Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Mk III

[JeanLuc]

Why PvP Will Never Take Off And How It Might Be Fixed

In Open Play, you would expect a significant amount of PvP encounters. If you want to be a pirate you should expect to be able to go from star system to star system and find traders to plunder from. If you want to be a bounty hunter or mercenary, you should expect to find pirates to destroy and collect the bounties on their head. But this isn't really the case. Why is that? I'll tell you exactly why, it's because of solo play.

Because of solo play, players can play by themselves without having to worry about other players trying to steal their stuff, and why wouldn't they? Although some may enjoy the rush of trying to evade a pirate, most will not find the risk to be worth it and in the end the vast majority of traders will play solo mode. Even those who enjoy PvP will resort to solo when trading. There is absolutely no reason to not play in solo if you're a trader.

Without traders the rock, paper, scissors of Elite Dangerous PvP completely breaks down. Without traders there are no pirates and without pirates there are no bounty hunters. Because of this, I don't think PvP in Elite Dangerous is ever going to be what it could be.

With that said, I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who say, "Who cares? I don't want to PvP." I'm not suggesting we remove solo mode. Obviously that is something that cannot be undone at this point. There may be other solutions, however.

One possible solution is to give traders incentive to play in open play. This could be created a number of different ways.

- Increase the profits that traders make in open play making it just as profitable or maybe even more profitable than solo play.

- Increase the NPC pirates in solo mode to more closely match what traders might experience in open play.

- Increase NPC security in open play to make it more difficult for pirates to steal from traders.

Another way of doing it would be to change the way solo play and open play work. Perhaps after a certain patch, players would have to choose between three different modes which their CMDR would be permanently bound to. These would be the modes:

- Open Play PvP, which would work exactly the same as current open play.

- Open Play PvE, which would be like open play except real players would not be able to attack each other.

- Solo Play, which would work exactly the same as the current solo play.

If you wanted to play on multiple modes, you would have to create separate CMDRs. You could have one CMDR in each mode, and anything and everything those CMDRs earn would only be accessible to themselves. So you COULD NOT earn 200 million credits on one CMDR and spend it with another CMDR.

In my opinion, the easiest and best solution is to just give traders enough incentive to play in open play mode. I think this would solve the problem. But other solutions may work as well.

What do you guys think?

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Perhaps PvP / murder would be less unacceptable (to those on the receiving end) if a balanced crime system was introduced.

Not sure what you mean by "senseless instances" in this context.

If the consequences for engaging in crime were enhanced then more players may choose to play in Open - we don't know for sure though.

Senseless Instances = Bang Bang... HahahaHee Ha ha... Bye.

And consequences will never be enough, to be honest. If someone is intent on getting his end off, then no matter of deterrent will stop him popping it. They just have to live with the fact that some people just do not want to be other peoples fodder, and that has to be fine, whether they like it or not.

 

[Robert Maynard]

What do you guys think?

Merged into the appropriate thread.

 

[Faded Glory]

I think you're going to be merged with the mega thread....

You might want to check it out here.

 

[PanicButton]

Deleted


Nothing to see here...move along...

 

[Sylveria]

Senseless Instances = Bang Bang... HahahaHee Ha ha... Bye.

And consequences will never be enough, to be honest. If someone is intent on getting his end off, then no matter of deterrent will stop him popping it. They just have to live with the fact that some people just do not want to be other peoples fodder, and that has to be fine, whether they like it or not.

I agree that "consequences will never be enough", however, the "people are going to murder regardless of consequence" argument doesn't invalidate introducing a true consequence system to begin with.

Sounds pretty defeatist to me- "It will never work, so why bother starting?"

 

[coolruningc]

for some of you who played Phantasy star online v1 and v2 they had a slimmer mode open play and solo play and I 100% agree that open play in elite should give a lot more on the reward side for example mission should pay out 10-20% more than solo mode belts should drop twice the amount of ore than solo mode and pvp/pve bounty's should be high. Witch in turn should help some players be more active on open play for my self I am just some one that plays elite in my spear time so keeping solo mode the way it is works fine for my self but as for you guys that want pvp more and go in open mode more you should be rewarded Fairley for that. any how got another x amount ships to kill to become elite good luck commanders

 

[Khelder]

Perhaps PvP / murder would be less unacceptable (to those on the receiving end) if a balanced crime system was introduced.

