The Open v Solo v Groups thread

[Riverside]

You have argued that Open-PvE is impractical, but I think you consider an over-complicated implementation; FD would be more likely to make it simple. The game already tracks the origin of all damage so that bounties, combat bonds and notoriety can be assigned. So all that's needed is a check like "if source=CMDR set damage to zero". Even the source of collision damage is already tracked: the other day I collided with someone in the mailslot at Jameson, died and was told "X killed you".

Yes, there would still be griefers. Creative people would come up with ways to disrupt gameplay in the mode. But now it would be clearly unintended and FD could punish the behaviour. There wouldn't be straightforward ganking (gankers would stay in Open) and the few remaining griefers could still be blocked.

Those punishments would still be after the fact though, as I described with my example of being scanned in a station that's no better than what we have now with community solutions (eg Mobius private group, others are available).

Open PvE is an impossible ideal to work towards & would create extra work for FDev staff that is currently done by the community for groups like Mobius. I don't think FDev would be very motivated to cover that workload and potentially arbitrating misunderstandings (cynical or genuine).

I play in Open, I don't seek out PvP I do get shot at sometimes & roll with it. The way I approach the game means I get the upside of maximising the possibility of meeting strangers without the downside of being concerned about being directly attacked ie the two primary goals of any Open PvE proposal as I understand it. It works for me. Others may prefer to play only with friends (or other like-minded players) and private groups were added for them.

If a player is wanting to maximise the chances of seeing other players inevitably one must accept that not everyone they meet will be nice to them, or have the same motivations. If they are unwilling to avoid putting themselves into situations they know they won't enjoy why should they expect others to do that work of keeping them separated?

On a personal note I rather like that when meeting a random stranger in Open both parties are usually initially wary of the other. Splitting Open into 'definitely up for a fight' and 'definitely not going to shoot at you' would remove what I consider to be a core part of the multiplayer experience. I appreciate there are those that would rather be sure but the game does already cater for both camps without FDev needing to do any work at all

I agree a partial implementation of an Open PvE mode is workable, imo we already have a good enough solution with (imperfect) PvE Private groups. A 'perfect' PvE environment is impractical imo, as I described before I think there would be an unending list of rules to keep adding.

So what's the problem with Private groups that an Open PvE proposal is looking to solve?

 

[Brrokk]

...
So what's the problem with Private groups that an Open PvE proposal is looking to solve?

Private groups are just that - private. A given group can become unsupported without notice or exclude people unnecessarily. The application process can seem onerous. I've read in this forum people saying that they've been unjustly kicked out of Mobius; I had no way to know the truth of it and crucially there's no appeal process. A game mode would be available to anyone.

Administering a large PG is apparently a nightmare because FD haven't provided any good admin tools; on receiving a report about a player, admins basically have to trawl through screens of text looking for the name. There's obviously a significant time lag in this, if they ever manage it.

New players don't know that large PGs exist but they'd see "Open-PvE" on the list of login options.

 

[Riverside]

Private groups are just that - private. A given group can become unsupported without notice or exclude people unnecessarily. The application process can seem onerous. I've read in this forum people saying that they've been unjustly kicked out of Mobius; I had no way to know the truth of it and crucially there's no appeal process. A game mode would be available to anyone.

Administering a large PG is apparently a nightmare because FD haven't provided any good admin tools; on receiving a report about a player, admins basically have to trawl through screens of text looking for the name. There's obviously a significant time lag in this, if they ever manage it.

New players don't know that large PGs exist but they'd see "Open-PvE" on the list of login options.

I think your last point is the main selling point of a PvE mode, the game doesn't suggest any big groups to join.

Admin is a problem I already mentioned & I don't personally see FDev taking on that workload if they can possibly avoid it through inaction, and from FDevs perspective having that appeals process become their problem would be best avoided too.

Private groups being able to boot off anyone for any reason or no reason seems like an elegant solution to griefers to me, and the downside of a few innocents being booted unjustly is something a private group owner can just say 'talk to the hand' to where FDev really couldn't (although their phrase 'company policy' does a lot of heavy lifting is situations where it's not worth suing over you never know)

If someone were to propose something where when clicking of private group it displays a list of the most active ones with some sort of brief summary of the groups rules (eg Mobius - PvE, Fleetconn - exploration etc) I'd support that.

