We need multiplayer mechanics that make Elite a game worth to play online

[GilliganTX]

It was, and per FD, it was supposed to be rare and meaningful. They had MUCH higher bounties for crimes originally, but the PvPers abused that and made themselves rich by committing crimes with their friends and killing each other for the bounties of millions of credits. So that got the bounties dropped to silly low levels, thanks PvPers!

Looking at the size of the bubble itself, anyone who thinks PvP is meant to be commonplace, well, they must have studied hard for their IQ test, because very simple math shows that it's impossible for PvP to be commonplace, there's too many systems in the bubble alone for it to be anything but rare, as the odds of even encountering another human being in the bubble are astronomical in the first place. My grandson figured out that on his own when he saw me actually encounter another human being in the bubble one day. 'have you seen anyone else grandpa?' 'not since the last CG I did bud, why?' 'how many systems in the bubble?' 'I'm not sure, 20k maybe, why?'. He sat there a minute, obviously thinking hard, and said 'wow, that many systems, how do you find another player ever?'...a 12 year kid gets it and these adults don't...

Mostly agreed, however, I think it is important to make the distinction between random PvP, which, you are correct, should be mathematically rare and meaningful, vs institutionalized PvP which has been brought into the game via the introduction of player factions (Or really, I should say endorsed, as nothing was stopping player groups from "aligning" to any existing minor factions in game, and RP'ing PvP battles).*


As cool as the latter sounds, I agree that it does not have any major or otherwise important impact on the game, which I can see as disappointing for those who do choose to engage in, and enjoy that style of game play.

Note, I've said nothing about whether or not that style of play should come with greater reward or not (for the record, I'll say it probably should come with some special rewards, but the game shouldn't cater to it either).





*Then again, no guilds, no guild chat, or global chat, says that this type of game play is not endorsed. Then enter power play. Oh lord. Hm. I'm thinking mixed messages? Man, trying to interpret developer intent from game features is tricky. [h=2]Obfuscated, even.[/h]

 

[Kristov]

Talk about pure . Lets try to stay on topic please. The OP is asking for improvements to the game that would help all forms of multiplayer. I agree with that sentiment, and with the request for an increase in depth of the BGS (including an optional purpose for PVP) and of networking functionality. Not sure why that is so controversial?

As for the BGS being currently "deep" well just pure lol at that notion. It is a shallow text change resulting in other shallow text changes. I can currently fly into any system and dock and trade completely unmolested regardless of my allegiance. So what if they swap out the text on restricted goods? So what if the police are now mafia?


If you want to discuss PVP vs PVE go find go one of the thousands of OPEN vs SOLO threads to grind your ancient irrelevant axe. This thread is about the game being functional. And yes that includes PVP. If you don't like PVP, go do something else. How hard is that?

Excuse me? WHO said we have NO impact on the galaxy at all? That would be you, and just because YOU don't see how that actually works means your thoughts on the subject are probably pretty much off target, since you don't even realize it works in the first place. And who exactly are you pledged too? I was pledged to Arissa, I got attacked quite often when I was, players and NPCs both, so where exactly are you playing that you don't get attacked while pledged to a PP faction?

And there's no axe to grind here Ziljan, the game is what it is, it is what David Braben offered up in the KS, it's what is advertised on the website, an online multiplayer game in a 1:1 representation of the Milky Way where the multiplayer was actually offered up as coop, not PvP, the links are here in the thread, go read them, see for yourself.

 

[xondk]

i wish ED would have gone full-on MMO like Guild Wars 2, but oh well

It hasn't? or in what aspect do you mean? it is a gigantic living world played with other players? (if you play open)

As for the BGS being currently "deep" well just pure lol at that notion. It is a shallow text change resulting in other shallow text changes. I can currently fly into any system and dock and trade completely unmolested regardless of my allegiance. So what if they swap out the text on restricted goods? So what if the police are now mafia?

Ok lets try to clear up what BGS can do.

- Minor factions can lose/gain stations. Wars and whatnot.
- State and health of minor faction can be affected, including economy and whatnot, and note trading is a big part of this and can affect a lot.

While 'two' subjects cover the significant part of what the BGS does it also significantly affects what missions and what goes on in the system.

With as many systems there are and as many possible ways it can go, that seems pretty deep, the 'rewards' may seem shallow to some, which is fine and always will be like that, if you don't actually feel the need to support your faction. Because it isn't 'you' that get a bigger ship or more power..

So my question would be, what would you be able to do in the BGS that would make it 'deep' to you?
And yes i will grant you that economy interlinking is still missing, meaning npc's don't actually go from one system to another sell/buying and affecting the markets and in turn what happens in those systems, but other then that, what 'more' is it you are expecting from it?
And yes it isn't perfect or flawless by any stretch of the work, and still need a lot of tweaking, but those two major things mentioned above 'are' quite deep in my opinion.

