General Remove private Lobby and single Player

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

They do scale, albeit only with your combat rank. Are you suggesting sending Elite pilots after some poor smuck lumbering along in a T9 with a cargo hold full of gold or whatever? Pretty sure that Elite would tear down his shields and blow him to space dust well before he could jump out.

One T9? No. Completing a full spectrum of activities maxed out over days to drive a <7% faction into a control war? Yes.

Powerplay is what I'm thinking of first though. Rank 5 (10000 tons of PP cargo moved, or 330 NPCs destroyed) should certainly attract some special interest, 100000 merits should attract more. To approach a player's abilities to oppose though, NPC interdiction in those cases shouldn't be opt-in the way it is now, and to me, the worst NPC wings should have FSD disrupts to keep you pinned.

 

[Kwoung]

Naysayers have a good point or 2.
1) not much point in pvp it has no profit or rep or rank. No narrative. Apart from open only bgs/pp which doesn't exist.
So why bother?
2) asking everyone to become targets regardless of % increase or missions tailored etc.
Can't sell that.

Something huge needs to happen to make pvp RELEVANT.

Point 1 did it for me in ESO. I am not a fan of their dungeons, but PVP offered an alternative method of getting the "monster helmets & shoulder pieces", generally reserved for defeating dungeon end bosses on Veteran mode. They are powerful sets and I now have almost all of them collected, without having to have completed any of those dungeons on Vet mode. PVP also happens to be the only place the highest level of jewelry and numerous unique items can be obtained there, other than grinding for materials and upgrading lessor pieces manually.

 

[Sylow]

Thanks for answering! Maybe that was the mistake FDev made while back introducing the cap for NPC skill level, while not doing it for PvP.

Hmm. I still don't get it, why people keep repeating this nonsense. You can't be blamed, you were not around at that time, but the whole "NPC skill level was nerfed" is wrong. What actually happened at that time were several things at the same patch. The relevant ones were:

1. A number of problems with the AI were fixed. (Like the removal of the "spin of death" bug, where an NPC at some time decided to fly in a straight line for like 30 seconds and roll along the length axis. Which means it usually was shot down before recovering. )
2. The AI gained the ability to reverse to the same speed as player ships in reverse.
3. The AI gained the ability to also reverse when the player pulled a reversky on them, to avoid the most cheesy tactic of just reversing and then killing the AI which was following in a straight line.
4. The AI tried to retreat out of range when its shield were depleted.
5. NPC ships for the first time got access to engineered weapons and shields.
6.There was a critical bug, where a ship could end up with a set of multicannons or frag cannons, where every projectile fired was actually a railgun shot. With railgun shot speed, damage and accuracy. (So yes, a frag cannon would deliver 5 railgun shots with pinpoint accuracy to the target. Now consider the NPC having several of them and picture what it did to the target. )

It was actually effect 6, which lead to many people suddenly exploding. It was not the "sophisticated AI" which lead to people dying. Because only two things were fixed in the next patch. It was point 4 and point 6.

For point 4, it was removed again for two reasons. The first was that people in slower ships started writing forum postings while in combat. They fought the NPC. When the NPCs shield dropped, they still were able to do some damage to the hull, but then the NPC was out of range and lingered at 7km distance. Till its shields recovered, then it went to attack again. Even if its hull was down to a single digit percentage, it never fled or anything. It merely waited for shields to recover and then attacked again. This did not result in any challenging combat or danger. It merely was boring. (And also made sure that the players ship had plenty of time to recover its shields, in case it took some damage. ) At the same time, anybody in a fast enough ship merely had to bring a targets shield down. Then the target tried to flee away in a straight line. So if you had a ship of sufficient speed, you merely followed it and shot it down, as a target flying in a straight line is not really that much of a challenge.

In effect, removing the combat behaviour of point 4 thus actually made the AI more aggressive and thus a bit more dangerous again, while removing the "now wait for the enemy to return" gaming experience for people in slower ships.

Anything else of the AI upgrades of that time are still in place today. But what also was removed was point 6: they fixed the bug where NPCs might have ballistic weapons with wrong projectiles. So no more NPCs with 4 frag cannons, dealing 20 railgun shots in one volley and 60 of them within merely a bit over a second.

Interestingly enough, the patch notes both noted that one AI thing was nerfed, as well as a bug with NPCs weapons was fixed. But "perceptive" as some players are, they never managed to comprehend what the bug was and thus still, after all these years, somehow believe that it was "superior AI" which killed the players, instead of a bug.

