Open-Only in PP2.0?

[ethelred]

Point taken, but in my Elite 1984 experience, Ridequat Riedquat was entirely avoidable too

Edit: correct 40-year-old spelling issue.

100% - the challenge is there if you want it. Most players went to Diso or Leesti from the off to complete their first trade.

I'm not saying that it ought to be instadeath as soon as you leave the starter systems, but the challenge (again IMHO) should be there when you're ready and have the equipment to deal with it. As it stands there's very little challenge or difference going to a high sec or low sec, anarchy or democracy from NPCs. That's what I'd like to see addressed.

.... and any loss was but a reload of the save game away, as many times as one wished.

Yes and again this ties into another aspect of game design - player failure.

Failure ought to be a challenge to overcome, not a punishment. And it needs to be clear to the player - ideally through in game means - why they have failed.

Let's take exploration data as an example. Loss of potentially months worth of real time not to mention the credits accrued because of a momentary lapse of concentration, momentum or player action is punishing, not challenging.

A Deciat first time visitor with meta alloy in tow being destroyed at Farseer is punishing, not challenging.

As much as I go on about learning the skills to fly in Open - being bounced by a G5 murderboat, even at a CG is punishing, not challenging.

In all of these examples, the game does not give feedback or explain how (or indeed why) you're dead, beyond the obvious, but crucially doesn't advise you on how not to do that next time.

We do have ship insurance which mitigates somewhat, but no cargo or data insurance. We don't have NPC wingmates. We don't have an introduction in a "safer" environment of how to avoid interdiction.

None of these things individually would cure the grumbling, but they would certainly help.

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

Those did not cause the apparent optionality of combat, however they did exacerbate it. Noting that while some players don't accept NPC challenge tweaks, Frontier obviously deemed them necessary for the player-base as a whole, not just considering those who find NPCs to be little or no challenge.

It's far more likely that the decision around whether combat should be avoidable was made based on the fact that two of the three original paths to Elite in this game as launched did not require the player to fire a shot in combat.

Right, lets look at this in a plainly laid out manner:

I am in a Cobra and I want to conduct some trading (which, like me as a member of the '84 brigade, I am hoping you acknowledge is a core fundamental of the Elite experience(Side bar: I'm expecting you to mention the Sol-Barnard's Star run from Frontier Elite and FFE, but that is a very different talking point). I load my ship up and jump to my intended destination, where I MAY be interdicted by an NPC Pirate. The NPC Pirates actions revolve around Combat (i.e. trying to shoot me and get that 'tasty cargo'). This is why I am saying combat is a cornerstone of the game design (note, I'm not saying a cornerstone of player activity) because regardless of the players aspirations, the appearance and actions of that NPC means combat is being thrust upon the player, and its up to them to decide how to deal with it.

All well and good, right? However:

a. The bloat of shields and hull strength excaerbated this as it allows a player, if they encounter the above situation, to simply wait for their FSD to spool up safe in the knowledge the AI won't be able to cause any inconvenience to them.
b. The nerfing of AI reduced the threat of the situation occuring, and if it did, reduced the aggressiveness of the AI if it manages to actually get a successful interdiction hit on the player (which again, is reduced due to AI Nerfing), or shots fired at the player before they can low-wake. Reluctance to extend the 'Mission Antagonist' AI to the rest of the AI ensures also that once you submit and low-wake, this now minor inconvenience is somehow even less of a threat.
c. Engineering added increased the issues raised in point a. It also added other issues, such as Ships now being able to outrun hatchbreaker limpets, killing the potential for any NPC pirate interaction.

The above (along with other things which I really don't want to go into right now, such as pandering to niches of the playerbase like Streamers, that we have seen with PP2.0) is what has caused the slow erosion of this cornerstone, and to me, the game is a lot worse for it.

