I'm not a "PVPer" - I'm not even a proper "gamer" - ED is the first game I've played with online PVP and I played the original Elite - a lot.
I've always played in open - have got a ton of cash and a big ship plus loads of other ships - I like playing in all of them. I don't feel any need to play in solo to earn/do stuff more efficiently (I doubt if it would have made that much difference to my progress).
I can't be the only one that feels that way - surely?
So I don't get why people who say they want to be in open for the interaction/PVP wouldn't be there. I understand that lots of people prefer solo and some prefer private groups and that's fine. I just genuinely don't get why those that say they prefer open aren't there all the time - technical reasons aside.
It's not as if you win or lose anything by progressing faster or slower and you can't reliably tell what anyone else is up to anyway.
Thank you for the response. In answer to your question, not everyone feels the need to rush through the game and try to progress to the biggest and baddest ships in the game. I myself don't particularly enjoy RES farming or repetitive trading. The problem arises when we do finally earn something, only to be bullied by the next player who has nothing left to do but pick fights.
It's not a particular problem for less expensive ships, so I guess the lesson here is, don't upgrade early or you'll be sorry. Once I hit a point where it took me more than an hour or two to earn back what I lost, I realized I had something to lose. I made the mistake of upgrading to an Asp early, which meant that most of my modules were low rated and I saved just enough for a rebuy. PP in particular made this worse because most of the activities pay out in merits instead of credits. If only I could hand over merits to insurance companies.... 3 days later, I still hadn't earned back what I had lost from a single death. Short of farming RES, Combat Zones, or straight up trading, there's very limited income available to players.
Fighting in a smaller ship against bigger ships can be a fun challenge, but it can also be a huge frustration if players are continually smashed down and can never reach a point where they actually have a fighting chance. Quite simply, you have money so it's not a problem if someone blows you up. It's all part of the experience. Restarting in a starter Sidney can also be part of the experience, but it's not an experience most people want to go through. If they did, we'd see a lot more players resetting their save.
I envy what you have achieved. Multiple ships, millions of credits, no real fear of dying. I would like to be able to play the game in this manner, but I'll never get there if I get shot down by every player viper that decides to enter my power's system. I sold my backup ships with the introduction of Power Play. I realized it would be hard to pick them up after pledging. It doesn't help that invading systems offers 15 merits per kill but very little incentive to actually defend the system. Last I've heard, invading other powers is by far the fastest way to gain merits.
At the end of the day, there's a huge risk for me to interact with other players. There's very little incentive to do so. Making more friends would be enough of an incentive for me to risk a starter sydney. However, since my previous interactions with other players have all involved them shooting at me without saying a word, I'll go back to solo until I don't have to worry about credits.
