General [MEGATHREAD] Rebalances and fixes for the progression system, risk/reward ratio, ingame learning curves, pvp, and more!

[cheesenbiscuits]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/so-open-is-the-most-popular-mode-according-to-fdev.434279/ with this video linked in a post there.
Keeping powerplay and other BGS activities available in non-open modes is catering to the smaller group of players at the expense of players who play in open.

And it’s done in such a way as to include the entire community.

 

[MadSinUN]

Even Anarchy is a political system, a system with rules and restrictions. All these statements "do what you want", "I like to do what I want" lead to all these ganks, grifters, blocking and many criminal, senseless actions of some players because of which some other players went solo and PG continue to "do what you want")))

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

The main reason i do what i do is because someone else wants me to do something else

 

[Rat Catcher]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/so-open-is-the-most-popular-mode-according-to-fdev.434279/ with this video linked in a post there.
Keeping powerplay and other BGS activities available in non-open modes is catering to the smaller group of players at the expense of players who play in open.

But weren't those comments made 2 years ago?

Things change, a fresh influx of players over that time may have changed this radically - which potentially provides an explanation for the current resurgence of "Open Only" demands...

I find it curious that folk will quote 'ancient' statistics to support their stance, particularly in a game which is not static in its playerbase, if just feels as if someone would insist that a game that 'topped the charts' in 2018 (then invariably slid off to oblivion) was the greatest game today

 

[Incandescence]

Whether it should, or should not, remains a matter of opinion. Frontier's stance seems to be very clear, however.

No, it isnt clear at all, but it seems to be getting clearer.

BGS being open only was a long discussion and most agree on it being open only.

Affecting the bgs of powerplay through solo literally prevents anyone from preventing you undermining them, let alone messsing with someones system states , or steam rolling it from an invisible mode no one can reach, why should that stay a thing? How is that fair?

Its a shame alot of these "opinions" are considered so controversial just because some people cant live with the danger of their ship being destroyed, consensual or non consensual, its called elite dangerous, not elite solo mode ez mode, its also marketed as an MMO, which is arguable with how you can bypass any player interaction with aforementioned methods.

If anything im very proud and happy with one of our new cms.

 

[Zieman]

BGS being open only was a long discussion and most agree on it being open only.

False.

 

[Incandescence]

False.

must be true if you disagree, clearly.
Ive been here during the original discussionss when it was first mentioned, it was pretty much unanimously pro.
regardless, its still unfair to affect someones hard work and determination , from a mode no one can catch you in.

 

[Zieman]

must be true if you disagree, clearly.
Ive been here during the original discussionss when it was first mentioned, it was pretty much unanimously pro.
regardless, its still unfair to affect someones hard work and determination , from a mode no one can catch you in.

BackGround Simulation is all too fickle, the effect of a single player should be lessened by a factor of 1000 at least.
It is ridiculous how system allegiances can be changed on a whim of a few.

But even then the BGS affects all players - no matter the mode or platform, all players experience the effects and can have an effect on it.
Also, if you want to make BGS effect 'open only', maybe you're willing to pay all console players' multiplayer fees they have to pay for their respective manufacturers.

 

[Dragsham]

1) Open only.
2) Player driven economy.
3) Perma noterity.
4) Higher combat payouts balanced with risk.
5) crime & punishment overhaul.
6) nerf mining.
7) increase price of ships 200% hehe.
8) stop stacking missions wing or solo.
9) Pvpers harassed by spec ops.
10) grappling hooks.
11) fix smuggling.
12) bridge on my fc !!@
13) unlucky for some.
14) cross platform one world.
15) please! Another way to refuel carriers...it's daft!@

 

[Zieman]

1) Open only.

No.

Modes - The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread [See new thread]

There have been several threads on the topic of switching between solo/private groups/open. This thread is going to be the merge target for all other threads on the topic, no matter how 'unique' the thread creator may think their thread is. Creating a poll is not unique. Posting in here has...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Modes - The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].