I can see FDev considering something like that because it could be totally automated & wouldn't be too hard to implement if the most active list were only updated on the Thursday tick. And it would give newbies a PvE option right from the start instead of effectively choosing from Open or Solo.

 

[Darrack]

So what's the problem with Private groups that an Open PvE proposal is looking to solve?

An Official Open PVE mode could remove any attempt at PvP, however i have never had a single issue in Mobius, even in Titan fights everyone seems extra careful not to engage in friendly fire.
Its just so much fun being able to concentrate on content without having to worry about griefers.

O7

 

[Jockey79]

I think your last point is the main selling point of a PvE mode, the game doesn't suggest any big groups to join.

Admin is a problem I already mentioned & I don't personally see FDev taking on that workload if they can possibly avoid it through inaction, and from FDevs perspective having that appeals process become their problem would be best avoided too.

Private groups being able to boot off anyone for any reason or no reason seems like an elegant solution to griefers to me, and the downside of a few innocents being booted unjustly is something a private group owner can just say 'talk to the hand' to where FDev really couldn't (although their phrase 'company policy' does a lot of heavy lifting is situations where it's not worth suing over you never know)

If someone were to propose something where when clicking of private group it displays a list of the most active ones with some sort of brief summary of the groups rules (eg Mobius - PvE, Fleetconn - exploration etc) I'd support that.

I can see FDev considering something like that because it could be totally automated & wouldn't be too hard to implement if the most active list were only updated on the Thursday tick. And it would give newbies a PvE option right from the start instead of effectively choosing from Open or Solo.

Not only does the game not suggest groups to join, but PG's are limited. An Open PvE mode wouldn't be limited in the same way a PG is limited.

Also, you say FDev couldn't deal with griefing as easily as a PG owner - yet the very opposite is true. Not only would Fdev have proof if someone is griefing, whereas a PG owner doesn't, but FDev have already explained a long time ago that they can "shadow-ban" disruptive players (place disruptive players in a special PG of their own). So they already have the tools to run an Open PvE mode and deal with those who want to spoil it, they just need to disable player-to-player weapons and collision damage.

[Edit: See item 4 from the Kickstarter page regarding players griefing. FDev have had the tools since day one to make and enforce an Open PvE mode]

 

[Riverside]

An Official Open PVE mode could remove any attempt at PvP, however i have never had a single issue in Mobius, even in Titan fights everyone seems extra careful not to engage in friendly fire.
Its just so much fun being able to concentrate on content without having to worry about griefers.

O7

I've never had a problem in Open, I gave an example of one I had in Mobius. I don't worry about griefers (mostly if I met them they are on my friend list so I know where they are). Just because you or I don't have an issue doesn't mean they don't happen & different people have different definitions of 'problem'.



I was working on a grindy war with two other friends, one of whom was a well known white hat PvPer (Slange Lands if anyone is interested, no risk of naming & shaming them). Slange had been asking other players on their friend list to try to help fill the wing & one agreed to come over to share the wing mission rewards. Unknown to us that Cmdr was followed by another friend of theirs (they all know each other & fight regularly) who was at the time a notorious Deciat Griefer. The four of us were winged up in a (space) CZ in well equipped combat ships & the Griefer entered the CZ, chose the opposite side & efficiently picked us all off one at a time. The other three had engaged the griefer directly, I had (unwisely in hindsight) continued with the CZ scenario but was killed by the griefer before it completed.

So we four all ended up at the local station, I sent the griefer friend request & we got chatting. The griefer had seen two of their friends in a system not known for being a hotspot & went there out of curiosity to check out what was going on because they didn't have much else to do. I explained what we were doing & they agreed to compensate us for the CZ loss by doing a few CZs for the faction we were supporting, the five of us spent the rest of the evening grinding CZs unopposed. Watching them cut through CZ NPCs like a hot knife through butter was pretty awesome, we were grateful for the help & eventually won that war against an opposition we never met. The PvPers including the Griefer got some sweet rebuy cash from shared wing mission rewards & in their own words, 'felt useful'. I have plenty of stories like this (I don't usually die to be fair), I call them meet & greets If nothing else I now know where those Cmdrs are if they are online & am able to go to them or avoid them because we are all in Open & can see each others location on the galaxy map.



