Modes Open mode balancing proposal

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

Fragment of an official statement, made by Blizzard:

While there are many new PvE experiences waiting in Battle for Azeroth, there are also some new PvP updates for players to look forward to.

...


The core of our plan lies in bringing all servers together under a single PvP ruleset. Players will ultimately be able to choose on an individual basis whether they want to opt in to PvP gameplay or not. While in a capital city, you’ll be able to opt into world PvP, and you will venture out into a PvP-enabled version of the world, populated by other players who have also opted in to PvP gameplay. This also provides a universal foundation upon which we can build new world PvP systems that previously would have inherently excluded everyone playing on a PvE realm.

For those who do opt in to the PvP experience, there will be some slight bonuses such as extra experience gain or reputation gain to offset the additional risk. The nature and magnitude of these bonuses will undergo extensive tuning, with the goal of not making anyone feel obligated to participate in PvP if they dislike that gameplay, while counterbalancing the loss in efficiency for those who do.

In case someone does not know, you lose nothing but a bit of your time for death by PvP causes in World of Warcraft. Yet they do understand that even that have to be balanced out in order to create true choice between PvP and PvE modes.

There is an additional enemy type, exclusive to Open mode - Red Hollow Triangle. And the risk of encountering it is not counterbalanced at all.

This game has money. Ships do cost money.
When you are aiming for bigger ships, and you are set on your goal, efficiency is of the most importance.
Dealing with unrewarded risks means severely losing in efficiency. So mode choice becomes rather clear.

I know that definition of a good game experience differs from person to person. Yet for me, I had come to ED for that "feeling of danger".
Choosing Solo there makes me lose in my game experience.

If that is not a valid argument, then I do not know why money exploits are getting fixed at all.

And I had found a very good analogy.

Imagine if Open and Solo players went into casino together. PvP players played roulette, PvE ones just drank cocktails.
And even if they spend the same money on drinks, 100% of the time PvP players will have the same or less money than PvE ones.

What does that mean? That this casino is rigged, and should be fixed.

The fact that not everyone play casino doesn't mean that it is not a scam and should not be fixed.
And we can add to that that I have to spend more money on drinks (better modules).
Statement that ED is not a casino is just invalid.
The fact that roulette is optional is invalid as well.
The fact that solo have some risks as well is laughable.
And while you can play casino knowing that it is rigged, it kills most of the fun about it.

And exactly that makes open a place which is full of people who either do not know about that it is rigged or people which have nothing to lose. Exact situation we are having now.

And winrates shoud be added, and balanced in a way which will not bring people who hate gambling to it, but will satisfy people which do like gambling.


Influence is another thing. And solution there is not as simple.​

So, at least, as long monetary gains are concerned, choice of game mode to play in should be balanced properly.

Here is what I think must be done. This is my opinion only, and I repeat, this only would concern monetary gains.

• Firstly, income should be increased across the board, by some small figure around 1% to 5%.
  
  
  This figure must not be too high, as it might skew balance other way around.
  ​
  
  
• Secondly, Community goals need to get an increase of effort efficiency in Open as well.
  
  
  Some figure, calculated by related to CG cargo losses in Open, cargo delivered in Open, and the number of PvP destructions in the CG system.
  Dealing with pirate blockades is a very entertaining experience, in case of success, of course.​

• 
  

This should be enough. Yet, I want to present some additional possible Open-related features as well, which would add a lot of valuable gameplay.

• Arbitrary levels of PvP criminal activity on the GalMap. Is systems where such activity is present, additional income can be added, with variable levels.
  
  
  In order to not add too much monetary increase here, cooldown might be made rather long. Or, with no income increase at all, this would only serve as a warning on which systems to avoid.
  Exploits such system might spawn would only reflect exploits of IRL criminal elements.
  ​
  
  
• Increased profit of rare goods trade.
  
  
  Pirates know trade routes as well as players, so this activity bears a distinct increased risk in the Open mode.
  Can be multiplicative or additive with previous one.​

• 
  

This is what is called a risk premium IRL. And without it, all hazardous jobs would be vacant. And there is no unemployment in ED.

