The Majority of Players, Play Elite as a Single-Player Non-PvP Experience?

[Aesthetech]

The majority of my hours have been alone, but I've spent many hundreds of hours playing with friends. I prefer to play so when I get the chance, but there are plenty of things I like(d) about ED to go solo. PVP has held little interest for me in this -- and this is in stark contrast to most other games I play, where I tend to have a competitive streak.

I find it likely that part of the reason for this result is that while ED does offer a multiplayer experience, much of the time it does not do it well:

Multicrew has always been half-baked.

While wings have mostly worked ok for me, many people are plagued with instancing issues (of which I've suffered my fair share).

The game does not handle a remotely modern number of players in the same instance well.

The risk/reward aspect of engaging with other players is entirely out of wack, as is the (closely related) C&P system.

The "indirect" ways of interacting with each other (PP and BGS) have always been wonky, with the former being frankly unfinished, and the latter being dark arts where people have had to huddle together in large numbers on a Discord server to be able to guess/piece together how it works.


Edit: Oh, and any semblance of "grouping up" or such is inconvenient as hell:

Multicrew frequently invalidates itself as an option.

20k ly out in the black and have a friend that wants to play or try out the game with you? They get to wait for your journey back.

Or maybe you're both relatively new, and you have to hop your unengineered combat vessel 11 ly at a time across the bubble to meet up.

And while I understand this appeals to "realism" for some, the alternate "solution" is to buy a second account to have sitting around in case someone wants to do something and you need to be relatively convenient to access. Absurd.

 

[metatheurgist]

I'm assuming you're talking about squadrons. In which case there are no squadron assets , no real messaging system for it and a couple menus that report some basic stats and member management.

They dont have squadron missions or events. No squadron trade of items. No squadron only things.

It's basically a tack on set of menus a profile variable or two. Not really a lot of development effort. If that was a lot of development effort, then i'm afraid no amount of avoiding things you dont like would have improved the game situation.

Carriers were only a whisker away from being squad only before sanity prevailed. And all that stuff that is there cost quarters of dev resources for basically no gain. And there are other MP aimed features that are long dead that aren't specifically named squads.

 

[AceMcKool]

Never touch Open Play because I hate PvP with passion.

THIS.

In eight months playing Elite I've clicked on Open only once, and it was by mistake. For once in +10 years of online gaming, I finally can relax and enjoy a game without constantly having to look over my shoulder.

I've played a few times in PG for the occasional trading mission sharing, but other than that I play Solo.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Here's an interesting stat.

It's only interesting in so much that it's a reflection of the demographic that follows you.

Not much else can be said about it really - I am sure some time ago, however, FDEV mentioned something about this (open vs solo) in the endless debate of PvP vs PVE, but for the life of me I can't find it.

 

[gorankar]

I usually prefer a more solo experience, since, as a rule, other random players do not increase my enjoyment of the game. I do team up with friends in PG or Open at times, but mostly solo these days.

I have only one player kill, and that one practically forced me to do it. I think they saw a video of someone beating one of the big three in a Vulture, (which is absolutely possible if the big sticks around), and decided to try their hand at it. Without chaff, or seemingly much engineering, against a g5 everything prizmatic turret boat cutter built for hazres endurance, then chose not to disengage and leave when it became clearly hopeless.

 

[AceMcKool]

The reason so many people play it as single player is due to how it is set up, how vast the galaxy is, and how FDev simply refuses to put deep coop and natural+meaningful competetive systems in place to allow a good multiplayer experience. If FDev added those 2 things, many many many of us would play it as multiplayer, and would actually prefer that.

No.

He did actually give that proviso, but nevermind reading his post, ai?

Or the many other posts in the thread where people are flat out saying they prefer to play in Solo because it's SOLO, not because of broken multiplayer game mechanics.

 

[Ignition]

Multiplayer is a plug-in, when it works...
Elite dangerous is meant to be played alone.
The coop multiplayer of Elite is the worst I've seen, no other game punish you so much to play with your friends.

 

[Thargon]

Hi Obsidian Ant,

I think I mostly play Solo but I do team up with a real life friend now and again (when time permits).

