The year is 2020 and Elite Dangerous is still P2P. Let's discuss PvE and PvP servers.
- Thread starter Sir Ganksalot
- Start date
I did stop playing recently
but more than happy - as it's a 'game' still 'in development' - to remain on the forum and tell it like it is
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It is the year 2020 and people still think the network architecture can be changed just like that? What do I know - it probably is just a flick of a switch.
Scrap it all. Develop Elite: Dangerous 2. Create a compelling vision of a cut throat future galaxy and stick to it. Also be competent.
The server debate is meaningless otherwise. You're talking about building a movie theater. I care more about what's being shown: The Empire Strikes Back or The Last Jedi?
As far as FDEV is concerned I'd settle for The Last Jedi at this stage.
HA!!!! sorry. I assume that was a funny.
I mean they should be but all I see is unreasonable hatred, irrational criticisms and suggestions, veiled or otherwise that this game is dead.. Game over...uninstall.
Me? Hope springs eternal and as I always note, I'm simply a rube with this game so simple minds-simple pleasures.
i get your point but there a few things mixed up here i'd like to clarify before going into deeper discussion.
1. what is a server, and what kind of server you're asking for
elite's architecture has a number of servers. one obvious one is the authentication server, which simply processes log ons and announces players to the game world and provides them with access tokens to interact with the rest of servers and clients in the network. but there are several more, like the (in)famous transaction servers (before the colored snake names for errors you just got a laconinc "can't connect with transaction server" panic message) which manage, verbi gratia, transactions: market operations, redeeming of bonds, discoveries, explo data, generating mission boards, retrieving star system data, etc. these servers, collectively, manage and hold the 'long-term' persistent state of the galaxy: player assets, bgs, discovered systems, etc.
the type of server elite lacks is the one which tracks the 'short-term' persistence handling of real-time interaction in player instances. there is no server in charge of controlling what is the exact position, orientation and speed of your ship, your shield strength, and the trajectory of bullets you just shot. all this information is GENERATED by the clients and EXCHANGED with the other clients in the instance, there is no server aware of all this, except for coarse details about the presence of players in instances. this is what is meant with 'elite is p2p'.
2. so why is elite p2p?
handling real-time player interactions with simulation of physics in a 6dof combat scenario is hard and costly proportionally to the complexity of the simulation, the volume of information per player and the number of players taking part. there are obvious practical limits to this, and it requires a dedicated network of servers to run. this is a significant cost that many multiplayer games (even f2p ones) just assume as part of the cost of operations, but frontier just confronted the playerbase (the backers) with the decision to either pay for it with a subscription fee or go without. anyhow, they chose not to pay. don't ask.
what that means is that all that work is offloaded to the machines of players acting as servers and sharing the information between them, without frontier having any implication nor, and this is crucial, control.
3. and why does it matter?
depends. for the overall casual family experience, it doesn't. for realtime competitive pvp in any form it is crucial, and in practical terms a no-go.
first is the issue of control. for security, all these little parameters like position, speed, orientation, etc. shouldn't be curated by peers for the simple reasons that they can't be trusted. this why you have 'memory trainers' (hacks that give you unlimited shield or jump-range or whatever) and, since all of this is handled by player machines on their own, frontier can do little about it except taking over each player's pc and turning it into a bunker (if that were even possible). (see note *1)
second is the issue of reliability. peers are designed to collaborate but simply can't be relied on in such a scenario. since every client is vital in the simulation the moment a client just fails to reply the whole thing breaks. this is why you have combat logging, and why frontier can't do anything about it either. nuff said.
a third issue is complexity. if handilng real-time physics simulations is hard, and doing it in a multiplayer environment is orders of magnitude harder, doing it across a range of uncontrolled machines in the wild that need to synchronize each other several times a second is a actually a immense challenge. nobody has ever done this. frontier tried and the result is what you see now. good enough for casual family experience, breaks just a step beyond that. this is why you have weird bugs like damage multiplying per number of objects in the instance. ironically, what frontier saved in hardware they have probably paid back in maintaining a sorry mess of code. and it still doesn't work. or maybe they didn't, and maybe that's why it still doesn't work.
4. so what has this to do with the open/solo pve/pvp shared galaxy debates
actually ... NOTHING AT ALL!
different things, but complementary.the p2p architectural choice only (and severely) impacts the quality, consistence and fairness of the real-time simulation.
what 'long-term' persistence effects those interactions will have on the game world is an entirely different thing. to share one galaxy or have several, to affect one mode or several ... these are completely independent game design decisions.
open/solo/private are just filters that determine which players can meet which, it has nothing to do with the decision to record all those player's actions in one place or another, in different galaxies or the same, or with some actions have impact and some not.