I belive all of this should be implemented as an optional flag in ship's computer to avoid changes in EULA, with parental control if needed. OR it could be enabled from every station, costing (progressive, and with moderately large fee to opt in even at first time) fee to opt in and out, along with cooldowns. Those gameplay elements should take a week or at least two days to establish after opting in. And while enabled, no modes except Open should be avaliable, maybe with some limited supply of switches
When enabled:

• Block functionality should be reduced to chat only.
• Menu-log timeout increased.
• Loss of P2P connections, as well as severely decreased number of connection between one and other players, should become punishable by loss of any bonuses for current transactions.
• Sudden loss of connection while under PvP attack will result in the same penalty as above, as well as an additional bounty worth of rebuy of the current ship.
• And, essentially, logging to any other game mode while transactions made in Open are in effect will result in the loss of any bonuses as well.

My technical experience (not too lacking but still far from calling myself a professional) tells that those things are possible to implement, yet some are harder than the others. And I am not so sure for P2P connections loss part though, as this might cause some abuses. Yet, such abuses might be traceable.


In case of Influence, I am not so sure what is there to be done. All I can say is:

• Territorial control is not inherently bad
• As long as PvP faction cannot confront PvE one, or, at least, cannot do so without help of the other PvE faction, and reversed, balancing efforts made in different game modes would not be necessary.

Would welcome any possible additions to my suggestions.


To add to that:

Choice to play knowing that you can be attacked and any moment, overcoming all possible attackers, and then locking them inside that prison station, is as valid game expirience choice as simply removing them from your game.
This is the difference in choosing between PvP and PvE servers/games.

But the facts that switch between game modes takes about 10 seconds, all actions happen and result in the shared universe, and your pay will be the same regardless whether probability of failing is increased or not, make PvP mode not worth people's time. Thus, transforms this game into PvE only.

People who are against such changes are predominantly solo players, which are PvE or casual PvE ones.
Having this discussion here is like fighting slavery in the Confederate south. People which do like current state of things of course are against any changes in it. While I am glad that it is not like fighting communism in the USSR and I am not banned already, actions of those people are no less shameful.

Choice of mode to play in should come down to personal preference only.
For PvE people, they currently have a choice between win-win and lose-lose situations, in gameplay experience and efficiency of their actions.
For PvP people, their choice is either efficiency or gameplay experience.

This is not balance. This should change.

 

[GJ51]

I don't see anything new here

All been beaten to death many times

Guess one more round won't hurt

 

[Riverside]

I belive all of this should be implemented as an optional flag in ship's computer to avoid changes in EULA, with parental control if needed.
When enabled:

• Block functionality should be reduced to chat only.
• Menu-log timeout increased.
• Loss of P2P connections, as well as severely decreased number of connection between one and other players, should become punishable by loss of any bonuses for current transactions.
• Sudden loss of connection will result in the same penalty as above, as well as an additional bounty worth of rebuy of the current ship.
• And, essentially, logging to any other game mode while transactions made in Open are in effect will result in the loss of any bonuses as well.

I like this part, the idea of tying PvP-centric solutions like the blocklist and Combat Logging to the PvP flag is a good one that I hadn't considered and have not read before (apologies if I missed it!).

Personally I am not in favour of adding rewards for mode choice, but I do support incentivising PvP. It's been discussed at length elsewhere so I'll simply leave it at that, it's a choice with merits either way.

If you could provide a direct link to the Blizzard quote I'd appreciate it

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Nope, sorry.

I won't support any idea that punishes me for my crappy internet connection.

Plus all the other arguments made many times before about modes being equal.

 

[Chrystoph]

Your entire argument is a false dichotomy because World of Warcraft uses a forced faction system. They are trying to encourage players to engage in the "war". You don't have the option of not belonging to either the Alliance or the Horde.

Elite doesn't have that sort of system, so what you are doing is trying to use an invalid argument as the foundation for blackmailing players into being victims for the munchkins.

 

[Riverside]

Your entire argument is a false dichotomy because World of Warcraft uses a forced faction system. They are trying to encourage players to engage in the "war". You don't have the option of not belonging to either the Alliance or the Horde.

Elite doesn't have that sort of system, so what you are doing is trying to use an invalid argument as the foundation for blackmailing players into being victims for the munchkins.

To be fair to the proposal it could. I thought 2.4 was going to be war between the superpowers (I expected the Thargoid stuff to be DLC), which would have allowed plenty of player to player interaction, both hostile and friendly. It could be a thing.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

It's a good idea, however one that's been floated before and ignored.

