Yes PVP is unfair.

[DarkWalker]

And this is where the problem is. It's an inconsistent mish-mash of ideas that is messy.

Nope. It merely was never meant to allow players to do blockades or effectively control territory, or otherwise do anything that would require forcing players to see each other.

In short, it's not EVE, and down to the networking model chosen it was never meant to be.

It would have been better if they had just completely excluded Powerplay, and made the entire game economy static/scripted.

Powerplay (like the CGs) is designed as a kind of popularity contest; the faction that attracts more players wins. It's not much different from a forum pool, except that you vote by playing.

---

Groups already handle that in other games that have 24hr territory fights such as Planetside 2 or Eve. They form coalitions with groups from other time zones or recruit players from other time zones to take shifts holding the territory while they are asleep etc.

In other server-based games you only have to cover time.

In ED you would have to cover time, (real world) space, and platform. You could have both US and EU groups blockading a station 24/7 each and I likely wouldn't even be aware they are there, even if I was to venture in Open. You can have PC groups in every continent, each blockading the station 24/7, and an XBox player wouldn't even be aware that was happening.

Getting 24 hours coverage in EVE would be child's play compared with what you would have to do to get the equivalent in ED. More so because you would need standby groups spread across the globe on both platforms; a PC player in Russia willing to log at any time to defend the station would do no good if the invader was on the XBox, or another PC player from the US.

In short, even if everyone was forced into Open, ED's architecture would demand such a prohibitively large effort to reach any measure of efficacy in a blockade, I doubt any group could pull it.

And even if they could pull that off, any individual player or organized opposition could get around it by merely doing a few tricks to influence the matchmaking, since the game puts lag-free gameplay above allowing players to meet.

 

[dxm55]

Nope. It merely was never meant to allow players to do blockades or effectively control territory, or otherwise do anything that would require forcing players to see each other.

In short, it's not EVE, and down to the networking model chosen it was never meant to be.

It is still a messy MMO model however you want to justify it.

As it is defined. :
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or MMO) is an online game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance (or world). MMOs usually have at least one persistent world, however some games differ.

The last part where it says "some games differ" likely means that some MMOs have more than one, and isolated persistent worlds.
Maybe that's the key. To have 2 separate worlds for the PVP and PVE players.

But the key to an MMO is "In the same instance".

Elite definitely isn't an MMO by any stretch, not with the current implementation anyway. It's too fragmented and messy to be called one.
Messy Multiplayer Online perhaps. Definitely not Massive.

 

[Mohrgan]

It is still a messy MMO model however you want to justify it.

As it is defined. :
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or MMO) is an online game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance (or world). MMOs usually have at least one persistent world, however some games differ.

The last part where it says "some games differ" likely means that some MMOs have more than one, and isolated persistent worlds.
Maybe that's the key. To have 2 separate worlds for the PVP and PVE players.

But the key to an MMO is "In the same instance".

Elite definitely isn't an MMO by any stretch, not with the current implementation anyway. It's too fragmented and messy to be called one.
Messy Multiplayer Online perhaps. Definitely not Massive.

Maybe the key is; '...in the same instance (or world).' With an emphasis on World. In Elite we call it the galaxy.

 

[DarkWalker]

It is still a messy MMO model however you want to justify it.

As it is defined. :
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or MMO) is an online game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously in the same instance (or world). MMOs usually have at least one persistent world, however some games differ.

The last part where it says "some games differ" likely means that some MMOs have more than one, and isolated persistent worlds.
Maybe that's the key. To have 2 separate worlds for the PVP and PVE players.

But the key to an MMO is "In the same instance".

Elite definitely isn't an MMO by any stretch, not with the current implementation anyway. It's too fragmented and messy to be called one.
Messy Multiplayer Online perhaps. Definitely not Massive.

A few things.

First, Frontier and DB, at first, refused to call ED a MMO. It took a lot of convincing by fans to get Frontier to start describing ED as a MMO in the first place.

