As all players were advertised as having an impact on the BGS regardless of mode, right from the KS - Why did you even bother with ED?
Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].
- Thread starter Robert Maynard
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As all players were advertised as having an impact on the BGS regardless of mode, right from the KS - Why did you even bother with ED?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The single galaxy state, shared by the three game modes, has been a core feature of the game from the outset:
With the announcement of the launch on Xbox One, we know that different platforms will also share the galaxy state.
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
seems a bit daft buying a game that advertises a feature then moaning about it after.
caveat emptor and all that!. (IF FD had advertised solo in a separate galaxy with no impact on open I would have sympathy with you..... but it didnt)
Solo players have precisely the same power to stop or affect your game play and your galaxy as you do theirs. As far as I can tell it couldn't possibly get more fair than that.
But if we're talking about wants and demanding reasons here - I want to know why boys get to play the same game that I do. It's not fair that I should be forced to play Elite alongside boys and I expect my demands to be listened to because I'm so much more important than everyone else. Except Robert Maynard, but that's only because of that torrid, Lavian brandy-fueled weekend of blackjack and tiddlywinks aboard Jameson Memorial. I still don't know how he ended up pregnant though...
<this last bit may or may not be just sleep deprived humour, sorry!>
That's the game. The background simulation is as much a part of this as the ships and the stations. Hey - I'm a mostly open player like you, and I'd absolutely love it if they gave solo play complete offline mode. They could even give us a development kit or other mod tools so that we could make our own ships, stations, and modules.
Then I'd leave open altogether!
Alas, it is an imperfect universe.
While I am a man I play this game dressed in a French maids outfit. I hope that at least goes some way towards addressing your concerns.
It does, but only if everyone does it will this game ever be fair in terms of risk vs reward.
I only ever play in my lovely Tinky Winky outfit. It's the only available attire I have to fully capture the magical feeling of being an axe-grinding Solo-Pro-Bro heartlessly griefing pew-pews by playing a game mode that they can potentially find me in. My Magic Bag gobbles up all their Pure PVP HTTP packets and fills to the brim with their tears.
It's bliss.
It's bliss.
I often play in my pants.... in my games room with my rift on I need to keep as cool as i can.
It is not a sight you ever want to see
It is not a sight you ever want to see
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Ah yes, I remember it.... Well.... Not a lot actually - that Lavian Brandy is extremely potent stuff!
I understand why you may have thought that I was in the family way - I've been cultivating a "dad-bod" for the last dozen years and my family-pack can easily be confused for signs of pregnancy....
Now, we really should steer our collective courses back to the topic at hand....
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But before we do go back to discussing the matters at hand, I want to virtual rep you Julissa (as I'm out for you right now) for making me laugh.
Oh, and the risks you are talking about now... Ok, for the first time in this game I'm actually frightened!
The issue with changing a product to reach for new customers is that one risks alienating the current consumers that are happy with the current product, while at the same time might fail at attracting the new customers they want. It can work in some cases — when the current product is terrible like Final Fantasy XIV was at launch, when most of its consumers agree that the change is a good one — but it's usually a big risk that can kill a product as easily as it can save it.
And I don't think ED is in such a dire situation that making some radical change, such as nerfing mode switching or separating the modes, is helpful. Neither do I think that this kind of change is consensus among the player base.
Now, I'm not saying that every change is bad. There are some changes to improve the game for pirates that seem to be consensus among the player base, some of which you have been suggesting yourself; making NPC traders a more worthy target for pirates, for example. But changes to the modes that nullifies long-standing promises is, IMHO, going too far.
And here is somewhere we can't look eye to eye. Nothing to lose and nothing to gain is exactly what I want from PvP
Not joking. I like playing PvP just for the fun of it, preferably with others that are playing for fun also. Rewards tend to attract players that are there not because they find PvP fun, but rather because they want the reward. Since playing with this kind of player tends to not be as enjoyable for me, I prefer to PvP when the game doesn't offer rewards at all, and thus reward-seeking players aren't there; it might mean less players interested in PvP, but for me it makes the fights I do get into far more enjoyable and pleasant.
It's why I'm not completely sure I will keep playing CQC for long. The devs seem intent on turning it into some kind of long term contest, on offering some rewards that can be taken back outside CQC. That might make me quickly lose interest in the CQC.
But then, of course, I never got ED for the PvP. Rather, I got ED because, among other things, I was assured that I would never have to deal with PvP in it.
