Not incorrect, but again, I find that open is where the game shines where everything can happen. Personally I believe that getting a good and solid crime/punishment/consequences system build into the game that makes lore wise sense (for example high security having...high security) could make people return to open, because people that grief would eventually not be able to easily be in the systems they would want to cause grief in, their own actions would get them excluded. Though yes I know a lot of games are seemingly afraid of punishing players, so there's little reason to believe that Elite would be different on that part, though I hope it will be and think it will be from what Elite has shown me so far, but yeah I can definitely understand people going "Just give us a PvE mode"
Should there be an 'Open' Player Vs Environment Option on the Login Screen
- Thread starter excalibus
- Start date
Griefers / gankers will be there ad mortem defecatam, no matter the crime and punishment system, because for them being fined / having bounty on their head is not a problem. Being destroyed by other ships (PC or NPC ones) is not a problem. They do not need a high end combat ship to hunt down small vessels typically used by new players (Sidewinder, Adder, Hauler). They don't need a high end combat ships to hunt down heavier trading vessels (T6 or T7). Viper (c.a. 150k) with default loadout is more than enough for that. Give me T6 in a good area and 30 minutes and I can get 5-10 Vipers or 5 Cobras, and just self destruct each of them without rebuying. Which means that with insurance I will be able to afford to burn through many, many more ships. What's more, I can keep separate, spanking clean account as the piggy bank, and another one, not so clean, for griefing. If I have more funds and some better combat ship at my disposal, it's just easier and quicker to take down either weak opponents or unsuspecting targets in PVE only private group without taking too much damage (if any) myself... Kill, refuel / reload, kill again. Bounties are cheap, ammo is cheap, fuel is cheap. If bounties get higher, I can happily use them with a few buddies to print credits for griefing.
There are other PVP options out there (CZ, CQC for example) where players can test their skills against other players. But the essence of griefing is not testing your skills against other players, it is causing as much damage and chaos as possible to other players and show how helpless FD, support and community are when it comes to tackling the problem. Somebody reports me as a griefer? Well, killing players is part of the game, isn't it? It's a cutthroat galaxy which allows me to attack other vessels wherever and whenever I wish to do so, I'm not doing anything against the rules, I'm not breaking EULA and it's not that easy to punish me for being an a***hole.
Besides I can find several reasons to excuse myself, blame the victim and get out of trouble quickly. In short, griefing is a personality issue, not a function of the game design.
Frontier would have to very precisely define what behaviour is allowed in this game (and they are not going to do that, after all they advertise it as a game where you choose the way you play yourself) and permaban everybody who breaks the rules (which I think they won't do). Or make sure they offer an option where no PVP is allowed without explicit consent of both sides. Otherwise this issue will be coming back to them and cost them time and money.
As for players who do not play in Open, you can forget that changes to the crime and punishment systems will bring them back to open. Players choose to stay in Solo or go to private PVE groups mostly because they have preference for those game modes / gameplay styles. I'll give you an example: you can offer somebody the best single malt, if they don't drink alcohol on principle, they are not going to be interested in how log it was sitting in a barrel and how amazing it is. Or: if somebody likes jazz only, you do not force them to listen to R&B. The Open mode is there. If anyone wants to play in Open, they will do so.
That is precisely why people who have experience developing multiplayer games with PVE gameplay pay attention to separating PVP and PVE in one or another way. By having separate PVP instances, by making sure that players of higher level can't attack players of lower level. Because bringing PVP and PVE gameplay in one place is simply never going to work, no matter how fair and just the mechanics systems in place are.
Basically I posted a "fix" idea that would solve this in "open mode" and made Mobius sort of obsolete...
Add a "CONSENT" (on/off) option.
It can be turned ON at any time, and allows basic 'open' as it is now.
At a station is the only way to turn it off while playing (or main menu when not playing)
- When it is OFF, all damage to you from other players is reduced to 0. There will be some indication a player is "CONSENT OFF" to other players.
And bingo... "open world PvE"
Note that NPC will react to you shooting at a "CONSENT OFF" player and offer bounty for attacking a neutral party.
EDIT: This is now also in the Suggestions sections.
Add a "CONSENT" (on/off) option.
It can be turned ON at any time, and allows basic 'open' as it is now.
At a station is the only way to turn it off while playing (or main menu when not playing)
- When it is OFF, all damage to you from other players is reduced to 0. There will be some indication a player is "CONSENT OFF" to other players.
And bingo... "open world PvE"
Note that NPC will react to you shooting at a "CONSENT OFF" player and offer bounty for attacking a neutral party.
EDIT: This is now also in the Suggestions sections.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Mixing players with damage on and players with damage off would be likely to be exploitable - and would probably cause friction (animosity, name-calling) between players with different flag settings.
Many MMO use it (WoW comes to mind)... certainly a well know way of dealing with and NOT new.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
From what I understand, WoW has separate PvP and PvE servers.
