The Open v Solo v Groups thread

Players don't get set set the difficulty level for players who choose not to instance with them.

While Sandro indicated that the majority of players play in Open (some of the time at least - there was no statement regarding whether that majority played exclusively in Open), another Dev has indicated that Frontier are "well aware" that the majority of players don't get involved in PvP. Data recently extracted from Inara supports the latter, i.e. less than 10% of players initiate or are the target of PvP in a month (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-open-v-solo-v-groups-thread.607291/post-9925426).
my comments in this thread are about power play BGS and competetive power paly elelments like expansins, i know palyers who play in open, but will hide to solo in power play and BGS, becouse extra risk, but also reward, i thin k given this, it's time for discussion to maybe somehow promote open mode, but also nmake it less punishing in case of dying, i know player from my power who lost tens of thousands of merits killed by another player, maybe Fdev should consider dying in power paly activities less punishing, similarly to what fdev did in conflict zones (no more loss of BV)
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Shouldn't you be impartial given your role as moderator? Why labeling every pvp interaction as ganking when it is not?
No. Moderators enjoy the same privilege to express their opinions when engaging in threads. When engaged in threads, moderators do not moderate those threads.

Of course not all PvP interactions are ganking - it depends on whether the target has any interest in PvP though.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
my comments in this thread are about power play BGS and competetive power paly elelments like expansins, i know palyers who play in open, but will hide to solo in power play and BGS, becouse extra risk, but also reward, i thin k given this, it's time for discussion to maybe somehow promote open mode, but also nmake it less punishing in case of dying, i know player from my power who lost tens of thousands of merits killed by another player, maybe Fdev should consider dying in power paly activities less punishing, similarly to what fdev did in conflict zones (no more loss of BV)
While some players who might normally play in Open when engaged in particular activities may switch modes when it suits them, that has no bearing on the fact that the activities themselves do not require any player to engage in PvP. That some players play by out-of-game rules, e.g. Powerplay in Open only, those rules have no relevance to the rest of the player-base.
 
hire your own sqd of murder boats to get rid of them, or take seat in your murder boat and kill them, arent they just idiots after all? :)
Juust a reminder.... NPC's dont use dirty drives, even ATR vultures are slower t han palyer Vultures- YES!, npc's dont have FC rails, dispersal field ammo, they dont use screening shell frags or SR plasma accelerators, in short npc's have no options to harm player in engineeered ship, you cant be touched in pve, it's not the case against other player.
Why should i bother? No need when i can do it all risk free in Solo

O7
 
even engineered t-9 have 100% chance to escape ganker, i been in t-9 many times against a lot of ganks, as i m power play player, if you are dying in a t-9 it's becouse your outfitting optins were bad, or your situational awerness wasnt great, or you lack undesanding of some game mechanics that frontier is doing rather poor job promoting. pvp in bgs and pp is all about territory control, ganking is just collateral damage, but it's not a goal in itself, and most of vets who are hiding in solo/pg and do power play knw this, but not tell this openly in this thread. Why? Becouse this would ruin common narrative of ganker who only want to kill weak player hiding every corner.
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Your missing the point, why should i bother with Open?
Are you saying that PvPers are that bad they cant take down a T9?
No one is 'Hiding' in Solo or PG, its our choice, our game, our play style to not have to deal with muppets and play peacefully with what little time we have.

O7
 
While some players who might normally play in Open when engaged in particular activities may switch modes when it suits them, that has no bearing on the fact that the activities themselves do not require any player to engage in PvP. That some players play by out-of-game rules, e.g. Powerplay in Open only, those rules have no relevance to the rest of the player-base.
By current rules and standards, yes, most large PvP oriented groups have rules of engagement with established rules for ammunition and conduct during an engagement. These rules also existing outside of the current game. However, this has no bearing or relevance to the discussion at hand and is a red harring.

The point of the discussion is to debate open being influenced by PG/Solo in an activity (PP) that was designed to be a form of territory control and PvP engagement.

