How Open-only would balance ED

[Robert Maynard]

The three game modes as we know them were included, along with the shared galaxy state, in the published design information at the beginning of the Kickstarter (Nov'12).

About halfway through the Kickstarter Offline mode was added to the scope (Dec'12).

Not long before launch (Nov'14) it was announced that Offline mode was not going to be part of the game. A not insignificant number of backers / pre-order owners did not find the removal of Offline mode acceptable to them and a number of megathreads on the topic ensued. Legal action was threatened. Refunds were offered in some cases.

 

[jacozilla]

There are no good ways for an MMO to let everyone enjoy the game their own way.

This is what offline/private servers should be for.

Not advocating strongly for it, but to continue your same logic - if you are ok with PVE players having to join an offline/private group in order to avoid PVP, then same argument can be made all PVP players should go join a PVP-only server / private group.

The moral equivalence of one works same as the other.

The main difference is PVE players don't need you for their content, but -some- PVP players feel they must have PVE players in their PVP area as 'content', otherwise somehow engaging in PVP with only pure PVP players is somehow not their cup of tea.

 

[jacozilla]

We wouldn't be having this discussion if Solo/PG wasn't basically a "remove all risk" mode.

Just make NPC interdictions equally difficult to beat as player interdictions. Make it scale with the NPCs rank. So fighting a "Deadly" NPC interdiction becomes impossible, forcing you to submit.

Make NPC interdictions guaranteed to happen in popular systems, if you have valuable cargo. So if you're in Solo mode, and you jump into a popular system, you should be interdicted by a Deadly pirate with a very high probability.

i'm guessing you don't see the irony here at all that everything you suggested above is designed to force other players to engage in content -you- prefer, rather than just letting players make a non-forced choice.

e.g. instead of offering incentives to lure people with candy, and thus make taking a risk more appealing, you're using punishment to steer people to the form of content you prefer.

I split time between ED and other games, notably Elder Scrolls Online atm. Same thing goes on there where some ppl do both PVE/PVP, some only one of those. But instead of crapping all over PVE to make them see PVP as equivalent option so might as well go there since PVE sucks so much after the beatings you suggest, ESO offers periods of incentives - more xp, loot, reward boxes, etc that can only be earned via PVP.

This brings players who normally don't PVP a lot in droves to the PVP campaigns. Some decide to add PVP to the rotation after this and some don't. Point is they were lured through incentives, not beatings or punishment of the PVE system to try and play more PVP.

 

[xzanfr]

Mr Maynard, can you add some information about events around the removal of Offline mode, because I remember vaguely there being a stack of controversy, I was put off buying the game for a long time, and certain people were accused of 'breaking promises'. I'm not sure how many people here are aware of this.

Here's a couple of links to illustrate Roberts comments if your interested :
(The news about offline mode was made in a newsletter about a month before launch, the wording was a bit flowery)
Newsletter: https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=cea4f4cd56
Forum outfall: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/no-single-player-offline-mode-then.58789/
Article (2017): https://www.pcgamesn.com/elite-dang...dangerous-offline-mode-was-fired-into-the-sun
Article 2 (2017) : https://www.pcgamesn.com/elite-dang...going-to-happen-would-be-unacceptably-limited

 

[Misty_Dark]

Two modes, open PVP and open PVE, no instancing, everybody in that mode plays together

I get how Open PvP would work, but how would Open PvE work?

Because I all the way I can think of how to a player could grief another player, to stop/block that kind of activities, we would need to make numerous changes that would be detrimental to the game experience...

 

[Misty_Dark]

i'm guessing you don't see the irony here at all that everything you suggested above is designed to force other players to engage in content -you- prefer, rather than just letting players make a non-forced choice.

e.g. instead of offering incentives to lure people with candy, and thus make taking a risk more appealing, you're using punishment to steer people to the form of content you prefer.

I split time between ED and other games, notably Elder Scrolls Online atm. Same thing goes on there where some ppl do both PVE/PVP, some only one of those. But instead of crapping all over PVE to make them see PVP as equivalent option so might as well go there since PVE sucks so much after the beatings you suggest, ESO offers periods of incentives - more xp, loot, reward boxes, etc that can only be earned via PVP.

