Why I and many others will rarely play open
- Thread starter vanishboy
- Start date
I guess the last sewing circle wasn't big enough.
To give an indication of how difficult it is to balance "high-end" NPC combat in this game - I'll describe what I was doing a couple of weeks ago.
I was stacking missions. Specifically assassinations. Seven wing assassinations in total, that took me into an anarchy system. It took out my corvette for this.
While I was doing these, I saw another player from the group I was working against. Fair game, I thought. I called in a buddy to let them know they were operating in the system, lost contact with them, shrugged, and went back to what I was doing.
Next thing, I'm finishing up another target and get told "I see him." Go to SC, see them drop since my wingman interdicted him, and before I get there I see them low-wake - I immediately grab them, and boom.
At this point I decide to swing by the station since it's nearby, I've probably got another assassination before I run out of bullets but better to be safe. The dude's in the station on the pad. Quickly zip in to rearm, undock, he undocks right behind me, two of his wingmates in corvettes show up. My pal's still around in his mamba. Blast the first guy again, and have a 2v2 outside the station, chasing both of them off. Rearm again, and go back to look for the rest of the assassination targets.
The two buddies show up again, this time in a cutter and a fer-de-lance. and this time we have a somewhat more formal "deploy hardpoints on the pass" duel. Cutter and FDL versus corvette and Mamba. The cutter pilot did a good job of pulling me away from his wingmate at first until I realised that's what he was up to and decided not to play his game, we shortly turned it into a 2v1, and the cutter low-waked on us at 45% hull. Considered chasing him down, but eh, this was an arranged match so we considered waking to be a forfeit.
So - I was able to launch myself into PvP directly off the back of doing multiple wing assassinations. Clearly these things are not a challenge to me in that ship, if I want things to be more challenging I have to take something weaker.
At the same time, scaling them to someone like me would be prohibitively difficult for the majority of players - I was in my PvE boat and still took on a wing of players without any concern that they'd manage to do more than chase me off. I'm not even remotely a high-tier PvPer.
Compare this to AX combat, where I typically finish a fight fairly damaged and low on ammo, and certainly in no shape to be going picking fights with other players.
Then again - this also illustrates why I like to play open - you can't get an evening like that playing solo.
I was stacking missions. Specifically assassinations. Seven wing assassinations in total, that took me into an anarchy system. It took out my corvette for this.
While I was doing these, I saw another player from the group I was working against. Fair game, I thought. I called in a buddy to let them know they were operating in the system, lost contact with them, shrugged, and went back to what I was doing.
Next thing, I'm finishing up another target and get told "I see him." Go to SC, see them drop since my wingman interdicted him, and before I get there I see them low-wake - I immediately grab them, and boom.
At this point I decide to swing by the station since it's nearby, I've probably got another assassination before I run out of bullets but better to be safe. The dude's in the station on the pad. Quickly zip in to rearm, undock, he undocks right behind me, two of his wingmates in corvettes show up. My pal's still around in his mamba. Blast the first guy again, and have a 2v2 outside the station, chasing both of them off. Rearm again, and go back to look for the rest of the assassination targets.
The two buddies show up again, this time in a cutter and a fer-de-lance. and this time we have a somewhat more formal "deploy hardpoints on the pass" duel. Cutter and FDL versus corvette and Mamba. The cutter pilot did a good job of pulling me away from his wingmate at first until I realised that's what he was up to and decided not to play his game, we shortly turned it into a 2v1, and the cutter low-waked on us at 45% hull. Considered chasing him down, but eh, this was an arranged match so we considered waking to be a forfeit.
So - I was able to launch myself into PvP directly off the back of doing multiple wing assassinations. Clearly these things are not a challenge to me in that ship, if I want things to be more challenging I have to take something weaker.
At the same time, scaling them to someone like me would be prohibitively difficult for the majority of players - I was in my PvE boat and still took on a wing of players without any concern that they'd manage to do more than chase me off. I'm not even remotely a high-tier PvPer.
Compare this to AX combat, where I typically finish a fight fairly damaged and low on ammo, and certainly in no shape to be going picking fights with other players.
Then again - this also illustrates why I like to play open - you can't get an evening like that playing solo.
