Create two versions of Open: One each for PvP (Enabled) & PvE (PvP Disabled)

The creation of a dedicated PvE space for all would permit every player to 'blaze their own trail', those who wish to focus solely on PvE play would be presented with the opportunity to play cooperatively (if they wish) with the other occupants of their 'open' or alone, as they wish.
I can't believe you of all people contributed to forum bingo :D You were always level headed... I guess there's first time for everything :D

PS: I support that idea.
 
I'm also convinced that some CMDRs are attacked in game for the expressed opinions of the player behind the CMDR.

I'm sure some are, but that's far from a given, and probably not particularly common.

I offend a lot of people on these forums, some of them enough to take it to my non-monetized YouTube channel where they post insults and randomly downvote videos...but I almost never get anyone coming to look for my CMDR in-game because I irked them elsewhere.

Anyway, assuming the worst, or projecting percieved player motives or qualities upon their character (or vice versa) is a choice, and often the wrong one.

Open itself is optional - and not all players can play in Open.

The game itself is optional.

If one clicks Open and runs across a CMDR that is hostile to theirs, they're going to have to endure at least fifteen second of it, unless they feel entitled to break the rules and disconnect uncleanly.
 
In my head it works coz neither side are griefers. Pirates are outlaws, they live without protection from the law so consequences can be lethal. They then have to either rob quickly or disable the wing or choose their targets more carefully, there will always be people willing to run the blockade solo just for the hell of it.
Well, sure. I'd be quite happy to run a pirate blockade alone too, because my trade ship can't be stopped by a pirate ship. Pirate or griefer your only viable targets are players with utterly terrible builds that either assume they're not going to meet a hostile player in the first place, or assume it will be rare enough that the extra cargo hold makes them a profit in the long-run even with the ship losses.

Thats a shame about the self-destruct, I hope its just words said in anger and not what most people would actually do. There has to be give and take in an MMO, just not OP one sided consequence free.
It's not even irrational behaviour given that the value of any cargo worth piloting in the first place is far higher than the rebuy on a trade ship, and we all have perfectly reliable escape teleporters for the crew.

If you have a trade T-9 with a rebuy of ~6 million, carrying 750t of Gold at ~35 million credits, and are intercepted and disabled by a pirate, then:
- pirated: lose 35 million credits, pirate gains 0.75*35 million credits (difference ~62 million)
- self-destruct: lose 41 million credits, pirate gains nothing and still gets some bounties (difference <41 million)

Paying 6 million credits (net) so that your enemy doesn't get ~27 million credits is generally a good deal if you expect to meet them again, as it would indeed discourage them in the long run.
(I suspect the only reason I only hear about it as a relatively rare in practice occurrence - though I have seen a video of it happening to a "RP pirate" - is because most of the people who would do it also combat log first)

In theory a pirate could avoid this by cultivating such a reputation for only stealing a fraction of the cargo so that the difference is in the trader's favour by not self-destructing. There are three big problems here:
1) in any individual encounter, the pirate obviously has something to gain in the short-term by stealing more than that, so such a reputation would have to be extensively established, in a game world which is far too big to do that. I've never met the same pirate on separate days, and nor have I met any pirate that I'd heard someone else mention first.
2) the break-even point in that "T-9 of Gold" case is about 2/3 of the cargo, which is still enough that while it's not worth self-destructing out of spite, the trader is still going to make a significant loss on the trade trip. So why should the trader hang around to be pirated and not trade the gold in one of the tens of thousands of systems where the pirate isn't? After all, if the pirate is famous enough to have established the necessary reputation in '1' ... people probably know where they are!
3) if the pirate slacks off even further so that the trader still makes some profit on the trip even when pirated ... and again manages to credibly promise this [1] ... then the pirate actually makes less in the long-run than the trader does, despite accepting the various risks and costs of the criminal lifestyle (the 25% payout cut for Black Market goods doesn't help here, but this applies even if the trader abandons the goods)

[1] Which is tough for them to actually do, as it needs them to know how much the trade goods were purchased for...
 
So whats the argument against an Open PVE mode again?

Mostly what it will do to the actual Open mode.

If one mode becomes a de facto PvP mode, the expectations that sets up will negatively impact the play of those who may not be looking for PvP, but who aren't categorically adverse to it either.

I'm already annoyed at having to have my CMDR defend himself by shooting down 1v1-me-bros and my-first-gank-ship buffoons (which can take forever, especially if my CMDR isn't in a dedicated combat vessel) who think that I have to be looking for a fight with them to be playing in Open. It's not anywhere near as harmful to my immersion as no one being willing or able to attack my CMDR, but it's silly, and it would get considerably worse if there was an 'Open PvE' mode to make the real Open mode a de facto 'Open PvP' mode.

