Greetings,
before i start i want to say, that what iam writing here is not based on facts, its just how i see these things and how i personally think it might help. So i could be totally wrong with everything what iam writing here and in that case i appreciate any feedback.
Topic - Why did i start thinking about it ?
So i talked with some people who play ED aswell and we did agree on the point, that Frontier has a very difficult time to balance their mission rewards. I mean over the past years its always a back and fourth with these mission rewards. One main reason here, why it is difficult to balance some mission rewards is because the core system, which these mission rewards are based on, doesnt provide a solid basement for a reasonable balance. The ability of board hopping and therefor the possibility to stack the exact same mission limitless shows that. By that we have two different environments to balance (the way of earning credits by board hop/the way of earning credits without board hop), which by on its own already sounds impossible to solve.
So some people tend to use that possibility to board hop, because it gives them a much higher income than you would get it normally without board hopping and therefor most of the times Frontier reacts to that by reducing the rewards of the affected missions and by that imbalance the normal way of earning credits without board hopping.
Currently the normal way of earning credits without board hopping is definitely giving a too little reward at some areas, but i assume one aspect why the rewards are so low in the first place is, because board hopping is a thing and Frontier is often induced to react to it in some way and most of the times it concludes to decreasing certain mission rewards.
Suggestion - How i would try to approach this topic
So here is my suggestion to how it might be possible to get rid of board hopping and by that also be able to work on a reasonable and more balanced reward-system for the playerbase.
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Remove "Solo-Play" and "Private Group", so that all players will be in "Open Play", which is the first step and for now will give us some new problems.
Problem 1 - What about those players who dont wanna be bothered by other players, while they are doing their duty ?
For those we could give them a "safe mode". I dont know how to name it reasonable yet (open for any ideas), but for now iam just calling it "safe mode". When they activate this "safe mode", their weapons will not inflict any damage to other players, neither will any damage occure by other players on that person who activated this "safe mode" (ramming included). On top of that a status will be displayed next to each CMDR Name if that player is in "safe mode" or not. In that mode only NPCs will be able to inflict damage on you and you can still inflict damage onto NPCs.
Problem 2 - A player could abuse this "safe mode" to not be attacked anymore or in general to harass people by activating or deactivating "safe mode".
For this, a solution could be, that when you activate "safe mode" ingame it only activates after the next 5, 10 or 30 minutes (here is room of change for that activation time) and only if you didnt inflict any damage to another player and also if no other player did inflict any damage onto you during these minutes of activation time. Once the activation time is over and no damage were received or inflicted by or to another player (for that your ship or your opponents ship needs to be hit in some sense, just shooting into space will trigger nothing), you will be fully in "safe mode" and this status will be kept even if you relog. Only if you choose to deactivate "safe mode" again, you will not have this status. The deactivation will also take a certain amount of time, till it will be fully deactivated. If a player chooses to deactivate his "safe mode" ingame then the timer of deactivation should also be displayed and visible for any other player, so they will not get a potential surprise attack. Other than that we are talking about any possible damage that could be inflicted from one player to another, so that also includes ramming people, which would be prevented by "safe mode" aswell.
Another approach to that problem also could be, that additionally before you enter "Open Play" you will have the option to activate or deactivate "safe mode" and in that case no activation/deactivation timer would be required since you are not ingame yet, to surprise or harass people.
Problem 3 - What if people try to cooperate together... one part of the group being in "safe mode" ramming and disturbing and the other part of the group being not in this mode inflicting actual weapon damage.
People who are in "safe mode" will clip through players who arent in "safe mode" and therefor cant disturb them. Also they will not be able to work as a shield, since the fire will clip through them aswell. In a worst case scenario there could be an option for every player to make "safe mode" players transparent by 50%, so they would not even be able to harass a player visually. So people in "safe mode" are also kinda in a "ghost mode". Within in a group of a wing however "safe mode" doesnt apply, so if you agree to be in a wing with someone, then it is still possible to PvP him, even if you both are in "safe mode". Just other people who are not in the same wing, will not be able to inflict damage, since "safe mode" is activated.
