Ignoring or harming PvP in game design is contributing to ganking

[GloatingSwine]

And how is Powerplay supposed to work? Even FD don't know- it took them 5 cycles to admit collapse was not in, and that the 3 cycles in the bottom 3 (and mandatory expansion) was a giant pork pie- FD have cut features and added nothing in return. Its languished with no direction while it rots from the inside out. Ever since its been released its struggled to find an audience because it pleases exactly no-one- these days its either dwindling die hards that actually play it or module shoppers. Quite often its the module shoppers moaning and the people who engage with the game shouted down.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "not to the benefit of griefers over everyone who plays without a large group". Your suggestion only benefits griefers who are interested in forcing PvP on people who don't want it.

And as you forget, Powerplay is two halves- the first, PvE is generic across modes. The second part, delivery and modification by PvP, is absent in two modes but present in the third. However that itself is kneecapped because you can block and log, so that threat is rendered toothless.

Right, but that doesn't mean that the Open mode with PvP is the intended core experience. It's just the one you like more.

Powerplay is a team game at heart, and with post 1.3 multiplayer structures allows for actual supportive wing based teamplay when it happens, having Open now with a Powerplay clause would not force people to change anything, it would just make that mode actually something different. In Powerplay, you don't abandon people if danger is about, and would create a place for proper PvP, however slight that would be with real consequences. However that team game is crushed into one dimension with little chance of creativity or spontaneity with solo, and made into a factory in PG. FD pulled CGs because they thought they were dull and oversued, well, PP has a CG for every control system you run, each week every week- thats a pile of work with no redeeming features.

People play the BGS more because its actually a feature that rewards by playing the whole game as you like, rather than having the same two things to do ad infinitum. Each PP delivery the same 50 keypresses, to the point botting was used. Without anything actually happening people wonder what actually happens since the playable area of the bubble is full and moves have become trench warfare for weeks, sometimes months on end, all the time small abandoned powers are sock puppeted so the real enemy fights for free. It does not help FD not actually having a PP manual in the game like everything else, or updating the mega old HTML version.

And here we come to the crux of why it's probably really unpopular. It's a team game operating as a subunit of a game which most of the playerbase plays as a solo experience. That means that the potential audience for it is already very small. And it's not actually terribly interesting to do compared to the rest of the game it exists in. But your proposals don't do anything to address that, all they do is make it even less accessible to players who aren't grouped up because now they can't avoid griefers.

As I keep on saying PP is two halves, gathering and delivering. Gathering is PvE, the delivery in Open is PvP (unlike PG or solo) as you actually face opponents who can intelligently attack and are not restricted by no-fire zones or NPC limitations brought about via persistence. Its why I'm puzzled that, with solo and PG available, Open still has blocking for pledges. If you don't want to be shot at, use a mode that suits your taste rather than distort one that allows it.

Yes, you keep saying that, but it keeps not being true. That's what you want Powerplay to be like, but that's not what it is like. Powerplay has the same anti-griefing tools as the rest of the game because people who don't want to be forced into PvP still don't want to be forced into PvP. Powerplay is not a PvP experience, you keep insisting that it is because you want it to be, but that doesn't make it so.

Signing up for Powerplay is not signing up for PvP. You want it to be, but it ain't.

Then what distinction is there between modes if they all behave the same? Powerplay is adversarial, and yet in a mode that allows it, its still subject to blocking and logging. If you want extra challenge that should be the place for it.

Because other people's definition of an adversarial game mode doesn't include being forced into PvP they didn't want. Powerplay isn't the "place for extra challenge", it's a metagame with some module rewards that it turns out isn't terribly fun for 95% of players.

After years of leading a power, being part of several discords, running reddits I know full well how grind races work. I also know how disheartening it is having to outgrind a faceless enemy, as well as outgrind and outvote 5C. I know how hard it is to try and compete with bots who work tirelessly, or when a PG group shamelessly AFKs 300,000 combat merits when you are like, actually pressing buttons and playing. But because Powerplay is tied to everything its easy to exploit each modes weaknesses leaving a choice of doing the same, burning yourself out competing the old fashioned way or stopping playing.

Open does not solve all of that, but it at least offers unpredictable encounters and makes the most of basic mechanics (rather than making it painfully obvious there is little PvE variety to be had). Even if FD tweak the Open rules for Powerplay now it would be a good move.

