And again with the penalty thing. You are not taking away anything from anybody. You are giving something to somebody.
The Open v Solo v Groups thread
- Thread starter Ozric
- Start date
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Indeed. It would be seen as an attempt to bribe or coerce players into doing so, against their normal inclination.
Indeed we did - where the challenge posed by other players is limited to the instances that they inhabit, that no other player needs to share.
Fair comment. Experience is always a boon, no matter what side you are on.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
It's a functional equivalence - a bonus for playing in only one of the game modes is equivalent to a corresponding penalty applied to those playing in the other two game modes.
You think it would lead to less players.
I think it could make more new players come.
But it's just our opinions and I guess the only way to actually see who's right would be to grant +50% merits to open activities.
Come on. A boon to one group is no different to a penalty to the other when it comes to rewards that affect the same game element.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
That Frontier have openly mused about an Open bonus twice in the last eight years and then haven't implemented one in Powerplay 2.0 may be suggestive of how they expect such a change would be received by the player-base.
Indeed, we disagree, and its not our call to make either. Its FD's, and for 10 years so far they've decided that it wouldn't be worth it.
That doesn't mean they couldn't change their mind, or want to do an experiment. But if the result of the experiment is a ton of people quitting PP, and possibly the game, they may never get those players back.
Its a risky proposition.
I mean.. I hate to equate Elite to that other space game...
But Elite hasnt gotten 700mil in funding for a game thats no finished and has only one mode...
Arguably the reason the lure of what SC promises is purely down to the fact its entirely designed around emergent gameplay.
Every aspect of how it plays can result in interaction from players.
I don't know the exact numbers, but the amount of funding its received and continues to do so indicates that there are a probably a lot more people interested in that element of gameplay than a modal system such as Elite provides.
Well, they don't charge $48,000 for a pack of ships, and some people think the ARX shop items are overpriced! ED is a fully released game, SC is an Alpha with one star system, a few planets and maybe a few game play loops for players, so if that 700m in funding can't finish a game that has only single play mode what exactly makes you think it's a good model?
it would indeed be an attempt to bribe and coerce people to play open. nice of you to finally notice the point. but optional. no player is forced to do so.
just like no player is forced to join powerplay and just like powerplay bonuses arent labeled penalty to the people who dont want to participate.
What that other game offers is dreams.txt. What it delivers is far from what was sold.
And the money largely comes from selling spaceships. Not a road i wanted FD to go down and i don't like ships being sold for ARX.
That other game was also sold to many backers on ideas such as the PvP slider (now long forgotten) and NPCs indistinguishable from players (stupid idea and impossible to deliver on, but they sold people on that idea), and an NPC to player ration of 10:1 (which they haven't really delivered on either... you rarely see NPC ships (extra network traffic, would kill the servers) and when you do, they are usually spawned for missions. The whole "living-breathing verse" is very much missing.
However, they have, for the last few years at least, been positioning the game more as a PvP game (well, PvA, but the E element from the P+E=A combo is largely missing), which has upset a lot of early backers. NPC crew and "Agent Smithing" is now not on the cards for release, which has caused massive upset among many of the early backers, including some of the biggest whales.
When the topic comes up on Spectrum there are always flames with the PvPers and PvEers fighting over what the game is meant to be, what they were sold. And the funny thing is, they are all correct. CIG have positioned the game as different things at different times and anyone can find quotes from CIG that supports their stance.
What the game might look like, should it ever release, is still an unknown.
People have invested based on speculation. Ok, that's their choice. And its resulted in massive income based on dreams.
I do hope you don't want FD to go down that road. I'd rather people could buy into ED knowing exactly what to expect from the game.
And if someone bought into ED expecting it to be Open Only (and i've actually seen someone write a rage post on Steam forums because they didn't know about modes when they bought the game), then that's on them.
You bought the game with modes, i bought the game with modes. We all bought a game when we could choose when and where we can interact with other players.
Now, a space game comes along that offers a single shared space, where there are no safe spaces, that could replace ED, then people are welcome to go play that game. It just hasn't happened yet. Star Citizen is still a buggy alpha, Dual Universe has largely crashed and burned, Star Atlas is still early in development (and crypto, ugh).
And of course, that is why some want ED to change to suit them (and screw anyone who doesn't like it), because you can point to SC, but it doesn't offer a lot of what ED offers.
Oh, and just to go back to this:
One mode, multiple servers. In the PU you still log into a server that is separate to all other servers. Streamers/Orgs sometimes fill up servers with their friends so they can effectively play PvE.
CIG are trying to change this, hoping to deliver "server meshing", which will lead to more players being able to be on the same group of servers, but its very buggy and still quite limited in the numbers of players it can stably support, and still only on their pre-alpha-alpha servers (theoretically coming by the end of the year to the PU).
I mean... if this is to be beleived, thats a lot more on the daily that Elite is pulling... By a lot to boot.