Elite Dangerous is an online game that allows players to play in three potential 'modes': Online ALL group (called open play) where the player is in the same universe as all other players and can see and be seen by all others in open play Online PRIVATE GROUP play where the player is online in...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Modes - The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Mk III

Elite Dangerous is an online game that allows players to play in three potential 'modes': Online ALL group (called open play) where the player is in the same universe as all other players and can see and be seen by all others in open play Online PRIVATE GROUP play where the player is online in...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Modes - The Open v Solo v Groups thread IV - Hotel California

Elite Dangerous is an online game that allows players to play in three potential 'modes': Online ALL group (called open play) where the player is in the same universe as all other players and can see and be seen by all others in open play Online PRIVATE GROUP play where the player is online in...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[MK Regular]

Affecting the bgs of powerplay through solo literally prevents anyone from preventing you undermining them, let alone messsing with someones system states , or steam rolling it from an invisible mode no one can reach, why should that stay a thing?

Even if the BGS and/or powerplay were open only, there are still ways for me to oppose you such that you can't directly counter my actions:

• I could be playing on a different platform than you, and you would never be able to interact with me because crossplay does not exist for ED
• I could be in a different time zone or playing at a different time of day than you, and you would never be able to interact with me unless you changed your daily schedule
• I could block you and everyone else I see in-game, and you would never be able to get into an instance with me

Honestly, you're probably not going to get what you want here. Part of this is due to factors that are outside of FDev's control, part of it is because FDev's vision for the game includes mechanics that can legitimately allow players to avoid players to choose who they don't want to play with (both through blocking and through mode choices).

How is that fair?

My understanding is that the BGS is not supposed to be a dedicated competitive gameplay loop, but rather a means for players to interact with the game world in their day-to-day gameplay. It does not need to be "fair" because it is not meant as a way for players to directly interact with each other.

 

[varonica]

BGS being open only was a long discussion and most agree on it being open only.

False.

Hmm, I think what he actually meant was, everyone who agrees it should be open only agrees it should be open only.

It's a curious fact that when a select group of people all agree with something they all agree with something and as long as they don't include anyone who doesn't agree there won't be anyone who doesn't agree!

I think that's a bit clearer now!

 

[Kaocraft]

must be true if you disagree, clearly.
Ive been here during the original discussionss when it was first mentioned, it was pretty much unanimously pro.
regardless, its still unfair to affect someones hard work and determination , from a mode no one can catch you in.

You're thinking of PowerPlay and not the BGS, surely? I don't think there ever was a major dev-sponsored discussion of Open BGS. Yes a lot of people piggybacked on that discussion and tried to bring the BGS into it, but inasmuch as there was anything resembling a consensus, it was around PowerPlay and not the BGS.

 

[Brrokk]

No, it isnt clear at all, but it seems to be getting clearer.

BGS being open only was a long discussion and most agree on it being open only.

Affecting the bgs of powerplay through solo literally prevents anyone from preventing you undermining them, let alone messsing with someones system states , or steam rolling it from an invisible mode no one can reach, why should that stay a thing? How is that fair?

Its a shame alot of these "opinions" are considered so controversial just because some people cant live with the danger of their ship being destroyed, consensual or non consensual, its called elite dangerous, not elite solo mode ez mode, its also marketed as an MMO, which is arguable with how you can bypass any player interaction with aforementioned methods.

If anything im very proud and happy with one of our new cms.

Talking about "the bgs of powerplay" as if they are closely connected just shows ignorance of both.

As I've said before, I'm convinced by the arguments for OOPP even though I don't PP. I would support OOPP if I could see the people who want it saying, "OOPP is what we want, don't bring the BGS into it". As it is, though, they seem to be happy to let ignorant people conflate the two, which makes me suspect that OOPP might be intended as the thin end of a wedge; then I don't want to support it.

 

[Deleted member 192138]

Talking about "the bgs of powerplay" as if they are closely connected just shows ignorance of both.

