One of my mantras is that without risk there is no adventure. I've played in open for years & met a lot of cool people, some of whom shot at me.
The Open v Solo v Groups thread
- Thread starter Ozric
- Start date
One of my mantras is that without risk there is no adventure. I've played in open for years & met a lot of cool people, some of whom shot at me.
Most of the "I got ganked" stories are rather overexaggerated. A lot of them can be traced back to taking paper planes into the known hotspots (Sol, ShinDez, Deciat). You can meet a ganker in the surrounding systems, and the odd weird one in random sytems. But other than that, open is either 90% empty, or the ones you meet often fight for the same goal you do (AX conflict systems).
And even the gankers admit they are more or less powerless against a ship that it at least somewhat prepared.
I was actually joking, and, again, reality was quicker than I was
. And yeah, I agree. Sometimes people tend to forget it's just a game. More so when they argue for taking something away from other players.
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Ganking then?
If that happens, is because I'm in the wrong place with a wrong ship doing wrong things... -> all my fault lol!
They are around in all games
I thought PP is for getting these special modules... why should any Cmdr support one of this ridiculous characters above the level needed to purchase the modules?
Roleplay, some apparently see it as a challenge. Similarly with those that support a faction in BGS apparently because it shares their own sqn name. I can't see the attraction myself but they seem to find it entertaining.
De gustibus... for example I personally have zero interest in AX combat and would rather hammer a nail in my right foot instead of going 6 months alone in distant systems.
That's just subjective, but expressing personal preferences about certain activities vs. others I believe it does fall a bit out of the thread topic...
I had very similar encounters.
I seen one random explorer in Rigel, another in collection of wonders, third around skull & crossbones nebula, he returned from arm's end, and found my carrier on inara, so he jumped here for repairs (it is even more funny, because arm's end was my destination), I even had guest on my carrier, which by closing game on my carrier was transported 10k ly away, so he was like "alright, I can explore, what's your plan and when will you jump?"
So if people want to pretend, that open is only about ganking...cool, it's their right. At the end of day other people can claim that 2+2=3
Well, if you cannot trust the developer to at least try to maintain a fair ground play within the ruleset of the game you are playing, then why bother?
If you assume that every time you lose the PP war it's because someone in solo/pg out did your effort through botting/cheating, why bother?
Either play as efficient as possible as your opponents or admit playing just for the lulz with like minded people or stop doing it at all.
Calling lame the ones that just play within the rules, is... well... i'll take my coat.
Yes, I'm puzzled about these bot allegations...
- Yes, I agree that bots are theoretically possible.
- But, they'd be hideously difficult to set up. I have some background in software and image recognition. I once schemed out ways to make an autopilot for multiple jumps, by grabbing screen images, detecting the circle around the star, poking control inputs into the game to skim past it then line up the next jump. All this is do-able, but it was going to be so much work I decided I'd rather play ED.
- Such a thing could be done by people with enough motivation, but in ED what is the motivation? There's no way to monetise it. Would anyone go to that much software development effort just to win a virtual BGS thing?
- I note that some people are sure there are bots, but I have no way of checking their claims and apparently FD haven't validated the claims.
- The one piece of evidence I can see myself is that some individual accounts apparently put immense effort into repetitive gameplay.
- But I've known people who actually do that in other games. For people of a particular personality type, a familiar repetitive activity can be very comforting. (I'm not calling this a disorder; in some situations and occupations it's a huge advantage). I suspect ED would appeal to them.
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And the galaxy is big enough to accommodate all this and more. There are countless different playstyles and the way they all dovetail together is what makes the game what it is. Not the diktat of one niche group or other none of which have the strength to carry the whole.
It isn't about PVP or AX or exploration or hauling but we can focus on what we want and dabble with whatever catches our interest at any particular moment.
I spend most of my time in the Black but when im in the bubble i always spend some time to get my PP Rank back to 5 and spend a few cycles fortifying systems.
I enjoy it, i have some systems that i can fortify and trade with at the same time, i love it when others try to undermine one of our systems and i can rush around and race to fortify it.
Mainly though there is another reason, lots of Commanders on here are passionate about PP and wanting it improved, so the more of us that actually do a bit hopefully may give Fdev a push to revamp this overlooked part of Elite gameplay.
O7
Last time I hauled people suspected of being involved in horror that is opposition for our enlightened leader I did it in a Type-7 and didn't see anyone in supercruise. It's nice to have a "Reform Ship" like npc's do. To be fair though, mine is overengineered.
Open isn't really empty, I see a few people every day. In my AX hideout near Indra, Old Worlds region, EIC are still hauling like all those years ago. Other places like that. It's just that there are so many systems. Usually everybody just minds their own business. I wouldn't recommend Shin though unless interested in Pvp encounters. And some other reasons too.
