Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread [See new thread]

[Extrasmooth]

I think it's pretty likely that the Wings update is going to cause more players to go Solo or PG. It looks like unless you're prepared to wing up to do anything there's no protection from being ganked by the wings of Vultures that now camp the CG zones so solo-traders and explorers have now become easy pickings for the community ass-hats.

Open mode will eventually degenerate to an idiot vs idiot shout-out only mode.

 

[Sly]

Sorry but I got a good laugh out of that. Say I log on to Open, and my instance has such awfully low bandwidth/high latency that the matchmaking server never puts anyone into it - and trundle about in Open doing whatever I please - what is the actual difference between that and Solo?

This is another advantage to weighting galaxy change/influence rewards to mode instead of restricting community goals to open. If someone is using a connection so poor that it is equivalent to playing in solo they should be counted as part of that mode for influence purposes. It wouldn't even have to be obvious to the player if done right.

 

[Meritz]

What a ludicrous idea, that a solo player playing in their own instance of the entire universe, is somehow part of the Elite community. What are you going to suggest next, that Mobius's group isn't a community? That their community isn't part of the larger Elite community? That all these alleged Solo and Group players never ever click Open now and then for the fun of it?

Mobius is a perfect example. They're their own community. We in the Open do not know them, will never see them, talk to them or play with them. That's not a community. It's two different communities. Like two different servers.

And here we have this "brilliant" game design that allows communities that have zero touching points to compete through an overall score and thus influence the game on a global level. Also, a perfect tool for those who want to come to Open for the exclusive fun of blasting people away. But when it's their turn to feel some danger, they can and do scurry away back to solo. Nice. Add to it the inability of FD to curb combat logging, and I'm still waiting to see that particular magic trick considering peer-to-peer connections allow for instadrops... it's a ghosting-on-steroids paradise. A joke, basically.

They really, really did not think this through, and some of us have been warning them since Premium Beta.

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Sorry but I got a good laugh out of that. Say I log on to Open, and my instance has such awfully low bandwidth/high latency that the matchmaking server never puts anyone into it - and trundle about in Open doing whatever I please - what is the actual difference between that and Solo?

Fringe example. Try again.

 

[Asp Explorer]

This is another advantage to weighting galaxy change/influence rewards to mode instead of restricting community goals to open. If someone is using a connection so poor that it is equivalent to playing in solo they should be counted as part of that mode for influence purposes. It wouldn't even have to be obvious to the player if done right.

Well doing that will end up with more lawsuits than you'd care to count - as it's blatant misrepresentation and fraud. A paying, non-cheating, FD-friendly customer selects Open Mode, and you dump him into Solo as you are connectionist. Poor player cries sadly that he never gets to be bludg... welcomed by the Open Community, all the while you are leeching off of his valiant efforts to make federal fighters extinct in some system he hoped to make friends in

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They really, really did not think this through, and some of us have been warning them since Premium Beta.

Some of us have been mentioning this in the DDF and well before Alpha came out.

Fringe example. Try again.

Oh dear.

 

[Meritz]

Some of us have been mentioning this in the DDF and well before Alpha came out.

So they have even fewer excuses. They wanted to please everybody and ended up with a permanent whining storm. This thing will not die as long as there people playing the game.

 

[Seonid]

Simple. Opposing community goals must be made exclusive to Open.

I play in Open, except when I am working away when I often have to play in Solo simply because the hotel wifi can't handle Open. You would penalise me and restrict my gameplay in a game that I bought just because you don't like it? Really?

 

[Meritz]

I play in Open, except when I am working away when I often have to play in Solo simply because the hotel wifi can't handle Open. You would penalise me and restrict my gameplay in a game that I bought just because you don't like it? Really?

Yup. Just like BF4 will penalize you for trying to play it on hotel wi-fi by kicking you off each and every server. Besides, I ammended that to simply not counting your score. You get to sign up for the goal, you get the payout, but it doesn't count for the progress. If you want to make a difference, play in Open. If you want to just play or make credits solo, enjoy solo. Why would you have a problem with that?

 

[Seonid]

If you want to make a difference, play in Open.

That's my point, it's not a case of "want", it's a case of "can't". But there we go, what you are asking for will very likely not happen so it's all somewhat of a theoretical exercise anyway.

 

[iain666]

This is another advantage to weighting galaxy change/influence rewards to mode instead of restricting community goals to open. If someone is using a connection so poor that it is equivalent to playing in solo they should be counted as part of that mode for influence purposes. It wouldn't even have to be obvious to the player if done right.