Second, the key part in that Wikipedia description is "or world". ED has thousands of players in the same "world", so it does fit that Wikipedia description.

Third is that, Wikipedia article nonwhitstanding, there isn't a clear, agreed upon definition of what is a MMO, so much that in some news sites that cover MMOs it isn't uncommon for discussions about what makes a game a MMO to erupt.

 

[dxm55]

Maybe the key is; '...in the same instance (or world).' With an emphasis on World. In Elite we call it the galaxy.

Unlikely. The galaxy as you see it is just the playing field. The galaxy in ED is just the BGS or database.

It's pretty clear cut what instance or world mean. All other MMOs I've tried so far put their players pretty much in the same instance or world.
Jumpgate, Darkspace, BGO, STO, SWG, SWTOR.

And even if they were separated/isolated instances or worlds, most probably due to regions (Asia server, EU server, US servers), then you still see all the players in your "world" all at once.

ED is still a Messy Multiplayer Online game.

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A few things.

First, Frontier and DB, at first, refused to call ED a MMO. It took a lot of convincing by fans to get Frontier to start describing ED as a MMO in the first place.

Second, the key part in that Wikipedia description is "or world". ED has thousands of players in the same "world", so it does fit that Wikipedia description.

Third is that, Wikipedia article nonwhitstanding, there isn't a clear, agreed upon definition of what is a MMO, so much that in some news sites that cover MMOs it isn't uncommon for discussions about what makes a game a MMO to erupt.

TBH I don't know how to classify the instancing mess that this game has. Maybe call it an Instanced Dungeon type of game.

 

[DarkWalker]

Unlikely. The galaxy as you see it is just the playing field. The galaxy in ED is just the BGS or database.

It's pretty clear cut what instance or world mean. All other MMOs I've tried so far put their players pretty much in the same instance or world.
Jumpgate, Darkspace, BGO, STO, SWG, SWTOR.

And even if they were separated/isolated instances or worlds, most probably due to regions (Asia server, EU server, US servers), then you still see all the players in your "world" all at once.

For STO, actually, no. Similar to what ED does, it creates many instances for each sector and spreads players across them. Plus, when you get into the smaller instanced areas where the missions happen, you typically see only your group.

It's not so rare an arrangement, either. DCUO implemented something simlar when it merged all servers into four "MegaServers". LotRO has the same tech for handling large numbers of players converging to the same place. WoW goes beyond, both joining empty open world zones across servers and dividing too populous open world zones in multiple instances. Guild Wars had something of the kind from the start. And so on.

 

[lenna]

@dxm55: The areas/systems are the only part of the game that is instanced, little different from other MMOs. However, with ED the number of players is limited to 32 players per "map/area" instance from the all the players. The underlying political, exploration, and trade data is a single persistent instance database as I understand it thus the game still "technically" qualifies for the MMO title. Every MMO has limits on the numbers of players per area, and some MMOs such as GW1 were even more restrictive in that regard.
---
As for how all this relates to the PvP "fairness" discussion, the linkage is tenuous at best IMO.

 

[dxm55]

For STO, actually, no. Similar to what ED does, it creates many instances for each sector and spreads players across them. Plus, when you get into the smaller instanced areas where the missions happen, you typically see only your group.

It's not so rare an arrangement, either. DCUO implemented something simlar when it merged all servers into four "MegaServers". LotRO has the same tech for handling large numbers of players converging to the same place. WoW goes beyond, both joining empty open world zones across servers and dividing too populous open world zones in multiple instances. Guild Wars had something of the kind from the start. And so on.

I played STO a little back then. It's still not like ED.

Because they don't really have a real generated open universe like ED. They treat them like rooms instead. Those rooms are the sectors you mentioned, and all players will see each other in the rooms. The missions are different. Those act like instanced dungeons, rooms within the room, because well.... everybody wants to be the hero.

