Open PvE

[W0OCQCK]

And you have exact numbers of people, who don't want the EVE Model ? How is that griefer enabler ? I played it for a long time and only for PVE. I was killed just ONCE by afk'ink my transport in Jita.
Could you please explain why you don't want the EVE model ? Arguments.
I still hope you understand, that open pve mode could exist only with separate save.

Look I know you didn't ask me, but I did play that Cesspool called EvE for more than 10 years, was quite successful. If the system works so well, how did. "Hi Sec" fair during, "Burn Jita". Hmm. How did the PVE Miners fair during the never ending attack that resulted in over 80,000 paying customers being driven from the game? If you knew anything about it, you would know that the garden variety griefer lives and operates in Hi Sec, not 0.0 or low sec.

P.S. Gone Fishing.

 

[Painbeaver]

Look I know you didn't ask me, but I did play that Cesspool called EvE for more than 10 years, was quite successful. If the system works so well, how did. "Hi Sec" fair during, "Burn Jita". Hmm. How did the PVE Miners fair during the never ending attack that resulted in over 80,000 paying customers being driven from the game? If you knew anything about it, you would know that the garden variety griefer lives and operates in Hi Sec, not 0.0 or low sec.

P.S. Gone Fishing.

Ofc there will be griefers. But much much less, then it's now. And it's a fair trade for having more people and more opportunities in one game world. I played EvE for about 3 years. Have been killed only once. I know about 10 people who played EvE or playing it now, and they have about the same statistic themselves, they enjoy PVE and don't have any problems. It's the same as calling our planet a place of mass murderers and maniacs. Everyday lot's of people getting killed and , but there are lot's of people who never met anything like this in their lives. Maybe they are little smarter and know how avoid danger...

 

[DarkWalker]

And you have exact numbers of people, who don't want the EVE Model ? How is that griefer enabler ?

Exact, no. But you can look at the response in the forums every time anyone suggests implementing anything from EVE here. EVE has a bad reputation as being a griefer's haven, and while it's possible to minimize the risk of being griefed, I do consider that reputation well placed because CCP sees griefing as part of the game and does nothing to interfere (unless that griefing spills into the real world, like when a famous player posted messages telling his followers to repeatedly grief another player in order to drive him towards suicide).

It's why I was kinda conflicted when CCP killed off the World of Darkness MMO; while it's painful for a setting I love to fail as a MMO before it could even start, I really don't want CCP handling any setting I long to play because chances are good they would make it a griefer's paradise too.

Could you please explain why you don't want the EVE model ? Arguments.

Because, after my stint with EVE, I will never again, for as long as I live, play another MMO where someone can attack me without my explicit consent. With only one exception: I might still play a game with non-consensual PvP where being killed has no bad consequences at all, but then I would just suicide myself when attacked, rez, and continue playing as if nothing had happened; I will not engage in a fight unless I explicitly opted for it and I'm sure the same is true for all my opponents.

You seem to want PvE with a possibility of PvP; that's fine, it's you opinion, your preference. But I find the possibility of unwanted PvP to be something that completely ruins my experience even if I'm not attacked at all (or if I'm attacked and end wiping the floor with my attacker). And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Besides, if PvP is as rare as you say, why not have an option to completely opt out of it? If it's as rare as you said it's actual effect on gameplay and player efficiency is not even measurable, so having an opt-out does no harm at all.

I still hope you understand, that open pve mode could exist only with separate save.

Not at all. From a balance point of view, it's no different from having solo and private group modes, or from having part of the player base use firewalls or router settings to create a fake solo mode by connecting to the servers while blocking all other commanders. What makes no sense at all is proposing that such a mode needs a separate save, unless you are at the same time asking for the game to move to a traditional client-server setup for everything that is currently handled using peer to peer.

Ofc there will be griefers. But much much less, then it's now. And it's a fair trade for having more people and more opportunities in one game world.

A fair trade for you, perhaps. For me, that would be completely killing any enjoyment I could have with the game.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

And you have exact numbers of people, who don't want the EVE Model ? How is that griefer enabler ? I played it for a long time and only for PVE. I was killed just ONCE by afk'ink my transport in Jita.
Could you please explain why you don't want the EVE model ? Arguments.
I still hope you understand, that open pve mode could exist only with separate save.

What? Why could it exist only with separate save? You are mistaken as we already have a PvE move that works really well it just takes a hell of a lot of one persona time and relies on him not getting bored. I am an elite fanboy through and through. Over the quadrilogy it is my most played game of all time and yet I too have zero interest in Eve

 

[Lestenio]

make ONE big world that has a place for anyone. And remove SOLO mode, or atleast make a different save for it.

