To Solo Play Players: If You Could Disable PVP, Would You Play in Open Play Mode Instead?

I think this would in one stroke satisfy most people looking for cooperative PvE
I still don't get why this would be the case: the vast majority of cooperative PVE is pre-arranged via discord. How often do you really think that you will randomly meet a hollow square and then decide to play together?
 
I still don't get why this would be the case: the vast majority of cooperative PVE is pre-arranged via discord. How often do you really think that you will randomly meet a hollow square and then decide to play together?
If the forums are to be believed, you can't jump anywhere in the galaxy via open without running into dozens of pilots offering you opportunities for meaningful positive interactions.
 
If the forums are to be believed, you can't jump anywhere in the galaxy via open without running into dozens of pilots offering you opportunities for meaningful positive interactions.
I almost always send an o7 when I see a hollow square, and they almost never reply (less than 10%), simply because (I suspect) they don't even see the message. If they do see the message, will they want to stop what they were doing and play with me? Do they even speak my language??
 
Item 1 is to compile a decent list of friends which can be done via random encounters.
Catch 22. One loss is enough for casuals to have their game forever ruined. Hence risk of loss is enough for an aversion.

Don't need to tell you that casuals comprise of the largest player count.
 
I still don't get why this would be the case: the vast majority of cooperative PVE is pre-arranged via discord. How often do you really think that you will randomly meet a hollow square and then decide to play together?
I don't really personally care at all, but I've followed the discussions for a good while. I've mostly played in solo, but do fly in open lately to make it a bit more risky. It's very seldom that you meet other players, and apart from being on the same platform and in the same system but not instantiating together, we are also partitioned into different platforms.

But it does seem to me that there are a group of players that want an open PvE and they don't have it and get fragmented into different PGs instead of being in a mode that would suit them.

Of course FDev could also add gameplay for cooperative PvP and PvE, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen.. :D
 
But it does seem to me that there are a group of players that want an open PvE and they don't have it and get fragmented into different PGs instead of being in a mode that would suit them.
So, effectively, they want to be able to see hollow squares and say hello, and (unlikely) get a reply. If they expect any more than that they have been living under a bush for the last several years.

Of course FDev could also add gameplay for cooperative PvP and PvE, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen.. :D
As far as cooperative PVE goes, I think they have (in their eyes) - wing missions? multicrew?

What's missing is PvP gameplay, which is currently CQC and little else.
 
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Catch 22. One loss is enough for casuals to have their game forever ruined. Hence risk of loss is enough for an aversion.

Don't need to tell you that casuals comprise of the largest player count.
Perhaps but I've only been to the rebuy screen once due to a player. That's in a fair amount of time and numerous CGs.
 
Perhaps but I've only been to the rebuy screen once due to a player. That's in a fair amount of time and numerous CGs.
I've been analyzing the open game a lot lately. Both my own and other players. And came to an interesting conclusion, strange as it may seem, the open game is ruined by the wings. Maybe it's a paradox, but it's a real problem.
 
I've been analyzing the open game a lot lately. Both my own and other players. And came to an interesting conclusion, strange as it may seem, the open game is ruined by the wings. Maybe it's a paradox, but it's a real problem.
It does create a big power imbalance, that's for sure.
 
So, effectively, they want to be able to see hollow squares and say hello, and (unlikely) get a reply. If they expect any more than that they have been living under a bush for the last several years.

As far as cooperative PVE goes, I think they have (in their eyes) - wing missions? multicrew?

What's missing is PvP gameplay, which is currently CQC and little else.
I'm not quite sure what they want, my impression is that they want to play together with and meet other commanders without getting killed by a random stranger.. I think that's all, most of these commanders play in different PGs (which of course again means less chance to meet someone)..

For instance it would be a bit sad to organize a massjump and then have some ships attacked and blown up by gankers..

There's also BGS, CGs, etc. But I think they could add a lot more for people to do together.. They could even add PvP escorts for traders, so some would try to protect the trader, and others would try to blow them up. Which of course you can do already, but not in an in game organized manner.
 
I'll never play in Open. Never. If they take away Solo, I'll find another game. Sod that. I ain't dealing with morons running fully engineered ships with 6,000 hours of playtime against my little B-rated FDL. I want to shoot pirates, not other players.