Favourable government types for fortification triggers make this pretty inescapable. When a huge powerplay group is mobilised to faceroll some small BGS group's faction out of power in a system because they want their government type in place for their command capital spreadsheet, it's pretty hard to pretend they're wholly distinct entities.

You can't deal with power play without talking about BGS at the same time. There are gameplay loops that are power play only, but while you can do BGS without doing power play, you can't do power play and totally ignore BGS. It's a very abrasive integration between the two types of gameplay, but you can't pretend it doesn't exist.

 

[Brrokk]

Favourable government types for fortification triggers make this pretty inescapable. When a huge powerplay group is mobilised to faceroll some small BGS group's faction out of power in a system because they want their government type in place for their command capital spreadsheet, it's pretty hard to pretend they're wholly distinct entities.

You can't deal with power play without talking about BGS at the same time. There are gameplay loops that are power play only, but while you can do BGS without doing power play, you can't do power play and totally ignore BGS. It's a very abrasive integration between the two types of gameplay, but you can't pretend it doesn't exist.

Oh. Well, I was in favour of OOPP but if all PPers think the above is true, I'm back to being against it. I'd like Rubbernuke's comment before I flipflop again.

 

[gorankar]

In either PP or BGS operations, player killing is generally the least efficient way to help your side of the BGS, or PP conflict. You can't stop as many cargo/pp material deliveries as you could of delivered yourself instead of prowling around looking for someone to shoot. Even if you are going for anarchy and are in operations to decrease system security/stability, killing clean NPC's is far more efficient.
Open only anything, tend to only ever be about one thing in the end. To increase available players to kill. Players that promptly block you making it a moot point.
Which then inevitably leads to demands that "block should only effect comms."
Then perhaps the demand to do away with solo/pg altogether.
They never even take the fact that the consoles have to pay for open and pg, making it a non starter from the beginning.

The rest of the first post comes off as filler. A request to gut the game of people that prefer solo or pg, in the hopes that it will drive more people to open to shoot at.
"You can't read minds, you don't know their intent". I can infer intent based on the suggestion of gutting solo/pg in favor of open.


PKers need victims, the salt must flow.
Will we make it to page 69?

 

[Brrokk]

...
PKers need victims, the salt must flow.
Will we make it to page 69?

Now that you've uncovered the core issue, I feel sure we will.

 

[gorankar]

Now that you've uncovered the core issue, I feel sure we will.

I am pretty sure it was uncovered on the first page, in the first reply no less. I do like how they tried to dress it up as something else.
In any case, I am just going to spectate this one going forward.

 

[Northpin]

Ello
this is my first megathread and big 'suggestion' on this forum.
I hope people will take notice and give their full support on this as this thread is in, I believe, almost everyone's interest.

Looking at big "New Era" update and "Fleet Carriers" which are coming closer and closer by every day, I have been thinking quite a while about what the best possible solutions for a variety of problems would be for the entire community, and not just one major or minor part of it.
We're all playing the same game here, therefore changes should be made with everyone's interests in mind.
Everyone is free to comment here with their thoughts on this and I will acknowledge very good and constructive feedback as well as further suggestions and include them below.
So, let's go!
____

First thing I want to point out beforehand, are some of the problems that the early-/mid-game community has with veteran players (mostly PvP veterans) and the Open Play community as that is what inspired me to make this post. Some of the problems are often mentioned as "ganking", "pointless murder" or "endless grinds".
I also want to mention, that alot of the things below origin from my point of view and amount of time that I have spend in this community and in playing this game. So some things may differ from your personal opinions, so please keep that in mind and respond on this topic appropriately, if you wish to do so!