BGS was at it's core designed to be a PvE system.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
By current rules and standards, yes, most large PvP oriented groups have rules of engagement with established rules for ammunition and conduct during an engagement. These rules also existing outside of the current game. However, this has no bearing or relevance to the discussion at hand and is a red harring.
Out-of-game rules have no in-game relevance to those who don't choose to abide by them.
The point of the discussion is to debate open being influenced by PG/Solo in an activity (PP) that was designed to be a form of territory control and PvP engagement.
The discussion relates to all features in all modes - and we all bought the game on the basis of players in all game modes affecting pan-modal game features in the single shared galaxy, even if some of us want to deny access to those features so that those (who paid just as much for access to the features) who choose not to (or can't) play in Open would no longer be able to affect the features.

The players proposing that other players lose access to game features in modes other than Open bought the game on the same basis as those who they want to remove content from (if they don't choose to play in Open - in a game where other players are an optional extra).

As Powerplay was obviously consciously implemented in all three game modes (DBOBE commented on players in Solo affecting Powerplay in the AMA around the time it was introduced), any PvP that arises does so between players who choose to engage in it - however no player is required to present themself to be attacked by other players while engaged in Powerplay.
BGS was at it's core designed to be a PvE system.
As was Powerplay - in that neither require any player to engage in PvP to affect the feature.
 
You cite PP being PvE, but the funny thing is that even the lead designer Sandro Sammarco (around and devolved PP) acknowledged in an old forum post (not retrievable) that there were issues with PP in it's current state. (Since you want to reference old statements).

"I'm currently rather taken by the concept of a success multiplier for Commanders in Open Play. this modifier would not improve personal gains from power play activities, but it would magnify the effectiveness of a power's actions (expand, oppose, fortify, undermine). And the effect would probably be significant."

But I digress, I will never change you mind nor you change mine.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
You cite PP being PvE, but the funny thing is that even the lead designer Sandro Sammarco (around and devolved PP) acknowledged in an old forum post (not retrievable) that there were issues with PP in it's current state. (Since you want to reference old statements).

"I'm currently rather taken by the concept of a success multiplier for Commanders in Open Play. this modifier would not improve personal gains from power play activities, but it would magnify the effectiveness of a power's actions (expand, oppose, fortify, undermine). And the effect would probably be significant."

But I digress, I will never change you mind nor you change mine.
Sandro twice stirred the player-base on Powerplay, firstly in March 2016 with the "hand grenade" post where he suggested that players in Open might earn a bonus for their Power, not for themselves, when asked in a December stream whether the pin had been pulled, he said that it hadn't. In May 2018 he created the two Flash Topics on Powerplay, one where the possibility of Powerplay (and only Powerplay) being made Open only - noting that the Flash Topics were investigations only and not a fait accompli. In the second thread he reverted to the previously unsuccessful Open bonus for Powerplay. In what seems to have been his last communication with the player-base he said:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52kOyADxK5E&t=3110s

Sandro Sammarco; Lavecon Recap and Mining Focused Feedback said:
We don't give out numbers because we just don't do that right cuz we're the cool kids however it's it's fair to say that again, just to put a misconception to rest, the people playing in open is not a small group it's the majority. More people play in open than the other modes, yeah by a significant margin. So that shouldn't be taken though as a 'so we're gonna do open only power play' that it's absolutely the furthest from our minds. It's just that it hopefully saves some spurious arguments where people complain that no-one plays in Open or everyone plays in Open. The truth is that a lot of people play in Open but there are significant portions of players who play in Solo and significant portions who play in Private Groups. We want to support everyone as best we can but we also want to make sure that the game is as good as it can be.
 
For those who play in Open and don't like the fact that they share existing pan-modal game features with players in the other two modes there is a solution that does not involve removing anything from the players in Solo and Private Groups:
  • Propose that Frontier create a new Open-only game mode with its own copy of the galaxy that only players in Open-only mode can affect.
Glad we agree here. Separating the Open simulation from Solo/PG would be great. Question would be how to do this. Share CMDR info between simulations (e.g. keep credits, location of ship, ships; like it is now) or to completely separate them (having two different CMDR profiles between sims). If it is the first option, then missions, blocking will need to be changed, held CZ bonds, held PP merits, and held PP cargo would need to be deleted if you switch modes. With the second option, it wouldn't matter.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Glad we agree here. Separating the Open simulation from Solo/PG would be great. Question would be how to do this. Share CMDR info between simulations (e.g. keep credits, location of ship, ships; like it is now) or to completely separate them (having two different CMDR profiles between sims). If it is the first option, then missions, blocking will need to be changed, held CZ bonds, held PP merits, and held PP cargo would need to be deleted if you switch modes. With the second option, it wouldn't matter.
Third option: pick one galaxy and stick to it - no changing.