 

[Chrystoph]

Build advice != gitgud. One requires a basic effort, the other a more committed effort (depending what we're talking about being "gud" enough to do).

(Really it's about being willing or not to adapt, pretty much bread and butter in gaming).

Your statement is only accurate if I accept that you are the only half of the dialog that gets to determine why I should be playing; to wit, that I am content for you. My preferred adaptation is to not put myself where you are able to reach me.

That you consider that a mockable offense just means that I am successful in my survival method.

 

[Kwoung]

One T9? No. Completing a full spectrum of activities maxed out over days to drive a <7% faction into a control war? Yes.

Powerplay is what I'm thinking of first though. Rank 5 (10000 tons of PP cargo moved, or 330 NPCs destroyed) should certainly attract some special interest, 100000 merits should attract more. To approach a player's abilities to oppose though, NPC interdiction in those cases shouldn't be opt-in the way it is now, and to me, the worst NPC wings should have FSD disrupts to keep you pinned.

Got it, makes sense. I could easily move over 10k in a week, but for that level of influence, I should be targeted. I would be down with that and need to either bring protection or a really strong ship/skills to the game. That said, would the folks wanting everyone in open or wanting to be able to reciprocate against the solo / private group players be cool if that was the case and those players still managed to move the bars in undesired ways?

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Your statement is only accurate if I accept that you are the only half of the dialog that gets to determine why I should be playing; to wit, that I am content for you. My preferred adaptation is to not put myself where you are able to reach me.

That you consider that a mockable offense just means that I am successful in my survival method.

Sorry if I offended. I think that a game like Elite should offer some form of challenge within its fabric (not just opt-in POIs, hornets' nests for me to hit with a stick for fun), particularly where it involves altering the shared game world. That currently that sort of challenge is only available in open, from players, seems a shame. Basically you have a <rotatable control device which was censored> which you can set to just above zero (closed modes) or 10 (players). Also, in BGS, players aren't "reliable" to do this because it's too distributed. Players also tend not to go any easier on early game players than endgamers. NPCs can be controlled in that respect.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Got it, makes sense. I could easily move over 10k in a week, but for that level of influence, I should be targeted. I would be down with that and need to either bring protection or a really strong ship/skills to the game. That said, would the folks wanting everyone in open or wanting to be able to reciprocate against the solo / private group players be cool if that was the case and those players still managed to move the bars in undesired ways?

Okay wanting everyone to be in open for a particular feature is about two things - balance across modes (no "easy mode" switch), and open play being more fun with more people, and them not suddenly disappearing because you got the upper hand, for instance. Going toe to toe and showing up as teams.

Levelling-up resistance in the different modes addresses the balance question. It also makes going to closed modes more of a personal taste decision than a tactical switch to easy mode. People who ideally want to be in open aren't tempted to switch out for advantage, and people in closed modes might be tempted to open since they're already used to some challenge, and the potential step up is not so steep. So it serves the second point too.

Me? For powerplay I think everyone should be in open, and I'd be okay with a game that effectively forced that. But what FDev have the stomach for, and what amount of dev time they constrain it to (and those things can pull in opposite directions) is what matters. For other features, and to fill in gaps in player occupancy of systems and due to the p2p multiplayer architecture, I think NPCs should feature if possible.

 

[SteveTR]

Explorers may, or may not, be more likely to utilize menu logging when coming back to "civilization" with unredeemed data.

That is less the case than it used to be with facilities in the middle of nowhere and the DSSA and other folks parking Carriers on support missions.

I hadn't thought of that either. Thanks for suggesting it!

 

[Alaska Sædelære]

A lack of willingness to be a few moments "content" for a player who wishes to engage in PvP is often conflated with "fear" - which is somewhat amusing given that we all play a video game with an immortal space pixie as an avatar and an unlimited supply of free ships in the comfort and safety of our preferred gaming environment.

I have no doubt that, for some players, PvP is a great deal of fun - for some other players it's a tediously predictable (in terms of outcome) waste of limited game time.

There is no "death" - just lost time, i.e. time it took to accrue what was lost. If being attacked by players isn't "fun", for the targets, why should any player be expected (or forced) to play among those who may wish to attack them?