It's not that it's difficult to balance having a game that's hard for skilled players while still being accessible to new / casual players.
It's that it requires actually caring about any of those things and putting some thought into a system that responds in a scaleable way to different players without resorting to unrealistic scenarios or cheating npcs.
It's somewhat obvious that fdev doesn't care about a balanced game. They're not really all that concerned about anything above ensuring that there's not a scenario where 1 single ship is best so that players ignore the rest. Aside from that, i dont think they could care much less.
It's that it requires actually caring about any of those things and putting some thought into a system that responds in a scaleable way to different players without resorting to unrealistic scenarios or cheating npcs.
It's somewhat obvious that fdev doesn't care about a balanced game. They're not really all that concerned about anything above ensuring that there's not a scenario where 1 single ship is best so that players ignore the rest. Aside from that, i dont think they could care much less.
Honestly I lay part of the blame on the shield meta. As long as I keep my shield up, the only limiting factor on my mission-endurance is the amount of fuel and ammo I carry.
Apart from thargoids, I don't come out of any fight with the feeling of "better not get into any more trouble before I've had a chance to patch up" unless I deliberately choose to go out in a hulltank/hybrid. Certainly not a fight I win.
I've got ammoless biweave builds based around being able to go out to a warzone and not have to return for any kind of maintenance for potentially days, hitting conflict zones back to back to back without taking any kind of permanent damage, and the only limit on my endurance is how long my fuel tanks last - so I bring more fuel tanks.
Coming out of a fight with at least some lasting damage, even as the victor, should be the norm rather than the exception, but against human ships, it's pretty rare for me to come out of a fight bloodied-but-victorious. Even in PvP it's not all that common for the fight to continue much beyond the point where the first person's shields fail.
I've made a few fresh CMDRs in fresh Corvettes either hate engineering, or made them want to do the engineering grind.
Just a few weeks ago at another CZ CG (there's been do many lately I can't remember which one) I was in a CZ with a CMDR in a Vette on the opposing side. I was in my Mamba and trying to avoid him, playing a nice game of "let's see who can fill the death bar first". He opened up on me at one point, but I was waiting for it to happen. I gave him a couple passes and his shields absolutely melted. Unengineered biweaves. I decided I would continue playing nice and told him to run away in comms. I disengaged and continued fighting NPCs in the CZ. The butt-brain attacked me again, so I killed him. I'm not even good at pvp and managed to stick to his thrusters just to show him, not only do you need engineering, you can't get by on a shiny Rear Admiral prize alone.
I wonder if he's on the forums today, talking about how broken engineering is. Or if he's in a G5 engineered Vette waiting for the day he sees that Mamba again so he can get his revenge.
Just a few weeks ago at another CZ CG (there's been do many lately I can't remember which one) I was in a CZ with a CMDR in a Vette on the opposing side. I was in my Mamba and trying to avoid him, playing a nice game of "let's see who can fill the death bar first". He opened up on me at one point, but I was waiting for it to happen. I gave him a couple passes and his shields absolutely melted. Unengineered biweaves. I decided I would continue playing nice and told him to run away in comms. I disengaged and continued fighting NPCs in the CZ. The butt-brain attacked me again, so I killed him. I'm not even good at pvp and managed to stick to his thrusters just to show him, not only do you need engineering, you can't get by on a shiny Rear Admiral prize alone.
I wonder if he's on the forums today, talking about how broken engineering is. Or if he's in a G5 engineered Vette waiting for the day he sees that Mamba again so he can get his revenge.
I think some of that was to help Traders & Explorers survive ganks long enough to escape though
I know we are way off topic now but any chance of sharing those builds? My main limit in CZs is ammo, Im always running out v the tanks and didnt think there were proper laser builds that could do better and avoid the cheeky ones from jumping out, would love to have one at least in my fleet. Id even finally buy the Corvette or Clutter or T10 if thats what it takes.
That's not a sewing circle, it's a knitting arc.
Know your women young man, or thee shall regret it!
Well in PVE I get out when shields deplete, though that is because reinforced prismatics really do not reload in meaningfull time. But well class 8 shield gen does what it is promised to do, and work out as it should.
