Tired of the Open vs. Private Debacle

[Ezren]

I would say that buffs or rewards, as opposed to content gating, would be my preference. Increased rewards for existing content, or even new rewards for time spent in open. Say a new ship variant comes out as a "veteran reward" of sorts, which requires 20-40 hours flying time (not docked time) in open. Even if you spend it out in the black, that's fine.

At the end of the day there will be folks who will game any system, and you can't beat em; at least I can't, as they're probably all smarter than me lol. But what you can do is at least try to create the incentive and hope that even a few folks will be lured to the goodness.

Ehh, that's just incentives that encourage idling away from anyone, pretty much defeating the point. If somebody wants to avoid others but get these rewards, they'll just be avoiding others in Open to do so.

I would rather find ways to encourage players to have nteractions with each other, rather than just corral them into a specific mode.

 

[Dommarraa]

Please no. I doubt there is anyone left on the team who knows how current C&P works and clearly there was never anyone who knew how it should work so best leave half broken than risk another detention centre style bungle that breaks it more.

I don't disagree. Maybe the brilliant minds who bring us 'open only' arguments could apply their white hot intellect so solving the problem rather than demanding the outcome.

 

[Ganogati]

To put it bluntly, if you are ganked while handing in data, the only one to blame is yourself.
There are umpteenthousand ports where to hand in safe.
People who hand in at Shin or Deciat frankly deserve to be ganked.

Jump in a system -> select highwake target -> check contacts -> if empty proceed to port.
It's that easy.

Exemption of course was Explorer's Anchorage during DW2, it obvoiously was a gank magnet.
Build accordingly, my Phantom had 950 mj shields, 591 m/s speed and a range of 57 LY.
Suffice to say I survived whole gank wings...

I think that's the thing though; at the current point, you basically have folks relying on the unlikeliness of a gank + maybe outfitting a ship in hopes of surviving one... but no benefit to make any of that trouble worth it. A much simpler answer is "Just do this in solo", so folks do. I feel like there needs to be something to at least make them think "this trouble is worth the effort".

 

[Robert Maynard]

Do we know that ? Are there published player stats ?

Sandro advised us, on a stream, that the majority of players play in Open:

Source: https://youtu.be/52kOyADxK5E?t=3110

 

[Ganogati]

Ehh, that's just incentives that encourage idling away from anyone, pretty much defeating the point. If somebody wants to avoid others but get these rewards, they'll just be avoiding others in Open to do so.

I would rather find ways to encourage players to have nteractions with each other, rather than just corral them into a specific mode.

That's fair enough; my suggestions were far from perfect, and I could see wing or multicrew being the way to go. All the same, if the end result is that there's more incentive for people to be in open, while not harming or gating the gameplay of people in solo/PG, then I'm all for it.

 

[Bigmaec]

I think that's the thing though; at the current point, you basically have folks relying on the unlikeliness of a gank + maybe outfitting a ship in hopes of surviving one... but no benefit to make any of that trouble worth it. A much simpler answer is "Just do this in solo", so folks do. I feel like there needs to be something to at least make them think "this trouble is worth the effort".

True dat.
Which is about the only thing I dislike about modes. The instant opt-out-of-danger.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Sandro advised us, on a stream, that the majority of players play in Open:

Source: https://youtu.be/52kOyADxK5E?t=3110

That was a while ago though... things are fluid!

 

[Stelar 7]

Unfortunately, even if 99 people "o7" you on your way back from a long exploration, and just 1 of them kills you before you dock to sell your data, that 1 person ruined your day in a way the other 99 could not make up for.

Not my day, if I'm in open it's for the fun of the risk of loss. I'd laugh.

That's the reward of open. It adds zing.

I would suspect the only way to make this work would be to ensure that the rewards are only available for missions or mining ops that take place entirely in Open. If you begin a mission transaction in open, it's flagged at open benefited. If you go into solo or PG at any point while that mission or mining op (ore in cargo, for example) is in progress, you lose that flag on the mission or the current inventory load. This would essentially necessitate finishing your business in open before popping back to solo if you want that sweet buff.

What's the goal of that? To bring people to open whose day can be ruined by getting ganked?

I agree we could build an incentive system that would draw some players to open, I just don't agree we should want them there.

If you are the kind of player who hates getting into human vs human conflict I want you away from me, not in my sites.

That way anyone I shoot in Open is, or at least should be, as happy to be there as anyone I blast in a FPS.

Now, a combat event or battleground could aid the get more pvp play time in, but that is what the BGS is.

So again, these threads seem to be for people who want to gank other people, and to them I say gank the hauler with a full box. No one will be upset and to shouldn't care, by your logic, what kind of box the target has, unless your fun only comes from making someone else upset.

If that is your bag, you are toxic and should be isolated. Such players poison every community they are in.

 

[Ganogati]

True dat.
Which is about the only thing I dislike about modes. The instant opt-out-of-danger.

