Increasing open play incentives

[Dabba]

It is not an overwhelming mentality.

There are a number of people with an irrational fear of human interaction.

Fear will make people express their opinions very loudly and strongly.

There is absolutely no way to entice these people to play open and they would absolutely quit the game if they were forced to, so they should be left alone to play in their solo or group modes.

The issue is them transmitting their fear to others with their loud, strong and baseless opinions.

The way this game is designed griefing is utterly impossible.

Not sure where you are getting this information, seems you are just pulling it from a well of wishful thinking, but you are actually quite wrong. It has been shown time and again that games with pve only options are more successful than games that are pvp only. It has been shown time and again that if you give people the choice between a pve server and a pvp server the vast majority are going to play on the pve server. I have no fear of human interaction at all, I quite enjoy it actually, I just don't have any interest in human interaction that involves them shooting at me. Fear doesn't enter into the equation, its just not fun, and at the end of the day fun is the only reason I am playing a game.

 

[Zenicetus]

Doesn't need more incentives.

The advantages of open play are obvious to those who consider what open play offers to be advantages, and solo or private groups (some of which are very well populated) offer viable alternatives to those who differ in preferred style.

The only "incentive" that Open play needs is a continued hands off approach to player interactions. The game mode does not need heavy handed, gamist, restrictions. It needs a laissez faire, organic, system that lets players do as they will, with other players reinforcing or discouraging particular behavior via purely in game/in character methods.

I agree up to a point. The complication here is that the game design does include what should be safer areas for traders and miners in the government-controlled star systems, and also completely laissez faire systems like Anarchies and deep space away from civilization.

More players might be encouraged to fly in All Online if those distinctions were even stronger than they are now, with more NPC police action, even more severe bounties, etc. But then you'd have pirates complaining that it's too hard to pirate in the controlled systems where players feel safer. It's a tough thing for FD to balance.

And it's still only a partially realized game, with missing features like Wings and canned call/response text comms for HOTAS and Rift users. With the planned changes to Wings, we still don't know how easy or hard it will be to fly escort, and actually arrive at an interdiction instance in time to help a friend. If it works smoothly enough, that might get more traders flying in All Online. If not, it could just turn into Wings of 3-4 players flying hunter/killer groups going after each other. Which could still be fun, but it's not going to scratch the "pirate-a-PC" itch for some players.

Anyway, back to the OP's idea of incentives... I seriously doubt the game will ever include in-game financial or faction incentives such that All Online works differently than private Group or Solo Online. FD wants everyone sharing the same Galaxy, with the only difference being the numbers and type of other players encountered.

 

[Mikey2305]

Spent my whole ED career from B1 in solo and no particular desire to change. Would need a significant game reason to change my mind. Did spend a couple of hours in player mode when there were probs with the server and to be honest it didnt seem a lot different. I hang around in deep space and unfashionable areas so probably would not experience any probs, might try....

 

[PepsiDragon]

I started in solo. Once I learned the game enough to fly I switched. it is better in open in my opinion. Knowing there is a risk makes it more fun. I never had a problem in the short time I was trading. Anytime I was killed I started the fight for a bounty or in a conflict zone.

 

[Closet_Monkey]

As far as i am aware the game was intended to have an offline mode and an online mode from day one of the kick starter. This was later altered to online solo and online because (correct me if i'm wrong) of issues with market updates.
I was never interested in online purely because i don't want to come home to play a few hours only to have my evening ruined by cmdr Fancy Pants - spends all day, every day playing!
TBH i like it the way it is now, i have my cake and i can eat it.
I get the benefit of other players interacting with the universe i also inhabit, and i get to ghost along side them avoiding irritating fellows like the before mentioned MR FP.
So please don't try to force your need to have more interactions with a larger online base on others who im sure like me are more than happy with the situation as is.

 

[Rockie]

(correct me if i'm wrong).

The original kickstarter campaign pitch didn't include an offline solo mode, or even an online one. But backers repeatedly it be added, so after a week or two FD stated in an update that that they were planning on adding the feature. From what I'm to understand when FD agreed to implement offline solo they thought it would be minor task, but as development progressed it became more and more clear that it would be akin to making the whole game over again. Rather than spending valuable developer time on a difficult feature that wasn't even in the original game design, FD added the offline solo mode as a sort of compromise.

 

[OVMorat]

And IF the solo online mode had not been a 100% advertised feature of the game, along with the option to swap into and out of it at will, then maybe you would have a point. But it was, and buying the game, either in ignorance, or in the hope that complaining will get it changed to how you want, is no reason to demand changes, when the game is working - albeit with improvements needed - as designed.

Solo offline is a sticking point, but as DB and others have said, that was never a feature they really wanted in there, but was one they tried to add after a large number of people asked for it........ sadly they were unable to make it work, without a huge commitment that would have meant saccrifices in other areas, which they were not prepared to make.... the rights and wrongs of this have already been covered elsewhere, but one of their defences is that for the majority of people who wanted offline, solo online is there and ticks most of the boxes.. Like it or not it is not going anywhere and complaining about it is as likely to work as it would be for me to demand dropping ALL......

Like many here, (whilst I personally would have backed elite if it had been only ALL online), I would not have backed at even close to the levels I did knowing that if ALL did end up toxic like eve (which currently it isnt I will add) I have an escape plan (and to go back to the OP, equally an escape plan without features either cut or trimmed down compared to ALL).

My pledge was a drop in the ocean compared to some of the really big backers who wanted solo however. So like it or not the truth is, Elite only just made its KS goals... and it would not have made them without the solo gamers.

I think you may be arguing with the wrong person?
Either that or you're putting a lot of words in my mouth.

 

[kurush]

From what I'm to understand when FD agreed to implement offline solo they thought it would be minor task, but as development progressed it became more and more clear that it would be akin to making the whole game over again.

From what I understand, FD realised their kickstarter is getting nowhere with promising the "always on" game and decided to trick some of us into pledging. I'd certainly wouldnt give them anything if they promised what has been delivering. So, a little bait and switch to get the things going. I doubt they were seriously considering offline option at any point. I do like how it turned out though with PvP crowd basically being screwed even more than we were