Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].

[Woofington]

Some of us did more research on the game before purchasing it, or backing its Kickstart, than just reading the title, you know.


What is enjoyable for you is different from what is enjoyable for me.


For me? Facing a player in unasked for combat is never enjoyable for me. Quite the contrary. Thus, while I play a lot of PvP in other, proper PvP games, I tend to completely avoid open PvP in MMOs (or any game that mixes PvE into the PvP, for what matters).


I would do the same. Exclusively with player pirates, mind you.


Good. If I'm ever attacked by another player, against my will, I stop playing to win and start playing to make my opponent lose. My own loses become irrelevant, my only objective is to deny my opponent the reward he wants.

This is not exclusive to ED. I once spent over an hour in WoW just killing a neutral escort quest NPC, over and over, simply because a group of players from the other faction decided to kill me as I was doing that quest in order to do it themselves. I would just pick a moment when they were defending the NPC against mobs, come out of hiding, kill the quest NPC, and then just /sit and let them kill me, until they gave up and left the zone without doing the quest. And then I logged off in disgust and spent a whole week away from the game.

Heck, during Alpha I was among the players asking in the forums for a self-destruction option, mainly because I wanted players to have a way to deny those that were trying to have fun at someone else's expense. I didn't sign up to be content for you and others like you.

Powerplay basically introduced mechanics whose sole purpose was to encourage community interaction. In fact it directly introduces the concept of pvp interaction, with proponents who can support and power and opponents who can subvert a power.

All of this is undone when you exit open play. In open play one can actively pursue a goal, and intercept other players trying to subvert that goal. They are also subject to interception. But now, a player in solo play can have just as much impact on a pvp goal as someone who is actually in a pvp enviornment.

It is a terrible implementation, and makes me completely uninterested in pursuing a goal. While try and represent my power by fulfilling goal requirements and patrolling a system for opponents when five players can just play in solo and completely undo everythign I have attempted to achieve, all the while I am blind to it?

It is an awful mechanic that actively punishes players interested in PvP to suffer the consequences of those completely unaffected by pvp.

It would be like letting someone playing a solo bot match of dota affect a real ranked game. It is absolutely terrible design.

 

[SteveLaw]

In fact it directly introduces the concept of pvp interaction, with proponents who can support and power and opponents who can subvert a power.

It introduces it in such a way that it is expected to be played in every mode. Funny that, you'd almost think Frontier want players to play whichever mode they prefer. What are they thinking, letting you play your way? Pfft.

 

[fademist]

Powerplay basically introduced mechanics whose sole purpose was to encourage community interaction. In fact it directly introduces the concept of pvp interaction, with proponents who can support and power and opponents who can subvert a power.

I dont see anything of that on pdf though guess i missed...

 

[stripealipe]

Wow.... this thread really is an education into the psychology and idiosyncrasies of players and gaming....
But can we not all agree to disagree on this huge huge subject and wrap up this thread? Are we gaining any real understanding here?! Really?

It's too large a subject and doesn't really need a thread in a forum. It needs a paper to be researched and a website to publish its finds...

The game has three modes. If at any point one mode starts to dictate another, then i'm sure tweaks will be made. Until then, enjoy whatever floats your boat.

 

[Woofington]

It introduces it in such a way that it is expected to be played in every mode. Funny that, you'd almost think Frontier want players to play whichever mode they prefer. What are they thinking, letting you play your way? Pfft.

Every game that isn't straight up deathmatch gives both sides objectives to complete, but the threat of player violence is what introduces the challenge. If you let one side be threat free you have created a terribly balanced multiplayer game. In any other game, solo players would not be able to affect the outcome of open play objectives.

Think about how terrible planetside 2 would be if you could play offline, but still be able to cap bases and have those captures carry over to the online servers.

 

[SteveLaw]

Every game...

Not every game...

Solo players will be for and against Powers so that their actions count against each other as well the actions of Open players. Your Power will have Solo followers that your Open enemies can't affect just as you can't affect your Solo enemies. It's perfectly balanced.

 

[Cody]

But can we not all agree to disagree on this huge huge subject and wrap up this thread?

Ah yes, wouldn't that be cool - unlikely, but cool.

 

[Woofington]

You could also, just, you know, not read a thread if you think it doesn't contain any more useful discussion. You don't have to close a thread because you are over it.

 

[fademist]

Every game that isn't straight up deathmatch gives both sides objectives to complete, but the threat of player violence is what introduces the challenge. If you let one side be threat free you have created a terribly balanced multiplayer game. In any other game, solo players would not be able to affect the outcome of open play objectives.

