META DISCUSSION half contributions from solo players

[Icyskies]

encouraging players to strategize and plan by rewarding aggressive open CG makes the game smarter and better, dramatic. Allowing haulers and unshielded cutters to enter the Harma system in solo, without repercussion, rewards stupidity and complacency. If a cutter reaches top 10 in a competitive CG by outfitting max cargo meandering into a hot starport without any fear of losing his ship, then the CG is broken and unfair to players with any dignity. ... or players 'bounty hunting' in solo for vast rewards, whereas when I do it in open I have the constant fear of losing my ship, either in the zone or in SC. I've paid maybe ~120 million in rebuy costs participating in the last two CGs, I would appreciate it if rewards weren't so terribly skewed away from me to compound the effect.

It seems like someone here finished his "pvp" FDL and wants pew pew some shieldless cutter

Dramatic what? It's so easy to avoid gankers and there are plenty of videos that can teach what to do in that kind of situation... it's not dramatic pay 120 milions in rebuy costs when you can easily make bilions in this game.

You can play the game in your own way but let people do the same without talking about dignity.

 

[Rubbernuke]

What gets me is that all these weighting suggestions are flat amounts, which... I don't think is sensible. In an empty system, mode makes no difference. In a busy system, or an actively blockaded system, it could make a big difference.

Personally, if I was going to do anything at all, I'd tag contributions as "open" or "non-open", and apply weighting proportionally. As in, if all the traffic that does anything in the system takes place in private/solo and nobody was there in open anyway, who cares? No weighting needed. Even then, not all actions are mode-relevant.

Its a thing Robert and myself have long debated- the problem is quantifying risk, and depending on how you look at it the value uplift varies.

Player ships are far more lethal than any NPC or NPC situation, but its a case of meeting those lethal player ships. In the wider game thats not what happens (outside certain places), while in Powerplay (which has these areas and reasons to be in these areas) this happens routinely.

The flipside to this (and its trigger) is that solo and PG are not dangerous at all (from a PP standpoint certainly) which supplies the 'need' for open (which can contain lethal players and tactics) to have a higher 'value'.

Its a broad brush for a complex problem, but FD themselves either need to pony up the time to make PP in particular more dicey (which is doable- I've come up with one or two that fit the bill mode agnostically) or bite the bullet and make risk actually equal reward.

 

[Darrack]

"The game was pitched on the shared galaxy that every player experiences and affects and the three game modes that share it - which means that PvP has always been an optional extra whereas affecting the game is something that all players do. That some players can't accept that other players don't need to play with them to affect the game is not the fault of other players."

"Not sure if anyone is wearing blinders - some players just don't enjoy PvP and bought a game where they don't need to engage in it.

We don't have a democracy, in terms of game development - Frontier make the decisions regarding the game."

These replys should be stuck to a wall for all to see, seriously doubt anyone could have put this any better and genuinly the reason many of us play the game - nice one.

Be Safe

 

[Screemonster]

And thus an oft-presented simple idea starts to get more and more complicated, leading me to believe that the compromise provided by the modes as-is may well be the best and worst of all worlds; everyone is equally unhappy!

For every complex question, there is an answer that is simple, obvious, and completely, utterly wrong.

 

[SCiARA]

what really puts me off open is the data you lose when killed, my alt account is new and flying an un-engineered sidewinder because its a fun little ship, currently doing the BH CG and one night raked in 3.5m on bonds which would put me in the top 75% (and get a great little pay out)

If I was in open some meta FDL would interdict and kill me on my way back for no reason other than they can and that's all that effort gone, for what? because they can? why is that fun for me? so to play in open I would have to deviate from what I want to do and consider fun to grind a ship that can withstand this interaction?

no thanks

 

[CMDR Rabbit]

If open is so safe maybe contributions from open should be halved as well...

well, i did get ganked three times (twice by the same guy ) trying to complete my first run, and crashed into another player's ship coming through the mailslot.

So while the dangers of playing in open are often overstated, doing CGs in open isn't necessarily safe.

 

[Sasha Terra]

...it is virtually cheating.

No, it isn't. It's part of the game as designed and sold.

Anyways, next time there is a trade CG, I am carrying torpedos and FSD disruptors with a wakeshift-scanner and I am going to punish as many people as possible -_-;; Then they will be wary of trading in a hot zone. ... And maybe i won't look so stupid in my t-10 outfitted for a measly 156 cargo space or whatever.

they shouldn't call it 'community' then, if they don't want to play with other people. Maybe that's the root of my problem. I misunderstand the word 'community' as implying that people play together in a RP environment. To create a better, more complex game than what it available in solo. Perhaps change the word 'community' to 'galactic', and drop the sense of competition if it isn't fair across game modes -- then I would have no grounds to complain.

'Community' suggests people working together, which is what CGs are about, and how they currently work. (And yes, I know that war CGs potentially split the community into opposing teams, but those teams still operate as communities.) If what I get from your enforced Open approach is that you shoot me in the face because you've decided to 'punish' people, that's not community. That's anti-community. That's risk and suffering for no reward on my part, and no benefit to the wider community. And what exactly will you be punishing people for? The ones who are with you in Open at least knowingly take the risk that you think we should all take. In Solo, with system chatter turned off, I don't even have to listen to you, much less fear your weird and arbitrary 'punishment'.

ST

 

[Sir.Tj]

I would say that this might be a good time for the below...