Quit the 'force people into Open Play' nonsense.

[m0rl0ck]

You keep hearing the disappointed PvPers who make Open so toxic that they ran everyone else off, thinking they actually represent a significant proportion of your player base,

Im tired of hearing from them too and i play 90% of the time in open.
Open isnt empty though, i run into a lot of nice people there, but yeah i wish they'd shut up too.
The modes are fine, FD needs to spend their efforts on something that will actually improve the game, like bug fixes, missions system fixes, or content.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dc83 again.

I owe you

 

[m0rl0ck]

I know there are people who do play in Open. I'm glad to see that some of them are willing to recognize that the other end of the playerbase has the right to matter too.

In return: Yes, Open Play DOES matter, as do the people who play in it. I just wish some of them would stop trying to make us matter less than they do. You'll notice that none of us are trying to do that to them. I would LOVE it if Solo had twice as much impact on the persistent universe that Open does. But did I ask for it? No. But maybe I should have, since they did exactly the opposite... (sigh) sorry, ranting again.

Anyway, thanks.

Every player who paid for the game should get to have the same amount of impact that anyone else does regardless of mode.

 

[Chrystoph]

I believe that the problem is that we actually have too much sandbox, and Frontier is trying to find motivation and confusing pointless conflict as content.

After all, that is what the PaP (against, because versus includes the concept of competition which they don't want) crowd insist on euphemising themselves as, Emergent Content.

 

[Teh Smoo]

I believe that the problem is that we actually have too much sandbox, and Frontier is trying to find motivation and confusing pointless conflict as content.

After all, that is what the PaP (against, because versus includes the concept of competition which they don't want) crowd insist on euphemising themselves as, Emergent Content.

Well, players ARE the only thing that can generate content as fast as other players can blow through it. Without padding and repetition, anyway.

Look at pretty much any story-based MMO for padding, and EVE for player-generated stuff.

But FD want to let pvp-specific ships be SO much better than ships fit for anything else. So a hauler can't afford to operate in that environment. Literally cannot afford to, if they get blown up before they can make the cost of a rebuy.

 

[Daynen]

I understand where people are coming from, not wanting to be forced into open to be targets for other players. I also understand PVPers wanting people forced into open for powerplay so they're not forced into hauling to do PP. I think that's really the crux of the dilemma: each side wants to stay where they are, but allowing both to do so eliminates an entire layer of powerplay activity.

If we force PP into open, haulers must be prepared to survive PVP somehow in order to keep affecting powerplay. Haulers don't seem to like this.
If we let haulers stay solo, PVPers MUST turn to hauling in order to affect powerplay at anywhere NEAR the same level because actively stopping haulers is now impossible. PVPers don't seem to like this.

Both decisions force both players into a single mode in order to affect powerplay, leaving Fdev with quite the conundrum if they want to make the feature actually work. I'm sure we all hope there's a hidden third answer somewhere--I know I do because I don't want to see half the playerbase leave, no matter WHICH side it is--but, for the sake of argument, if we assume we MUST choose one of the two above, making PP open only is actually better for the game for a simple reason: in order to affect powerplay, haulers will have to be more social, i.e. either fighting back against gankers or looking for protection from others. As powerplay is specifically described as a "player versus player" experience, this sounds like the more logical choice to me. Allowing solo players to have as much effect on PP from the immunity of solo play means that PVPers can't even exist. At best, they can gank NPC ships for merits, but this has nowhere near the impact of hauling 700+T of supplies per run; eventually they have to turn to hauling as well, defeating the game's philosophy of "blazing your own trail." That's what the open only crowd is getting at here: by letting powerplay happen in solo, haulers force pvpers to play their way.

I know this is a rather contentious point, but after a lot of consideration I really think open only PP just makes more sense in the biggest possible picture. It may require haulers to do more than just AFK haul from station to station, actually get involved with other people and take some real risks to support their power, but...cliche though it sounds and despite the memes, the game IS called "Elite Dangerous," not "Liberal Space Trucker 2018." Hard pill to swallow, but it's true.

 

[m0rl0ck]

I know this is a rather contentious point, but after a lot of consideration I really think open only PP just makes more sense in the biggest possible picture. It may require haulers to do more than just AFK haul from station to station, actually get involved with other people and take some real risks to support their power, but...cliche though it sounds and despite the memes, the game IS called "Elite Dangerous," not "Liberal Space Trucker 2018." Hard pill to swallow, but it's true.

The game rules are completely arbitrary. Frontier can do anything with them they like.
What you are advocating above is cheating other players out of content they have paid for, content they have had since the launch of powerplay, content that you have and that they paid for the same as you did.
In essence you and others like you and FD as well are talking about theft, cheating people. On the recommendation of a loud vocal minority of bullies and obsessives.
FD needs to grow a pair imo.

 

[Maachau]

Open should be the only mode that influences the galaxy. Too many times have people been able to undermine another player’s BGS in the safety of Solo or PG. That is an actual problem, you getting blown up a couple times is not. Getting away is not that hard either. In the amount of time it took to read your post, I coulda high waked 3 times.

<not really needed>

 

[Marra Morgan]

Too many times have people been able to undermine another player’s BGS in the safety of Solo or PG.

Which is no problem to anyone who knows how to BgS.

 

[Maachau]

Which is no problem to anyone who knows how to BgS.

And gankers are no problem to people who know how to high wake.