Right, but that still doesn't address the fact that most people don't want PvP, and don't want to be forced into PvP even playing in Open. Which is all your suggestions would do.

You'd be surprised. The Open Powerplay conflicts I've been party showed me how much deeper the feature can be. At a conceptual and actual level it gives more than it takes away. The biggest driver in PP is not the threat of violence but the need for efficiency. Currently its easy to support massive empires because every delivery is near 100% guaranteed because solo and PG is threat free. So while an Open PP won't be totally PvP, PvP acts as a meaningful brake and alternative to simply grinding more- and Powers do not always grind at all the same time, so allowing PvP also provides an avenue to properly disrupt and attack, making for more opportunities for turmoil and powers losing systems.

And how would removing the anti-griefing features from Open change the dominance of solo and private?

Powerplay needs to change one way or the other, its numbers are so low with abandoned powers it needs to work, and it needs to be done as efficiently as possible. I know its not cool to talk about polls from people like OA, but it says something when the interest in Open only or even weighted was about five times as large as the current population who engage fully with Powerplay (from 7.7K respondents v <1K estimated Powerplay pledges) Although some would leave if the change happened, from the numbers I can see most people would shrug and carry on, and those who come in would easily outnumber those who left.

FD indicated the last proposal was the scope they were looking at (i.e. its not much at all), and within it the only new gameplay is Open, in effect making players NPCs. Now, if FD rework Powerplay from the ground up to work across modes then fantastic, job done. But so far all we know is whats been said 'is it', either in whole or in part- which without Open is condemning ever heavier grind races via mega UM and the added gameplay of voting for votes. That will kill Powerplay.

"Hey, you know that thing you already don't do, well now it's even more exclusive to group players and griefers"

That's not what's going to drive people to Powerplay.

If you want Powerplay to be a PvP driven mode, then you should be suggesting that it changes into a dedicated PvP driven mode with a structure designed specifically around intentionally engaging in PvP for all participants, like PvP specific combat zones where everyone in there is there because they want PvP combat (which would also be easy to extend to FPS combat when Odyssey launches). Rather than just proposing that players who don't want to engage in PvP should shut up and get ganked more.

 

[DaveB]

Id be interested in your ideas for a better and more meaningful pvp in this game. Do you have any?

Not sure you'd call them "ideas," more like "goals to strive for" - by which I mean I don't have any kind of road map about how to get there but if we can get there I think it would be a worthy destination.

We'd need to begin with a much wider spectrum of "criminality" within the game, some way to distinguish "I just blew him up" from "I demanded cargo and then blew him up when he didnt drop any", "I blew him up because he's pledged to that power I'm working against" and a lot of the other reasons the game lore embodies for initiating a fight - scale the penalties and the severity of the NPC response to the point where if you're continually initiating meaningless fights you're going to get swarmed by Elite NPCs that DO cheat, that ARE scaled to outfly almost any human pilot and are flying ships that have thicker hides and bigger teeth than we can build, but not on a linear scale - the scaling ofthe security responses in the middle of the range should be quite a shallow slope, ramping up to insane only at the extremes. It needs to be possible to get so notorious as a criminal that you should fear for your survival anywhere outside anarchic space from the NPC response alone. At the same time your "ordinary decent crook" shouldn't attract this level of response at all. We're talking about a serious disincentive to meaningless PvP that is scaled along a curve so that it doesn't act as such a strong disincentive to playing as a criminal or taking mercenary work etc.

We'd need some serious ship/module/weapon rebalancing. It needs to be possible to fit a ship for any other role in the game without making it impossible to stand even a ghost of a chance of mixing it up with a pure combat build on the same hull. Right now, it isn't. The best you can do is build to survive running away - unless your opponent is a run-of-the-mill NPC. Simple math tells us that to do this we'd have to find a way in which "min/maxing the meta for combat" carries some serious disadvantages that aren't offset by the greater combat power of the ship.

You see where I'm going here - trying to find a way to keep meaningful PvP as much fun as it is while taking the fun out of meaningless ganking, or at least imposing lore-consistent consequences on the latter that might give even the dedicated murderhobo pause before they continue down that path. Trying to make sticking around to fight in a ship built for another role possibly something other than suicidal, if you're good enough.