The main problem is the community. The current argument for Solo/PG play is "why would I play in Open? There's no reason to, I just open myself up to getting ganked". Logical at face value, but it's also a convenient excuse to justify taking zero risk in the game. If you introduce a minor bonus for Open play, all of a sudden those players don't have an excuse anymore, and they'll riot rather than admit they're scared of Open.

Personally I think the Open/PG/Solo debate has gone on long enough, and FDev really need to address the fact that there is literally no reason to play Open, that Powerplay will never work while CMDRs are able to engage in it in Solo/PG , and that the game as a whole is diminished by segregating players into different play modes that each offer the same thing.

Open should have benefits to encourage interaction and an actually functional universe. Players can still choose to hide in Solo, but they give up the bonuses. This isn't subtracting from Solo/PG. it's adding to Open. The dynamic remains the same, Open would simply be attractive for once.

Your entire argument is a false dichotomy because World of Warcraft uses a forced faction system. They are trying to encourage players to engage in the "war". You don't have the option of not belonging to either the Alliance or the Horde.

Elite doesn't have that sort of system, so what you are doing is trying to use an invalid argument as the foundation for blackmailing players into being victims for the munchkins.

You're focusing on a minor aspect of the system, and not the system itself. The idea is to encourage people to play in an open way, where PvP can occur. WoW has the exact same problem as Elite, there is no incentive to play on PvP servers; you simply open yourself to ganking for no real gain. The fact that players are organised into factions is largely irrelevant, in fact, it works for Elite, because server imbalance means PvP flagging for the minority faction is suicide on WoW.

Players aren't being "blackmailed", you're given a choice, plain and simple; either pick Open and reap the benefits/risks, or stay in Solo/PG, and continue playing the way you always have. You reaction is the reason FDev will never consider this idea, you take incentivising Open as a person attack, that you're somehow being forced into a situation that's unfair. You're being offered a bonus, like everyone else, that you can choose to take or ignore. Open being worth the time of people on the fence about modes in no way impacts your life, but because your bubble is being threatened, you ruin it for everyone.

 

[TheLT]

At my view, ED wokrs on a very weird way on that, I was kinda shoocked when I saw for first time that the people was able to 'log out' like nothing, but also I've to say that if It works this way is simply because Fdev want it to be like that.

To be honest I don't even know why 'log out' is allowed while you're in combat, it shouldn't be allowed like at any other MMO, and if you shut down the network, the ship shouldn't instantly disappear, it should disappear upon your next log in or after X time.

 

[Chrystoph]

You're focusing on a minor aspect of the system, and not the system itself. The idea is to encourage people to play in an open way, where PvP can occur. WoW has the exact same problem as Elite, there is no incentive to play on PvP servers; you simply open yourself to ganking for no real gain. The fact that players are organised into factions is largely irrelevant, in fact, it works for Elite, because server imbalance means PvP flagging for the minority faction is suicide on WoW.

Players aren't being "blackmailed", you're given a choice, plain and simple; either pick Open and reap the benefits/risks, or stay in Solo/PG, and continue playing the way you always have. You reaction is the reason FDev will never consider this idea, you take incentivising Open as a person attack, that you're somehow being forced into a situation that's unfair. You're being offered a bonus, like everyone else, that you can choose to take or ignore. Open being worth the time of people on the fence about modes in no way impacts your life, but because your bubble is being threatened, you ruin it for everyone.

Circumlocutions do not change the fact that it is blackmail. The blackmail is specifically, if you don't play in Open, you are at a disadvantage in progressing in the game because people that ARE in Open get more reward for their time.

As to me perceiving anything as a personal attack, you want player targets. What is being proposed is not a PvP system, it is a PaP system where the "a" stands for against. The word versus comes with an implication of competition, but the entire proposal isn't about competition, it is about tempting players that moved out of Open to avoid predator players in the as content for PKers.

As to your last paragraph, I don't treat people like you as an idiot and I would appreciate it if you provided the same consideration. Your statements are so spurious they could be used as lubricant in the landing gear of an Anaconda.

First, you know nothing about my gaming habits, yet your biases are blatant in use of words like bubble and threatened.