True, I am attempting to not run up the bills at FD. If the controls over a person being on or off is controlled by FD it is no different than now... It's a 1 bit switch... Now... name calling because a person is in PVE I can see it an issue. It is amazing how people feel the game MUST be only 1 way because THEY want it rather than sharing the universe together and adjusting at need so we can all be together in the game.... No wonder there are so many wars in the world right now.
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In Wow, you have seperate PvP and PvE servers plus, on PvE servers you can purposefully turn on a PvP Flag, and become open to fights. It's up to the individual players. If you attack a 'flagged' player, you are now flagged for at least 5 mins.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The servers in this game serve all players - regardless of game mode or platform. A PvP mode or PvE mode would simply be different settings on the matchmaking system as to which players could be matched together, i.e. only those playing in the same mode. Well, the PvE mode would need some different rules for damage, etc..
All players sharing the galaxy together brings players with diametrically opposed play-styles into conflict (or, more simply, provides prey for the players who prefer to attack players). Yes, some player thrive on this - no, not all players thrive on this.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Sounds rife for flying between a player in combat with an NPC and said NPC to trigger the PvP flag to on....
This WHOLE issue is just BECAUSE of those that thrive on it. It wouldn't be an issue otherwise.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Not necessarily. There are those who do not actively seek PvP but accept it as a risk in Open and relish engaging in it / avoiding it as the case may be.
So, you think Solo shouldn't exist? I can't be attacked by other players there. FD already have a mode where you can't be attacked by other players, and two (three if you count CQC) where you can. I don't understand why it shouldn't be balanced, an open mode for PvP an open mode for PvE, PGs that can be either, CQC for PvP and Solo for PvE.
Yep. FD already has a fairly elegant mechanism to cater to both crowds. A single unified world with a single unified code base. The only difference between Open and Solo/Private is the netcode. There's no weird ruleset and code deltas to throw rocks at. Adding a dedicated PVE mode won't please all of the open PVE crowd because they can't even agree on what it should look like. To top it off it adds an immense coding load because now you have to consider balance issue for weapons, weird edge cases (like your example) and you can no longer point to a unified code base. To top it off the folks in this hypothetical open PvE server don't share common goals, some will be Empire and some will be Federation or Alliance, I guarantee you some will resort to griefing to counteract presumed BGS losses, which of course they can't respond to because it's PVE.
If it hadn't been for Mobius growing to 20,000 people then there'd be 1000's more private groups ranging from 10's of people to 100's all of whom could tailor their play styles to a verbally agreed upon rule set in a private setting.
I don't really understand the desire to be in a group of 100,000 the vast majority of whom you will never interact with in exchange for a rule set that doesn't cater to you 100% vs being in a group of 10 to a few 100 most of whom you share a common goal (BGS and in game locale) and ruleset philosophy with.
And before somebody pops in and points that same could be said about Open PvP the difference there is real life humans make the rules, not some edge case laden chunk of code. Humans can figure out intent. I can tell when somebody slips in front of me to get me flagged and I can respond. In a PvE server there is no way for the server to tell.
All they really need to do is add some decent sortable/searchable private group management tools and let folks create and grow groups however they see fit. That's a much better use of effort and doesn't create game engine differences.
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erm....
Not sure where you got that, when they themselves constantly reinforced the idea of personal choice on how each person plays the game.
From the Kickstarter;
*And the best part - you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours...*
*you will be able to control who else you might encounter in your game – perhaps limit it to just your friends? Cooperate on adventures or chase your friends down to get that booty. The game will work in a seamless, lobby-less way, with the ability to rendezvous with friends
*Play it your way*
*Your reputation is affected by your personal choices. Play the game your way: dangerous pirate, famous explorer or notorious assassin - the choice is yours to make. Take on missions and affect the world around you, alone or with your friends.*
*You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) *
*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,*
To highlight something from that above quote;
“You should do what makes you excited. I don’t want there to be a ‘right’ way, because then you’re not necessarily playing the way you want to play." <- By David Braben
The full run down of FD information on modes / mode switching is here;
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=216887&p=3310329&viewfull=1#post3310329
Frontier want us to enjoy the game how we personally want to enjoy it - and if that means not being attacked by another player - then FD support that.
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Acceptance I see as a neutral party. They don't seek out player JUST to be difficult... I have several related stories, one was pretty traumatic, related to ED. A plan NEEDS to be adapted to make it a option to players if they want or don't want to have the PvP universe. It's very clear to all of us. So rather than say "It won't work" or "I don't like it" or "The players will hate it" debate how to improve the suggestions, come up with your own for ALL players... not just your own idea of what YOU want but rather what works for pretty much all players (and I can see a dozen players saying.. Most, ok, all go PVP, you are not all, that is NOT a all answer... don't be stupid just because you can be). Show some creativity on FIXING the issue rather than shooting it down.
