Should there be an 'Open' Player Vs Environment Option on the Login Screen

Should there be an 'Open' Player Vs Environment Option on the Start Screnn

  • Yes

    Votes: 638 55.4%
  • No

    Votes: 514 44.6%

  • Total voters
    1,152
  • Poll closed .
So presumably the PVE server died off, its population fading away as people gave up on a boring and challenge-free game or transferred back to the PVP server so they could enjoy the true experienced with the rush of genuine danger?

I was there the first day Trammel opened. It was insane. The sheer volume of players gleefully abandoning Felucca created massive lagstorms that brought the servers to a dead standstill. Ninety percent of players voted with their feet against open PvP, and that's a conservative estimate. Open PvP is a minority interest in any game where's there anything else to do, even games that are strongly biased towards encouraging interplayer conflict. There's usually some interest in consensual PvP with dueling, flagging, and/or arena systems, but open PvP zones are ghost towns. But developers keep trying to make Open PvP work, bless their pointy little heads.
 
Voted no. Don't think I can think of anything more dull than knowing all Commanders I meet are going to be friendly. For me the insecurity of not knowing, with associated handshaking, trust building and present risk of double cross is exciting, interesting and much more fun. New players in small ships are more vulnerable yes, but I'd encourage them (and anybody else) to play with stealth and nouse, but with the hyenas and the lions, in the jungle.

No problem then. You continue to play in Open PVP and enjoy your excitement while the PVE people play in Open PVE. Win-Win.
Or, did you vote no because you are afraid to lose all your easy targets? I believe it is the later.
 
No problem then. You continue to play in Open PVP and enjoy your excitement while the PVE people play in Open PVE. Win-Win.
Or, did you vote no because you are afraid to lose all your easy targets? I believe it is the later.

Got to love that blatant assumption. They made no mention of trolling noobs, they just enjoy the possibly of other players being friendly or hostile. This assumption that everyone that votes NO or that plays in open is just a PvP troll is astoundinly disconcerting and under cuts real discussion.

Some people just want the option of both as I think the game was intended.
 
Got to love that blatant assumption. They made no mention of trolling noobs, they just enjoy the possibly of other players being friendly or hostile. This assumption that everyone that votes NO or that plays in open is just a PvP troll is astoundinly disconcerting and under cuts real discussion.

Some people just want the option of both as I think the game was intended.

I agree but it is no more absurd than those who think people who want PvE want it because they are cowards or want an easy game and are just to scared of the superior pilots in open.

2 sides of the same coin imo.

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@darkwalker... that last bit is an interesting take on it... you fire your weapons on a player it damages your own ship... have a cookie :)

hhave you never watched Red Dwarf.

if not you owe it to yourself to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aja4NPKgV20
 
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No problem then. You continue to play in Open PVP and enjoy your excitement while the PVE people play in Open PVE. Win-Win.
Or, did you vote no because you are afraid to lose all your easy targets? I believe it is the later.

Hehe, nope. Actually I have never opened fire (first) on a PvP. I like collaborative play but I also like a dangerous environment to collaborate, in. What I was saying is I think the game benefits most from having a mixed group;

If PvE were a separate option then anyone who wanted to play collaboratively would naturally gravitate towards that group (they already do to some extent, towards Mobius, although you do have to know about that). Eventually that leaves pretty much only PvP players in the open mode we have now. Carnage, maybe, but I think that would water down the game.

I don't want every ship I meet to be a hostile, just like I don't want every ship I meet to be a friendly .. I just don't want to know in advance. It's more realistic (I feel, in space truckers, trucking in space) to feel that anything could happen.

Must be PvP to play here, must be PvE is very, well .. for me it's arcade really. I prefer space sim.

Besides, would it not be better if you know your opponents in game are dedicated PvP players? All CMDR you'll see choose to play PvP, hopefully it also reduces combat log? Especially for pirates that must be frustrating, seeing people in open but combat log because they do not want any PvP.

I don't combat log either.
 
I don't want every ship I meet to be a hostile, just like I don't want every ship I meet to be a friendly .. I just don't want to know in advance. It's more realistic (I feel, in space truckers, trucking in space) to feel that anything could happen.

Must be PvP to play here, must be PvE is very, well .. for me it's arcade really. I prefer space sim.
.

