One Simple suggestion that could nullify the Solo/Open argument AND end the fear of Greifing

[Betelgeuse]

Been discussed, not going to happen.

Many people may like the idea and many not, but pointless discussion as it ain't gonna change.

I actually prefer it the way it is, but my opinion has no more impact on the game design than yours.

Oh, and there is no griefing in ED, only fear of griefing. With the mechanisms we have there never will be sustained griefing. It's so easy to avoid even in Open.

 

[Tigga]

an absurd statement. Are you honestly saying you can only have fun if someone else suffers? That is pretty much the definition of griefer.

An absurd statement. He's saying he can only have fun if something is actually challenging. The only thing challenging in this game is interactions with other players.

 

[Sentenza]

No thanks. I like knowing there are humans around me. Even If I'm not going to interact with them, I just like to know I'm not alone in the void.

 

[Endziel]

Interacting with players is the highlight of my E: D experience. Anyone who even uses the term "griefer" should just go play Euro Truck Simulator instead.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

Because (and this is the bit that the militantly proPvP camp refuse to hear) from his point of view he loses much and gains nothing by going to open, even if he's a "solid square". The ONLY thing that changes for him is now he may have to deal with people who want to shoot him, which in solo he doesn't have to. Sure PvP combat may be the best part of the game for YOU but it obviously isn't for him or he'd be in open already, so forcing him there help's the proPvPer's game AT THE COST of the antiPvPer's.

TL;DR You need him a whole lot more than he needs you.

+rep incoming, Sandmann. Couldn't have said it any better.

I don't need him at all, im not a 'pvper', you cant even pvp in this game. Its a myth spawned from people terrified of their own shadow from stories of other games mainly EVE, by people with minimal experience of MMO gaming.

He wasn't proposing the removal of solo mode he stated that to his mind there would be no need for a solo mode because of his proposal.

I know this would never happen, as fear of the mythical pvp boogeymen would kill half the game. people would go to another game like X3. Not sure why people who want to play solo don't simply do that anyway, its a much more comprehensive solo 'experience'. This whole forum just drips with cynicism, mainly from people who i can almost guarantee never even tried open play. I have never seen a community like it.

But i do see your point Sandman.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Wouldn't that be like removing the multiplayer component out of the game?

If you don't know whether the opponent is a person or a computer, there is no PvP, Communication or Coop, aka no multiplayer.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

Been discussed, not going to happen.

Many people may like the idea and many not, but pointless discussion as it ain't gonna change.

I actually prefer it the way it is, but my opinion has no more impact on the game design than yours.

Oh, and there is no griefing in ED, only fear of griefing. With the mechanisms we have there never will be sustained griefing. It's so easy to avoid even in Open.

This 100%. My god, i just said in a post on this thread, i have never seen a community like this. So many people scared to death of open mode and hating on it probably without even trying it first. Its ridiculous. As the man said, if you played open at all you would quickly realise that there is no pvp in this game unless its met with a mutual desire to attack each other.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Yea, I cant find any human interaction at the moment, and this idea would make it even harder. No thx.

 

[Joe Spivey]

You know. For a long time, in many games with a PvP element. Whenever a player complained about griefing or being ganked, the common retort in game and in the game's forum was 'PvP is part of the game so suck it up' Well, in ED, Solo is part of the game so...

 

[The Gael]

I play six hours a day every day and haven't seen another player in about 3 weeks.
Anyway the OP has a good point however it should be an optional toggle to hide the player/npc signature. Making it optional will only bring positives.

 

[Yabba Addict]

Yeah, I've had this thought before too.

 

[Sandmann]

I don't need him at all, im not a 'pvper', you cant even pvp in this game. Its a myth spawned from people terrified of their own shadow from stories of other games mainly EVE, by people with minimal experience of MMO gaming.

That was poorly put on my part... I didn't mean you specifically, I was referring to those who argue for forcing players out of solo.

You can't really blame them for being worried about it, Eve is really a grief fest and there are a LOT of Eve olayers coming here and making loud noises demanding their favourite Eve features be included here, as if ED were some sort of spiritual successor to Eve.

He wasn't proposing the removal of solo mode he stated that to his mind there would be no need for a solo mode because of his proposal.

