Multiplier for OPEN

[XComanceX]

The usual problems with this sort of idea, which still apply here:

1) I spend almost all my time in Open, and 99.9% of it in systems where no-one else is around anyway. I don't mind getting a 5x payout bonus, of course, but it's not clear that it's "for" anything. In most systems it'll make no difference at all to the underlying question of "are there any other players around anyway?"; conversely in the CG system you already met enough other people to have fun. The number of systems in-between that any change in the percentage of people playing Open would matter to is tiny.
(Unless you regularly find "there's lots of people around at weekends but I don't see enough people during the week" to be true, moving a few more people over into Open will make no difference to your actual experience)

2) If you're encouraging people to min-max for a reward, what you will get in Open is more min-maxers. You may find those significantly less fun to play with than the people already there, who are presumably there because they like meeting other people.

3) Because there's often a substantial gap between "time an action happened" and "time the player was rewarded for it", min-maxers might well do all their stuff in Solo, then leave their PC on and docked in Open overnight to build up the multiplier before cashing in. That's a waste of everyone's time, doesn't get you more actual interaction, and also you might have wanted to use that landing pad. Closing down all those "exploits" makes the idea massively more complex; ignoring them means it doesn't succeed at what you actually want.

a solution would be that to get this multiplier you would have to be in open for a long time, say 2 weeks.

it would be something easy to get for the player who is always in open, but difficult for people who try to switch modes to get that advantage.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

First of all I don't want to create another thread between open and solo.

Please stick to discussing through my idea.

The last GC has been really fun for me because there have been a lot of players enjoying it in open.

And I have come up with an idea to encourage players to play more in this mode.

The idea would be a multiplier for all players who play in open but with nuances.

It would be similar to how notoriety works when you commit crimes but in reverse.

As you spend time playing in open this multiplier would go up to reach for example 5 and reset it to 1 every time you enter solo mode.

This multiplier would affect all aspects of the game, powerplay, rewards, missions etc. ....

Please, if you don't like the idea, explain why, but let's try to keep the thread topic.

I like that its a buff that builds overtime instead of a flat bonus

 

[Aashenfox]

Any bonus should be for playing in solo. Playing in solo is harder because you can't wing up, in open (and PG) you can wing up. Ergo: open is the easier mode, solo deserves any bonus.

Also, you can't just declare it not to be an open vs solo topic - the whole idea of a bonus for open is inherently part of the open vs solo debate.

I don't think you really need to wing up in solo, every single type of wing mission is easily completable solo. Secondly, if you want to wing up with a few friends, you have PG, and thirdly, playing solo is the biggest advantage possible. You can wipe CZ after CZ solo and never be opposed by anyone. This is a massive advantage.

My old squadron was once embroiled in a bitter bgs war with a larger organisation, playing in open was a requirement for our squadron (at least when doing bgs work), and as soon as they realised that, they sent a few pilots into open to slow us down while the rest of them hammered out the goals in solo. So, honestly, it's people in open that are at disadvantage and penalised, imo.

 

[XComanceX]

Any bonus should be for playing in solo. Playing in solo is harder because you can't wing up, in open (and PG) you can wing up. Ergo: open is the easier mode, solo deserves any bonus.

Also, you can't just declare it not to be an open vs solo topic - the whole idea of a bonus for open is inherently part of the open vs solo debate.

thanks for your idea, but it doesn't make much sense to say that playing in open is easier.

Otherwise everyone would play in open mode.

 

[angusmadmac1]

Ok first of all the magical "open" isn't really open it's an instance which is dependant on your connection, timezone and also country of origin ( IP issues) .
So typically your own"open " at your time will be an instance one of many ?
Taking that way the maximum in each instance is 32 , so if 3200 commanders were playing there would be at best a min of 100 to a max of 3200 different instances .
Am I playing open if I join up withy friends in New Zealand ? Which due to ping and connection means I have a higher chance of not meeting players ?
So now if you don't meet a player :-
Do you get a bonus ? ( I mean you are in your own PG called open )
You meet your mates ( who have a higher chance of instancing with you ?) will that give you a bonus ?
Or should we count the bonus as only meeting the enemy ?
Now we have two sets of open Odyssey and 4.0 ( it used to be 4) so which "open" should get the bonus ?
I'm guessing the majority of players are playing in open now?
I myself have seen 1 other commander not on my friends list since joining PC.