This brings players who normally don't PVP a lot in droves to the PVP campaigns. Some decide to add PVP to the rotation after this and some don't. Point is they were lured through incentives, not beatings or punishment of the PVE system to try and play more PVP.

I think that is the biggest thing that is missing from Elite, some systems that specifically offers PvP engagement.So players going there will be warned about the PvP centric nature of these systems.

One system could be a constant battle between an Anarchy side and lawful side...
We could have a constant war in another system where Empire, Federation and Alliance is fighting over control.

And like in ESO, you pledge to a side, and then you cannot change until the next reset.



But I also know there are quite alot of PvE players that totally hate things like how ESO does it, forcing them to engage in content that they do not enjoy, just to get that needed gear. Now ESO is not the only game doing this, games like Destiny 2 does also... and for many PvE only players, some of the PvP quests are truly horrendous, they are even terrible for PvP players....

 

[jacozilla]

I think that is the biggest thing that is missing from Elite, some systems that specifically offers PvP engagement.So players going there will be warned about the PvP centric nature of these systems.

One system could be a constant battle between an Anarchy side and lawful side...
We could have a constant war in another system where Empire, Federation and Alliance is fighting over control.

And like in ESO, you pledge to a side, and then you cannot change until the next reset.



But I also know there are quite alot of PvE players that totally hate things like how ESO does it, forcing them to engage in content that they do not enjoy, just to get that needed gear. Now ESO is not the only game doing this, games like Destiny 2 does also... and for many PvE only players, some of the PvP quests are truly horrendous, they are even terrible for PvP players....

True, and there are many things I dont like about ESO - but re: gear - while it is true there are some meta gear desired for PVE that only comes from PVP - the GOOD thing is all of that meta loot is tradeable and sellable.

There are lots of PVP players that make decent gold just by selling the PVP-only earned gear to PVE players that don't ever want to step into PVP land. Win - win. PVE player gets gear he wants, PVP player rewarded for selling the loot to open market.

If Elite PVP had some sort of incentives or reward system that were only obtainable via PVP, I'd be fine with that (and if those rewards could be sold via open player to player market, even better)

 

[Morbad]

Not advocating strongly for it, but to continue your same logic - if you are ok with PVE players having to join an offline/private group in order to avoid PVP, then same argument can be made all PVP players should go join a PVP-only server / private group.

That's not my logic.

Personally, I think the whole PvP/PvE dichotomy is silly and artificial.

Player characters are an essential part of the game's environment for me. From my perspective, there is no 'versus environment' that rationally excludes other players, and, in the game we have, no environment that can be touched by the BGS mechanisms in any way that excludes other players, irrespective of mode. That someone being able to directly encounter and engage my CMDR with their CMDR's ship could be somehow worse or treated differently than being able to counter or influence the setting my CMDR interacts with via BGS mechanisms is a largely foreign concept to me.

As it stands, the mode options feel like little more than a difficulty setting, because selecting anything other than Open excludes any real hope for meaningful direct encounters with other ships, largely because NPCs have been setup to be fodder, not as part of a believable backdrop. If I had my way, there would be no way to distinguish a player character from an NPC, other than perhaps protracted conversation. NPCs would have the same persistence, the same ability to influence the game, similar motivations, as well as provide the same spectrum of challenge, as CMDRs.

Ultimately, I'm ok with players having to join an offline/private group to play anything other than the game Frontier is running. And if Frontier continued to run the same game we have now, after introducing the option to run my own, I would absolutely be running my own.

The moral equivalence of one works same as the other.

The rules people prefer is not at all a moral issue. Willingness to break or abuse the rules of the game we have, to get closer to one's personal ideal of what it should be, at the expense of other players, might be.

There is hope! Ye gads!

I highly doubt we'll ever see an offline mode.

 

[RamirezKurita]

The exact same goals could be achieved by making NPC pirate behaviour smarter both on the micro and the macro level.

