Should there be an 'Open' Player Vs Environment Option on the Login Screen

[DHMeyer]

Seems like killing is used as an argument here over and over again but now I ask. What is so tragic about paying 5m insurance for once? Or even twice. That's maybe like 1 hour of ingame playtime to get back where you were.

I feel people just want to protect their progress and this is in my eyes not a valid reason for open PvE. If players would contnously camp stations, ram-kill inside them or bully the same player repetetively or threat them in some way outside of the game - okay - but this isn't the case and therefor I still don't see the need for open PvE despite the fact that we are only playing a game by its rules.
It's the same with monopoly. Open PvE looks like monopoly without stealing someone else's houses.

Insurance is not much of an issue nor a reason. 5mil you can get back in about 10-15 minutes, providing you have a trading ship big enough (Type 9 would do) and you don't get blown up again during those 15 minutes. I can understand that people might have limited gaming time and would like to see some progress during that time and may get annoyed with having to build things up again for reasons not having anything to do with the storyline or roleplaying.

The reason why people would like to see Open PVE is that many people are simply not interested in PVP. Or not interested in PVP most of the time. Sure, presence of griefers is a deterrent from going into open, but frequently it may be simply because dealing with griefers is wasting your time, which can be spent on playing with people you actually like.

 

[DHMeyer]

5 million for me is at least 5 hours of play, perhaps more. Not 1 or 2 hours.

Depends on what you do, this can be recovered much quicker with trading. But then again, your gameplay is yours to enjoy, so you shouldn't have to switch to doing something you don't like to recover these 5 millions faster. If my main activity was exploration (which it may be at some point), recovering those 5 millions would be way more time consuming. Not mentioning having to do all the exploration again.
My biggest exploration data package to date was something short of 100k and that system took about an hour to scan. So judging by that, I'd need 50 hours of exploration to recover insurance of 5 mil.

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It's funny, and quite ironic, but this entire thread is basically one big argument on the "right way" to play ED.

Not really, it's not about forcing anyone who's not interested to play in Open PVE. It's very much about giving players more choice when it comes to "playing their way".

 

[dxm55]

5 million for me is at least 5 hours of play, perhaps more. Not 1 or 2 hours.

You can get 2 mil in a Hi RES in just 30 mins. NPC FDLs and Condas pay about 200K a piece. What have you been doing?

 

[dxm55]

Nope. There is no 'right way' to play Elite, and anyone who thinks there is clearly doesn't understand the game.

In that case, Griefers and gankers aren't playing the game wrong either. They're just playing it their way.

 

[Cmdr Bazil Yat]

You can get 2 mil in a Hi RES in just 30 mins. NPC FDLs and Condas pay about 200K a piece. What have you been doing?

Having fun.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Insurance is not much of an issue nor a reason. 5mil you can get back in about 10-15 minutes, providing you have a trading ship big enough (Type 9 would do) and you don't get blown up again during those 15 minutes.

You can get 2 mil in a Hi RES in just 30 mins. NPC FDLs and Condas pay about 200K a piece. What have you been doing?

Nghhh.... just because its possible to grind big money back doesn't mean I (or others) want to. For me, its not even about limited playtime. My wife already gives me enough dagger eyes for the amount of time i spend playing this game. Its just I do what I want to do when i want to do it, and the focus of that is not credits but enjoying myself.

For a start, i don't trade. Last time I traded, it was in Open for a CG. Shielded Type-9. Was pulled out of SC and destroyed within seconds. Not even time to charge the old FSD. Funny thing was, i'd already been pirated by Code earlier in the day and it was a good experience. We had a chit chat, they made their demands, i dropped some goods and was on my way. Not this guy. No comms, just started blasting at me with rails as soon as we dropped out (yes, I submitted - can't fight interdictions anyway in a Type 9). Shields were gone in 2 seconds, my hull was gone in another 5. Not even time for a high wake out.

Guess what, I relogged in Mobius and I think that was the very last time i played in Open. Its experiences like that that simply for me make playing in Open not worth it.

Rebuy plus loss of cargo was over 5 million... well, great.

With over 800 hours of play my total assets are currently around 200 million. And yet i see people get that within a week of play. Sorry, not my playstyle.

So, what do I do for money? Well, let's see.