If ED were to go that route, then we would be instanced by location, or active star systems. Most of the star systems would not be active until a player jumped in, then it would be instanced. And anybody else who entered that system would be placed in the same instance. And that instance would be destroyed, with the stats saved once the last player jumped out of it.

But the CZs already act like those "rooms within a room". Everytime you jump out there, NPCs spawn. It's just that you can't see all the other players in the same star system as you.

Right now, we can have 150 players in a single system, but for example; only up to 32 (but mostly less) of each can see each other, resulting in 5 separate instances in the same area.

@dxm55: The areas/systems are the only part of the game that is instanced, little different from other MMOs. However, with ED the number of players is limited to 32 players per "map/area" instance from the all the players. The underlying political, exploration, and trade data is a single persistent instance database as I understand it thus the game still "technically" qualifies for the MMO title. Every MMO has limits on the numbers of players per area, and some MMOs such as GW1 were even more restrictive in that regard.
---
As for how all this relates to the PvP "fairness" discussion, the linkage is tenuous at best IMO.

It's not just about PVP, as in player combat, or for someone to kill another person.
As I mentioned, as long as the player has an impact on the BGS, it simply makes for very inconsistent gameplay.

If you had a stake an interest in a particular star system, and a rival group showed up in a separate instance. How would you effectively defend your stake there if you couldn't even see the other group?

It can work for dungeon games where, like I said, everybody just wants to be a hero in a randomly generated mission. STO, The Realms, just being two example. You get the mission, you and/or your group get instanced there. The mission area is just a randomly generated room/dungeon to bash your NPC/AI opponents to pieces in, and for you to get your stats up.


But since this game has powerplay and territory and factions involved, it becomes more of a parallel to games like (hold your breath....) EVE, or another little known MMO, Darkspace.... where control of your holding interest actually matters and cannot be treated like a instanced room.

Well, you get what I mean, I hope. That's why I said that Powerplay and Minor Factions isn't suitable for the instancing system like this.
CGs, yes. Trading, yes. The main Emp/Fed/Alliance factions, yes... but it would end up being scripted.

 

[Pluvialis]

The other major activity is WAR. ... Only in PVP can war be meaningful.

Do bear in mind, though, that while it might be inconceivable to some, there are players who really don't give a stuff for WAR. Players who never have seen and never will see Elite - any version of Elite - as a war simulation.

If the Empire and the Federation maintained a state of cold war in FE2 and FFE, as the lore suggested, it wasn't anything that ever really affected gameplay. You could freely take missions and promotions from both sides, and you could freely fly Imperial ships in Federal space. And in Elite, of course, there were no nations or factions at all.

Speaking personally, I have never expected, nor wanted, my actions in an Elite game to have a measurable effect on the galaxy. That's not what it's about. It's why I've never cared at all about PowerPlay, and have never signed up to a Power. I want to explore (by which I mean more than honk a system and fly round scanning worlds from afar), I want to do contracts taking stuff from A to B, and maybe deal with law enforcement if my contract is a little shady. I want to get a reputation amongst NPC agents for completing those contracts, or for bringing back data and samples from new worlds.

That, for me, is what an Elite game should be. I cannot emphasise enough how utterly cold the whole evolving galaxy idea leaves me. I am not and will never be interested in war, factional or national conflict and politics, or player-on-player combat. These things are completely uninteresting to me, and - if I'm feeling really uncharitable - a frustration distraction of FDev's resources from the Elite game they could be making.

In the end, I can't stand here and say that you're right or I'm right. We have our individual tastes. But the point is that while you and I are both playing this one game, there is no way for its developers to cater fully for both of us. Perhaps it's time they stopped trying.

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If it's a single player game for you, play in Solo. What are you even doing in this thread, if you're not interested in the multiplayer aspect of the game?

Because our playing by ourselves in Solo, yet still affecting the BGS that at least one of us has no interest in at all, is a favourite complaint of the PvP players.

