Modes [Suggestion] How to incentivise open play and make it relevant

[Robert Maynard]

Or maybe what you believe is the "cause" is not really the cause

The cause of "griefers existence" is that actually there are no real content for players who love combat because this ​solo mode issue.
And all this will be solved just to not letting actions in solo and private modes affect BGS, PP and CG's in open mode.

People who love play alone will really play alone, just as they desire. All players will be happy and not only one group, my Dear...
PS: I don't fight against players ingame.

Every single player bought a game where all three game modes affect the same galaxy state - why should that be removed from those who play in Solo and Private Groups (nearly three years after release) solely to satisfy a minority play-style?

The fact that every player affects and experiences the single shared galaxy state, regardless of game mode (or platform), means that direct* PvP is entirely optional in this game - and Frontier would seem, from what one Dev has said, to be well aware that the majority of players do not get involved in PvP.

*: direct, as in "in the same instance, knowing who the opposition actually is" rather than indirect through the BGS, Powerplay or CGs.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Can you show me that contract? Maybe you are right and I'm wrong. I would like to clarify this point before further discussion on this point.

The published design information that accompanied the Kickstarter would seem to be the place to go to find out what people backed: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/2721

 

[Chrystoph]

It is always the same story: "griefers this, griefers that". But for me (a BGS and PP player) all players who use the solo mode because people who are affected by their actions try to stop them are griefers. All and everyone of them.

Now tell me, who in this game is more frustrated. All those who can go to a solo mode and don't see a single player and can do whatever they pleases without any problem, or players like me who see how all their work and their illusions go through the sewer thanks to that wall of invulnerability called "private group". And we can do NOTHING.

This is rather a case of Cherry Picking given that it ignores things like time zones, and, as pointed out above, platforms.

You want to blame this sort of thing on Private Groups but, unless you are going to maintain round the clock player activity, any European group and any American group are largely not going to interact just by virtue of timing.

Add to that console gamers and your argument ignores the majority of the acters that can impact the BGS and PP.

 

[MBaldelli]

Here is a very, very simple method to push CMDRs into open play:

Increase the rewards in proportion to the increased risks. It is that simple.

Nope... You think it's simple, but your thinking is limited to the thought greed can overcome the problem. I'm not here for the money, I'm here for the enjoyment. With that, your enticement fails and I stay where I am without the more money or more risk.

Contract? What contract? You mean the TOS? We as players agree to their TOS and last time I checked, developers can modify their TOS anytime they want.

US Law is not British Law. You might want to brush up on this before positing this. The UK does in fact have more checks and balances in place. Don't think so? Remember what happened to NMS and come back to try again.

 

[Nyra Amarin]

Every single player bought a game where all three game modes affect the same galaxy state - why should that be removed from those who play in Solo and Private Groups (nearly three years after release) solely to satisfy a minority play-style?

The fact that every player affects and experiences the single shared galaxy state, regardless of game mode (or platform), means that direct* PvP is entirely optional in this game - and Frontier would seem, from what one Dev has said, to be well aware that the majority of players do not get involved in PvP.

*: direct, as in "in the same instance, knowing who the opposition actually is" rather than indirect through the BGS, Powerplay or CGs.

I'm not saying that those modes must be removed. I'm saying that solo mode should be solo mode and not a way to play the multiplayer mode without the rest of players in the equation and its logical consequences.

It's not fair for PvP players (who includes BGS and PP players) but it is not fair for solo players too.
If I want to play alone, it is not funny to see how my work is affected from other modes in the same way that If I want to play the multiplayer part of the game it is not funny to see how my work is affected from other modes.

It is all about logic.
Do you want to play alone? Then play REALLY alone and enjoy that part of the game with a real calm and relax in the space and let the open mode as an option for those players who like the hard part of the game.

This is rather a case of Cherry Picking given that it ignores things like time zones, and, as pointed out above, platforms.

You want to blame this sort of thing on Private Groups but, unless you are going to maintain round the clock player activity, any European group and any American group are largely not going to interact just by virtue of timing.

Add to that console gamers and your argument ignores the majority of the acters that can impact the BGS and PP.

I was once with a group waiting from 3 am to 6 am for an enemy group of american players who alway claim that they fly only in open mode. So we organized our group from Europe with ilussion to stop them.

From 5 am to 6 am (really late here), they just show us in the system, logged out and continue doing their undermining from private group.
That day I decided to not play PP anymore.

That is what happen everyday. Enjoy.

 

[popuptoaster]

It is all about logic.
Do you want to play alone? Then play REALLY alone and enjoy that part of the game with a real calm and relax in the space and let the open mode as an option for those players who want the hard part of the game.