 

[Schmack]

Its on the person themselves to fly defensively, and go to places away from gankers and / or have someone to act as overwatch. The threat of the ganker is acting as a catalyst rather than complaining when a 100% mining build in a dodgy area gets hit.

Of course but that doesn't address the question I asked.

So, whataboutery?

That's become the convenient dismissal these days when someone points out hypocrisy, as if it nullifies the point being made. You're either OK with relogging to get favorable outcomes or you aren't. Picking and choosing which ones are acceptable based on how they impact you personally doesn't really move the needle with the rest of the community. If you are against relogging, then complaining about CLing would be consistent. If you're for it while mining, mission board hopping, finding a landing pad, getting back to space, etc... then it's not relogging that bothers you, but the concept of being left holding the bag.

Pirating: message Drop x cargo or die- thats all the RP you need.

That's all the RP you need. I'll decide what I need.

Powerplay: has singular cargo / locations / roles that telegraph what you are doing, who you belong to. Its easy to know a Patreus pledge in a Hudson expansion is up to no good. It also has a separate C+P, and NPC rules.

OK, that's Powerplay. What of the rest of the non Powerplay user base?

Then you have to be wary where you are, what you fly and be careful, and accept sometimes things go wrong. That, or provide something for PvP in the main game.

"Sometimes things go wrong" sounds like a political response to the reality that being interdicted by an unknown player in Open can very easily result in non-RP griefing for lulz. This is one of the main reasons many avoid Open like the plague. Plus they want to feel they are in space doing space things and that is difficult to do if the game isn't playing along because it's anything goes - everyone can do whatever they like and you just have to "be prepared". The result is what you see, empty space for the most part.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Not sure you'd call them "ideas," more like "goals to strive for" - by which I mean I don't have any kind of road map about how to get there but if we can get there I think it would be a worthy destination.

We'd need to begin with a much wider spectrum of "criminality" within the game, some way to distinguish "I just blew him up" from "I demanded cargo and then blew him up when he didnt drop any", "I blew him up because he's pledged to that power I'm working against" and a lot of the other reasons the game lore embodies for initiating a fight - scale the penalties and the severity of the NPC response to the point where if you're continually initiating meaningless fights you're going to get swarmed by Elite NPCs that DO cheat, that ARE scaled to outfly almost any human pilot and are flying ships that have thicker hides and bigger teeth than we can build, but not on a linear scale - the scaling ofthe security responses in the middle of the range should be quite a shallow slope, ramping up to insane only at the extremes. It needs to be possible to get so notorious as a criminal that you should fear for your survival anywhere outside anarchic space from the NPC response alone. At the same time your "ordinary decent crook" shouldn't attract this level of response at all. We're talking about a serious disincentive to meaningless PvP that is scaled along a curve so that it doesn't act as such a strong disincentive to playing as a criminal or taking mercenary work etc.

We'd need some serious ship/module/weapon rebalancing. It needs to be possible to fit a ship for any other role in the game without making it impossible to stand even a ghost of a chance of mixing it up with a pure combat build on the same hull. Right now, it isn't. The best you can do is build to survive running away - unless your opponent is a run-of-the-mill NPC. Simple math tells us that to do this we'd have to find a way in which "min/maxing the meta for combat" carries some serious disadvantages that aren't offset by the greater combat power of the ship.

You see where I'm going here - trying to find a way to keep meaningful PvP as much fun as it is while taking the fun out of meaningless ganking, or at least imposing lore-consistent consequences on the latter that might give even the dedicated murderhobo pause before they continue down that path. Trying to make sticking around to fight in a ship built for another role possibly something other than suicidal, if you're good enough.

That's not really PvP content, just a bunch of stuff to make ganking harder. Which I'm not completely against but it's kind of, meh.

And uh... good luck good luck getting Frontier to balance this game. I'd love to see it as well but I highly doubt they'd ever bother with it.

 

[Eraden]

First let myself be perfectly clear. I am not a PvPer and never will be so I honestly don't really have a dog in this hunt. Please take what I say as merely suggestions on how to add some fun for the PvPers. I have seen other MMOs do what I am about to propose. How about events organized by the devs? Events that are essentially grand battles held on a semi regular basis that would have meaningful rewards and possibly even major influence for the various major factions in the game. Please note, these events would be in addition to the high level meta game activities that are already present. These would essentially be the equivalent of the big battles that occur in Eve but they would be set up by the devs and some serious rewards would be incorporated. You could maybe have a big battle every month with hundreds of participants on each side clashing as two or more titanic fleets fighting for their chosen factions. Hell I'd even pay money to see a You Tube vid of such a battle. It would be awesome.

