The Open v Solo v Groups thread

There are two sides to the story again. Humans are the pilot federation, NPCs are not. Why did they introduce fame, which can be obtained for killing people and for killing NPCs?
What's the point of this fame?

I’m assuming by “fame” you mean the “combat” ranking? The Pilots Federation has long ranked its members by how many kills they’ve made. It made offering their member’s services as mercenaries easier.

At some point during the 50 years between Frontier First Encounters and “Elite: Who let the riff-raff in?”, the Pilots Federation evolved from a trade union who just happens to manage the galaxy’s bounty system, to the far more sinister super-NGO it is today. This includes monitoring the galaxy’s pilots, civilian, military, and police alike, and evaluating their potential threat to its members.

After all, if you now represent the interests of pirates, assassins, and serial killers as well as transport pilots, bounty hunters, and mercenaries, it’s best to make the former three group’s lives easier.
 
I’m assuming by “fame” you mean the “combat” ranking? The Pilots Federation has long ranked its members by how many kills they’ve made. It made offering their member’s services as mercenaries easier.

At some point during the 50 years between Frontier First Encounters and “Elite: Who let the riff-raff in?”, the Pilots Federation evolved from a trade union who just happens to manage the galaxy’s bounty system, to the far more sinister super-NGO it is today. This includes monitoring the galaxy’s pilots, civilian, military, and police alike, and evaluating their potential threat to its members.

After all, if you now represent the interests of pirates, assassins, and serial killers as well as transport pilots, bounty hunters, and mercenaries, it’s best to make the former three group’s lives easier.
I'm sorry, no.
It's a notoriety.
 
I'm sorry, no.
It's a notoriety.

Notoriety is simply the term used by the Pilots Federation for the "time out" they give from allowing you to wipe any of your ship's bounties for a fee, thus removing it from their bounty system. It was put in place as a sop to the Federation and the Empire, after the old bounty system was deemed to be ineffective at curtailing the bad behavior of the less savory of its members.

It then turned around and made the bounty system even less effective, since the bounty follows the ship instead of the Commander.

Seriously, when I look at this game's systems through the lens of world-building, I can't help but ask...

Source: https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?t=47
 
Notoriety is simply the term used by the Pilots Federation for the "time out" they give from allowing you to wipe any of your ship's bounties for a fee, thus removing it from their bounty system. It was put in place as a sop to the Federation and the Empire, after the old bounty system was deemed to be ineffective at curtailing the bad behavior of the less savory of its members.

It then turned around and made the bounty system even less effective, since the bounty follows the ship instead of the Commander.

Seriously, when I look at this game's systems through the lens of world-building, I can't help but ask...

Source: https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?t=47
as far as I know, notoriety is tied to the player, not the ship.
And it seems like if you're notoriety high-profile, you should be hunted by ATF ships.
 
as far as I know, notoriety is tied to the player, not the ship.
And it seems like if you're notoriety high-profile, you should be hunted by ATF ships.
Not really. Notoriety acts as a timer and a bounty multiplier on kills. At not. 10 NPC kills are in the millions cred wise, and players a lot, lot more.

ATR are tied from my own experience to the number of kills and the system sec level. In low sec you need far more kills than high sec to get ATR- its why during BGS murder sprees kill counting is vital so you can HW out (and back to reset the clock).
 
Notoriety is simply the term used by the Pilots Federation for the "time out" they give from allowing you to wipe any of your ship's bounties for a fee, thus removing it from their bounty system. It was put in place as a sop to the Federation and the Empire, after the old bounty system was deemed to be ineffective at curtailing the bad behavior of the less savory of its members.

It then turned around and made the bounty system even less effective, since the bounty follows the ship instead of the Commander.

Seriously, when I look at this game's systems through the lens of world-building, I can't help but ask...

Source: https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?t=47
You do realise we are the pirates?
 
Are they like, the bad guys?

Or do they just have a misspent youth? Or we don't understand them?

Steve
A pirate does what they must.
History and laws are written by those with power, for their own convenience. The pirate is condemned as scum of the earth or proclaimed greatest hero according to what the powerful find expedient.
 
I'm sorry, but those are just words. Usually these pirates don't even have a cargo hold.
You conflate two items.
The 'pirate' is the independent starfarer, nothing more, nothing less.