Not to mention that the whole PvP/PvE dichotomy is an absurdity from my perspective. Given the way NPCs behave in this game, it may as well be purely a difficulty concern, and barely that, given how lax the Pilot's Federation licensing requirements are.

On a more subjective note, the game has enough modes already. Subdividing it further to cater to more arbitrary preferences seems silly when they could just flesh out the private group mode that already exists.
 
2 opens would devide the playerbase even more then it allready is, look i'm not a gonker i like the pve stuff and the properbility of getting attacked at random is part of the dangerous imo you can always escape if something comes up
So giving players the option to play how they wish is a poor concept? Everyone should play the same way as you?
you guys are making it sound like there is a ganker in every system trying to get to you , outside the few hotspots there are in game i have hardly (4000+hrs) met a hostile cmdr
Well done... So there is no reason why splitting the modes to permit players to play how they wish is an issue then?
I think this probably describes most players in Open...those who would lose something from this segregation because they are on a spectrum between the two extremes and aren't served well by either.
I disagree... Politely, of course, perhaps 'many' would be a more accurate assessment?
What about the following compromise: we get a PvP open and a PvE open, and we get rid of block and apply a timer of 1 minute in both modes? Deal?
All problems would've been solved, right?
PvP players never, ever CLOG on each other, do they? ...and of course, in a PvE environment there wouldn't be any PvP action to feel the need to CLOG from 🤷‍♂️
I can't believe you of all people contributed to forum bingo :D You were always level headed... I guess there's first time for everything :D

PS: I support that idea.
It is my typical 'level-headedness' that brought this topic about - getting a little bored of the PvP folk demanding my game get affected by their foibles - we really do need to seperate play modes to enable the META to be broken every 10 days or so without affecting every player in the game - and, be honest, why would a PvP player wish to engage a PvE player (let's leave exotic reasons like PP or BGS out of this) if another PvP player was available to play with?

Bar the few console players who don't pay the 'console tax', players can, and do, change mode as is their won't - my suggestion doesn't change those options, just adds another where like-minded players are maximising their chances of meeting in open - because the option to do so is given.
 
Not to mention that the whole PvP/PvE dichotomy is an absurdity from my perspective. Given the way NPCs behave in this game, it may as well be purely a difficulty concern, and barely that, given how lax the Pilot's Federation licensing requirements are.
This and the widely held idea that players must be polarized between the two camps. So many people seem to have the impression that you're either a vicious ganker or a passive PvEer who just wants to type "o7" and that there's nothing in between. I know a lot of people who enjoy the frisson of Open even if they're not expressly looking for a fight. Those people, I suspect, are just less vocal on social media.

I probably fall more generally into the "1v1-me-bro" category you mention but honestly this isn't by choice, it's because it's very difficult to find a well-matched fight when you want one without organising it in an inherently unimmersive way*. My favourite PvP experiences without a shadow of a doubt have been the precious few that took place between goodnatured, invested players around concrete in-game stakes - so BGS wars, basically - and the game does a terrible job of incentivising this kind of encounter. You see so many threads pop up during and after CZ-centric community goals where people are thrilled at having had their first PvP experience occur 'naturally' and adjacent to actual stakes - it seems such a shame to me that this isn't easier to find.

*edit: although it has to be said a big issue here is combat balancing, not just a lack of opportunity... which is a different problem.
 
Perhaps I should have worded my suggestion to PvP Enabled and PvP Disabled to encompass the option of being in a group where one has the possibility of PvP encounters or not as the current wording appears to be a little too exclusive for interpretation.
(Now title edited for clarity)
 
I've never met the same pirate on separate days, and nor have I met any pirate that I'd heard someone else mention first.

I have, quite a few times, though it has gotten rarer.

Tigga, Redan, Jordan Cobalt, and half the people in CODE...my CMDR has probably encountered some of them dozens of times over the years.

I disagree... Politely, of course, perhaps 'many' would be a more accurate assessment?

I'm under the assumption that if one is clicking Open they are tacitly accepting of some potential for CMDR on CMDR violence. The actual situation of the mode could be far less than ideal, but there is little reason to select it if it's categorically unacceptable.

Most of the players I've encountered through Open also didn't seem very adverse to PvP encounters they were thrust into, especially if they thought they could win. When my CMDR is wanted, or shows up as a red pentagon in a CZ...most people in anything that resembled a combat ship have generally been ok in taking a shot at him. Likewise, when my CMDR is part of a group doing traditionally "PvE" things, the PvE players around have generally had no objections to defending themselves from attack, if they think they have competent backup.

What I almost never see are pacifist CMDRs who immediately cut and run if they feel they have a fighting chance, or those who don't seem to enjoy things that go their way.

