The Open v Solo v Groups thread
- Thread starter Ozric
- Start date
NPCs are the same now, so it wouldn't make any difference apart from giving PG players a chance to play with a wider group of people.
The actual issue (as always) is exploiters and trolls. Frontier have mentioned it before, if they made an Open PvE mode, it would be less than 24 hours before someone found a way to disrupt other players by exploiting a game mechanic.
Look at the old cargo trick that had to be stopped. Where people were loading up T9s with 500T of cheap cargo and ejecting it all and lagging out instances.
Now, instancing has a limit on the number of ejected cans allowed.
And those people have PvP / ganking as an option, but chose another way to annoy players.
Imagine how creative they will get without having PvP to fall back on for their personal entertainment.
Challenge for whom, though?
I know people with disabilities who play the game, a challenge for them, or for the people who put 60 hours a week into it?
Because Frontier have already said the NPCs are set at the midpoint now, so who do you want to exclude from the game?
I'm not trying to exclude anyone.
What's your experience with the design of difficulty in games?
Nice rose-tinted glasses you're wearing there, especially since all the old forum posts are still available from the PvP crowd screaming blue murder about the lack of PvP targets in Power Play when it released, demanding Solo and PG players be forced into Open to supplement PvPers' available target pool.
So the early days were nothing as you've described here. Feel free to go back through the threads; they are still here in the forum history.
Again, I'm not diluting anything. PvPers just don't seem to get their stories synchronised and make opposing arguments constantly.
On the same forum page, we have space is too large to find targets, and a few posts after events are so compressed and in a small space, that all your targets must be hiding in Solo. So space is both too large to find people, and so small that it proves they are hiding
And of course, the proposed solution to both is always the same: to force Solo and PG players into Open mode
For me personally, in this game, I find the AI to be too predictable and easy to counter.
SJA once did an AI update that terrified me. I put shields back on the T9 I was flying at the time (this should tell everything you need to know).
It lasted a week before she was made to undo it. I almost cried. The game was exciting again, and it was taken away from us.
But I understand there are people of different abilities playing the game. And Frontier have tuned the game towards the "average" player
So if I want to increase the difficulty of the game for myself, I won't fly an engineered ship, I won't spend tons of money on modules or just fly the default loadout.
Because here is the crux of the difficulty issue: check the ships those complaining are actually flying.
They are in over-engineered ships designed to make the game easier. They are making their own games easier and blaming Frontier for it.
And it's a trap Frontier cannot fix. If they make the game more difficult, people will want more engineering - they get more engineering, the game gets easier
It goes round and around. And the same few people will never be happy.
Ah SJA, the Happy Times.
One of the ways to look at difficulty is by "zones". For AI it would be to have, say, the OG SJA NPCs only inhabiting areas that are clearly telegraphed to the player - e.g security rating or perhaps government type.
The concomitant gameplay would offer higher rewards for these riskier areas - the original Elite had this to a certain extent where (from hazy memory) Riedquat was reachable from your first jump, at the station you could buy drugs very cheaply provided you had got past the pirates that always lurked in Anarchy systems.
So, as long as the areas are clearly identified, a CMDR can set their own level of difficulty for each play session as they see fit.
This is Open/Solo/PG independent.
If we base difficulty around an arbitrary average IMHO it does a disservice to both new and long term players as there aren't zones to cater to either group (notwithstanding the original beginners zone) or perhaps AX combat.
Then we add PvP on top and the very fact that a new player, without understanding Inara/this forum/discord etc could jump into Deciat in Open with no in game alerts is, again IMHO, very poor design.
I could wax lyrical about difficulty in game design but I'm sure I've bored you enough but
what are your thoughts? @Jockey79 ?
One of the ways to look at difficulty is by "zones". For AI it would be to have, say, the OG SJA NPCs only inhabiting areas that are clearly telegraphed to the player - e.g security rating or perhaps government type.
The concomitant gameplay would offer higher rewards for these riskier areas - the original Elite had this to a certain extent where (from hazy memory) Riedquat was reachable from your first jump, at the station you could buy drugs very cheaply provided you had got past the pirates that always lurked in Anarchy systems.
So, as long as the areas are clearly identified, a CMDR can set their own level of difficulty for each play session as they see fit.
This is Open/Solo/PG independent.
If we base difficulty around an arbitrary average IMHO it does a disservice to both new and long term players as there aren't zones to cater to either group (notwithstanding the original beginners zone) or perhaps AX combat.
Then we add PvP on top and the very fact that a new player, without understanding Inara/this forum/discord etc could jump into Deciat in Open with no in game alerts is, again IMHO, very poor design.
I could wax lyrical about difficulty in game design but I'm sure I've bored you enough but
what are your thoughts? @Jockey79 ?
I think it's from Predator, when Arnie meets the CIA officer who has already set him up. The director focuses on the handshake to indicate the insincerity of the CIA guy.
ooooh Predator. I was thinking about something like that terrible Stallone arm wrestling movie. Thanks.
Absolutely agree, the difficulty should be tied to the system type/government. The closer to anarchy, the harder the NPCs (dare I say it, similar to EVE Online).
That would make a much better system (IMO), as not only would that be good for combat pilots, but traders and explorers would also pay more attention to their routes and have a chance to decide if some systems are worth the "shortcut", or if adding several more jumps would suit them more.
It would add so much more to the game for everyone.
You could also do things like duplicate the engineers, some in safer systems that cost what they do now (or perhaps make them a bit more expensive) and some in more dangerous areas that will do the work for cheaper, or accept alternate materials (ie stolen or found items, trade escape pods or other oddities). And those systems would be anarchy, so no punishments for PvP - meaning if you want cheap upgrades, you have to run the gauntlet.
Also, why don't NPC pirates act like NPC police do (let me explain....)
So if I'm flying in a "safe" system and get shot at, NPC police turn up to help me.
Shouldn't NPC pirates act the same in an anarchy system for player pirates - so if I opened fire on someone who pulled me over, shouldn't NPC pirates turn up to protect the player pirate from my guns?
So if I've chosen to take a more dangerous route, even the act of trying to fight back would make the game harder, by supporting PvPers in their actions in that system.
What else do you expect? Of course you tune your game to the average player, because that's where the player base is the broadest - unless you want it to be a failure and desaster. And without the quotes, it's even less insulting.
You don't align your game to the top however little percent, that would be an incredibly stupid business move. Also, only Saud Kruger liners are in the top 1% of all liners out there.
Tuning it to the average player is only one method of implementing difficulty, as discussed.
ED doesn't do that wholeheartedly either.
This is another good argument to delete open and only allow solo and PG mode. In solo they still could crash the server (but that is something the devs must counter) and in PG it could lead to a ban for the player from the group.
Thats one way of looking at it.
.. but that probably kind of tracks as I'm 95% sure I pirated Ethelred a few times back when piracy was still a viable game.