 

[GilliganTX]

Probably because he starts by saying the lead dev doesnt know what he's talking about, and openly says the opinions of others is invalid if it is not his. It tends to make people annoyed.

Yep. Unfortunately a lot of could-be-good-conversation-topics get mired in mud slinging instigated by aggressive rhetoric.

 

[Scoopy Doopy]

This is correct. However..



This is also correct, and is, IMO, the reason for the massive, massive disconnect in the primarily PvE player base, and the more PvP open and oriented players.

It was advertised as two things at odds with one another. It was advertised as an homage to the original elite, with an MMO experience (at least by my rose-colored remembrance. Observer bias being what it is...)I'm not saying they're mutually exclusive, just that the extreme ends of each spectrum are at odds with one another.


Short sighted mistake by FD? Maybe.



I lol'd. Rep.

I am really looking forward to Star Citizen because I am hopeful that when that comes out, Elite Dangerous will be able to go back to focusing on what made it great rather than on just shooting things with your mates (which is incredibly tedious ,for me at least). Never the less, I have to agree with this post. Pretty much any picture or video you see of Elite Dangerous has loads of ships shooting at each other. The new Arena being mentioned as an introduction and perhaps a bridge to the main game gives completely the wrong impression of what ED is about.

If someone were looking for flying around in ships shooting at things I can't help thinking that unless they actually read a professional review, they would think ED looks like a hell of a good place to do that. Hell, even every picture currently on the launcher screen has pictures of ships shooting at things and every one of the season updates for this year has the word "weapons" in it.

 

[Ziljan]

Yep. Unfortunately a lot of could-be-good-conversation-topics get mired in mud slinging instigated by aggressive rhetoric.

This is true and very likely due to the nervous reaction and hallucinating that happens any time the word PVP is uttered in a thread.


The OP said that the PVP feedback for CQC was that it was separate from the game and that made it unattractive. That's a pretty accurate assessment. Most people said it was


1). Fun but irrelevant to the main game
2). A pointless waste of dev resources on PVP that "no one" asked for
3). Unfun because we couldn't use our real ships

The PVP crowd seemed to think it was a combo of 1 and 3. Meanwhile the PVE crowd was somewhere between 1 and 2, mostly 2.

Now in this thread, the OP makes a general statement saying CQC is both 1 and 3, which is an entirely accurate remembering of the PVP crowd sentiment. And like clockwork, PVE bloodhounds somehow translating this innocuous request into "PVP veterans want to force PVE people to play PVP"?? I laugh every time I read these threads because the amount of interpolating and torturing text into a phantom enemy is hilarious.

Hardly anyone cares what the OP actually had to say because he included 3 little letters "PVP" therefore he is the enemy of fun. And some of you guys won't rest until he taunted into being banned and the thread is locked, even though the cornerstone of his request was to improve the netcode, lol. Well enjoy your pointless self destructive witch hunt. I'll go grab my popcorn.

 

[Soulstain]

You seem to be unaware that David Braben said "pvp should be rare and meaningful".

oops I see I was ninja'd

 

[Ziljan]

You seem to be unaware that David Braben said "pvp should be rare and meaningful".

Well they have the "rare" part down to a science. I guess that "meaningful" part got lost in the mail?


The OP should have requested "return receipt" I guess.

 

[GilliganTX]

This is true and very likely due to the nervous reaction and hallucinating that happens any time the word PVP is uttered in a thread.


The OP said that the PVP feedback for CQC was that it was separate from the game and that made it unattractive. That's a pretty accurate assessment. Most people said it was


1). Fun but irrelevant to the main game
2). A pointless waste of dev resources on PVP that "no one" asked for
3). Unfun because we couldn't use our real ships

The PVP crowd seemed to think it was a combo of 1 and 3. Meanwhile the PVE crowd was somewhere between 1 and 2, mostly 2.

Now in this thread, the OP makes a general statement saying CQC is both 1 and 3, which is an entirely accurate remembering of the PVP crowd sentiment. And like clockwork, PVE bloodhounds somehow translating this innocuous request into "PVP veterans want to force PVE people to play PVP"?? I laugh every time I read these threads because the amount of interpolating and torturing text into a phantom enemy is hilarious.

Hardly anyone cares what the OP actually had to say because he included 3 little letters "PVP" therefore he is the enemy of fun. And some of you guys won't rest until he taunted into being banned and the thread is locked, even though the cornerstone of his request was to improve the netcode, lol. Well enjoy your pointless self destructive witch hunt. I'll go grab my popcorn.

A similar phenomena occurs anytime someone mentions "Jump range," or "grind," or "depth" as well.

