Open Play experience just blows…

[Hamurd]

Block feature works fine for me. Unfortunately it's mighty hard to find anyone to wing with to run a specific mission or hunt in a specific RES when there are tens of thousands of systems and no "I'm looking for a partner!" mechanism built into the game. Frontier put a lot of time into providing wing missions and multicrew features without giving an iota of thought of how people would find each other in this ridiculously vast Bubble of inhabited systems. THIS is what's wrong with multiplayer ED IMO.

Very true. A "LFG" feature would be great in this game. All I've found is to use Discord groups to find other players.

 

[Hamurd]

That's a solution often suggested by those who don't consider that other players shuold be able to play alone if they want to - there's no compelling reason to remove Solo and Private Groups from a game where other players are an optional extra (and we all bought it on that basis, whether some of us like it, or not).

Well then, you could keep solo play (which is where I play mostly), and in Open still provide the option to turn off PvP. Might get a few more people populating Open. That being said, it wouldn't be for the reason the OP wants, which is more players to attack.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

It never ceases to amaze me how the same thread from people who have no other interest than killing other players keep coming up.

Go play Eve. That's your game. If you live for the gank, Eve was created specifically for that purpose.

 

[Ettanin]

Very true. A "LFG" feature would be great in this game. All I've found is to use Discord groups to find other players.

Under the condition that abuse of that feature to gank others will be punished harshly (including out-of-game punishment measures)

 

[Old Duck]

It never ceases to amaze me how the same thread from people who have no other interest than killing other players keep coming up.

Go play Eve. That's your game. If you live for the gank, Eve was created specifically for that purpose.

Kinda seems that Elite Dangerous: Open was also created specifically for that purpose. You even get extra Arx for ganking people!

 

[Hamurd]

Kinda seems that Elite Dangerous: Open was also created specifically for that purpose. You even get extra Arx for ganking people!

Lol, probably not much considering most don't play Open for that exact reason

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Lol, probably not much considering most don't play Open for that exact reason

Exactly.

This game, like the vast majority of others, was built as a single player game first with the OPTION to play multiplayer. Nearly ever game made is that way and anybody that bought it knew that going in.

If you want a strictly multiplayer game, go play Eve. That's what it was designed for from the outset. Don't sit here crying the same story over and over again that you can't find people to kill and ruin their day because they'd rather not play open.

It really is just that simple.

 

[Hamurd]

Under the condition that abuse of that feature to gank others will be punished harshly (including out-of-game punishment measures)

Sad that there always has to be rules in games to prevent the jerks from being jerks. If you could play in Open, and have the ability to turn off PvP, then the only people for gankers to attack would be people wanting to PvP. A system like that would probably drive away ganker types, and just leave people actually interested in fun PvP. It's just my opinion, but I have seen it work like that in other games.

 

[Ettanin]

Sad that there always has to be rules in games to prevent the jerks from being jerks.

It's fact. Salt miners will go any length and through any hoop to extract it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Sad that there always has to be rules in games to prevent the jerks from being jerks. If you could play in Open, and have the ability to turn off PvP, then the only people for gankers to attack would be people wanting to PvP. A system like that would probably drive away ganker types, and just leave people actually interested in fun PvP. It's just my opinion, but I have seen it work like that in other games.

The possibility of an Open-PvE game mode was effectively ruled out by DBOBE in the Engineers launch stream - as it would require significant time and effort to remove all possible PvP vectors from the game - that being the case a PvP-flag in Open is ruled out for the same reason.

 

[Robert Maynard]

It's fact. Salt miners will go any length and through any hoop to extract it.

Remembering the antics of notorious CMDRs who engaged in ramming in stations - because, at the time, there was no punishment for colliding with another ship while speeding.

 

[vanFace]

Sad that there always has to be rules in games to prevent the jerks from being jerks.

Human history in a nutshell.

 

[Brrokk]

This thread seemed a bit different to begin with, but now I think I should bestow the award.

 

[Old Duck]

This game, like the vast majority of others, was built as a single player game first with the OPTION to play multiplayer. Nearly ever game made is that way and anybody that bought it knew that going in.

My problem with this is that it falls short as a single player game. It could be so much more if it were truly focused on being a single player game, but because of multiplayer, we can't have NPCs for wingmates or crew mates (for example), and I'd argue that Frontier has relied on multiplayer as a crutch to provide emergent gameplay rather than invest in better gameplay mechanics in the game engine itself.

I actually wish Elite was truly built as a single-player game with multiplayer "bolted on", because then it might be a masterful single-player game. But instead it's a "Jack of all modes, master of none" game.

 

[CMDR Egmont]

Remembering the antics of notorious CMDRs who engaged in ramming in stations - because, at the time, there was no punishment for colliding with another ship while speeding.

Haha! We still do it.

Source: https://youtu.be/I8URz2aVX-Q

 

[Marvin the Martian]

If you could play in Open, and have the ability to turn off PvP, then the only people for gankers to attack would be people wanting to PvP.

You have that now. Players that don't want to PVP play solo.

 

[Hamurd]

While we were conversing here, some nice player refueled my Carrier
I love solo play!

 

[CMDR Egmont]

It never ceases to amaze me how the same thread from people who have no other interest than killing other players keep coming up.

Go play Eve. That's your game. If you live for the gank, Eve was created specifically for that purpose.

Getting blown up is one of the ways CMDRs learn how to build ships and manage dangerous situations.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Getting blown up is one of the ways CMDRs learn how to manage dangerous situations.

Indeed - and, rather than the "git gud" approach desired by some, there's the "leave Open" method and / or "block assailant".

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It was a bad idea from the start - separating modes. A welcome nod to minor subgroups of elite players, but eventually separation created way more problems than it solved.

Case in point: You can’t physically stop people from bringing in the cargo. They can’t hire guns to punch through your blockade. You, in return, can’t find support to reinforce your blockade. No heroes, no traitors. No story. An increasing number of leaflets carried in the shadow realms where there is no need in warriors, pirates, mercenaries, paladins, etc. Furthermore, ability to create interesting stories is suppressed by segregating commanders even further through horizons/ody/solo/pg/open.

What Egmont is on about is called leaving combat-oriented commanders in the cold, because the management was convinced that a version with rainbows and unicorns will sell better than a more realistically flavoured simulation, where people would be incentivised, sometimes forced to join efforts with trained space fighters, find friends and enemies and try simulating living in this ‘verse. So management decided they could have both concepts under on roof. They couldn’t. And the gradual fall in player numbers unveiled why they couldn’t. It’s not a unique story, in that regard.

That’s why it’s often better to choose one concept, one structure, not try to satisfy every potential customer and then bury yourself under rabble of problems caused by existence of multiple modes and their compatibility.

Absolute freedom (tm) is an interesting fantasy, but, in my mind, extra friction is essential to have a story tell itself.

Actually Steam tells a story about very stable player numbers over the history of ED. You've had 8 years now to figure the basic concepts of ED. I'm baffled how people still struggle with it today. The modes were in from the start. The only thing evolving was the legend that players in solo affected poor open player's game. It was not a thing when I started playing. It's just a useful argument to start a row on the forum.