 

[Darrack]

Right, lets look at this in a plainly laid out manner:

I am in a Cobra and I want to conduct some trading (which, like me as a member of the '84 brigade, I am hoping you acknowledge is a core fundamental of the Elite experience(Side bar: I'm expecting you to mention the Sol-Barnard's Star run from Frontier Elite and FFE, but that is a very different talking point). I load my ship up and jump to my intended destination, where I MAY be interdicted by an NPC Pirate. The NPC Pirates actions revolve around Combat (i.e. trying to shoot me and get that 'tasty cargo'). This is why I am saying combat is a cornerstone of the game design (note, I'm not saying a cornerstone of player activity) because regardless of the players aspirations, the appearance and actions of that NPC means combat is being thrust upon the player, and its up to them to decide how to deal with it.

All well and good, right? However:

a. The bloat of shields and hull strength excaerbated this as it allows a player, if they encounter the above situation, to simply wait for their FSD to spool up safe in the knowledge the AI won't be able to cause any inconvenience to them.
b. The nerfing of AI reduced the threat of the situation occuring, and if it did, reduced the aggressiveness of the AI if it manages to actually get a successful interdiction hit on the player (which again, is reduced due to AI Nerfing), or shots fired at the player before they can low-wake. Reluctance to extend the 'Mission Antagonist' AI to the rest of the AI ensures also that once you submit and low-wake, this now minor inconvenience is
c. Engineering added increased the issues raised in point a. It also added other issues, such as Ships now being able to outrun hatchbreaker limpets, killing the potential for any NPC pirate interaction.

The above (along with other things which I really don't want to go into right now, such as pandering to niches of the playerbase like Streamers, that we have seen with PP2.0) is what has caused the slow erosion of this cornerstone, and to me, the game is a lot worse for it.

Bare in mind many of us are looking at this from years of experience of flying and heavily engineered ships, some NPCs are not that easy for new players.
Also not everyone wants huge long drawn out battles in the game, many are here for exploring/ casual hauling and just having fun.
Elite is very good at this, its like old Everquest, follow the path and you are relatively safe, you may get a few less challenging NPCs to deal with, stray into Kithicor Forest and you could be in for a shock.

The point is many folks don't want PvP or a huge amount of Danger, Fdev quiet rightly realised that.

O7

 

[Robert Maynard]

Right, lets look at this in a plainly laid out manner:

I am in a Cobra and I want to conduct some trading (which, like me as a member of the '84 brigade, I am hoping you acknowledge is a core fundamental of the Elite experience(Side bar: I'm expecting you to mention the Sol-Barnard's Star run from Frontier Elite and FFE, but that is a very different talking point). I load my ship up and jump to my intended destination, where I MAY be interdicted by an NPC Pirate. The NPC Pirates actions revolve around Combat (i.e. trying to shoot me and get that 'tasty cargo'). This is why I am saying combat is a cornerstone of the game design (note, I'm not saying a cornerstone of player activity) because regardless of the players aspirations, the appearance and actions of that NPC means combat is being thrust upon the player, and its up to them to decide how to deal with it.

All well and good, right?

Up to a point. In the original game NPCs would make progress towards the station effectively impossible as the presence of an NPC meant that the Torus jump was unavailable - so the NPC had to be dealt with before continuing on to the station.

This game changed that quite fundamentally by requiring NPCs to interdict the player to impede their progress towards the station - and NPC interdictions are designed to be able to be won (in most ships at least) - meaning that NPCs don't pose the impediment to travel in this game in the same way that they did in the original.

However:

a. The bloat of shields and hull strength excaerbated this as it allows a player, if they encounter the above situation, to simply wait for their FSD to spool up safe in the knowledge the AI won't be able to cause any inconvenience to them.
b. The nerfing of AI reduced the threat of the situation occuring, and if it did, reduced the aggressiveness of the AI if it manages to actually get a successful interdiction hit on the player (which again, is reduced due to AI Nerfing), or shots fired at the player before they can low-wake. Reluctance to extend the 'Mission Antagonist' AI to the rest of the AI ensures also that once you submit and low-wake, this now minor inconvenience is somehow even less of a threat.
c. Engineering added increased the issues raised in point a. It also added other issues, such as Ships now being able to outrun hatchbreaker limpets, killing the potential for any NPC pirate interaction.