You're talking to deaf ears. They don't get it. Or rather, they don't want to get it, because we're depriving them of their own little powerplay. They call you coward for not accepting their choice and dancing to their tune at any given moment. They tell you to just go elsewhere as the playground is so vast, but they want to occupy any place that's interesting and relevant to storylines. All the while they could gather some friends, pick a system out of the way and knock themselves out all day long. They won't do that as their game is not what they claim it is. As said above, I know the very same arguments from another game. As often as you try to explain it to them on the forums, you get the same nonsense in return over and over again. Trigger and response, like a true NPC. There the developer eventually stepped in (they knew they created this psychological trap since they had designed it) by vastly expanding the safety zones around stations, where the attackers would camp the known exit points. The crying was short and bittersweet, some adopted different roles, some remained a pirate out in deep space as it was originally intended, but the most notorious names were never to be seen again because they depended on easy prey. Good riddance. The community as a whole is better off now. As long as we have solo/private mode here, this will probably not be necessary. Should this ever change, the loss to the developer will be much greater than in the example above.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Adapatability applies in all modes if NPCs are challenging. The issue then is whether or not the strength of NPCs should reflect the skill of players.

Indeed - and Frontier don't seem inclined to set the challenge of NPCs to the same level as that of a skilled player, noting that half of players are at or below median skill.

Given that endgame players are likely to do much more per player to advance powerplay or BGS campaigns than early game players, it seems sensible that NPC difficulty should scale more proportionately to the capability of players acting at different levels.

In a game with no defined endgame, how would "endgame players" be defined - and how would such a classification be unable to be circumvented trivially?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Okay wanting everyone to be in open for a particular feature is about two things - balance across modes (no "easy mode" switch), and open play being more fun with more people, and them not suddenly disappearing because you got the upper hand, for instance. Going toe to toe and showing up as teams.

Given that we all bought a game where other players are optional, it is not for those who like to play among other players to dictate to those who don't how they should play the game. NPCs are more fun to play among than some players....

Me? For powerplay I think everyone should be in open, and I'd be okay with a game that effectively forced that. But what FDev have the stomach for, and what amount of dev time they constrain it to (and those things can pull in opposite directions) is what matters. For other features, and to fill in gaps in player occupancy of systems and due to the p2p multiplayer architecture, I think NPCs should feature if possible.

Some players would no doubt be okay with content being removed from those players who they don't consider should be able to affect it - yet all players bought the same game, with the same options - selective acceptance of game features is definitely a thing, e.g. yes to the ability to shoot at anything one instances with; no to all players affecting mode shared game features; etc..

 

[Agony_Aunt]

TL;DW - its the casuals that bring in the money, not the hardcore PvPers. The loud demographic are tiny in comparison and therefore only a few games can cater to them and survive.

MMOs are relatively niche.
PvP focused MMOs are even nicher.

Catering to the casuals is what brings in the money.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Given that we all bought a game where other players are optional, it is not for those who like to play among other players to dictate to those who don't how they should play the game. NPCs are more fun to play among than some players....

Some players would no doubt be okay with content being removed from those players who they don't consider should be able to affect it - yet all players bought the same game, with the same options - selective acceptance of game features is definitely a thing, e.g. yes to the ability to shoot at anything one instances with; no to all players affecting mode shared game features; etc..

Sadly in Powerplays case, only the players can actually stop other players. The NPCs as they are don't provide any resistance making solo (and PG) Tesco and Ocado mode.

If FD want to sidestep the mode issue in Powerplay they need to radically change its PvE. If not, then direct contact with other players is the only remaining option- either by making part or all of Powerplay open or by weighting (to persuade more into that mode).

 

[Robert Maynard]

Sadly in Powerplays case, only the players can actually stop other players. The NPCs as they are don't provide any resistance making solo (and PG) Tesco and Ocado mode.

I have previously expressed my support for increases in challenge posed by Powerplay NPCs appropriate to the rank / activity of the player engaged in it.

If FD want to sidestep the mode issue in Powerplay they need to radically change its PvE. If not, then direct contact with other players is the only remaining option- either by making part or all of Powerplay open or by weighting (to persuade more into that mode).

Making anything Open only will be vulnerable to the limitations of P2P networking, default router settings, the block feature, menu exit, etc. - either PvP-gating a feature to Open or coercing players to play in Open with a bribe, i.e. a bonus, for playing there will likely result in increased complaints from those who still won't be able to shoot at those who oppose them.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I have previously expressed my support for increases in challenge posed by Powerplay NPCs appropriate to the rank / activity of the player engaged in it.

Indeed, but for an NPC to really harass a player FD need to up the difficulty considerably to make a difference and even things out.

