Frontier Should Abandon "OPEN" Mode to Save Elite

[Morbad]

After 7k+ hours in Open, occasionally even featuring seemingly unprovoked attacks by vastly superior forces (which rarely result in anything except a few dings and a high-wake, thanks to combat mechanisms that favor the defender by a country mile), I would not even be aware that 'ganking' was an issue without the obtuse and hyperbolic complaints on this forum.

Hell, I've essentially mothballed my favored set of controls as have mostly been playing Odyssey to test shadow settings...which I'm still doing in Open because it's still almost perfectly safe even while barely being able to fly my CMDR's ships with the default KBM binds that I haven't bothered to change.

Well maybe... MAYBE... There are a lot of people who'd like to play with other players, or at least see them around, and not be killed by them?

That has always been the de facto state of Open. There are just enough exceptions to occasionally make things interesting, but by and large, the vast and overwhelming majority of other CMDR encounters aren't going to be hostile.

 

[Screemonster]

After 7k+ hours in Open, occasionally even featuring seemingly unprovoked attacks by vastly superior forces (which rarely result in anything except a few dings and a high-wake, thanks to combat mechanisms that favor the defender by a country mile), I would not even be aware that 'ganking' was an issue without the obtuse and hyperbolic complaints on this forum.

Hell, I've essentially mothballed my favored set of controls as have mostly been playing Odyssey to test shadow settings...which I'm still doing in Open because it's still almost perfectly safe even while barely being able to fly my CMDR's ships with the default KBM binds that I haven't bothered to change.



That has always been the de facto state of Open. There are just enough exceptions to occasionally make things interesting, but by and large, the vast and overwhelming majority of other CMDR encounters aren't going to be hostile.

The only player I've even seen in odyssey in open outside of an engineer base was today, and they were parked on a pad at the station I was offloading cargo at with my barely-armed, certainly-not-fast T9.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Ganking is destroying Elite. Players quit in frustration after all their exploration data is lost or they are sent back to a Sidewinder because a ganker was "just having fun".
Solution is simple.
Make the game modes just "SOLO" and "Private Group" because this will permanently end ganking. Players can still play with friends for PvP but the toxic ganking culture will be wiped out. If players try ganking inside a Private Group they can be expelled immediately.
No more blocking required
Chat is restricted to inside the Private Group only so no more external harassment from the toxic gankers.
This is easy to do.

Welcome to the Forum!

We have been down this road many times and nothing is going to change about it.

 

[quackinthebush]

Welp, Larry, you sure made it an easy choice to ignore all your future posts on the forums. Welcome, by the way.

 

[St0rmFury]

Problem with using NPCs (security or bounty hunters) to counter gankers is they can just clog when things get rough.

I mean who's going to report them, the AI?

Heck, gankers are already clogging on cmdrs who hunt them. They just don't care.

 

[ebbrell]

What a load of rubbish, open mode is the best and should be the only mode.

Its pg and solo damaging the game
I do loads of bgs works and never see anyone working against us. Silly

 

[DemiserofD]

Problem with using NPCs (security or bounty hunters) to counter gankers is they can just clog when things get rough.

I mean who's going to report them, the AI?

Heck, gankers are already clogging on cmdrs who hunt them. They just don't care.

NPCs don't need to actually kill them, they just need to drive them off and/or render their attempts at crime more difficult.

For example, by interdicting people attempting to make interdictions. This breaks the pirate's interdiction and forces them to fight or submit. If NPCs would actively seek out players making interdictions and interdict them in turn, then if the defending player resists the interdiction for long enough, they win, regardless of whether or not they actually win the minigame.

Additionally, by constantly harassing them. Right now, there are many locations where hostile gankers can literally sit just outside the no-fire zone indefinitely and shoot down incoming players at no risk. Even a few NPCs fighters, constantly spawning and attacking them, would eventually force them to retreat, especially if the fighters carried irritating effects like target lock breaker or drag munitions.

The true solution, however, would come from making crimes reduce your reputation with the local faction. It's far too easy to remove a bounty at the moment, but increasing reputation requires active effort. Get yourself to Hostile and it should take a significant effort to recover, or you'll find yourself under constant attack regardless of bounty.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Ganking is destroying Elite. Players quit in frustration after all their exploration data is lost or they are sent back to a Sidewinder because a ganker was "just having fun".
Solution is simple.

Open forms part of the game that everyone bought - and, like the other two game modes, I expect that many players would be dissatisfied if it were removed at the request of a subset of the player-base.

The solution is indeed very simple: select the game mode that offers whatever gameplay experience is desired for that game session. Each game mode shares the same galaxy - so no game feature is restricted to Open play only.

Make the game modes just "SOLO" and "Private Group" because this will permanently end ganking. Players can still play with friends for PvP but the toxic ganking culture will be wiped out. If players try ganking inside a Private Group they can be expelled immediately.

Removal of Open would not stop ganking - as being kicked from a Private Group, where any player can choose to attack any player they instance with, is a retroactive solution that does not stop such attacks from taking place.

