Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Mk III

[Jockey79]

None of those posts are me attacking the modes. If anything it's me attacking the people defending it. That was before I learned not to snap at everyone.

The closest one is the "weight tied to the ankle" one. Even that one is not attacking the modes per say. More lamenting at what could have been with the missions. With an open only mode pvp missions could be a thing.

More recently;

Open needs to be more inviting because it's more offputting than any other mode. It needs the extra incentive to balance it out, since in many ways there's no incentive to play in open.

I am perfectly incentivized to play open. The traders have better cargo, are more challenging, and can actually interact. It works out perfectly fine for me, better in fact. The traders I'm stealing from....not so much. You can throw out the word choice all you want, but when one choice is better for some than others it's not a fair choice.

This is not a mode issue - NPC traders need fixing, most certainly. So pirates have other targets and don't have to rely solely on human traders for a living.But any fix by default will apply to all modes due to the way the game works - which is fine, so people can pirate and make a living in Solo and Groups.

Open is not broken and does not need fixing, buffing, boosting, incentivising or any other form of coercion to make people try open or return to open. Some mode neutral systems need fixing / tweaking, like NPC traders cargo, NPC combat abilities for high ranking NPCs and how crime and punishment works. The only problem Open has, that is exclusively tied to Open - is the players of open, which FD are reluctant to step in and deal with.

People abusing the point defense system with dumbfire missiles, people ramming others to kill them without any consequences, people glitching themselves out to player kill from within a wall - there are several YouTube channels with stuff like this, all limited to Open.

You want to "incentify" Open, deal with these idiots. Do to them, what they do to others until they quit the game and not innocent players.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Second, yes how dare I post something off topic in this thread, it's usually so good at staying on point

lol...... he has a point there

 

[Jockey79]

....
Second, yes how dare I post something off topic in this thread, it's usually so good at staying on point

lol...... he has a point there

That's a thought, not seen a Mod post for a bit - either to remind us to stay on topic or to chip in.
You don't think they've forgotten us do you?

 

[Faded Glory]

Second, yes how dare I post something off topic in this thread, it's usually so good at staying on point

lol...... he has a point there

Did someone mention bacon?

 

[Jockey79]

Did someone mention bacon?

Oh now that was mean....

I'm off to make a bacon sandwich now, my diet was going so well

 

[Faded Glory]

Oh now that was mean....

I'm off to make a bacon sandwich now, my diet was going so well

Sorry. You'll have to blame Julissa and Mouse.

 

[ianw]

I had an excellent bacon and chicken and mayo and sweetcorn sandwich.

Also, I thought of a brilliant analogy yesterday that deffo hasn't been used yet - I'm saving it for the next appropriate post!

 

[Apos]

All I want is better feedback of the actions of private/solo players within a system.

It's not funny for any group to realize 1 day late that their assets are under attack and will retaliate with a handicap by default due to that, every time.

 

[rightsideupsidedown]

Read on for a potential resolution (that has probably been suggested before and isn't bacon).

I read players complaining about Open being full of griefers while hiding in Solo. I see there's an entire private group dedicated to group mode because they claim there are griefers. Do you pvp in your private group? If you're in an organized group wouldn't you do well in open against "griefers" anyway? I get around plenty trading rares and I've seen only a few pirate attempts so I don't agree with those negative opinions of Open at all. I even spent a week in Eravate helping new players farm res and I only saw a couple clean Vultures completing powerplay merits. What I do see are players in solo and private group that want to troll powerplay with invisible votes and I would call that griefing but this is apparently how the developers want it to be by design so I guess it can't be called that.

I probably won't participate in powerplay unless it becomes an open only mode or if it has portions that can only be affected by participation in open. This is the only way I feel you can appease the debate. I refuse to believe it would take three threads to come to the conclusion that you could allow a certain percentage of triggers to be fulfilled offline(solo/group) and a certain percentage to be fulfilled only in open. This would mean once the cap for the offline(solo/group) triggers is met the rest would have to be completed in open. I am pretty certain, as much as anyone thinks that Powerplay is PVE only, that it was intentionally designed to increase activity between players in open. This includes the major professions and pvp. Does powerplay add additional depth to group/solo? Kind-of but with the AI unfinished, not really.

If you want to incentify open make a change like this.

 

[ianw]

All I want is better feedback of the actions of private/solo players within a system.

It's not funny for any group to realize 1 day late that their assets are under attack and will retaliate with a handicap by default due to that, every time.

It would be better if the stats all updated live automatically - but I think they're a long way from that - not sure if it's even in the plan.. (the live bit - the automatic bit is something they are aiming for I believe).