Darrack, your proposal that there are changes that could be made to remove any attempt at PvP is what I had in mind when I described an unending list of extra rules. Reliably predicting intent would be impossible, and punishment after the fact is already available in a private group. We play a game where we are all armed & armoured, inevitably there are people that find shooting at each other fun & those that don't are already given tools that allow them to take personal responsibility for their exposure to that kind of player without risking an account ban for mistaken intent

 

[Riverside]

Not only does the game not suggest groups to join, but PG's are limited. An Open PvE mode wouldn't be limited in the same way a PG is limited.

Also, you say FDev couldn't deal with griefing as easily as a PG owner - yet the very opposite is true. Not only would Fdev have proof if someone is griefing, whereas a PG owner doesn't, but FDev have already explained a long time ago that they can "shadow-ban" disruptive players (place disruptive players in a special PG of their own). So they already have the tools to run an Open PvE mode and deal with those who want to spoil it, they just need to disable player-to-player weapons and collision damage.

[Edit: See item 4 from the Kickstarter page regarding players griefing. FDev have had the tools since day one to make and enforce an Open PvE mode]

Most of this is either word salad or I've already covered it recently but you do raise a couple of good points I can address:

PGs have a cap on how many members they can have yes. It is an /enormous/ number & those member lists are filled by FOMO; I am confident a lot of players on any one group list are probably in the others too yet they will only ever be in one group & most of the time will not even be in the game. I imagine the cap is for database performance reasons but certainly that cap could be adjusted (again) at less cost to FDev than adding a bunch of new rules and a team of admins to sort out disputes.

If you put yourself into a griefers mindset I'm sure you can imagine the effect disabling collision damage would have, you are oversimplifying here. Disabling weapons would present issues when firing on NPCs too, although it would add a way for players to defend NPCs
We have the collision rules we have now to reduce the effects of griefing, ditto the docking speed limit & so on. A decade of refinement means your proposal that 'they just need to...' anything is a bit naive imo. If there were a simple solution FDev would have done it years ago.

I only really play this game now, are there any other games that have a PvP & PvE separation that could be worth considering? I'm aware of the Eve Online high-sec/Low-sec one.

 

[Rebel Yell]

An Official Open PVE mode could remove any attempt at PvP, however i have never had a single issue in Mobius, even in Titan fights everyone seems extra careful not to engage in friendly fire.
Its just so much fun being able to concentrate on content without having to worry about griefers.

At that point, why not inserting Open PvE instances in the game? I mean AX CZs and some scenarios driven by system states (i.e. "pirate attack") seem fitting with the idea of having such type of gameplay and at same time non being worried about friendly fire ( = as no damage dealt from player to player).

 

[Brrokk]

At that point, why not inserting Open PvE instances in the game? I mean AX CZs and some scenarios driven by system states (i.e. "pirate attack") seem fitting with the idea of having such type of gameplay and at same time non being worried about friendly fire ( = as no damage dealt from player to player).

I'd go along with that and also with special instances for PvP scenarios. Since FD never made multiple modes with different rules, maybe they could consider it on a per-instance basis, with an introductory message telling us the rules as we now get for AXCZs. I'm not holding my breath, but it's an interesting idea.

 

[Darrack]

I've never had a problem in Open, I gave an example of one I had in Mobius. I don't worry about griefers (mostly if I met them they are on my friend list so I know where they are). Just because you or I don't have an issue doesn't mean they don't happen & different people have different definitions of 'problem'.



I was working on a grindy war with two other friends, one of whom was a well known white hat PvPer (Slange Lands if anyone is interested, no risk of naming & shaming them). Slange had been asking other players on their friend list to try to help fill the wing & one agreed to come over to share the wing mission rewards. Unknown to us that Cmdr was followed by another friend of theirs (they all know each other & fight regularly) who was at the time a notorious Deciat Griefer. The four of us were winged up in a (space) CZ in well equipped combat ships & the Griefer entered the CZ, chose the opposite side & efficiently picked us all off one at a time. The other three had engaged the griefer directly, I had (unwisely in hindsight) continued with the CZ scenario but was killed by the griefer before it completed.