The above (along with other things which I really don't want to go into right now, such as pandering to niches of the playerbase like Streamers, that we have seen with PP2.0) is what has caused the slow erosion of this cornerstone, and to me, the game is a lot worse for it.

Which may speak to Frontier's understanding of how the player-base as a whole actually plays the game, i.e. less unavoidable combat may be better overall, noting that Zac commented in a recent stream that "a lot" of players don't engage in combat "at all".

 

[Robert Maynard]

Let's take exploration data as an example. Loss of potentially months worth of real time not to mention the credits accrued because of a momentary lapse of concentration, momentum or player action is punishing, not challenging.

A Deciat first time visitor with meta alloy in tow being destroyed at Farseer is punishing, not challenging.

As much as I go on about learning the skills to fly in Open - being bounced by a G5 murderboat, even at a CG is punishing, not challenging.

... all of which does not seem to endear those who choose to engage in PvP, whether actually seeking a challenge or not, to those players who they preferentially target.

Also noting that the attacker quite often stands to lose nothing (apart from maybe a rebuy) as a result of their attack - the disparity in potential loss to the attacker when compared to the potential loss to the target further exacerbates the situation. With the Powerplay 2.0 rebuy perks the attacker stands to lose nothing while engaging in Powerplay whereas the player flying the ship undertaking a role other than combat will still lose the contents of their ship. It seems that the loss disparity is being further baked in - which is unlikely to shift the opinion of those who would still stand to lose something to those who would lose nothing. Yes, even in Powerplay.

The risk disparity is also part of it, i.e. the player in the G5 murderboat faces little to no risk of destruction from a preferentially selected target in a ship optimised for something other than combat. For those disinterested in combat in general, and PvP in particular, advice which very often boils down to "change how you play to accommodate them" may be heeded, or players may simply choose to not play with those who like to pose a challenge while facing little to no challenge themselves.

 

[Ozric]

2. When the 'Get Obsidian a new GPU card' nonsense was ongoing, one of the forum rules was 'no soliciting money', which was conveniently overlooked by moderators, the forum consensus and FDEV themselves with Community Managers 'chipping in' to the cause.

Sure, but you wrote "Obsidian Ant being able to beg for money for a new GPU on the Forums". That is factually incorrect.

If you're going to be annoyed at Frontier that's fine, but don't write a deliberately misleading statement about another forum member. I wasn't even a moderator back then but it is Frontier's house and they can make the decisions they see fit. Just as they have done for other fundraisers, charity events, and authors peddling their books.

 

[angusmadmac1]

Until we get to the point where everyone instances with everyone open only is a moot point . How many instances are there ?? How many people are hiding in different instances or is it you who is the culprit. I have enough problems instancing with friends or squad mates let alone others .
To be open only would require more work than Fdev want for very small rewards. They wouldnt put the effort in for consoles and at the time that was between 20-30% of the players .

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

Bare in mind many of us are looking at this from years of experience of flying and heavily engineered ships, some NPCs are not that easy for new players.
Also not everyone wants huge long drawn out battles in the game, many are here for exploring/ casual hauling and just having fun.
Elite is very good at this, its like old Everquest, follow the path and you are relatively safe, you may get a few less challenging NPCs to deal with, stray into Kithicor Forest and you could be in for a shock.

The point is many folks don't want PvP or a huge amount of Danger, Fdev quiet rightly realised that.

O7

I reset my save when Odyssey went live, so would just highlight that aside from being bullet sponges, without a player reaching for engineering as a crutch, until they reach Elite rank NPCs are really not a challenge (again, said as a predominately Adder pilot), and even then, decent grade 1 upgrades or 'going big' (i.e. Annaconda time) quickly give the player back their edge. The 'earnings curve' is amazingly steep in comparison with how ED was back at release (I would say based on my return to the sidewinder, without looking up exploits/whatever the current meta is, and simply playing the game, you can end up in a Python doing brain-off mission board running in one 2hr session due to how inflated rewards are in the current game state).