Yeah, the thing about escaping a gank though is that you don't expect to come out of a gank and still be combat-ready, since you weren't combat-ready in the first place. The issue isn't ships being durable, it's more that so much of that durability is infinitely regenerable. On a trading ship this isn't an issue, since you build to survive a single fight and get out (hence prismatics being a trader thing - you want upfront HP and don't care about regen since you're not planning to get into another fight, whereas a bounty hunting session is liable to be lots of short fights back to back so you go with biweaves to recover between encounters)
I've got a few actually, depending on my mood! Generally speaking, they're fast-charge biweave builds with as little dependence on ammunition/restocking as possible.
Running away is rarely a problem, as most NPCs start to fly in a straight line when they go for a high-wake so as soon as I see that "surge detected" notification I can just delete them with the plasma.
No SCBs, but if the shields do drop then even that isn't a mission-finisher since it's fitted to patch itself up as needed and even a high CZ is rarely a threat to 7k effective hull.
edit: oh, and while two of these builds have fighters, in practical terms with an elite pilot, it'll take a ridiculous amount of time before you'll run out. Seriously I do not see the point of a class 7 fighter bay, who needs that many fighters ever?
If I'm using Prisms and my shields are low (in a CZ) I just fly away from the furball, reboot/repair, and fly back. Of course, i can't just fly away when I have multiple NPCs aggroing me, but if I'm picking NPCs off one at a time, I can wait until just after I kill one to fly off and reboot.
I do this with a lot of my trade ships too. I'll outfit them with prisms, collection limpets, and for combat in addition to having significant cargo space. When pirates come after me, I'll kill them to collect their mats. If my shields drop below 50% in a fight, I'll reboot/repair before jumping to SC again. Rinse/repeat for the mission bonus.
I have well over 900 hours in OPEN, and have died to PvP conflict three times. The last PvP death for me was in 2019. Not sure how or why you are getting attacked (and losing) that much in OPEN by other players.Griefers. For the most part.
Whenever I play open, and happen to cross ways with another player, I get interdicted and killed by a full engineered guy. "I mean, ok, you obviously want to test out your super OP ship and pubstomp little-me, I get it. I hope you were able to pump up that little ego of yours. Now I relogg into solo mode, goodbye."
Yee, it's dumb, really.
No really, I am glad that there is solo-mode. I just wanna chill and have fun.
Tho sometimes I get the urge to step into open-play with the hope to find some cool guys to play with. Even though it sometimes tends to end like described above.
Not sure, why I write this, maybe I don't want solo-mode ever to be deleted and I hope it never will be.
Takes about half an hour to load to full strenght for me
Traders don't use the shield meta because it 'hurts their minmax' and they won't be 'forced to change how they play'. All this griefer talk is just a bunch of, literally, losers refusing to learn from their failures and demanding the game be changed until their broken methods and absent skill works sufficiently well.
Takes about half an hour to load to full strenght for me
Yup, prisms take forever to regen, but I'm talking about reboot/repair. Idk if you know about it. I didn't either for a long time.
On your right panel there is an option to reboot/repair your ship in the ship functions. It shuts your ship down for a a short time (less than 30 seconds). When it boots back up your shields have 50% strength.
If you already knew that then I apologize.
Yes, even lowake, drop, reboot, return is faster than going to a station for a supercharge.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Is there a suggestion that the gankers don't min/max their ships to optimise it for a combat role - and I doubt that they would be keen on being "forced to change how they play"?
.... which could also describe those who seek to force all players (i.e. those who choose not to play among those who engage them in no risk / no skill required [to the attacker] encounters) to play in Open for "reasons".
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Cross purposes again Robert.
No one reasonable is saying Open only.
Everyone is saying choose the right mode for you - this is the basis from which all discussion must flow.
What we don't like is people complaining about Open, when they have chosen open.
Do you concede that point?
And yes, that also includes the very rare "I have no targets to shoot at in Open".
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Yet it recurs fairly frequently.
Indeed - it's the first decision that each player makes at the start of each play session - and may be the most important in relation to their enjoyment of that game session.
Understood - however all players (who can play multi-player) can choose to play in Open - it doesn't "belong" to those who choose to play in it more of the time than to the others.
I expect some changes could be made to Open that would improve most players' experience in it.
Them too.
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