(info) First bonus for playing in OPEN under consideration for PP

[Midnight Sun]

If there are not enough PvP players to keep them happy in Open, maybe, just maybe FD should drop that focus for the games development, and maybe, just maybe, ED would be far more successfull and for longer?

I think it's for exactly that reason - more successful and for longer - that they are promoting the PvP aspects. A gaming experience that is satisfying over the long term must rely on the interactions between players rather than npcs. They can tweak the AI and mission generator scripts as much as they like and people will still get bored. Encouraging some emergent gameplay to grow organically seems far more sustainable. And they have the idea that such player interaction will come about most readily in a PvP environment, with alliances and politics and fighting for power. It's almost as if they've looked at the success of another PvP-focused space game... Now if only we had anything substantial to fight for, rather than just a rank on a leaderboard for a nebulous grouping of players who mostly couldn't give a rat's bottom.

 

[Faded Glory]

[snip]
And if you're honest, you've gotta admit that 90% of the angry responses are nothing more than "I dont care about others, I want to do what I want in solo and dont care how that influences other people." Its basically the Eric Cartman defence.

I think part of the issue is that FD are seeing players who normally play Open switching to Solo (or perhaps Group) to do Powerplay, so not entirely sure it's as simple as blaming PvE centric players for this.

Unfortunately, it does seem to indicate a huge divide between the PvP centric and the PvE centric player base.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Some powers seems to be very PvE focused tough, I don't quite understand why Powerplay should be all about PvP when looking at powers like Mahon.

Always tough Powerplay was supposed something where there are diffrent powers that appeal to diffrent playstyle, and not all powers are about the same playstyle.

Activities are not PvP or PvE in and of themselves, context determines that. Lets take trading: If you just AB trade from independent system X to Y, neither of them very important to the majority of us, that is pretty much a PvE activity. There may be some PvP elements in the form of piracy, but a pirate just wants your stuff. He doesnt want to stop you reaching your goal, its just a side effect. Or take combat: you can find a res and grind PvE style as much as you want. You can do it all over the bubble, as much as you want, whenever you want. There will be very few reasons why anyone would want to stop you from doing it. You can do everything you want in PvE.

Thats where powerplay comes in. Powerplay gives a PvP context to all activities: I have a reason to stop you from hauling those vouchers around. I have a reason to stop you from shooting my power's ships in my space. Fianlly, there is a PvP variant of some activities that were primarily PvE. Hurrah! We can chose! If you want to PvE tradegrind, you can! If you want to trade with a contextual PvP element to it, you can! What could possibly go wrong? Oh, right. The community.

Its not just this time, it happens every single time FD does anything whatsoever. Introduce wings? We'll complain its a waste of time because we have no friends playing ED and dont like playing with strangers. Screw those who like wings. New ships get released? We complain they are too cheap, and we only want super-expensive ships. Screw those who dont have billions, or like small ships. Spend a tiny bit of time on exploration? Lets complain we dont personally care about it, and screw those explorers. FD tries to create a little nook in the main game for contextual PvP? Lets destroy it with mindless solo-grinding and 5th C'ing, screw those who want a bit of PvP. FD adds a small arena-mode to the game? Lets complain we dont want it, heck, lets complain we refuse to want to see there is something we'd rather not do. As always, screw everybody else. And now this: Sandro proposes that one part of the reward system, in one specific gameplay mechanism, in one mode, gets a small bonus. Guess what happens.