Not sure what you mean by "senseless instances" in this context.

If the consequences for engaging in crime were enhanced then more players may choose to play in Open - we don't know for sure though.

I've never said that PvP/murder is painless for the victims. But I am also in the camp that says, "If you're playing in Open, you have to accept that some bad things may happen to you." Thus, it should be acceptable. If you don't accept that, then you should be playing in Solo, Group, or voting for an Open PvE mode.

What I mean by "senseless instances" is where acts of aggression are carried out purely because the aggressor is bored, likes griefing, or just plays for the *pew* *pew*. Without a balanced crime system, these players can do this with impunity. There are no real consequences for their actions so very little real thought (or sense) goes into them. Whereas if someone roleplaying a pirate, for example, faced tougher consequences for murder, they might choose their prey carefully and go after high-value targets rather than wasting their reputation on profitless ganking sessions.

Couple the balanced crime system with improvements in risk-reduction (i.e. things like NPC wings, cargo insurance) and I think you would find more players facing the risk of Open. Because it would mean that they know that their attackers are facing some form of repercussion for their actions and it would minimise the very real problem for professions such as trading where a "fun PvP interlude" could cost them hours worth of work.

It's still not going to please everyone (from both sides of the fence), but it would go a ways to making it a little more workable.

 

[Sylveria]

In Open Play, you would expect a significant amount of PvP encounters. If you want to be a pirate you should expect to be able to go from star system to star system and find traders to plunder from. If you want to be a bounty hunter or mercenary, you should expect to find pirates to destroy and collect the bounties on their head. But this isn't really the case. Why is that? I'll tell you exactly why, it's because of solo play.

Because of solo play, players can play by themselves without having to worry about other players trying to steal their stuff, and why wouldn't they? Although some may enjoy the rush of trying to evade a pirate, most will not find the risk to be worth it and in the end the vast majority of traders will play solo mode. Even those who enjoy PvP will resort to solo when trading. There is absolutely no reason to not play in solo if you're a trader.

Without traders the rock, paper, scissors of Elite Dangerous PvP completely breaks down. Without traders there are no pirates and without pirates there are no bounty hunters. Because of this, I don't think PvP in Elite Dangerous is ever going to be what it could be.

With that said, I'm sure there are plenty of you out there who say, "Who cares? I don't want to PvP." I'm not suggesting we remove solo mode. Obviously that is something that cannot be undone at this point. There may be other solutions, however.

One possible solution is to give traders incentive to play in open play. This could be created a number of different ways.

- Increase the profits that traders make in open play making it just as profitable or maybe even more profitable than solo play.

- Increase the NPC pirates in solo mode to more closely match what traders might experience in open play.

- Increase NPC security in open play to make it more difficult for pirates to steal from traders.

Another way of doing it would be to change the way solo play and open play work. Perhaps after a certain patch, players would have to choose between three different modes which their CMDR would be permanently bound to. These would be the modes:

- Open Play PvP, which would work exactly the same as current open play.

- Open Play PvE, which would be like open play except real players would not be able to attack each other.

- Solo Play, which would work exactly the same as the current solo play.

If you wanted to play on multiple modes, you would have to create separate CMDRs. You could have one CMDR in each mode, and anything and everything those CMDRs earn would only be accessible to themselves. So you COULD NOT earn 200 million credits on one CMDR and spend it with another CMDR.

In my opinion, the easiest and best solution is to just give traders enough incentive to play in open play mode. I think this would solve the problem. But other solutions may work as well.

What do you guys think?

I don't think Solo itself, other than how PP is affected by Solo players has ever really been in question- but rather how to "incentivize" Solo players to want to play in Open.