It's totally worth it unlocking the CQC system though, low traffic and discount Fer-de-Lances.
I think powerplay would ideally be "open-only", but the state of the game doesn't really allow it, there would be constant headaches so everybody.
Open isn't really empty, I see a few people every day. In my AX hideout near Indra, Old Worlds region, EIC are still hauling like all those years ago. Other places like that. It's just that there are so many systems. Usually everybody just minds their own business. I wouldn't recommend Shin though unless interested in Pvp encounters. And some other reasons too.
It's totally worth it unlocking the CQC system though, low traffic and discount Fer-de-Lances.
I think powerplay would ideally be "open-only", but the state of the game doesn't really allow it, there would be constant headaches so everybody.
PVP might happen in PG too. Especially if rules allow it, and say you set up group to run some PVP match and so on....
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Well it was more like an assessment than critique.Nooooooooo dont go down that rabbit hole!
O7
Yes, but open doesn't mean PvP and organised encounters in PG are again is a sort of scenario-like thing... I fly 100% of my time in ooen (hauling, trading, doing missions for that or this faction, visiting other powers HQs, grinding mats or looking for other CMDRs to rob on trade routes) and every time I jump to a system I don't know what I'm going to find, no matter of the ship I'm flying.
You just understand design of this game wrong. You compare it to wow/swtor/lineage2/name it.
Unlike ALL other MMOs this game does "MMO" interactivity over "BG Server" (I mean program on computer, not people playing it). So pvp in this scenario is complete optional like bubble-heads.
Why it is so ? Because Space is HUGE. If they do classic scheme you would have no chance to ever do something here. All modern games have "teleport group to dungeon" on relatively small maps.
Any way, design choice is made, and if you play for pvp only, well, you play wrong game. Try LA2 where it is a must.
And current talks about "open" is because, PVPers can ruin the day of PVEers, while in reverse it is not true. So PVPers aggressively took Open mode. But this is not exclusive use of it at all.
Also take a look on real life evolution. It was grass eaters, prior predators. If predators eat all grass eaters - they die. And grass eaters do not need predators to survive forever.
That is "ban list" in Elite.
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And broad generalizations don't serve to paint an accurate picture of anyone.
Could easily have encountered the same people and simply interpreted their actions differently.
Watching their fantasy stock tickers climb would be motive enough for quite a few people. I mean look at all the people still scrambling for credits, long after they have more than they can plausibly use for anything. Beyond that, beating the system would be reward enough, for many.
Almost nothing worthwhile I've ever done was done for money and almost no amount of money could compel me to drop something I found fulfilling.
I'm certain I'm an outlier in my outlook, but I'm even more certain there are enough outliers out there to drive plenty of ad hoc software development for pursuits most people would find completely trivial, if not outright nonsensical. Not that I think a workable trade bot in this game is as hard as some assume.
Yes, having one's adopted flag spread far and wide in their fantasy setting of choice is a powerful motivator for many. I'm sure others would do it just because they can. Or because someone told them it was hard. Or for it's own sake.
As flawed as ED is, these are not games I consider to have better PvP systems.
There are always choke points. Stuff that might be worth fighting over is never going to be spread homogeneously over any remotely plausible setting.
A big part of what makes them utterly non-conducive to the sort of PvP experience I'm looking for in an open world fantasy space simulator, or any open world game for that matter.
A perspective I find rather alien.
As a player of a game that I would like to be immersed in, there is very little separating the sort of context defiance presented by another player who thinks that not being an NPC should somehow give them special immunitity to anything, and those who believe, for example, that the only possible reason my CMDR could be around is to be shot at by them. They are both disruptions of similar magnitude. Neither is going to ruin my day, but the idea that those who consider themselves PvEers have less potential for negative impact on my experience in Open is a bizare one.
Personally, I still consider the whole PvP vs. PvE thing a false dichotomy. In any multiplayer game, player characters are as intrinsic a part of the environment as anything. I'm no less a PvEer because my CMDR prioritizes CMDR threats above lesser threats and is always ready for hostilities.
What this thread has proven beyond all doubt:
That there are actually a very, very few people that want to play Open. Because if there were half as many people that wanted to play Open that cry on these forums about wanting to make everybody play Open, then they wouldn't be here crying about making people play Open because there would be a ton of people playing Open.
That there are actually a very, very few people that want to play Open. Because if there were half as many people that wanted to play Open that cry on these forums about wanting to make everybody play Open, then they wouldn't be here crying about making people play Open because there would be a ton of people playing Open.