The point of my posts regarding this discussion are relating to AI, not PvP and in the case of AI, I am not advocating for 'long drawn out battles' becoming the norm, or thrusting huge amounts of danger on a player who isn't looking for it, merely that (i) we bring the AI back to a point it can pose more of a challenge to a player than a cookie in cookie-clicker or whatever its equivalent is and (ii) within the scope of competitive gameplay such as powerplay, it gets to show its teeth properly (otherwise we end up in a situation like we have with the Strongholds posts that are showing up with alacrit now) because at that point, using your analogy, you have wandered into Kithicor.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Until we get to the point where everyone instances with everyone open only is a moot point . How many instances are there ?? How many people are hiding in different instances or is it you who is the culprit. I have enough problems instancing with friends or squad mates let alone others .
To be open only would require more work than Fdev want for very small rewards. They wouldnt put the effort in for consoles and at the time that was between 20-30% of the players .

Not forgetting that Odyssey and Horizons players don't instance together in Open.

While an Open only development may offer a reward for some players it would be accompanied by the risk of losing players who have no interest in PvP as part of a game sold to all with PvP as an optional exra that no player needs to engage in to either experience or affect the game.

 

[Mr Jack Burton]

Until we get to the point where everyone instances with everyone open only is a moot point . How many instances are there ?? How many people are hiding in different instances or is it you who is the culprit. I have enough problems instancing with friends or squad mates let alone others .
To be open only would require more work than Fdev want for very small rewards. They wouldnt put the effort in for consoles and at the time that was between 20-30% of the players .

From a networking perspective, it’s indeed unrealistic to expect fully universal instancing. Even a server-backed architecture, instead of P2P, would naturally impose limits. Realistically, we might achieve 100-200 players per instance in an optimal setup, but certainly not unlimited.
So, saying "Open Only is a moot point" overlooks the real value it could bring to player interaction and immersion within feasible limits.

 

[ethelred]

... all of which does not seem to endear those who choose to engage in PvP, whether actually seeking a challenge or not, to those players who they preferentially target.

Also noting that the attacker quite often stands to lose nothing (apart from maybe a rebuy) as a result of their attack - the disparity in potential loss to the attacker when compared to the potential loss to the target further exacerbates the situation. With the Powerplay 2.0 rebuy perks the attacker stands to lose nothing while engaging in Powerplay whereas the player flying the ship undertaking a role other than combat will still lose the contents of their ship. It seems that the loss disparity is being further baked in - which is unlikely to shift the opinion of those who would still stand to lose something to those who would lose nothing. Yes, even in Powerplay.

The risk disparity is also part of it, i.e. the player in the G5 murderboat faces little to no risk of destruction from a preferentially selected target in a ship optimised for something other than combat. For those disinterested in combat in general, and PvP in particular, advice which very often boils down to "change how you play to accommodate them" may be heeded, or players may simply choose to not play with those who like to pose a challenge while facing little to no challenge themselves.

You’ll get no argument from me that the current implementation is poor design, the game in general and Powerplay 2.0 specifically (albeit an improvement on PP 1.0)

What you describe again shows the cracks - there’s no consequences to acting like a murderhobo, and no real incentive to actively seek out equal (or at least not asymmetric) PvP. We have discussed consequences ad infinitum in California, and clearly after 10+ years it’s either not something FD is capable of, or so low on their agenda it will likely never be addressed.

Perhaps this is why some would like for PP 2.0 to be the great hope for meaningful PvP and a resurrection of the (IMHO again) currently broken cycle of trader -> Pirate (or opposing PPer in this instance -> bounty hunter (or again opposing PP power).

PP seems to be about who can fill their buckets quickest, rather than stopping someone else filling their bucket, or stealing their stuff to put in your bucket. That’s all fine but it seems some people want to steal someone’s stuphs, or prevent them doing, er, stuff with their stuphs. And that’s even before we consider PvP.