The good thing about it is, nobody could possibly complain about ganking because everyone there is there TO PVP. In a situation like this, I think even I might try it out (in a modest ship of course). I used to play Eve and have had my share of big battles there (flew an Amarr Curse cruiser loaded with nosferatu before the dang things got nerfed to hell). I'm not so big on PVP anymore, especially now with the Parkinson's kicking up a notch, but I do reminisce about those days in Eve and maybe, just maybe, if these kinds of battles were organized, I might hobble on over to participate (probably will get shmushed in the first few seconds of the battle but hey, it's all about the grand experience).

 

[Eraden]

First let myself be perfectly clear. I am not a PvPer (anymore) and (almost) never will be so I honestly don't really have a dog in this hunt. Please take what I say as merely suggestions on how to add some fun for the PvPers. I have seen other MMOs do what I am about to propose. How about events organized by the devs? Events that are essentially grand battles held on a semi regular basis that would have meaningful rewards and possibly even major influence for the various major factions in the game. Please note, these events would be in addition to the high level meta game activities that are already present. These would essentially be the equivalent of the big battles that occur in Eve but they would be set up by the devs and some serious rewards would be incorporated. You could maybe have a big battle every month with hundreds of participants on each side clashing as two or more titanic fleets fighting for their chosen factions. Hell I'd even pay money to see a You Tube vid of such a battle. It would be awesome.

The good thing about it is, nobody could possibly complain about ganking because everyone there is there TO PVP. In a situation like this, I think even I might try it out (in a modest ship of course). I used to play Eve and have had my share of big battles there (flew an Amarr Curse cruiser loaded with nosferatu before the dang things got nerfed to hell). I'm not so big on PVP anymore, especially now with the Parkinson's kicking up a notch, but I do reminisce about those days in Eve and maybe, just maybe, if these kinds of battles were organized, I might hobble on over to participate (probably will get shmushed in the first few seconds of the battle but hey, it's all about the grand experience).

 

[Maggie_Oz]

How about events organized by the devs?

Community goals? They certainly draw in the PvP crowd.

There is nothing stopping the PvP players organising their own ongoing battles, if they put the effort into that rather than complaining they might find heaps of content and they could leave the other uninvolved players alone.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

First let myself be perfectly clear. I am not a PvPer and never will be so I honestly don't really have a dog in this hunt. Please take what I say as merely suggestions on how to add some fun for the PvPers. I have seen other MMOs do what I am about to propose. How about events organized by the devs? Events that are essentially grand battles held on a semi regular basis that would have meaningful rewards and possibly even major influence for the various major factions in the game. Please note, these events would be in addition to the high level meta game activities that are already present. These would essentially be the equivalent of the big battles that occur in Eve but they would be set up by the devs and some serious rewards would be incorporated. You could maybe have a big battle every month with hundreds of participants on each side clashing as two or more titanic fleets fighting for their chosen factions. Hell I'd even pay money to see a You Tube vid of such a battle. It would be awesome.

The good thing about it is, nobody could possibly complain about ganking because everyone there is there TO PVP. In a situation like this, I think even I might try it out (in a modest ship of course). I used to play Eve and have had my share of big battles there (flew an Amarr Curse cruiser loaded with nosferatu before the dang things got nerfed to hell). I'm not so big on PVP anymore, especially now with the Parkinson's kicking up a notch, but I do reminisce about those days in Eve and maybe, just maybe, if these kinds of battles were organized, I might hobble on over to participate (probably will get shmushed in the first few seconds of the battle but hey, it's all about the grand experience).

Official pvp events would be awesome! But I have also seen how official events have turned out in the past, remember the Gnosis.

 

[Sir Ganksalot]

Community goals? They certainly draw in the PvP crowd.

There is nothing stopping the PvP players organising their own ongoing battles, if they put the effort into that rather than complaining they might find heaps of content and they could leave the other uninvolved players alone.

Once again proving you know nothing about the PvP community, Maggie. There are major, community driven, PvP events that happen almost every month. But again, how would you know since you spend all your time in PG?