You just dont get it. Removing solo or making it a different save is not going to drive people to open. It will have the opposite effect. Players that prefer solo will just stay solo and never convert to open.
like many others I am not going to maintain different characters for different modes and I am not going to start the game again from scratch in a years time just to try open.

 

[Gold Member]

You are missing the point. Of those 400,000 players, how many even know about Mobius? 1.5% does not sound like that big a number. But 10% of those that know about it, certainly does. And if you extrapolate that into a better supported and centrally advertised group, then 10% sounds perfectly feasible.

Your admirable attempt at playing with numbers still doesn't mean anything in particular. You're trying to correlate things that have little to do with each other and then extrapolating.

People who wanted to play in a theme park with others were more likely motivated to go find a place. What's this group thing? Oh, look, Mobius is advertised. check check check, they have everything I want. Group mode/Mobius. PVE problem solved right there.

The vast majority of players who buy a game never bother with a forum acount, and if they do, hardly ever log in to it. Why? The game is complex enough and has enough options as it is. They will work with the available options.

 

[Sayne]

Blerg. Focus, guys, focus.

Unfortunately, as Distance says (and I've learned to listen to what he says over the past several weeks) the way E: D works is there is ONE mode with ONE set of rules for weapon damage and player v player interaction. The only difference is the instancing.

In Open, you are thrown into an instance with as many players as the matchmaking server and your P2P client see fit. In Group, you are given an instance with only members participating in that group, but the same fundamental rules apply. In Solo you are given your own instance, so it doesn't matter that the same rules apply, but they do.

I don't know what FD can do about that, because I vehemently want a true in-launcher Open PVE mode. The best we can do is keep lobbying for it and see if we can get a response. FD are smart guys, I'm sure they can figure out a way to get this implemented if we give them time and make ourselves a squeaky wheel until they hear us.

Sayne

 

[DaggerSnake]

So I'm not in a PvP or PvE camp. I think this game is pretty much PvD (Danger) and you get to decide that level of danger at the start menu. It's as simple as that. Just players vs the Elite galaxy and all the ups and downs that comes along with it. I myself play around in all three modes depending on my mood and confidence.

Now with something like Mobius or even an OPEN PvE with no CMDR on CMDR fire. Who get's the chance to hunt and collect those top 5 Bounties that are clearly displayed in starports. I've seen up near 250millon credit bounties. I'm assuming that those are people being pirates or just running around breaking all kinds of Elite galaxy laws. In PvE, they just get to laugh and nobody gets to try and collect? Seems a little outside the spirit of the dangerous galaxy. These top bounties are not sitting in a safe haven are they. Or are those only seen in OPEN play? I'm not sure...

 

[Sayne]

I guarantee you those guys with the top bounties are not hanging out in a PVE group. They're in Open killing players.

The thing is, PVE players aren't interested in hunting the top bounties down, they just want to be left alone by them.

 

[Gold Member]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=136579

Fill out the survey guys. Most people are claiming to fly Open. Groups are a perfect and already implemented solution, and since there is one in particular that keeps getting mentioned.....

 

[StarTux]

Disabling CMDR on CMDR seems at odds with the game, just create a private group and try to attract like minded people. Much less overhead for FD to implement extra code and less likely pushing back on the developer to continuously create extra groups with extra functionality (trust me, once one groups gets this others will also ask for similar), which would be a far cry from KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

There has been around 4 incidents of PVP in the Mobius group I believe, which is a tiny percentage compared to over 6000 commanders.

But, then we should be getting an Iron Man mode, so perhaps they could at least consider an opposite mode?

 

[Jaeger]

Disabling CMDR on CMDR seems at odds with the game

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

The issue is not really PvP, it's the consequences of ship destruction i.e the death penalties, insurance and cargo loss.

Without them as a mainstay there could be an engaging competitive game, instead we have open warzone where avoiding frustration and avoiding combat are prime motivators. It sucks as a game and improvements should be made.

 

[Jack Schitt]

This keeps coming up again and again, but there would be no need even to discuss an Open PvE mode if FD had implemented the security and bounty systems as discussed in the DDF, and not given us the hamstrung versions we have now.

Here's how I'd start addressing this:

• Authority response should be swift and overwhelming in the richest and oldest systems (Sol, Achenar) with trade profits reduced accordingly as a "tax" to pay for it. The degree of response should scale downwards according to the financial and political realities of each system, all the way down to anarchies where anything goes. Cautious traders would stick to the safe routes for meagre profits, while greedier traders -- and there would still be plenty -- would risk the higher profits in the less patrolled systems where the pirates could take their chances too. Everybody wins.
  