However, with Odyssey, this complicates matters as currently, there are two games and my friend doesn't have Odyssey.

 

[The Nude Wizard]

I only play in solo but to be fair i would love to play in open but there is literally no compelling reason to. The thing that concerns me about these kind of numbers is the kind of conclusions Fdev would make. Every other feature they've put into the game and then never developed has supposedly been because its "not popular" things like CQC, Powerplay etc, again i would like to be involved in both but again, theres no compelling reason to. I think these numbers dont really show a preference for play style, but just that only one makes sense to most people given the game as it stands.

 

[Obllivian_BM]

I go on the simple idea that this is a free discussion, so without throwing stones at those who post. Most of the time i play solo or with the few friends i have in the game. The truth is that i'm not a fan of pvp, i mean all games, not just ED, obviously i prefer multiplayer games. The solution would be 2 servers, one pvp, one pve, in this way we would all enjoy the multiplayer experience.

 

[Mr T]

I only tend to play solo but then I prefer playing solo with nearly all the games I play. Whenever I play with other people I tend to get frustrated and annoyed because most of them are better at the game than I am. This is especially true for first person shooters but includes any games really.

My 16yo son is the complete opposite and loves playing multiplayer games especially when his friends are on. It's obvious the social aspect is quite important for him. I'm not sure if it's an age thing, personality, or a mix of both.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

I play Solo. I've dabbled with both PG and open play, but I much prefer solo play.
The thing is the I'm playing Solo in a game world that has other player actions, which is something that I like. I don't think I would want ED to be a standalone solo game. So it needs other players to be there, just not visible to me.
Any improvements to the solo experience are welcomed by me.

 

[Misty_Dark]

I go on the simple idea that this is a free discussion, so without throwing stones at those who post. Most of the time i play solo or with the few friends i have in the game. The truth is that i'm not a fan of pvp, i mean all games, not just ED, obviously i prefer multiplayer games. The solution would be 2 servers, one pvp, one pve, in this way we would all enjoy the multiplayer experience.

THIS IS OFF TOPIC of this thread

That is not a doable solution... without altering the PvE server physics ALOT...

It is not just pew-pew that can destroy another players ship... I ram you and that have been used in the past to grief players. That is why got speed limits around space stations. Now players can grief speeding playing by suiciding into them.. I do not care about my ship, but I jam, your ship with my ship the mail slot of a station and since we are both stuck here, the station will kill both of us, and I have griefed you... and the fix to all of these things are not pretty... no damage when colliding with other player. we get bouncy castles. we remove collision all together, which will fix the mail slot issue, and we can just fly right through each other... and if we keep collisioons with NPC ships, I can now block you, so you cannot see, and thus you might hit or whatever a NPC ship and get tagged as the "bad player" and authority/station destroys your ship, so now we need to make ships transparent etc.

Do you start to see the problem with playing on the PvE server? I have not heard any solutions to these issues. that will not break the game. in most other MMO's the solution have been to remove collision. and then you can just move right through everyone. and those who didn't ended up with players taking "coffee breaks" in doorways etc, locking playing in or out of key locations. We have players doing exactly this in stations using a health hack, that allowed for infiinite shields, so despite the satioon firing on the "stuck ship", they could sit there for over 15+ minutes before other players manage to push them out!

if players can affect each other there will always be options for griefing. Regardless of incentive. griefers willingly LIED to join private groups that was meant to act as PvE server, so they lied, joined the server, and then started to kill other players.



So just doing a in PvE and PvP server is much more complicated. and this is even we have to dig into issue the PvP server would have, like that the galaxy is to big, and the players are to few... And we have a PvP server, it is called CQC and it is already all about PvP... not many players in there...

 

[RikonGB]

Personally play solo majority of the time now, originally did play in open only until got fed up with the random killing while hauling cargo or running missions at stations.

Then when engineering came in and made it more required to have a combat modified ship to stand a better chance of survival,
so its just easier to just play solo in minimal engineered ship as dont need a combat specialized ship just to cruise around doing missions to be able to survive.

