing to say when its been like that for years and years. There is no hauling underclass Eloi and sadistic Morlock hunters- people do whats required and its an invention PP is about ritualised beating.

I really wish you had more experience playing this specific type of MMO. Then you'd realize how rare and precious your experiences are in this game. This is an area where we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Its an issue thats plagued Powerplay and is not a minor one. Actually having sensible rules for PP in Open (blocking changes, cargo/ combat merits lost on exit in combat mode switch), along with a bonus for open is not going to destroy everything and turn everyone into a troll. Even simply removing PGs wing bonus for merits would be helpful. It may never fully extinguish the arguements, but it is as much as can be done (finally).

And this is another area where we'll have to agree to disagree.

As I see it, these players who are in Solo due to efficiency are hauling 8% more cargo per trip by not carrying a shield, but that same shield will let me make more trips in the same amount of time by allowing me to take more risks to complete my tasks faster. If I can make 8% more trips than they can, then I break even. If I can make more than that, then I'll be ahead. In my experience with rare cargo CGs in Open, I'll lap the typical player twice in the span of about an hour over long distances. And I'll be able to do it much more often over shorter distances.

And I've tanked alpha strikes with G3 engineering while landing in speed landing in cargo CGs with the lowest size shield a Type-9 can hold. It was there to facilitate the speed landing. The ability to tank an alpha-strike from a player exploiting point defense shadows in a station's docking bay is simply a bonus.

And due to this game's network architecture and instancing rules, I like my odds. As I see it, I'll never encounter 99% of the potential opposition in Open even when playing during my local prime time. My typical play window, during European prime time (the global maximum), reduces that percentage to over 99.9%. Yes, I know that hypothetically someone in Europe could instance with me, but the odds of that happening are pretty slim, based on my own testing at CGs. And I put my firewall into "gaming" mode to ensure I'll encounter more players.

So if I want to encounter more PowerPlayers, either cooperatively or antagonisticly, there needs to be a lot more of them than there are now. They need to view Open as the best mode to play in. And they also need to be willing to "accept the consequences" of playing in Open. And that's my goal: to have more PowerPlayers, to have them choose Open as the best mode to play in, and have those players in Open to act in a "sportsmanlike" manner. I don't see any of that happening in a scenario where players feel... pressured into playing in Open.

GIFT is simply too powerful a phenomenon. But there's an easy counter to it: deprive the GIFTed of their proverbial audience. Allow those most sensitive to GIFT-like behavior to play in other modes, and provide a counter to those who may choose that mode for "efficiency." Let Frontier devote development resources to improving the game in general, and PowerPlay in particular, rather than have to divert resources to directly police GIFTed players.

 

[Jockey79]

As I see it, these players who are in Solo due to efficiency are hauling 8% more cargo per trip by not carrying a shield, but that same shield will let me make more trips in the same amount of time by allowing me to take more risks to complete my tasks faster. If I can make 8% more trips than they can, then I break even. If I can make more than that, then I'll be ahead. In my experience with rare cargo CGs in Open, I'll lap the typical player twice in the span of about an hour over long distances. And I'll be able to do it much more often over shorter distances.

This is the reason I won't run without shields, I fly slower, I land slower, I'm more careful, I take off slower. Because one wrong move and bye-bye ship and cargo.

So I don't believe there are people out there earning more than others because they are shieldless - due to the fact, sooner or later they bump something or land a little too hard and end up on the rebuy screen (everyone I know who has tried it, all ended up on the rebuy screen at some point due to pilot error, even I have).

All those "shieldless cargo ships hauling tons of merits" are just a figment of some people's imaginations. Because any real cargo hauler knows it isn't worth the risk and you can fly faster/harder with a weak shield than you can without one.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I really wish you had more experience playing this specific type of MMO. Then you'd realize how rare and precious your experiences are in this game. This is an area where we'll just have to agree to disagree.

We will have to- but at the same time ED is not another games circumstances and I take it as I see it, rather than trying to think about another games problems.

And this is another area where we'll have to agree to disagree.

As I see it, these players who are in Solo due to efficiency are hauling 8% more cargo per trip by not carrying a shield, but that same shield will let me make more trips in the same amount of time by allowing me to take more risks to complete my tasks faster. If I can make 8% more trips than they can, then I break even. If I can make more than that, then I'll be ahead. In my experience with rare cargo CGs in Open, I'll lap the typical player twice in the span of about an hour over long distances. And I'll be able to do it much more often over shorter distances.

And I've tanked alpha strikes with G3 engineering while landing in speed landing in cargo CGs with the lowest size shield a Type-9 can hold. It was there to facilitate the speed landing. The ability to tank an alpha-strike from a player exploiting point defense shadows in a station's docking bay is simply a bonus.

For your shield to be of benefit (other than landing hard) you need something or someone to shoot at it.