  
• NPC activity in Solo should match the current activity in Open as closely as possible. If a system has an average of three human players per instance engaged in piracy in Open, spawn an average of three equally ranked NPC pirates per instance in Solo. If 50% of traders in a given system are being interdicted in Open, aim to interdict 50% in Solo. If it turns out that the NPCs aren't as "tough" as the human players then rank up the scale: two active NPCs for every player, three if necessary. Try to make each system in Solo match the same system in Open for notional difficulty, so that the only difference between the modes is the lack of PvP. The servers should have all of the data available to make this work almost in real time. Something similar could be done for Private Groups, with the NPC spawning adjusted for the presence of existing players.

There's much more to be done but these two relatively simple^[1] changes would reduce so much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth we've been seeing on the forums for months. Players would be able to chose EvE-style "low sec" and "high sec" systems according to their ability and risk, and players who had a genuine discomfort for PvP would still have an equally-challenging Solo while those who only left Open because of the lack of authority control would have no reason not to come back.

I really don't understand why FD have left things the way they have for so long. I can only hope that the mythical Powerplay goes some way towards addressing these fundamentally broken, lore-breaking and frankly baffling design choices.

^{[SUP][1] granted this may not be a SMOP, but since the introduction of SJA's buffed AIs such fixes don't sound to me as though they'd be impossible to implement. But then I'm not a developer, so the usual caveats apply.}[/SUP]​

 

[Jaeger]

This keeps coming up again and again, but there would be no need even to discuss an Open PvE mode if FD had implemented the security and bounty systems as discussed in the DDF, and not given us the hamstrung versions we have now.

Jacks first suggestion is bang on, more profits from trading in Anarchy's, with the corollary there should be more profit from smuggling into corporate states. The whole marking cargo stolen by default, not being able to offload stolen cargo, and massive fines for being scanned with said stolen cargo is another area where the life has been sucked out of the universe. The whole approach is flawed and needs a fungenering overhaul.

Bring on this magical Powerplay....

 

[Bigcheese]

I think it's bizarre how some people talk like playing in open = pvping all the time.

That's not true at all. It's so far off base it makes the entire discussion a joke honestly. Add to that the fact that the environment in Elite offers no challenge or risk, and you have to wonder what these guys even do in game that is causing all this anxiety.

I mean let's be real here, the ai offers nothing in terms of excitement. They are lethargic to the point of barely fighting back. It's truly amazing to me that no matter how insanely easy a game is, people still find things to be fearful over.

There is no other word to describe this behavior but cowardly. I know it's just a game and some might not like how that sounds, but seriously, Elite has the most cowardly player base I've ever seen for a video game ever. Never seen a group so utterly opposed to anything resembling a challenge. This goes way beyond pvp, this is a fundamental aversion to even the smallest risk in a video game. Truly bizarre.

 

[Jorlin]

I think it's bizarre how some people talk like playing in open = pvping all the time.

That's not true at all. It's so far off base it makes the entire discussion a joke honestly. Add to that the fact that the environment in Elite offers no challenge or risk, and you have to wonder what these guys even do in game that is causing all this anxiety.

I mean let's be real here, the ai offers nothing in terms of excitement. They are lethargic to the point of barely fighting back. It's truly amazing to me that no matter how insanely easy a game is, people still find things to be fearful over.

There is no other word to describe this behavior but cowardly. I know it's just a game and some might not like how that sounds, but seriously, Elite has the most cowardly player base I've ever seen for a video game ever. Never seen a group so utterly opposed to anything resembling a challenge. This goes way beyond pvp, this is a fundamental aversion to even the smallest risk in a video game. Truly bizarre.

true, open doesn't mean 100% PvP.

But some people just play to relax, not getting kicks out of it.
Just like some people, after getting home from work, like to read a book instead of willingly jumping out of planes that aren't even burning...
It's not necessarily fear, it's just another playstyle.

I know that you have problems to understand it... but you don't need to. Just accept it that nobody is like you, everyone else has diffent thoughts and demands to enjoy a game.

And calling people "cowards"...
You can do this for combat loggers, sure.
But not for someone who never wanted a fight, never joined the game to fight, doesn't play the game to fight and therefore plays the game the way he wants to (and bought it for): solo, relaxing, enjoying the scenery.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

This keeps coming up again and again, but there would be no need even to discuss an Open PvE mode if FD had implemented the security and bounty systems as discussed in the DDF, and not given us the hamstrung versions we have now.

Here's how I'd start addressing this:

• Authority response should be swift and overwhelming in the richest and oldest systems (Sol, Achenar) with trade profits reduced accordingly as a "tax" to pay for it. The degree of response should scale downwards according to the financial and political realities of each system, all the way down to anarchies where anything goes. Cautious traders would stick to the safe routes for meagre profits, while greedier traders -- and there would still be plenty -- would risk the higher profits in the less patrolled systems where the pirates could take their chances too. Everybody wins.
  
