Do any of these pictures express your view of E: D's balance? Specifically, the balance between PvE'ers and PvP'ers, not the CMDR-NPC balance (although there is a knock on effect here too), or PvP-PvP ship balance.
A) -
B) - 
C) - 
FDev decided early on that E: D would be a game of two halves. Those that wanted to engage in digitally simulated combat, could. While those that didn't want to, wouldn't have to. This choice seemingly caters to a wide range of playstyles, while leaving every door open for everyone to experience everything the game has to offer. A smart move... except instead of an open and accessible platform, what we have is two very strident camps that only engage in activities outside of their preferred sphere, in order to achieve an objective that was rendered otherwise meaningless for a given player by the separation, not inclusion, of playstyles. FDev's decision broke the game in a number of ways...
Firstly, my own personal bug-bear comes in two parts...
1) Protected BGS/PP manipulation leaves some 'Open Only' CMDRs (amongst whom I include myself) at a higher risk than others whilst being engaged in 'shaping the galaxy' and the narrative.
This is a choice made by CMDRs, as no doubt will be pointed out. The point though, is that this isn't balanced gameplay. It is unbalanced by design, deliberately broken by its creators and a skewed risk:reward ratio is the result.
2) PvP'ers can creep around after a particularly vicious crime spree, without the danger of becoming the content of the 'emergent' gameplay that they, we, praise so highly.
Contextual PvP and effective C&P are rendered meaningless in this situation. Regardless of the local regime, one can murder and pirate without recourse to 'justice' for the victim. Whilst at their most vulnerable, floating around in T9's grinding CR, Naval Rank and Engineer Mats, 'Wanted' CMDR's are immune to justice.
Whilst the current state of affairs continues, the only effective Law & Order policy for those CMDRs would be an NPC force so powerful that all crimes are in effect punished immediately and with a rebuy screen. This isn't hyperbole, I'd argue its not much of an exaggeration at all. You can't balance a broken scale.
Secondly and no less importantly, PvE'ers run into several problems, including but not limited to....
A desire to avoid PvP related ship-building optimisations (for whatever reason) leaves them with a choice of playing alone or with a limited number of trusted invitees (a flawed system in itself as we've seen), cut off from the rest of even their own PvE community. The only alternative to this is to play in Open and to be so far outmatched by their PvP'ing counterparts that progress of any kind becomes impossible.
Let me state this: as a PvP'er who only plays in Open (exceptions for when I find an NPC hogging my docking bay) as a Pirate, and who engages in 'full-risk' BGS and PP interaction, I believe both sides of these issues are equally deserving of attention. Regardless of your playstyle or the epithets used to describe it (psychopath/carebear), your playstyle is not wrong. This is not your fault!
What I will suggest is your fault however, are the requests for FDev to fix C&P, to rebalance Engineers or to Make Exploration Great Again!, or any other 'balancing' quest.
FDev can't do these things because FDev decided that the root cause of most of this game's problems, would be it's main selling point, "your way".
The only 'fix' possible for E: D's most glaring issues is to repackage the game as two games. This could be done in one of the upcoming paid updates.
The fix is not an OpenOnlyPowerPlay mode, this is a full-fat & fully-featured PvPMode, next to a totally separate full-fat & fully-featured PvEMode.
What we are looking for, is something more like this:
Credits: Pictures were taken from the web, and relevant credit should go to their respective rights holders. Google Image search will tell who that is, I've no idea and even less interest. I'm responsible solely for the addition of text, created at great expense using MS Paint's 'Text' feature. Superb, isn't it?
A) -
B) - C) - FDev decided early on that E: D would be a game of two halves. Those that wanted to engage in digitally simulated combat, could. While those that didn't want to, wouldn't have to. This choice seemingly caters to a wide range of playstyles, while leaving every door open for everyone to experience everything the game has to offer. A smart move... except instead of an open and accessible platform, what we have is two very strident camps that only engage in activities outside of their preferred sphere, in order to achieve an objective that was rendered otherwise meaningless for a given player by the separation, not inclusion, of playstyles. FDev's decision broke the game in a number of ways...
Firstly, my own personal bug-bear comes in two parts...
1) Protected BGS/PP manipulation leaves some 'Open Only' CMDRs (amongst whom I include myself) at a higher risk than others whilst being engaged in 'shaping the galaxy' and the narrative.
This is a choice made by CMDRs, as no doubt will be pointed out. The point though, is that this isn't balanced gameplay. It is unbalanced by design, deliberately broken by its creators and a skewed risk:reward ratio is the result.
2) PvP'ers can creep around after a particularly vicious crime spree, without the danger of becoming the content of the 'emergent' gameplay that they, we, praise so highly.
Contextual PvP and effective C&P are rendered meaningless in this situation. Regardless of the local regime, one can murder and pirate without recourse to 'justice' for the victim. Whilst at their most vulnerable, floating around in T9's grinding CR, Naval Rank and Engineer Mats, 'Wanted' CMDR's are immune to justice.
Whilst the current state of affairs continues, the only effective Law & Order policy for those CMDRs would be an NPC force so powerful that all crimes are in effect punished immediately and with a rebuy screen. This isn't hyperbole, I'd argue its not much of an exaggeration at all. You can't balance a broken scale.
Secondly and no less importantly, PvE'ers run into several problems, including but not limited to....
A desire to avoid PvP related ship-building optimisations (for whatever reason) leaves them with a choice of playing alone or with a limited number of trusted invitees (a flawed system in itself as we've seen), cut off from the rest of even their own PvE community. The only alternative to this is to play in Open and to be so far outmatched by their PvP'ing counterparts that progress of any kind becomes impossible.
Let me state this: as a PvP'er who only plays in Open (exceptions for when I find an NPC hogging my docking bay) as a Pirate, and who engages in 'full-risk' BGS and PP interaction, I believe both sides of these issues are equally deserving of attention. Regardless of your playstyle or the epithets used to describe it (psychopath/carebear), your playstyle is not wrong. This is not your fault!
What I will suggest is your fault however, are the requests for FDev to fix C&P, to rebalance Engineers or to Make Exploration Great Again!, or any other 'balancing' quest.
FDev can't do these things because FDev decided that the root cause of most of this game's problems, would be it's main selling point, "your way".
The only 'fix' possible for E: D's most glaring issues is to repackage the game as two games. This could be done in one of the upcoming paid updates.
The fix is not an OpenOnlyPowerPlay mode, this is a full-fat & fully-featured PvPMode, next to a totally separate full-fat & fully-featured PvEMode.
What we are looking for, is something more like this:
Credits: Pictures were taken from the web, and relevant credit should go to their respective rights holders. Google Image search will tell who that is, I've no idea and even less interest. I'm responsible solely for the addition of text, created at great expense using MS Paint's 'Text' feature. Superb, isn't it?
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