Should there be a detailed survey when you log onto open about what community goals you're interested in and what side you intend to take if you get involved? Otherwise you might end up in an instance where the player split was 24/4/4 between people on your side, people opposing you and people having nothing to do with it. That would be pretty unbalanced too...

 

[Asp Explorer]

Yup. Just like BF4 will penalize you for trying to play it on hotel wi-fi by kicking you off each and every server. Besides, I ammended that to simply not counting your score. You get to sign up for the goal, you get the payout, but it doesn't count for the progress. If you want to make a difference, play in Open. If you want to just play or make credits solo, enjoy solo. Why would you have a problem with that?

It's fairly obvious that most people don't have a problem, as the forum isn't completely full of "OMGZ Solo BROK MA GAEM! RAEGE!!!", FD have not been forced to take down the game due to misrepresentation, and the only real whining going on comes from a select few people brokering their own agenda of what the game should be from their perspective.

The devs have their own views on what they want the game to be. They may well implement change for the games betterment, but the forum meta as seen in so many other games will, I sincerely hope, get all the ignores it deserves.

 

[Mohrgan]

Once again it needs to be mentioned. Open is not the default setting for Elite: Dangerous. Open is simply one of the choices available to the players. With combat logging, and 'Submit, Boost, Jump' there is no more risk in Open, than there is in Solo. Asserting otherwise is ridiculous. Even without CL'ing Open is still pretty safe. Some Open players really over value what content they provide.

 

[CHristina]

ADDITIONAL..... since the new 'wings' update ,I'm now in 'single play' now...... what gives. everytime I exit hyperspace or SC- my shields are down ? and I got inducted by a player .the instant I dropped out of hyperspace. I was still moving to avoid the windscreen full of SUN!....( why do we drop out so close to them??) and 'he' got me... there was no chat on the comms .. just blasted the crap out of me from behind , I didn't even have a chance to boost or turn....total stuff up for 'my "game play""...
so now its single play only...........but I got the cmdr's name and will be back when i'm big enough......hee hee hee ha ha ( evil laugh.. cue the dark clouds covered over the sky and the bolt of lighting hitting the ground.....)................Ill BE BACK

 

[Mohrgan]

I never understand when people think developers should encourage or incentivize one mode of play or another. They make these choices available to players with different goals, and likes. Once choices are established they shouldn't hold one mode above another. It's simply player perception that creates a difference, nothing more.

 

[DaveB]

Yup. Just like BF4 will penalize you for trying to play it on hotel wi-fi by kicking you off each and every server. Besides, I ammended that to simply not counting your score. You get to sign up for the goal, you get the payout, but it doesn't count for the progress. If you want to make a difference, play in Open. If you want to just play or make credits solo, enjoy solo. Why would you have a problem with that?

I know why *I* would have a problem with it.... The "Community" referred to in "Community Goal" is the Elite community, not the Open Community, the Community associated with any private group or the Solo community or any other arbitrary way you can think of to divide up the player base and be more ElitIST than Elite. I play all three modes as the mood takes me and I am a member of the Elite Community. I therefore get to participate in the goals any way I darn well choose and not have my contribution to the outcome reduced or nullified because of somebody else's snobbishness about the "purity" of one mode over another. We are all members of the Elite Community, whatever mode we happen to be playing in at the time, and equal before the operation of the background sim.

I know this offends your sensibilities, but Joe Blow playing in solo has as much right to just as much influence on the single ED universe as you do, as does his sister Janet, who plays exclusively in a private group. This isn't going to change and to be so vehement that it should simply smells of an enormous sense of entitlement that is somewhat misplaced.

 

[Meritz]

I know why *I* would have a problem with it.... The "Community" referred to in "Community Goal" is the Elite community, not the Open Community, the Community associated with any private group or the Solo community or any other arbitrary way you can think of to divide up the player base and be more ElitIST than Elite. I play all three modes as the mood takes me and I am a member of the Elite Community. I therefore get to participate in the goals any way I darn well choose and not have my contribution to the outcome reduced or nullified because of somebody else's snobbishness about the "purity" of one mode over another. We are all members of the Elite Community, whatever mode we happen to be playing in at the time, and equal before the operation of the background sim.

I know this offends your sensibilities, but Joe Blow playing in solo has as much right to just as much influence on the single ED universe as you do, as does his sister Janet, who plays exclusively in a private group. This isn't going to change and to be so vehement that it should simply smells of an enormous sense of entitlement that is somewhat misplaced.

Ok, can I then influence the score of the Lugh campaign by typing lots of zeroes here on the forums? Because hey, aren't the forum goers also part of the "Elite community"? Why would you discriminate against forum goers?

