The other thing is, of course, some of the greatest games ever made did so by breaking the "rules." There are in fact no rules and quoting made up "rules" gets you nowhere fast!
Open-Only in PP2.0?
- Thread starter August Lagrange
- Start date
The other thing is, of course, some of the greatest games ever made did so by breaking the "rules." There are in fact no rules and quoting made up "rules" gets you nowhere fast!
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Indeed - same with out-of-game rule sets that some seem to think all players should adhere to in this game....
Darkfyre, I don't want to inflate your ego, but I'd suggest yourself and I (even after the hiatus I have had from this game) are probably in the higher percentile higher of online traders/blockade runners when it comes to skill and running in open pve generally. Most players are not like that in my experience, and the one thing I will say (and I am sure you will agree) is that doing so involves being switched on mentally and engaged with the game as a whole, which is tiring and attention consuming.
Whereas, of course our 'shieldless trader' opposite number in powerplay doesn't need to do that, they can click undock, let their advanced docking computer fly them out the letterbox whilst not paying attention, hit the jump button a number of times to get them to their objective, point at the station, let supercruise assist (or whatever its called) fly them to the station, and again, let the docking computer bring them into berth where they unload, and return to the load point with the same low level engagement. They can maintain such a routine for long periods of time, intermittently paying minor attention to the game.
I wish you would stop referring to the shieldless trader as a 'boogieman' in relation to PP, because speaking from the experience of helping coordinate fortifaction/prep work for ALD in the first six months of powerplay, this is what I saw both my rivals and fellow commanders migrate towards. We went from a vibrant engaging community organising convoys, pre-emptive interdiction teams, top cover groups, 'speed brakes' and the ilk being done in Open with and against Rival powers to slowly trudging towards what was the most efficient: A Cutter or Type 9, unshielded, being ran either in Solo or PG without opposition, limited player interaction (either with the community, like pledged commanders, or the game itself), usually whilst staring at Netflix or something else on a second monitor.
I agree. The biggest “rule” of MMOs Frontier broke is their tri-mode system. It has created an Open environment where the usual suspects who spur the need for a PvP switch to preserve their playerbase are conspicuously missing, and a significant majority of players willingly choose Open. And while they did it to lower their moderation costs, if it works, it works.
Those that insist that this system is “broken” remind me of those who insist that post and lintel are the only way to create an opening in a wall. They ignore the fact that arches exist.
Not to mention it was so simple bots were made to do it.
Just change must with should
Just change are with may be.
No one here is a Product Owner in Frontier so any absolute statement is out of context and should be avoided
Well, Powerplay is not the wider game in this regard (where modes do work)- its objectives based with an overarching strategic layer where any advantage is bad for the balance of the feature. V1 was broken in several places by modes, by lowering the quality of opposition in solo, allowing merit farms in PG and only open where the possibility existed of any structured opposition. As such its not unreasonable to either demote PG bonuses or add one to Open- that way strategic gains are also tied to modes more effectively.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
.... or equally "should not" - and the disagreement remains the same.
... or equally "may not be" - depending on ones perspective.
Those proposing change very often use definitive wording. It would not take too much time to collate examples from this thread alone.
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Or the several folk I knew back then at the tailend who would park in a PP Combat Zone in solo all turrets and shield boosters, and literally go to work for 8 hours.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
There seems to be a tinge of accusation when botting is mentioned - towards players who prefer Solo and Private Groups in terms of an assumption that to support those modes is to support botting.
.... but then there are those who consider that affecting pan-modal game features in any way from Solo and Private Groups is "cheating", so such veiled accusations should be expected.
.... but then there are those who consider that affecting pan-modal game features in any way from Solo and Private Groups is "cheating", so such veiled accusations should be expected.
Oh good lord… if a game isn’t mentally stimulating and engaging, why would I want to play it? If I’m having fun, why would it be tiring?
You are aware that flying like that pretty much ensures that they’ll be interdicted by NPCs right? There’s your opposition right there!
There’s a whole thread where someone who’s frustrated by serial interdictions wants Frontier to tone it down, when their own lack of engagement in the game is the cause of their misery.