Problem 4 - What about private groups. People might still wanna form groups with their friends and explore space with them together.
I think that wish could still be fulfilled with the combination of forming wings and the activation of "safe mode". By that you can still explore space with your friends, still do missions with them together, cause "safe mode" doesnt apply against NPCs and you will not be interupted by other players who would like to harass you. The only "bad" thing is that you will not have space all for yourself anymore, but i dont think that this is a big issue considering how big space actually is
.
Problem 5 - What about the ingame lore ? I dont feel immersed, if people suddenly fly in "safe mode" and i would not be able to inflict damage on them.
I can understand that argument, but those player, which you see flying around in "safe mode", would be players, who would normally be in "Solo-Play" or "Private-Group" and therefor in that scenario you would not come across the player anyways to inflict damage on him. Other than that iam pretty sure that some creative mind can create a reasonable lore behind that feature, so that it could make sense in some degree. There is probably also a way to modify that feature in a different way than iam describing it, so that it could eventually also make more sense in the existing lore.
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Conclusion - Whats the purpose of my suggestion ?
So with this "safe mode" we would have mostly covered the purpose of "Solo-Play" and "Private Group", but also include the additional possibility to still get in touch with other players without getting harassed during your duties. Also the lobby of "Open Play" might potentially be more filled and lively, since every player will be in this lobby. As i mentioned before, the problem of board hopping would not exist anymore with that approach i believe (here i might be wrong, cause i dont know the architecture behind it), therefor Frontier would then finally have the opportunity to balance their reward system properly on a solid and more suited basement, rather than trying to balance two different environements, like we experience it currently.
As i said before, i might be totally wrong or even go in a fully bad direction with all that and that is why your feedback would be appreciated by a lot. Its just a thought, which came up recently and i was wondering what people might think about it.
So let me know what you think about it and if you think that this could help at all or if it might even make things even worse.
Best Regards,
RuLeZ
before i start i want to say, that what iam writing here is not based on facts, its just how i see these things and how i personally think it might help. So i could be totally wrong with everything what iam writing here and in that case i appreciate any feedback.
Topic - Why did i start thinking about it ?
So i talked with some people who play ED aswell and we did agree on the point, that Frontier has a very difficult time to balance their mission rewards. I mean over the past years its always a back and fourth with these mission rewards. One main reason here, why it is difficult to balance some mission rewards is because the core system, which these mission rewards are based on, doesnt provide a solid basement for a reasonable balance. The ability of board hopping and therefor the possibility to stack the exact same mission limitless shows that. By that we have two different environments to balance (the way of earning credits by board hop/the way of earning credits without board hop), which by on its own already sounds impossible to solve.
So some people tend to use that possibility to board hop, because it gives them a much higher income than you would get it normally without board hopping and therefor most of the times Frontier reacts to that by reducing the rewards of the affected missions and by that imbalance the normal way of earning credits without board hopping.
Currently the normal way of earning credits without board hopping is definitely giving a too little reward at some areas, but i assume one aspect why the rewards are so low in the first place is, because board hopping is a thing and Frontier is often induced to react to it in some way and most of the times it concludes to decreasing certain mission rewards.
Suggestion - How i would try to approach this topic
So here is my suggestion to how it might be possible to get rid of board hopping and by that also be able to work on a reasonable and more balanced reward-system for the playerbase.
#####################
#####################
Remove "Solo-Play" and "Private Group", so that all players will be in "Open Play", which is the first step and for now will give us some new problems.
Problem 1 - What about those players who dont wanna be bothered by other players, while they are doing their duty ?
For those we could give them a "safe mode". I dont know how to name it reasonable yet (open for any ideas), but for now iam just calling it "safe mode". When they activate this "safe mode", their weapons will not inflict any damage to other players, neither will any damage occure by other players on that person who activated this "safe mode" (ramming included). On top of that a status will be displayed next to each CMDR Name if that player is in "safe mode" or not. In that mode only NPCs will be able to inflict damage on you and you can still inflict damage onto NPCs.