Exploration: 500k-1 million / hour. Depending on what i'm doing. Hard to get above a million per hour, and that's with first discovery bonuses, unless get very lucky or go farming neutron stars (which i never did, i got Elite in Exploration without doing that).
Mining: Highly variable, like to use a Python, can get between 500k - 1.5 million / hour depending on luck and availability of mining missions when return. But i don't mode switch to generate new missions. If there are some, ill take them, otherwise i just sell.
RES BH: Vulture or FdL - Not done much in Haz RES, i might be able to get around 2 million / hour in Haz RES. 1 million/hour in High RES is do-able, no guarantee though, a bit of bad luck, lack of attention, and I might have to take an early trip back to the station.
CZ: 500k - 1 million - Vulture or FdL. Rarely get above 1 million/hour unless the CZ is spawning lots of big ships.
NPC Piracy: 500k/hour - FdL. Its slow, you have to find targets, getting cargo is a slow business.
Missions: 100k - Asp. 1 million - highly variable. Sometimes I just take my time doing missions and take low paying ones that give good reputation.
Bimbling about: 0k/hour. Sometimes I just wander from place to place, or go for a drive in my SRV. Profits are low to non-existant. Maybe i'll pick up some Tea from a few planetary installations.

PvPers seem to assume that as soon as someone dies they should immediately go grind trading or HazRES BH to recover their losses, and that people want to focus to get their millions as fast as possible. To those people, i say poo to you. I want to enjoy the game, not to have a second job.

 

[Lheim]

PvPers seem to assume that as soon as someone dies they should immediately go grind trading or HazRES BH to recover their losses, and that people want to focus to get their millions as fast as possible. To those people, i say poo to you. I want to enjoy the game, not to have a second job.

Well said. The whole thing, well said.

If I wanted to make this game about credits, I would go out and PvP. If I want to toodle about having fun, pvp just isn't worth it quite apart of it not being fun for me personally. The death penalty in this game is absurd if you're flying big ships. Oh, sure, for some types of players grinding ain't no big thing at all and they'd hardly blink at it - for others, it's a literal deal breaker.

But that's why we have gank wings - even pvpers don't want to risk too many rebuy screens. The whole system is kinda unpleasant all around - forces even people who want to engage in pvp to dread too much of it, while encouraging the most meaningless and unsatisfactory kind of pvp. There's no such thing as an incentive to engage in a fair fight.. aside of CQC which forces the matter, but is also free.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Why isn't Elite about 'meeting other players'? Who says so? And why is their opinion any more valid than anyone else's?

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.

It isn't 'only' about meeting other players. I mean it isn't Elite: Dating simulator. There are other things, many other things you can do without other players.

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But no-one is suggesting that any player be forced into an Open PvE mode, so there's no reason it would affect anyone's game in Open. Except if a requirement of that game is to have unwilling targets to attack...
.

That's not my point. My point is that colour-blind and not colour-blind don't have to be split up. Simply put the colour-blind in your game and keep playing. No need to create a whole new group of colour-blind players to keep it 'fair'. Life isn't fair and so isn't Elite. There will always be a case where a 100m cr ship shoots with its 13m cr Plasma gun on a 1m cr T6. So just get along.

If open PvE was only for disabled people then call it like that so it reflects the purpose of the mode. And only allow players to enter who have a disability and not the ones who want to keep their progress and don't want to die. I am all for supporting players with disabilities but I am all against supporting players who simply don't want to lose and seem to be too lazy to put a little more effort for a couple of insurance bills in the game.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It isn't 'only' about meeting other players. I mean it isn't Elite: Dating simulator.

I believe that will come after we get avatar creation. Will sure be a number of players making blue haired waifu.

 

[dxm55]

PvPers seem to assume that as soon as someone dies they should immediately go grind trading or HazRES BH to recover their losses, and that people want to focus to get their millions as fast as possible. To those people, i say poo to you. I want to enjoy the game, not to have a second job.

Then it's just differences in playstyle. I like to blow things up, and earn creds at the same time.

NPCs, players, no difference to me. OK maybe one. NPCs don't get mad at me when they explode. They just.... explode..... Sometimes with lame or funny last words....

 

[Rampant]

It's funny, and quite ironic, but this entire thread is basically one big argument on the "right way" to play ED.

