Picking the mode we like shouldn't handicap progress. If FDev insists on sharing the BGS between game modes, then I believe the circumstances of those modes should be taken into account when calculating their contributions.
I agree, they
should.
Here’s the situation about Open, though: Circumstances in Open vary
wildly on a session by session basis, and between players. 90% of the time when I’m in Open, I might as well be in Solo, because either I won’t see another player at all, or there is absolutely no way that they could possibly be a threat. The other 10% of the time, I’m confident enough of my Supercruise skills, to simply proceed to my destination. I’ll target them to get a better idea of what they’re doing, of course, but most of the time it won’t take long before it’s obvious they’re not after
me. Actual danger is vanishingly rare in my experience, even in Open hauling CGs.
Do you really think I deserve a bonus when the “risk” of Open is no different than that of Solo except when the stars align? Especially compared to other players who face opposition on a daily basis, thanks to their typical circumstances being ideal for confrontational PvP?
Which is why I think
actual risk, not hypothetical risk, should be rewarded. There’s always the problem of collusion, but with a broad enough PowerPlayerbase, algorithms to detect collusion shouldn’t generate too many false positives.
The other thing that affects Open Only that I have not chimed in on yet is: Ganking/Griefing. Until Fdev comes up with a better way to 'deal' with it, the majority of the Elite playerbase has decided how to deal with it. Good Bye Open! and or massive blocklist Open, and or always fly your SLF in Open... cause most groups love it when you do that!
I'm not convinced the majority of the player base has done what you say they've done.
And you’d be right to, since Frontier has gone on record as saying that a
significant majority of the playerbase plays in Open. Granted, this was six years ago, but human behavior hasn’t changed significantly over thousands of years, let alone forty or six. I sincerely doubt it’s changed all that much since then.
What I want most from PowerPlay 2.0 is, in order,
- Provide a rich enough PvE experience to compete with the rest of the game, while still making the rest of the game tempting enough to make my day to day choices meaningful. PP 1.0 failed almost completely on that front.
- Have a lot more players participating in PowerPlay. Aside from module shoppers, the general impression I get is that the overall PowerPlay community is tiny, and mostly focused on using PowerPlay as an excuse plot for organic PvP. I’m pleasantly surprised that Frontier is doing a revamp. If the number of participants doesn’t change significantly, then I doubt Frontier will ever touch it again.
- Have a large Open PowerPlay population that abide by the unwritten rules of fair play, and thus are fun to play with… or against. The current status quo has a refreshingly small amount of unsportsmanlike behavior compared to other games I've played, and it's even smaller amount the PowerPlayerbase.
- Have a meaningful enough impact on the game environment to care who controls a particular system, beyond role playing reasons. That’s enough for me, but if the average player’s reaction to who control’s which system is “Why should I care?”, you’re going to see a lot less conflict, and a lot more randomness.
- Shift the current meta of highly specialized ships to multi-role ones, so that I, as a non-combat oriented non-PvPer, will see “Fight” as a viable option when I see an opposing player.
With the rare exception, the current PowerPlay community constantly complains that while
they bravely do all their activities in Open, while the rest cowardly does
theirs in Solo/PG. As I see it, this leads to three scenarios, in order of most likely to least likely:
The current PowerPlayerbase is significantly more likely to freely choose Open than the general Playerbase. The origin of the above complaint is that the design of the game, from the choice of Peer-to-Peer instance hosting, matchmaking rules that favor quality of experience over advesarial play, the size of the game environment, and the small size of the community, makes it highly unlikely that you'll ever see another hostile PowerPlayer except when the stars align. If this trend continues in PowerPlay 2.0, which features an even larger game map, then there's little reason to weigh Open vs other modes. Fix the so-called "automation" problem, and there's little reason to worry about how "efficient" other modes are.
The current PowerPlayerbase is just as likely to chooose freely Open as the general Playerbase. This pretty much the same as the first scenario, but the community is larger than a tiny core of dedicated PvPers. Again, there's little reason to worry about how "efficient" other modes are if the so-called "automation" problem is fixed. If that free choice is taken away, though, it'll result in a general increase in unsportsmanlike behavior compared to the current status quo. Not a significant increase, but it'll probably enough that those who are attracted to PowerPlay for the PvP will be more frustrated than they currently are.
The current PowerPlayerbase is significant less likely to freely choose Open than the general Playerbase. If this is actually the case, why on earth would anyone trust the current PowerPlayerbase to actually be fun to play with if they were coerced into Open? If they can't be trusted to obey their own house rules, why should they be trusted to obey the unwritten rules of fair play? This would be consistent with my experiences in similar games, though, so kudos to Frontier for creating an effective solution to this particularly thorny problem.
As I said, I consider the first scenario to be the most likely one, and the current status quo is highly effective at keeping those who are
not fun to play with either in Solo/PG, or most likely quitting the game entirely because the unfun types can't find
their preffered "content" in Open, only players who are hard to kill at best, and view
them as content at worst.