Making anything Open only will be vulnerable to the limitations of P2P networking, default router settings, the block feature, menu exit, etc. - either PvP-gating a feature to Open or coercing players to play in Open with a bribe, i.e. a bonus, for playing there will likely result in increased complaints from those who still won't be able to shoot at those who oppose them.

And many of those challenges can be solved via design.

Blocking rules can be changed- in Powerplay ship destruction and seeking to kill are not wrong, so can't be considered 'griefing'. Language filters and blocking comms certainly, but everything else is unnecessary. Those who wing with Powerplay pledges inherit these rules as well. Menu exiting again can be solved by keeping the ship where it is when you log out, and that to log safely you park safely. Harsh, but fair- in fact the whole game could do with that frankly (and would not adversely affect most players either).

P2P is a weakness, but unless it does not work for the majority then its fine. At its very worst its the same as now, at its best is much better since you have actual opponents.

Weighting wise, solo has no opposition of note, PG has x4 the merit making capacity while open has all the threats in it. It does have wing merits, but it also comes with other wings of enemies who are capable of wiping you out and acting far more intelligently. What do they get to equal the modes? Weighting at least acknowledges that risk.

At some point FD will have to answer these questions because they won't go away, not at least in Powerplay.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Indeed, but for an NPC to really harass a player FD need to up the difficulty considerably to make a difference and even things out.

It remains to be seen whether Frontier want to re-introduce NPCs that harass players.

And many of those challenges can be solved via design.

Blocking rules can be changed- in Powerplay ship destruction and seeking to kill are not wrong, so can't be considered 'griefing'.

In which case those who want to grief will pledge and be unblockable....

Menu exiting again can be solved by keeping the ship where it is when you log out, and that to log safely you park safely. Harsh, but fair- in fact the whole game could do with that frankly (and would not adversely affect most players either).

Sandro stated, long ago (and I haven't yet found the quote), that there's no trusted arbiter in relation to keeping a player's ship in the game, i.e. player clients are not to be trusted in this regard.

More generally, why should all players be able to be ganked when offline? Explorers can't dock in systems far from the nearest dock as one example.

At some point FD will have to answer these questions because they won't go away, not at least in Powerplay.

From what Zac has indicated, we can expect some form of communication on Powerplay at some point - whether it contains any significant departures from the current design is, as yet, unknown.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

TL;DW - its the casuals that bring in the money, not the hardcore PvPers. The loud demographic are tiny in comparison and therefore only a few games can cater to them and survive.

MMOs are relatively niche.
PvP focused MMOs are even nicher.

Catering to the casuals is what brings in the money.

So cater to both? It's not casuals that turn the tide in big powerplay operations, for instance. Easy solution with that patented open-only flavour? Let the first 1000 merits be earned in any mode (module shoppers' sweat subsides), any more have to be in open to affect territory. Don't worry, I think even FDev are more creative thinking than the average forum Status Quo superfan.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

(Me, I prefer the Eagles)
(Actually, I don't, ironically)

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

You're talking to deaf ears. They don't get it. Or rather, they don't want to get it, because we're depriving them of their own little powerplay. They call you coward for not accepting their choice and dancing to their tune at any given moment. They tell you to just go elsewhere as the playground is so vast, but they want to occupy any place that's interesting and relevant to storylines. All the while they could gather some friends, pick a system out of the way and knock themselves out all day long. They won't do that as their game is not what they claim it is. As said above, I know the very same arguments from another game. As often as you try to explain it to them on the forums, you get the same nonsense in return over and over again. Trigger and response, like a true NPC. There the developer eventually stepped in (they knew they created this psychological trap since they had designed it) by vastly expanding the safety zones around stations, where the attackers would camp the known exit points. The crying was short and bittersweet, some adopted different roles, some remained a pirate out in deep space as it was originally intended, but the most notorious names were never to be seen again because they depended on easy prey. Good riddance. The community as a whole is better off now. As long as we have solo/private mode here, this will probably not be necessary. Should this ever change, the loss to the developer will be much greater than in the example above.

Every time you make a post like this, a ganker gets his wings. RIP Harry (or whichever before-my-time guy with really slack ROE).

 

[Robert Maynard]

So cater to both? It's not casuals that turn the tide in big powerplay operations, for instance. Easy solution with that patented open-only flavour? Let the first 1000 merits be earned in any mode (module shoppers' sweat subsides), any more have to be in open to affect territory. Don't worry, I think even FDev are more creative thinking than the average forum Status Quo superfan.

.... or create an Open only mode with its own copy of the galaxy for the hard-core players to play in, leaving the existing tri-modal shared galaxy for those disinterested in Open only.