Of course it's also a psychological difference. But not just.
The Open v Solo v Groups thread
- Thread starter Ozric
- Start date
In complete agreement.
Edit:- the fact that there is very limited in game ways to do this, making assymetric combat possible, is a fault lying with FDEV.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The complaints of player pirates when their chosen target logs out rather than lets the pirate dictate gameplay are particularly ironic.
I mean, again this shows the poor implementation of the piracy - bounty hunter - trader loop.
It's a valid complaint from the pirates perspective isn't it?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
If it happened with NPCs, certainly.
With regard to PvP piracy not so much - as players don't get to dictate terms to other players - which is probably why the fifteen second countdown to menu exit hasn't been changed even though it was pointed out a decade ago that it breaks PvP piracy.
I think that's a very unsympathetic response.
How would player on player piracy work, in your opinion?
I acknowledge that there is a trend for PvP encounters to be more difficult, but as we've also both acknowledged, difficulty is often not the deciding factor in one's perception of a PvP/PvE dichotomy. The average difference in difficulty is irrelevant for my hypothetical scenario (and a significant minority of actual PvP scenarios feature broadly NPC-levels of difficulty). Neither is the outcome really, as long as it's the same between the hypothetical NPC and CMDR encounters.
Curiosity isn't sufficient?
'Just different' isn't an answer and doesn't assuage my curiosity as to why you'd seemingly be less bothered with being cannon fodder for an NPC than another CMDR.
I am not doubting that any player in this game my choose how they wish to play. I'm asking for the rationale behind those choices and I'd like as many answers from as many people as possible.
You aren't required to help me understand your position, but I'd appreciate it if you did.
To play devil's advocate: Maybe it just doesn't. Has anyone considered that direct PvP might just be... a failure in this game?
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Sympathy depends on the behaviour of the group that purports to be pirates, but often simply resorts to murder when their target does not follow orders.
Observation over the years has reduced any sympathy that existed at the beginning to a miniscule level.
I don't see any way that PvP piracy would work that would not hand more tools to enhance the "fun" those whose behaviour is worthy of being blocked.
Actually it is. Along with all the other explanations I tried to give, it's all I got left.
Because. First and formost probably choice - I am not cannon fodder for NPCs unless I choose to, and not just by leaving the hangar. A cannon fodder seeking CMDR doesn't leave me any choice, and depending on my own skill also dictates my playstyle and ship choice. Maybe on a surface level it's just the difficulty. Maybe it's just in my head. Maybe it's a skill issue, or that I refuse to let myself be dominated by another player. It doesn't matter. You can find a plethora of miniscule reasons that all add up to: I am not interested in PvP encounters.
To add: Honestly, I am trying, but I get the feeling the reasoning for "not interested in PvP" isn't possible to be broken down into objective bullet points. There might not even be any objective reasoning. And honestly, that's fine too.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The answer is as before: it's perceived differently because a player chose to do it to another player. Some may find other player's attempts to dominate in interactions to be fun, some don't.
Well that's something. Thanks for the insight.
Direct PvP is an extremely broad thing and many of the areas where direct PvP is a failure have little to do with the PvP component of the activity in question.
For example, PvP piracy doesn't really work, for mostly the same reasons PvE piracy doesn't really work. The game's poor excuse for an economy has deprived piracy of any rational niche. There is nothing one can take from even the most pliant victims that cannot be more easily obtained elsewhere. You can get cargo from NPCs much more easily than you can from CMDRs, but no one needs the cargo. It's an activity with no utility that can only really be a caricature of itself.
A basic lack of consequence blunts the utility of violence against CMDR, no matter where that violence is coming from. It's very difficult for a CMDR to be able to lose anything meaningful, and even harder to suffer anything resembling a real setback. That in and of itself makes much organic PvP senseless, even if it couldn't be categorically opted out of.
It's the kind of PvP that was most intended to be part of the game (the rare, meaningful, contextual kind) that has suffered most.
Other aspects of PvP that don't depend on material consequences, or target those few segments where consequence is still a thing have a better go of it.
The organized, consensual, PvP types have some networking issues to contend with, but seem to be doing fine, overall.
Gankers may complain (or maybe they don't, there aren't many around here for me to ask), but they seem to be able to find enough players that don't know how the game works as targets.
