Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Mk III

Do you want a Open PvE

  • Yes, I want a Open PvE

    Votes: 54 51.4%

  • No, I don't want a Open PvE

    Votes: 49 46.7%

  • I want only Open PvE and PvP only in groups

    Votes: 2 1.9%
  • Total voters
    105
  • Poll closed .
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.

DarkWalker

D
Khelder said:
It honestly wasn't that difficult for me to conclude that some of the complaints did indeed have merit.
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They would have merit if what he was complaining about were actual flaws. But no; they are instead widely advertised design decisions. Design decisions that were fundamental in getting many of the players that post in this thread to even purchase the game in the first place. His proposals, when distilled down, are for some of the players here equal to saying he wants to make the game unplayable for us, even if that isn't is intent.

It's what some don't seem to understand. The game has always been advertised as one where players would be free to choose who they play with, with no downsides for blocking out anyone for whichever reason and the ability to freely change those choices at any time, and for many that option was fundamental in their choice to purchase the game. Then people start coming and saying that players shouldn't be able to block others, or shouldn't be able to change who they are blocking, or should get a downside for blocking others; in any of those cases, it's basically a proposal to make the game unambiguously worse for those of us that did proper research and got the game because of those freedoms. So, don't expect posts that are basically attempts to ruin for us a product we purchase to get a free pass, even if the poster wasn't fully aware of what he was doing.

Plus, nearly 28K posts in the megathread alone, and before that this topic was discussed literally since day 1 of the Kickstart three years ago. Almost every "new" opinion was voiced and discussed in the past, and the exceptions are truly rare by now.
 

DarkWalker

D
Khelder said:
* sigh *
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To put it bluntly: for me, the existence of the different modes, the ability to freely switch between them, and the fact there is no bonus nor penalty for choosing a mode are non-negotiable. Without those I would have literally sued Frontier to get a refund as soon as the offline mode was dropped late in development.

I'm not against better balancing the modes, but only as long as it's done by tweaking the underlying mechanics, while keeping the difference between the modes to merely who we meet.
 
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DarkWalker

D
Khelder said:
Yes. In theory, I (as an Australian player - yay) should expect a degraded experience in that scenario. I wonder if I would actually get a benefit when playing with someone from a different country because we would both be communicating with what I assume would be prioritised bandwidth to AWS instead of tunnelling to each other through several sets of convoluted local ISP route paths. My networking experience isn't strong enough to go further with that one.
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Prioritized routing usually requires either deals with the owners of each part of the network or else a private network between the relay servers, and I don't think Frontier has the clout to broker such deals or the resources to assemble a private network.

Though, now that I think about it, Valve does have one such private network — the one used to serve Steam game downloads — and was planning to open it to games that wanted to use relay servers. AFAIK they are (or will soon be) experimenting this with DOTA2. By using an infrastructure like that, yeah, ED might be able to reduce lag between distant players, assuming there are exit points close to all players (which seems to nearly always be the case with Valve's network). Other parties might also have something similar. If Frontier can work a deal with someone that does have such a network then, yeah, it could reduce or nullify most of the downsides of using relays, and even in certain circumstances have a lower lag than the peer to peer connection.
 

Jockey79

Jockey79
Khelder said:
Maybe they don't realise that it has been discussed to death already .....
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See, this is one of those things that does get my back up right away.

The thread has "Mk III" in the title (so not the first one).
Page numbers are shown (Default layout, currently 515 pages long)
Post numbers are shown (your post is #7721)

All the information is there to show that this is not new, the thread is not new, the topic is not new, the answers are not new.
Most of the issues/ questions people have are answered on page 1, post 1. Complete with links back to "Mk 2" and to the "Wall of Information"
Yet people refuse to do some basic reading, like the thread title, the page / post number, the opening post to get some context of the thread - aka: they are being willfully stupid.

Short of printing out the KS information, the 3 mega threads, the Steam and Frontier store pages and going around peoples homes and smashing them in the face with it;
what else can we do to get people to do some actual reading and educate themselves on what they have bought? (or teach them to do that reading before buying something)

One thing I've noticed, being condescending and posting the "Wall of Information" at people does motivate them to read - normally to find something to throw back at me or try and disprove the "Wall of Information". Even had someone post me a video link from a Dev diary they watched - all in order to *knock down the wall*. Though no one has currently found a way to invalidate that mass of text, it has encouraged people to do the reading/ research they should have done to start with.
It seems to work better than asking people to go and do some reading - of which I was asked "Why should I" (really!! Why should they do some basic reading BEFORE buying something, how stupid do people want to be!!??).

