I do hope Season 2 helps Piracy - Today's experience just confirms to me it doesn't work very well...

[Necronaught]

Implement trading bonuses for Open play. Then increase dividends so you get 100 - 400% depending on how many people you have in a wing. I would imagine Open would get flooded with players. Just make it so losing your ship doesn't equate to a wasted gaming session.

Many times, when I could only play an hour a day, when I was starting out, did I get blown up for no reason on the Diso to Coquim rare run. A session lost with no progress. The same might happen a few days later and each time you feel less and less inclined to play in open.

It's all well and good saying how you always play open when you have hundreds of millions of credits and several wing mates to back you up. Many players tend to play alone and become prey to the millennial plague of morally stunted acne sufferers.

 

[ronnie-kane]

...and several wing mates to back you up ...

This is a big part of it. When you *need* to have friends online to survive an encounter (I've seen the cutter wings at CGs) then solo looks much more appealing.
Hell, just add player distress calls that show up for a few systems around - there's always some do-gooder looking for a fight. Sometimes it's me

I would be well motivated to fly my T9 in Open if it meant I could draw on that kind of support against CMDRs and NPCs alike.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Hell, just add player distress calls that show up for a few systems around - there's always some do-gooder looking for a fight. Sometimes it's me

Introducing such a feature would very probably be of no benefit to those being attacked - the fight would be over by the time any support arrived in the same system, much less the same normal space instance - the super-cruise time to get to the scene alone would probably be too long for any support to be effective.

 

[Comrade Error]

But, all you'll do is let them make bigger profits in Solo.
Not a solution.
And yeah, saw what you did there earlier.

It was a joke.

Secondly again get the context. This was in the context of how to keep traders trading if there were no solo.

 

[Boomer Kay]

It was a joke.

Secondly again get the context. This was in the context of how to keep traders trading if there were no solo.

And that's the second stupid thing about the idea to make open world asymmetric PvP games.
You can never really balance the playstyles. If you compensate traders better, they will just feel an even greater loss, since they could have made twice the profit.
If you push the PvP player and the pve player into hybrid modes, where they both have to mix trade and combat to stay viable, they're probably both equally unhappy.
You can try to e n courage guild's and cartels, but then the larger group always has the advantage (that's why CS, TF and the like have even teams).

The split in modes is a new attempt to keep things in balance. Haven't really seen that before in such a way .. uo had freeshards with their own rulesets but they're not in the interest of the game developer, who're pretty protective against reverse engineering and such.

 

[Vorthax]

Well, you could balance playstyles - 100% insurance including cargo in case of PvP action.
Only thing a trader/explorer would lose is a bit of time. Pirates would get more prey. PvP players would interact more and fight to the bitter end. No more CLing - no reason for that.

 

[Ozram]

Well, you could balance playstyles - 100% insurance including cargo in case of PvP action.
Only thing a trader/explorer would lose is a bit of time. Pirates would get more prey. PvP players would interact more and fight to the bitter end. No more CLing - no reason for that.

That is a... Joke?

 

[Comrade Error]

That is a... Joke?

And yet I'm so desperate that I would take a joke for a solution.

 

[mistohise]

Well, you could balance playstyles - 100% insurance including cargo in case of PvP action.
Only thing a trader/explorer would lose is a bit of time. Pirates would get more prey. PvP players would interact more and fight to the bitter end. No more CLing - no reason for that.

Ahh yes, I'm so up for "losing a bit of time" in order to be someone else's prey. Tell me more about how that improves my game...

 

[Kristov]

You aren't going to come up with a way to make PvE players want to be PvP player's victims, it's just not going to happen, so you guys can stop trying. Remove all death penalties and they are still out their time for an encounter they didn't want in the first place. Trading is already the quickest way to make credits, and that's why most PvPers do their trading in Solo so they can afford to do PvP.

And removal of death penalties doesn't fix anything, every game that's had them and removed them at the player's demands, it ain't good. Death no longer matters, and when death doesn't matter, where's the pride of accomplishment? The game becomes 'too easy, pointless, there's no threat', and so on, go look at the games that did it, it's not good for the game. DDO, originally, death cost you experience, you could lose levels if you died enough times, I know, buddy and I died so many times one night trying to do the first raid in the game that we both went from cap to 3 levels under it, but we did complete it. Now, you don't lose xp when you die in DDO, too many people whined about that, so it was lessened, then lessened again, and finally removed due to the whining. Now people see how many times they can die in a single run because, why not? It doesn't cost you anything, it doesn't hurt you, who cares?