 

[Rubbernuke]

Of course but that doesn't address the question I asked.

The risk is always with the person on the end, and how they mitigate that risk- you don't fly a weak ship crammed with months of data into Shin Dhez, for example.

That's become the convenient dismissal these days when someone points out hypocrisy, as if it nullifies the point being made. You're either OK with relogging to get favorable outcomes or you aren't. Picking and choosing which ones are acceptable based on how they impact you personally doesn't really move the needle with the rest of the community. If you are against relogging, then complaining about CLing would be consistent. If you're for it while mining, mission board hopping, finding a landing pad, getting back to space, etc... then it's not relogging that bothers you, but the concept of being left holding the bag.

Well, what has relogging for materials got to do with combat logging or blocking? I only care about game loops being solid enough to support other game loops, not what people in your mind hypothertically do or don't do.

That's all the RP you need. I'll decide what I need.

Well, to be a functional pirate, all you need to say is, give me your stuff or else.

OK, that's Powerplay. What of the rest of the non Powerplay user base?

I'm just elaborating on Powerplays features making it easy to know intent of players in comparison to the regular game.

"Sometimes things go wrong" sounds like a political response to the reality that being interdicted by an unknown player in Open can very easily result in non-RP griefing for lulz. This is one of the main reasons many avoid Open like the plague. Plus they want to feel they are in space doing space things and that is difficult to do if the game isn't playing along because it's anything goes - everyone can do whatever they like and you just have to "be prepared". The result is what you see, empty space for the most part.

Well, stuff does go wrong, its a game- sometimes unexpected things happen. If you want a 100% cast iron way to never be destroyed there is not a solution. You can mitigate risk by knowing hot spots for danger, know the times of the danger, build better, learn escape tactics, go in a wing etc.

 

[Eraden]

Official pvp events would be awesome! But I have also seen how official events have turned out in the past, remember the Gnosis.

What I am suggesting would be a bit less involved than what was done for the Gnosis. All that would be required would be to spawn a capital warship for each faction that will be fighting in the system. All participants pledge to one of the capital ships and they would defend theirs while taking out the other(s). Some basic rules could be set up like "if you attack members of your own faction you go red to both and are worth double points to those that kill you". Basic scoring would involve getting points for killing enemy players, getting bonus points for destroying the enemy capital warships and/or protecting your own. Finally, a big bonus would go to each member of the fleet (living or deceased) that actually won the system and cleared the enemy from a specific part of the system (that prevents party poopers from holding up the completion of the battle by hiding far far out in the outer reaches of the system. If you decide to jump out of the system, it would count as a ship loss for your side. Aside from spawning in the big ships, all the devs would have to do is keep score.......they CAN keep score, right?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

No, throwing PvE and PvP into o e mode does.

 

[Stealthie]

Yup, it's one of those threads...

PvP consistently seems to be the last thing considered with game features. If anything, features are introduced that hamper PvP in Elite. This pattern I believe is contributing to the infamous ganking "problem" so often posted on reddit or these forums. Full disclosure, I do my share of ganking. Let's go over some avenues that can bring about meaningful PvP in this game.

1) BGS: One player faction comes into conflict with another for control of stations and systems. This has great potential to drive meaningful PvP since each side has an incentive to hamper the efforts of the other. But there are some things that get in the way:

Solo / PG: Actions are just as effective in these modes compared to open, so players have no incentive to play in open if there's threat of hostile action.
Menu Logging: Allowed by FDev, reviled by the PvP community. You can de-spawn your ship in 15 seconds after getting attacked, leaving players very little time to complete an attack. With today's defensive modules and engineering, it's incredibly easy to have a ship that can survive 15 seconds of fire from fully decked out PvP ships.
Blocking: Say each group has 3 players in a wing. Wing 1 has blocked 2 members of the opposing wing already. Because of this, instancing will likely be incredibly broken, such that either the two wings don't see each other at all, or Wing 1 will only see a single member of Wing 2, while the other two members fail to instance with the rest of the players, giving Wing 1 an advantage. They can also just proceed to block any member if the opposing faction, effectively playing in PG but in open.

2) Powerplay: This was built to help encourage PvP, so seems like this would be perfect for those who want to do PvP. Again, there are many things that get in the way.