Problem 2 - A player could abuse this "safe mode" to not be attacked anymore or in general to harass people by activating or deactivating "safe mode".
For this, a solution could be, that when you activate "safe mode" ingame it only activates after the next 5, 10 or 30 minutes (here is room of change for that activation time) and only if you didnt inflict any damage to another player and also if no other player did inflict any damage onto you during these minutes of activation time. Once the activation time is over and no damage were received or inflicted by or to another player (for that your ship or your opponents ship needs to be hit in some sense, just shooting into space will trigger nothing), you will be fully in "safe mode" and this status will be kept even if you relog. Only if you choose to deactivate "safe mode" again, you will not have this status. The deactivation will also take a certain amount of time, till it will be fully deactivated. If a player chooses to deactivate his "safe mode" ingame then the timer of deactivation should also be displayed and visible for any other player, so they will not get a potential surprise attack. Other than that we are talking about any possible damage that could be inflicted from one player to another, so that also includes ramming people, which would be prevented by "safe mode" aswell.
Another approach to that problem also could be, that additionally before you enter "Open Play" you will have the option to activate or deactivate "safe mode" and in that case no activation/deactivation timer would be required since you are not ingame yet, to surprise or harass people.
Problem 3 - What if people try to cooperate together... one part of the group being in "safe mode" ramming and disturbing and the other part of the group being not in this mode inflicting actual weapon damage.
People who are in "safe mode" will clip through players who arent in "safe mode" and therefor cant disturb them. Also they will not be able to work as a shield, since the fire will clip through them aswell. In a worst case scenario there could be an option for every player to make "safe mode" players transparent by 50%, so they would not even be able to harass a player visually. So people in "safe mode" are also kinda in a "ghost mode". Within in a group of a wing however "safe mode" doesnt apply, so if you agree to be in a wing with someone, then it is still possible to PvP him, even if you both are in "safe mode". Just other people who are not in the same wing, will not be able to inflict damage, since "safe mode" is activated.
Problem 4 - What about private groups. People might still wanna form groups with their friends and explore space with them together.
I think that wish could still be fulfilled with the combination of forming wings and the activation of "safe mode". By that you can still explore space with your friends, still do missions with them together, cause "safe mode" doesnt apply against NPCs and you will not be interupted by other players who would like to harass you. The only "bad" thing is that you will not have space all for yourself anymore, but i dont think that this is a big issue considering how big space actually is
.Problem 5 - What about the ingame lore ? I dont feel immersed, if people suddenly fly in "safe mode" and i would not be able to inflict damage on them.
I can understand that argument, but those player, which you see flying around in "safe mode", would be players, who would normally be in "Solo-Play" or "Private-Group" and therefor in that scenario you would not come across the player anyways to inflict damage on him. Other than that iam pretty sure that some creative mind can create a reasonable lore behind that feature, so that it could make sense in some degree. There is probably also a way to modify that feature in a different way than iam describing it, so that it could eventually also make more sense in the existing lore.
#####################
#####################
Conclusion - Whats the purpose of my suggestion ?
So with this "safe mode" we would have mostly covered the purpose of "Solo-Play" and "Private Group", but also include the additional possibility to still get in touch with other players without getting harassed during your duties. Also the lobby of "Open Play" might potentially be more filled and lively, since every player will be in this lobby. As i mentioned before, the problem of board hopping would not exist anymore with that approach i believe (here i might be wrong, cause i dont know the architecture behind it), therefor Frontier would then finally have the opportunity to balance their reward system properly on a solid and more suited basement, rather than trying to balance two different environements, like we experience it currently.
As i said before, i might be totally wrong or even go in a fully bad direction with all that and that is why your feedback would be appreciated by a lot. Its just a thought, which came up recently and i was wondering what people might think about it.
So let me know what you think about it and if you think that this could help at all or if it might even make things even worse
.Best Regards,
RuLeZ
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