FD removed the option of an offline truly single player mode partly because of the difficulty of including a BGS, there is no way they'll make the online single player mode run a separate BGS from the other modes while they allow switching between modes.

If they kill the ability to switch between modes it'll be the open mode that suffers because any players that have built up levels and cash wont want to loose those and start again in open where they can be got at by higher level ships and weapons in the hands of humans so they are more likely to stay in solo while anyone who gets fed up with open will just move to solo knowing that starting afresh makes no difference with no other players to hassle them.

Multiple commanders per account might be the only way it could work so that players might risk trying open but they are not looking likely to do that either and as i said before there is a huge core of ED players that always saw Elite as a single player game anyway so are just not interested in playing in open.

 

[Mephane]

The thing is, for 95% of all gameplay ever, the distinction between the mode is relatively meaningless. You can explore in open and return data safely in open so long as you don't go to exploration hotspots or sell your data in hotspot areas. You can trade in open so long as you avoid the hot spots. You can farm engineer mats as long as you avoid the hot spots (and only switch to solo when going to the engineer). You can bounty hunt in open and... you get the idea.

All that the OP's idea would do is that people do their farming and grinding in open play in more remote places where you'd still not meet them, then switch to solo or private once they have to go to any of said hot spots.

Plus a few people who are tech savvy enough to just prevent the P2P connections from happening, thus being connected to the servers in open play mode but effectively cut off from P2P sessions anyway.

---------------------------------------------

I will repeat what I always said: if you want to encourage more people into open play, do as most MMOs do: minimize the personal risk of PvP deaths. Free rebuy and repairs from PvP deaths or damage, for example. Missions not failing if killed in PvP. Exploration data, bounty vouchers etc. not lost if killed in PvP. Etc.

Of course many PvPers wouldn't want that because it would deprive them of the ability to impose those punishments on their targets if all a kill would do is the other player respawns at the nearest base (last docked base is imo a terrible concept for respawn anyway).

 

[CMDR_Elver]

Power Play was introduced after the original release of the game to provide gameplay for PvP (consequential was the term). It is a nonsense to argue that playing PP in SOLO is on a par with playing it in OPEN as it is cleary not, really don't care what the contract states. There is more of an incentive from a purely tactical point of view to play in SOLO or PG than it is to play in OPEN. Balancing out the risk to reward and sorting out how the different modes interact is an entirely legitimate question. It is easy to swap between modes as it is, so taking missions, PP materials etc. in OPEN then switching to SOLO for the delivery then switching back to OPEN again safe inside a the end location to complete the mission, makes dealing with these issues tricky. I would suggest that:

1. For a start a Cmdr has a separate save point for each mode e.g. Cmdr X [OPEN], Cmdr X [PG] & CMdr X [SOLO]. Where credits, ships etc. and save locations are all separate. This way you need only one BGS as it is the case now.

2. The modes have slightly differing properties for PP and missions, rewards etc. to balance out the risk rewards. For example, for PP play only fortifying materials are available to deliver in SOLO & PG. This would allow SOLO players the opportunity to participate in PP but balance out their impact of preparation & expansion.

Something along those lines.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I'm not saying that those modes must be removed. I'm saying that solo mode should be solo mode and not a way to play the multiplayer mode without the rest of players in the equation.

Frontier would not seem to agree. There's a Dev quote that's relevant here:

Is there planned to be any defense against the possibility that player created minor factions could be destroyed with no possible recourse through Private Groups or Solo play?

From the initial inception of the game we have considered all play modes are equally valid choices. While we are aware that some players disagree, this hasn't changed for us.

Michael

.... and another, even more succinct:

Will at any time solo and private group play be separated into a different universe/database from open play? It's kind of cheap that you can be safe from many things in solo, like player blockades and so on, and still affect the same universe.

No.

Michael

It's not fair for PvP players (who includes BGS and PP players) but it is not fair for solo players too.
If I want to play alone, it is not funny to see how my work is affected from other modes in the same way that If I want to play the multiplayer part of the game it is not funny to see how my work is affected from other modes.

All players affect the BGS and PowerPlay - it is equally fair for all of them, and, as the three different platforms all affect the same BGS and PowerPlay, there's no guarantee that any players in Open on a different platform could be opposed.

The BGS, Factions, PowerPlay, etc. do not require players to engage in direct PvP - optional, certainly, required, not at all.

It is all about logic.
Do you want to play alone? Then play REALLY alone and enjoy that part of the game with a real calm and relax in the space and let the open mode as an option for those players who like the hard part of the game.

No-one plays alone in this game - we all share the evolving galaxy - by design.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If they kill the ability to switch between modes it'll be the open mode that suffers because any players that have built up levels and cash wont want to loose those and start again in open where they can be got at by higher level ships and weapons in the hands of humans so they are more likely to stay in solo while anyone who gets fed up with open will just move to solo knowing that starting afresh makes no difference with no other players to hassle them.