 

[dxm55]

Do bear in mind, though, that while it might be inconceivable to some, there are players who really don't give a stuff for WAR. Players who never have seen and never will see Elite - any version of Elite - as a war simulation.

If the Empire and the Federation maintained a state of cold war in FE2 and FFE, as the lore suggested, it wasn't anything that ever really affected gameplay. You could freely take missions and promotions from both sides, and you could freely fly Imperial ships in Federal space. And in Elite, of course, there were no nations or factions at all.

Speaking personally, I have never expected, nor wanted, my actions in an Elite game to have a measurable effect on the galaxy. That's not what it's about. It's why I've never cared at all about PowerPlay, and have never signed up to a Power. I want to explore (by which I mean more than honk a system and fly round scanning worlds from afar), I want to do contracts taking stuff from A to B, and maybe deal with law enforcement if my contract is a little shady. I want to get a reputation amongst NPC agents for completing those contracts, or for bringing back data and samples from new worlds.

That, for me, is what an Elite game should be. I cannot emphasise enough how utterly cold the whole evolving galaxy idea leaves me. I am not and will never be interested in war, factional or national conflict and politics, or player-on-player combat. These things are completely uninteresting to me, and - if I'm feeling really uncharitable - a frustration distraction of FDev's resources from the Elite game they could be making.

In the end, I can't stand here and say that you're right or I'm right. We have our individual tastes. But the point is that while you and I are both playing this one game, there is no way for its developers to cater fully for both of us. Perhaps it's time they stopped trying.

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Because our playing by ourselves in Solo, yet still affecting the BGS that at least one of us has no interest in at all, is a favourite complaint of the PvP players.

Exactly the reason why they should have designated Solo mode as offline.

 

[Nicky the Hutt]

There's a lack of balance in the mechanics which enables griefing and leaving open play. Solo Play is more attractive when according to what I've experienced: Open Play interactions for a player like me and many more is at best seeing other CMDR names in your contact list and not being able to dock on outposts. We can't ask for the game to be completely rebuilt overnight to get rid of the unfair mechanics of Open play but this is an idea that could be implemented in the next patch:

Don't change the bounties, change the insurance.

Here's how I see the lack of balance:

1. Because insurance covers your ship even when illegally attacking other players with clean record then you can fly the highest spec'ed ship dedicated to combat you can afford and none of the defences on PVE and NPC ships will matter. Piracy with an endless supermilitary budget is unimmersive. We're past "only fly what you can afford to lose".

2. Because insurance doesn't cover your cargo or exploration data when attacked by other players and you can't defend yourself against high spec'ed combat ships no matter how much jump range you sacrifice, then Solo play and combat logging become the best solution. Both of which are looked down upon or even seen as exploits.

3. Multipurpose and trading ships have weapons and utility hardpoints, defence modules should be the equivalent of insuring your cargo/exploration in a fun way. Your defence modules don't get bored when nothing happens for the continuous hours you trade, mine or explore. They cost you money and jump range, but they're always there.

4. Self-defence is useless against fearless pirates and gankers unless you have a PVP fitted ship or friend parked in every system. Bounties don't do very much with the kind of NPC police we have, so introduce fear by nulling insurance, re-introduce "fly what you can afford to lose" in PVP and suddenly trade ships will start punching right through those less-than-A5 shields.

 

[Oogie Boogie]

Personally, I believe WINGS has killed my interest in PVP in Open. As soon as I am interdicted by a player, along comes another, and another .... and it's a very unequal fight. Makes the whole experience unpleasant and unfair, costly in credits and time spent, and drives me to do some CGs in solo because of it, which is contrary to how I would like to play them.

In the old good times when normal trading was the peak to earn money, you were mostly in a wing of 3-4 people. Even if you didn't know them you winged up to have a advantage of the "wing-instance-jumping-thingy". And of course if one got interedicted or attacked by a PVP player, the others traders jumped quickly in to support. Even a trading Anaconda with weapons could scare a single pirate (but not a full pirate wing). Again - the old good times when the world was much simpler ...