Elite, we don't have levels, we only have the credits we make, so death costs us those. Remove that and guess what? The PvEers won't come be the targets for the PvPers, they'll just not be as worried about dying anymore to NPCs or stupidity, that's all. And the PvPers won't have to go spend time NOT doing PvP so they can make the credits to do PvP.

I play in Open all the time in the bubble, since I started the game last July, and I didn't have millions to replace my ship. I've actually restarted in the starter Sidey a few times now, because I couldn't afford my losses. Not all of us who play in Open were rich to start with you know, we worked our way up to what we have now, but we did it in Open and paid the price for those riches. Now, hell, I'll blow 50m on rebuy smashing my ship into planets just to see what happens and not think twice about it, it's just credits, I can make those back easy enough, even if it might take me a bit of time. Then again, I don't find it difficult to make credits fast and easy, I started in July, I've earned enough to buy a fleet of Cutters in that time, that's just something I'm good at, while others are a year plus and still can't afford their first Asp Explorer, a ship I was in inside 2 weeks after starting, so...

 

[Ozram]

You aren't going to come up with a way to make PvE players want to be PvP player's victims, it's just not going to happen, so you guys can stop trying. Remove all death penalties and they are still out their time for an encounter they didn't want in the first place. Trading is already the quickest way to make credits, and that's why most PvPers do their trading in Solo so they can afford to do PvP.

And removal of death penalties doesn't fix anything, every game that's had them and removed them at the player's demands, it ain't good. Death no longer matters, and when death doesn't matter, where's the pride of accomplishment? The game becomes 'too easy, pointless, there's no threat', and so on, go look at the games that did it, it's not good for the game. DDO, originally, death cost you experience, you could lose levels if you died enough times, I know, buddy and I died so many times one night trying to do the first raid in the game that we both went from cap to 3 levels under it, but we did complete it. Now, you don't lose xp when you die in DDO, too many people whined about that, so it was lessened, then lessened again, and finally removed due to the whining. Now people see how many times they can die in a single run because, why not? It doesn't cost you anything, it doesn't hurt you, who cares?

Elite, we don't have levels, we only have the credits we make, so death costs us those. Remove that and guess what? The PvEers won't come be the targets for the PvPers, they'll just not be as worried about dying anymore to NPCs or stupidity, that's all. And the PvPers won't have to go spend time NOT doing PvP so they can make the credits to do PvP.

I play in Open all the time in the bubble, since I started the game last July, and I didn't have millions to replace my ship. I've actually restarted in the starter Sidey a few times now, because I couldn't afford my losses. Not all of us who play in Open were rich to start with you know, we worked our way up to what we have now, but we did it in Open and paid the price for those riches. Now, hell, I'll blow 50m on rebuy smashing my ship into planets just to see what happens and not think twice about it, it's just credits, I can make those back easy enough, even if it might take me a bit of time. Then again, I don't find it difficult to make credits fast and easy, I started in July, I've earned enough to buy a fleet of Cutters in that time, that's just something I'm good at, while others are a year plus and still can't afford their first Asp Explorer, a ship I was in inside 2 weeks after starting, so...

As a PVA player (I'll take all the content, come what may) I'm becoming so sick of the rabid and incessantly insulting PVE cohort that I'm coming to the conclusion that what we need is a PVE server where they can be left alone together. Other games do it. This one needs it. I'd say it would be more useful than "private group". So much is compromised in this game so the PVE crowd will slow down their tears of victim hood. Oh, no! How dare another player pose a threat! How dare they! Uhg! Give them a PVE server and we can all move on.

 

[Comrade Error]

PVA? Player vs Aliens?

 

[Rado]

Love how in these threads about broken game mechanics, it usually boils back down to the crap decision to use P2P or some other bedrock game design choice.

But look at all the pretty colors in space! Move along.

 

[Bacalao]

You aren't going to come up with a way to make PvE players want to be PvP player's victims, it's just not going to happen, so you guys can stop trying. Remove all death penalties and they are still out their time for an encounter they didn't want in the first place. Trading is already the quickest way to make credits, and that's why most PvPers do their trading in Solo so they can afford to do PvP.