Wrong again. This thread is all about enabling *multiple* ways to play. It is categorically not about the way *everyone* must play. Not about removing any mode we have now, or altering the current modes. In this discussion, the established modes remain as they are. If you are already happy, then stay happy with the modes that will not change.

Rather, this discussion is actually designed to discuss an *additional* mode for players to engage in a mode more suited to their play style. A supplementary and official choice from the log in screen. Instead of either enduring a mode that doesn't suit their desires, or exploiting a work-around in the current groups system. Mobius is just one such work-around. Sadly, the private group system has now proven to be inadequate to cater fully to the needs of a huge, and growing, population of players.

Is it so difficult to understand that no one from this large and growing population wants to foist their play style onto other players? Or are a great number of other players from the No camp being deliberately obtuse? After all it is those other players who want to foist *their* play style onto others. The absolute definition of hypocrisy.

Cheerz

Mark H

 

[Rampant]

... Elite: Dangerous isn't about meeting other players, you can do that in any given multiplayer game.

Wrong.

It may not be this kind of game for you. I respect that. It's cool.

However, 20,000 players in Mobius and countless other players across lots of other groups disagree with you.

As you already know "there is no right way to play" (attributable to DBOBE).

For me, the *only* reason for me not to play solo is to fly with friends and meet other living players. PvP combat is not how I want to play E: D. And I don't play solo. Ergo I play normally in Mobius, sometimes in Open, to PvE alongside and "with" others.

Go on and tell me again that I'm playing it wrong...

Cheerz

Mark H

 

[excalibus]

The problem is, is that möbius already allows some PVP. So you are shunning some of your own group into open or another group to continue. but that's okay because PVP is bad so what are a few casualties along the way.

Ahab has gotta hunt that whale.

The short term fix is for frontier to entertain the idea of, then enable a PVE flag for groups. matchmaking would recognise this flag as it shuffles commanders into instances and whilst bullets might go flying, they won't apply damage if the sender of damage and receiver are both commanders.

Immersion is busted to all hell, but it solves the initial concern in the short term. More importantly it isn't some bizzare "weapons malfunction" mechanic that would otherwise make (sorry I'll be polite: edited) fighting all those NPCs virtually impossible.

What you are asking for, is almost otherwise a very big overhaul of the matchmaking system to handle open, with the same friendly fire disabled flag in effect.

I can't imagine that's a five minute job. It also needs some sane thought around how you even do that without magic hull that ignores player bullets. Otherwise it becomes comedic TF2 in space.

To state it's okay to die to an NPC, but not a commander, is a bit weird. NPC's actually harass in super cruise, they actual hurl (corney) abuse and will chase you. They will prey on unsuspecting people. All of this is no different to the occasional commander.

It's important to remember that AI might be a bit now, but that distinction between player and AI will blur over time? A human will always have the edge to some degree, but it is possible to make combat with a computer controlled asset exceedingly difficult.

We've had it good. I doubt it will last. You may find some commanders are actually less risky that some AI down the track. I do wonder if the position on PVE will change if there is far far more risk of the environment kicking back.

I also wonder - if you did not know who was a commander, or AI, and they did not know either, whether the same arguments would be raised. I am unsure if it would be quite so black and white.

Because the truth of it is, crime and punishment has never been truely black or white. Yes, I am sure there have been TOS breaches in the past and they are almost certain to occur in future. However just because a commander opens fire on another commander, doesn't mean this is automatically "wrong".

Rules may exist in a group and that's perfectly fine. Frontier well understand at this point they really need to get better management of groups sorted. Because if the group created the rule(s) they should be adiquately enabled to police those rules.

But I do believe there is a lot of broad brush strokes being made, to support arguments. And this is over simplifying the situation to such a degree, that's it's pretty much just now an argument on the Internet, rather than reasoned debate.

Edit. One final note? It's been interesting to see how AI is effectively considered such as cattle or sheep, in elite. When did the wholesale slaughter of NPCs suddenly become so generic and normal, and yet a commander being shot is an incredible crime. That's actually a double standard.

When does an AI life become important, and when is it that it's time to die has come, at player hands. I find this sort of question quite interesting, really. And yet I imagine a lot of PVE enthusiasts don't even consider it. Take a commander life; into the gulag with you. An AI life? Who cares.