Yeah I got that... but if frontier introduces a mechanism that they feel makes solo mode redundant, they're gonna pull solo mode, therefore the end result of this proposal would be closing solo.

. Not sure why people who want to play solo don't simply do that anyway, its a much more comprehensive solo 'experience'.

Quite probably because they want to play Elite, not X3.

This whole forum just drips with cynicism, mainly from people who i can almost guarantee never even tried open play. I have never seen a community like it.

A good proportion of this forum (in fact probably the vast majority) are grumpy old men like myself. Don't go thinking they haven't played PvP though, it was us grumpy old men who came up with the idea in games like Unreal Tournament and Quake. We're not scared of PvP etc, a lot of us just want ED to be a 21st century Elite, not a first person version of some other game, which is what we were promised and what Braben wants too.

Don't get me wrong, I have ONLY played open, I don't find other players to be a problem for me - although I don't really gain from them being in my sky either. Avoiding PvP is pretty simple really, but I support the rights of others to play as close to a "single player version" of ED as possible without being forced to deal with other players.

Some folks love other players, some (like me) simply don't care, and some really don't want them. There's room for us all.

 

[Cat_Astrophe]

Would LOVE it. It was discussed during beta and all the PvP players boohoo'd it.

Hmmm... I missed that discussion but wish I hadn't. Was there any particular reason that the PVPers objected to PVP? Oh wait, did it have to do with them not having the ability to specifically target players?

 

[Aute]

it came as a shock to me back then when i realized how easy it will be to distinguish npcs from players..game developers have done almost everything to reduce the pvp to flat zero, if you do that you should better make AI damn good, so people have something decent to beat..plus adding the never knowing thrill if you face npc or actual player : )

hell, if you cant make AI decent enough, give them bonuses to maneuver ratio etc..though its a bit lame as ultimate challenge would be making them unpredictable with random personalities like offensive defensive etc..make them say several hundred of pharses through comms instead of 10 generic ones, whats so hard about it? hell you could also make them reply silly responses through direct chat, look at cleverbot for example =p it adds to variety, it adds to confusion to understand if its npc or not, also how hard can it be to not make them spam "you've made your last jump space dust!" when they are clearly at 5% health and about to die..you disable local chat completely for "immersion" effect yet let things like that stay, come on, its so clear you're fighting some dumb programmed bot when its like this..

i have loved pvp most of my whole mmorpg playing time, yet i have always also looked for challenging AI which would really put me to edge and i did hope elite dangerous might do that, cause i could see it would be more like pve oriented game, yet looks like you tore out pvp aspect of it without leaving any advanced pve content in it..

yea i realize everyone has its own limits how hard the game should be, so match up ai enemies by calculating hull damage/death rate per player per slain enemies, its nothing that hard, adjusting the difficulty rate to each individual player to guarantee best gaming experience..i know that it will most likely never happen but well..it would make perfect sense considering how much pve you have made this game

 

[Sandmann]

Oh wait, did it have to do with them not having the ability to specifically target players?

Yep, that was pretty much it.

They claimed it would remove the best& most challenging part of the game. Of course the fact that those arguing the loudest were also the ones camping outside stations in anacondas and targetting sideys and haulers didn't go unnoticed either. Hence, we still have solo.

 

[Sandmann]

hell, if you cant make AI decent enough, give them bonuses to maneuver ratio etc..though its a bit lame as ultimate challenge would be making them unpredictable with random personalities like offensive defensive etc..make them say several hundred of pharses through comms instead of 10 generic ones, whats so hard about it? hell you could also make them reply silly responses through direct chat, look at cleverbot for example =p it adds to variety, it adds to confusion to understand if its npc or not, also how hard can it be to not make them spam "you've made your last jump space dust!" when they are clearly at 5% health and about to die..you disable local chat completely for "immersion" effect yet let things like that stay, come on, its so clear you're fighting some dumb programmed bot when its like this..