Yea, if it's there then folks will take it. That's an unfortunate truth of most situations. However, now that it's here, I can't think of a scenario where removing or nerfing them wouldn't end very poorly or be unfair. It's one of those situations where we kind of made our bed by having solo and PG be a thing, so now we have to work with their existence. FDev seems very sincere in their decision to not change that much, at least. Which is fine, because I've always been the kind of guy who responds to carrots better than sticks anyhow lol

 

[Ezren]

That's fair enough; my suggestions were far from perfect, and I could see wing or multicrew being the way to go. All the same, if the end result is that there's more incentive for people to be in open, while not harming or gating the gameplay of people in solo/PG, then I'm all for it.

Well "harm" is relative, people will be annoyed if content is not tailored for them (see... any content release)

I would say that there should just be some content that you need a Wing for. Not just a super-big enemy, but something with multiple objectives at a time that need to be completed for success. Scoop up dropped cargo while another player scrambles communications from a planetside location and a third/fourth are trying to disable a few enemy ships to scan for docking codes. Something like that.

 

[Bigmaec]

Yea, if it's there then folks will take it. That's an unfortunate truth of most situations. However, now that it's here, I can't think of a scenario where removing or nerfing them wouldn't end very poorly or be unfair. It's one of those situations where we kind of made our bed by having solo and PG be a thing, so now we have to work with their existence. FDev seems very sincere in their decision to not change that much, at least. Which is fine, because I've always been the kind of guy who responds to carrots better than sticks anyhow lol

That powerplay proposal was a giant step in the right direction, too bad it went down the drain.

 

[Ezren]

True dat.
Which is about the only thing I dislike about modes. The instant opt-out-of-danger.

Sometimes people just want to have a nice quiet night, without worrying about having to min-max their escape potential and not worry about going to the bathroom at a full sprint.

 

[Rubbernuke]

That powerplay proposal was a giant step in the right direction, too bad it went down the drain.

 

[Robert Maynard]

That powerplay proposal was a giant step in the right direction, too bad it went down the drain.

The Powerplay proposal, from what Sandro said quite clearly (a few times), was the only step that Frontier were even possibly considering.

We are still awaiting the outcome of the investigation though - and a subset of the proposals in the Powerplay Flash Topic are, according to Will's post on the topic, being considered.

 

[Bigmaec]

Sometimes people just want to have a nice quiet night, without worrying about having to min-max their escape potential and not worry about going to the bathroom at a full sprint.

Totally ok. If there was a cooldown on mode switches no one would be denied this.
But I see many people logging of in instances and I bet they just continue to their destination in another mode, and then return
to open for whatever bragging rights they seem to gain from this. Totally nonsensical.

 

[Bigmaec]

The Powerplay proposal, from what Sandro said quite clearly (a few times), was the only step that Frontier were even possibly considering.

We are still awaiting the outcome of the investigation though - and a subset of the proposals in the Powerplay Flash Topic are, according to Will's post on the topic, being considered.

A) You're on a holy crusade to prevent any changes that would make PvP remotely more interesting, I get that...
B) That proposal was welcomed by a wide majority in all statistics (here, reddit, wherever), and yet it wasn't implemented. I don't believe it will ever resurface again. It went down with Sandro...

 

[Ganogati]

Steam scores perfectly fit the definition of business goodwill. With very few exceptions, you will not find substantial sales of any game with recent scores as low as Horizons.

For most games I agree, but not for ED. I've been through many of the Steam reviews, and the vast majority boil down to: "I didn't realize this was a sandbox. Where are the rails?" "what am I supposed to do next?" "Space is boring!"

Rating ED on a scale of 1-10 is completely arbitrary, because of the genre that it is. Most of the 1s will be people who don't even like its genre, and the 10s would be folks who love the genre no matter what. Somewhere between 2-9 you'll find the folks who either enjoy the genre and the game happens to be good, or enjoy the genre and think the game itself sucks. Steam doesn't account for any of this, however.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Totally ok. If there was a cooldown on mode switches no one would be denied this.

Changing modes at will has been part of the game design since it was published - and backers / players have asked for limits to be placed on it over the years, to no avail.

But I see many people logging of in instances and I bet they just continue to their destination in another mode, and then return
to open for whatever bragging rights they seem to gain from this. Totally nonsensical.

Nonsensical indeed.

 

[Robert Maynard]

A) You're on a holy crusade to prevent any changes that would make PvP remotely more interesting, I get that...

Nope - just interested in players who paid just as much for the game as players whose play-style the game is not designed around retaining access to base-game content.

I'd actually be quite open to new content, that does not affect players who don't engage in it, being introduced for players who prefer PvP.

B) That proposal was welcomed by a wide majority in all statistics (here, reddit, wherever), and yet it wasn't implemented. I don't believe it will ever resurface again. It went down with Sandro...

A wide majority (according to whom and what method was used to verify that only players participated) of a tiny fraction of the player-base.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Like we are waiting for the Icarus Cup, right?

Not quite that long.