After reaching a certain age we should slowly start to come to accept we are not the only living human beings alive, nor the only humans of importance. And having five random guys agreeing with us doesnt make us 'the silent majority'. Just because FD doesnt personally ask our blessing every time they sneeze don't mean 'they ignore the community'. Just because FD does something for somebody that is not us doesn't mean 'we are being punished'. Sometimes it's somebody else's birthday, and they get something and we dont. Thats okay, at some point it'll be our birthday, and we'll get something too.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

It isn't.
But since you seem to think it is, I quit that competition. I don't want to "tele bully" someone into something from the safety of my solo mode.
You win. gg

I didnt win. I left my power some days ago. I've already proposed something (a few million pages back) that would split PP into PvP and PvE activites. Another alternative was that both 'open' and 'non-open' activites are capped at some levels. That way the PvE members of each powers can do there thing, and the PvP guys likewise, but noone can dominate anything else just from Solo. I am sure there are many other quick&easy fixes possible that will provide pvp players with their own little playground while keeping room for the PvE guys. But we should start at least with the intention to have this happen, rather than just digging our boots in the sand and digging trenches.

I think part of the issue is that FD are seeing players who normally play Open switching to Solo (or perhaps Group) to do Powerplay, so not entirely sure it's as simple as blaming PvE centric players for this.

Unfortunately, it does seem to indicate a huge divide between the PvP centric and the PvE centric player base.

Oh, true. Pretty sure, for example, that sealclubbers in LHS3447 do their smuggling in Solo.

 

[Faded Glory]

Oh, true. Pretty sure, for example, that sealclubbers in LHS3447 do their smuggling in Solo.

What's it got to do with sealclubbers in LHS3447?

 

[Ian Skippy]

What's it got to do with sealclubbers in LHS3447?

Just another exampkle that jumping to solo is not reserved to PvE players.

 

[Faded Glory]

Just another exampkle that jumping to solo is not reserved to PvE players.

Ok... I'm pretty sure most PvE players don't jump to Solo. I think they're already there. (Or in a Group)

 

[Boomer Kay]

I didnt win. I left my power some days ago. I've already proposed something (a few million pages back) that would split PP into PvP and PvE activites.

Exactly that. But that is not discussed.

Just to add to the "cheesy visualizations":
I like to play chess competitively, you like to box competitively.
For me "competing with other players" revolves around 8x8 checkered squares, for you around boxing gloves.
As good adults, we can both meet at a bar over a beer and bore each other to death with our respective "war stories".

PowerPlay pits Chessplayers against Boxers and thinks they all should be happy. Then they propose to make boxing gloves mandatory, to please the boxing crowd. Chessplayers are unhappy, despite boxing gloves not being *that* much of an issue, but if you ever tried chess with boxing gloves on, you know why it's nothing to frolic about (if you tip over your king, you fold .. try that rochade with mittens )
And yes, in a real life bar fight in a "cutthroat universe" or whatever, such an encounter is not unreasonable. And the chessplayer will be mad when he gets punched in the face and the boxer when the chessplayer calls the cops .. and so on and so forth.
But this is a computergame. You can technically segregate modes and activities at whatever level you like.

Not even real "pew pew PvPers" are probably happy with shooting trading ships. They have their PvP league. They want to be pitted against other people who fight back. And they're working on their rulesets to ensure an "even playing ground" in their context.

 

[tagos]

Or maybe, just maybe, that is a pointless argument? How about: "Obviously people much prefer CoD over Elite's powerplay, so FD should just drop the whole space-stuff and make an FPS shooter." People prefer football games over ED, too! Season 3 should focus on adding more football-related activities: "FD shouldnt force us to do space stuff when I want to do football stuff." Here's this 130+ page topic in summary:

FD: Hey guys, here's a new gameplay thingy for people looking to compete against each other on a huge scale!
PvE guys: Booo! We dont want this! We hate anything to do with competing with other people!
FD: No problem, why dont you just not play Powerplay and do something PvE instead?
PvE guys: Booo! We want every single thing in this game to be about what we want it to be about!
FD: Whatever, fine. But at least we'll give a small bonus to those who play this specific thing the way we intended it to be, including actual risk.
PvE guys: Booo! Thats not fair! You're discriminating against us! We want the same rewards as everyone else!
FD: You get the same rewards, but if you dont want to face the intended risks, you are not going to be helping your team as much.
PvE guys: Booo! We demand to compete with others, whether they want to or not, and they shouldn't be able shoot at us or stop us in any way!
FD: You know, thats not really the game we're trying to make here...
PvE guys: Booo! Who cares about what YOU want anyway, just do what we want and ignore everybody else, including yourself. If you don't, we'll gonna scream FD ignores their users! We'll put it on steam!
FD: ...