 

[Faded Glory]

All I want is better feedback of the actions of private/solo players within a system.

It's not funny for any group to realize 1 day late that their assets are under attack and will retaliate with a handicap by default due to that, every time.

To be fair, if you are only noticing something one day late(r), presumably because you had to stop playing in order to eat / sleep / work / school whatever, then you don't know that you were not 'under attack' from players in Open.

And that's why this whole argument is moot / daft.

If I have misunderstood power play, I take it all back... Especially if you are playing 24 hours a day!

 

[willowfan]

All I want is better feedback of the actions of private/solo players within a system.

It's not funny for any group to realize 1 day late that their assets are under attack and will retaliate with a handicap by default due to that, every time.

If you're talking PP then that information is all there, available in the interface. Undermine/Fortification targets and progress in a system is all clearly shown.

 

[Apos]

To be fair, if you are only noticing something one day late(r), presumably because you had to stop playing in order to eat / sleep / work / school whatever, then you don't know that you were not 'under attack' from players in Open.

And that's why this whole argument is moot / daft.

If I have misunderstood power play, I take it all back... Especially if you are playing 24 hours a day!

I wasn't referring to PP, but influence changes to minor factions that player groups link themselves to. The background simulator progression is not instantaneous, but updates at a specific time, once each day. So you can wake up a morning and find out your faction having lost 40% influence.

 

[Faded Glory]

I wasn't referring to PP, but influence changes to minor factions that player groups link themselves to. The background simulator progression is not instantaneous, but updates at a specific time, once each day. So you can wake up a morning and find out your faction having lost 40% influence.

Fair enough.

But since you are accepting that you are not present 24 hours a day, does it matter what mode someone is in when they make changes to a faction's influence when you are not there?

Not really seeing that the BGS update mechanism has anything to do with modes.

 

[willowfan]

I wasn't referring to PP, but influence changes to minor factions that player groups link themselves to. The background simulator progression is not instantaneous, but updates at a specific time, once each day. So you can wake up a morning and find out your faction having lost 40% influence.

So do more bulletin board missions for your faction - that is what increases faction influence, not trying to stop others.

 

[Jockey79]

Read on for a potential resolution (that has probably been suggested before and isn't bacon).

I read players complaining about Open being full of griefers while hiding in Solo. I see there's an entire private group dedicated to group mode because they claim there are griefers. Do you pvp in your private group? If you're in an organized group wouldn't you do well in open against "griefers" anyway? I get around plenty trading rares and I've seen only a few pirate attempts so I don't agree with those negative opinions of Open at all. I even spent a week in Eravate helping new players farm res and I only saw a couple clean Vultures completing powerplay merits. What I do see are players in solo and private group that want to troll powerplay with invisible votes and I would call that griefing but this is apparently how the developers want it to be by design so I guess it can't be called that.

I probably won't participate in powerplay unless it becomes an open only mode or if it has portions that can only be affected by participation in open. This is the only way I feel you can appease the debate. I refuse to believe it would take three threads to come to the conclusion that you could allow a certain percentage of triggers to be fulfilled offline and a certain percentage to be fulfilled only in open. This would mean once the cap for the offline triggers is met the rest would have to be done in open. I am pretty certain, as much as anyone thinks that Powerplay is PVE only, that it was intentionally designed to increase activity between players in open. This includes the major professions and pvp. Does powerplay add additional depth to group/solo? Kind-of but with the AI unfinished, not really.

If you want to incentify open make a change like this.

And it starts again......

Power Play is PvE as evidenced by there being no rewards for any PvP action and all its features reward PvE only - short of a Dev knocking your front door and slapping you in the face with these words attached at a brick, we cannot spell it out any clearer for you.

There is no "offline" - so all your "offline" things are pointless. Solo is still an Online Mode.

You can "refused to believe" whatever you like - Frontier Developments have clearly stated, more than once - this is the game they want to make and they are not changing it. The reason we have 3 threads on the topic is because people like you do not read the active thread properly or the older threads for research and post things like you have - despite it was all ready covered and swept away with the Dev quotes where they say they are not changing it and it is in fact balanced.

Also, for every one of you claiming there is no griefing or limited griefing / unwanted PvP - there are more stories of why people are leaving open due to griefing / unwanted PvP than people defending it. I get fed up at times seeing seeing the sob stories on the forums and no longer read them - as it is normally players who knew better than to take a expensive ship in to Open in the first place, but do it anyway. Laughing at them is not nice (so I'm told).
I do feel sorry for new players who suffer that, but that is the fault of FD for not putting a warning label on the Open Mode selection in the menu.

 

[Stigbob]

Read on for a potential resolution (that has probably been suggested before and isn't bacon).