But as Seonid said, this is all theoretical. They messed it up royally with the design of the game and there is little that can be done now. They created a game that's only arbitrarily multiplayer and now they're trying to tack on multiplayer features that don't really work with the base game.

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Once again it needs to be mentioned. Open is not the default setting for Elite: Dangerous. Open is simply one of the choices available to the players. With combat logging, and 'Submit, Boost, Jump' there is no more risk in Open, than there is in Solo. Asserting otherwise is ridiculous. Even without CL'ing Open is still pretty safe. Some Open players really over value what content they provide.

Thanks for supporting my entire point - that the multiplayer part of the game is very poorly designed.

 

[Bearcat]

The major problem that all commercial attempts at MMO games face is a proliferation of "spoilers". Spoilers are people who for whatever reason will spoil the game for other players to the extent that ultimately the game fails as a commercial enterprise. This is a well known problem. Eve succeeded because it is designed with spoilers in mind. If you are a spoiler you cannot screw up EVE because EVE is actually designed for you. In EVE, you are either a rabbit or a wolf, there is no other option. I don't want to be either a rabbit or a wolf, and that's why I quit EVE and now play ED. I hope ED never becomes like EVE. Until griefers and pirates are killed instantly in civilized space, there is no such thing as civilized space, but at least in ED there are more stars than there are spoilers. If you want to be a spoiler, go play EVE.

 

[CMDR Marcus Septimus]

I'm playing a pirate role for a few days now. I try to hunt commanders who are haulin' rare goods. The thing is, I always send a warning message before Interdiction and after, if succesfull.
When someone decides to cooperate, and this is quite rare, I'll take just a few tons of cargo and leave them be. If they try to run I just collapse their shields and send a hatch breaker. Hatch breakers can be very hungry.
I never kill, and I never damage the ship. I just hope that this dangerous interaction is a little bit of fun for me and a fellow player.
It gets the heart beating.

 

[Sly]

Should there be a detailed survey when you log onto open about what community goals you're interested in and what side you intend to take if you get involved? Otherwise you might end up in an instance where the player split was 24/4/4 between people on your side, people opposing you and people having nothing to do with it. That would be pretty unbalanced too...

No, that's a strawman argument. First, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good: just because it is not practical to eliminate all imbalances does not mean the most glaring ones shouldn't be redressed where feasible.

Second, while the scenario you are describing is not balanced, every player is at least in the same universe and has the choice of which side to work for. Obviously in any given conflict one faction or another will have an advantage; this isn't about changing that. This is about ensuring that no game mode has a constant, systemic risk-reward advantage (as opposed to having a temporary, somewhat random advantage due to more players happening to support a given faction).

Third, such an egregious imbalance isn't as advantageous as it may seem, especially if we are talking about combat. Sure, the 24 players would dominate that instance and easily farm NPCs, but a lot of those players would be wasted as there wouldn't be enough targets to go around. Those 24 pilots would have a much larger effect if they split into 6 wings of 4, went into private groups, and dominated 6 separate instances.

 

[Sly]

Once again it needs to be mentioned. Open is not the default setting for Elite: Dangerous. Open is simply one of the choices available to the players. With combat logging, and 'Submit, Boost, Jump' there is no more risk in Open, than there is in Solo. Asserting otherwise is ridiculous. Even without CL'ing Open is still pretty safe. Some Open players really over value what content they provide.

Ridiculous, yet I see this argument all the time in various forms. You are essentially saying "there are other bad/broken multiplayer mechanics, so why bother fixing this one?"

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and don't try to confuse the issue by changing the topic. Obviously those other issues need to be addressed, but this is not the thread for that. And I love how you assume everyone in open resorts to shameful exploits, particularly when FD has promised eventual punishment for one of those issues.

 

[DaveB]

Ok, can I then influence the score of the Lugh campaign by typing lots of zeroes here on the forums? Because hey, aren't the forum goers also part of the "Elite community"? Why would you discriminate against forum goers? ...

Not sure whether to classify that as false equivalence or a straw man, but either way it's a fallacious argument.

I understand your opinion that the game design is royally messed up is sincerely held and I respect your opinion even though I do not share it. Sadly for those that do share your opinion, FD doesn't share it. Continuing to advocate piecemeal steps towards separating the modes or somehow penalizing one relative to another is straying into a third fallacy, that of proof by assertion, which at it's fundamental root is the reason for this threads existence. Just because some folks think it should be a certain way, saying it over and over again does not make it so. It is FD's decision and they have made it.