Strange, don't you think?

did you read the actual proposal put forward for a way to implement it (by robert maynard in this thread) or are you just 'wingin it?' Implementation of a PVE only mode would be entirely up to frontier how they wish to do that, obviously there is a need for such a mode, weather it is no damage, pve flag, or perhaps (just perhaps) the system that robert suggested or something else entirely... that is up to frontier to decide...

so tell ya what, do everyone a favour and read back through the thread... roberts idea and various aspects of it have been discussed over many many pages... and as already (and numerously) stated, however it would be implemented would be up to frontier and what ties in with their overal vision of the game and what is possible with the code base...

To add to that, no one (well I do not think anyone at least) expects this to be a 5 minute fix, I have already said that I would not personally expect to see a PVE Multiplayer mode on the login screen before 2.4 but I would be happy to be proven wrong

as for the whole AI vs player aspect of your post, there please read my other posts as to just some of the reasons why some people cannot PVP, and if you like, look in the thread roybe started with regards to a boycott for a week in march, specifically look for a rather long post from a forum user called 'mouse', he explains his situation quite in depth and I can say I have spoken with more than one commander who has similar 'issues' with PVP...

then, after you have read the various proposals in this thread discussing implementation, feel free to add thought out and intelligent input to this thread...

Otherwise it comes across as another PVP player bleating the same drum...

Another point I would like to mention for your information, One of the many things that is repeatedly mentioned in this threas is there is 'no right or wrong way to play ed' The game is sold on the premise of play the way you want to play, blaze your own trail etc, and there seems to be a not insignificant number of players who would prefer to play in a PVE multiplayer environment, weather that is with zero PVP or some limited consentual PVP is up to frontier to decide on their implementation.

Also just as yet another point, none of us are asking for the current open mode to be changed, well apart from the possible crime and punishment fixes FD are looking at, but that is being discussed in the PVP is unfair thread...

And no I do not mean to come across as condecending or insulting so I apologise before hand if my 'terse' response to you is taken that way...

Cheers

 

[excalibus]

Yes - there should be separated PvE mode without possibility to shoot to other Player and without a possibility to interfere in Open PvP BGS, and vice versa.

Clear rules.

the bgs is not going to change honestly... its been designed from the ground up as one universe across all modes and plaforms of play... people have to accept that aspect of the design... eventually...

 

[kofeyh]

did you read the actual proposal put forward for a way to implement it (by robert maynard in this thread) or are you just 'wingin it?'

To be fair, 63 pages of people repeating themselves endlessly, doesn't really help me locate maynard's post.

 

[excalibus]

Everyone has issues and problems. I don't expect these people to be a majority but ofcourse it is sad that they get 'harmed' by the game. However, what does it have to do with PvP? For example if one can't handle the strss of one player, they probably can't handle the stress of an Anaconda wing engaging on them as well.

IMO there should be tools to avoid PvP for example a warning that appears when you enter a hotspot for killing CMDRs or other defensive tools but not a mode that completely blocks PvP. Elite: Dangerous isn't about meeting other players, you can do that in any given multiplayer game. If my son or daughter would have issues and they want to play Elite: Dangerous, I'd tell them to open a private group with their friends and meet for co-op missions. Or if one would be colour-blind ... there are ways to provide other colour themes so colour-blind people can play the game but that doesn't mean that the ones who can see normal should get affected by that -> that ALL players will see now the colour-blind theme even though only a small group of people benefit from that.

So Open PvE? No. Other stuff that can contribute to avoid PvP? Yes. Example: CMDR warnings, map hotspot highlighters, etc.

the current open mode would not be changed with a seperate pve mode...

Also just to point out, this was something that was part of the kickstarter, Open modes of play with different rulesets...

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To be fair, 63 pages of people repeating themselves endlessly, doesn't really help me locate maynard's post.

there is wisdom in the 'excercise' of finding it I think somewhere around the middle

or search on the user robert maynard, and the phrases 'pilots licence', 'instanced back to open'

 

[Agony_Aunt]

To be fair, 63 pages of people repeating themselves endlessly, doesn't really help me locate maynard's post.

He's made 94 posts in this thread already... good luck finding it

 

[excalibus]

This is not true. There are a number of reasons not to provide them.

• It involves development effort and takes resources away from other features
• It confuses new players who won't know which of the two 'opens' to choose
• It creates any number of corner cases that would be exploitable and cause ongoing problems
• It opens the door to every other request for alterations to the ruleset, creating bad feeling if they are not in turn implemented

And that's just off the top of my head.