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Let me break it to you: none of that will make a difference. You can have a wing of 10 condas and corvettes protecting you, and a wing can kill you in 5 seconds all the same. If your stance is 'somebody else should protect me', you'll not going to be very safe. Ever. You can have repercussions, but you cant prevent the crime from being executed unless you yourself do it. Which is basically what Elite is about: becoming as good a pilot as you can be. Not saying "hey, I can fly from A to B in a straight line, now let everyone else take care of more difficult challenges for me".

Way to miss the point. It's actually quite impressive.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Exactly that. But that is not discussed.

Just to add to the "cheesy visualizations":
I like to play chess competitively, you like to box competitively.
For me "competing with other players" revolves around 8x8 checkered squares, for you around boxing gloves.
As good adults, we can both meet at a bar over a beer and bore each other to death with our respective "war stories".

PowerPlay pits Chessplayers against Boxers and thinks they all should be happy. Then they propose to make boxing gloves mandatory, to please the boxing crowd. Chessplayers are unhappy, despite boxing gloves not being *that* much of an issue, but if you ever tried chess with boxing gloves on, you know why it's nothing to frolic about (if you tip over your king, you fold .. try that rochade with mittens )
And yes, in a real life bar fight in a "cutthroat universe" or whatever, such an encounter is not unreasonable. And the chessplayer will be mad when he gets punched in the face and the boxer when the chessplayer calls the cops .. and so on and so forth.
But this is a computergame. You can technically segregate modes and activities at whatever level you like.

Not even real "pew pew PvPers" are probably happy with shooting trading ships. They have their PvP league. They want to be pitted against other people who fight back. And they're working on their rulesets to ensure an "even playing ground" in their context.

This argument, again, doesn't make sense.

Boxers are just as important as chess players in this case, and chessplayers only get punched in the face if they put on the boxing gloves. But right now boxers aren't important and are not being incentivized despite the need of proportionate equality for a competitive mechanic, hence why boxers are being reimbursed.

Combative PvPers in PP don't shoot at other ships for fun, they are doing it to help their power, destruction is merely, usually the most efficient way to disruption. Chasing a ship out of a system during delivery/undermining has a purpose of its own.

 

[GluttonyFang]

I have very rarely encountered enjoyable PvP in any game. Usually it's just an unequal encounter that stems from no in-game reason other than 'I'm playing a psychopath.'

Cruise around in my Asp and the only attackers are in Pythons. Cruise around in a trader and I'm a sitting duck. PvP is fun for one side of the equation mostly. No amount of bribes compensate for the multi million credit certain loss.

Open mode was a nice idea but it isn't the primary mode. The Primary Mode is whatever an individual player chooses.

Given my choice I'd rather be hearing about improved interdiction mechanics, AI wingmen, AI crew, better escort mechanics, AI tanker refuel ships for escort fighters.

The single biggest thing that would encourage more players into Open would be being able to hire escorts whose AI could seriously challenge player attackers. Supplemented by good Fleet management tools. Put the Dev effort into that.

Until traders can actually defend themselves you won't get players to consider Open to be their primary mode. Tackle that problem and problems like the Power Play issue solve themselves. They are really just symptoms of the fundamental problem that a PVP encounter is almost invariably a No Win No Fun situation for one side or the other.

Primary mode is indeed what a player makes it to be. But when a player has a rational incentive to pick his primary mode as private and solo due to competitive mandates, it's no longer a choice. This doesn't make sense under the competitive scope of PP.

PP commodity delivery isn't the same as trading, of course you expect opposition considering there are powers out there working against you.

