Given the recent increase in threads asking for the BGS to be nerfed or removed from solo and PG, I thought that I should contribute to the conversation by making my own proposal for FDev's consideration. Let's start with the first and most important change in my proposal:
Remove Open Mode
Why, you ask? Simply put, it puts everyone on a level playing field and removes the potential for cheating behaviour. With all of the concerns about players avoiding blockades in open, be it through the block function, switching to solo or pg, playing on a different platform, or being in a different timezone, I have determined that there is only one course of action to level the playing field for everyone:
Eliminate players' ability to create blockades in open.
With players unable to blockade other players from a station or system, all of the complaints about players being unable to run said blockades are moot since said blockades will not exist. Of course, there are several ways to go about this, including but not limited to:
Now, before anyone goes on a horrified and self-righteous speil about how "It's supposed to be Elite: Dangerous not Elite: Handholding, how is it supposed to be dangerous if you never see another player?", I've already got that figured out. Without further ado, allow me to introduce the other major change in my proposal:
Remove Engineering and Restrict Outfitting
That's right, everyone's favourite source of mindless grind for a slot machine mini-game is being tossed out. Additionally, all of the weapons and modules available from tech brokers will be removed because they are a significant upgrade over stock modules. Why? Because these features remove all of the risk associated with Elite: Dangerous.
Farming a CZ while AFK because you and a friend and using healing beams on each other? Not going to happen. Using engineering to increase your Cutters shields to ridiculous levels? Think again. Increasing the alpha strike potential of you ship until you can instagib mid-level NPCs? No way Jose. Being able to do any of these things effectively allows players to be literal gods in comparison to the common NPC peasants. Given that the amount of effort required for FDev to properly balance engineering, it would be much easier for FDev to restore balance to the galaxy by just removing engineering and getting on with it. Such a move would allow FDev to refocus their efforts on the next feature that will be released.
On a side note, this change would have the added effect of improving PvP balance and variety. The change would improve the balance between ships and modules, which would in turn allow for a wider variety of viable builds than what exists in the current meta.
Additionally, it has been brought to my attention that players in shielded, A-rated ships are not nearly as threatened by NPCs as they should be, thus any module related to ship shielding and with a class rating above D should be removed pending a balance pass. This covers the major changes included in my proposal, although there are a few minor changes as well:
List of Minor Changes
So yeah, that's my take on a BGS and PvP rework. Hope you guys like it!
For anyone who has made it this far, I will state for the record that this is satire. I do not want to see any of the changes I have mentioned implemented, I am just trying to point out how ridiculous the sentiment of open-only [feature] is, although I may have laid it on a little thick towards the end....
Remove Open Mode
Why, you ask? Simply put, it puts everyone on a level playing field and removes the potential for cheating behaviour. With all of the concerns about players avoiding blockades in open, be it through the block function, switching to solo or pg, playing on a different platform, or being in a different timezone, I have determined that there is only one course of action to level the playing field for everyone:
Eliminate players' ability to create blockades in open.
With players unable to blockade other players from a station or system, all of the complaints about players being unable to run said blockades are moot since said blockades will not exist. Of course, there are several ways to go about this, including but not limited to:
- Removing the ability for players to interdict other players in open
- Removing the ability for players to damage other players in open
- Drastically increase the police response for PvP assault and murder crimes, having multiple ships mounting turreted railguns with the super penetrator and reverb cascade (not feedback cascade) experimental effects spawn the instant the crime is committed
- Eliminating (or at least severely reducing) the effects of BGS manipulation in open
- Remove Open in its entirety
Now, before anyone goes on a horrified and self-righteous speil about how "It's supposed to be Elite: Dangerous not Elite: Handholding, how is it supposed to be dangerous if you never see another player?", I've already got that figured out. Without further ado, allow me to introduce the other major change in my proposal:
Remove Engineering and Restrict Outfitting
That's right, everyone's favourite source of mindless grind for a slot machine mini-game is being tossed out. Additionally, all of the weapons and modules available from tech brokers will be removed because they are a significant upgrade over stock modules. Why? Because these features remove all of the risk associated with Elite: Dangerous.
Farming a CZ while AFK because you and a friend and using healing beams on each other? Not going to happen. Using engineering to increase your Cutters shields to ridiculous levels? Think again. Increasing the alpha strike potential of you ship until you can instagib mid-level NPCs? No way Jose. Being able to do any of these things effectively allows players to be literal gods in comparison to the common NPC peasants. Given that the amount of effort required for FDev to properly balance engineering, it would be much easier for FDev to restore balance to the galaxy by just removing engineering and getting on with it. Such a move would allow FDev to refocus their efforts on the next feature that will be released.
On a side note, this change would have the added effect of improving PvP balance and variety. The change would improve the balance between ships and modules, which would in turn allow for a wider variety of viable builds than what exists in the current meta.
Additionally, it has been brought to my attention that players in shielded, A-rated ships are not nearly as threatened by NPCs as they should be, thus any module related to ship shielding and with a class rating above D should be removed pending a balance pass. This covers the major changes included in my proposal, although there are a few minor changes as well:
List of Minor Changes
- Remove synthesis: being able to restock ammo while not docked at a station is gamebreaking for PvP
- Remove engineering materials: they are no longer needed for anything
- Remove planetary surfaces and the SRV: the only gameplay that now exists for these features is raiding planetary settlements and surface salvage, these features are fairly boring and should be removed until such time as they are made interesting again
- Remove Multicrew and SLFs: these features are currently bugged and underused, it would be much easier to remove them and reintroduce them when they are working properly
- Remove kinetic weapons: given that there is nothing in the vacuum of space to slow a fast-moving projectile, there is no reason for a weapon that relies solely on kinetic energy to do damage to have any kind of damage falloff. We can therefore assume that these weapons are currently bugged, and should be removed pending a bugfix.
- With the removal of open, the need for a centralized server is eliminated. As such, it is possible to reduce the number of accessible systems to a few thousand and store the entire playable galaxy locally in the game files.
- Simplify the ship models and graphics to improve performance on low-end systems. The number of polygons required to be able to identify one ship from another is largely irrelevant, an upper limit of 30 polygons should be more than sufficient.
So yeah, that's my take on a BGS and PvP rework. Hope you guys like it!
For anyone who has made it this far, I will state for the record that this is satire. I do not want to see any of the changes I have mentioned implemented, I am just trying to point out how ridiculous the sentiment of open-only [feature] is, although I may have laid it on a little thick towards the end....
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