I have also said, time and time again - yes the game does have problems, NPC piracy is a joke (not mode related), SCBs need limiting or removing to help fix PvP (not mode related), the networking model needs tweaking so players can see each other better (not mode related), combat logging needs looking in to (not mode related), lack of players (not 100% mode related as people have moved off in random directions and the P2P network plays up, but the modes are part of this) - yet people have blamed the modes / mode switching for all of these at some point or another over the last 12 months and refuse to accept solutions that do not involve removing the modes and forcing open only play (I've tried, so have many others).

The only thing ever mentioned that is directly mode related is "perceived griefing" when people earn money in Solo/Group then use that fund combat ships for actual griefing/ganking in Open.
However it has been argued time and time again, there are people who post here that have earned tons of combat ships in Open only by just moving 4 jumps away from a starting area and have never seen another person since.
They described it as being in Solo mode without selecting Solo from the menu.
And as that is the case, how does anyone know how someone else got their ship? They don't know if someone was just a few jumps away in Open (or 50 jumps away in Open), in Solo or in Mobius getting help. So any griefing is "perceived" not actual griefing.
And as switching was always part of the design, that is "working as intended" - so it is something people either have to learn to live with, or go elsewhere (and ED is not the only game going down this route. SC is doing something similar and Shroud of the Avatar is using the same idea).

All of this has been covered, more than once, by myself and by others. FD have spoken on the topic defending the modes and switching, which I've linked to (repeatedly) and other have as well.
After a few rounds of explaining really simple things to people who refuse to listen and people who can read, but won't read.... contempt and condescension does creep in to a persons posting style.
I used to care if I upset someone on the forums and was careful over how I worded my posts - but after;

[video=youtube;a8k1eTEw4rQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8k1eTEw4rQ[/video]

I just post the bare information, if it seems cold and heartless - then meh. It's words on a screen, people can assign whatever emotion to them they choose, I really do not care.
As long as they read the information, people can think what they like of me. And I encourage them to research and find information to knock down the wall ;)
 

Tuub t Tute

T
Solo = Play the game by yourself and have only yourself and the AI to blame when things don't work out
Group = Play the game with like-minded friends who you expect to act in a friendly and respectful manner
Open = Play the game with people who may or may not respect your perspective, your limits, your boundaries and your sense of fair play. Adventure awaits!

Each mode has its own merits and its own flavour.

Beyond that, the megathread can be condensed to a circular argument of:

Player A "I think the game mechanics need to be changed for reason X"

Player B "I disagree, I trust the Devs knew what they were doing when they designed and advertised the game and I would be very upset if they changed"

Player A "My arguments are valid, yours are not, you refuse to see the validity of them for reasons Y or Z"

Player B "On the contrary, your arguments are not valid, certainly not for me and an unspecified percentage of the playerbase (somewhere between some and the majority)"

Player A "Forum posts are unrepresentative, I have anecdotal evidence from friends lists and reddit that contradict you"

Player B "Why not form your own pvp Mobius group then and show us how successful it would be?"

Player A "...Reasons... things, umm... not our responsibility, FDev need to do it for us. Oh and I'm getting bored of being civil now, I need to insert some reference to salt and tears and bravery or lack of it"

Player B "I like Bacon and Cats and the Status Quo and so it would appear do the Devs, so ner ner na ner ner"

Player A "Grrrr, Arggghhhh, etc"

And repeat.
 

ViciousMink

ViciousMink
If the fourth iteration comes out when Oculus and Vive are availabele, it should be 'The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Mk IV -- Now in 3-D!'
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Robert Maynard
Julissa Silver said:
This thread should address the truly important issue facing us right now: What do we call the fourth iteration of this thread?
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That's an easy one - the Cobra Mk IV has been announced. I wonder if the timing will coincide - release of Ships / Horizons and new Solo vs Open vs Groups thread created? Only 2266 posts to go...
 

relayer

relayer
Jockey79 said:
I'm looking at it right now - thanks for the info, I didn't know that was in there. Plus mine is also set to "1".
This explain the weird issues I've been having since the last update - been having a nightmare playing the game with lag and delays in jumps. :(
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Now I am wondering if that is what was behind the "stuck in hyperspace" problem many were experiencing...
 
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