Yeah, if they can tie you up for any length of time, that's an argument.
The story of my first open player kill
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Yeah, if they can tie you up for any length of time, that's an argument.
Yeah, engineering is detrimental on many fronts in ED.
I'm not talking about engineering. A decently built, unengineered Krait II would have lasted more than a couple of shots and should be perfectly capable of of taking on a low CZ. This is all part of the learning curve of the game.
It took me ages to get into proper engineering in Elite, but the lack of it didn't stop me from enjoying the game.
The powercreep led to bulletsponge. In PvE and PvP. CZ is very underwhelming eith vanilla gear. There is little point playing there when you cant fight enemies satisfyingly.
If you log into Open pledged to a power leader, you consent to PvP with all CMDRs pledged to enemy powers. That's straight from Frontier (Sandro, king of PP). Yet I'm amazed how many times I and my mother are insulted in chat because I open fire on an enemy intruding in my leader's territory.
The usual line is “you shouldn’t have opened fire because I am only doing pp for the module” lol
I wish people were that "polite" in their comms, LOL. This kind of player should be in solo IMO, at least until they get their precious module. Actually, I take it back - Power Play should be Open-only with a clear disclaimer that it's a PvP mode of Elite (which Sandro himself said was the intent).
I gave the forum compatible version
Yes they should be in solo, but decide to provoke open mode, then whine on the forums about ganking, where the only 'solution' they can think of is PVE only.
But I digress, back to Sandro, who I miss, at least I miss those times when we had direct communication with those that decided stuff at Frontier. Looks like the open-only mode PP boat has sailed with Sandro, who I reckon got caught between a rock and a hard place.
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^yes, this.... absolutely PP should be open only, if you are pledged, the solo and PG group options should be disabled in the main menu. Don't like it? leave the power (and perhaps have to wait the two days?)
He maybe didn't fully understand ED's concept and tried to make it a more appropriate PvP game. Which might have been a vialble way to make it a better game, but that's what ED isn't meant to be - even when what it's meant to be doesn't really work out so well.I gave the forum compatible version
Yes they should be in solo, but decide to provoke open mode, then whine on the forums about ganking, where the only 'solution' they can think of is PVE only.
But I digress, back to Sandro, who I miss, at least I miss those times when we had direct communication with those that decided stuff at Frontier. Looks like the open-only mode PP boat has sailed with Sandro, who I reckon got caught between a rock and a hard place.
In essence: Don't market to mixed audiences without reflecting them in the game design. That should be the lesson learned, but who knows - for extra bucks the next dev might just throw out another cheap MP solution that throws PvE and PvP players into one bucket and players will again be unsatisfied. MP devs rarely seem to learn from mistakes. And it's way too many noob MP devs out there with not enough experience.
Well, Frontier did a big u-turn regarding the offline mode right at launch, so they didn't appear to have a clear vision as a company.
What is it meant to be? Only Frontier should know, and they give the impression that they don't have clarity on the subject as far as I can see.
Yep. Personally I would support the original offline mode with an open-only mode, but I can see where Frontier were coming from when they decided to allow 'conflict by proxy' i.e. BGS affected by solo players so that they could experience that 'living breathing universe'.
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I feel somehow personally targeted by this since my group, which dominates the merits earnt for the power it serves, is uniformly open-only and non-blocking for PP and BGS. In over two years I've not seen anything to contradict this code, and occasional objections are dealt with quickly (usually people just accept it's not an issue to observe the rules they've agreed to in entering the server; some leave). There are possible explanations (some around instancing, some that would involve accusations regarding the other side, whose culture tends to be flaky on such matters) for the sort of observation you describe. But in practice, when hauling, I encounter PvP resistance, and at times very effective blockades, as do my teammates. Likewise, I expect to be harassed when undermining. Not so much PvP lately, but it's not through any fault or change in practice of my group.
The reason I mention it is that there are often false equivocations made that "both sides are as bad", whereas in fact we're able to say fairly confidently through mutual observation within the group and alignment of attitudes that we do practise what we preach. We also have ample evidence that the same is not true for every power. We would welcome such evidence about us, to help us maintain our practices, if only it existed, whereas those other powers are often dismissive of it about them.
Having said all that I did above, in the end this is the objective - to have PvP occur as a happenstance, organically, in-context, despite the game's limitations. And because of those limitations, FDev's feature design choices, and differences in attitude between powers, you have to take what you can get and be happy, even if you hope for the open-holy grail one day!
Definitely not targeting a specific crew. I know there are groups that really stick to that. The group I was a part of was very serious about it and I had to tuck tail and run hauling or undermining a few times myself. But sorry there were fortify/undermine battles going on where the undermining was being aggressively hounded yet there were never any haulers seen. Sure instancing issues happen, but there was OBVIOUSLY a lot of cargo moving in that was not flowing through open, or block lists were being abused. There just isn't any good reason why the stream of haulers is not seen but the streams of undermining hunters are. In the end I got pretty tired of it.
My last comment on this. I don't want to hijack the OPs topic.
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If I had a time machine and could go back and pledge $10k+ to the project and have dinner with the design team this is what I would tell them;
0. You select your game mode at the start, it's either open or solo and that's it. You should be able to have an open commander that is separate from your solo commander, but neither commander can switch back and forth
1. all players are visible to each other in open, but there are no hollow boxes by default the only way to tell is by scanning and seeing something like 'CMDR xxxx' vs NPC names that don' have that prefix or by item 2 below.
