I'm under the impression that a lot of people, including myself, prefer to play Solo mode all the time, not because we don't want to play with others, but simply because we don't want to PVP others.
For comparison, let me talk to you about of one of the worst launches in recent years, Fallout 76, which to the surprise of some has actually redeemed itself (at least to some extent), but owes it survival to its community, which stood during awful first year fo the game, but also a community that confused Bethesda because the devs were convinced their players wanted more PVP... and they were proven wrong, best depicted through many of the ironic headlines that gaming journalism used to deliver the "shocking" revelation:
Bethesda Didn’t Get Why ‘Fallout 76’ Players Wouldn’t Kill Each Other
Bethesda was surprised to learn that Fallout 76 players didn't care much for PvP, and how the game has evolved reflects that.
www.forbes.com
Bethesda Apparently Shocked People Didn't Like PvP in 'Fallout 76'
"It's a smaller percentage of our player base than we thought."
www.gamingbible.co.uk
Bethesda Surprised By How Many Fallout 76 Players Didn't Want to PvP
Bethesda VP Pete Hines reveals that the company was surprised to find that players preferred to avoid PvP in Fallout 76 in favor of PvE.
gamerant.com
Bethesda was surprised how uninterested players were in Fallout 76's PvP
We just want to be friends.
www.pcgamer.com
Bethesda got confused that Fallout 76 players don’t murder each other
Why is everyone being so nice?
When Bethesda was designing Fallout 76, it expected players to murder each other, but it turns out they'd rather just work together.
www.pcinvasion.com
Don't misunderstand: Fallout 76 do had (still has to a small degree) griefers and gankers, but the vast majority of players simply preferred not to engage in PVP.
Keeping things short, today many of the ways to engage into PVP have been disabled, pacifist mode is a menu option that makes it almost impossible to engage in PVP, and while the game's reputation will forever be tarnished by its launch, its actually in a better than many people expected (which can't be said for games like EA's Anthem, which already threw the towel and cancelled further development). It still is no substitute for a proper Fallout 5, but as a casual time waster with a Fallout theme: it's passable.
Back to Elite Dangerous, I think a lot more people would like to try playing in Open Play with random strangers in Elite if they had the choice to opt out from PVP, like having an aforementioned pacifist mode that disabled PVP interactions.
But that's just my impression, and I would like to hear what other thinks on this matter:
Do you think that Open Play would be negatively affected if PVP could be disabled?
Do you think Elite could benefit from having more people try to play & cooperate with others in Open Play?