 

[Kristov]

This is true and very likely due to the nervous reaction and hallucinating that happens any time the word PVP is uttered in a thread.


The OP said that the PVP feedback for CQC was that it was separate from the game and that made it unattractive. That's a pretty accurate assessment. Most people said it was


1). Fun but irrelevant to the main game
2). A pointless waste of dev resources on PVP that "no one" asked for
3). Unfun because we couldn't use our real ships

The PVP crowd seemed to think it was a combo of 1 and 3. Meanwhile the PVE crowd was somewhere between 1 and 2, mostly 2.

Now in this thread, the OP makes a general statement saying CQC is both 1 and 3, which is an entirely accurate remembering of the PVP crowd sentiment. And like clockwork, PVE bloodhounds somehow translating this innocuous request into "PVP veterans want to force PVE people to play PVP"?? I laugh every time I read these threads because the amount of interpolating and torturing text into a phantom enemy is hilarious.

Hardly anyone cares what the OP actually had to say because he included 3 little letters "PVP" therefore he is the enemy of fun. And some of you guys won't rest until he taunted into being banned and the thread is locked, even though the cornerstone of his request was to improve the netcode, lol. Well enjoy your pointless self destructive witch hunt. I'll go grab my popcorn.

You are correct Ziljan, some people didn't read what the OP said, you being one of them. Read the REST of his posts, he's pretty clear, PvP needs to be the focus of the game, not just something that's able to happen, not something set aside in Arena/CQC, but the focus of the game, it's the ONLY way emergent gameplay happens, it's what multiplayer is ALL about, without PvP being the focus, it's not multiplayer, there's no emergent gameplay, and anyone who disagrees with him should shut up.

THAT is what we're responding to, someone who has mistaken Elite Dangerous for CoD in spaceships and only thinks of multiplayer AS PvP, it can't exist otherwise. I also responded to you saying we have no impact on the galaxy, when we do, a lot of impact as it happens, even if you don't see it. You also try to insist that PvP needs to be more prominent, it's supposed to be, despite the exact opposite being true. PvP is allowed to happen, that's it, it's not the focus, it never was meant to be the focus, and it's not even mentioned in the KS proposal, at all, so obviously you got it wrong. Why, not sure, combat being part of Elite, yes, that's in the KS, but it's not PvP combat, it's player vs NPC combat, the multiplayer is clearly stated as being coop in the KS proposal, not PvP. Adverts showing combat, well, yes, that's flashy, it gets attention, but I don't players fighting other players in the adverts, EXCEPT for CQC adverts, which is only about PvP. Clearly David and FD are trying to make it clear to all the people who still don't get it that PvP isn't meant to be a big part of the main game, they made a separate mini-game for PvP no less, how much more clear can it be?

 

[Crook]

PVP with combat ship against combat ship is fine, but against traders? There's no countermeasure. It just needs re thinking, and it can be done.

 

[Ziljan]

Read the REST of his posts, he's pretty clear, PvP needs to be the focus of the

Please use his actual quotes to demonstrate your point. Otherwise I will assume you are hallucinating.

 

[ellobo29]

I agree rhymerhyme, but unfortunately this game does not market to the pvp crowd.

It's like HEY! we got this awesome space game where u can do stuff.... oh and just for the heck of it you can also pvp... but never mind about that!

Most players here just want to play in open/close without the interference of other players and that makes me sad. PVP for E is a after thought, and besides in a peer to peer network system it's a nightmare to balance. Hence why they will never support it.... I just accepted that this game will never have any meaningful pvp along time ago.

 

[Kristov]

Please use his actual quotes to demonstrate your point. Otherwise I will assume you are hallucinating.

Like I said, you didn't read his posts....you should you know....

 

[GilliganTX]

Something something, two parts to every message...

 

[Ziljan]

Like I said, you didn't read his posts....you should you know....

I've read every post in this thread, except yours because you usually don't provide evidence. No offense. But as soon as you start arguing with facts, I will start reading your posts again. Pinky swear!

 

[Rezri]

I usually stay out of the argument of PVP vs PVE on these forums. Too much vitriol for me, but I guess I'm finally gonna weigh in here. Without pointing fingers, because I lack the number of them required, the nonsense of "what FD/Braben sold this game for" and "what FD/Braben intended" without providing any facts at all or providing first-hand knowledge must stop. Sadly it won't. There will always be another champion to step up and throw off a passionate post (perhaps a misguided passion) that comes across as a rage post to someone else reading.

That said, I've done both. Massive carnage in PVP for months in the early days of the game. These days, I spend my time running a smaller 250-ish member private PVE group. I enjoyed my time in both. But I lost the rush PVP gave me. Just my experience.