2. optionally players can turn on a 'hollow box' beacon if they desire, but by giving the player the ability to turn this on or off it provides some privacy if they want it
3. combat logging/disconnecting while in any sort of engagement with other ships results in ship destruction, you have to be at a station or alone in space to save your position.
Although, if I had a time machine, I'd probably not play ED anymore and just FF to 3301 and fly real spaceships
0. You select your game mode at the start, it's either open or solo and that's it. You should be able to have an open commander that is separate from your solo commander, but neither commander can switch back and forth
1. all players are visible to each other in open, but there are no hollow boxes by default the only way to tell is by scanning and seeing something like 'CMDR xxxx' vs NPC names that don' have that prefix or by item 2 below.
2. optionally players can turn on a 'hollow box' beacon if they desire, but by giving the player the ability to turn this on or off it provides some privacy if they want it
3. combat logging/disconnecting while in any sort of engagement with other ships results in ship destruction, you have to be at a station or alone in space to save your position.
Although, if I had a time machine, I'd probably not play ED anymore and just FF to 3301 and fly real spaceships
Likewise don't want to hijack. In fact we've both had the same experience so I can't argue against the content of your comments! But just to say it requires more than "didn't see them" to be sure they weren't in open, because of platforms, timezones, internet connections (and now Horizons/Odyssey). For me you have to analyse and understand the spectrum of attitudes within a power and how easily their principles cave. Even then, calling it out is at best useful as a deterrent, and an argument for open-only (which would mean that there was not so much compulsion for second guessing). On the whole, across powers, I find that the ones that talk the talk are more often the ones that walk the walk, which is perhaps where we disagree or have had different experiences.
I gave the forum compatible version
Yes they should be in solo, but decide to provoke open mode, then whine on the forums about ganking, where the only 'solution' they can think of is PVE only.
But I digress, back to Sandro, who I miss, at least I miss those times when we had direct communication with those that decided stuff at Frontier. Looks like the open-only mode PP boat has sailed with Sandro, who I reckon got caught between a rock and a hard place.
Intent is irrelevant. The moment there is the choice of a lesser difficulty/greater efficiency setting, it becomes the default that everything is weighed against. The assumption has to be that everyone will min-max to the absolute best of their ability, irrespective of any intent, or any rules that aren't hard-coded into the game. For many people, this is going to mean grinding progress tokens in Solo or PG. If that doesn't result in a game that was envisioned, the vision was implemented incorrectly.
That's my overriding problem with the game. I loved the vision they sold me, but the original implementation was sketchy and they did everything they could to make it worse every step of the way. The sole exception being initial Horizons release, which was the only time I have ever felt the game took more steps forward than backwards with a major update.
As for Sandro, I felt a lot of his ideas were bad, but he was at least willing to experiment a bit and try to give us a bit of what was on the tin.
I'm an Open-only PvP-oriented player whose CMDR has never pledged to any power due to role-play reasons.
I'm generally going to be unsatisfied, on some significant level, with any multiplayer game that makes a distinction between PvP and PvE. Player characters should be as intrinsic parts of the environment as anything else. The best multiplayer PvE games have unrestricted PvP, because un-organic limits on PvP undermine the E. One setting, with one set of rules for all entities in that setting, and zero in-game acknowledgement of any dichotomy, is my ideal.
If I can even tell the difference between an NPC and another player character without busting out the Turing test check-list, that's a problem to be addressed, in my view.
Pretty much.
Money doesn't buy good design when it's made up by amateurs.If I had a time machine and could go back and pledge $10k+ to the project and have dinner with the design team this is what I would tell them;
0. You select your game mode at the start, it's either open or solo and that's it. You should be able to have an open commander that is separate from your solo commander, but neither commander can switch back and forth
1. all players are visible to each other in open, but there are no hollow boxes by default the only way to tell is by scanning and seeing something like 'CMDR xxxx' vs NPC names that don' have that prefix or by item 2 below.
2. optionally players can turn on a 'hollow box' beacon if they desire, but by giving the player the ability to turn this on or off it provides some privacy if they want it
3. combat logging/disconnecting while in any sort of engagement with other ships results in ship destruction, you have to be at a station or alone in space to save your position.
Although, if I had a time machine, I'd probably not play ED anymore and just FF to 3301 and fly real spaceships
Also, the devs who need amateur input for their game design probably shouldn't be responsible for game design in the first place.
That would be a perfectly valid game design, but it does illustrate the balancing act FD had to do. You see, it's just not a game I'd ever bother to purchase. FD catered as well as they could to those who want PvP combat, those who want a solo game and everyone in between. The compromises seem a bit clunky but they made the game viable. We different kinds of players all need each other.If I had a time machine and could go back and pledge $10k+ to the project and have dinner with the design team this is what I would tell them;
0. You select your game mode at the start, it's either open or solo and that's it. You should be able to have an open commander that is separate from your solo commander, but neither commander can switch back and forth
1. all players are visible to each other in open, but there are no hollow boxes by default the only way to tell is by scanning and seeing something like 'CMDR xxxx' vs NPC names that don' have that prefix or by item 2 below.
2. optionally players can turn on a 'hollow box' beacon if they desire, but by giving the player the ability to turn this on or off it provides some privacy if they want it
3. combat logging/disconnecting while in any sort of engagement with other ships results in ship destruction, you have to be at a station or alone in space to save your position.
Although, if I had a time machine, I'd probably not play ED anymore and just FF to 3301 and fly real spaceships