Think about how terrible planetside 2 would be if you could play offline, but still be able to cap bases and have those captures carry over to the online servers.

Isnt other game though....

 

[Woofington]

Isnt other game though....

And its worse for it.

 

[SteveLaw]

And its worse for it.

Matter of opinion but it won't appeal to everyone. That doesn't mean it should be changed to suit those who it doesn't appeal to. Just as a pure PvP game shouldn't necessarily have Single Player PvE mode bolted on or a game designed as single player shouldn't always have multiplayer shoehorned in.

ED was designed for selective multiplayer from the very beginning and it isn't the only game going down that route. It's going to be a lot more common than you might like you wait and see.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

Just to make an obvious point, everyone will argue about anything. As we speak, players are already voicing their concerns and distaste for the coming update. While this isn't news to anyone, it should be noted that this happens everywhere, which is why compromises work. Sure it doesn't work for EVERYONE but it gets that majority of the people. Which is what happens.

 

[Jockey79]

Just to make an obvious point, everyone will argue about anything. As we speak, players are already voicing their concerns and distaste for the coming update. While this isn't news to anyone, it should be noted that this happens everywhere, which is why compromises work. Sure it doesn't work for EVERYONE but it gets that majority of the people. Which is what happens.

But as forum users are a minority - it is a good assumption that those not here complaining are happy, the majority
So no changes needed

 

[NeilUK02]

I guess it's ok to avoid being killed in Open for a bounty and choose to go to Private to do so. At least it will cut down on the ats in Open afraid to have to pay off any fines...oh, wait, there is the legacy thingie....also they could just suicide in a Sidewinder and just pay the fines off as they go along.

But not everyone who wants to sometimes play in Open and sometimes Solo is cheating... Sometimes they may just be in the mood to play on their own, you can't lock people into Open forever. It's their game, just because a few people cheat the system you can't change the rules for everyone.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

Not everything we say is always right, not everything we say is always wrong.

Sometimes Feedback like the forums thread is important to the success of the game as a whole. Feedback is important.

 

[CMDR Derrida]

I might just have imagined this, but has the amount of bounty you get in private/solo changed from the amount you get in open? Last few Condas I killed in private have only fetched 45 thousand whereas I still get 100 thousand plus in open...might just be that those ships had lower bounties, but it's happened enough times now to prompt me to ask you if anyone else has noticed a change (in the matrix) ?

 

[Woofington]

Would solo players even care if they got their own instance of the galaxy seperate from open play? Why would that be a bad thing?

 

[fademist]

Would solo players even care if they got their own instance of the galaxy seperate from open play? Why would that be a bad thing?

lets do this again..if that happens why u think open will have more or at least same ppl us now? (i think will have less)

 

[SteveLaw]

Would solo players even care if they got their own instance of the galaxy seperate from open play? Why would that be a bad thing?

Many Solo players aren't actually Solo players but multiple mode players. Why shouldn't our efforts and effects follow us along with our assets? We put effort into both. Also we want to play in a dynamic galaxy where more affects the Background Simulation than only our own actions or actions that we can control. That's what the game's supposed to be about. One pilot, a small cog in the galactic machine, not the machine operator.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Powerplay basically introduced mechanics whose sole purpose was to encourage community interaction. In fact it directly introduces the concept of pvp interaction, with proponents who can support and power and opponents who can subvert a power.

All of this is undone when you exit open play. In open play one can actively pursue a goal, and intercept other players trying to subvert that goal. They are also subject to interception. But now, a player in solo play can have just as much impact on a pvp goal as someone who is actually in a pvp enviornment.

It is a terrible implementation, and makes me completely uninterested in pursuing a goal. While try and represent my power by fulfilling goal requirements and patrolling a system for opponents when five players can just play in solo and completely undo everythign I have attempted to achieve, all the while I am blind to it?

It is an awful mechanic that actively punishes players interested in PvP to suffer the consequences of those completely unaffected by pvp.

It would be like letting someone playing a solo bot match of dota affect a real ranked game. It is absolutely terrible design.

Powerplay will be affected by all players, regardless of platform, irrespective of which mode players play in. We do not necessarily expect to be able to crossplay with XBox One players - but they will all affect the same single galactic background simulation that PC/Mac players inhabit. PS4 players will also affect the single shared galactic background simulation.

Whether Powerplay encourages PvP or encourages NPCs to attack players affiliated with a particular Power is, as yet, not really known - it would seem to have the potential for both.