The responses I generally see fall into these categories:
What difference? - Some people don't seem to see the issue with the whole different-rules/same-simulation thing.
Working as intended - This one and its variants really bug me. FD has built it that way so it must be right. No. There is a case for saying "That is the way it is so we'll just have to live with it." But just because something is some way, does not necessarily make it "right" or "fair".
You can do the same thing - This is the argument that if Solo is easier to achieve certain goals, then that option is open to the Open players as well, so all good. The problem here is that it's almost the reverse of the "I don't like PvP so I want to play in Solo" thing. Open players shouldn't expect that everyone should enjoy and want to participate in that gamestyle (at least all the time) - see askavir's comment. Solo players should not have to be Open player's content. However, isn't it just as unfair to allow the actions of Solo players to affect the content of Open?
They all kinda blur together. The difference doesn't matter because the game was designed for it; having players able to avoid anyone for any reason is a core element of how the game's multiplayer was planned, designed, and implemented. It's not perfect, ideally the game systems would have been better planned to minimize any effectiveness difference caused by having many players in the same instance without having different rules for different modes, but well, nothing is perfect.
You seem to want something different, something that puts to the front the kind of gameplay that comes from being able to influence other players to the point they can be excluded from certain places, contents, or rewards. There are games out there that cater to this kind of player, certainly, but I don't think ED was ever meant to be among them. Which, mind you, influenced my decision to back ED by a fair amount; I'm certainly not among the target audience of that kind of game you seem to desire, I see no entertainment value in them.
You can't say that things like PP are not a PvP thing. PvP may not be the intent. But PvP can certainly have an influence. As I understand it, if you have a group of PvPers who want to make a concerted effort to resist the PP efforts of an opposing faction, the opposition is left with three options:
1) Persist with their efforts despite the resistance. This presumably will make their efforts riskier and will potentially slow things down.
2) Decide that the risk isn't worth it and decide to go exploring or something instead.
3) Avoid the resistance altogether by switching to Solo.
Options 1 and 2 will surely have the desired effect on the outcome of the goal. But having option 3 available (while still pursuing the same goals) completely nullifies the efforts of those in Open. I don't see how that is fair.
It's part of the "play your way" drive. Players can never be forced into a PvP situation (well, as long as said players are willing to forgo meeting with strangers in the name of avoiding PvP). Working as intended, I would say, and if it was any other way I would never have backed this game.
But I still don't see why people can't suggest that perhaps the way it is done now (and, yes, the way people researched, invested, supported, whatever) isn't the best way.
There is no "best" way. Different ways have different advantages, disadvantages, and target audiences.
But, sincerely, changing after the fact things promoted as core elements of the game, such as the player being able to decide at any time who they want to play with, would be a very bad move. It's what SOE did when they implemented the "New Game Experience" in Star Wars Galaxies; by itself it wasn't bad, but it changed the game all those players had previously paid for into something very different, and
that was exceptionally bad, to the point the NGE is to this day a cautionary tale about doing big changes to the core of a game after it has shipped.
I am sure that many would agree with you. I don't really see it though. If you look at the web site, the fact that you can play in different modes and have equal impact on the same environment is not even mentioned. In fact, at a quick scan, the only thing I can see that even hints at the existence of a Solo mode is the line "Fly alone or with friends in a connected galaxy..." And that could actually be referring to flying alone in Open since it is under the Massively Multiplayer header.
But if you believe that changing that would be a fundamental change to the game, that's fair enough.
If you go read the Kickstart page, the many interviews that mention how multi-player would work, the many posts by the devs about how the modes are equal and any kind of restriction on mode changing isn't even on the table, then you might get a better idea.
Besides, there are a few things that I consider to be at the core of a game regardless of whether they are advertised or not. The existence of non-consensual PvP of any kind is, for me, among the most important ones, and that includes locking behind supposedly consensual PvP anything that is meant to be desired by PvE players. I have never purchased any MMO without properly researching that, exactly because it can be a deal breaker for me.
I do agree that the game's current main page is awfully lacking in information, though. For example, it doesn't actually explain anything about how PvP works in game.
Someone posted in another thread about player factions. I don't know how they are going to work in general. But I am really curious as to how a player faction can exist in a mode that only has one player.
A bit off-topic, but they work in Solo because they aren't actually player factions; rather, they are player-promoted NPC factions. Besides voting on NPC factions to promote and, perhaps, suggesting a name and a couple other characteristics, players have no more control over those factions than they have over the current powers.
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