Do you honestly think there is anything sim about anyone risking an expensive ship , or risking blowing up other ships just for the hell of it with no poten tial gain and getting a police record?. To each their own but to me Mobius is far far more of a sim if you want believable interaction with other commanders . even in Somalia there is reason for the danger... Indeed I play in Mobius for exactly that reason. For me it is the more immersive mode but as I said to each their own
 
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Got to love that blatant assumption. They made no mention of trolling noobs, they just enjoy the possibly of other players being friendly or hostile. This assumption that everyone that votes NO or that plays in open is just a PvP troll is astoundinly disconcerting and under cuts real discussion.

Some people just want the option of both as I think the game was intended.

Is it so much an assumption? Look at the information we've had linked in this thread.

1) UO PvP players lost a lot of interest and their population declined when they lost their 'soft targets'.

2) The majority of pvp servers (a minority of the total servers) in WoW are vastly imbalanced in faction population.

Sounds to me like a lot of PvPers want easy pickings. I mean, that's not survey, but that's a pretty sturdy inference given the info we've got.

You personally might not fit that profile, but you don't know what percentage of pvp players do.

And if you want the friend-or-foe stress, so be it. Use the current open. Nobody is suggesting changing it.
 
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Is it so much an assumption? Look at the information we've had linked in this thread.

1) UO PvP players lost a lot of interest and their population declined when they lost their 'soft targets'.

2) The majority of pvp servers (a minority of the total servers) in WoW are vastly imbalanced in faction population.

Sounds to me like a lot of PvPers want easy pickings. I mean, that's not survey, but that's a pretty sturdy inference given the info we've got.


We don't need to infer anything. Take it from me. I've been in these groups, and I've had these discussions. Try getting your raiding buddies to switch from Horde to Alliance to get better PvP on Mal'ganis. (Those Alliance guys that did come out were tough as nails.) There is nothing more a guilded up PvP'er looks for than a player out picking flowers in their harvesting gear. It's totally a Death Race 2000 scoring situation.

It's universal in the overall, but there are players who are exceptions. The faux indignation put on is just a front, insisting like they want intense fights against capable opponents. In reality when that happens you run. It was the same in many of the other games I've played. So don't feel bad about the characterizations, it's well deserved.
 
you're proposing an officialy moderated group based on acceptance of written rules that are not coded in the game ? Just an official Moebius ?

I don't see how FD could spare some resources on that (they'll have to judge if a kill is accitendal or not, and a lot of the PvE player want a mode where they can't be killed at all, post-penalties are not what they ask for)), and it opens the door to other officially moderated group request every time 20k players want to play with specific rules.

Configurable rules for private group are much better IMO, food for everyone.

It would be simplier on separate galaxies (and I would prefer that for myself, open the door to modding too), but still doable on the global galaxy if they are well designed (maybe just on/off switches



I've answered above about a moderated mode, so now I'd like to know those exact required rules before agreing that they won't change anything related to the BGS.

Actually the game rules are identical for Open, Solo and Private, so there is no problems if players are in one of those, you shoot a player or a NPC, you get a bounty and/or a kill that will affect the BGS.

Now if you add a very simple PvE fire rule in one mode only what will happen ?

1st proposal: you kill a player, you get a bounty, you are banned from the group and the BGS is still updated like the other modes. Not acceptable for you, because accident can happen and PvE players don't want to be killed by another player in any way, even if there is a penalty for the offender.

2nd proposal: you can't kill a player but you get the bounty and the BGS is not updated as in the other mode (a bounty is issued, but no kill). Not acceptable for me, you can exploit the BGS.

3rd proposal: you can't kill a player, you don't get a fine/bounty when hitting it, and now you can hunt big ships in RES/CZ without having to care for friendly fire, and so you're much more effective than in solo, open, private. Not acceptable for me, you can exploit the BGS

A no friendly fire rule, to me, would make less of a change to this situation...than you are claiming. However, to discuss the idea, under friendly fire, the players working together could still hit each other in these particular instances and become marked wanted and are immediately targeted as now...BUT do no damage to each other...seems pretty easy to get around with a 'small amount of programming'. Which might be even more strict that what we have now.
 