In my view, the issue isn't the reward, and neither the risk by itself; rather, it's the amount that is lost when the player loses the engagement, the punishment for failure.
PvP, on average, can't happen more often than the time to recover from a PvP encounter dictates. That is not an opinion; it's a logical impossibility. If you make the loser of a PvP match need a few hours to recover, then a PvP match can't happen more often than once in a few hours, otherwise the players engaging in PvP will just bleed resources until they are forced to stop playing.
The "sheep and wolves" arrangement does change this a bit, by shifting how much PvP each player takes part in; the "sheep," who tend to lose the fights, rarely see PvP and have time to recover; the "wolves" see far more PvP, but need proportionally less time to recover because they win most fights and often have less to lose in the first place anyway. But this requires a large number of "sheep" for every "wolf," and ever since MMOs started to proliferate, those "sheep" need to be willing; there's too much choice nowadays for players to ever be forced into that role, they would just change games instead. As a result, I'm not aware of a game where this "sheep and wolves" arrangement worked well ever since UO first implemented the PvE world of Trammel over a decade ago, and I believe expecting it to work in ED is foolhardy at best.
It's why my suggestions to improve the situation focus more on reducing the loss; lower buyback, cargo insurance, part of the exploration data and bounds (and other kinds of credit that vanish on the ship's destruction) preserved through death, etc. Allow the defeated players to get back into the PvP action faster, so every willing player can find more fights.
It might increase the number of players that fight to the death when they see a pirate, as they would be losing less than currently, but it's my belief that most of those that actually find the whole piracy RP engagement pleasant would play along.
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If you are talking about games like EVE, DarkFall, Mortal Online, etc, then the whole point of those games is the PvP, including facing players that might be playing the psychotic stereotype. They are advertised as such, and players supposedly know that when they purchase or start playing those games. And even then they have to deal with a large player churn issue, as they tend to retain a lower amount of new players compared with more laid back games.
ED was never described as such, never had the mechanics that would allow this kind of gameplay to prevail, and its very underlying network architecture precludes that, so you can't expect ED to imitate those games, even if you disregard the issues those games typically deal with or how such a change could drive away many of the current players.
If you are talking about the majority of MMOs out there, they tend to allow players to ignore each other without penalty. ED's mode switching is just a different take on the PvP flags or login-time server choice that have been used in MMOs for over a decade.
Open is only more 'difficult' in the sense that the risk/reward ratio is completely backwards. Open has higher risk AND less reward than Solo. I want to play with other people flying around, but when I'm in a Hi-Intensity RES and there's 0 wanted ships and 5 players looking for bounties, I can't make any money and I am forced into Solo mode. Look at any decent Co-op game. The more players that are in the group, the more enemies that are spawned to keep it challenging and engaging.
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I want an Open mode, with human interaction, where it's possible to be as efficient in making money versus other modes.
I just want to be able to grind out those trophies as fast in populated Open systems as private ones!!!!! They just need to remove friendly fire from PC's in Open! Problem solved...right?
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Never heard of Mortal Online before, looks interesting, I will have to check it out. Anyway, I would much rather have PvP flags over mode switching, since you can still do PvE with other players present, and the universe would feel much less empty as a result. I would also much rather have an offline Solo mode and online Open mode, with separate save files, which I believe was the original promise in ED. I just do not think they made a good decision to make it the way it is now.
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hmmm a PvP flag i think would be a disaster. to have magically immune players would i think annoy all camps not to mention be used to glitch (ie i could play PvP off and use my ship as a sheild to soak up fire for my mate who is PvP on.
Sorry, I don't follow. What are PC's?
Player Characters, as opposed to NPCs (Non-Player Characters).
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That doesn't do anything to help the fact that npc spawns don't scale.
As to your first point. If you had everyone in open there would be even more players in the RES with you. All you have to do is find a different RES, and your efficiency will improve. Fairness is ensured with equal availability to any of the modes, at any time.
Open is just as efficient a mode as solo on the whole. It's the same environment as solo. Exactly the same. What you have to do is decide what you are looking for. Player interaction.... play in open. A quiet place to play.... solo. A little of both.... private group. It's up to you. What do you value more? Efficiency or interaction.
I jump between the modes to find the activities I want at that time. That is how it is all balanced out. Insisting that everyone be made to play to your gamer ethics is just plain wrongheaded.
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