Improvements & changes for new players & early-game playerbase

A good way to approach some of the above mentioned problems, is to support the learning process of new players and the early-game playerbase. Put up very informative and instructive ingame tutorials on how to survive in this dangerous and vast galaxy and what the key aspects of good and well specd ships are with the main focus on survivability and versatility in mind. As alot of new players are at first overwhelmed with what to do in this game
This can be achieved by:

• expanding the basic tutorial that new players have to do when they start playing this game for the very first time
• a tutorial section in the main menu, which contains tutorials in text and video form either created by the veteran playerbase and approved by the developer, or created by the developer and approved by the veteran community to ensure that everything in these tutorials are as informative and correct as possible.
• deeper descriptions of modules and their properties/use in the outfitting panel
• small tooltips in the outfitting screen to hint key aspects of ship outfitting, such as example how effective good shields are and how you can achieve a good balance of survivability and versatility
• better descriptions of the three main activities in this game: Combat, Exploration and Trading

All this gives new players a basic understanding of how this game works and makes sure that they can blaze their own trail with a good set of information and skills.


Improvements & changes for casual players, mid-game playerbase and the whole community

After completing a couple of hours of playtime and testing out several game features and the three major ingame activities Combat, Exploration & Trading, new players decide what kind of activities they want to focus on for the majority of the time they spend in this community. At that point they are part of the mid-game playerbase and they will most likely immerse themselves into things which can unintentionally or intentionally affect other players either by indirect or direct interaction with them. The two main features that come into play here are the galactic BackGroundSimulation, with it's playerfactions or players who support their favourite star systems and NPC factions, and Powerplay.
Unfortunately these two features are currently heavily borked to the point where a large group of players can affect and potentionally ruin a minor groups or even one single players experience and progress in Open Play. BGS and Powerplay were obviously designed to be actively influenced by this community with various different activities from the three major playstyles.
The fact that BGS and Powerplay can be affected by these activities from the singleplayer and coop gamemodes, Solo Play and Private Group, completly breaks the aspect of a "living" and "breathing" galaxy though as trolls or griefers can undermine and blight other players activities without ever having to face their opposition and without any chance for the players, who choose to immerse themselves in Open Play, to ever prevent this from happening to them.
This needs to be changed as soon as possible.
Suggestions to fix this problem are:

• disconnect Solo Play and Private Group BGS and Powerplay from Open Play but keep those features in seperate the gamemodes. Therefore any exploiting and undermining of Open Play is fixed and the singleplayer playerbase do not lack any content.
• completly remove BGS and Powerplay features from Solo Play & Private Group and turn those two gamemodes into static Singlerplayer environments
• disconnect any BGS and Powerplay directed progress from Solo Play & Private Group so they cannot undermine and break the Open Play environment

Another problem that is directly connected to the inbalance of the two features and the three gamemodes mentioned above, is the dead progression system.
Highly rewarding grinds such as mining and exploration can currently destroy the player maintained Open Play environment and the fact that players can grind themselves alot of credits or reputation with system factions and superpowers in the Solo Play and Private Groups environments completly nulifies and takes away any kind of feel that there is a progression system and skill curve in this game.
Imo this almost can almost be descriped as an exploit in which you can get yourself a very high rewards for facing absolutely ZERO player or NPC induced challenges and risks which results in a broken risk/reward ratio.
View attachment 172437
Community created graph of the current state of R/R, dated 07.05.2020 - by CMDR Mgram
Both of these things need to be adressed and changed to give players the feeling that they have truly achieved something and that they are progressing in this game as currently, getting credits and ship/module assets is way too easy.
Suggested fixes:

• completly remove BGS and Powerplay features from Solo Play & Private Group and turn those two gamemodes into static Singlerplayer environments
  & nerf all reputation and credit payouts outside of Open Play by 50% to compensate for the almost non-existent risks and challenges
• increase the skill level of NPC pirates and outlaws in Solo and Private Group
• increase ATR response time in Open Play to fix crime & punishment and increase the risks for notoric outlaws

