The ED Open Live Stream

[bitstorm]

Sorry but no, that's not accurate at all. There's no excuse to give for what happened - they experienced what can and does happen in normal (open) gameplay.

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LOL, okay, how about this: "people that are directly responsible for or are involved with the development of this game". It's a little longer than saying "dev" though...

Well it's the 3rd time I've heard this argument and however it's worded it still makes no sense.

"Oh the server guy isn't an expert in the PvP metagame therefore Frontier know nothing!"

C'mon this is the argument, and it's ridiculous, however it's worded.

 

[Whipley]

I really liked the solution someone suggested a while ago. If someone kills another CMDR, the Pilots Federation will broadcast his position to other CMDRs.

I like it as long as the game puts you in the same instance as the cmdr you are hunting. If it tells you where the person is, and you go there but they are in another instance it's just a waste of time.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Glad this topic got into the main forum. It was an eye opener

[snip]

Let's hope this 1 hour experience actually sinks in and we see some decent changes made to the game balance. Without changes open will never be anything more than it is today which is typically a ghost town. Many players do not want the experience the dev's just had. FDev: you're game isn't fun for many people. Do you understand this now?

Well, I'm a little torn here. I liked the show and I think this was fun to watch. I also hope that it will help the dev fix open with a working crime & punishment system. And I definitely like Dav, Ed and Adam.

But at the same time, your post makes tons of sense, and YES, it is about time the devs understand that open is not empty because it is dangerous, it is empty because it just doesn't make any sense.

Yes, there is no perfect solution, we get it. But frankly, the present situation is not just imperfect, it is *embarrassing*. I really hope this series will help them improve that.

 

[CMDR Adelind]

I for one am very glad the ED team played in open and experienced what it's like to face the maxed out PVP groups.

Now maybe they understand why many play private and solo, especially when doing Community Goals.

Next, i would like them to do another open stream, with real accounts, with only 20 million credits max, and then attempt to do a real Community Goal in open.

Then they can experience the pain of a REAL rebuy.

Hopefully this will finally show them what they have done to open play with engineers and its upgrades.

People have even brought Braben back to these forums as a trophy, caught during his off time.

 

[Leo Sagan]

they were two community managers and a server guy

Adam Woods is senior producer at FD.

 

[bitstorm]

But at the same time, your post makes tons of sense, and YES, it is about time the devs understand that open is not empty because it is dangerous, it is empty because it just doesn't make any sense.

Except open isn't empty.

I mean I'm sitting in a open literally right now with 9 other CMDRs.

Hate these threads, it's just misinformation to further an agenda.

Sure you chaps may have a point but spouting          and hyperbole isn't going to help.

 

[Kubicide]

Except open isn't empty.

I mean I'm sitting in a open literally right now with 9 other CMDRs.

Hate these threads, it's just misinformation to further an agenda.

Sure you chaps may have a point but spouting          and hyperbole isn't going to help.

Well, 9 CMDRs certainly isn't what I would call an MMO so perhaps the hyperbole or similar context is being made for both. But you get the point being made here which is simply many players shy away from open due to the imbalance that exists. This is a problem if one wants the game to be a living world (surely you 'd appreciate having 30+ CMDRs with you right now rather than 9). And the devs need to make changes before open gets any better than what you see today.

If you're happy with what you see in open today and happy with the game "as is" then great. This thread is probably not an important topic for you.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Except open isn't empty.

True, this was an exaggeration on my part, I apologize. But honestly, I see more CMDRs when I play in Mobius than when I play in Open. Now, this is just my personal experience, I have no metrics.

Hate these threads, it's just misinformation to further an agenda.

I'm not sure which agenda you're referring to. My only "agenda" would be to get a working crime & punishment system. Surely, you're with me on this one ?

 

[Lobstris]

Except open isn't empty.

But it's not as full as it could be either.

...it's just information to further an agenda.

FTFU. The agenda being better balance, actions having consequences, and a decent crime & punishment system.