I've got Destiny 2 for my PvP needs.
 
I still don't get why this would be the case: the vast majority of cooperative PVE is pre-arranged via discord. How often do you really think that you will randomly meet a hollow square and then decide to play together?
I don't know about that, I've never arranged any PvE play through Discord, apart from joining in with what Operation Ida are doing.

I have had a few random encounters in Mobius which were good times, but only about three such occasions in five years' play.

I think what's behind these requests is really the PvE experience in other games. In Lord of the Rings Online you can just hang around outside a tough-to-enter place and wait to meet other interested players. I guess that ED can never really be like that, because of the size of the galaxy and behaviour of instancing. A proper Open-PvE mode rather than the collection of PGs we have would definitely be an improvement though.
 
By the way now was streaming where the guy said that for him the main problem with the open game is to hang around the mega-ship for a long time and not get an invitation to dock.
 
It's not fear of griefers that drives me out of Open it's the annoyance of having my time wasted for somebody else's jollies.

What would it take for me to play in Open?
  1. A proper client-server architecture with server authoritative processing of all instance and game state.
  2. Make it impossible for other players to obstruct my gameplay without my express permission on an opt-IN basis.
  3. A reason for me to actually play with others.
1.) I've noticed that NPC AI gets very janky once you have more than one player in an instance especially if one or more participants have latency issues with other players in the instance. Then there's the whole issue around having your IP address exposed to other people in your instance which has been used in the past to dox other players.

2.) Griefers are not PVP'ers. Their motivation is to make other people miserable. They don't care about losing their own ship especially if their victim gets salty.

3.) I've done some group AX and that was fun enough for a couple hours/week however it suffered greatly from instancing issues. I've found that for Wing Trade/Wing Mining missions it's far more productive for everybody to collect and fill their own missions then meet up to complete them. I only very rarely PvP. When I do I avoid deathmatch style because it bores me to tears.

There's no easy fix. The first point alone basically requires a significant investment in server hardware and enough development work to mandate a whole new game. And that does nothing to address the severe lack of depth problem.
 
I don't really see the appeal of PVE in open. The reason why you'd be in open is to play with other players, and right now, the only viable gameplay involving other players is shooting at each other.
The Explore/Trade options are basically solo experiences, unless you want to go far out of your way to make it a group experience and then you're spending most of your time waiting for the other guy to show up, just so you can jump again. There are wing missions, but those are basically solo missions that the wing gets rewarded for and not a great example of group play.
AX Combat can be done in a group, but because space is really big, the likelihood of meeting another AX pilot drifting around space looking for a bug hunt is pretty low.I believe Drake has an equation that could be used to model this probability.
Basic pirate killin and bounty hunting does exist, and can be a rewarding. People often complete these sort of missions in wings. Though, the completion is a sort of modified version of the mission. Wing pirate extermination missions usually involve a wing of players visiting a threatening signal source and fighting off a well equipped wing of coordinated opponents. The more common approach to completing these missions is to park a T10 in a RES and go do something else for a few hours. Then, after the wing missions are complete, the wing shares the rewards of their individual efforts. Arguably, not in the spirit of the mission.

So, even if there was a PVE mode in Open, I don't think it would be any different than PVE in solo. You'd still be doing exactly the same stuff. You'd still be floating in space all by your lonesome, never seeing another pilot, only getting interdicted every few hours while the Navy searches your hold for contraband.
If Open were to be made viable or interesting to PVE players, there would need to be improvements in group play, actually fostering and encouraging players to cooperate in real time and in real space together. Simply adding a "No PVP" flag would not get me into Open.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
I don't really see the appeal of PVE in open.
It's clear that not all players see the attraction of an Open PvE game mode that some other players do....
The reason why you'd be in open is to play with other players, and right now, the only viable gameplay involving other players is shooting at each other.
.... as exemplified in this statement. Multi-player content exists in-game that does not require players to shoot at each other.
So, even if there was a PVE mode in Open, I don't think it would be any different than PVE in solo. You'd still be doing exactly the same stuff.
The difference would be that players would be able to play among other players and those other players could not engage them in PvP - which is quite a significant difference from both Solo and the multi-player game modes.

Players would still be doing the same stuff - as the stuff does not require PvP.
 
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