 

[Pluvialis]

Exactly the reason why they should have designated Solo mode as offline.

I agree, but they don't. The offline mode is an old argument probably no longer worth having, but it would have prevented this issue from coming up in the first place. No, it's not the same as an online co-op PVE mode, but arguably I'm biased: that FD made ED an online game at all has long been a bugbear of mine.

I think they simply envisaged allowing friends to fly together or for people to engage in arranged PvP if they wanted to - but it's now slid so far towards an MMO without actually being one, that it's just compromise after compromise now.

Please don't get the idea I hate ED. I don't. I just think it would be better (objectively) if it decided what it wanted to be and went full power for it. Sure, if they went for a PVP focus I'd not be interested, but they'd still have a massive player base, I'm sure.

 

[Legacy_LuckyLuke]

Murder is cheap in ED.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I agree, but they don't. The offline mode is an old argument probably no longer worth having, but it would have prevented this issue from coming up in the first place. No, it's not the same as an online co-op PVE mode, but arguably I'm biased: that FD made ED an online game at all has long been a bugbear of mine.

As has been mentioned many times by now, the three game modes that we have, with the single shared galaxy state and mode mobility for our commanders all form the core of the game design that was published at the very start of the Kickstarter pitch (Offline mode was added later in the Kickstarter). If Offline mode had been delivered, the three game modes would still exist - so arguments around all players affecting the single shared galaxy state would rumble on. Given that the intended single player experience (see quote below) has each player in Solo experiencing and affecting a single shared galaxy state (the same one that all other players experience and affect), I don't expect to see players in two of the three game modes disenfranchised by a move to remove their effect on same.

FAQ- Elite: Dangerous​

How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?

The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).​

How does multiplayer work?

You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.

You will be able to save your position in certain key places (probably just in space stations, but possibly while in hyperspace too, if we feel it is needed). A save-and-quit option will be freely available at those points, as will the subsequent reload, but there will be a game cost for a reload following player death. Your ship will still be intact in the condition it was when the save occurred, but there will be a game currency charge (referred to as an insurance policy) for this. This is to prevent the obvious exploit of friends cooperating and killing each other to get each other’s cargo. If you can’t pay, then it will accumulate as an in-game debt, and the police may chase you!

There are no multiplayer lobbies, and the game will be played across many servers, augmented by peer-to-peer traffic for fast responses. Session creation and destruction happens during the long-range hyperspace countdown and hyperspace effect (which is a few seconds only), so is transparent to the player.

We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will, though it will be possible to be banned from groups due to antisocial behaviour, and you will only meet others in that group.​

DBOBE is on record as stating that there is no "right way" to play the game - so I don't expect any fundamental changes to the game in favour of one game mode.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Uh, Mobius....

Solo is the only guaranteed PvE mode in the game, devoid of direct player / player combat.

 

[Commander Deschain]

The PvP in main game ED isn't a balanced arena. Those willing to take up the challenge will play in Open, those who do not won't. The difference in attitude is basically this:

PvP:

Hm, I didn't do so well, I should research and learn about how to be competitive in this environment and study my opponent's build and take time to reflect on my own build.

PvE:

Unfair, unfair, I'm so done with this, I'm out. I don't want to put in the hours those people that beat me did to become informed of the current meta and counter methods.

This mentality difference is usually immutable.

This works as long as there is RP involved. I always played Open until some kid attacked my Type-6 in a Corvette without the least interest in my cargo, which resulted in the "fun" of losing a considerable amount of money for me, and killing someone with like two shots for him. Now I could study the "opponent"'s build like forever, that wouldn't change anything. I studied his motives and character, though, which led to the conclusion that I don't play Open anymore, because the possibility of meeting such id... that just like to spoil the fun for others is not that appealing to me anymore.