I'm not really sure how the CMDR itself ties into game mechanics- but from what I've observed, it seems there's no real way to have separate CMDRs in the modes, because if you could, FD likely would have done it to begin with. That said, there's been countless requests in the forums to have the economies separated because of PP etc and they haven't done it, which leads me to believe all CMDRs are tied to the same system. (solo or open)

I think if it were possible to separate them- it would relieve a lot of people's concerns, and the addition of a PvE Open mode would definitely be a benefit to almost everyone, however then the Open PKers start screaming about an exodus, etc.

A lot of good ideas- however, I don't really know if they would be practical with the current game mechanics or system.

 

[willowfan]

for some of you who played Phantasy star online v1 and v2 they had a slimmer mode open play and solo play and I 100% agree that open play in elite should give a lot more on the reward side for example mission should pay out 10-20% more than solo mode belts should drop twice the amount of ore than solo mode and pvp/pve bounty's should be high. Witch in turn should help some players be more active on open play for my self I am just some one that plays elite in my spear time so keeping solo mode the way it is works fine for my self but as for you guys that want pvp more and go in open mode more you should be rewarded Fairley for that. any how got another x amount ships to kill to become elite good luck commanders

The reward for those who want to play in open is being able to play with others. No other incentives should be needed.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I agree that "consequences will never be enough", however, the "people are going to murder regardless of consequence" argument doesn't invalidate introducing a true consequence system to begin with.

Sounds pretty defeatist to me- "It will never work, so why bother starting?"

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for proper justice, I just don't see it as the solution for people coming back to open. Some just won't simply because... some people just want to see the world burn. (Thanks Michael Caine/Alfred.)

 

[Marra Morgan]

The reward for those who want to play in open is being able to play with others. No other incentives should be needed.

That's right - and all the excitement, rivalry, friendship, backstabbing and heroics that playing with others brings!

 

[willowfan]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for proper justice, I just don't see it as the solution for people coming back to open. Some just won't simply because... some people just want to see the world burn. (Thanks Michael Caine/Alfred.)

Well, it is the complete lack of any meaningful repercussions for player murder etc (compared to say an instant death sentence for straying onto the wrong pad in a station) that keeps me playing in Mobius rather than open.

ie it's not so much the PKers behaviour that I object to, it's the getting away with it scot free.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

So... you would be happy with a PKer just flying in and popping you off... so long as he gets his due. Never mind the fact that getting his due doesn't deter him from having his fun at your expense?

Cool. Let the good times roll.

 

[willowfan]

I would hope that the repercussions being there, be it huge bounty, large and prompt police response or whatever, would act as some form of deterrent, but, yeah..

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The reward for those who want to play in open is being able to play with others. No other incentives should be needed.

Indeed I want the crime and punishment updated because I want ed to be as believable as possible! The fact that this may encourage more people into open is a nice boon but it would help all 3 modes imo

 

[DarkWalker]

In Open Play, you would expect a significant amount of PvP encounters.

Only if you didn't properly research the game before purchasing. PvP in Open was always meant to be rare, with most of the combat interactions happening with NPCs. For example, like said in this presentation, where DB says he hopes PvP happening will be unusual, and that most player interactions will be cooperative:
http://www.twitch.tv/egx/b/571962295?t=69m00s
(With a big thank you to Jockey79 for his Wall of Info)

Because of solo play, players can play by themselves without having to worry about other players trying to steal their stuff,

Yep. Perhaps the game's best feature ever.

There is absolutely no reason to not play in solo if you're a trader.

There's one reason to play in Open when you're a trader: because you enjoy the thrill of chance encounters with players that might be hostile. In which case, go play Open.

Players that don't enjoy that, though, should never be pushed towards Open. Doing so would only serve to make the game less enjoyable to them and cause them to burn out faster.

Without traders the rock, paper, scissors of Elite Dangerous PvP completely breaks down. Without traders there are no pirates and without pirates there are no bounty hunters. Because of this, I don't think PvP in Elite Dangerous is ever going to be what it could be.

It was never meant to be what you expected. Most encounters, specially antagonistic ones, are meant to be with NPCs. Now, I do agree that NPC traders aren't where they need in terms of carrying profitable cargo for player pirates to steal, but that has nothing to do with the game modes at all.