.... and Solo and Private Groups would not be separated from the galaxy state as, in the part of the post not quoted, it was clear that the existing tri-modal shared galaxy would continue as before.
 
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If one is only seeking to co-operate with other players and not compete with them then one has no need of an ability to direct NPCs to interdict those other players.
It doesn't end with interdiction. One may be interdicted by system-generated pirate-NPC and player from another mode may indirectly decide to help by dropping at low-wake signal
If you seek a game where face to face PvP is forced, Elite Dangerous is not that game, never had been and never will be.

PvE sells.
In my opinion the game fails to generate proper/relevant content in response to players affecting common state/galaxy independently of the mode. And to a special extent it relates to Powerplay-related activity done in PG mode. At certain degree (even having in mind all the issues with instancing) there is some sort of good counteraction between players of different Superowers in Open. In Solo it (almost) doesn't exist (especially if we take into account doing some engineering done). In PG there is no threat from opposing side (represented by NPC) at all. That's the reason why people contributing to PP in Open complain. If e.g. as the result of undermining (destroying ships with PP cargo, NPC and/or players) in one system (in any mode), the game could generate similar effect from NPC ships in other modes (if it was real threat) - I would guess no one in PP community would complain and asked to make PP Open-only.
Open world PvP is casual-hostile, no matter how grindy or not grindy a game is, because everyone progresses at different paces. PvPers tend to hunt down newbies until they leave the game because PvPers hate losing, especially if defeat means full loot or lost progress.
I hope you mean gankers here, not all PvP-ers. Because most if not all PvP-ers I met while playing Powerplay are opposite to what you describe.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
It doesn't end with interdiction. One may be interdicted by system-generated pirate-NPC and player from another mode may indirectly decide to help by dropping at low-wake signal
Which reads like more cross-modal interference by other players.

.... and players dropping in to the low-wake may be as likely to assist the attacker rather than the defender.
 
Which reads like more cross-modal interference by other players.

.... and players dropping in to the low-wake may be as likely to assist the attacker rather than the defender.
First of all my comment you answered to is incomplete. Somehow it got posted from another device where I started to type it together with another one, but that doesn't matter.

The idea is that game will decide what will be done by NPC-clone generated when in another mode another player dropped to your-clone-NPC. So if that player is enemy to you (in Powerplay terms) based on you tocation and cargo NPC may accompany the attacker. If another player has bounties, was killing NPCs of your faction then NPC will attack you. But in most cases if that's just an independent pilot non-hostile to your faction - he will most probably try to defend you if you have no wanted status and tasty bounties to collect for your kill.

And all these rules may be subject of discussion if we agree that if properly implemented such a PvP-on-off trigger may be an improvement in gameplay.
 
Glad we agree here. Separating the Open simulation from Solo/PG would be great. Question would be how to do this. Share CMDR info between simulations (e.g. keep credits, location of ship, ships; like it is now) or to completely separate them (having two different CMDR profiles between sims). If it is the first option, then missions, blocking will need to be changed, held CZ bonds, held PP merits, and held PP cargo would need to be deleted if you switch modes. With the second option, it wouldn't matter.

I actually rather like the idea of this. Let those that want to play a single player game play their single player game.

Let those that want to play an MMO and have a competitive environment do so as well.
 
I actually rather like the idea of this. Let those that want to play a single player game play their single player game.

Let those that want to play an MMO and have a competitive environment do so as well.
We can split galaxy in 2 parts - one side permit-locked and accessible only from Open and another side accessible only from Solo/PG :) Just need to figure out how to teleport commander on switching modes - maybe there could be an uninhabited buffer zone of space where commander can switch the mode. It is a joke in case anyone treat it seriously.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
And all these rules may be subject of discussion if we agree that if properly implemented such a PvP-on-off trigger may be an improvement in gameplay.
A properly implemented "PvP-on-off trigger" would actually disable all PvP damage / interference by other players.
 
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