General [MEGATHREAD] Rebalances and fixes for the progression system, risk/reward ratio, ingame learning curves, pvp, and more!

Solo players are generally at a disadvantage against Open players in BGS conflicts. The reason for this is that the Solo player is more likely to be a "lone wolf" just trying to do his own thing, whereas Open players are more likely to be part of a large group. As previously mentioned, manipulating the BGS is an exercise in competitive bucket-filling, where the advantage goes to the larger group. A lone-wolf needs to struggle VERY hard to compete with that.

Victory should go to whichever side can fill its buckets better, whether through superior numbers, or superior determination. If a group in Open can't do that, they deserve to lose.
Heh this isn't wrong after all. Though it would be weird if it were. Ofcourse an individual is always at a disadvantage compared to a group since a group has more resources in manpower. But it doesn't make a difference if you play a lone wolf in a different mode. Your impact will be of the same effect and scale.
However, "filling buckets" is merely the basic task there is to do. When a player is doing it for itself, sure, the bucket filling task is the first and last thing to do. However, when player founded BGS factions are competing against eachother, racing to fill buckets is a boring and imo pathetic way of competition. After all, one possible task to fill your own bucket faster is to slow down the progress of your opponent filling theirs. So if you can deny your opponent(s) progress or even revert it and cause a setback, you will be at a serious advantage, however, the same effect can happen to you too. The result is a much more dynamic system where results are uncertain until the end of the BGS cycle. Whereas filling buckets is, as you portrayed, merely a boring bucket filling tasks where the larges group wins (due to the fact that the bucket filling activity is not challenging and includes next to zero chance of failure). The outcome can be easily calculated by considering the amount of players and time each party has available.
The result: a linear, indirect competition of two player groups that don't even know what the other is doing and why.
The OP suggest that (for player groups and player competition), the influence game should follow uniform rules where any kind of gameplay the game has to offer can be used to a group's (dis-)advantage instead of a game that has different rulesets for each participant.

For NPC factions only I too do not see a reason to change the influence game as, after all, it is a background simulation. Excluding the others modes will most likely result in less accurate data. But moving player founded BGS factions to open only is IMO a change that is a requiernment for dynamic gameplay.
 
See I don't agree with having different experiences for open and solo. Unfortunately it's a Pandora's box can't be closed. Pp was just not designed well to begin with for open or solo. It could have been made in such a way it worked wellin both, but it was made in such a way that it only just works in both modes.

It was- Powerplay has loads of Open friendly PvP focused features:

Specified areas of action
Simple cargo (two) that telegraph intention
Explicit outward pledges
Specified territory

Mixing the above, its easy to know what a Patreus pledge is doing in a Winters control system, or a Utopian pledge in a Mahon expansion. You don't need a scanner to decide what to do, because the design has done it all for you.

When I say split Powerplay- I mean just that. Open Powerplay is what we have now, Solo PG Powerplay is a parallel role that supports Open players- both are dependent on each other but the jobs never overlap, meaning modes stay separate.

The main failing of Powerplay is really with NPCs, and how ED itself is constructed from instanced bubbles. The BGS works because these bubbles of NPCs, missions etc are isolated and simple. These do not scale up to Powerplays level at all- meaning Powerplay NPCs do not pose a danger to pledges and that the only threat is in Open from other players. Its far, far to easy to take off in total safety, fly in safety in SC and drop straight into the stations protection in Solo- so, its easier and better to make players NPCs in Powerplay, than it is to make NPCs like players, because the latter would upend the whole of the game.
 
I'd like to add to the documentation proposal.
BGS states and effects need to be clearly labeled for anyone to understand whats going on. Many misinformed players continuously spread information about BGS effects and states that are demonstrably untrue or unprovable.

In fact the "Investment" state currently shows the station message as "we are currently looking to expand into a new system" because the "old investment" was a version of expansion. Currently investment is a positive economic state, similar to boom. You'll have to check what patch this changed. Surprised the "January update" didn't address this issue, but clearly that update failed in other ways.

Other states like pirate attacks and outbreak, sow the seeds of paranoia. Does player activity cause these? Are there missions that target my player minor faction? How do I prevent them or shorten them? There is a fine line between enhancing mystery and inducing paranoia, I would hope the developers would understand the difference.

Giving players an engineering entry in the codex (when they purchase horizons), is a very simple way to "carry your own weight" when it comes to providing a welcome environment for combat or PvP. By keeping the information behind all the unlocks, you create a real sense of paranoia for the un-engineered open player. Yes it is favoring those who have more time in the game, but it does not tell the new players what to expect.

TL;DR
Are the ships and pilots dangerous, or is the information dangerous?
 
I think Fdev must really split the Open and Solo modes, because it's impossible to build a "real" lore like in EVE online, because the players don't interact with each other, it would make the game more inmersive and funny.
 
I think Fdev must really split the Open and Solo modes, because it's impossible to build a "real" lore like in EVE online, because the players don't interact with each other, it would make the game more inmersive and funny.
You cant, its a Pandoras box, its been opened, it cant be closed. Separating the two still takes you back to the core issue, there is no reason to interact with other players. Its still provides not benefit to playing the game in open then solo/pg.

Right now the only player to player interaction you have in the game, is shooting each other, there is no other player to player activity that involves not shooting each other. You can wing and multi crew yes, but thats still just doing pve content with more people, which at the end of the day, is not really that much of a boon.
 
You cant, its a Pandoras box, its been opened, it cant be closed. Separating the two still takes you back to the core issue, there is no reason to interact with other players. Its still provides not benefit to playing the game in open then solo/pg.