So we four all ended up at the local station, I sent the griefer friend request & we got chatting. The griefer had seen two of their friends in a system not known for being a hotspot & went there out of curiosity to check out what was going on because they didn't have much else to do. I explained what we were doing & they agreed to compensate us for the CZ loss by doing a few CZs for the faction we were supporting, the five of us spent the rest of the evening grinding CZs unopposed. Watching them cut through CZ NPCs like a hot knife through butter was pretty awesome, we were grateful for the help & eventually won that war against an opposition we never met. The PvPers including the Griefer got some sweet rebuy cash from shared wing mission rewards & in their own words, 'felt useful'. I have plenty of stories like this (I don't usually die to be fair), I call them meet & greets If nothing else I now know where those Cmdrs are if they are online & am able to go to them or avoid them because we are all in Open & can see each others location on the galaxy map.



Darrack, your proposal that there are changes that could be made to remove any attempt at PvP is what I had in mind when I described an unending list of extra rules. Reliably predicting intent would be impossible, and punishment after the fact is already available in a private group. We play a game where we are all armed & armoured, inevitably there are people that find shooting at each other fun & those that don't are already given tools that allow them to take personal responsibility for their exposure to that kind of player without risking an account ban for mistaken intent

At that point, why not inserting Open PvE instances in the game? I mean AX CZs and some scenarios driven by system states (i.e. "pirate attack") seem fitting with the idea of having such type of gameplay and at same time non being worried about friendly fire ( = as no damage dealt from player to player).

Honestly chaps i don't think Fdev could make an Open PVE only server (but i aint a programmer).
Most MMOs (which is all i can compare it too) are set up that way from the start, (Everquest, ESO, WOW (most servers) in order that players cant attack each other unless there is an event triggered (like a duel request).

What we have now is what we have and im not pushing an Open PVE on anyone as im more than happy how things are, folks have a choice and i hope (no im sure) Fdev wont push Open only onto any player content.
Yes an Open PVE official server would be a dream, but Mobius works as the consequence of a deliberate attempt at PvP isnt just a block, its removal from the server.

O7

 

[Jockey79]

Most of this is either word salad or I've already covered it recently but you do raise a couple of good points I can address:

PGs have a cap on how many members they can have yes. It is an /enormous/ number & those member lists are filled by FOMO; I am confident a lot of players on any one group list are probably in the others too yet they will only ever be in one group & most of the time will not even be in the game. I imagine the cap is for database performance reasons but certainly that cap could be adjusted (again) at less cost to FDev than adding a bunch of new rules and a team of admins to sort out disputes.

If you put yourself into a griefers mindset I'm sure you can imagine the effect disabling collision damage would have, you are oversimplifying here. Disabling weapons would present issues when firing on NPCs too, although it would add a way for players to defend NPCs
We have the collision rules we have now to reduce the effects of griefing, ditto the docking speed limit & so on. A decade of refinement means your proposal that 'they just need to...' anything is a bit naive imo. If there were a simple solution FDev would have done it years ago.

I only really play this game now, are there any other games that have a PvP & PvE separation that could be worth considering? I'm aware of the Eve Online high-sec/Low-sec one.

The PG cap was around 50,000 if I recall correctly, anything over that caused issues. The Mobius group had to split into regional groups in the end due to members not being able to play the game at all while the group was that large. So the game needs a real Open PvE mode, because a player-run group just doesn't work properly.

The solutions are simple, FDev just don't want to do them. Because every MMO has had issues with griefing, and the answer every time is having an actual customer support team to deal with the issues. And Frontier doesn't want to pay someone to babysit ED. So they chose the cheapest type of networking and have no real in-game support at all.

I mean World of Warcraft removed all their PvP servers and made PvP a toggle option on the PvE servers.
Do you think Blizzard would do that if it wasn't easy and cheaper in the long run? It's a simple flagging system and FDev could easily do the same, they already have the flagging system in the game (how do you think it tracks bounties? tracks the mission boards? tracks fines etc and they can shadow-ban players). So they could add Open PvE.

 

[SergMx]

The PG cap was around 50,000 if I recall correctly, anything over that caused issues. The Mobius group had to split into regional groups in the end due to members not being able to play the game at all while the group was that large. So the game needs a real Open PvE mode, because a player-run group just doesn't work properly.