On the micro level, they should behave and scale appropriate the cargo you are carrying. Carrying 30 tonnes of grain? They'll probably ignore you. Carrying 200 tonnes of tritium in an area that has high tritium prices? Expect chain interdictions from Anacondas as you are worth a pretty penny. This also scales beautifully with players who do not want risk, as players can effectively "opt-in" to interdiction by pirates by trading high value cargo, while those that risk-averse can simply trade lower volumes (NPCs would be more likely to ignore hybrid loadouts as they carry less and bite back harder) and/or lower value goods (no point pirating cargo that's worth 300 cr/tonne).

On the macro level, trade activity above what the system security level can handle should in turn attract more pirates and cause the system security level to drop dramatically as pirates move in wholesale. If ships are literally queueing up to deliver super high-value cargo in a little outpost system, this should attract pirates from hundreds of light years to the point where the system degrades into anarchy within a few hours.

Basically, make PvE more dangerous like open mode, but allow players to still choose their own difficulty by improvements to pirate targeting and scaling algorithms.

 

[jacozilla]

The exact same goals could be achieved by making NPC pirate behaviour smarter both on the micro and the macro level.

On the micro level, they should behave and scale appropriate the cargo you are carrying. Carrying 30 tonnes of grain? They'll probably ignore you. Carrying 200 tonnes of tritium in an area that has high tritium prices? Expect chain interdictions from Anacondas as you are worth a pretty penny. This also scales beautifully with players who do not want risk, as players can effectively "opt-in" to interdiction by pirates by trading high value cargo, while those that risk-averse can simply trade lower volumes (NPCs would be more likely to ignore hybrid loadouts as they carry less and bite back harder) and/or lower value goods (no point pirating cargo that's worth 300 cr/tonne).

On the macro level, trade activity above what the system security level can handle should in turn attract more pirates and cause the system security level to drop dramatically as pirates move in wholesale. If ships are literally queueing up to deliver super high-value cargo in a little outpost system, this should attract pirates from hundreds of light years to the point where the system degrades into anarchy within a few hours.

Basically, make PvE more dangerous like open mode, but allow players to still choose their own difficulty by improvements to pirate targeting and scaling algorithms.

Bit too scripted for me. Just like the magic ‘here’s the ship I heard about’ auto generation of npc when you take some missions.

personally I’d be fine with bringing back the boost to NPCs like we had with the first eng 1.0 post release AI buff. Those smarter, tougher and rank based engineering mod NPCs were pretty tough but fair if you also had engineered ships. I think reason ppl demanded it get nerfed was most players hadn’t gotten fully engineered yet vs that AI buff.

That way the overall npc threat would be higher but not conveniently 100% scripted. I just don’t buy in a massive volume of space that carrying a certain kind of cargo would automatically mean X....there should be just as much element of chance that you get off totally free vs chain intercepted.

 

[JosiahD]

We wouldn't be having this discussion if Solo/PG wasn't basically a "remove all risk" mode.

Just make NPC interdictions equally difficult to beat as player interdictions. Make it scale with the NPCs rank. So fighting a "Deadly" NPC interdiction becomes impossible, forcing you to submit.

Make NPC interdictions guaranteed to happen in popular systems, if you have valuable cargo. So if you're in Solo mode, and you jump into a popular system, you should be interdicted by a Deadly pirate with a very high probability.

Except using solo is not simply used to avoid risk. For some if us it's as simple as sometimes we don't want to play with certain other types of players. Options are good.

 

[JosiahD]

There should be an incentive to play in open, but not open only.

The incentive of playing with other like minded players, which is impossible in solo, is not enough incentive? I thought that was what it was all about.....player targ.....err, interactions.

Not having a go at you per se, but I've seen many times a call for incentives to play in open when it really should simply be that the multiplayer interaction is incentive enough.

 

[Old Duck]

It,s what is happening with FCs that are available in all modes. Once a popular system is full people have no choice but to find other systems to do their things.

I don't own a fleet carrier (sniff sniff), so I have no idea what this sadness is all about.

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

I play open only, gank occasionally and send everyone o7 too.
And?

o7

 

[Cmdr Andrew Johnson]

Why should players who want to play in Solo or Private Groups be denied that, just because some players want everyone to play together?

.... and, after the furore surrounding the removal of Offline mode from the scope, just before launch, I doubt that Frontier would remove Solo.