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Hehe, nope. Actually I have never opened fire (first) on a PvP. I like collaborative play but I also like a dangerous environment to collaborate, in. What I was saying is I think the game benefits most from having a mixed group;

If PvE were a separate option then anyone who wanted to play collaboratively would naturally gravitate towards that group (they already do to some extent, towards Mobius, although you do have to know about that). Eventually that leaves pretty much only PvP players in the open mode we have now. Carnage, maybe, but I think that would water down the game.

I don't want every ship I meet to be a hostile, just like I don't want every ship I meet to be a friendly .. I just don't want to know in advance. It's more realistic (I feel, in space truckers, trucking in space) to feel that anything could happen.

Must be PvP to play here, must be PvE is very, well .. for me it's arcade really. I prefer space sim.



I don't combat log either.

As do most of the guys asking for a co-op mode, as do the Moebius players posts I've read. When there is absolutely no good reason for something happening in a game, it just highlights the fact that it's 'just' a game and destroys any sense of immersion. When a real pirate turns up demanding cargo or insisting you high wake or face consequencies, you get what you're asking for. Most of my personal experience with attacking players has been nonsensical- what in nine hells would motivate anyone to build an A class heavy fighter, replete with the very best combat modifications and waste such a superb machine murdering novice Sidewinder pilots? The only reasonable motivation I can think of is some bully knowing they've upset another player. When my Sidewinder was attacked I didn't feel excited or fearful, I felt bored and saddened. If the gud skillz clubberz had destroyed my ride I could have bought her back again, I fled (with depressing ease) mainly to deprive them of their jollies. If I knew how to combat log I'd have been sorely tempted to...

There definitely shouldn't be anything else detracting people from Open or soon we won't even have any players in there and all that will be left will be instance per player so everybody makes sure they have their own cocoon. Reminds of the SouthPark Safe space....!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

If Open continues to drive people away we have the same choice UO had; offer a co-op mode or lose them forever, risking the game shutting down permanently. It's not about 'safe spaces'- there's no danger in having a well armed wing of 'PvPers' tearing your trader apart just for the lulz, just the knowledge you and they share that they've just cost you something that took weeks of effort to earn. The insurance mechanism takes a lot of the sting out of the experience- thank you, FD!- but it's tedious beyond my ability to describe for the victim. Few players will put up with that for long. Right now they're staying in solo in high risk areas, but as more space games come on the market they might just thin out. Why bother playing a game when a minority are preventing you from enjoying the company of the rest of the community you'd like to spend time with?
 
Is it so much an assumption? Look at the information we've had linked in this thread.

1) UO PvP players lost a lot of interest and their population declined when they lost their 'soft targets'.

2) The majority of pvp servers (a minority of the total servers) in WoW are vastly imbalanced in faction population.

Sounds to me like a lot of PvPers want easy pickings. I mean, that's not survey, but that's a pretty sturdy inference given the info we've got.

You personally might not fit that profile, but you don't know what percentage of pvp players do.

And if you want the friend-or-foe stress, so be it. Use the current open. Nobody is suggesting changing it.

No, people are suggesting frontier has to spend time and effort to make PVE the official game mode. Because by adding it, they are implicitly doing so.

Elite was always billed as an open sandbox (even during Kickstarter). The split is because people believed they would get a single player option in an open world. They even added groups and solo mode for those who don't believe any interaction with a commander would ever include combat.

You have that option. Everyone does. However adding a full, official and supported PVE means they have to manage it, or turn of CMDR vs CMDR damage, and that is the antithesis of an open sandbox game.

I don't believe frontier have the capacity to both develop the game, and act as a Shepard for those whom only wish to shoot at NPCs or pretend the entire universe is full of polite commanders (despite a lot of people in open being pretty decent sorts). I'm sorry but it's too early in development and there are huge bits of work to complete, as well as fixes needed.

We already have single and group play available. This thread exists because some believe Elite: Dangerous was only ever meant to be a PVE experience, and that is a flawed understanding. Attacking people for wanting an Open experience is, frankly, rediculous.

Don't want to ever see another commander? Go solo. Want to see commanders but never actually interact beyond a nice polite hello? Private group.

It is already there. Adding more than that, when so much else is to be done, to me is absolutely cross purposes. Because it doesn't matter how you say it, this is still, literally, a request for PVE to become the defacto.