NPCs don't offer that when PP hauling. You take off in safety (since NPCs don't engage you in the stations vicinity), jump X times in safety (since nothing is there NPC wise and you don't have to drop down) and its only rarely at the destination you get interdicted in SC (which is incredibly easy to shake, or even tank). When you drop down you drop into the stations vicinity again and NPCs automatically break away.

Its only in Open against other players when there is an absolute risk of destruction that requires a ship built for defence, and that (due to co-ordination between players) you can't barge through easily.

And due to this game's network architecture and instancing rules, I like my odds. As I see it, I'll never encounter 99% of the potential opposition in Open even when playing during my local prime time. My typical play window, during European prime time (the global maximum), reduces that percentage to over 99.9%. Yes, I know that hypothetically someone in Europe could instance with me, but the odds of that happening are pretty slim, based on my own testing at CGs. And I put my firewall into "gaming" mode to ensure I'll encounter more players.

And I would regularly instance with randos, as well as people from the UK, France, Italy, Finland, Australia, Japan, USA, Israel, Russia, Germany without issue. Once at 4am in the morning I had UK, Finland, Australia, Germany and (iirc) Japan (guy was on holiday) when Utopia did a collusion piracy operation to SCRAP 8 systems.

This was on my old ADSL in France, with no special tweaks or settings. Its very much YMMV rather than blanket assuming everything is continually bad.

So if I want to encounter more PowerPlayers, either cooperatively or antagonisticly, there needs to be a lot more of them than there are now. They need to view Open as the best mode to play in. And they also need to be willing to "accept the consequences" of playing in Open. And that's my goal: to have more PowerPlayers, to have them choose Open as the best mode to play in, and have those players in Open to act in a "sportsmanlike" manner. I don't see any of that happening in a scenario where players feel... pressured into playing in Open.

So I disagree with this- obviously YMMV but from my years of playing its never been a massive issue. Its not perfect, but its certainly not useless- and certainly good enough for what is required- opportunistic encounters.

And if you want more people in open, you'll want them to feel that effort is worth it. Some will choose open for what it offers now, but others will ask about 'whats in it for me over the other modes?' Thats not pressure, its simply an option.

GIFT is simply too powerful a phenomenon. But there's an easy counter to it: deprive the GIFTed of their proverbial audience. Allow those most sensitive to GIFT-like behavior to play in other modes, and provide a counter to those who may choose that mode for "efficiency." Let Frontier devote development resources to improving the game in general, and PowerPlay in particular, rather than have to divert resources to directly police GIFTed players.

In a feature and mode that allows and provides context for direct conflict, how is making that more robust a waste of time? The other modes are not going away, its just accepting the experiences are different and should be treated as such.

Either that, or make NPCs actually do a job policing and attacking players- all of this is because of that design vacuum.

 

[Rubbernuke]

This is the reason I won't run without shields, I fly slower, I land slower, I'm more careful, I take off slower. Because one wrong move and bye-bye ship and cargo.

So I don't believe there are people out there earning more than others because they are shieldless - due to the fact, sooner or later they bump something or land a little too hard and end up on the rebuy screen (everyone I know who has tried it, all ended up on the rebuy screen at some point due to pilot error, even I have).

All those "shieldless cargo ships hauling tons of merits" are just a figment of some people's imaginations. Because any real cargo hauler knows it isn't worth the risk and you can fly faster/harder with a weak shield than you can without one.

Min/ maxing is real and a gamble. I've come across rivals doing it because they are short of time reacting to UM, as well as friendlies who do it because they want to get fortifying done faster.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Min/ maxing is real and a gamble. I've come across rivals doing it because they are short of time reacting to UM, as well as friendlies who do it because they want to get fortifying done faster.

...and we've robbed hundreds of shieldless haulers flying any kind of ship.

 

[Rubbernuke]

...and we've robbed hundreds of shieldless haulers flying any kind of ship.

I can remember long ago when Bard was The Boss™ we were fortifying early in the morning. I was flying my Corvette and Bard jumped in with a shieldless T-9. For a second he mistook me for an enemy and almost flew into the sun I think lost of fruity Italian language was shouted...

 

[Darkfyre99]

All those "shieldless cargo ships hauling tons of merits" are just a figment of some people's imaginations. Because any real cargo hauler knows it isn't worth the risk and you can fly faster/harder with a weak shield than you can without one.

Agreed.

Playing it “safe” at least doubles your travel time between two stations a jump away, and in long-haul routes playing it “safe” increases the time required between jumps by 33%. A skilled pilot willing to take risks over five jump route could do the round trip in less than 15 minutes. A pilot playing it “safe” would take 25. If we each had an hour window to play, I’d make four trips to their two. Two hours? Eight to their (almost) five.

And all it costs me is 8% cargo capacity to eliminate almost all the risk.