Second, your use of incentivizing while arguing that it is not blackmail means you know you are arguing for an unfair advantage, but you either think that we are too stupid to recognize the fact or you are attempting to obfuscate the position with a fallacious argument. In either case, your Ad Hominem attack at the end is nothing more than an attempt to discredit my position by discrediting me.

Finally, game design decisions of this nature should normally be INCLUSIVE, but you want an EXCLUSIVE "solution" to encourage people into Open so that there are more targets.

The proof of my position follows:

These two statements are semantically equal.

We should incentivize people that play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

We should penalize people that don't play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

Nope, sorry.

I won't support any idea that punishes me for my crappy internet connection.

Plus all the other arguments made many times before about modes being equal.

Your entire argument is a false dichotomy because World of Warcraft uses a forced faction system. They are trying to encourage players to engage in the "war". You don't have the option of not belonging to either the Alliance or the Horde.

Elite doesn't have that sort of system, so what you are doing is trying to use an invalid argument as the foundation for blackmailing players into being victims for the munchkins.

Circumlocutions do not change the fact that it is blackmail. The blackmail is specifically, if you don't play in Open, you are at a disadvantage in progressing in the game because people that ARE in Open get more reward for their time.

As to me perceiving anything as a personal attack, you want player targets. What is being proposed is not a PvP system, it is a PaP system where the "a" stands for against. The word versus comes with an implication of competition, but the entire proposal isn't about competition, it is about tempting players that moved out of Open to avoid predator players in the as content for PKers.

As to your last paragraph, I don't treat people like you as an idiot and I would appreciate it if you provided the same consideration. Your statements are so spurious they could be used as lubricant in the landing gear of an Anaconda.

First, you know nothing about my gaming habits, yet your biases are blatant in use of words like bubble and threatened.

Second, your use of incentivizing while arguing that it is not blackmail means you know you are arguing for an unfair advantage, but you either think that we are too stupid to recognize the fact or you are attempting to obfuscate the position with a fallacious argument. In either case, your Ad Hominem attack at the end is nothing more than an attempt to discredit my position by discrediting me.

Finally, game design decisions of this nature should normally be INCLUSIVE, but you want an EXCLUSIVE "solution" to encourage people into Open so that there are more targets.

The proof of my position follows:

These two statements are semantically equal.

We should incentivize people that play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

We should penalize people that don't play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

No, WoW analogy is a very good one here. Your credit balance is your experience bar pretty much.
And such question never appeared in WoW because PvP and PvE game servers are separated. You have to pay restrictively high fee to transfer your character between PvP and PvE servers.

Moreover, death punishment made moderately hardcore in ED. This makes the disbalance here even more glaring.
Every PvP player have to act out of blind dare if he wants to preserve his choice of gameplay experience. And being faced with alternative of a quick switch at that.


That reminds me that I forgot about possibility of this option being implemented in a way where it would restrict logging in to other modes, and switching it off would cost some significant (progressive) sum in credits. Or even real money.

I am not a ganker. I had never interdicted anyone without asking or without them having a wanted tag.
I am just a person who would play on PvP server.

And I totally understand why you, being predominantly PvE players, are totaly satisfied whith the current state of things. Yet, this situation makes PvP server people take absolutely unrewarded risk each time they log in to the game.

That feature should be there to create a balanced choice between modes, and nothing else. And numbers should be rigourously balanced, in order not to tilt the choice either way past balance point.

Figure of 0 PvP server players are faced with now is just too glaring.

 

[Ddinistrioll]

These two statements are semantically equal.

We should incentivize people that play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

We should penalize people that don't play in Open to encourage more options for PvP.

"We should compensate the advantages of playing in Solo for people that want to encourage more option for PvP."


Elite Dangerous is a MMO with a Risk/Reward based gameplay. Yet you can have the rewards without really taking the risks in Solo/PG.

 

[Janichsan]

Here are several hundred pages of discussions and a whole subforum regarding your brilliant idea. Feel free to read all of this to see if you can come up with any new argument why FDev should dump of their game's most fundamental features, which is the equality of all three game modes.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

Here are several hundred pages of discussions and a whole subforum regarding your brilliant idea. Feel free to read all of this to see if you can come up with any new argument why FDev should dump of their game's most fundamental features, which is the equality of all three game modes.

