Some people play in the open it just for the sake of it, but in my view everyone would benefit if the emphasis would be shifted to MP (via some sort of incentive), as playing vs people is a lot more rewarding in principle comparing to playing vs AI.
More rewarding for you, perhaps. The feeling is not universal, not by a long shot.
Ultimately it is up to FD whether they want to emphasise that part of the game or not, in my view - they should, and if they do so, they should not do it with punishing Solo, but by rewarding Open. Ie more carrot and less stick, whatever form this ultimately takes, but having some multipliers applied to earnings for trading, mining and community goals between the two universes seem like a simple solution which is easy to implement and does not exclude anyone from having an impact on the universe.
Anyone can see that giving a bonus to one mode is exactly the same, functionally, as giving a penalty to the other modes.
Having a "different" spawn rate for Open players to account for the fact that instances are shared (something that would equally apply to group mode) is still a "difference".
Not necessarily. For example, you could make the spawn rate dynamic and based on how fast the NPCs are being killed, within certain limits; thus, same rule in all modes, but players or groups that can bring to bear more firepower get faster spawns.
I'm utterly against different rules, bonuses, multipliers, etc, for different modes; I'm all for making the inner workings of the game smarter in order for the game to better accommodate differently sized groups and play styles without any large discrepancies. As a bonus, avoiding different rules and using instead smarter universal rules that minimize discrepancies would help avoid making connection-based exploits (such as playing in open with the firewall blocking all other players) enticing.
An interesting perspective. That would show that they are really well tuned to their audience. Still, (and I wasn't around at the time), I have to guess that solo players were vocal when those rules were announced. Maybe their strategy was to front-loaded the complaints rather than dealing with them after the fact.
I doubt many of the players that actually thought they even had a chance in the first place would have complained anyway. First, because the kind of player that has the time and the will to seriously compete in an event like this will be willing to do anything in their power to maximize their performance; someone that is adamant about only playing in a specific way had no chance from the start, and likely was aware of it. Second, because those that take competition to the extreme, as needed to have a real chance, tend to have no issue at all with PvP.
And, in any case, it isn't content, just some silly contest. As such, I, at least, don't see it as part of the normal gameplay. Complaining about it would be like complaining that big MOBA contests often won't allow the player to bring his own computer.
The problem with that though - is it would be so easy for players to log into Open for whatever bonuses are offered - and nuke every player IP connecting to them so they are effectively in Solo. It just wouldn't work.
Which I
will do if open ever has any kind of bonus or benefit over solo. Or perhaps I might do something different but with the same end result, like testing the latency threshold above which the matchmaking refuses to let the player see other commanders.