Honestly, I’m inclined to believe what we have is likely to be the best they can come up with. The danger always with games like Elite is that you go down the route of imagining what it could be, rather than the reality of what you have.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Glad you asked.

There's two main ways this can be handled (caveat there may be more but this is my best recollection)

The first one is where NPC skills and ability rank to the individual players rank. This approach happens in Fallout 4/Skyrim where spawning enemies adapt to your level.

We saw a bit of this in ED, where (again from memory it was some time ago) being Elite in say, trade, meant that elite level NPCs with bells and whistles would spawn against you. This was roundly shouted down at the time and I think the system was amended.

I think you're (@Robert Maynard ) an, ahem, "mature" gamer like me so you're probably familiar with the second method of "zones" having particularly high level NPCs.

A really good example of this is Riedquat in the OG Elite - there is absolutely nothing stopping the player jumping to that system in the absolute basic Cobra, where you'd be met with multiple pirates and pretty quickly destroyed.

We also see this design with the Thargoid war - again nothing to stop you heading straight there in the starter sidewinder but you'll (generic) be facing a rebuy screen pretty quickly.

Other examples are the original Fallout and Fallout New Vegas.

Hope that answers.

Now, the opinion piece:-

It's my preference for a "zone" method but apart from the Thargoids, we don't really see this in ED. IMHO the game would be far better if there were zones where NPCs posed a higher level of threat (for more reward). Yes, to get to trade elite you don't need to fire a shot - but getting through an NPC blockade via player skill at either combat or flying should reward you more than a safe milk run.

Again IMHO this would add more flavour to the galaxy and mean that systems security and government type would be better visualised or "felt" within the game.

Best of all, game design like this is mode ambiguous - it shouldn't matter if you're in Open/Sole or PG.

Those are single player games with difficulty sliders - so aren't really applicable to as a comparison a multi-player environment.

Not sure that it was amended, but it related primarily to combat ranks from memory - as some players asked Support to reduce their combat rank as a consequence of the change.

Elite had save games that meant that any challenging scenario could be attempted as many times as one wished without loss.

The Fallout games quoted are single player games with difficulty sliders - so the player was largely in control of the challenge posed by the game.

There are such zones already - noting that some players are dissatisfied that they are opt-in rather than represent a general difficulty shift in the game.

FO '76 is an MMO with a similar 'enemies spawn at player level' system.
This leads to some inconsistencies as an NPC will appear at different levels to players of different XP. How that's handled when they interact with the buildings I don't know and my depend on which player triggered the initial spawn.

 

[angusmadmac1]

From a networking perspective, it’s indeed unrealistic to expect fully universal instancing. Even a server-backed architecture, instead of P2P, would naturally impose limits. Realistically, we might achieve 100-200 players per instance in an optimal setup, but certainly not unlimited.
So, saying "Open Only is a moot point" overlooks the real value it could bring to player interaction and immersion within feasible limits.

My main point was most who want open only is because they want their interaction with other commanders. They want to see who they are supposedly fighting against.
Do we then say even though you are in open you didn't have any opposition so your effort is not counted or counted as if you were in PG or solo ?
Open isn't open it's just a series of instances add to that EDH and then the time zones their chance of interaction is very limited.
So open is really a series of open groups , EDH will never instance with EDO timezones increase that along with isp, vpnsand a whole lot of other acronyms. It's not "Open "

 

[WhiteHaulerMan]

My main point was most who want open only is because they want their interaction with other commanders. They want to see who they are supposedly fighting against.
Do we then say even though you are in open you didn't have any opposition so your effort is not counted or counted as if you were in PG or solo ?
Open isn't open it's just a series of instances add to that EDH and then the time zones their chance of interaction is very limited.
So open is really a series of open groups , EDH will never instance with EDO timezones increase that along with isp, vpnsand a whole lot of other acronyms. It's not "Open "

The 'timezones' thing has never really held water for me.

When I played WWII Online (a continuous multiplayer MMO 24/7 war that as a game in my opinion, was too ahead of its time to be successful) the game didn't 'pause' at 11pm GMT then restart up at 7 the next morning, it kept going. Same went for EvE (I can already hear people smashing their keyboards furiously at its mention), Naval Action, Pirates of the Burning Sea and a slew of other MMO games that had strong TvT components that I have played over the years.

 

[Darkfyre99]

The 'timezones' thing has never really held water for me.

When I played WWII Online (a continuous multiplayer MMO 24/7 war that as a game in my opinion, was too ahead of its time to be successful) the game didn't 'pause' at 11pm GMT then restart up at 7 the next morning, it kept going. Same went for EvE (I can already hear people smashing their keyboards furiously at its mention), Naval Action, Pirates of the Burning Sea and a slew of other MMO games that had strong TvT components that I have played over the years.

That’s because in most MMOs, the developer hosts instances on dedicated servers, not individual players. Furthermore, the game’s matchmaking services generally focuses on populating those instances with as many players as a server can support, while still keeping individual instances well populated… sometimes even at the expense of an individual player’s experience, if it doesn’t already shard the game by region.

Let’s say, for example, a server can host a maximum of 100 players in a particular an instance. If the matchmaking server sees that it’s approaching the limit, it creates a new instance and starts sending players to the new instance, and gating the old one, until both are roughly equal. If the MMO doesn’t shard the game into regions, where the bulk of players are from will determine which physical server players connect to. Thus, a North American player playing during European prime time will experience more lag than normal, due to being connected to the European server, until there are enough North American players online to start populating the NA server, until both are roughly equal.

Elite Dangerous doesn’t do that. Instances are hosted by players, not Frontier. Furthermore, the matchmaking services puts players into player hosted instances based on Friends list first, quality of experience second, and adversarial status not at all.

Thus, as a NA player who typically plays during European Prime Time, I might as well be playing in Solo as far as adversarial gameplay is concerned. Let’s say I enter a system that’s being fiercely contested. Frontier’s matchmaking services makes three checks to determine whether I join a pre-existing instance:

• Is anyone on my friends list in a pre-existing instance? If the answer is yes, all other pre-existing instances are removed from the list of potential candidates.
• Is the lag sufficiently short for a good experience when connected to the host of a pre-existing instance? If the answer is no, that instance is eliminated from the list of potential candidates.
• Can the host computer support another player in their instance? If the answer is no, eliminate it from the list of potential candidates.

If any pre-existing instance meets those checks, I’ll get connected to the best instance as determined by the matchmaker, not necessarily the largest. If no pre-existing instance meets those checks, I’ll spawn in my own private instance.

That’s why the difference between local prime-time and outside local prine-time is often so stark. It doesn’t matter if there’s six winged up blockading players waiting for me in Supercruise, when the matchmaking services takes one look at the lag between me and the player hosting their instance and says, “Too high! She spawns in her own instance.” Or takes a look at the host’s computer’s overall performance and says, “They can’t support a seventh player. She spawns in her own instance.”

Oh! And a savvy player can fool the matchmaking services via VPN and firewall settings. Friends often need to do that in order to instance with each other. It’s a common enough problem that Frontier at some point published a “how to” guide… but I no longer have a link, it seems. Needless to say, those same settings can be used to prevent instancing as well.

 

[Rainbro]

That’s because in most MMOs, the developer hosts instances on dedicated servers, not individual players. Furthermore, the game’s matchmaking services generally focuses on populating those instances with as many players as a server can support, while still keeping individual instances well populated… sometimes even at the expense of an individual player’s experience, if it doesn’t already shard the game by region.

Let’s say, for example, a server can host a maximum of 100 players in a particular an instance. If the matchmaking server sees that it’s approaching the limit, it creates a new instance and starts sending players to the new instance, and gating the old one, until both are roughly equal. If the MMO doesn’t shard the game into regions, where the bulk of players are from will determine which physical server players connect to. Thus, a North American player playing during European prime time will experience more lag than normal, due to being connected to the European server, until there are enough North American players online to start populating the NA server, until both are roughly equal.