Except that there is no balance between modes.
I am quite active at those forums. They consist of PvE and casual PvE players being overprotective of player base. While choice of PvP server expirience is valid as well. And Blizzard acnowledgement of this exact problem fortifies that point of view beyond measure.

Besides, main topic of discussion there is BGS influence, not money. This proposal excludes that aspect.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Except that there is no balance between modes.
I am quite active at those forums. They consist of PvE and casual PvE players being overprotective of player base. While choice of PvP server expirience is valid as well. And Blizzard acnowledgement of this exact problem fortifies that point of view beyond measure.

Besides, main topic of discussion there is BGS influence, not money. This proposal excludes that aspect.

Why you think Blizzard's opinion has any relevance to Elite: Dangerous is a mystery to me.

Regarding balance:
All modes have the same impact on the game world, and that seems pretty balanced to me.
If you like, you can think of Open as 'hard mode'. Traditionally, games give you LESS reward for playing at higher difficulty.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

Why you think Blizzard's opinion has any relevance to Elite: Dangerous is a mystery to me.

Regarding balance:
All modes have the same impact on the game world, and that seems pretty balanced to me.
If you like, you can think of Open as 'hard mode'. Traditionally, games give you LESS reward for playing at higher difficulty.

There is no such tradition. Even if that might be the case for some games, they have different scoreboards for different game difficulty modes. And bigger ships in not a final goal either, yet they are bought for the same money in all modes. This only fortifies the fact that disparity is present.

Moreover, you know what to expect from each player based on their faction in WoW. You have almost no way except not obligatory Wanted tag to know what to expect from any CMDR which have combat loadout on their ship. This only fortifies my position and validity of that comparison as well.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

There is no such tradition. Even if that might be the case for some games, they have different scoreboards for different game difficulty modes. And bigger ships in not a final goal either, yet they are bought for the same money in all modes. This only fortifies the fact that disparity is present.

Moreover, you know what to expect from each player based on their faction in WoW. You have almost no way except not obligatory Wanted tag to know what to expect from any CMDR which have combat loadout on their ship. This only fortifies my position and validity that comparison as well.

What have bigger ships got to do with modes and balance?

WoW is a different game, with a different architecture and a different design philosophy, so comparisons with it are meaningless.

Your argument boils down to "The way I play is the best way and I should be rewarded the best, and everyone else should play the way I want them to". It's not a convincing argument, so I'm checking out until you come up with a better one.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So far, as a result of playing in Open, I'm in financial profit compared with how I would have been had I played in Solo. I've been playing for three years, almost exclusively in Open ... and in that time my PvP losses excluding arranged fights have been one marginally-upgraded Freewinder rebuy and a couple of minor repair bills. My gains have been several million in shared exploration data, shared bounties, and trade vouchers.

(Now, sure, I could in theory have got all of those gains in Private Group ... except that the people I got the gains with were in Open, and mostly people I met up with once or twice and not since ... so I'd never have met them in PG)

And that's not counting the social aspects which are the actual reward for playing in Open.

I went round the engineers pinning blueprints shortly after 3.0 ... all in Open, saw lots of players, not attacked once. Normally I'm in less busy systems, of course, because there's only so much engineering to do.

I mean, I'm not going to object too strenuously to getting paid marginally more for doing what I always do ... but it's not as if I'm actually earning it by facing meaningfully greater risk.

 

[CMDR EDGEL0RD]

What have bigger ships got to do with modes and balance?

WoW is a different game, with a different architecture and a different design philosophy, so comparisons with it are meaningless.

Your argument boils down to "The way I play is the best way and I should be rewarded the best, and everyone else should play the way I want them to". It's not a convincing argument, so I'm checking out until you come up with a better one.

It is not that. I want a personal preference to be the only factor of chosing the game mode to play in. Not efficiency as well.

So far, as a result of playing in Open, I'm in financial profit compared with how I would have been had I played in Solo. I've been playing for three years, almost exclusively in Open ... and in that time my PvP losses excluding arranged fights have been one marginally-upgraded Freewinder rebuy and a couple of minor repair bills. My gains have been several million in shared exploration data, shared bounties, and trade vouchers.

(Now, sure, I could in theory have got all of those gains in Private Group ... except that the people I got the gains with were in Open, and mostly people I met up with once or twice and not since ... so I'd never have met them in PG)

And that's not counting the social aspects which are the actual reward for playing in Open.