 

[Stigbob]

Open should be the only mode that influences the galaxy. Too many times have people been able to undermine another player’s BGS in the safety of Solo or PG. That is an actual problem, you getting blown up a couple times is not. Getting away is not that hard either. In the amount of time it took to read your post, I coulda high waked 3 times.


<not really needed>

PVP is the least effective way to play the BGS. You'd be far better off running a few missions in whatever mode you prefer.

 

[StarfireIX]

You keep hearing the disappointed PvPers who make Open so toxic that they ran everyone else off, thinking they actually represent a significant proportion of your player base, then you start tiptoeing around it (seriously? Your inflexible, overzealous filter stops me from saying the other half of blank footing?), putting one paw out, testing the waters...

And every time you do, all the players who are actually enjoying the game rather than complaining in the forums take a break to tell you they're gonna quit if you follow through.

So quit thinking about it. Table it. Shelve it. We're not gonna change over time, we're not gonna gradually become more accepting of being forced to choose between going Open and getting sidelined. You Will Not fill Open Play up by gradually ramping up the discrimination. We're already upset by the way you've slanted things towards Open. Yes, we have noticed. We are grumbling to ourselves. There is a limit, and I am holding back on merchandise purchases I was considering making because I know you're planning to do it again even though you've decided to stop short of actually making Powerplay Open-only. So just STOP already. Quit it. Let it GO. The upset, overly-verbal PvPers are a tiny minority, NOT as significant as they think they are to your income.

All you'll do is lose players by the thousands and disappoint them by even more thousands, and Open will still be just as Empty.

The fact that you represent the Empire like this makes me feel disappointed.


If you haven't tried PowerPlay, then you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Maachau]

PVP is the least effective way to play the BGS. You'd be far better off running a few missions in whatever mode you prefer.

When you have a group of players in your system killing off your security force in a PG, please let me know how many missions I will need to do to keep my system from going into lockdown. I would prefer to meet them in Open and attempt to stop them.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Open should be the only mode that influences the galaxy.

That would generate direct financial incentives to play in Private Group or Solo if you weren't specifically interested in galactic influence.

For example:
- Palladium stocks take ~75 days to refill once emptied, and can be emptied pretty quickly.
- Palladium fetch wing missions can be extremely lucrative but empty the nearby stocks rapidly

So, if only Open was able to influence the galaxy, you could complete far more of these missions in PG because your stock levels wouldn't be affected by the trades you were doing, and so you'd just need to find one station with current stock bigger than your cargo hold and keep buying it up -- whereas in Open you'd have to keep looking around for stock.

Similarly for Painite miners - Painite demand takes about 500 days to recover once it's been fully met, and you'll get significantly decreased sale prices as that happens long before all the demand is dealt with. Stay in PG/Solo on the other hand... and you always get the best price if they don't influence the galaxy.

There are also some interesting exploits possible to affect Open this way: if a station is running low on Palladium, buy what it has in Solo, switch to Open and sell it again, and repeat until the stocks are back up again.


Powerplay, being largely disconnected from everything else, is just about practical to make Open-only. The BGS has to be universal.

 

[besieger]

OP can we meet in game... I got some merchandise for ya.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

When you have a group of players in your system killing off your security force in a PG, please let me know how many missions I will need to do to keep my system from going into lockdown.

Funny story about that... I saw a recent complaint on these forums from someone who felt they were being subjected to a murder-based attack from Solo.

It happened to be a system near me, so I was able to get the name of the commander running up the multi-million bounty with their BGSing.

...turns out, that commander is one who has themselves advocated Open-only BGS.

As to why they didn't meet up in the system at any point? Well, lots of potential explanations come up for that, not least that the window of opportunity to spot them is pretty small.

I would prefer to meet them in Open and attempt to stop them.

I'm sure they'd prefer you to waste your time doing that, as well. Even if the group attacking you never plays outside Open the chance of you preventing any significant number of NPC deaths by hunting them is minimal - especially if there's more than one of them.

The easiest way to avoid lockdowns (or to shorten them to a single day when unavoidable) is to have a queue of other states in place, especially higher-priority ones - that doesn't necessarily take many missions to set up at all. Directly fighting the lockdown with bounty hunting or anti-lockdown missions is generally inefficient too.

(If you want to avoid lockdowns when under attack anyway - some of the most experienced BGS groups prefer to be in lockdown when under attack as it reduces the ways an opponent can attack them without reducing the number of ways they can defend as much)

 

[Maachau]

I still prefer to kill them

 

[Speedcuffs]

OP can we meet in game... I got some merchandise for ya.

Stop forcing me into open!

 

[00nutzy]

From what I have seen of power play, its not a very good PvP mechanic. It doesnt seem to reward PvP as much as it uses PvP to slow down some of the actually beneficial activities of moving merits around.
Making it open only might improve it some for the PvP players but since FDev has stated that open is the most populated mode the increase would seem to be minimal.
It needs some form of reward for actual PvP in my opinion. These rewards would require actual PvP, but the rest would remain unchanged.
Every player has the right to affect the galaxy, it is even in the sales pitch to take that away is a problem for many people.

The BGS must remain for all modes since it is what simulates the universe the players (all of them) inhabit.

 

[Tromador]

And gankers are no problem to people who know how to high wake.

That entirely depends on how big a shield my unarmed trade ship is running, how many gankers there are, and did they bring a big ship or two to suppress my high wake.

In my experience (of playing mostly in open), submit, burn and high wake is no guarantee of anything.

 

[Para Handy]

Open should be the only mode that influences the galaxy. ............

You have no idea really.