Related to that, some players feel that Open Play and it's indirect/direct PvP influence is heavily inbalance despite the existence of several features that let players escape and dodge direct PvP encounters.
Part of the reasoning behind that are the currently dead progression system and the big learning curve for new players caused by the lack of ingame tutorials and help as well as the amount of time it takes to shift over into being part of the veteran & end-game playerbase.
The main problem here is that direct PvP situations in Open Play are heavily affected by the status in which the players are at that point. Most commonly seen encounters are the early-/mid-game
players with their fully D-rated and unoptimized ship builds and veteran/late-game players with their fully A-rated and fully engineered combat ships. Even with fully A-rated and optimized ships, they are still in a disadvantage to the fully modified combat ship from the other side.
Reasoning behind that is the way too high amount of time it takes for casual players to unlock all main Engineers in this game and to collect all materials to craft the modifications for the ship and modify the ship in the end.
The time and effort to fully modify a ship, and therefore enter the state of being late/end-game, needs to be reduced significantly as it can sometimes take hundreds of hours for a casual player to complete this task!
By:

• buffing the downtrading and crosstrading ratio between all g4-5 materials at all material traders
• creating more obvious and various material farming spots inside the powerplay bubble and rest of the galaxy in order to reduce the time it takes to find and collect the materials
• a material market that lets players sell and buy materials from other players for credits

Improvements & changes for veteran players & end-game playerbase

Alot of veteran and end-game players main complaints are currently related to PvP inbalances and there being nothing to do anymore. Atleast from my point of view.
You could say, that the upcoming Fleet Carriers will bring new things to do for end-game players as they are hugely expensive and require alot of effort to maintain.
We can't completly rely just on that though. There need to be more changes and additional features in order make end-game gameplay like PvP more rewarding and actually attractive not just for the veterans, but for all players.
Suggestions:

• add a player mission board where players can hire or contract other another player for credits for their own descretion.
  This way veterans and PvPers have something to do and are less likely to resort to activities such as "ganking". PvP also becomes actually lucrative for everyone as well.
• add a proper player banking system to support the player mission board.
• addition of a galactic outlaw bounty tab, on which a list contains all outlaw players with a minimum notoriety of 5 and/or a pure bounty of 1 million credits. Any time one of the players on the list is scanned by another player who has Crimes On enabled, or by a system security NPC their current system location gets updated on the list and is visible for everyone

Quite a majority of the PvP playerbase have discovered numerous inbalances and even exploits that give players a significant and uncounterable advantage over every other player.
These were found not just in side features like ammo synths but also core mechanics like engineering, the game's netcode and other things:

• removal of premium ammo reload's effects on player ships (increased damage) OR implementation of an indicator to notify the player if someone hits them with increased damage premium ammo reloads IE: Warning, irregular damage detected!
• ramming things in general should connect to the hulls kinetic resistance, especially when you ram another ship. This is a softfix for netcoding issues -> shadowrams where you fly past someone's ship but they ram you on their screen and the damage connects on your ship but not on their own ship.
• engineerable Module Reinforcement Packages to give shieldless combatships a buff and overall better chance of fighting off shielded combat ships
• increase overall ship cockpit canopy health as it gets destroyed way too easily in raw shieldless PvP encounters and renders the vessel completly combat ineffective
• revert the changes made to the blocking feature in one of the previous updates: Players should not be able to block instancing with another player and therefore exploit their way around player combat. It's however completly understandable to block another player from harassing you through text chat or voice comms.
• increase the menu logging timer upon being in a "dangerous environment" aka being in direct combat to 30 seconds to counter notoric combat logging
• make combat logging a fully bannable offence and also make that clear to every player in form of tooltips

That's all for now, as mentioned at the very top I'll be happy to add more major suggestions in regards to the above mentioned things.

No.

If you think pvp players are in such big numbers that your proposed changes are warranted - go organize a PVP tournament that will take place over several months and see how many people sign up, how many take part and how many finish

As a comparison - DW2, a pure pve event, gathered more the 13000 participants

Mind you, i'm not against PVP.
But i'm against any OpenOnly initiative that will alter my gaming choices within ED.