Not really absurd. Consider what most cheaters do. They exploit bad or bugged game mechanics. Opposing community goals that allow for players to avoid the community part are an obvious bad design decision. Therefore, those who use said game mechanics are exploiters.
Cheaters are those that break the rules.
Exploiters are those that use the rules in unintended ways to get an unfair advantage.
Those that use the rules in intended ways are neither cheaters nor exploiters.
Frontier intended for solo players to be able to take part in community goals since the KS, you can see it if you go to the
Kickstart page and take a look at the
Dev Diary Video #2, where DB explicitly says community events that will change the galaxy can be done and influenced by solo players. Hence, since players in solo are simply playing by the intended rules, they are neither cheaters nor exploiters. You can argue that the rules aren't balanced, but that doesn't make players that make use of them in the intended way cheaters.
Doesn't matter if FD says its ok. The rules of sportsmanship say it's not ok. FD could also put instakill gimballed multicannons on sale for 1cr and say its ok to use it - you use it, you're a cheater.
Not true at all. Those who make the rules define what is cheating and what is not. The players in a soccer game can't just decide that the defense making use of the offside rule to prevent an attacker from receiving the ball is cheating, for example, despite the fact that many fans of the sport think intentionally using that rule by having the defenders in a line is very bad sportsmanship.
I don't even care about ordinary community goals, since most of the time it's PvE anyway and there is no real competition going on. But anyone who fought in Lugh war in Open knows that enemy commanders are never too far away. Playing in Solo makes it MUCH easier, and worse, the opposing team has no way to counter. Where's the fairness in that?
For the individual player, perhaps it could be seen as unfair, as it can reduce how much that individual player is rewarded for his effort. The same way that getting into a conflict zone and seeing a full wing assembled against him can be seen as unfair, or that getting a string of bad luck in searching for a mission objective while other players find it at their first try by sheer luck can be seen as unfair.
For the sides involved in the conflict, seen as a larger entity, no. Each player that engages you and ties you in combat, reducing or even preventing your contribution, is a player that also isn't able to fully contribute to his side. So, both you and your opponent are actually giving an indirect contribution to your respective sides by reducing how much your opponents can contribute, an indirect contribution that is just as large and important as the direct one from a solo player.
Fringe example. Try again.
Not really. Any player can easily degrade their own connection, or else configure their firewall or router, to prevent seeing other players even as they play in open. It's very easy, anyone that knows the basics of P2P networking can do it without help, and for the less technically inclined it doesn't take even five minutes to find instructions for doing it.
Thanks for supporting my entire point - that the multiplayer part of the game is very poorly designed.
It's a matter of opinions and objectives.
You want to be able to force players that oppose you in the community objectives to engage you; of course ED's multiplayer is poorly designed for that, as that wasn't the objective of the multiplayer architecture at all.
If you go read the various posts and messages about the various modes, and switching between them, you will find that the devs wanted players to be able to choose who they play with, to define if their game would be a solitary experience or a social one. They also intended mode switching to be the go-to way of dealing with griefing, real or perceived, in order to not be forced to restrict the freedom of players in open in the name of fighting griefing. Taking those objectives into account, the game's multiplayer, at least on a conceptual level, is working very well. It's not perfect, there are some issues, but allowing your potential victims and opponents to choose not to even see you was an important design goal from the start.
I will agree, though, that Frontier did the same mistake Origin/EA did when they released Ultima Online, over 15 years ago: they thought players were mostly interested in playing good (or, at least, law-abiding) characters, willing to make an orderly in-game society where crime (and non-consensual PvP) would be rare. But, contrary to UO — where players unhappy with the whole PvP and griefing situation had as their only recourse to stop playing, resulting in roughly 70% of new players leaving the game — ED has a way for players to avoid all of that: change modes. Open becoming unpopulated is an issue, of course, but much less of an issue than the players leaving the game altogether.
You know, a real PvPer would never go solo or "carebear group" as they see groups like Mobius. Conversely, PvE players usually have little taste for PvP.
No true Scotsman...
Besides, if what you wrote was true, mode switching would never be an issue because no one would do it.