Just have to point it out that SC indeed seems to have a greater lure than Elite does, and I would wager thats because of the interaction involved in its universe.
I don't much care to address where the funding comes from, we know its from ships, but the fact that the funding is still coming, says a lot.
Please don't tell me you got that chart from MMO populations or whatever the site is called. Its useless. They still list active player numbers for dead games.
CIG do not release active player numbers and there is no way for anyone to know.
We do know that CIG's advertised number of "backers" is a load of tosh, estimated at approx 50% of what is shown, as it shows free-fly accounts and alt accounts.
We also can observe livestreams and recordings to see how many are on each server when a player is playing, and people have often noted that when they log in, the see the same people playing. Of course, regional servers play a part in this, but also it seems like there is a hardcore of active players and most people just occasionally log in, try it out, then ragequit when something inevitably breaks.
There are also the PU (alpha), PTU (very alpha), and EPTU (very very alpha) servers, making it harder to determine how many are playing.
But, with all that said, anyone who tries to tell you they know how many people are playing SC at any given time, unless the source is CIG, they are lying.
But on the condition that if the said player in open who has no interaction with any other enemy player they wouldn't get the buff as it wasnt "dangerous " enough??
If the game had been Open Only, I still would’ve backed it during the Kickstarter. Mostly because of the IP and nostalgia, but also because I’ve done so in the past, repeatedly, out of the naive belief that this time it’ll be different. Heck, I’d probably play EVE Online if it wasn’t for the player-driven economy. I have a full time job, thank you very much. Been there, done that, still suffer from RSI to this day.
Whether I would’ve kept playing the game is another matter entirely. Every other game like Open Only ED either went to PvP switch route, or went out of business due to hemorrhaging paying customers, due to the antics of the usual suspects. Even PvP servers of PvE games inevitably get shut down due to their excessive expenses.
I had originally planned to play in Open until the situation in Open became intolerable, thanks to the antics of the usual suspects. Much to my surprise and delight, it never did, and it seems that the significant majority of the player-base agree with my assessment. That’s because the usual suspects are conspicuously rare in this game, and and are relatively ineffective unless you actively cooperate with your own destruction.
It’s always been my belief that the usual suspects preferentially target pure-PvEers, newbies, and “crafters” because they want a guaranteed win. They will also avoid anything resembling a fair fight whenever they can. Elite Dangerous has created an environment where anyone with zero-interest in PvP are free to play the game they enjoy, while those of us with a peripheral interest in PvP, but lack the time or desire to do the extreme grinding required to fight back, can get the occasional thrill of testing our skills against another human being, while still enjoying the PvE content were actually here for.
It’s also my belief that due to the nature of this game’s networking solution, Open Only would fail to produce the results its advocates desire, and will get even more frustrated than they are now. Take the George Lucas blockade above. That blockade was successful in stopping me 9% (correction, 7%... assuming that the blockade is still ongoing) of the time, despite me being in Open all the time. And it was only successful the one time because I voluntarily play by their rules.
If I hadn’t been playing by their rules, I could’ve done the old relogski until got an undefended instance. Another possibility, since the George Lucas run has been my “not enough time to do anything else” option since PowerPlay 2.0 began, I could’ve simply logged out, and sacrificed seven minutes of my morning routine to return with those sweet rares. And there are other options on my list where “there’s no such rule” against using them… except my sense of fair play.
And it’s violating the unwritten rules of fair play that makes the usual suspects what they are, and why so many people thinnk that they are not fun to play with. And that is ultimately why I have no desire to see this game, or even parts of this game, go Open Only. If it's keeping the usual suspects away from this game, that's a good thing in my book.
Like modules ??
How many people would be bothered with PP if it wasn't for the modules ?
Imagine fdev doing all that work on PP2 and then removing the modules and seeing numbers participating drop as everyone now realises that they could buy the mining lances instead of running around doing "PP" stuff ?? It's like BGS, we have dedicated groups who enjoy the filling up of imaginary buckets faster than the other team . But the average person doesn't care they just play the game as they want.
I don't have much of any experience with that other game, but this describes Elite: Dangerous quite well.
That it's even possible to seek out fair fights, outside of some kind of game within the game (a sporting event or internal simulation), and have one's CMDR survive for long, is one of the most immersion defying aspects of this game. No plausible setting is conducive to fair fights, unless it's also expected that character turnover is extremely rapid.
Willingly engaging near peers in a violent confrontation, without some clear situational edge, is one of the most desperate and/or insane things someone can do.
And not very effective, given how that station had featured heavily in the last Buckyball Race (which was a rares hauling race), so making an Old World rares run was not only my first completed Rank 0 mission, but also my "I've got 15 minutes to spare, let's make a run." At one point, you could purchase nearly 180 rares just at George Lucas, so I didn't even need to visit any of the others. I was only attacked once, and I'm still hoping for another encounter, to see if I can do better leaving in the face of hostile fire now that I've recognized the mistakes I made the first time.