If you fly with some escorts, you'll have more of a chance surviving attacks.

Not to mention PP isn't just about delivering, it's also about actual combat.

 

[UnicycleBloke]

If Frontier decides to make certain aspects pay out more in Open than in Solo and Private, I will have no problem taking my business elsewhere. I would also try to get a refund for my purchases, but since that's a little out of the question, I will just chalk it up as a learning expense and I will take my money elsewhere.

+1.

I play Solo exclusively. This has nothing to do with griefers or whatever the term is for those whose idea of fun to destroy the fun of those who are just minding their business. Of course, that would really irritate me, and a solution needs to be found (maybe an option which means you can only attack and be attacked by NPCs - i.e. no PvP damage is possible if so attacked, and none can be dealt. The griefers would soon get bored).

No, the reason is that I always prefer PvE in games. It's me against the sim. Transport Tycoon, whatever, always the same. Call me independent, or call me a nasty old curmudgeonly misanthrope - I won't care. I mean, it's really annoying when a group of NPCs blows me to smithereens, but that's the game. Other players blowing me to smithereens? Not interested. I never do combat logging or try to stack missions or whatever. Never understood why exploits are so attractive. It's like buying a Rubik's cube and immediately learning the solution from a book. What's the point of that? I just want to mind my business and play the game in peace.

I paid a fair price for this game, and have enjoyed it very much. It came with the option to play solo, and that suited me fine. But if FD downgrade my gaming experience/rewards/whatever relative to Open play, I will be exceedingly dischuffed. I may even have to walk across the road to their offices to give them the finger.


CMDR UnicycleBloke

 

[Boomer Kay]

But if FD downgrade my gaming experience/rewards/whatever relative to Open play, I will be exceedingly dischuffed. I may even have to walk across the road to their offices to give them the finger.

Well, that's the point I tried to make some pages ago, and it might be worth repeating.
If you're here for purely the Solo experience (which I am, f.ex.) and not tempted to switch between modes, any changes done to open do not factually affect your gameplay.
It's a percieved imbalance and without mode switching, we have the luxury of completely ignoring what's going on around us and evaluate time investment vs. enjoyment gained purely at face value.

The game on it's own is even better, if you stay away from all the reddits and these boards here and the constant stream of complaits about pretty much nothing.

 

[GilliganTX]

Well, that's the point I tried to make some pages ago, and it might be worth repeating.
If you're here for purely the Solo experience (which I am, f.ex.) and not tempted to switch between modes, any changes done to open do not factually affect your gameplay.
It's a percieved imbalance and without mode switching, we have the luxury of completely ignoring what's going on around us and evaluate time investment vs. enjoyment gained purely at face value.

The game on it's own is even better, if you stay away from all the reddits and these boards here and the constant stream of complaits about pretty much nothing.

If the changes to open's merit garnering potential are significant enough, it would alter the balance of power in PP depending on which powers are able to most effectively take advantage of the buff.

If he's working for power A, and Power B is able to utilize the buff more effectively, for what ever reason, his game-play is effected.





Not by a whole lot, but just pointing out that solo =/= vacuum.

 

[Kantos]

As do I. Incentivising ANYTHING if done in open play vice the private group or solo options directly contradicts, in my opinion, the notion that all 3 play/mode options are equal in status, as planned and promoted from early in development. Fortunately, just because the Devs might investigate it (no harm in doing that) doesn't mean it will ever come to fruition.

