Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
With the implicit but unvoiced "but as it's not an Open only game feature, no-one needs to present themself as a potential target".
Open-Only in PP2.0?
- Thread starter August Lagrange
- Start date
Those hotspots are the main times and places where mode choice matters.
The argument that mode choice is a choice and that the imbalances of this choice are fair because one could have made a different choice is all kinds of circular and wrong.
Modes are supposed to be able to dictate the manner of direct CMDR interactions possible, not skew one's ability to influence the setting or function as a surrogate difficulty slider.
Games will dangle something for you to do something new or different in them. For example in old games you get the best ending by picking the hardest difficulty. The same applies here- you play with everything set to random (Open) and you get a boost as its exposing you to more than the baseline (solo and PG).At the risk, nay certainty, of repeating myself:
(These remarks were intended to illustrate the lack of meaningful equivalence between "features" and "events" in respect of the differences they exhibit.)
See repetition of points I already made, germane to this exact question, above
However there are plenty who already favour open powerplay and are fervent enough about it to have demanded (previously) that everyone else enjoy it as much as they do, and this is in PPV1 with the existing no-extra-rewards-for-open. Are they not having fun?
I'm asking for your evidence- for example 50% of 7.7k respondents in OAs old poll wanted open. Thats more than dozens. The same applied to responses in the forum. Even BPs poll had substantial amounts of people wanting a change.
Its still an objective. The question is for some 'whats in it for me to be a target?' given that being a target amid peer adversaries is more dangerous than against NPCs.
Do we know the relative value of the two actions shown for the pledger and pledgee? If not, could we be missing an already implemented form of "reward for open play" that FDev snuck in without goddamn telling anyone? Off to buy into pitchfork shares..
We know that players lost results in negative INF for the controlling power- something not (AFAIK) that happens when players are lost to PP NPCs (assuming its like V1 where IIRC a player kill via PvP gains one whole merit).
Its why the argument is circular; if its bad to risk destruction in Open without corresponding uplift, its unbalanced.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
If any in-game feature required players to engage in PvP then I'd agree, to an extent, even then it would remain optional for those so inclined. As they don't I don't.
Where is it written what "modes are supposed to" be? At the simplistic level they are simply settings on the matchmaking system regarding which players may be instanced with. The challenge posed by game, driven by PvE actions, is the same in all three game modes. That other players may pose a greater challenge than the game in Open is obvious, understood, and irrelevant to the game of those playing the PvE game.
5 will get you 10 if 'Killing a player pledged to a rival power' is a higher value than any other outcome, we'll have the 'PvPers are killing their alt's/mates'-fear threads before the ink has dried.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It's likely an objective included for those that are in to that sort of thing. Just because it is possible does not mean that it is mandatory.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Closely followed by demands for those kills to only affect the feature if carried out in Open - even though each system volume is immense and players could be anywhere in a normal space instance, effectively undetectable by those in SuperCruise.
Very much hoping that Frontier have learned from previous opportunities for player collusion to gain rewards, pitched at a level that assumes they are contested, uncontested.
Hardly news that games have "loot" in whatever form. The point was there's a vast difference between affecting long-term playstyle choices, where other loot by other means is ubiquitously available, and affecting short-term engagement with objectives that allow familiar and acceptable playstyles to be employed.
If you don't accept that there's such a difference you haven't offered any reason for me to change my mind about it.
I don't have any evidence. But if I were FDev making the choice where to spend my developer sprint points, I'd pobably prefer market research with some methodological integrity, or just game dev gut feel, to self-selected online polls.
Then let's hope they amend the block feature to stop this childish attitude.
If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen
Isn't the corresponding uplift the chance of detroying enemy commanders and the concomitant merits/rank/PP2 progress/whatever?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Given that the block feature was implemented unasked before the game launched and has only ever been strengthened and made easier to use since then, I'd not place a large wager on that.
Put differently, a players desire not to play with players in general, or individual players in particular, over-rides the desire that other players may have to play with them.
True, but because its an objective (and talked about extensively on stream) it has to be balanced out with reasons to risk losing INF.
In short, why risk damaging your systems fortification by risking being in Open unless there is a benefit?
Its indeed a chance, but its one thats advantageous to the attacker without any benefit to the defender (or at least we haven't seen the opposite screen yet- it very well might be 'kill attackers').
Until we have the feature live, we simply won't know.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
If it is too rewarding then expect collusion, or accusations of it, to appear.
Fun.
.... because presumably the frisson of potential / actual PvP encounters is fun for some players.
Some people simply want rewards and will go where they are best. In the end its attracting as many as they can for whatever reasons.
Its the only actual numbers we have, and frankly if 3K players poured into PP I'd call that a win.
Yeah, we don't know how this is implemented. One could hope it provides incentive on both sides for players to go out and jolly well 'v' other players, at their and their enemy's strongholds and fortified systems, instead of dully hanging around waiting for hapless truckers to blow up
ETS2 is all about the driving. The missions (trade) themselves are just the reasons for the driving.
In ED its the missions (trade) that are the point, the travel is just incidental.