I read players complaining about Open being full of griefers while hiding in Solo. I see there's an entire private group dedicated to group mode because they claim there are griefers. Do you pvp in your private group? If you're in an organized group wouldn't you do well in open against "griefers" anyway? I get around plenty trading rares and I've seen only a few pirate attempts so I don't agree with those negative opinions of Open at all. I even spent a week in Eravate helping new players farm res and I only saw a couple clean Vultures completing powerplay merits. What I do see are players in solo and private group that want to troll powerplay with invisible votes and I would call that griefing but this is apparently how the developers want it to be by design so I guess it can't be called that.

I probably won't participate in powerplay unless it becomes an open only mode or if it has portions that can only be affected by participation in open. This is the only way I feel you can appease the debate. I refuse to believe it would take three threads to come to the conclusion that you could allow a certain percentage of triggers to be fulfilled offline and a certain percentage to be fulfilled only in open. This would mean once the cap for the offline triggers is met the rest would have to be done in open. I am pretty certain, as much as anyone thinks that Powerplay is PVE only, that it was intentionally designed to increase activity between players in open. This includes the major professions and pvp. Does powerplay add additional depth to group/solo? Kind-of but with the AI unfinished, not really.

If you want to incentify open make a change like this.

The group you are talking about is mobius and PvP is very popular (in CZ's).

To label solo and group griefing/trolling just displays the lack of research you did before buying the game.

Forcing people to only PP in open would probably just reduce the number of players bothering with PP from it's current level of 19.15 % (if the polls accurate).

here's the thread : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=169171

 

[Apos]

Fair enough.

But since you are accepting that you are not present 24 hours a day, does it matter what mode someone is in when they make changes to a faction's influence when you are not there?

Not really seeing that the BGS update mechanism has anything to do with modes.

Since influence updates once per day, it doesn't matter when I log in, I can still counter or soften their efforts until the next day.

Keep in mind I mentioned group play as well, so generally, someone will be online to pass the news. I don't mean private groups, I mean player groups like Emperor's Grace, EIC, etc.

What it has to do with modes is that you can't see people running missions in private/solo and ship traffic gives zero information on what is happening in the system. It allows aggressors to have a whole one day of efforts headstart instead of a few hours they'd normally have at best.

So do more bulletin board missions for your faction - that is what increases faction influence, not trying to stop others.

Forcing people to do missions every day for no gain whatsoever just in case someone decided to take an aggressive action doesn't seem like a pleasant solution to me. The group has already fortified by having high influence levels, then its up to it to reply to aggressors. They can't reply in time because they don't know what is happening until the next day.

That's exactly what I'm asking, being able to do missions when I should be doing them. If I don't know is going on inside the system, then it's impossible to soften the blow the first day without doing missions for no reason whatsoever,every single day, just to counter the lack of feedback.

If instead I'm notified of someone having done missions in solo, I can also do them within the same day in order to nullify their own influence gains that are being done against a faction of interest.

It's not that complicated a concept to grasp why it can be disheartening for groups to wake up one morning to find their faction having lost 30-40% influence. And nowhere did I mention that such an act of aggression is a one time thing which you can just cure on the days forward, the players on the offensive can very much continue their efforts until a war breaks out and cause big problems when it comes to cooldowns. (obviously from the 2nd day onward you will be aware of it and do missions to counter it, but a war might already be critical.) Why should the group be punished because the system gives a whole 1 day advantage to the aggressor?

 

[ianw]

Since influence updates once per day, it doesn't matter when I log in, I can still counter or soften their efforts until the next day.

Keep in mind I mentioned group play as well, so generally, someone will be online to pass the news. I don't mean private groups, I mean player groups like Emperor's Grace, EIC, etc.

What it has to do with modes is that you can't see people running missions in private/solo and ship traffic gives zero information on what is happening in the system. It allows aggressors to have a whole one day of efforts headstart instead of a few hours they'd normally have at best.

The thing is though even if everyone was in open you still wouldn't see everyone not instanced with you - this is a stats updating issue not a modes issue.

 

[Apos]

The thing is though even if everyone was in open you still wouldn't see everyone not instanced with you - this is a stats updating issue not a modes issue.

Exactly why I'm asking for a feedback tool similar to the traffic report. but not exactly the same.

It doesn't have to be a direct count of how many missions have been completed, just an informational text saying "Faction X to be investigated from promoting smuggling." when a lot of those missions are done or something similar for other types. This would remedy the fact that the current system in place can't update in real time. Just an alarm saying "ye, you might want to get moving if you are interested", assuming you notice it in the news board. If you don't, tough luck, I won't show any mercy, but currently there is absolutely zero feedback.