And removal of death penalties doesn't fix anything, every game that's had them and removed them at the player's demands, it ain't good. Death no longer matters, and when death doesn't matter, where's the pride of accomplishment? The game becomes 'too easy, pointless, there's no threat', and so on, go look at the games that did it, it's not good for the game. DDO, originally, death cost you experience, you could lose levels if you died enough times, I know, buddy and I died so many times one night trying to do the first raid in the game that we both went from cap to 3 levels under it, but we did complete it. Now, you don't lose xp when you die in DDO, too many people whined about that, so it was lessened, then lessened again, and finally removed due to the whining. Now people see how many times they can die in a single run because, why not? It doesn't cost you anything, it doesn't hurt you, who cares?

Elite, we don't have levels, we only have the credits we make, so death costs us those. Remove that and guess what? The PvEers won't come be the targets for the PvPers, they'll just not be as worried about dying anymore to NPCs or stupidity, that's all. And the PvPers won't have to go spend time NOT doing PvP so they can make the credits to do PvP.

I play in Open all the time in the bubble, since I started the game last July, and I didn't have millions to replace my ship. I've actually restarted in the starter Sidey a few times now, because I couldn't afford my losses. Not all of us who play in Open were rich to start with you know, we worked our way up to what we have now, but we did it in Open and paid the price for those riches. Now, hell, I'll blow 50m on rebuy smashing my ship into planets just to see what happens and not think twice about it, it's just credits, I can make those back easy enough, even if it might take me a bit of time. Then again, I don't find it difficult to make credits fast and easy, I started in July, I've earned enough to buy a fleet of Cutters in that time, that's just something I'm good at, while others are a year plus and still can't afford their first Asp Explorer, a ship I was in inside 2 weeks after starting, so...

Pretty spot on here.

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As a PVA player (I'll take all the content, come what may) I'm becoming so sick of the rabid and incessantly insulting PVE cohort that I'm coming to the conclusion that what we need is a PVE server where they can be left alone together. Other games do it. This one needs it. I'd say it would be more useful than "private group". So much is compromised in this game so the PVE crowd will slow down their tears of victim hood. Oh, no! How dare another player pose a threat! How dare they! Uhg! Give them a PVE server and we can all move on.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. You think that every nerf/change/"compromise" is the fault of the PvE crowd?

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

It was a joke.

Secondly again get the context. This was in the context of how to keep traders trading if there were no solo.

This is a non-issue.
The different modes are gonna be here for a long time because FD are aware there are long term fans who want the solo experience. Jeez, they spat the dummy when the BGS forced an online mode, even if it didn't involve player interaction so it's not going anywhere.

No matter the size of the carrot dangled in front of a Solo player, they won't jump ship because they want to play against the game, not against other players. A lot of these players are of the older generation (there are exceptions) where players played the game, not the player. You have to remember that Elite was always a solo experience and the game itself would screw you over really fast if you didn't know what you were doing...learning how to play the game was always the fun in my esperience.

Other games have tried to do what you're suggesting, albeit in a slightly different way but I'll tell you a story.
APB is a PvP 3pfps game that has a tiered threat system. Green, bronze, silver and gold...and due to how that game's progression works, the higher the rank, the easier the game becomes and that's kinda like this game because a player can afford better equipment.
So, they had a problem with players at Gold playing on Silver and all the way down the threat system so they came up with the idea to offer bonuses for playing against players of the same skill set and it failed hard.
What it comes down to is human players do not want a fair fight, they just wanna annoy other players and no amount of rewards will ever change that so it just won't work.

So, how does this relate to ED?
Well, what we have now, or used to considering the lack of victims or complaints pertaining to the lack of willing victims, are PvP centred players running around with meta builds purely designed to kill. Even before this happened a trader was always at a disadvantage against a combat ship but now it's ridiculously unbalanced to the point where Open is PvP only. There are exceptions but when Open players are complaining they have no targets or rarely see players then there's a problem.
No trader is gonna just offer themselves up to be slaughtered, no matter how charitable they are or how good the rewards are because they have very few options. There's no gameplay in it either beyond those who RP but because everyone just shoots first even that is being eroded which is not good.

Ultimately, you can't force ppl to play with you and the more any player makes a player drop to Solo, or even leave the game completely, the worse it will get.
The only way it can be "fixed" is to create valid gameplay elements that make it fun for both parties and that will take a lot of work.