I don't think there is any objective answer, but the spectrum of subjective opinions still interests me.
I think it's been considered since the beginning.
Plenty of people made a lot of noise when the offline version of ED was cancelled.
However, FDEV still seem to think it's OK as they haven't completely got rid of it, whilst maintaining plenty of ways to ensure that CMDRs don't need to participate.
Apart from a brief flirtation with a hardline Open Only stance, my view these days is that the modes are OK.
My only request is that there should be some form of meaningful (and in this context Powerplay related) PvP gameloops greater than what is currently offered (as we all know that is inefficient in terms of pushing your power's cause)
It isn't so opaque...
I am no longer great fan of multiplayer games in the first instance, having an opinion of the majority of 'gamers' that is unmentionable here, but isn't the highest, so my gaming in ED is, these days, incorporating only the players I find interesting to mix with.
My average ship will delete any NPC threat in a very short time, so my time isn't excessively wasted, again, my average ship would probably be inconvenient to those players who are entertained by interacting with those they consider a lesser threat, but more of my time would be, in my opinion, wasted in either mitigating the threat, or evading it, and such encounters are, again, in my opinion, extremely boring as they add nothing to either my game, or the game in general.
Essentially, I really don't care for the majority of players, so prefer, in my old age, to just enjoy the 'challenges' I consider entertaining, rather than waste time (and at my age the buffer stops at the end of the line are already quite visible) providing entertainment for somebody in whom I have zero interest. Oddly, I do the same with my group of RL friends, I pick the ones I wish to interact with, so why should my leisure time be any different?
I Wouldn't say it's a failure. This CG is pumping out some of the best PVP in a while because it's a combat CG, so everyone is geared for combat, and it's involving one of the powers with a large PVP player presence (archon) and a power with just a large quantity of players (ALD). Lots of good pews are being had, with of course the large number of clogging still (shameful).
It's not a failure, but it needs more investment from Fdev.
Agreed. My personal view is that pp is the perfect game loop for it. But something new that's part of the whole game, and not entirely separate from it like cqc, would be fine too
Mario metaphor seems appropriate:
So, once difficulty is accounted for, the remainder is the social aspect?
Virtually no one is suggesting there is a problem with your choice.
Open-only advocates mostly see an issue with the game, which is a multiplayer-only persistent world, offering that choice in the first place. Allowing players to chose the rules they play by collapses effective gameplay to a single lowest common denominator. The options they were sold on turned out to be largely illusory, by virtue of the existence of a path of lesser resistance that shifts the entire abstraction level away from the one they enjoy. Frontier trying to use a mode system to approximate a single-player game was a disservice to everyone.
So, once difficulty is accounted for, the remainder is the social aspect?
Virtually no one is suggesting there is a problem with your choice.
Open-only advocates mostly see an issue with the game, which is a multiplayer-only persistent world, offering that choice in the first place. Allowing players to chose the rules they play by collapses effective gameplay to a single lowest common denominator. The options they were sold on turned out to be largely illusory, by virtue of the existence of a path of lesser resistance that shifts the entire abstraction level away from the one they enjoy. Frontier trying to use a mode system to approximate a single-player game was a disservice to everyone.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
While the game design may be a disappointment to Open-only advocates, they didn't buy a game that would support their play-style.
Also to suggest that the optionality of in-the-same-instance PvP "shifts the entire abstraction level away from the one they enjoy" obviously only applies to a subset of players.
Given that the statement that all players would affect the shared galaxy was made during the Kickstarter, what did players think that "they were sold on turned out to be largely illusory"?
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They committed the sin of half baking two things instead completely baking one.Mario metaphor seems appropriate:
So, once difficulty is accounted for, the remainder is the social aspect?
Virtually no one is suggesting there is a problem with your choice.
Open-only advocates mostly see an issue with the game, which is a multiplayer-only persistent world, offering that choice in the first place. Allowing players to chose the rules they play by collapses effective gameplay to a single lowest common denominator. The options they were sold on turned out to be largely illusory, by virtue of the existence of a path of lesser resistance that shifts the entire abstraction level away from the one they enjoy. Frontier trying to use a mode system to approximate a single-player game was a disservice to everyone.