Just a few questions.
1) is 5C predominant in solo/pg rather than in open?
That is the assumption, and it's a fair one IMO. 5C exists to disrupt PowerPlay. The easiest way to do this is player-killing... but the easiest
targets are playing in Solo/PG. The next easiest way to do this is to do 5C activities.
2) if open only went live, assuming instancing became a thing of the past, would (long term) player numbers drop?
They would. But the question isn't
if they'll drop, but by how much. What proportion of PowerPlayers are playing in Open, vs Solo/PG.
Every Power group claims that
they bravely do their activities in Open, and everyone else hides in Solo/PG. According to Frontier, the majority of players in general play in Open, by a significant margin. And the cohort likely to play PowerPlay to begin with are the exact same cohort likely to play in Open in the first place.
So ultimately the question is: Is the PowerPlayerbase in general lying hypocrites, or is the instancing and the rules of PowerPlay simply
that bad if your goal is to be instanced together for a great PvP experience, outside of when the stars happen to align. All the tests I've done over the years indicates it's the latter, unless you actively cooperate with others to get instanced together.
Of course, I doubt that Frontier will go to a subscription server/client model just to accommodate PowerPlay, so instancing will probably
always be that bad. At least unless players actively
try to get instanced together via friends lists, VPNs, and firewall settings. I understand the PvP community pretty much has everyone else on their friends list. I doubt that current 5C players will be as cooperative.
3) Has the goid wars caused a drop in player numbers?
Did a quick look at
@Ian Doncaster's wonderful Squadron leaderboard analysis, and it looks like overall PowerPlay activity has been static for a
long time, Thargoids or no Thargoids.
4) are their any statistics about player numbers in all 3 modes? I appreciate these might be inaccurate (steam vs frontier login etc).
All we have to go on is an old statement that the majority of players play in Open, by a significant margin.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52kOyADxK5E&t=3113s&ab_channel=EliteDangerous
5) is elites playerbase now, at an all time low? (Recent resurgence aside).
The overall playerbase has stable for a
long time. It has it's peaks whenever Frontier introduces new content, but overall there's a relatively solid playerbase.
I cannot think of an optimistic question..
I'm sat here wracking my brains trying real hard.
Here's optimism: the playerbase, both Power and general, is large enough for Frontier to introduce new content, and rework old features, for
free. That's a good thing in my book.
as I wont let you in.