To get to the point, a little google search is all that was required to pull up a quote of what was intended. I respect David Braben in his regard for being exceptionally candid. He's no different in person, either. If you have a question, he will answer it best he can, as he's done it in the past. Interview here from March 2014:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-03-07-if-elite-were-on-console-there-would-be-an-expectation-the-game-would-be-dumbed-down

Just one snippet and quoted (bold added for emphasis) from that article:

Spoiler

So it's still Elite, allowing you to plot your own journey through the ranks from 'Harmless' upwards, and it's bringing with it a wider, connected world that allows you to share your experiences with others. "What we try to do, and what I think works best in games, is where there's player co-operation," explains Braben. "That's the richest thing. One of the things you'll see in the alpha is the majority of ships you encounter are not human - they're run by the game. And that's because we want the experience of being a pirate to not be about killing players, because for the person being killed that's not necessarily a good experience.

"We've structured the rules - we have this thing called the Pilot's Federation, where all player characters are members. That's how, from a game point of view, how we distinguish between what are AI pilots and human pilots. And they respond much more aggressively by putting bounties on your head if you kill their own members. So a player killer will attract a bounty very, very quickly. And then becomes fair game to other players - because once you've got a bounty it's okay to kill another player. That should be self-balancing. Obviously we'll tune the levels, and we will get player/player kills, but we're hoping it'll be a much more rare event."

I doubt I'll pitch in much more to this, because the horse is dead, dusted, become one with the planet, existed as atoms as the planet was wiped out, coalesced with other matter into the heart of a star, and released during the supernova that eventually followed. They are working on an area of the game dedicated to PVP. It's been announced for less than a day. Let's not freak out and rage just yet, shall we? Can we wait for a bit of more news on it to come to light, perhaps some further enchancement to it? Maybe play it a bit and offer feedback on it?

Edit: fixed broken sentence in first paragraph.

 

[CMDR Dumbfries]

This problem will eventually fix itself when hardly anyone bothers with Arena. They will either add real mmo/multi-player tools to the base game, or people will simply stop playing and buying expansions.

 

[Ziljan]

To get to the point, a little google search is all that was required to pull up a quote of what was intended. I respect David Braben in his regard for being exceptionally candid. He's no different in person, either. If you have a question, he will answer it best he can, as he's done it in the past. Interview here from March 2014:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-an-expectation-the-game-would-be-dumbed-down

Just one snippet and quoted (bold added for emphasis) from that article:

Spoiler

So it's still Elite, allowing you to plot your own journey through the ranks from 'Harmless' upwards, and it's bringing with it a wider, connected world that allows you to share your experiences with others. "What we try to do, and what I think works best in games, is where there's player co-operation," explains Braben. "That's the richest thing. One of the things you'll see in the alpha is the majority of ships you encounter are not human - they're run by the game. And that's because we want the experience of being a pirate to not be about killing players, because for the person being killed that's not necessarily a good experience.

"We've structured the rules - we have this thing called the Pilot's Federation, where all player characters are members. That's how, from a game point of view, how we distinguish between what are AI pilots and human pilots. And they respond much more aggressively by putting bounties on your head if you kill their own members. So a player killer will attract a bounty very, very quickly. And then becomes fair game to other players - because once you've got a bounty it's okay to kill another player. That should be self-balancing. Obviously we'll tune the levels, and we will get player/player kills, but we're hoping it'll be a much more rare event."

Well this quote assumes that the PVP fights are between pirates and traders. It also claims that PVP kills would result in more penalties. However, the reality is quite the opposite. Most fighting is between soldier and mercenary groups. A small fraction of the PVP fighting that happens is ganking, but it gets over-reported on the forums for obvious reasons. Outside of this, very little pirate vs trader pvp action happens except during CGs. And this is because there actually a direct incentive to do so. Steal goods from a trader and turn it in for CG credit. It's also because people know there will be targets available.

However, there is no similar direct incentive for soldiers from one group to fight soldiers another group. Nor do pvp players have a systematic way of finding each other outside of CQC or role playing groups. It really wouldn't be that hard to create a functioning sector for PVP activity:

Have a CG were players get normal credit for kills in a combat zone from their major faction (or galactic power). But instead of the normal CG where the location is deep inside one territory. Have the CG be located in a neutral location that is equally close to each opposing side. Or maybe a little closer to the side with few numbers. Maybe even have the CG be OPEN only. And have a simultaneous PVE CG which is available to both Open or Solo where people can bring "supplies" to the same system. The more supplies are delivered, the better equipped and higher rank the combat zone NPCs will become.​

 

[Cargobane]

We need Core mechanics that make Elite a game worth playing. Multiplayer and 'online' can come after that, or as a natural by-product.