One possible solution is to give traders incentive to play in open play.

Which would be basically saying that Open is the right way to play, a measure insulting to those that prefer other modes. Given how many times the devs have said that all ways to play are equal, some of them shown in the Wall of Info I linked previously, I think this highly unlikely.

Another way of doing it would be to change the way solo play and open play work. Perhaps after a certain patch, players would have to choose between three different modes which their CMDR would be permanently bound to.

There are also quotes specifically dealing with mode switching in the Wall of Info. I doubt any extra restriction would be added.

 

[Jockey79]

(With a big thank you to Jockey79 for his Wall of Info)

You'll never know just how much this made me giggle
+1

I still wish I'd made a note of everyone who gathered information to start with in mega thread one where that wall was born.
So if people read that and see something they once posted way back - I thank you

 

[R3DB3RD]

In Open Play, you would expect a significant amount of PvP encounters...

<snip>

...In my opinion, the easiest and best solution is to just give traders enough incentive to play in open play mode. I think this would solve the problem. But other solutions may work as well.

What do you guys think?

Why does Open need incentivising?

With the 3 modes players have a choice. Each mode is balanced and effects the BGS in the same way.
Players choose a mode for a multitude of different reasons. Providing extra reward for playing Open will not change the majority of those reasons. All it will achieve is disrupting the balance that we already have.

I understand how emergent gameplay can rely on the Circle of Life that is Piracy - Trading - Bounty Hunting; however, you're not going to encourage traders to enter Open when they have no inclination for PvP. So this alone for incentive and extra reward in one mode over another is not enough.

Open is full of players, it is not a barren wasteland, unfortunately, most of the pvpers looking to fulfill the Circle of Life only ever want to be the bad guy. Apart from a small minority of players who get this, nobody wants to be the victim trader.

What you need is not incentive nor extra reward in Open.
What you need is more players who prefer to play in Open to step up to the plate and take responsibility for creating emergent gameplay amongst themselves. Roleplayers and pirates pvpers alike taking turns at being victim traders and providing fun times for their pvp open friends.

x no of players in Solo - This is awesome. No interferences, get done what i need to do, peace and quiet.

x no of players in Group - This is awesome. See how many of those elite anacondas we took down. Lets wing up and do some more.

x no of players in Open - well this is boring. Where are all the traders.
Hiding in solo.
Pfft.
Bah.
Sheesh.
Hey, why dont some of us break off and do some trading runs and you guys can chase us.
Dont be a numpty *slap* we're the pirates of space penzance by jove we're proper roleplaying bad guys... wait, whats that peaceful convoy of traders heading out to some godforsaken outpost in the middle of nowhere having a party where we havent been invited... lets head over there and use every exploit in the book to make their lives a misery.
Top idea. *sound of hunting horns*

... you know we could have just split up into teams of traders and pirates and had fun without ruining all those other kids day...

Alright thats it... youre banned from our clan... off you go... off to the naughty corner... gee kids these days and their craaazy ideas.

...

All IMHO of course

 

[Lestenio]

Increase the profits that traders make in open play making it just as profitable or maybe even more profitable than solo play.

Essentially you are asking to reward players who already play open. Players who have no interest in open are not suddenly going to feel incentivised to change their play style in favour of a style they have already rejected for a few virtual credits.

Increase NPC security in open play to make it more difficult for pirates to steal from traders.

Fair enough, but some players avoid open becasue they just don't want to play open

If you wanted to play on multiple modes, you would have to create separate CMDRs. You could have one CMDR in each mode, and anything and everything those CMDRs earn would only be accessible to themselves.

What sane person has time to grind out 3 characters? A character to enjoy, a character to play with your friends, and that special character you maintain in a mode you have no interest in just to make open players happy. Realistically, people would chose one mode and abandon the rest. And in a few months time they decide to change mode do you really see them starting from scratch?

In my opinion, the easiest and best solution is to just give traders enough incentive to play in open play mode. I think this would solve the problem.

In my opinion you will enjoy the game a lot more if you worry less about how I enjoy the game. There is no incentive you can offer me to play your way.