Solo / PG: Actions are just as effective in these modes compared to open, so players have no incentive to play in open if there's threat of hostile action.
Menu Logging: Allowed by FDev, reviled by the PvP community. You can de-spawn your ship in 15 seconds after getting attacked, leaving players very little time to complete an attack. With today's defensive modules and engineering, it's incredibly easy to have a ship that can survive 15 seconds of fire from fully decked out PvP ships.
Blocking: Say each group has 3 players in a wing. Wing 1 has blocked 2 members of the opposing wing already. Because of this, instancing will likely be incredibly broken, such that either the two wings don't see each other at all, or Wing 1 will only see a single member of Wing 2, while the other two members fail to instance with the rest of the players, giving Wing 1 an advantage. They can also just proceed to block any member if the opposing faction, effectively playing in PG but in open.

(Look familiar?)

3) Pirating: This is great fun when it works and is perhaps the only PvP activity that can net a potentially meaningful monetary reward. This is generally an activity that should not result in the death of even the victim (provided they comply with demands). Again, we have problems here:

Solo / PG: Obtaining cargo and selling it are just as effective (if not more so in this case with mining) in Solo or Private Group. NPCs pose just a minor fraction of risk that a player does. So there's really no incentive at all to play in open. Instead there are specific incentives to conduct this in solo / pg for the current mining meta.
Menu Logging: Allowed by FDev, reviled by the PvP community. You can de-spawn your ship in 15 seconds after getting attacked, leaving players very little time to complete an attack. With today's defensive modules and engineering, it's incredibly easy to have a ship that can survive 15 seconds of fire from fully decked out PvP ships. While some cargo can be extracted with hatchbreakers, pirates tend to announce demands first and give time for their victim to comply since they want to encourage this behavior. The small time window however doesn't afford this luxury.
Blocking: The entire purpose of pirating is to find players transporting high value items. If no players are found, there is no pirating to be done at all. Broken instances from blocking only exacerbates empty instances from the lack of players playing in Open.

(Again, look familiar?)

4) CQC: Perhaps the only PvP that actually works, but it's not very meaningful in the sense of personal CMDR progression or contributing to something bigger. We also cannot use the ships we want to fly, which are the ones we've spent credits and time building.

5) Organized PvP Events: These can be great fun, and many who enjoy PvP attend such events. But these tend to be few and far between, and have the problem of not contributing to something greater.

So, put yourself in the shoes of someone who really enjoys combat with other players in the grand universe provided in Elite. You're really just ending up hitting roadblock after roadblock. What's there left to do? You probably guessed it: Ganking. It's true for me, and I'm sure it is for others, ganking you see in Elite is largely a result of boredom.

To be successful at ganking, you have to:

1) Go somewhere that you have a chance of finding a target. This means an engineering system, where everyone is mining, or where it's being sold (though sell systems have been empty in open lately). We've already established BGS and Powerplay functionally do not provide an adequate environment for open PvP. With many in solo / pg or blocking, these are the only systems that you have any chance to encounter players.
2) Attack quickly and ruthlessly because you potentially only have 15 seconds if your target decides to combat log (or less depending on method). Time spent messaging or attempting to pirate often just results in the player combat logging.
3) Don't communicate before interdiction otherwise you might just get blocked.

So really, if there is a ganking problem, its really due to the design of the game, and the lack of compelling options for PvP because of it. As someone who ganks, I would absolutely love to have a compelling BGS war with another player group far more than just ganking in a random high traffic system. There'd be more fun pirate interactions as well if the current situation didn't overtly hamper pirating efforts so harshly.


TLDR: PvP players are left with little to no compelling options for PvP content, resulting in increased ganking.

Nah,

If you wanted to PvP, you'd find a way to do it.

You're just trying to pass the blame for ganking.

 

[Screemonster]

This! We always end up here. I wonder that the PvP enthusiasts can't see it. If PvE players had their own mode, so would the PvP players. All the complaints about ganking would become untenable: the stock reply would be, "You were in the wrong mode!" Problems solved.

It's the way all other multi-player games go and I still predict it for 2021: either an Open-PvE mode or a PvP flag. I'd prefer the mode to the flag, but I don't know which is more likely.

The mode would be kinda annoying and end up splitting the playerbase (though there's definitely demand for it - see all the mobiuses and fleetcomms that have popped up) but a flag would be good.

