I can't directly speak for anyone but myself, but I'm inclined to think that an awful lot of us aren't avoiding Open because of any gameplay aspects, but simply because they don't want to play in the same space as people they perceive to be unpleasant or unlikeable in some way.
I'm personally not keen on the Code's murderous-S&M-traffic-warden mentality. I'm not keen on the self-proclaimed murderhobos who randomly shoot other players for no detectable reason at all. I'm very definitely not keen on Sugarplum Boy's way of talking to people.
So I generally stay in Mobius, where I don't have to think about any of you. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's how I feel. I hope my honesty here does not cause you to feel too upset.
Believe me when I tell you that
I really feel you. But I feel the other side too.
That's why I say that solo and private modes should NOT dissapear. Even I think that proggress should be kept in all the modes equaly (that is reputation, money, ships bought, systems explored...) so players can fly in open mode when they were really prepared for it.
But playing a multiplayer war (yeah: war) from solo mode is out of logic (and is not funny for thousand of players too)
I think that people like you can't see other faces of the cube. For example, some moths ago I was in one of the 10 first factions that moved to the second bubble. You have NO IDEA about all the work behind that, all the diplomacy, dialogue.... all the ideas that we could play but were not availables because of the hidden players.
For example, all factionsl had a group of players focused on security in every system (there was the Colonia Militia, where I was for a time too).
Now I ask you: what for?
We soon understood the answer: for nothing. So... what can I do in Colonia? Nothing again: it is a f**ing desert. All the game around CEI is played in a discord server.
I can tell you that out there, the 90% of players factions want to "defend the galaxy". There are other factions of players with awesome ideas that have died because of the hidden players.
For example: a group of spectacles with ships, a faction of medics who wanted to block systems in outbreak by talking all the people who go into it while they were working on erradicate the disease. Hell... even a Circus!!!!
There are hundred and hundred of factions that fight against criminals for every griefer in game and with funny and great ideas for all the players fun.
What do you do? you focus only in 4 griefers (and most of them are not real griefers) and hide in private groups.
I was flying only in open mode the last year. I was even in Mobius before for a while and in Mobius I was killed 9 times in a month while in open I was killed none in a whole year (and sometimes they tried too)
You are running away from the people who can really help you and you are denying them the oportunity to do it too by creating a logical and more real (and funny) enviroment for all of us (even you).
I know the song "People always kill me", but what really happens is that they are killed once or twice and then they move to solo mode FOREVER.
In open mode, there are more kind people than annoying people. Even pirats offer me a nice situation from time to time.(thank you to all players that make me laugh so often by the way
)
But,
do you prefer to play solo in the galaxy? Ok, up to you. But, please, do it without affecting other players with your actions in the same way you hide in solo mode to not be affected by theirs.
Now let's see some personal experiences about BGS and PP.
When I was in a faction hardly focused on BGS, all players who came to our systems in open (only a few) found a player who play their role, ask them about what were they doing in the system and asked them for delivering the commodities where we needed it.
100% of them did it.
Later we had a group of players who always came to our systems for minning. One day we even offered them scort for going to a dangerous RES. We were killing pirats where they were minning.
From my experience, only those groups of players with malicious intentions against us came to our systems from private groups by bombing stations with UA's, undermining our influence, creating civil unrest by killing civile npc's... etc.
All and everyone of them.
I even once saw a group of players who came to Mobius looking for help to attack a faction of enemy players saying they were a bunch of griefers (I later found out that it was a lie)
I can tell you hundreds of really great stories before all this "open is full of griefers" fever started though, all of it in open mode. While all the frustrating and annoying situations allways came from hidden players.
About PP... what is PP really now? Trading papers.
Is it a mechanic issue? No, it isn't. It is that players hide in solo mode again when they go in enemy systems.
So, right now, PP is only "played" to farm modules by trading tons and tons of... papers while thousand of players who are genuily interested on playing this mechanic are doomed to be the "kings of paper traders", "fighting" against millions of ghosts who only want the primactic shields.
I could continue but I think this post is long enough.
Please stop condemn the open mode, stop condemn all combat player (most of them wanna help others),
stop thinking that BGS players are always PvE players in the same way that all combat players are PvP players. And stop thinking that all those who don't fit weapons in their ships are better people than those who wanna play all the aspects of this game because, from my experience mainly in Mobius, they are usually much more manipulative and selfish people than those who just enter in a system in open mode and shoot a player.
Think about it.
PS: underlined parts are a good summary of what I intend to express in this post.