In the case of PowerPlay, if someone feels it's not worth the risk playing in open, then there is nothing that forces them to participate in PowerPlay. They can just drop. Doesn't affect any other part of the game.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Or maybe, just maybe, that is a pointless argument? How about: "Obviously people much prefer CoD over Elite's powerplay, so FD should just drop the whole space-stuff and make an FPS shooter." People prefer football games over ED, too! Season 3 should focus on adding more football-related activities: "FD shouldnt force us to do space stuff when I want to do football stuff." Here's this 130+ page topic in summary:

FD: Hey guys, here's a new gameplay thingy for people looking to compete against each other on a huge scale!
PvE guys: Booo! We dont want this! We hate anything to do with competing with other people!
FD: No problem, why dont you just not play Powerplay and do something PvE instead?
PvE guys: Booo! We want every single thing in this game to be about what we want it to be about!
FD: Whatever, fine. But at least we'll give a small bonus to those who play this specific thing the way we intended it to be, including actual risk.
PvE guys: Booo! Thats not fair! You're discriminating against us! We want the same rewards as everyone else!
FD: You get the same rewards, but if you dont want to face the intended risks, you are not going to be helping your team as much.
PvE guys: Booo! We demand to compete with others, whether they want to or not, and they shouldn't be able shoot at us or stop us in any way!
FD: You know, thats not really the game we're trying to make here...
PvE guys: Booo! Who cares about what YOU want anyway, just do what we want and ignore everybody else, including yourself. If you don't, we'll gonna scream FD ignores their users! We'll put it on steam!
FD: ...

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -



Let me break it to you: none of that will make a difference. You can have a wing of 10 condas and corvettes protecting you, and a wing can kill you in 5 seconds all the same. If your stance is 'somebody else should protect me', you'll not going to be very safe. Ever. You can have repercussions, but you cant prevent the crime from being executed unless you yourself do it. Which is basically what Elite is about: becoming as good a pilot as you can be. Not saying "hey, I can fly from A to B in a straight line, now let everyone else take care of more difficult challenges for me".

AFAIK, the changes potentially happening are in PowerPlay only. Not sure why this has blown out of proportion. I haven't read anything from anyone at Frontier that would lead me to believe they are going to make other changes to Open/Solo besides PowerPlay. If I missed something, please point it out to me. Other than that, nobody is forced to participate in PowerPlay no more than nobody is forced to participate in CQC...

 

[GluttonyFang]

AFAIK, the changes potentially happening are in PowerPlay only. Not sure why this has blown out of proportion. I haven't read anything from anyone at Frontier that would lead me to believe they are going to make other changes to Open/Solo besides PowerPlay. If I missed something, please point it out to me. Other than that, nobody is forced to participate in PowerPlay no more than nobody is forced to participate in CQC...

It is blown out of proportion, the change pertains only to PP as Sandro made it explicitly clear. Also, the bonus pertains only to the effect on the Powers, not personal gains/merits.

 

[GluttonyFang]

I play Solo exclusively. This has nothing to do with griefers or whatever the term is for those whose idea of fun to destroy the fun of those who are just minding their business. Of course, that would really irritate me, and a solution needs to be found (maybe an option which means you can only attack and be attacked by NPCs - i.e. no PvP damage is possible if so attacked, and none can be dealt. The griefers would soon get bored).

This argument is again, flawed. You play solo exclusively doesn't mean the game should revolve around solo exclusively. You made a choice not to be bothered by player opposition, nothing is wrong with that, but then nothing is wrong with people asking for compensation when being opposed by players directly in combative PvP in a competitive mechanic.

You aren't championing for fairness, you are disregarding other people's play styles.

No, the reason is that I always prefer PvE in games. It's me against the sim. Transport Tycoon, whatever, always the same. Call me independent, or call me a nasty old curmudgeonly misanthrope - I won't care. I mean, it's really annoying when a group of NPCs blows me to smithereens, but that's the game. Other players blowing me to smithereens? Not interested. I never do combat logging or try to stack missions or whatever. Never understood why exploits are so attractive. It's like buying a Rubik's cube and immediately learning the solution from a book. What's the point of that? I just want to mind my business and play the game in peace.

Nothing is wrong with liking or wanting PvE in games, but if you come to ED and expect catering exclusively to PvE, it's simply wishful thinking as Sandro made it clear that PvP is as integral to the game as PvE.