The Emperor had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What do you mean by seizing the whole earth; because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you who does it with a great fleet are styled emperor".
 
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As an old UO veteran, it would be fair to say that Open mode is like Felucca. Solo/PG is nothing like what I remembered Trammel to be. There is a cohort of players are simply not fun to play with. Before the split, these players ran rampant as PKs. After the split, this cohort moved to Trammel and used other ways to mess with other players. Aside from a few instances in the Mobias mega-PG, they simply don’t have access to the players who least want to play with them.
You're right, I certainly over-simplified there. The distinction being that Trammel in Elite is invite only. Obviously this was Frontier's attempt at eliminating griefing entirely and by and large it works. PG 99% and Solo 99.9% effective in this regard. The occasional butthead slipping into a public PG before being moderated being that 1%. As we are all aware, the only real point of contention comes from players affecting others with impunity through in game systems. (Powerplay, BGS)

There's a post early on in one of the old threads linked above I'd like to point out in which a guy named Havvk says, "You cannot and will not be allowed to tell me how to play the game. I'll play how I damn well please, in solo, messing up your BGS on purpose knowing that you're nothing but helpless against me."

The mentality shown here is, quite ironically, a form of griefing.

As you point out (helpful graphic apt at explaining this btw!) some players will always find their way to ruin someone else's fun. Darrack and Felix highlight this as well. Even Richard Garriott knew this. His major mistake being that he assumed there'd be enough folks roleplaying virtuous anti-pk's to police the nefarious murderers out of the kindness of their hearts, without any added incentive from the game to do so. That was not the case. My counterpoint here is you cannot eliminate the aspect of human malice from the equation completely within any multiplayer experience. Pad blocking and ramming in stations being two unique examples I'm aware of in which griefing can happen in Elite sans direct PvP pew pew. In other games it's simply killstealing, trade spamming, and any number of other things that can be done to annoy someone. Haters gonna hate. The most extreme example in any online game would be huge groups re-logging to intentionally crash the server or some other direct DDoS attack. Even playing in solo doesn't protect against that highly unlikely yet possible scenario. I'm not arguing for one mode over the other in this paragraph, just pointing out the facts as I understand them. I'm passionate about game design and really enjoy talking to fellow players about it!
The name actually stems from the Elite Federation of Pilots lowering their standards to admit lesser ranks to meet demand.

I guess “Elite: Who let the riff-raff in?” doesn’t have the same edge. ;)
Yeah I understand this. We can link this vid of Braben (his name be praised) as much as we like but the talking point of the game being "dangerous" will never go away imo.

More accurate I think to title the game Elite: Dangerous (if you want it to be, whatever, doesn't phase us just buy it)

Nyuk nyuk.
I sincerely doubt that would get much traction. In most MMOs I’ve played that are similar to Elite Dangerous Open, special “PvP Servers” withered on the vine.
I feel this common talking point isn't quite entirely worth its salt. Yes, the playerbase is smaller. Yes, often is the case PvP only servers stagnate. One can argue over the validity of time and resource investment into a small percentage of a game's playerbase. However these facts do not inherently invalidate the value of a player with interest in PvP buying & playing the game.

"In most MMO's I've played that are similar to Elite Dangerous Solo, special 'multiplayer servers' withered on the vine."

A humorous take but illustrates my point. I hope.

Anyway I really liked the idea of the California Nebula being a PvP bubble of some sort. After today's stream though it looks like PP 2.0 might actually have a chance at making the majority of players happy. It'll be exciting to see how the near future plays out!
 
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I wrote a topic like this. My question is more about the CG than the open vs not open game argument. Those who don't like the risk can continue to ship goods in single player but it will be a bit longer. I'm bored with it, but there's no way I'm speeding up getting bonds in open game.

But I really don't understand why there is no such risk fee for CG in open play.
 
I wrote a topic like this. My question is more about the CG than the open vs not open game argument. Those who don't like the risk can continue to ship goods in single player but it will be a bit longer. I'm bored with it, but there's no way I'm speeding up getting bonds in open game.

But I really don't understand why there is no such risk fee for CG in open play.
Honestly? Because a simple flat multiplier like that doesn't reflect the actual risk in open play. In like 99.9% of the galaxy that'd just give me a 3x advantage over people who prefer to play in solo, despite neither of us seeing another player.