To keep playing Elite Dangerous
At fdevs I'm a casual adult mature player (35+ y/o) and I used to love playing ED on my PC rig... but not anymore... Do you want to know why I don't play anymore and as such I have little to no interest in spending real money on the premium currency... I just spent over $150 US $$ on ESO so...
I was also pledged to ALD back then, and while I agree that the danger level in Open dropped precipitously after a few months, that was because unpledged gankers were the actual threat, they existed only at PP HQs, and they vanished rather quickly. IIRC, even back then ALD’s group was just as much “We bravely do our work in Open, while the others do theirs in Solo/PG” as any other group… though to be fair there were competing groups at that time.
I attributed the drop in PowerPlayers in Open to three things:
- A switch to the BGS side of things (like I did) or quitting it altogether due to how few activities there were to choose from.
- An increase in efficiency as BGS work reduced fortification targets
- A general focus on opposed combat expansions, because that’s where all the hot PvP action happened
I think you’re the first PowerPlayer to ever admit they’re willingly doing their hauling in edit Solo/PG, despite a desire to play in Open. I may have to revise my position on the whole “Is instancing just that bad?” conundrum.
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That is a thinly veiled insult.
The crux of the post was that in a competitive environment such as powerplay, if a player can park a floating spacebrick in a merit farming site and not touch their PC for 8 hours comfortable knowing there is no risk of coming back to a rebuy screen (and losing said merits) by using Solo to avoid the only threat that could send them to it, something is amiss, and there is no way for a rival to compete with that, except to adopt the same tactic.
That is a thinly veiled insult.
The crux of the post was that in a competitive environment such as powerplay, if a player can park a floating spacebrick in a merit farming site where they don't have to touch their PC for 8 hours, comfortable knowing there is no risk of coming back to a rebuy screen (and losing said merits) by using Solo to avoid the only threat that could send them to it, something is amiss, and there is no way for a rival to compete with that, except to adopt the same tactic.
Which is illustrative of Frontier’s general hand-off approach to in-game moderation if true. Most MMO runners actively monitor player activity for signs of bottling. If botting is truly a problem, as opposed to another boogie man, then that’s a problem Frontier should address via moderation, not penalize innocent players who prefer other modes.
Edited for clarification
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
No disagreement there - botting is a pox on the game - which could be largely dealt with in ways that would remove the possibility for any AFK builds to function.
Happens in game, happened yesterday night... lolmay be that says a lot about the wasted time, space and words on this sub.
Ah, so on occasion, you and some others do this. How engaging is it for you? Which is more engaging, following a trader doing A to B stuff or sitting in supercruise waiting for blips to appear?
Still, if what you are saying is the norm, that PP2 PvPers will act as escorts rather than defend, this makes things easier for people running missions.
And if this is the case, why aren't the PvPers bringing this up in threads like this when people are saying they will just be shooting at enemy ships that are passing near. Seems like a counter argument should be "It won't be that risky, we'll be too busy escorting our own mission runners!"
The two instances where I talk about botting are related to these:
1: Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/855o8r/scripting_and_automation_an_investigation_into/
For clarity this is showing that the complete lack of NPC opposition and simplistic PvE which allows this to happen. Ironically, it was only found out in Open.....
2: The confluence of Powerplay CZs (i.e. unending), engineering (against unengineered opponents) and PG (where wings can act for hours) to create merit factories.
Again, this would be a massive gamble in Open and easily stopped..........
Its why better PvE design is required, and what I continually ask for- because if a player alone is the best ship in that instance, they can do more.
It requires better PvE design for a start. If that was the case solo and PG (by extension) would not be as advantageous.
And on that matter, many of us agree. I'd say that we all agree, but there'll always those who simply want easier PvE, as if it wasn't easy enough as it is, assuming you don't make the worst choices possible to begin with.
edit: I'm hoping that PowerPlay 2.0 will solve this problem. We'll see in about two weeks.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
From what has already been said about Powerplay 2.0 it would seem that the lack of NPC opposition and old style exploitable POIs won't exist in the same way, if at all.