 

[KKomrade Sylas]

All those "shieldless cargo ships hauling tons of merits" are just a figment of some people's imaginations. Because any real cargo hauler knows it isn't worth the risk and you can fly faster/harder with a weak shield than you can without one.

On the other hand I did use to run a shieldless cutter for trading and boosted through the mailslots anyway... also damaged my hull landing like a drunk driver, but never enough to kill me (except when I boosted out and had a head on collision with a type 9 - killing a family of 4 in the process)
But yeah I agree running shields is more efficient than going shieldless even if you have less cargo. You can confidently boost in and out of stations, and when it comes to the landing pad you just crash on purpose with your shield to deccelerate instead of taking 10 seconds to do do it properly - it's a bit like following traffic rules in GTA V. Who does that? At the end of the day you have -80 less cargo or something but do more runs per hour. Not to mention docking computers try to kill you sometimes.

 

[ꝁestrel]

Let's assume Power Play would be open-only. What's stopping people from using cheesy methods to avoid running into players? Such as blocking everyone locking down a particular system.

 

[DemiserofD]

Let's assume Power Play would be open-only. What's stopping people from using cheesy methods to avoid running into players? Such as blocking everyone locking down a particular system.

There really isn't anything. The only way I could see it working is to have small areas that are fdev hosted, where everyone needs to be in the same instance to play. It'd cost a bit, but a lot less than going for full servers.

 

[ꝁestrel]

There really isn't anything. The only way I could see it working is to have small areas that are fdev hosted, where everyone needs to be in the same instance to play. It'd cost a bit, but a lot less than going for full servers.

That was my suspicion.

As much as I would love an open-only Power Play experience, I just don't see how it would work in practice.

First you'd have aformentioned problem of people cheesing the system.

• There are somewhat benign methods of simply blocking people from opposing powers.
• There are more extreme methods of exploiting the P2P nature of the game (lag switches, router configs, combat logging).
• There are also ways to exploit combat balancing overall - which are legit - but still make the experience worse (eg: heal beams back in the day).
• And then there are the most extreme cases like actual cheats. Look at games like Escape from Tarkov to see how bad it can get.

Second you'd have an extreme imbalance between PvP oriented players and PvE oriented players:

• Dedicated PvP groups will smash non-PvP oriented players the vast majority of the time.
• Organic PvP is often extremely lobsided for one side unless the game heavily enforces some sort of balancing.
• PvE players get frustrated b/c they need cannibalize their ship/build/loop to protect against PvP players; while PvP players get to put 100% into the ship/build/loop they enjoy.

Third you have a lacking incentive for PvE players to participate:

• The gameplay loop they enjoy (PvE) is interrupted by a gameplay loop they don't enjoy (PvP).
• The rewards will never be as good as what an experienced PvE player can make on their own outside of Power Play.
• Power Play modules (if they still exist as-is) are primarily only necessary for PvP anyway. Save for perhaps Prismatics; and even then, not needed for PvE.

All of the above would need to be addressed through gameplay and/or technology changes. Seems like a tall order.

 

[SergMx]

That was my suspicion.

As much as I would love an open-only Power Play experience, I just don't see how it would work in practice.

First you'd have aformentioned problem of people cheesing the system.

• There are somewhat benign methods of simply blocking people from opposing powers.
• There are more extreme methods of exploiting the P2P nature of the game (lag switches, router configs, combat logging).
• There are also ways to exploit combat balancing overall - which are legit - but still make the experience worse (eg: heal beams back in the day).
• And then there are the most extreme cases like actual cheats. Look at games like Escape from Tarkov to see how bad it can get.

Second you'd have an extreme imbalance between PvP oriented players and PvE oriented players:

• Dedicated PvP groups will smash non-PvP oriented players the vast majority of the time.
• Organic PvP is often extremely lobsided for one side unless the game heavily enforces some sort of balancing.
• PvE players get frustrated b/c they need cannibalize their ship/build/loop to protect against PvP players; while PvP players get to put 100% into the ship/build/loop they enjoy.

Third you have a lacking incentive for PvE players to participate:

• The gameplay loop they enjoy (PvE) is interrupted by a gameplay loop they don't enjoy (PvP).
• The rewards will never be as good as what an experienced PvE player can make on their own outside of Power Play.
• Power Play modules (if they still exist as-is) are primarily only necessary for PvP anyway. Save for perhaps Prismatics; and even then, not needed for PvE.

All of the above would need to be addressed through gameplay and/or technology changes. Seems like a tall order.

I wonder how a miner's spear will help in PvP ...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I wonder how a miner's spear will help in PvP ...

I once attacked players in a Sidewinder armed with mining lances. Ok, it didn't help, but it was funny as hell seeing their reaction to being attacked with them.