Right now the only player to player interaction you have in the game, is shooting each other, there is no other player to player activity that involves not shooting each other. You can wing and multi crew yes, but thats still just doing pve content with more people, which at the end of the day, is not really that much of a boon.
If they separate the modes, there would be more people to interact in the game, more people to shoot and the bgs would be more funny because it would involve pvp in it and the people won't be able to go cowardly to make bgs in solo, so yeah it would be interesting to separate the modes.
 
Except it wont because you have things like mobios where most people end up going. It would not change BGS, becuase BGS is just done through pve activities all pvp does for BGS is make it slightly more annoying.

Thats the other other issue "Mugh cowardly solo" is such a weak argument, people dont want to get blown up, they just wanna play the game with out getting harrassed, thats not cowardly, thats just wanting to have fun.

Sepeareing modes wont do anything other then put all the people that dont really wanna deal with getting shot at into things like mobius, and then open would just be a bunch of people trying to gank each other.
Nonsense. Racing :)
The only official interaction lol. More racing would be nice.
 
Except it wont because you have things like mobios where most people end up going. It would not change BGS, becuase BGS is just done through pve activities all pvp does for BGS is make it slightly more annoying.

Thats the other other issue "Mugh cowardly solo" is such a weak argument, people dont want to get blown up, they just wanna play the game with out getting harrassed, thats not cowardly, thats just wanting to have fun.

Sepeareing modes wont do anything other then put all the people that dont really wanna deal with getting shot at into things like mobius, and then open would just be a bunch of people trying to gank each other.

The only official interaction lol. More racing would be nice.
And that's why this game doesn't get more players, you have to understand that the gaming community prefers competitiveness in games, that is the reason why Eve online and Star Citizen are more popular than Elite, pvp brings games to life.
 
If they separate the modes, there would be more people to interact in the game, more people to shoot and the bgs would be more funny because it would involve pvp in it and the people won't be able to go cowardly to make bgs in solo, so yeah it would be interesting to separate the modes.

How would separating the modes ensure more people would interact? What makes you think that people that play in Solo/PG would all of a sudden decide they had to play in open, if there were multiple BGSs'? The way I see it, with separate BGSs' there would be zero reason to fly in open. It's not like those not in open, would magically feel the need to be in open. That's a pretty crazy notiion.

If you are really thinking about removing Solo/PG's contribution to the BGS so that only what's done in open counts, then you have a real tough fight on your hands. Taking content away from happy players is no way to keep a game running.
 
How would separating the modes ensure more people would interact? What makes you think that people that play in Solo/PG would all of a sudden decide they had to play in open, if there were multiple BGSs'? The way I see it, with separate BGSs' there would be zero reason to fly in open. It's not like those not in open, would magically feel the need to be in open. That's a pretty crazy notiion.

If you are really thinking about removing Solo/PG's contribution to the BGS so that only what's done in open counts, then you have a real tough fight on your hands. Taking content away from happy players is no way to keep a game running.
I am saying this: from now all the progress (engineering, ranks, weapons, ships, credits, etc) that you make in open, stays in open and all the progress that you make in solo/pg stays in solo/pg, so the people would have to decide to continue their progress interacting with people and friend or just play solo.
 
And that's why this game doesn't get more players, you have to understand that the gaming community prefers competitiveness in games, that is the reason why Eve online and Star Citizen are more popular than Elite, pvp brings games to life.

It really does not, not when there is permament loss to player progression of a penalty to loosing your ships. Thats not what players want, thats a proven fact, considering tou have things like mobius as showing that players dont like getting stomped and loosing their ships.

Further proof of this, is that in eve, where they do pvp right, there is virtually now complaining about pvp in teh game, where in ED where pvp is a massive Fuster Cluck of balancing issues, its a constant debate of open players demanding that solo/pg play in their sand box to get shot at.

I am saying this: from now all the progress (engineering, ranks, weapons, ships, credits, etc) that you make in open, stays in open and all the progress that you make in solo/pg stays in solo/pg, so the people would have to decide to continue their progress interacting with people and friend or just play solo.

So you are screwing yourself over now, because now you will never get more people to join in over to open, or join pg/solo with their freinds. You now isolated both groups, thats not fixing the issues thats making it worse.

You cant just seperate the 2, its never going to work, the game already provided both, there is no way to remove that with out screwing over massive potions of your community.
 
It really does not, not when there is permament loss to player progression of a penalty to loosing your ships. Thats not what players want, thats a proven fact, considering tou have things like mobius as showing that players dont like getting stomped and loosing their ships.

Further proof of this, is that in eve, where they do pvp right, there is virtually now complaining about pvp in teh game, where in ED where pvp is a massive Fuster Cluck of balancing issues, its a constant debate of open players demanding that solo/pg play in their sand box to get shot at.
You have a wrong idea what pvp is, it's not only griefing and piracy, you can do pvp as an antigriefer like Spear does, also the problem with griefers can be solved easily if Fdev put more severe punishments, for example if you are a griefer and you are destroyed, then you are going to have to pay your way out of prison, mining a quantity of materials, this is just one example, there may be other ways to sanction the griefers, besides Fdev should give antigriefers some advantage, for example: the Kws scanner should be removed from the game and it should no longer be necessary to have to scan the griefer in the middle of the battle, because this scanner gives a disadvantage since you have to sacrifice an optional module To be able to put it, all this would make the open mode more balanced.
 

Deleted member 121570

D
They actually give you ingame effects, racing is player made things like pvp are "sanctioned" by the game in taht they actually provide a in game reward/ reason for doing it. IE piracy

Sorry, but that's just nuts. There's plenty of reasons for racing too - it's fun, social and challenging. The game actively makes it so by providing fun places and fun ships to fly. It's even against other players, so technically is a form of PvP. It's just not shooting people :)

It's all player made. What's the difference between pirating in PvE or PvP? One involves players, one doesn't.
 
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