I went round the engineers pinning blueprints shortly after 3.0 ... all in Open, saw lots of players, not attacked once. Normally I'm in less busy systems, of course, because there's only so much engineering to do.

I mean, I'm not going to object too strenuously to getting paid marginally more for doing what I always do ... but it's not as if I'm actually earning it by facing meaningfully greater risk.

You personal skill/luck have nothing to do with the question at hand.

 

[lokvette]

The way see it is your average Joe is either into pvp and all that comes with it or thier not. The not seems to make up the vast majority of average Joes who play ED.

Personaly none of the above would make me click open even if it ment I might get some extras, if I want company in my games I dont play this one.

The thing is theres nothing and none to fight for, if it had purpose then yeah.

 

[Arry]

Fragment of an official statement, made by Blizzard:


In case someone does not know, you lose nothing but a bit of your time for death by PvP causes in World of Warcraft. Yet they do understand that even that have to be balanced out in order to create true choice between PvP and PvE modes.

There is an additional enemy type, exclusive to Open mode - Red Hollow Triangle. And the risk of encountering it is not counterbalanced at all.

This game has money. Ships do cost money.
When you are aiming for bigger ships, and you are set on your goal, efficiency is of the most importance.
Dealing with unrewarded risks means severely losing in efficiency. So mode choice becomes rather clear.

I know that definition of a good game experience differs from person to person. Yet for me, I had come to ED for that "feeling of danger".
Choosing Solo there makes me lose in my game experience.

If that is not a valid argument, then I do not know why money exploits are getting fixed at all.

So, at least, as long monetary gains are concerned, choice of game mode to play in should be balanced properly.

Here is what I think must be done. This is my opinion only, and I repeat, this only would concern monetary gains.

• Firstly, income should be increased across the board, by some small figure around 1% to 5%.
  
  This figure must not be too high, as it might skew balance other way around.
  ​
• Secondly, Community goals need to get an increase of effort efficiency in Open as well.
  
  Some figure, calculated by related to CG cargo losses in Open, cargo delivered in Open, and the number of PvP destructions in the CG system.
  Dealing with pirate blockades is a very entertaining experience, in case of success, of course.​

This should be enough. Yet, I want to present some additional possible Open-related features as well, which would add a lot of valuable gameplay.

• Arbitrary levels of PvP criminal activity on the GalMap. Is systems where such activity is present, additional income can be added, with variable levels.
  
  In order to not add too much monetary increase here, cooldown might be made rather long. Or, with no income increase at all, this would only serve as a warning on which systems to avoid.
  Exploits such system might spawn would only reflect exploits of IRL criminal elements.
  ​
• Increased profit of rare goods trade.
  
  Pirates know trade routes as well as players, so this activity bears a distinct increased risk in the Open mode.
  Can be multiplicative or additive with previous one.​

I belive all of this should be implemented as an optional flag in ship's computer to avoid changes in EULA, with parental control if needed. OR it could be enabled from every station, costing (progressive) fee to opt in and out, along with cooldowns.
When enabled:

• Block functionality should be reduced to chat only.
• Menu-log timeout increased.
• Loss of P2P connections, as well as severely decreased number of connection between one and other players, should become punishable by loss of any bonuses for current transactions.
• Sudden loss of connection will result in the same penalty as above, as well as an additional bounty worth of rebuy of the current ship.
• And, essentially, logging to any other game mode while transactions made in Open are in effect will result in the loss of any bonuses as well.

My technical experience (not too lacking but still far from calling myself a proffesional) tells that those things are possible to implement, yet some are harder than the others. And I am not so sure for P2P connections loss part though, as this might cause some abuses. Yet, such abuses might be traceable.


In case of Influence, I am not so sure what is there to be done. All I can say is:

• Territorial control is not inherently bad
• As long as PvP faction cannot confront PvE one, or, at least, cannot do so without help of the other PvE faction, and reversed, balancing efforts made in different game modes would not be necessary.

Would welcome any possible additions to my suggestions.

Fragment of an official statement; made by JFK:

"and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept".

Made more than 20 years before the 1st Elite game and has more in common with open play, that anything dreamed up by the 'It's not fair and I want' brigade; we have here today.