  
• NPC activity in Solo should match the current activity in Open as closely as possible. If a system has an average of three human players per instance engaged in piracy in Open, spawn an average of three equally ranked NPC pirates per instance in Solo. If 50% of traders in a given system are being interdicted in Open, aim to interdict 50% in Solo. If it turns out that the NPCs aren't as "tough" as the human players then rank up the scale: two active NPCs for every player, three if necessary. Try to make each system in Solo match the same system in Open for notional difficulty, so that the only difference between the modes is the lack of PvP. The servers should have all of the data available to make this work almost in real time. Something similar could be done for Private Groups, with the NPC spawning adjusted for the presence of existing players.

There's much more to be done but these two relatively simple^[1] changes would reduce so much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth we've been seeing on the forums for months. Players would be able to chose EvE-style "low sec" and "high sec" systems according to their ability and risk, and players who had a genuine discomfort for PvP would still have an equally-challenging Solo while those who only left Open because of the lack of authority control would have no reason not to come back.

I really don't understand why FD have left things the way they have for so long. I can only hope that the mythical Powerplay goes some way towards addressing these fundamentally broken, lore-breaking and frankly baffling design choices.

^{[SUP][1] granted this may not be a SMOP, but since the introduction of SJA's buffed AIs such fixes don't sound to me as though they'd be impossible to implement. But then I'm not a developer, so the usual caveats apply.}[/SUP]​

All of the above. Any arguments about OPen vs Solo, etc., are irrelevant until FD have put the stuff in place they know they need to do, but have carefully avoided doing. As I have said multiple times, the lack of consequences for murder was the most important thing in my mind that made the game not be ready for release. There are no excuses for FD not doing it, other than ones I really don't like: to do with them wanting to attrat the pew-pew crew at all costs. They are responsible for the noise about open and solo, and the numbers of people reporting that they have run away to hide in Solo. Solo mst not be easy mode: whilst it is, people will naturally gravitate there.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I It's truly amazing to me that no matter how insanely easy a game is, people still find things to be fearful over.

There is no other word to describe this behavior but cowardly. I know it's just a game and some might not like how that sounds, but seriously, Elite has the most cowardly player base I've ever seen for a video game ever. Never seen a group so utterly opposed to anything resembling a challenge. This goes way beyond pvp, this is a fundamental aversion to even the smallest risk in a video game. Truly bizarre.

I Keep trying to think on how to respond to this without sounding as insulting as you....

Not having any interest in adversarial player interaction does not mean coward. If that is how you judge a person says more about you than me however.

PS not wanting to meet you in my game is nothing to do with fear.

 

[Bigcheese]

true, open doesn't mean 100% PvP.

But some people just play to relax, not getting kicks out of it.
Just like some people, after getting home from work, like to read a book instead of willingly jumping out of planes that aren't even burning...
It's not necessarily fear, it's just another playstyle.

I know that you have problems to understand it... but you don't need to. Just accept it that nobody is like you, everyone else has diffent thoughts and demands to enjoy a game.

And calling people "cowards"...
You can do this for combat loggers, sure.
But not for someone who never wanted a fight, never joined the game to fight, doesn't play the game to fight and therefore plays the game the way he wants to (and bought it for): solo, relaxing, enjoying the scenery.

The fears are mostly imaginary, that's the thing. It's also a game, if someone is looking for an activity devoid of risk or surprise, there are plenty of activities available. Trying to turn an online game into that is...lame and unrealistic.

If they are going to play a game, occasionally facing an obstacle is part of the experience. I mean wanting to change frontier space into a lazy Sunday drive...really?

 

[Kaeldian]

I think it's bizarre how some people talk like playing in open = pvping all the time.

That's not true at all. It's so far off base it makes the entire discussion a joke honestly. Add to that the fact that the environment in Elite offers no challenge or risk, and you have to wonder what these guys even do in game that is causing all this anxiety.

I mean let's be real here, the ai offers nothing in terms of excitement. They are lethargic to the point of barely fighting back. It's truly amazing to me that no matter how insanely easy a game is, people still find things to be fearful over.

There is no other word to describe this behavior but cowardly. I know it's just a game and some might not like how that sounds, but seriously, Elite has the most cowardly player base I've ever seen for a video game ever. Never seen a group so utterly opposed to anything resembling a challenge. This goes way beyond pvp, this is a fundamental aversion to even the smallest risk in a video game. Truly bizarre.

Let me clue you in on something - the issue is not isolated to ED. People as a rule are adverse to surprise PvP. I know, shocking isn't it? But just look at every other MMO that has launched and note how many "anything goes" servers they have. Note now niche the "open PvP" games like Conan were and how UO almost died.

You pretty much have to call most gamers cowards.

Sucks being a minority, doesn't it?