Just a suggestion, I’m mostly in solo but would happily interact with other players in a pve group. I know there are private groups like that out there but a fully integrated non limited instance would also be fun

 

[WR3ND]

You know... Solo actually does balance ED pretty well, now that I think of it. Of course, I play by much more strict rules of contextual game-play than the game allows for. YMMV

 

[RamirezKurita]

Bit too scripted for me. Just like the magic ‘here’s the ship I heard about’ auto generation of npc when you take some missions.

personally I’d be fine with bringing back the boost to NPCs like we had with the first eng 1.0 post release AI buff. Those smarter, tougher and rank based engineering mod NPCs were pretty tough but fair if you also had engineered ships. I think reason ppl demanded it get nerfed was most players hadn’t gotten fully engineered yet vs that AI buff.

That way the overall npc threat would be higher but not conveniently 100% scripted. I just don’t buy in a massive volume of space that carrying a certain kind of cargo would automatically mean X....there should be just as much element of chance that you get off totally free vs chain intercepted.

It doesn't necessarily have to be scripted to have magically appearing NPCs, they could be wandering around in the system minding their own business until a valuable target jumps in. They could even have lower-end NPCs interdict you, only to call in help once they realise what you are carrying. Alternatively, the high-ranked NPCs might interdict those with low-value cargo and then let the trader go as it isn't worth their time. Basically, make them act like actual player pirates - they exist and mind their own business, they ignore targets that aren't worth their time and they call in help against those they can't pirate alone.

 

[jacozilla]

It doesn't necessarily have to be scripted to have magically appearing NPCs, they could be wandering around in the system minding their own business until a valuable target jumps in. They could even have lower-end NPCs interdict you, only to call in help once they realise what you are carrying. Alternatively, the high-ranked NPCs might interdict those with low-value cargo and then let the trader go as it isn't worth their time. Basically, make them act like actual player pirates - they exist and mind their own business, they ignore targets that aren't worth their time and they call in help against those they can't pirate alone.

as long as all this was chance based, I’d be fine with it. By magic I meant a script where just because you carry X cargo, you have Y event happen 100%.

aside from outliers like inside information, for most part piracy has randomness to it - there is no way NPCs should know exactly what we carry, where our flight paths are, etc. 100% of the time. Imo there ought to be just as much chance someone jumps you by mistake when you are carrying worthless cargo, as getting off completely unmolested when hauling max cargo of LTD.

 

[Lori Jameson]

Disclaimer - I am NOT advocating for Open-Only, I'm just making an observation.

Today I decided to join the Tritium Truckers, in hopes to make some meager credits to help me slowly progress to my goal of someday owning a fleet carrier. The best prices were between two outposts, so I configured my Python for cargo running and started my trucking - in a private group. Was I worried about gankers? A little, but not terribly so. No, what I wanted to avoid was an insane line of CMDRs all competing for that one medium pad. And that's when it dawned on me - everyone lining up for a great deal is realistic, and I'm basically "cheating" (figuratively, not literally) by creating my own parallel universe Walmart on Black Friday where there are no lines.

If the game was Open-only, these lines would force players to spread out and accept less than the perfect exchange rates in trade, thus bringing balance to the game. It would also bring legitimate PvP piracy (something I enjoy), and yes, ganking, which would also balance the game. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, heck it's not a solution at all (modes are here to stay), but I do think that a large contributor to the success of all these gold rushes is that we can create our own private realities where we don't have to deal with long lines, criminals, and other realistic challenges. And because of this, I do think the game is less than what it could be.

And yet, here I am trading in the safety of a PG / Solo, so I guess I want a FC more than I want realism at the moment, LOL.

EDIT - I just found a route between two large stations, but the theory still applies I believe. Just consider some of the traffic jams we used to see during community goals.

Weren't you the same person blocking anyone who wronged you? Open only would be a great way for traders to have more involved gameplay if blocking people only muted all communication from them. Otherwise people will use the feature to create their own private groups in open like certain people do already.

 

[Old Duck]

Weren't you the same person blocking anyone who wronged you?

No, that was some other duck guy. I welcome everyone with open arms and a warm heart ❤