The devs have said outright that they could easilly make the npc's unbeatable and they have had to dumb them down for us mere mortals, but I have to agree with you that they have gone far too dumb. The intelligence is simply NOT intelligent, the whole "friendly fire" issue points that out. I like the idea of bounties for shooting a cop, but they do fly into lines of fire far too often. In fact the nerfing they did of FA Off mode to stop us flying backwards was purely done because tbeir AI couldn't handle an opponent flying backwards so they had to try to stop us doing it so they wouldn't have to code for it.

 

[Cat_Astrophe]

Yep, that was pretty much it.

They claimed it would remove the best& most challenging part of the game. Of course the fact that those arguing the loudest were also the ones camping outside stations in anacondas and targetting sideys and haulers didn't go unnoticed either. Hence, we still have solo.

Oh... *THAT* kind of faux-PVPer carried the day during the discussion then. Too frikkin bad! I would be quite pleased if they stuck CMDR in front of EVERY NPC NAME... or removed it from players. PVPERS who only wanted to PVP on their own terms huh... those aren't PVPers as far as I am concerned. Wish I hadn't missed that discussion! Thanks for enlightening me Sandmann.

 

[DarkWalker]

you wouldn't play WoW in solo mode!

I actually would, as long as I could add NPCs to do the dungeons and raids with. While leveling there are so few players around to interact with anyway that the game already feels solo.

Different players have different preferences. Don't assume what is fun for you is fun for everyone else, or that what you find boring is boring to everyone.

 

[Zanten]

I don't need him at all, im not a 'pvper', you cant even pvp in this game. Its a myth spawned from people terrified of their own shadow from stories of other games mainly EVE, by people with minimal experience of MMO gaming.

He wasn't proposing the removal of solo mode he stated that to his mind there would be no need for a solo mode because of his proposal.

I know this would never happen, as fear of the mythical pvp boogeymen would kill half the game. people would go to another game like X3. Not sure why people who want to play solo don't simply do that anyway, its a much more comprehensive solo 'experience'. This whole forum just drips with cynicism, mainly from people who i can almost guarantee never even tried open play. I have never seen a community like it.

But i do see your point Sandman.

The kicker is, though, even if all of the people IN solo were (forcibly or otherwise) to join the main game, it wouldn't make an iota of difference, because any surge in PvP behavior would be shortlived. Basically, there might be a brief flood of new players in a concentrated area, (assuming the Solo players haven't strayed very far from their starting points,) with the pirates and bounty hunters run around having a gleeful time... but then the stampede passes, and anyone who wasn't interested in dealing with the rest of the server would be all but impossible to find anyway, because they'd be three hundred lightyears away in a random direction, running a trade route that you have about a one in ten thousand chance of stumbling upon. At which point the population of the 'Core' area (basically, where I'm assuming most of the multiplayer-centric players are trying to stick around to better find one another,) pretty much goes back to the way it was before, at which point we get to hear people going on about how being three hundred light years away from the rest of the player base is now the new 'Cheating' and complaining about how hard it is to track players or something to that effect.

Solo mode isn't the issue, it's the size of the galaxy in question, even the starting region and its immediate surroundings, that leads to the emptiness. Difficult for a player base that's INTERESTED in multiplayer to coordinate properly so as to bump into one another. While I understand the frustration people have with others spending time in Solo, I think some are rather overexagerating the effect that removing Solo mode would HAVE when the game world is this size. =P Simply having all the people who would rather play in Solo play in Open isn't going to solve the issue of quiet, player-less regions, because many if not most of the Solo players will scatter to the four winds. The only difference is the overall player base would be smaller, (Given some, particularly those already irritated about the previously discussed offline mode being unceremoniously torpedoed, would simply move on to other games themselves,) which means less people buying expansions down the road, less income for Frontier, less chance of new expansions and new content.

Have you guys considered working out a sort of Open Server organization? Established borders, yada yada, try to make it at least SLIGHTLY more cohesive, so people seeking player interaction are more concentrated?

 

[Sandmann]

You're welcome.

I go to pains these days to clarify between PvPers, pirates, and griefers. All three exist, but only the first two have a place in this game. Also there really needs to be a bit of respect for the wishes of others coz at the end of the day this is a game which everyone wants to enjoy, and they're not REAL soldiers of fortune or swashbuckling pirates so they don't HAVE to target every person they see.