There is no "issue" with PVP gameplay being available in current Open. Suggestion is to create an Open PVE mode (presumably with some PVP gameplay elements remaining in this mode) instead of current PVE private groups, such as Mobius groups. So effectively, making Mobius groups public, with hard coded invulnerability to player dealt damage in some circumstances. There is an issue with certain players, being a minority of the player base, who fly in Open and grief other players or force their gameplay choices on members of a private group who accepted this group as PVE with PVP being limited to certain situations. So the purpose of the poll is to check if there is a demand for such a solution (and it shows there is).
There's a demand as long as it's hypothetical. But reading through the posts the people who voted yes don't really agree on the details of what they're voting yes to (while the no vote is pretty absolute).
I'm genuinely curious, assuming they created such a ruleset but certain forms of griefing were still quite possible because they're effectively impossible to stop (kill stealing, ramming, pad blocking, mission killing via scanning etc). Would you rather play on that server set with 100,000 random people who have their own motives and goals (which may well include disrupting your game play) or a private server with 100 some odd people that agreed to do none of those things or be kicked that all shared a common BGS type goal while still competing with the 100,000 because it's a shared universe.
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Reluctant but here we go.
I have tried to read the walls of threads and posts on this subject - that in and of itself should get me some type of reward. This is just my opinion so take it as such. I like to PvP on occasion however, I do not set in Eravate with my FDL and blow up Freewinders, I do not like to blow up Type 6 traders in my Cobra or Clipper as that action is not PvP in my opinion. I do enjoy the rare FDL on FDS action or the rare Python on Vulture action that being said it is rare and fun. In short I do not like to force others into defending themselves if that is simply what they choose not to do, Open is not CQC or Arena and I truly think too many CMDR's treat it as such, again my opinion.
I know for fact that if you search my post history you will see several instances of myself giving advice to others that do not like to PvP to hit up Mobius. As a PvP player I would feel disingenuous suggesting that course of action only to have those people engaged in such a way as to force PvP on them, outside of how they would like to experience and spend their time and $$$ within the game, that is my perception after reading the walls of text. <-- See what I did there....
I have to this point not seen, outside of opinion or emotion a base of fact anything from a PvP perspective that would keep me from backing an Open PvE instance of this game. I do not have a problem with Open PvE with mechanics in place to turn off "CMDR Damage". I am smart enough to realize that the technical aspect of making this happen may not be as straight forward and may take some time. I am just not sure what the problem is with having Open PvP and Open PvE outside of figuring out the mechanics.
I tried and just my $.02 from a PvP perspective.
*** As posted on another thread by accident.
I have tried to read the walls of threads and posts on this subject - that in and of itself should get me some type of reward. This is just my opinion so take it as such. I like to PvP on occasion however, I do not set in Eravate with my FDL and blow up Freewinders, I do not like to blow up Type 6 traders in my Cobra or Clipper as that action is not PvP in my opinion. I do enjoy the rare FDL on FDS action or the rare Python on Vulture action that being said it is rare and fun. In short I do not like to force others into defending themselves if that is simply what they choose not to do, Open is not CQC or Arena and I truly think too many CMDR's treat it as such, again my opinion.
I know for fact that if you search my post history you will see several instances of myself giving advice to others that do not like to PvP to hit up Mobius. As a PvP player I would feel disingenuous suggesting that course of action only to have those people engaged in such a way as to force PvP on them, outside of how they would like to experience and spend their time and $$$ within the game, that is my perception after reading the walls of text. <-- See what I did there....
I have to this point not seen, outside of opinion or emotion a base of fact anything from a PvP perspective that would keep me from backing an Open PvE instance of this game. I do not have a problem with Open PvE with mechanics in place to turn off "CMDR Damage". I am smart enough to realize that the technical aspect of making this happen may not be as straight forward and may take some time. I am just not sure what the problem is with having Open PvP and Open PvE outside of figuring out the mechanics.
I tried and just my $.02 from a PvP perspective.
*** As posted on another thread by accident.
The OP suggested what such Open PVP should look like and so have other people posting throughout this thread, precisely enough. Either PVP being allowed in certain situations / areas or being disabled whatsoever. Since I've seen all (currently 87) pages of this thread, it seems that the general consensus of players voting yes is the first option (PVP limited in one or another way). Also, people playing in Mobius groups accepted this sort of ruleset as it's what the ruleset for Mobius group says.
People who vote no are split into two main categories: 1. People who would like to see changes to either group system or various griefing prevention systems, crime & punishment systems etc. being improved in current Open 2. People who think it's best to force PVE players into a mode they are not interested in.
The desire for Open PVE is simple: private groups do not provide environment required. Either due to lack of group management tools, technical issues and limitations or due to being infiltrated by players who do not abide by group rules.
If it hadn't been for Mobius, there would be another private PVE group with 20000 people. It grew up so much because there is clearly a demand for this sort of environment. Some people, and quite a few of them, like multiplayer games with many other players. ED is providing this sort of environment already, but with badly implemented solutions for PVP and PVE coexisting in it - it caters to the need of PVP enthusiasts, but not the PVE players. Hence the suggestion of something that would cater to the needs of PVE players who would like to play ED more like an MMO.
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