 

[Elderoy]

My 2 cents on the subject:

I enjoy playing solo but I really love cooperation. The problem is that the game systems lack basic functions. Wing missions demands ridiculous amount of stuff to be killed/transported and multicrew has basically no payout apart from random bounty hunting. We just need a ability to share whatever mission, even if it means dividing the payout, but at least there would be some fun and some interest (I actually find the missions really well crafted (even if one can argue that there are pretty basic).

The odyssey missions are particularly fun in cooperation (but at this time you get essentially no reward apart from having fun with your friend(s)). Can't wait to play them with more than 12 FPS though XD

I avoid Open play since the engineers, because even if I enjoy controlled and fair envirronement PvP such as CQC, I have no interest in building ultra specialized ships and spending time just to avoid being ganked by wings of beam de lance. It is a shame to have to avoid Open because I would actually love encounter other players and do missions or any PvE stuff with some fellow human beings.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I have to take my Elite time when life allows me to, which is neither consistent nor often convenient for other players. Thus, my lone wolf style. I have the forums for socializing about the game.

 

[enonymous]

I'll always play primarily as a lone wolf. Groups need leaders and I don't want to be one. I'm in a squadron for the rare case I want one. My squad is full of great people, but I'm not interested in working with other players for the sake of working with other players. 4 people doing a CZ that I can do alone. I'll just do it alone.

I'm goal based. If I'm in game, I have a goal to complete. Things need to get done. I'll stop to help someone. I'm not going to stop to compete with someone. Maybe if travel wasn't such a bore.

I wouldn't mind being someone's content; but I'll never do that for free. I have to put in a lot of effort to avoid the horrible travel mechanics already. I have no intention to risk more time wasted in travel for literally no possible upside. CMDR Richard wants to show me that his pvp ship is stronger than my cargo ship. Fine. His goal is to attack. Mine is to escape. We should have the same penalty upon failure. I don't know what his reward should be. Mine should be greater than whatever I would have received if he didn't bother me. CMDR Richard is on the opposite side of a war. I can clear a CZ in the time it takes to fight him. He wants to fight me. My goal is to win a war. Time wasted on him does not help my goal. That's how the game is designed.

Make content only for multiplayer and it's just something I'll ignore. They're not going to lure me into something I'm not interested in by jacking up rewards. Make difficult, single player content and I'll have a new goal. Make a logical criminal vs non-criminal mechanic and I'll participate. I'm willing to help others if asked, but rarely get that opportunity because I'm just not willing to put up with the idiocy that happens in open.

 

[VR Roxydog]

I play in open but it seems to be solo as I hardly have interaction with anyone. I've never attacked a player in my 2k hours and have friended people who've killed or said hello to me.
The best fun I had was at a bounty CG where players would help,wing or try and kill you.
I also like to see other Commanders around even if there is no interaction.

 

[bm01]

Even messaging another player is difficult, half the time I get trapped in menus and can't resume flying

Same here, unable to navigate through the chat window in an efficient manner since 2014. By the way I remember having an issue during the FC update, sometimes my message would get deleted while I was typing it... Still happens today. Oh also the enter key now often decides to simply not work. And of course I often just don't see people sending messages because I don't know, too much NPC talk or they get hidden too quickly. I feel like the chat window could be redone.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

To me Elite is about playing with the potential to encounter other CMDRs. I see CMDRs as a bit like Jedi/Sith - with the potential to subvert the balance in a given political situation/encounter/expedition, and presenting much more danger/help to each other than any rank and file (NPC) presence. I don't really understand how people enjoy playing much without this player-generated space opera/cowboy dimension, especially given the dearth/blandness of NPC-driven gameplay and it's accompanying "mortal" threats (compared to trivial NPC interference) at least some of the time (Star Wars wouldn't be much entertainment without Jedi/Sith, or with just Jedi). But that's fine, and the mode options exist by design, and diversity of playstyle is generally good and part of what makes it "operatic".

I do powerplay which is a special case where team play in open, meeting oppostion head-on is the way to make it fun, so while it's relevant, I'm also talking outwith that aspect, for general play.

I do think the forums are not the best place to ask this question OP, since I think of them as having a population bias toward solo and independent players, and that the question is loaded to get responses from people who agree with its statement. I'm here responding for balance more than because I want to .