With regards how to take out a ship and it's defences, pretty much comes down to module selection, something I hope FD look at regarding it being easier to take out defensive things like chaff and the anti-limpet / missile thing name is escaping me at the minute, among others. If they can get that right, along with crime and punishment were murder causes the offender big problems, then Open may become valid again but currently traders don't feel protected and just know they have no chance so they don't bother with it.

 

[Kristov]

Open is not a PvP only environment, not even close, I fly around the bubble in Open, I've had a handful of PvP experiences, that's it, and that's playing since July of last year.

The PvPers complaining that there's no one in Open, those are NOT PvPers, those are gankers looking for seals to club, that's all, ignore them. There are a lot of PvP groups in this game, and they don't have any problems finding other people who want to engage in PvP, there's subreddits full of their exploits, youtube videos galore, hell, they just completed the first league and have another one already planned! I want PvP, I know how to get it, takes me a few messages on discord at most, bam, instant PvP, 1v1 or wing, whatever I prefer.

Enough with the hyperbolic , please! PvPers don't club seals, that's gankers. PvEers aren't hiding from gankers, they want a solo or coop experience, NOT an MMO experience. Good gods this is getting beyond stupid....

People are giving the choice in this game about what kind of game experience they have, single player, coop or MMO, that's by design you know...so shut up and play the way you want, and if that means you want to club seals but can't find any...too damn bad. You want PvP, there's plenty of people who'll be happy to oblige you.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Open is not a PvP only environment, not even close, I fly around the bubble in Open, I've had a handful of PvP experiences, that's it, and that's playing since July of last year.

The PvPers complaining that there's no one in Open, those are NOT PvPers, those are gankers looking for seals to club, that's all, ignore them. There are a lot of PvP groups in this game, and they don't have any problems finding other people who want to engage in PvP, there's subreddits full of their exploits, youtube videos galore, hell, they just completed the first league and have another one already planned! I want PvP, I know how to get it, takes me a few messages on discord at most, bam, instant PvP, 1v1 or wing, whatever I prefer.

Enough with the hyperbolic , please! PvPers don't club seals, that's gankers. PvEers aren't hiding from gankers, they want a solo or coop experience, NOT an MMO experience. Good gods this is getting beyond stupid....

People are giving the choice in this game about what kind of game experience they have, single player, coop or MMO, that's by design you know...so shut up and play the way you want, and if that means you want to club seals but can't find any...too damn bad. You want PvP, there's plenty of people who'll be happy to oblige you.

I play in Open and I avoid PvP, it's very much part of how I play the game.
It does restrict my options as to where I can and can't go and what I can do though...because of the imbalance.

 

[Ozram]

PVA? Player vs Aliens?

PVA stands for player vs all. It includes adversarial, coop and environment.

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I play in Open and I avoid PvP, it's very much part of how I play the game.
It does restrict my options as to where I can and can't go and what I can do though...because of the imbalance.

An "open" PVE alternative mode would fix that.

 

[Comrade Error]

I play in Open and I avoid PvP, it's very much part of how I play the game.
It does restrict my options as to where I can and can't go and what I can do though...because of the imbalance.

It doesn't have to even restrict you where you can and can't go. Even in Lave if you play it smart I bet you you can get to that station in one piece. Fly smart outfit smart and be smart. Don't really want to give out any helpful tips though as you know..[arrrr]

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

PVA stands for player vs all. It includes adversarial, coop and environment.

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An "open" PVE alternative mode would fix that.

Let's not go there, I really don't have the time or patience to read another 50+ page threadmageddon on it again.
I have options to drop if I wanted to but I don't like switching modes.
I'd just like all things to work in all modes and creating another mode to fix the fundamental issues affecting the game currently won't help.
Some things should just be fixed as soon as they can be because they could be a lot of fun. The game will be worse for it if they are just ignored and forgotten.

@ Error:
I don't want to game the system. I want to play and beat the game by what the game offers me as a challenge.
No shortcuts or weak sauce. I want to have a sense of achievement when I beat something. May it be a player or what the game itself offers.
It's the main reason I game.
The problem though is being forced into one playstyle which may mean having to use only one viable setup and when that happens then a lot of other options are removed and the current meta is forcing that. Most vids I see currently are running SR and HRP's and that means only one thing.
It is, by far and away, the most effective which makes it OP.

P.S.
Ppl still hang out at Lave?
Honestly thought that died months ago.