As
this post highlighted, many people feel that playing open is not worth the risk because they gain nothing extra from taking the risk of player pirates, gankers etc. So it has always been a game design issue - it's a fact that open is more risky than other modes, there's no real debating that. It would help the game's popularity enormously if there was something unique to open play that either rewarded the player for the extra risk they were taking or allowed them to partake in some kind of player-driven or PvP focused activity that wasn't just a massive, aimless credit sink that doesn't affect BGS, Powerplay or anything (something related to squadron wars or similar would probably be the way forward).
What level of bonus would be required to coerce those disinclined to occasionally, if ever, engage in PvP, or to satisfy the "Open is much riskier" players? Regarding the numbers involved, it seems (from the Inara data covering tens of thousands of players over two thirty day periods) that those who don't engage in PvP much, if at all, is c.90% of players, i.e. c.10% engage, or are engaged, in PvP in an average month (and the data includes organised PvP).
Which rather puts "open is more risky" into some form of context - and, even then, only a vanishingly small proportion of the galaxy in Open is actually riskier - the rest is just as devoid of other players as it is in Solo and Private Groups and, even if one does instance with another player, there's a sigfnificant chance that they won't initiate combat, as most players seem not to, most of the time at least.
I would not be too quick to remove the possibility for PvP Squadron conflicts taking place in Private Groups - as the PG membership can be limited to Squadron members only, removing the possibility for those (non Squadron members) inclined to spoil the event for others to be able to do so.
This subject is still so popular on these threads, I don't think FDEV permanently sitting on the fence has helped Elite's popularity over the years tbh. Admittedly it's tough to solve without ruffling someone's feathers. But PvP should have its place in the game other than just being a fringe or niche activity... just letting it exist in the background has slowly killed that part of the community to the point that only a handful of PvP players still bother logging in - it's a shame because it was once a thriving segment of the community.
Frontier chose to design, pitch, develop and release a game where every player, regardless of game mode, experiences and affects the single shared galaxy - and where other players are an optional extra, which necessarily means that in-the-same-instance PvP is a completely optional extra. That others are not forced to engage in PvP when engaged in any pan-modal game feature does seem to be an issue for some players, however we all backed or bought the game on the basis of the design as it is, not as it might be in the myriad different ways it could be changed.
In the same stream DBOBE agreed with a statement from someone in the chat that "it's not sold as a PvP game" (apart from CQC, of course).
Arguably PvP already has a place, for those inclined to engage in it in opposition to other players who also want to engage in it. It's not a required part of any game feature (apart from CQC).
I don't know, what would you suggest doing for the PvE community to balance the scales should their be any changes to open/solo or PvE/PvP? Short of an open PvE mode, I'm not sure there is anything else you can do that makes any sense.
At this point I would support an Open only game mode being added to the game - with its own copy of the galaxy to affect. That seems to be the most equitable solution as it would give those who don't actually want to share the galaxy with players who can choose not to present themselves to be shot at a galaxy that only players in that new game mode could affect, leaving the existing tri-modal shared galaxy for those who don't feel the need to exclude those they don't instance with from affecting the shared galaxy.
I guess that's up to FDEV... I can see the design problems with it, and negative consequences it could have for standard open. It could potentially be implemented with universal smart rounds but there would be so many issues to fix on top of that too.
The list of issues to solve would be long - and, as DBOBE mentioned, removing
all possible ways to directly adversely affect another player would be non trivial.
we should bring opinions of open-only experienced BGS/PP players, because there's a number of shades of grey from BGS/PP in solo/PG to playing it in open only. You can raise the point of making it more effective playing BGS/PP in solo/PG, the others can raise the point about being "fair" to do BGS/PP in open (I mean when there's some kind of conflict of going on).