And I do not believe that was ever what was shown or inferred or stated, way back at the beginning. I was there.
 
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So.. Kofeyh.

Because people want an (officially supported) option (instead of a single player being responsible for managing a 20,000 strong membership list) it means they want to take everything over. Well, that's both paranoid AND a strawman.
 
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As do most of the guys asking for a co-op mode, as do the Moebius players posts I've read. When there is absolutely no good reason for something happening in a game, it just highlights the fact that it's 'just' a game and destroys any sense of immersion. When a real pirate turns up demanding cargo or insisting you high wake or face consequencies, you get what you're asking for. Most of my personal experience with attacking players has been nonsensical- what in nine hells would motivate anyone to build an A class heavy fighter, replete with the very best combat modifications and waste such a superb machine murdering novice Sidewinder pilots? The only reasonable motivation I can think of is some bully knowing they've upset another player. When my Sidewinder was attacked I didn't feel excited or fearful, I felt bored and saddened. If the gud skillz clubberz had destroyed my ride I could have bought her back again, I fled (with depressing ease) mainly to deprive them of their jollies. If I knew how to combat log I'd have been sorely tempted to...


If Open continues to drive people away we have the same choice UO had; offer a co-op mode or lose them forever, risking the game shutting down permanently. It's not about 'safe spaces'- there's no danger in having a well armed wing of 'PvPers' tearing your trader apart just for the lulz, just the knowledge you and they share that they've just cost you something that took weeks of effort to earn. The insurance mechanism takes a lot of the sting out of the experience- thank you, FD!- but it's tedious beyond my ability to describe for the victim. Few players will put up with that for long. Right now they're staying in solo in high risk areas, but as more space games come on the market they might just thin out. Why bother playing a game when a minority are preventing you from enjoying the company of the rest of the community you'd like to spend time with?

Not the point I was making - instead of seperating the game into more groups with more networking issues (like there wasn't enough of issues) they should concentrate on mechanics - Here is a thread about random Kill my friend experienced in Central Power play today and I do propose how it can be fixed. - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=231915, but I'll repost the simple example of clever (yet simple to do event based) mechanics for Justice system could work which would elevate the Power Play to something which is worth playing and will give traders protection in their systems, so the typical random gancking is much less likely to happen.

Example Scenario - Inocenet Power Alligned member is attacked in the Heart of the Powers System by an ally(power he is aligned with):

If the mechanics were working correctly this scenerio would have played something like this:

They attack allied member in home system of the power - The support forces of the Empire arrive rather fast as we are in the central system, so the player receives almost instant support if his beacon/report crimes is on. Based on the reported ships in conflict the correct response is summened. For 3 cutters I would see 3 or so Anacondas appearing. If they run away they get fined and a slap on a wrist with a small merit fine (10-50 merits). If they manage to proceed and kill the ally, they get kicked out of Power and receive a warning pop up that they are classed as traiters and their docking rights have been revoked in the systems of that power as well as Merit Bounty with Cash bounty being placed on their head. They can still dock in a stations if they "sneak in" in the same way one smuggles illegals, but if they get scanned they will be killed on sight. This will give them the feeling of danger they desire, bounty hunters job to do a decent protection to the pilot who was victim of the crime that these acts would be less likely to happen.
Further you are from the home system (frontier) less of the response can you expect. Weaker ships and longer response time. It should also alert all pilots of the given power that their ally is being attacked so again more player interaction is developed.

Honestly these are 101 game mechanics which are far from impossible as they are all event based and event programming is not difficult to do. I develop software, so I know a bit about what I'm talking about. There are no mechanics currently which would evolve the game into a true Multiplayer experience (excluding Wings which sadly still misinstance to this day)

The same example would apply in case they are attacked by a opposing faction or non powerplay player just with slightly different "punishments", but if Powerplay offered you protection and place in the universe the uptake would be much higher, so you resolve 2 issues with one fix.
I could go on and mostly simple event based mechanics would resolve most of the issues people keep crying about (including myself), but just no more seperation of ED Universe or we will all be scanning empty rocks and hoping for some miracle NPC fix which probably won't come considering that after a year the NPCs still rotate on their axles like morons.
 