So, yeah, I think most is probably accurate.

in a PvE environment there wouldn't be any PvP action to feel the need to CLOG from 🤷‍♂️

It's just as against the rules and as much an asset duplication exploit when performed against an NPC, or a mailslot.
 
With the regular requests for 'nerf' this or 'remove that' and 'balance everything' from the PvP 'community' perhaps now is a good time to split the two communities where the only common ground is playing the game.

The creation of a dedicated PvE space for all would permit every player to 'blaze their own trail', those who wish to focus solely on PvE play would be presented with the opportunity to play cooperatively (if they wish) with the other occupants of their 'open' or alone, as they wish.

Yes, Private Groups exist but require both the knowledge of their existence and how to apply to join. Personal groups require 'knowing' the other members or being invited, there is no PvE group of unlimited size to be part of.

The benefit for PvP players is obvious, anyone choosing to play in that version of open is consenting, explicitly, to the opportunity to engage in combat with other players - and if dialogue is maintained from this group perhaps Frontier devs could permit every request for combat related change to be applied solely to this group, in order to make PvP more dynamic rahter than the 'stale' META that is berated so often here.

In theory this change should make an entirely happy playerbase as the two disparate groups would finally be able to play exactly as they wish.

The idea is good, the problem I see with this is what you need todo in the PvE mode to block players from do some unwanted PvP in that mode.


The obvious thing is to remove all damage from players shooting at players,
but then we have the things like ship collisions, how to deal with those, same as weapon fire? then we get bouncy castles... where you can boost into other players and get bounced of, wrecking havoc on the so called physics engine, that already have been proven to launch SRVs into orbit from ships...

OR should we just remove collisions between player ships altogether? So how do we deal with me parking my ship over your cockpit blocking your view? make my ship see through?


Those griefers are all about messing things up for other players. I remember The Division, that had player collision active at all times, so of course, some griefer player, decided to leave their character in a doorway and thus blocking other players to enter leave the mission NPC character... This was later changed to that no fire friendly zones did not have collision detection enabled.


So when I run all the things that I can already think players can do to mess with other players to either block them from their objective or use the environment to get them killed, (ie push you over a cliff edge), or block your visions, so that you shoot the wrong targets and now you are risk of dying since all the authority ships are after you for being a wanted criminal. And if these are not considered and dealt with before this kind of change, we know that griefers are going to to exploit this... We already now that griefers willingly lied to infiltrate private player groups intended for PvE only activities.


So how much must we break the existing game world physics to block these players from being toxic towards other players and ruining their experience, for a few giggles and laughs.
 
Out of order but first is quickest.

(lost the quote lol)

Some players would actively go there because there are pirates. It probably wouldnt take that many for the pirate to have more willing victims than they actually do now.
In theory a pirate could avoid this by cultivating such a reputation for only stealing a fraction of the cargo so that the difference is in the trader's favour by not self-destructing. There are three big problems here:
Theres more than that and they are BIG problems. Ive thought about the challenge :)
3) if the pirate slacks off even further so that the trader still makes some profit on the trip even when pirated ... and again manages to credibly promise this [1] ... then the pirate actually makes less in the long-run than the trader does, despite accepting the various risks and costs of the criminal lifestyle (the 25% payout cut for Black Market goods doesn't help here, but this applies even if the trader abandons the goods)
Yes there would have to be limits, say 10% of Cargo and enough victims to keep the pirates busy.

OK Mind Experiment:

Heres how Id do it. But its too much work for me. But theoretically:

Find a system or a couple or maybe 3 for max effect. Must be a trade triangle with med-high profit available and currently no pmf, fine if on the edges of the bubble, even better in some ways. No Rare or Lore or Engineer system, no reason to go there specifically apart from the Pirates.
Make them or some of them Anarchy, better if 1-2 either way so the 'risk' is magnified at certain times
Keep the systems in Boom or whatever state is best for attracting Traders
Max 10% of cargo robbed and do it often enough that people actually know this is true, they can submit and make a profit.
Same for Miners, 10% of Cargo max, as a miner you really shouldn't count your chickens until theyve hatched anyway.
No Cargo? On your way stop wasting my time and Ill stop wasting yours!
Make submission optional, loud announcements in chat, ask if they will submit before interdicting. Dont interdict if they wont, maybe next time they will. If not BLOCK them (Joking! :))
Over time the systems will be known as the Pirate zone where you can make profits but there is RP 'risk' if you opt-in. This should mean certain players will go there for a few runs at least and hopefully this continuous stream of players will feed the pirates.
If all your looking to do is evade or clog or whatever theres not much point going there. Theres similar or potentially better profits to be made elsewhere.