If Frontier were to ever introduce a mode lock for our CMDRs then mine would be locked to Private Groups - all the benefits of multi-player (play in a large Private Group or even several) and also the ability to play Solo (create a personal Private Group and don't invite anyone to play in it....).

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Increase the rewards in proportion to the increased risks. It is that simple.

That seems fair. My losses in Open due to players - excluding arranged PvP - have been:
1 Sidewinder (rebuy 280 credits + mission failure fine 1500 credits)
2 canisters Beer (purchase price ~200 credits)
Total: ~2000 credits

My asset gains while in Open (which, other than a few group exploration trips for ~150 million in data, I've always used) are approximately 2 billion credits

It would therefore seem proportionate to give players in Open a 0.0001% additional cash bonus to cover the increased risks.

No, wait, hold on. I did a bounty hunting CG in Open and winged up with a bunch of players to get increased earnings, putting me into the top 10% by the end of it. I can't be bothered to work out exactly how much extra I got from that, but let's say a conservative 10 million. I've also been on a bunch of escort missions where the returning explorer has kindly honked the systems we passed through, getting me another 10 million or so.

So my total cost of being in Open (excluding arranged PvP) is around -20 million credits. So, proportionate to the risks and rewards, players in Open should be getting a -1% earnings penalty, and just be glad I'm relatively unsociable in-game or it could be a lot worse...

Sounds fair?

We'd need to dig into the DDR, promises in alpha and beta, and a few more.

Certainly Frontier have always been pretty clear that there are and will be multiple modes, and suggestions to change that are more productively directed at the nearest brick wall.

That said:
1) A feature which only works in some of those modes is not automatically a breach of contract. High-res screenshots don't work in Open; Wings and Multicrew (headline features!) don't work in Solo.
2) There's a big difference between informal pre-purchase statements and what was actually written in the contract of purchase. Rather than bringing lawyers into it (because their hourly rate is considerably more than it's worth spending on the potential for a £30 refund, and because if Frontier thought you were actually serious they'd insist you talk through said lawyers rather than on the forum) it's probably more productive to look at whether it would be good for the game or not.

 

[Nyra Amarin]

F
If they kill the ability to switch between modes it'll be the open mode that suffers because any players that have built up levels and cash wont want to loose those and start again in open where they can be got at by higher level ships and weapons in the hands of humans so they are more likely to stay in solo while anyone who gets fed up with open will just move to solo knowing that starting afresh makes no difference with no other players to hassle them.

What I was saying was just for BGS, PP and CG's, not the cash, equipment, ships... etc.
I mean: It would be better if "the multiplayer part" could be only played from the "multiplayer mode"

 

[Robert Maynard]

What I was saying was just for BGS, PP and CG's, not the cash, equipment, ships... etc.
I mean: It would be better if "the multiplayer part" could be only played from the "multiplayer mode"

.... which includes Private Groups....

 

[Nyra Amarin]

.... which includes Private Groups....

Private group is private group. Not a Massive Multiplayer mode (as Frontier sold it).
The idea is to not divide all actions that affect all players of the server in exclusive modes and let those actions effects in a unique mode to turn this game in one more fair for all players.

If "griefers" are bad because affect others fun, solo and private group mode are bad too because do exactly the same while actions from those modes affect all modes.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Private group is private group. Not Massive Multiplayer mode.

The text I quoted said "multiplayer mode", of which there are two. The membership limit for a Private Group on PC/Mac is 20,000 - that's pretty large.... I believe that the Private Group membership limit on XB1/PS4 is 1,000 - which is still fairly large.

Bear in mind that any player can create a Private Group and invite no-one else into it - effectively making another Solo mode.

Frontier consciously implemented CGs, PowerPlay, Wings and Multi-Crew in all of the modes where such play was possible (i.e. no Wings or Multi-Crew in Solo - yet - we still await NPC crew / Wingmen), not just in Open.

.... and any player group can request that a Faction is inserted into the game, not just player groups that prefer to play in Open.

 

[Nyra Amarin]

The text I quoted said "multiplayer mode", of which there are two. The membership limit for a Private Group on PC/Mac is 20,000 - that's pretty large.... I believe that the Private Group membership limit on XB1/PS4 is 1,000 - which is still fairly large..

I think I wrote it clear enough considering the context of the thread and my last posts.

It is still not fair while those groups are build apart from the mass of all players of the game and much more if we consider that going into those group depends on an exclusive person.
If you have 20.000 of friends good for you. What about the rest of the players who play this game?