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No, people are suggesting frontier has to spend time and effort to make PVE the official game mode. Because by adding it, they are implicitly doing so.

What drugs are you smoking? How can you equate adding an option to the main menu with delineating making any mode "the official game mode"

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Not the point I was making - instead of seperating the game into more groups with more networking issues (like there wasn't enough of issues) they should concentrate on mechanics - Here is a thread about random Kill my friend experienced in Central Power play today and I do propose how it can be fixed. - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=231915, but I'll repost the simple example of clever (yet simple to do event based) mechanics for Justice system could work which would elevate the Power Play to something which is worth playing and will give traders protection in their systems, so the typical random gancking is much less likely to happen.

Example Scenario - Inocenet Power Alligned member is attacked in the Heart of the Powers System by an ally(power he is aligned with):

If the mechanics were working correctly this scenerio would have played something like this:

They attack allied member in home system of the power - The support forces of the Empire arrive rather fast as we are in the central system, so the player receives almost instant support if his beacon/report crimes is on. Based on the reported ships in conflict the correct response is summened. For 3 cutters I would see 3 or so Anacondas appearing. If they run away they get fined and a slap on a wrist with a small merit fine (10-50 merits). If they manage to proceed and kill the ally, they get kicked out of Power and receive a warning pop up that they are classed as traiters and their docking rights have been revoked in the systems of that power as well as Merit Bounty with Cash bounty being placed on their head. They can still dock in a stations if they "sneak in" in the same way one smuggles illegals, but if they get scanned they will be killed on sight. This will give them the feeling of danger they desire, bounty hunters job to do a decent protection to the pilot who was victim of the crime that these acts would be less likely to happen.
Further you are from the home system (frontier) less of the response can you expect. Weaker ships and longer response time. It should also alert all pilots of the given power that their ally is being attacked so again more player interaction is developed.

Honestly these are 101 game mechanics which are far from impossible as they are all event based and event programming is not difficult to do. I develop software, so I know a bit about what I'm talking about. There are no mechanics currently which would evolve the game into a true Multiplayer experience (excluding Wings which sadly still misinstance to this day)

The same example would apply in case they are attacked by a opposing faction or non powerplay player just with slightly different "punishments", but if Powerplay offered you protection and place in the universe the uptake would be much higher, so you resolve 2 issues with one fix.
I could go on and mostly simple event based mechanics would resolve most of the issues people keep crying about (including myself), but just no more seperation of ED Universe or we will all be scanning empty rocks and hoping for some miracle NPC fix which probably won't come considering that after a year the NPCs still rotate on their axles like morons.

This might be reasonable if you are affiliated with a power, but what about everyone who isn't into power play, and are not affiliated with a power.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
I voted no simply because I, personally, do not see the merit or necessity for it. By offering an option labelled PvE then you are inferring that all that will happen in the standard Open is PvP, which is not true (well not currently). I play almost exclusively in Open (other than when I have to drop into PG to take Hi-res screenshots) and since Gamma I have been interdicted by another player twice! Once I got away, once I didn't. Open may not be some people's vision of how the game was originally marketed (though I always knew there would be chances to meet and be killed by other players), but it is how the game launched and now over a year later you want FD to change that and hard code a whole load of new rules into the game to make it impossible for players to attack each other? No thanks.
 
What drugs are you smoking? How can you equate adding an option to the main menu with delineating making any mode "the official game mode"

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This might be reasonable if you are affiliated with a power, but what about everyone who isn't into power play, and are not affiliated with a power.

Power play has no meaning at the moment. I mean it is a slow soap opera in space with little effect on the player excluding nonsensical interdictions by NPCs even when in the Heart of the Power which directly links to broken system of Power Play and Justice system- How the heck can a spy get in the center of the Power's systems and their neighbors is beyond me. I could somewhat understand if player managed that using fuel scoops and evasive tactics, but NPCs should not annoy powerplay members in their home systems. It makes no sense. If powerplay was fixed to something that makes half a sense then people would play it and thus take on the benefits.

If you are not alligned to any power you are in effect Neutral so you would get partial benefits based on the systems wealth and security level, but you should not get the same cover as if you are part of a Power. As Power should Back you and should aim to elevate your powers standing.
 
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