Allowances:

In Anarchy a Trader Wing accepts they may die but not the Trader, its not an excuse to kill the Trader, although a skilled pirate would disable them instead and leave them alive where possible to avoid bad feeling and in-game repercussions, more attention from lawfuls and less willing victims.
Needs a lot of communication with lawfuls and co-operation from them that this zone is allowed to exist. If its proper RP and not griefing I think theyd allow it with above limitations or some kind of accord, besides they can randomly 'police' the non-anarchy systems in the triangle which just adds RP for everyone
Pirates would almost have to 'police' their own systems to stop the gankers and griefers from trying to come in and impose their gameplay on everyone else and destroying their pirate space - this is potentially the hardest bit. Youd have to choose, are you a pirate or are you a ganker pretending to be a pirate? If you crap in your own backyard people wont walk into it so the whole idea only works if there is 'honourable' RP.
90% of Cargo left means a profitable trade helping the Boom state, so its a win win.
There could be an issue where everyone who goes there decides to have a go at Pirating instead of running the blockade
It only works if both sides want the RP, but theres no reason to go there unless this is what you want

I think a lot of people would go there at least once just for the experience, and theres enough players that at least once will keep the pirates occupied for a while.

Theoretically, I know gankers would kill it in reality, but it was a nice thought experiment.
 
So when I run all the things that I can already think players can do to mess with other players to either block them from their objective or use the environment to get them killed, (ie push you over a cliff edge), or block your visions, so that you shoot the wrong targets and now you are risk of dying since all the authority ships are after you for being a wanted criminal. And if these are not considered and dealt with before this kind of change, we know that griefers are going to to exploit this... We already now that griefers willingly lied to infiltrate private player groups intended for PvE only activities.


So how much must we break the existing game world physics to block these players from being toxic towards other players and ruining their experience, for a few giggles and laughs.
Maaaaaaybe this is a sign every action FD will take will give griefers options to grief others, and this is inevitable.

So why not take advantage of the various ways to prevent getting "griefed", namely by using solo mode or PG (the last PG infiltration is ages ago...)
or by - gasp - using the absurdedly inflated hit point values of ships with shields and shield boosters or stacked hrps to your advantage to make yourself 99% immune to
griefers?
 
So how much must we break the existing game world physics to block these players from being toxic towards other players and ruining their experience, for a few giggles and laughs.
It would indeed be a challenge solely because of the ingenuity shown by those who just wish to be disruptive, I don't have answers, although 'Smart' Weapons would prevent the 'accidental' shots hitting a non-targeted player - removing collision damage whilst retaining the ability to use ramming tactics against NPC's is a toughie...

Other MMO's must have had to solve the issues, knowledge can be shared, so approaches to 'getting around' devious thought may already exist.

(Not that I believe for one second that Frontier would take any notice of this suggestion - as I fondly hope no notice is taken by the other requests to change my game to please someone else)
 
So, yeah, I think most is probably accurate.
As usual, we differ, I think many is probably accurate...
ETA: solely because there is no alternative to open for a player who wishes to engage in the social aspect of an alleged MMO but is not interested in the least in playing pew-pew.
 
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Maaaaaaybe this is a sign every action FD will take will give griefers options to grief others, and this is inevitable.

So why not take advantage of the various ways to prevent getting "griefed", namely by using solo mode or PG (the last PG infiltration is ages ago...)
or by - gasp - using the absurdedly inflated hit point values of ships with shields and shield boosters or stacked hrps to your advantage to make yourself 99% immune to
griefers?
So, essentially you are suggesting that someone flies this:

Rather than this:

Because the first has 'better utility' in survival, even though no other utility?
 
So, essentially you are suggesting that someone flies this:

Rather than this:

Because the first has 'better utility' in survival, even though no other utility?
The second one is more then sufficient to not get ganked ?!

My comment was targeting people who insist to socialize in open, in a shifit 3D shielded Asp, while handing in stuff in ShinDez,
but then complain open is evil and they want ANOTHER mode next to solo/PG so that they can fly their merry way o7ing around.

Open is open, just keep it that way. You want to have your cake and eat it too? Not gonna happen. Use solo/PG.
For the same reasons weighted open or open only power play gets shot down. The game is as it is, live with it.
 
The second one is more then sufficient to not get ganked ?!

My comment was targeting people who insist to socialize in open, in a shifit 3D shielded Asp, while handing in stuff in ShinDez,
but then complain open is evil and they want ANOTHER mode next to solo/PG so that they can fly their merry way o7ing around.

Open is open, just keep it that way. You want to have your cake and eat it too? Not gonna happen. Use solo/PG.
For the same reasons weighted open or open only power play gets shot down. The game is as it is, live with it.
Then we are about due modernisation of the game to bring it 'up-to-date' in its alleged MMO status to provide the opportunities for 'alternatives' to those that currently exist, surely?
 
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