We must look for solutions for all kind of players not only for a group and we need to use logic for that.
In the same way criminality has changed according a logic though about how it should work, I think we need to talk about what actions should be considered "multiplayer" and wich ones should be considered "private".
A private group is that: a private group. No matter how big it is.

My idea is not only for multiplayer players, but for solo and private groups players too.
Everyone and everything in the correct side of the game. And not more "false solo modes" and "false multiplayer modes".

 

[Robert Maynard]

I think I wrote it clear enough considering the context of the thread and my last posts.

The aim of this thread seems rather clear - that Solo and Private Group play should be hobbled to attempt to force players that want to interact with the BGS / CGs / PowerPlay / Factions to play in Open.

It doesn't matter how large a group is. It is still not fair while those groups are exclusive from the mass of all players of the game and go into those group depends of an exclusive person.
If you have 20.000 of friends good for you. What about the rest of the players who play this game?

Anyone can create a Player Group, with or without a Private Group, and attempt to attract players.

We must look for solutions for all kind of players not only a group . In the same way the criminality has changed according a logic though about how it should work, I think we need to talk about what actions should be considered "multiplayer" and wich ones should be considered "private".
A group is that: a group. No matter how big it is.

There seems to be a need to find a solution to a problem that only some players consider to be a problem - for other players it's a feature.

It all seems to return to the endless insoluble problem of how to get players that don't like PvP to play among players that do.

Frontier implemented the game in such a way that players that don't like PvP don't have to play among players that do, at any time, for any reason, while at the same time ensuring that every player experiences and affects the evolving galaxy.

That's the game we all bought (or backed) - whether we knew it, or not....

 

[Nyra Amarin]

Frontier implemented the game in such a way that players that don't like PvP don't have to play among players that do, at any time, for any reason, while at the same time ensuring that every player experiences and affects the evolving galaxy.

That's the game we all bought (or backed) - whether we knew it, or not....

Well.. I'm agree with you in one thing: the game has being designed like this but it is not what Frontier sold me (and MMO, so no... not we all bought this).

Anyway, Frontier read other ideas and consider to change things whenever is needed.
That's why we are talking here.

Right now and in the multiplayer context, the game not only provide advantage to those players who do not like weapons but also, larger groups and players who play more hours. That mean a lot of frustation for PvP players in all its contexts (even without weapons).
It is not fair and, of course, it is not logical too.

Maybe the initial idea (considering that what you say is what Frontier really thought) was that, buy right now it is not practical and create a lot of frustration.
The game is funny while people is growing up in it, but once they are seniors, most players leave the game.

If you have your place in this game from a private group nice for you, but it is selfish to consider all other options and all other ways to play this game bad.
Frontier just proved us all that they can change things because the game is theirs, not yours.

I hope that they can read this and consider what we are talking here today too

 

[Harry Hates Golf]

What we need to entice more players into Open Mode is offer them Hot Pockets, Pop Tarts, and Beer. Everyone likes all those things, and then we can sit around and be friends!

Yummy-Yum-Yum

 

[Robert Maynard]

Well.. I'm agree with you in one thing: the game has being designed like this. But Frontier read other ideas and consider to change thins whenever is needed.
That's why we are talking here.

The modes debate has been ongoing for as long as some players realised that other players would be able to play without being interfered with - that's nearly five years now.

Right now and in the multiplayer context, the game not only provide advantage to those players who do not like weapons but also, larger groups and players who play more hours. That means more fun for solo players, less fun and frustation for PvP players in all its contexts (even without weapons) and that is what I think it must be changed.

The game accommodates both players that like PvP and those that don't. (Direct) PvP is optional in this game.

Frontier would also seem to be well aware that the majority of players do not get involved in PvP....

Why? Because it is not fair and because it is not logical.

Players in Open can do the same things to affect the BGS, PowerPlay, CGs and Factions that players in Solo and Private Groups do - how is that not fair?

If the inference is that those that enjoy PvP should always be able to directly oppose those that don't enjoy PvP then that's illogical in a game where players can choose to play without other players.

Maybe the initial idea (considering that what you say is what Frontier really thought) was that, buy right now it is not practical and create a lot of frustration.
The game is funny while people is growing up in it, but once they are seniors, most players leave the game.

Without any data to back up that contention, it would seem to be baseless.

If you have your place in this game from a private group nice for you, but it is selfish to consider all other options and all other ways to play this game bad just because initially "Frontier did the game like this".
I paid for a MMO and this is not an MMO. So.. no: not all player bought this.

It is just as selfish (if not more so, in my opinion) to demand that the game is changed, nearly three years after launch, so that players that don't like PvP should be required to play among those who do to access game content.

The game has been variously advertised as Solo / Multi-Player / Massively Multi-Player during its existence - it is not only one of these - it is all of them.