Oh good, so it wouldn't be difficult for Frontier to implement it on a larger scale. That's fantastic.
Yep. Technically they were able to implement this from the start (something similar to Shadowban was first mentioned while the Kickstart was still running, with the promise to put griefers there), and despite that every time they talked about how solo players would interact with the Galaxy Simulation, they reassured us that Solo players would influence the BGS in general, and the events that would shape the galaxy in particular, just like the players in Open. Frontier has had the chance to adopt a different stance for three years already and never did so. I believe that counts for something
The only difference between the modes is the matchmaking, who you can meet; it has been like this from the very start. There is no extrinsic bonus or penalty for choosing any of the modes, neither in rewards nor in influence, and it has always been like this. For many of us that is among the best features of the game, and was well known far before launch.
And your preference impinges on mine, since there's nothing I can do about your actions in solo. I don't see how I'm being unreasonable.
Because the game was like this from the start, and if you actually did some small research on it you would have found it out before you purchased it. There was already a dev diary about it three years ago, so it's not new information either. To purchase a game and then demand a specific feature, enjoyed by many of its current players, be removed is highly unreasonable.
As, so you don't have an actual percentage of the players who only play for the BGS and would refuse to play in open. Just some vague numbers. I'm disappointed. For a second I thought you had a compelling argument.
The same way you don't have an percentage of players that want this kind of gameplay you are proposing. Which, BTW, is typically a low number industry-wise; even EVE, a game that theoretically revolves around player corporations and the fight for territory, has most of its players remaining unaligned soloists according to the devs themselves (as said during Fanfest 2014).
The same can be said for the counter argument of "make this change and you'll lose players", which has repeatedly been used in this thread. As you say there are no numbers, just opinions. It's also why I said they "could" gain more customers.
Really? Wasn't CCP itself that said, during Fanfest 2014, that most EVE players are unaligned soloists? And comes from EVE, a game whose main draw is supposedly to get into player corporations and fight for territory.
Not an isolated case, BTW. This kind of forced interaction tends to be a prime reason players leave a game, to such an extent that Ultima Online doubled its player base (by retaining more of the new players) after making PvP optional even though it lost almost all hardcore PvPers. Whereas consensual PvP like in CQC tends to be extremely popular, forced PvP tends to not be well received.
Granted, we don't have the ED numbers. Frontier — just like most other MMO companies — avoids releasing them. But given how (un)popular open PvP games tend to become, and how solo players influencing in all aspects of the BGS has been a feature all along since the very first sales pitch, I believe the changes you want would have a far higher chance of driving players away than of attracting them.
I guess this is the crux of it. And I generally feel the same way as you do. So apart from principle (that higher reward may not be justified), I don't really see why there would be an issue.
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Only with regard to player faction influence.
Both are ways of effectively declaring one mode to be the "correct" way to play — which is functionally identical do declaring all other modes as the "wrong" way to play. As such, I will always oppose extrinsic rewards for the modes.
I'm not against fixing perceived imbalances by tweaking the underlying rules, as long as the tweaks apply identically to all modes. But I'm dead set against any kind of bonus, exclusive content, etc for any of the modes.