 

[Muetdhiver]

This works as long as there is RP involved. I always played Open until some kid attacked my Type-6 in a Corvette without the least interest in my cargo, which resulted in the "fun" of losing a considerable amount of money for me, and killing someone with like two shots for him. Now I could study the "opponent"'s build like forever, that wouldn't change anything. I studied his motives and character, though, which led to the conclusion that I don't play Open anymore, because the possibility of meeting such id... that just like to spoil the fun for others is not that appealing to me anymore.

And this, folks is how the 5-10% of ats that shoot anything on sight damage open.
(especially if it has no gun and weak shields)

The same brand of "PvPers" that cringe each time the word "consequences" appears.

From my own experience, 90-95% of players doing PvP do so in non- way, just looking for good fights and fun.
And yeah, PvP between balanced ships / wings is terrific fun.

But these 5-10% are 1) giving a bad name/rep to PvP 2) pushing non combat ships in solo/private and damaging piracy and open in general.
Btw, these former-now-solo traders are the base of piracy gameplay. Too bad for pirates I guess.

Tell me : what does the starting trader in its T6 gains when you blow him up for giggles ? (In other words : what is his invective to stay in open and be content for you).

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It is still a messy MMO model however you want to justify it.

As it is defined. :
.

As it is defined from 1 source......... the whole notion of MMO is not set in stone imo. warthunder *** is marketed as an MMO. ED is FAR more of an MMO than warthunder.

During kickstarter DB went on record when asked will ED be an MMO, his response was (not quoting here it is from memory) not really........ and if it IS an MMO it is not in the same vein as others you may think of. He then said something along the lines of, ED is no more an MMO than call of duty is.

Since then it seems the marketeers have pointed out to him other far less MMOy games which use that tag, and so DB / Frontier have decided it is not unreasonable that they use the tag as well.

Taken literally it is hard to argue. it IS Massive, it is multiplayer, it is also massively multiplayer when you consider the BGS, and it is online (and many wish it wasnt )

***** https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=warthunder+mmo&gws_rd=ssl#safe=off&q=warthunder

War Thunder is a World War II-inspired massively multiplayer online combat game developed by Gaijin Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Shield Android TV.

The same instance is nonsence anyway. VERY few games have every player in the same instance......... certianly no live action game that i know of could possibly have unlimited number of players in the same instance

 

[shambles1980]

the only mmo i ever knew t actually have every one always in the same instance was the realm online.
and that didnt work either really because you could be "rubber walled."
you would try and enter a room/screen and bounce back to the one you were on previously because there were to many people in the room you were trying to get too. they never did address that, they just had admin teleporting about telling people to move along or teleport them out in to the middle of the desert.
even then all the caves and dungeons were seperate instances for every one "unless in a group" but you could always gather multiple people in to them if you wanted.
but a fight was limited to 8 people on each side which could also be described as an instance.
Still there were multiple thousands of people in the world. and the world was a lot smaller than what ED has.

you also have aces high 2
This "the last time i played it atleast" did very well having a thousand or so players in a single instance all fighting and interacting at the same time. with 4 different countries trying to take over the continent they were over at the time.
this was a much larger world. and in a Lancaster 2 bomber it could take you 30-60 minuets to fly over to the target to drop your bombs. (having chosen a point where you would be able to reach correct altitude by the time you were over the target) and you would never make that journey in a me 262 jet fighter or even a typhoon.
tose are both subscription based though so had dedicated servers, but even then there were multiple servers running with a cap on the amount of players in each.

but that game had only pvp interaction. and a LOT more action that ran on for 2-3 days sometimes a week before one side won the battle.
you would go to bed late friday, get up saturday morning and find that things had taken a turn for the worst whilst you were asleep (other times you woke up to find that the players who were on during thee night had done really well.)

So i dont think ED is an mmo. but i also dont think you can define an mmo too rigidly. because by the wiki definition you could argue that battle field is an mmo. but then again battle field can have more players in an instance than ED can.