One thing that I'd love to see, to avoid the immersions arguments about people selecting a button on the options screen and becoming indestructible, would be if the PvE flag didn't prevent damage at the hands of another player, only destruction - as in, weapons would still do full damage, but never take the last 1% of their hull, break their canopy, or trigger a powerplant explosion. With a system like that, things like immobilising someone's ship to hatchbreak them would still be possible, but someone interdicting random ships wouldn't be able to do anything more than force someone to reboot/repair. What else would they do, camp on top of them until their life support runs out? Even if the logout timer was extended to an entire minute you get five of those on an e-rated life support.

Add some conditions to the flagging (hardpoints retracted, not wanted, attack must be one that would summon authorities ie. system link present, lawful government, not powerplay enemies) and that pretty much allows every kind of non-random combat than I can think of while making sealclubbing completely impractical.

 

[Stealthie]

I'd prefer someone to stick to solo and delete themselves from my plane of existence than put themselves out there and then log out as soon as I interact with them.

Fortunately, you don't get to decide who inhabits your plane of existence.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The mode would be kinda annoying and end up splitting the playerbase (though there's definitely demand for it - see all the mobiuses and fleetcomms that have popped up) but a flag would be good.

With potentially as many Private Groups as players and with each player able to play in Solo at will - and only three Open modes (one per platform) the playerbase is already split - and was before the game even released.

One thing that I'd love to see, to avoid the immersions arguments about people selecting a button on the options screen and becoming indestructible, would be if the PvE flag didn't prevent damage at the hands of another player, only destruction - as in, weapons would still do full damage, but never take the last 1% of their hull, break their canopy, or trigger a powerplant explosion. With a system like that, things like immobilising someone's ship to hatchbreak them would still be possible, but someone interdicting random ships wouldn't be able to do anything more than force someone to reboot/repair. What else would they do, camp on top of them until their life support runs out? Even if the logout timer was extended to an entire minute you get five of those on an e-rated life support.

Add some conditions to the flagging (hardpoints retracted, not wanted, attack must be one that would summon authorities ie. system link present, lawful government, not powerplay enemies) and that pretty much allows every kind of non-random combat than I can think of while making sealclubbing completely impractical.

A conditional PvP flag is a broken PvP flag.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The mode would be kinda annoying and end up splitting the playerbase (though there's definitely demand for it - see all the mobiuses and fleetcomms that have popped up) but a flag would be good.

One thing that I'd love to see, to avoid the immersions arguments about people selecting a button on the options screen and becoming indestructible, would be if the PvE flag didn't prevent damage at the hands of another player, only destruction - as in, weapons would still do full damage, but never take the last 1% of their hull, break their canopy, or trigger a powerplant explosion. With a system like that, things like immobilising someone's ship to hatchbreak them would still be possible, but someone interdicting random ships wouldn't be able to do anything more than force someone to reboot/repair. What else would they do, camp on top of them until their life support runs out? Even if the logout timer was extended to an entire minute you get five of those on an e-rated life support.

Add some conditions to the flagging (hardpoints retracted, not wanted, attack must be one that would summon authorities ie. system link present, lawful government, not powerplay enemies) and that pretty much allows every kind of non-random combat than I can think of while making sealclubbing completely impractical.

Nothing wrong with splitting the already split playerbase. Its PvPers that need other players, and in thoery a split would give them only willing targets instead of unwilling ones.

Its not uncommon for online games to provide seperate servers for PvE players vs PvP players and its the logical solution when you have a game that mixes PvP and PvE elements.

And a split might at least stop these threads with certain people demanding that other people play the way they want to play.

 

[Robert Maynard]

And a split might at least stop these threads with certain people demanding that other people play the way they want to play.

.... or threads demanding removal of Solo and Private Groups would just add Open-PvE to the list.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

.... or threads demanding removal of Solo and Private Groups would just add Open-PvE to the list.

They would have no grounds. One of the main arguments is because of all those nasty players in PG/solo manipulating their BGS/PP in safety. That would be no longer an issue. They would have their own BGS/PP.

 

[Robert Maynard]

They would have no grounds. One of the main arguments is because of all those nasty players in PG/solo manipulating their BGS/PP in safety. That would be no longer an issue. They would have their own BGS/PP.

Ah - two BGS - it wasn't clear from your post that the galaxy itself would be split.

From what Frontier have indicated previously, splitting the galaxy seems rather unlikely.