Yes, the stream wasn't representative of the vast majority of open play. It was, however, a massive helping of confirmation bias for those who don't play in open, and not a great advert for the game.

 

[Kubicide]

True, this was an exaggeration on my part, I apologize. But honestly, I see more CMDRs when I play in Mobius than when I play in Open. Now, this is just my personal experience, I have no metrics.




I'm not sure which agenda you're referring to. My only "agenda" would be to get a working crime & punishment system. Surely, you're with me on this one ?

Yeah, and I'd add that "risk vs reward" imbalance is the other big problem to address. Right now simply losing a PvP fight is too painful for many players as the cost they incur is fairly significant: the cost in time to earn their way back, and/or the cost they lost versus what they were doing at the time of the loss. It's a major turnoff so people want to avoid this. The devs actually identified this issue at one point by acknowledging their billions in credits and having the money for 'player interaction'. There's no easy answer here and Engineers and the new blueprints even in 2.2 simply make this problem much worse as the cost to the attacker/winner is essentially being reduced once the mod is obtained. There's a lot of bad gameplay that needs to be fixed.

Am definitely looking forward to the next stream now!

 

[Macros Black]

Good show, a bit sad to watch, it cannot be fun being blasted to the rebuy screen (repeatedly) before you even get to super cruise. Now, just because you're an Frontier employee doesn't mean you're an expert fighter pilot, and Dav & Adam definitely could've used a little bit more help, wing wise (not diminishing those that did help) and load out wise.

FD should've prepared better and descended like a tons of brick's on the attacking CMDR's with wing after wing after wing. If they are serious about the trade in open show, this should be in place or it'll be pure and utter carnage, and even more sad to watch.

Station security can definitely be improved.

I can imagine the after show party for Dav and Adam:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;kyfriipc61A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyfriipc61A[/video]

 

[bitstorm]

If you're happy with what you see in open today and happy with the game "as is" then great. This thread is probably not an important topic for you.

I have complaints fer sure, crime and punishement being one, exploration being another.

Sorry I should probably chill out a bit, I have been Sothis/foruming all day.

 

[Leo Sagan]

I have complaints fer sure, crime and punishement being one, exploration being another.

Sorry I should probably chill out a bit, I have been Sothis/foruming all day.

No problem mate, you didn't burst or insult anyone here : we're all just happily discussing our game. And there is still the elephant in the thread : what c & p system would work ?

(doing Sothis as well today, want to reach a certain cash reserve before any nerf =)

 

[smiths121]

Except open isn't empty.

I mean I'm sitting in a open literally right now with 9 other CMDRs.

Hate these threads, it's just misinformation to further an agenda.

Sure you chaps may have a point but spouting          and hyperbole isn't going to help.

So wish the forums would let me rep you again!

Simon

 

[DaveB]

I don't think we need to rehash all the arguments about PvP balancing. As the game currently stands I honestly don't think a "PvP balance" is possible. Even ignoring the difference in PvP skill between the dedicated PvP pilot and the more average player the spectrum of ship loadouts will always allow for a "dominant meta" when it comes to combat and it won't be a suitable build for doing anything else in.

"Blaze your own trail" is fine, but those of us old enough to remember "games" that don't require a computer know what happens when you're a poor sportsman. You get ejected from games, dropped from teams, uninvited from the club and in general people don't want to play with you. Folks are effectively doing that by choosing to avoid open. If FD want to reverse that trend they have only one option. There have to be consequences for acting the jerk in-game.

These consequences can be technical, implementing a strong in-game crime&punishment system being just one of the options being suggested in that regard but when you get down into the details, every technical solution presents all sorts of problems with its own balancing. You don't want to wreck the gameplay of the PvPers that aren't jerks, because there's plenty of them out there - they aren't the ones doing the kind of things we saw in that stream, they'd rather take on another PvPer at relatively even odds for a better fight. I'm not saying FD can't overcome those issues but it is not going to be a quick or simple thing to implement. That leaves non-technical solutions, which present their own problems.

Sure, FD have every right to amend their ToS to penalize what they judge to be "unsportsmanlike conduct" and that clause could easily be written in such a way as its legally watertight, explicitly stating that it is FDs judgement alone that determines if conduct reported to them is "unsportsmanlike" etc... However, actually implementing such a policy would be a whole new can of worms in terms of reputational risk and player goodwill.

But if FD want the open experience around "popular areas" to be different to that which they encountered in the live stream, they will have to go down one or the other of these routes, possibly both. Ultimately, even a minimal amount of analysis shows nothing else will succeed. I have my doubts whether they will consider it worth it, and therefore am not expecting any change but either way it's their decision and theirs alone. Whichever way they decide, I'll still enjoy the game.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Erm you misunderstand.

Make the event Viper (small ship) only, this applies to every CMDR joining in not just the two Frontier staff, you ask people not to turn up in anything bigger.

You encourage people to fight and kill each other in open with smaller ships where the rebuy is nothing.

That will cause exactly nothing. Frontier also asked the palyer base to not combat log and use modeswitch to refresh missions. YOu can tell yourself how ridiculous this is as everyone is combat logging and modeswitching.

They will turn up in META FDLs with multicannons, a railgun, mega shields, G5 DD and some other modded stuff.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

To be honest it's one of the first livestreams where I've looked and thought: "You know what, no thanks. I don't want to touch that with a 20ft bargepole."

Most avid watchers will have seen me as a regular entrant helping or hindering Ed (usually helping but not always). Anyway this time I predicted correctly that this one would be rather a mess of highly modded ships and the question wouldn't be who can get the most combat bonds but who can get to the conflict zone in one piece.

Personally I thought it was rather a tremendous show of how overpowered engineer mods can be with the Devs ships reduced to flying scrap in seconds. The most obvious of these was when the wizard (can we name him if it was on an FDEV livestream we are discussing?) interdicted one of them with him at 20% hull and the devs at full hull and shield.
I'm almost certain that in a non-engineered ship he would have at least had second thoughts about possibly repairing first. But with level 5 dirty drives, insanely modded weapons etc and knowing his target was not upgraded he had seemingly no fear to go in and ended up winning pretty easily.
Iirc they were both in FDL's and frankly it saddened me a bit.

Powerplay was complained at because the weapons/etc were not better than the current non-restricted ones.
Engineers therefore is a complete upgrade package in most cases but there's now so much in-balance that engineers is a requirement for PvP not an option, at least outside of organised tournaments anyway.

Sadly they are doing balance passes and lots of the non-PvP crowd are arguing that they are nerfing their weapons. As a result I doubt the engineer mods will be scaled back to anywhere near levels where a non-engineered ship can even compete with a max engineered one.

Note: All the above is my opinion and not targeted at anyone or group in particular. <- Yup this thread is getting rocky already


What I'd love to see sometime is the highly experienced PvP pilots like Z4 Mafia and HP and others go up in non-engineered ships against the same Devs in highly level 5 modded ones. See if skill and experience could beat engineer grinding or not. I suspect the answer is no but hope I'm wrong. Doubt that'll ever happen though.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Iirc they were both in FDL's and frankly it saddened me a bit.

I believe the player was in a Diamondback.
Aside from that I agree with your post.

 

[Marcns007]

It is funny as this is what happens to everyone that plays CG's in open by themselves.

I have an engineered Conda but still think engineering is overpowered to a standard maxed ship.

They need a bit more prep next time, some hired guns and maxed ships.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

They should have known the ganking was going to happen, so what they should have done was have a dozen other devs hanging around ready for when the ganking started.

Just imagine, a few of the attackers are hanging around the station and suddenly 10 devs drop in at the station and start hammering the PvPers. I think the PvPers might actually have appreciated such a move.

As for a better crime and punishment system, i wonder how many PvPers would actually really really enjoy that. Because if done right, it would effectively make anything except low sec no-go zones for them.