The solutions are simple, FDev just don't want to do them. Because every MMO has had issues with griefing, and the answer every time is having an actual customer support team to deal with the issues. And Frontier doesn't want to pay someone to babysit ED. So they chose the cheapest type of networking and have no real in-game support at all.

I mean World of Warcraft removed all their PvP servers and made PvP a toggle option on the PvE servers.
Do you think Blizzard would do that if it wasn't easy and cheaper in the long run? It's a simple flagging system and FDev could easily do the same, they already have the flagging system in the game (how do you think it tracks bounties? tracks the mission boards? tracks fines etc and they can shadow-ban players). So they could add Open PvE.

I understand YOU and have always been in favor of open PvE, but if you look deeper it's not quite the right hike. After all, it would have to remove from the game defeat another ship with their weapons and it's kind of breaks everything.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I understand YOU and have always been in favor of open PvE, but if you look deeper it's not quite the right hike. After all, it would have to remove from the game defeat another ship with their weapons and it's kind of breaks everything.

A functional PvE game mode would necessarily need to remove the possibility to destroy players' ships but not the ability to destroy NPC ships - noting that selective weapon damage is already a game feature (of some engineered weapons).

 

[SergMx]

A functional PvE game mode would necessarily need to remove the possibility to destroy players' ships but not the ability to destroy NPC ships - noting that selective weapon damage is already a game feature (of some engineered weapons).

You mean equip all weapons with this feature? And a battering ram. but they should still work if the other side is the enemy ?
A person killed a peaceful NPC became an enemy in relation to another person ... what's the point?

 

[Darrack]

You mean equip all weapons with this feature? And a battering ram. but they should still work if the other side is the enemy ?
A person killed a peaceful NPC became an enemy in relation to another person ... what's the point?

No PvP is the point

O7

 

[Robert Maynard]

You mean equip all weapons with this feature? And a battering ram. but they should still work if the other side is the enemy ?
A person killed a peaceful NPC became an enemy in relation to another person ... what's the point?

For those who can't see a point in an Open-PvE game mode there would be no requirement on them to play in it - it'd just be one more mode option on the launcher....

 

[SergMx]

For those who can't see a point in an Open-PvE game mode there would be no requirement on them to play in it - it'd just be one more mode option on the launcher....

Yeah, I get it. I just expressed the opinion that the introduction of this mode will essentially break the physics of the game for the sake of increasing the number of players. Whether that's good or bad I don't know.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Yeah, I get it. I just expressed the opinion that the introduction of this mode will essentially break the physics of the game for the sake of increasing the number of players.

Not very much more than it is already broken (noting the existence of the aforementioned selective damage weapons) - and I'd expect players who did deliberately shoot at other players would get a timeout from Open-PvE game mode (leading to an eventual ban for persistent offenders).

Whether that's good or bad I don't know.

It'd be good for co-operative players who currently have to make do with Private Groups.

 

[SergMx]

Not very much more than it is already broken (noting the existence of the aforementioned selective damage weapons) - and I'd expect players who did deliberately shoot at other players would get a timeout from Open-PvE game mode (leading to an eventual ban for persistent offenders).

It'd be good for co-operative players who currently have to make do with Private Groups.

If it was easy to determine that a player was shooting on purpose, there could be a tougher reward for notoriety and a stronger response.

I heard that in PP2 will have some powers that will attack enemies.
What prevents ATR from attacking enemies in all systems except anarchy with level 2 or higher. The higher the level the more ATR and it depends on the security of the system.

 

[Brrokk]

Not very much more than it is already broken (noting the existence of the aforementioned selective damage weapons) - and I'd expect players who did deliberately shoot at other players would get a timeout from Open-PvE game mode (leading to an eventual ban for persistent offenders).

It'd be good for co-operative players who currently have to make do with Private Groups.

If the question is what an Open-PvE mode would be useful for, I think the recent ShinDes CG is a prime example. AX pilots could wing-up in Open-PvE with no griefer obstruction. As it was, in Open we had to use Block to control instancing, excluding gankers from AX instances one-by-one. Open-PvE would be a brilliant AX experience.

And there's the problem. Everyone knows this; it would be a no-brainer for all the AX activity to move from Open to Open-PvE. All the juicy targets with weaponry useless for fighting back against gank attacks would be gone from Open.