Back to topic, and i've said this before and i'll say it again. I'll fully support an open-only PP if it was divorced from the existing modes. People who want to do open-only PP log into a universe which has zero impact on the non-open-only PP universe. Like how we have a separate universe for legacy players.

I know the objections to this, that FD would never do it, it would increase costs, it would split the playerbase, etc, but we all know the real reason why some people would object.

Because they know it would be a graveyard, there wouldn't be enough players participating in an open-only universe when there is another one where they can choose between open, group, solo as their mood takes them. They know there wouldn't be enough people to target. Hell, i'd even support the non-open-only universe not having PP at all. At least it would remove all those useless PP ships spawning in RES and nav beacons.

This is why they need to insist that people who don't want to play their way should play their way.

 

[Rat Catcher]

People who want to do open-only PP log into a universe which has zero impact on the non-open-only PP universe. Like how we have a separate universe for legacy players.

Just another login on the start screen with PP as an option, so effectively a PG with no size limit and no block function.
Then all the PP players are in the same sandbox together, no real additional cost to FD, and in their group they only meet like-minded players.
Removing all PP related content (those annoying power affiliated ships flitting around Haz Res sites really bug me!) from the rest of the game world would be nice...

Of course, this isn't the 'solution' wanted by some, and it would be amusing to read the reactions if it was made so

 

[KKomrade Sylas]

The block function is very silly to begin with. It should probably block chats, wing-invites, friend invites, and things like that. Not literally any and all sort of player interaction with the other player. The only reason you'd want the latter is to avoid PvP, it should definitely get reworked.

That being said all of these arguments and loopholes people come up with, they're not really an argument against open-only. Why are we letting perfect be the enemy of good?

 

[DemiserofD]

The block function is very silly to begin with. It should probably block chats, wing-invites, friend invites, and things like that. Not literally any and all sort of player interaction with the other player. The only reason you'd want the latter is to avoid PvP, it should definitely get reworked.

That being said all of these arguments and loopholes people come up with, they're not really an argument against open-only. Why are we letting perfect be the enemy of good?

The block function is really just a formalization of the sort of IP-blocking anyone can do if they have the know-how. There is no way for the central server to know why you can't connect to a given player, it just won't work.

Allowing everyone to block whoever they want just makes it equal and fair. The only way to remove blocking is to remove peer to peer.

 

[August Lagrange]

That was my suspicion.

As much as I would love an open-only Power Play experience, I just don't see how it would work in practice.

First you'd have aformentioned problem of people cheesing the system.

• There are somewhat benign methods of simply blocking people from opposing powers.
• There are more extreme methods of exploiting the P2P nature of the game (lag switches, router configs, combat logging).
• There are also ways to exploit combat balancing overall - which are legit - but still make the experience worse (eg: heal beams back in the day).
• And then there are the most extreme cases like actual cheats. Look at games like Escape from Tarkov to see how bad it can get.

Second you'd have an extreme imbalance between PvP oriented players and PvE oriented players:

• Dedicated PvP groups will smash non-PvP oriented players the vast majority of the time.
• Organic PvP is often extremely lobsided for one side unless the game heavily enforces some sort of balancing.
• PvE players get frustrated b/c they need cannibalize their ship/build/loop to protect against PvP players; while PvP players get to put 100% into the ship/build/loop they enjoy.

Third you have a lacking incentive for PvE players to participate:

• The gameplay loop they enjoy (PvE) is interrupted by a gameplay loop they don't enjoy (PvP).
• The rewards will never be as good as what an experienced PvE player can make on their own outside of Power Play.
• Power Play modules (if they still exist as-is) are primarily only necessary for PvP anyway. Save for perhaps Prismatics; and even then, not needed for PvE.

All of the above would need to be addressed through gameplay and/or technology changes. Seems like a tall order.

I don't think anyone is claiming that Open-Only would fix all the issues. It's only claimed that it would make it better. And to be clear, most PP groups are already in Open. I've been hauling in Open for half a decade. My main ship for that is an unshielded T9.

I think many imagine that PVPers come after you left, right and center. But no, with my unshielded T9 it's quite rare for me to lose it and I can go a week or so of hauling without seeing a hostile player.

You're talking in theory without looking at the practical reality that is right here.

 

[SergMx]

The block function is really just a formalization of the sort of IP-blocking anyone can do if they have the know-how. There is no way for the central server to know why you can't connect to a given player, it just won't work.

Allowing everyone to block whoever they want just makes it equal and fair. The only way to remove blocking is to remove peer to peer.

Well said, but not quite right. Because when a player is blocked, his friends are automatically blocked as well.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I don't think anyone is claiming that Open-Only would fix all the issues. It's only claimed that it would make it better.

In other news, the fox claims the henhouse gameplay would be better if there was no fence around the henhouse. For some strange reason, the hens disagree.