On the other side of the coin, take exploration. Exploration is an activity where the absolute vast majority of all the actual doing is completely mode-ambiguous, you're visiting systems where literally nobody has been in the 10+ years the game has been running, and the only chance of meeting another player and risking anything as a result is at the very start of your journey (where you stand to lose nothing besides a rebuy) or the very end (where you stand to lose a lot) - it doesn't really make sense to have some mode multiplier applied. And when would you apply it? When you discover the systems? When you cash in? Penalise them if they log into solo at any point in their journey, to take high-res screenshots?
 
Honestly? Because a simple flat multiplier like that doesn't reflect the actual risk in open play. In like 99.9% of the galaxy that'd just give me a 3x advantage over people who prefer to play in solo, despite neither of us seeing another player.

On the other side of the coin, take exploration. Exploration is an activity where the absolute vast majority of all the actual doing is completely mode-ambiguous, you're visiting systems where literally nobody has been in the 10+ years the game has been running, and the only chance of meeting another player and risking anything as a result is at the very start of your journey (where you stand to lose nothing besides a rebuy) or the very end (where you stand to lose a lot) - it doesn't really make sense to have some mode multiplier applied. And when would you apply it? When you discover the systems? When you cash in? Penalise them if they log into solo at any point in their journey, to take high-res screenshots?
I'm sorry, I don't understand what this has to do with research.
I know that the CG in an open game is the most dangerous place. But also CG are very boring and tedious. If bonds for CG in open game would be multiplied by at least 3 I would try it in open game. That's about it.

If I wanted to continue doing СGs in single-player, no one is stopping me from doing so. I just know that since I'm reading the forum while flying and watching youtube on another screen I would do not 1 single trip but three.
 
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I'm sorry, I don't understand what this has to do with research.
I know that the CG in an open game is the most dangerous place. But also CG are very boring and tedious. If bonds for CG in open game would be multiplied by at least 3 I would try it in open game. That's about it.

If I wanted to continue doing СGs in single-player, no one is stopping me from doing so. I just know that since I'm reading the forum while flying and watching youtube on another screen I would do not 1 single trip but three.

So you are saying the CG is too high a risk in Open but too low in solo. In terms of delivering cargo to reach a target sure, I agree with that. It can be done in open but it's not as easy, but reaching the target isn't the only point to CGs. They are pinch points; a place where Cmdrs converge & can co-op or compete. You can do those in a private group too, potentially without the risk of being attacked too. Choose your poison :) Playing in Open is it's own reward though, it doesn't need any extra incentive imo.

If doing CG runs while watching youtube & browsing forums is your thing solo probably is your best bet for an easy life. If you want something to keep you on your toes & checking the scanner for contacts then Open is going to be more exciting than doing it in solo, but you'll be doing it for a different reason, not simply to deliver cargo (or whatever).

However you choose to play, and you can change at any time (don't combat log), it should be fun for you, and others will find a way to make it fun for themselves.
 
So you are saying the CG is too high a risk in Open but too low in solo. In terms of delivering cargo to reach a target sure, I agree with that. It can be done in open but it's not as easy, but reaching the target isn't the only point to CGs. They are pinch points; a place where Cmdrs converge & can co-op or compete. You can do those in a private group too, potentially without the risk of being attacked too. Choose your poison :) Playing in Open is it's own reward though, it doesn't need any extra incentive imo.

If doing CG runs while watching youtube & browsing forums is your thing solo probably is your best bet for an easy life. If you want something to keep you on your toes & checking the scanner for contacts then Open is going to be more exciting than doing it in solo, but you'll be doing it for a different reason, not simply to deliver cargo (or whatever).

However you choose to play, and you can change at any time (don't combat log), it should be fun for you, and others will find a way to make it fun for themselves.
My goal is to get 50% interest to get a shipping container. I'm willing to take the risk if it speeds up my goal.

I'm not interested in money and other fiddling in an open game.

I know about private groups and that's why I specifically asked about the open game.

P.S. When CG is over I'll just go back to my favorite AXCZs in single player. I would just love that cargo container on my Cutter, sometimes I can pick up a thargoids heart or something.
 
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