I paid a fair price for this game, and have enjoyed it very much. It came with the option to play solo, and that suited me fine. But if FD downgrade my gaming experience/rewards/whatever relative to Open play, I will be exceedingly dischuffed. I may even have to walk across the road to their offices to give them the finger.

And the Open players did not pay a fair price?

When there is a rational inventive to betray one's preferred mode of play just to gain even ground in a competitive mechanic, the one that should be compensated is the said type of players. By your thinking, Open play players should have walked across the road to FD's office and gave them the finger a long time ago since PP's implementation, since there's no rational reason for being opposed in Open when private and solo have competitive edge in a competitive mechanic due to the lack of direct player opposition and disruption.

 

[Faded Glory]

It is blown out of proportion, the change pertains only to PP as Sandro made it explicitly clear. Also, the bonus pertains only to the effect on the Powers, not personal gains/merits.

It may be blown out of proportion, sure, and while most of the time Sandro has stated explicitly that the change would only occur in PP, he did at one point say this:

Hello Commander Abil Midena!

The difference between the background simulation and Powerplay is that Powerplay is explicitly designed to be competitive in nature, where Commanders are mechanically pinning their colours to the mast, so to speak.

However, you raise a valid point. In truth, it's impossible to to say with any certainty whether we'd want to push the concept a wider: we'd need to commit to adding it to Powerplay, then see how well it actually played out - that's a lot of bridges to cross.

That may well have been a slip of the pen so to speak, but going from "all modes are equal, there is no right way to play" to suggesting that PP does have a right or preferred mode to play in is already a significant change, and some people might be concerned that if that change can occur, then other changes can occur at a later date that might at this point in time seem to be ruled out.

I suspect that is the main reason it is getting the attention that it is.

 

[GJ51]

It is blown out of proportion, the change pertains only to PP as Sandro made it explicitly clear. Also, the bonus pertains only to the effect on the Powers, not personal gains/merits.

Yes it's "blown out of proportion" - but only if you overlook the fact that this could become the tip of an iceberg that FD created for themselves despite all the pleading early on that the modes be seperated. FD insisted on all modes "being equal" with individual progress and BGS impact being the same regardless of which mode you play in.

Now, they raise the trial balloon to see if the users will tolerate "tweaking" a mode to have more impact to the BGS than another.

Personally I have no confidence that FD will make a cogent or consistent decision as they have demonstrated on many occasions that they reserve the right to do anything they want to regardless of how it undermines their own credibility.

Those who advocate that this "tweak" is fair will be the most vocal when the second time it happens doesn't benefit their own interests.

So it goes...

 

[GluttonyFang]

Yes it's "blown out of proportion" - but only if you overlook the fact that this could become the tip of an iceberg that FD created for themselves despite all the pleading early on that the modes be seperated. FD insisted on all modes "being equal" with individual progress and BGS impact being the same regardless of which mode you play in.

Now, they raise the trial balloon to see if the users will tolerate "tweaking" a mode to have more impact to the BGS than another.

Personally I have no confidence that FD will make a cogent or consistent decision as they have demonstrated on many occasions that they reserve the right to do anything they want to regardless of how it undermines their own credibility.

Those who advocate that this "tweak" is fair will be the most vocal when the second time it happens doesn't benefit their own interests.

So it goes...

Well, if they bring this outside of PP for no good reason they got a yapping puppy against them.

 

[Mohrgan]

Once people set about explaining to Sandro that the colors they have pinned, are pinned to their Minor Faction, how long until the chorus changes their mind? When nudging PP towards open doesn't bring the population shift hoped for, the factors that caused Sandro's new feelings on the subject to change will just continue to push for more. The best bet is to remind FD of all the reasons not to accept that open needs to be preserved, or conserved in the first place.

Other than that, why not offer up the better idea of paying for PP aligned PvP encounters directly? We know from where the perceived imbalance stems from, PvP Combat. It being such a focused notion, why not focus a solution just as finely?