No more blocking required
Chat is restricted to inside the Private Group only so no more external harassment from the toxic gankers.

The block feature exists because Frontier decided to include a method for players to excise particular players from their game - no known limitations on its use exist and it has only ever been strengthened and made easier to use over time. As Private Groups are also a multi-player game mode, I very much doubt that Frontier would remove the block feature even in the vanishingly small likelihood that they were to even consider removing Open.

This is easy to do.

What is easy is not necessarily desirable, taking all players into account.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Y'all do realise this is a psychology student who has an essay they need to write by Monday? Pwned.

 

[Amanojaku]

Y'all do realise this is a psychology student who has an essay they need to write by Monday? Pwned.

Tell me about yer mother

 

[T200]

Removal of Open would not stop ganking - as being kicked from a Private Group, where any player can choose to attack any player they instance with, is a retroactive solution that does not stop such attacks from taking place.

I don't care much for this logic... you could simply have servers where it's disabled..

then again I'm not sure the OP is asking for the shared universe to also be cut along with open, which is basically the only precondition I'd have.

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

Tell me about yer mother

Ask Oedipus

 

[Robert Maynard]

I don't care much for this logic... you could simply have servers where it's disabled..

DBOBE effectively ruled that out back in the Engineers launch stream when he explained how challenging it would be to offer an Open-PvE game mode - the same would apply to Private Groups:

Source: https://youtu.be/gEtHu3AXw2Q?t=2550

then again I'm not sure the OP is asking for the shared universe to also be cut along with open, which is basically the only precondition I'd have.

It does not read as if the effects of players in Solo and Private Groups on the shared galaxy would be affected, nor, it can be argued, should they - as the fact that all players affect the single shared galaxy regardless of game mode has been part of the game design from the outset and, when Offline mode was cancelled, Frontier said that it would not have offered the gameplay experience they wanted to provide. The only known way for players to stop affecting the galaxy is to be placed in the "shadowban" mode for breaking Frontier's rules (without warranting an account ban).

 

[CMDR Saigon]

This is nothing to do with saving Elite. Saving Elite will be Update 7 (as I am struggling with FPS) . I love playing in open and have more or less always played in open and I am struggling to see anyone even at CGs sometimes. Where I see most Cmdrs are during Expeditions!

 

[MickyG1982]

Ganking is destroying Elite. Players quit in frustration after all their exploration data is lost or they are sent back to a Sidewinder because a ganker was "just having fun".
Solution is simple.
Make the game modes just "SOLO" and "Private Group" because this will permanently end ganking. Players can still play with friends for PvP but the toxic ganking culture will be wiped out. If players try ganking inside a Private Group they can be expelled immediately.
No more blocking required
Chat is restricted to inside the Private Group only so no more external harassment from the toxic gankers.
This is easy to do.

How about, YOU play in solo and pg then not have to worry about it, that's even easier to do.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

I have seen salt threads come and I have seen salt threads go, but this by far has to be the most bizarre.

I have the option to play alone, and I have the option to play with others, but to prevent myself from being blown up by others I request that I only be given the option to play alone.

Makes total sense.

 

[angusmadmac1]

Just put the onus of payment on the murderer ? They blow you up , they get a bounty, money that you as the victim have lost gets taken out of their account . Ship , carto , missions etc . If they don't have the cash then ships FC modules are sold . Your ship is impounded and engineers won't engineer . If you murder in fed or imperial space , and you jump in an instant warning comes up and the security jump straight in .
Make it fun for the PvPers hunt them down make them pay for the crime . Because a Notoriety of 1 and a 1000 credit fine is laughable .
My only caveat is if the victim flies unshielded they get nothing back .
Like any insurance if you leave your keys in a car and it's nicked that's down to you.

 

[Chrystoph]

A popup on joining Open for the first time, where it has a big red skull and crossbones and says,

ALERT: OPEN IS A LIVE GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE WHERE LIFE IS CHEAP AND DEATH IS QUICK! OTHER PLAYERS CAN AND WILL ATTEMPT TO MURDER YOU. FOR A MORE CASUAL EXPERIENCE, TRY 'SOLO' MODE!
☠︎

would be nice.​

The obvious answer is to switch Open and Solo in the Launcher, making Solo the default.

That way, you have to Opt-in, as opposed to the current Opt-Out, of Open.

 

[Gut]

Simple solution....Just release ANOTHER game called ELITE PVE . Frontier gets more sales money ...The pver's get a galaxy they can play together in open and frontier still only has to make one set of stuff and just put it in BOTH games and not make things twice. Then fill ' Dangerous ' with guns & bombs and fill ' PVE ' with trades mines and stations =-P

 

[zombieapocalypse]

The obvious answer is to switch Open and Solo in the Launcher, making Solo the default.

That way, you have to Opt-in, as opposed to the current Opt-Out, of Open.

What? None of the game modes is default or opt-out. When you start the game, you're presented with five options, each of which includes a short description of how the instancing works: