First of all, thanks for your comments all, seemingly we are perfectly capable of constructive discussion. Please keep it that way
I would support such a game mode, if the following changes are made to other features and game modes:
- Powerplay moves to Open only
- All activities in Open only receives bonuses (credits, influence, reputation, etc) compared to other game modes, balancing risk/reward of encountering "unfriendly CMDRs":
- Bonus begins after a minimum time in Open, e.g. 1hr
- Changing to a different game mode resets the time counter
- Bonus increases linearly for continuous time in Open: e.g. 10% after 1hr, 20% after 2hr, 30% after 3hr, etc.
- Bonus capped at a maximum, e.g. 100%
- Private Groups reduced in size to match Squadron's size, currently 250 members maximum (the 10000 cap was only introduced to meet Mobius PvE's expanding membership)
- Open PvE has PvP disabled everywhere, including CZs, HazRES', CompromisedNavs, etc.
I would not be opposed to that. More risk = more reward. Other people's profit does not affect my game
I used to be a massive fan of an open PvE mode however I have been convinced by others it would not work.
1) some would go out of their way to break the spirit of it.
2) solution to 1 would be removing ramming or friendly fire... both solutions which cause more harm than they fix imo.
3) it absolutely would not mitigate the lack of npc wingmates or crew at all, not 1 bit imo...... i only really play in a group when i play now... but i still want npc wingmates and crew far more than any MP content.
Note I am not against the mode at all, I just do not think it would work.
I doubt i would be in it, its too high a price to pay if you want to mitgate the itchynipples of the game, such as losing policing fire, flying careflly around stations and furballs etc.
PS imo a PvP flag would be the most immersion breaking of the lot imo and i think you would get pve folk and current open folk complaining.. IF there is a ship in my instance and i fire at it... i expect to hit it, no magic bullets thanks.
if i fly in the path of a ship i expect to hit it, no ghost ships for me i am afraid.
Ok, so the damage is removed, but the physics of collisions still exists, right?
So people could still pin you on a pad or jam the mailslot, or any number of other things. Griefers can get quite creative when they want to.
Trolls and griefers (not to be mistaken with gankers) will ALWAYS find a way to disrupt other people's game, regardless of PVE, PVP, Group mode or whatever. I wouldn't dismiss a good (IMO) solution that benefits all (or most) just "because trolls".
What about players who want to play with others, but don't enjoy the PVE part of the game ?
What you want already exist and is called : Private Group mode where you can enforce your own specific rule to match what you want.
As far as i know you can and have always been able to do PvE in Open.
If you want to play with others but want to have PVP experience, it's already there. It's called Open. In my proposed solution it would be called Open PVP.
What I want does not already exist - Private Group mode is way to inconvenient to use to be fit for what I propose. User management, finding a right group for your needs, limited number of users are just the first 3 things that come to mind. Open PVE eliminates all those problems.
What is the difference to you as a PVP player if I would be playing in Open PVE mode or Group mode? There is NONE, because you wouldn't see me at all in your game anyway.
What is the difference to me as a PVE player if I would be playing in Open PVE mode instead of Open PVP mode? Colossal, because I would be 100% sure that other players cannot be hostile towards me and if that is my preferred play style, I don't see why I shouldn't have it available to me.
People interested in this topic should probably hear what DB said in the topic. It starts at about 42:30 in this vid from 2.1 launch:
Good stuff, he's said "I would love it"
Come on, David, make it happen!
Not sure it would be worth the effort, I don't feel mobius is as popular as people think. Sure there are 3 groups, but no-body ever leaves and the massive lack of reaction to the open only pp from the mobius community leaves me to believe its just not that big or they don't care enough to come here so why use the dev time ?
Any solid source or any stats? Otherwise is just an assumption. I can also say: "I feel that most people would really want Open PVE mode, because a lot of them say that they play in Solo due to being ganked in Open. Conclusion - they want social PVE experience, but there is no suitable environment to provide that for them"
Which would also be just an assumption. Only FDEV have any sort of solid stats, everything else is just speculation, ergo not really an argument that you can reasonably use in the discussion IMHO.
We already had the discussion of the Open PvE mode a year ago or so and it was declined by the majority of the (forum-)community via a public poll. Indefferent users didn't vote, it was a clear for or against poll where the against opinion recieved the majority of chocies.
Those polls are not worth much, because they only provide the views of a small part of the community, not to mention that they can be easily rigged. Sorry, not an argument to me. Unless there is an official poll accessible directly from the launcher by all players.
Furthermore, if Open PvE would be a thing then there should also be an Open PvP mode where NPCs can't attack other NPCs or humans or simply don't exist. I don't want to be griefed by NPCs in my smuggling ship when I do missions or wanetd passenger runs.
You're just being silly now for the sake of arguing. We all know how PVE mode works and it has nothing to do with NPC ships. They are there regardless of any mode.
Lastly, we don#t need more devision due to modes.
IMHO Open PVE would not divide players. It would bring them together. People who do want to have a Open PVP experience, would be able to do that. Likewise - people who would like to have Open PVE experience would be able to do that. Currently the latter group doesn't have that choice and this is what creates most of the vitriol and division in the community. It's most often a PVE player complaining they were ganked in Open, then gankers say "git gut" and the fight begins.
If PVE players had their own Open mode, there would be much less complaints of that nature and less vitriol and division in the community.