There are valid reasons for asking for an open PvE mode (although I don't agree with the idea) but it is certainly not the case that "there is no reason not to provide them".

umm i am gonna tell you that these arguements are B/S...

Firstly we are in year two of the 10 year development lifecycle if I am not mistaken, so early days... an ideal time to implement a PVE mode choice...
Secondly right now new players don't have a choice so don't tell me this will confuse them, There is the current mode of Open, a multiplayer environment where anything goes, there is a private groups, a feature that unless you know the name or part of the name of a group and what their rules are good luck as a new owner of ED finding a group to join... and solo.. that is self explantatory, play by my self...

What we are asking for is a 4th option on the display screen being a Multiplayer PVE mode choice to be added... something which I suspect a decent number of individual players would embrace, as well as giving options to exisiting and new players that is a clear and accessible.
Please do describe these 'any number of edge cases' for me, is it 1 edge case? is it 2? or 3? ... a lot of this has been discussed in this thread and hopefully would be further discussed with FD prior to any implementation, what sort of ongoing problems do you envisage?
Actually multiple open modes with different rulesets was part of the kickstarter... so it is something that should already in the system by design...

 

[kofeyh]

He's made 94 posts in this thread already... good luck finding it

Oh, if it was the riffing on how to kick players who misbehave back into open; or rather enacting eviction based on a set of rules, with respect to PVE, then yes. I've seen a few.

They do take the notion that matchmaking and instances can actually operate in a way where they can seamlessly punt people out of a PVE type scenario based on identifying if the shooting in question was, or wasn't acceptable. Given it (matchmaking) struggles to seamlessly add people into a wing as it is, let alone the same instance, it might need quite a bit more work yet, before that's something 'smart' enough to not just randomly turf people out.

Automation is a sexy thing when it works. It's just the getting to the "it works" stage is often ridiculously more complicated than it should be.

 

[jgm]

umm i am gonna tell you that these arguements are B/S...

Charming.

Firstly we are in year two of the 10 year development lifecycle if I am not mistaken, so early days... an ideal time to implement a PVE mode choice...

Fine, put it in year 8. Right now there are so many other fundamental items that should be addressed, rather than multiple rulesets which will have a massive impact to ongoing development.

Secondly right now new players don't have a choice so don't tell me this will confuse them, There is the current mode of Open, a multiplayer environment where anything goes, there is a private groups, a feature that unless you know the name or part of the name of a group and what their rules are good luck as a new owner of ED finding a group to join... and solo.. that is self explantatory, play by my self...

What we are asking for is a 4th option on the display screen being a Multiplayer PVE mode choice to be added... something which I suspect a decent number of individual players would embrace, as well as giving options to exisiting and new players that is a clear and accessible.

And that makes Open the equivalent of a "PvP" area, either explicitly on the load screen or implicitly by not being "PvE". Most new players will back away from the "PvP" option and end up in PvE world without knowing the details.

Please do describe these 'any number of edge cases' for me, is it 1 edge case? is it 2? or 3? ... a lot of this has been discussed in this thread and hopefully would be further discussed with FD prior to any implementation, what sort of ongoing problems do you envisage?

Players can be very creative around finding ways to circumvent rules, and the more complex the rules the easier it is to find loopholes.

How about a player hogging a large pad when another player wants to dock because they have a time-sensitive mission? That's causing them harm.
How about a player kill-stealing from another player?
How about a player blocking access to a station through low-speed collisions, or a group of them blocking a player from leaving a station exit the same way until their timer runs out and the station kills them?
How about a player pushing you in to the side of the docking system?
How about a player sitting behind another player and boosting in to them, increasing their speed past the limit and causing the station to kill them?
How about a player who cargo scans you when you're carrying illegal goods?
How about a player who shoots your limpets, or steals your mining fragments?
How about a player who pushes your SRV over a cliff?

This is just a few that spring to mind as I'm typing. The points is that FD have already spent years working through these situations, often slowly, to come to some kind of resolution. PvE will require a re-evaluation of all of these, along with code changes to implement them, and it would be complex and messy.

Actually multiple open modes with different rulesets was part of the kickstarter... so it is something that should already in the system by design...

Kickstarter was a long time ago; time to give up quoting it. Otherwise I want my god-like powers.