Elite Dangerous doesn’t do that. Instances are hosted by players, not Frontier. Furthermore, the matchmaking services puts players into player hosted instances based on Friends list first, quality of experience second, and adversarial status not at all.

Thus, as a NA player who typically plays during European Prime Time, I might as well be playing in Solo as far as adversarial gameplay is concerned. Let’s say I enter a system that’s being fiercely contested. Frontier’s matchmaking services makes three checks to determine whether I join a pre-existing instance:

• Is anyone on my friends list in a pre-existing instance? If the answer is yes, all other pre-existing instances are removed from the list of potential candidates.
• Is the lag sufficiently short for a good experience when connected to the host of a pre-existing instance? If the answer is no, that instance is eliminated from the list of potential candidates.
• Can the host computer support another player in their instance? If the answer is no, eliminate it from the list of potential candidates.

If any pre-existing instance meets those checks, I’ll get connected to the best instance as determined by the matchmaker, not necessarily the largest. If no pre-existing instance meets those checks, I’ll spawn in my own private instance.

That’s why the difference between local prime-time and outside local prine-time is often so stark. It doesn’t matter if there’s six winged up blockading players waiting for me in Supercruise, when the matchmaking services takes one look at the lag between me and the player hosting their instance and says, “Too high! She spawns in her own instance.” Or takes a look at the host’s computer’s overall performance and says, “They can’t support a seventh player. She spawns in her own instance.”

Oh! And a savvy player can fool the matchmaking services via VPN and firewall settings. Friends often need to do that in order to instance with each other. It’s a common enough problem that Frontier at some point published a “how to” guide… but I no longer have a link, it seems. Needless to say, those same settings can be used to prevent instancing as well.

It sucks to play outside of your own local primetime, but I fail to see how that worst-case scenario of struggling to instance with opposition for a small number of players would be worse than the current general scenario for everyone where most opposition forces absolutely cannot be instanced with because they're in Solo.

As for modifying firewall rules, again a small number of people doing that can't be worse than having a built-in firewall on the main menu. Plus, "what if people cheat" is a question for Frontier to set rules and moderation against, not an argument against a specific design. Otherwise we'd be arguing against hardpoints because people can simply install a cheat to boost their damage.

 

[Darrack]

because people can simply install a cheat to boost their damage

Which is another reason to avoid PvP

O7

 

[Darkfyre99]

It sucks to play outside of your own local primetime, but I fail to see how that worst-case scenario of struggling to instance with opposition for a small number of players would be worse than the current general scenario for everyone where most opposition forces absolutely cannot be instanced with because they're in Solo.

As for modifying firewall rules, again a small number of people doing that can't be worse than having a built-in firewall on the main menu. Plus, "what if people cheat" is a question for Frontier to set rules and moderation against, not an argument against a specific design. Otherwise we'd be arguing against hardpoints because people can simply install a cheat to boost their damage.

And there’s the all important question: is the cohort significantly more likely than the general playerbase to preferentially choose Open, choosing Solo/PG for an ephemeral advantage, or is instancing just that bad for direct adversarial PvP?

Especially since a significant majority of the general playerbase is already choosing Open.

With one notable exception, the feedback we get from the old-school PowerPlay PvP community is “We’re bravely doing our activities in Open. It’s everyone else that’s hiding in Solo/PG.”

If they’re being honest about their mode choice, then instancing is really that bad, and there’s no advantage in going Open Only, especially when you consider the detrimental side effects.

If they’re not, then these players can’t be trusted to obey their own rules, let alone by the unwritten rules of fair play. Why on Earth would those of us that do play by the unwritten rules of fair play want play with them?

 

[Jockey79]

Which is another reason to avoid PvP

O7

As if we needed another one

 

[Darrack]

choosing Solo/PG for an ephemeral advantage

Or choose Open as a disadvantage, the choice is there.

O7