 

[vanFace]

but that would remain as something residual, we will always have the problem of people who cheat, but we would be talking about a very small percentage.

Why do you think it will be a very small percentage? It will be so easy to do that you'll have loads of apps for that, that everybody will be using it. If you create such an unbalanced mode setup while keeping the open net-code, you will get a user-base that is "cheating" all the time, effectively creating a toxic environment where everybody blames everybody else to be a cheater. FDEV was wise enough to not do that, and I'm pretty sure they will keep it that way.
Sure you can keep entertaining yourself and others about this idea, but as long as you don't find a solution to the net-code problem, it will stay fiction.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

a solution would be that to get this multiplier you would have to be in open for a long time, say 2 weeks.

2 weeks realtime for someone who plays an hour a day (which is still well above average) is basically a year of continuous play if you don't run the timer up AFK. Even playing four hours a day because ED is your primary hobby it'll take a few months.

"Come to Open, if you stick with it for a year and never need to use any other mode for any reason you might eventually get a bonus" is not going to attract anyone who wasn't already there, while putting a really high penalty on "misclicked on the start screen" / "wanted to take a high-res screenshot" / "wanted to go to some event their friends were running in a PG" for those who already mostly play Open.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

The usual problems with this sort of idea, which still apply here:

1) I spend almost all my time in Open, and 99.9% of it in systems where no-one else is around anyway. I don't mind getting a 5x payout bonus, of course, but it's not clear that it's "for" anything. In most systems it'll make no difference at all to the underlying question of "are there any other players around anyway?"; conversely in the CG system you already met enough other people to have fun. The number of systems in-between that any change in the percentage of people playing Open would matter to is tiny.
(Unless you regularly find "there's lots of people around at weekends but I don't see enough people during the week" to be true, moving a few more people over into Open will make no difference to your actual experience)

2) If you're encouraging people to min-max for a reward, what you will get in Open is more min-maxers. You may find those significantly less fun to play with than the people already there, who are presumably there because they like meeting other people.

3) Because there's often a substantial gap between "time an action happened" and "time the player was rewarded for it", min-maxers might well do all their stuff in Solo, then leave their PC on and docked in Open overnight to build up the multiplier before cashing in. That's a waste of everyone's time, doesn't get you more actual interaction, and also you might have wanted to use that landing pad. Closing down all those "exploits" makes the idea massively more complex; ignoring them means it doesn't succeed at what you actually want.

Why do you think it will be a very small percentage? It will be so easy to do that you'll have loads of apps for that, that everybody will be using it. If you create such an unbalanced mode setup while keeping the open net-code, you will get a user-base that is "cheating" all the time, effectively creating a toxic environment where everybody blames everybody else to be a cheater. FDEV was wise enough to not do that, and I'm pretty sure they will keep it that way.
Sure you can keep entertaining yourself and others about this idea, but as long as you don't find a solution to the net-code problem, it will stay fiction.

#3 and from Ian and Van's comment both make the incorrect assumption that everyone will do it. The more hurdles there are to a step the less likely people are to even bother. How many already don't use the many tools that actually make the game better and more convenient? The worst case bad actor is not an argument against an idea. Otherwise no ideas are worth anything ever, because there is always a bad actor willing to exploit it. Should SLFs be deleted? theres a bug thats exploitable with them. Should the block feature be deleted? It can be used in unintended ways. etc etc. Obviously not.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The discussion on the game modes is here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-open-v-solo-v-groups-thread.607291/

Closed as a duplicate.