5. your answer
so, regarding the combat experience, where p2p really matters, i would definitely pay to get rid of the p2p thing. i doubt it is going to happen.
regarding pve/pvp and shared galaxies (so nothing to do with p2p) ... i would be open minded as long as the system is consistent. e.g., if you can affect the environment you must be open to be affected by others in the same environment. i think this is cornerstone for a believable universe and meaningful multiplayer interactions. i don't have a problem with there existing several galaxies. it's just frontier who woul have a problem with their 'ongoing narrative' but, to be bloody honest, their ongoing narrative ongoingly sucks. then there's the 'first discoveries'. well, i personally don't care about 'achievement badges' eiter. it was cool and exciting in the early days as players pushed the limits as it went but, nowadays? when you can practically teleport around the galaxy? water under the bridge.
forgot to add an important thing: as much as i'd like a (or 'the', doesn't matter) galaxy as 'open only' affected, there is no point even considering this possibility while the underlying real-time system is still the p2p charade, for the reasons explained above. arx would hit the fan pretty quick
note *1
there would indeed be ways to implement sophisticated cryptographical protocols for peers to do trusted and auditable exchange. there have been experiments on this. but this so complex (and the computational overhead would be so high) that it is really not worth mentioning in this context, nuff to say that frontier didn't implement any of this, and can be happy that the current instancing even 'sort of works most of the time'.
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I would be fine with something a little less P2P based, and a bit more reliable. I would really like a PvE server as well, and would be fine tossing a fiver their way every month as well, though I doubt I would be willing to pay much over that. I don't see a reason to get rid of solo though. 4 minutes from losing my time bonus on a mission, and someone is hanging out on the only medium pad of some outpost. Yeah, I am switching to solo. I would prefer to keep the BGS and PP unified.
I think the current networking solution is great, it ticks a lot of boxes & has few downsides. A better compromise than everyone paying a subscription fee certainly in my view.
Dedicated instance servers could be added into the existing infrastructure, potentially funded by players, with technical co-operation from FDev to modify the matchmaking rules for specific accounts (ie ones that contribute to the cost of the instance host's fat pipe).
What that would allow is improved matchmaking among a specific list of player accounts - great for PvP groups, but it would be exclusive & you wouldn't instance with randoms (as much).
Dedicated instance servers could be added into the existing infrastructure, potentially funded by players, with technical co-operation from FDev to modify the matchmaking rules for specific accounts (ie ones that contribute to the cost of the instance host's fat pipe).
What that would allow is improved matchmaking among a specific list of player accounts - great for PvP groups, but it would be exclusive & you wouldn't instance with randoms (as much).
I'm sorry if this sounds cold and heartless but this kind of annoys me. Every single MMO on console requires Xbox live or PS Plus(?). A game being held back because some console players don't wanna pay $5 a month for online service is beyond ridiculous.
If Elite were to change its server architecture, that would be the only way to go for the game to really live up to its sandbox potential. Frankly, there is a reason why most people still consider Eve Online to be the creme de la creme of sandbox space games. Of course, that experience has come with a hefty price tag - it can be fascinating to read about the money CCP has invested in maintaining their single-shard server over the years, hence the monthly sub fee. You get what you pay for, I suppose. Honestly, the idea of Eve Online's sandbox merged with Elite's 1:1 sim of the Milky Way is a heady one. I would love to see that one day. But I don't expect to any time soon.
In the meantime, if they could improve the instancing...great! But I would not be willing to give up solo mode. Knowing that when I get annoyed by playing in open I can flip a switch and enjoy myself all alone remains a great feature of Elite. Heck, if I could do that in Eve Online I would probably play that game a heck of a lot more than I currently do!
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A glorified web server for most of it combined with very light weight mission/instancing servers. What's cutting edge here? All modelling happens client side. Changing it is basically a complete game rewrite and we can enjoy reading these silly threads where closet gankers hope for more prey with dedicated servers.
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Not true. Neverwinter, eso and star trek online dont require ps+ there are more but those are the only 2 ive ever played. Either way, imagine you bought a game under the pretenses that you could play it without plus, then suddenly you cant play it. That is unless you pony up to PlayStation, not even frontier.
Personally i pay for plus by the year, every year because you get free games every month. But i have friends that dont have plus but still play elite in solo.
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It would be still be an option upon launching the game no ?
Instead of picking Solo or Open now, I pick PvE or PvP, what's the difference ?
Edit, when I do pick open, that implies that I'm OK with the possibility PvP obviously, if that's the question ?
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No it isn't - I don't pay for internet connectivity when I already have a provider either.
Ah - that's a good point, I did pay extra just to have the option to play in open on PS,
I'd understand how some might not want to do that...
That's presumably also why there are less open players on PS idk. ?
I'd understand how some might not want to do that...
That's presumably also why there are less open players on PS idk. ?
I've always advocated for one big Open cross platforms FREE to all. With one bgs 1 Pp and a fk ton of weird stuff generated by such a galaxy.
See how it is just isn't real.?
If we had one big thing the whole game would be different.
Mega question is would gankers over run it?
I'd like to think not. Course there's nothing currently to stop em so NO I would not see it working unless a whole raft of PvP related changes were made.
And that's not going to happen anytime soon.
As to the idea of pvp pve servers nah sorry won't work...flys in the face of one and all together.
One world!!
o7
See how it is just isn't real.?
If we had one big thing the whole game would be different.
Mega question is would gankers over run it?
I'd like to think not. Course there's nothing currently to stop em so NO I would not see it working unless a whole raft of PvP related changes were made.
And that's not going to happen anytime soon.
As to the idea of pvp pve servers nah sorry won't work...flys in the face of one and all together.
One world!!
o7
The problem with the PVE only mode is that those players who don’t want to see other players won’t be happy, and the open mode players wouldn’t want to see their player population reduce. I would prefer a separate ‘offline’ solo mode (Effectively a separate game that doesn’t affect the BGS) and a single open only mode.