Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
We'll be waiting a while before worldwide consumer broadband infrastructure is adequate for much more (in terms low pings to far off places and affordable data limits).
Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].
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We'll be waiting a while before worldwide consumer broadband infrastructure is adequate for much more (in terms low pings to far off places and affordable data limits).
I'm always optimistic.
Remember their artillery units firing at moving targets with pinpoint precision even without line of sight? Interesting times
And I actually loved that period. There was no death penalty back then, which means I could challenge myself by taking as many Chosen as I dared, try to take back towers on my own. I failed most of the time, of course, but that is how I prefer my games: atrociously hard, but allowing me to just keep trying for as long as I want.
Which is part of what really irks me about ED. The game is reasonably easy, perhaps too easy, but if the player fails it can be a punch to the guts. It's kinda the opposite of what I prefer, of what the original Elite offered.
Well, couple of points here.
As you explain, even in Solo, AEDC still can't win, because CODE are playing in virtual solo, because AEDC can't see them, and are neutralizing their effort. So, it's not really unfair. It may be deeply unsatisfying for those imagining epic space battles, which you anyway recognize that you won't get, as 32 is not really an epic number, but it's not unfair, which has been the argument thrown at Group and Solo mode for a while.
As I said in a previous post, for those who genuinely want more players in Open, you need to make it a compelling place for players who don't actually want to be there, and giving more credits and the like just won't do it. I don't have the answer for you, I don't wish to engage in non consensual PvP, so I cannot imagine anything you telling me will make me want to play Open, but I think you might want to try some positive marketing to the undecided (if there are any).
PS. And this is not aimed at you, because you don't do it, but for those that do, calling players who choose to play Solo or Group scared, cowards, not man enough et al will probably not win over that many hearts and minds.
Well, couple of points here.
As you explain, even in Solo, AEDC still can't win, because CODE are playing in virtual solo, because AEDC can't see them, and are neutralizing their effort. So, it's not really unfair. It may be deeply unsatisfying for those imagining epic space battles, which you anyway recognize that you won't get, as 32 is not really an epic number, but it's not unfair, which has been the argument thrown at Group and Solo mode for a while.
As I said in a previous post, for those who genuinely want more players in Open, you need to make it a compelling place for players who don't actually want to be there, and giving more credits and the like just won't do it. I don't have the answer for you, I don't wish to engage in non consensual PvP, so I cannot imagine anything you telling me will make me want to play Open, but I think you might want to try some positive marketing to the undecided (if there are any).
PS. And this is not aimed at you, because you don't do it, but for those that do, calling players who choose to play Solo or Group scared, cowards, not man enough et al will probably not win over that many hearts and minds.
I think honestly to stop this sort of thing would require either a Cap from allowing a group from doing that and/or Show us who is contributing the what side. I'd say more or less the one on the right.
Wanted to rep you, but not allowed.
It doesn't irk me, but I think you've touched on the heart of the problem. There is potentially a lot to lose (mainly time, which is valuable) when you die in this game. I played Frontier, and could save whenever I liked, so if I saw a risky situation but wanted to try it, no problem, the only time I've wasted is how long it took me to die.
The nature of this game will drive some players to being very risk averse, because they don't want to 'waste' their leisure time. Of course, this has nothing to do with Open vs Solo, but it may explain why some players don't wish to risk losing their progress at the hands of another player.
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Yes, a publicly viewable scoreboard might solve the problem.
Remember their artillery units firing at moving targets with pinpoint precision even without line of sight? Interesting times
And I actually loved that period. There was no death penalty back then, which means I could challenge myself by taking as many Chosen as I dared, try to take back towers on my own. I failed most of the time, of course, but that is how I prefer my games: atrociously hard, but allowing me to just keep trying for as long as I want.
Which is part of what really irks me about ED. The game is reasonably easy, perhaps too easy, but if the player fails it can be a punch to the guts. It's kinda the opposite of what I prefer, of what the original Elite offered.
The fact that Shield Cells now exist kinda irks me a lot. I got quite the rush when I flew around with my Viper way back yonder and as I got bigger and bigger ships. I felt the value of my ship and in turn, took more risks and calculated the worth of risks.
Boosters in the game, have their place, Shield cells, eh not so much.
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So I'm a little confused here...why are so many people opposed to the idea of separating the open background simulation from the solo and private background sim? Would solo/private players be able to distinguish the difference(other than the fact that it would be in the patch notes and updates)? This wouldn't force people from solo/private to open mode and those in solo/private will still be doing the same things they were doing before, minus the possible adverse effects on the open players' background sim.
go again from start and read the openning posts...along side with the game advertise if u havent already done that and u will understand
Separating the background simulation without further separating the modes:
- Means players can jump between universes in different states by simply re-logging. If player-caused changes can alter price and availability of, well, anything, this creates an issue with players being able to just log into a mode, purchase things, change modes, sell at a profit, rinse and repeat.
- Doubles the number of simulation servers needed. We don't know how expensive they are, though.
- Creates confusion as there will be two sets of events happening, two sets of powers, two different political maps, and so on.
- If Frontier wants to make tweaks to the galaxy by hand — as they have, in the past, indicated they might — they will now have two universes that need those, meaning either this expense is increased or we will get less such tweaks.
- If the intent of doing so is to prevent organized groups from changing the universe unopposed, it won't work; any group capable of getting organized will also be capable of coaching its members into how to block other players in open. If the intent is to remove the influence of random unorganized players that stay in other modes it's unlikely to make any difference, as the unorganized players would tend to spread around and negate each other's influence anyway.
It's all the same background sim for everyone - it's all the same game for everyone. The only difference between modes is being able to see nobody else, certain friends, or everyone who can join your instance.
Gating off modes would require different instances of the background sim, and as you can imagine - that massively increases cost, required infrastructure, maintenance, dev time and pure hassle - for no benefit.
This isn't an MMO, though. At best it's like War Thunder. No persistent world that EVERY PLAYER inhabits to interact together. All we have is instances of 32 players at a time. This game is more like a MOBA with a single player option.
Remember their artillery units firing at moving targets with pinpoint precision even without line of sight? Interesting times
And I actually loved that period. There was no death penalty back then, which means I could challenge myself by taking as many Chosen as I dared, try to take back towers on my own. I failed most of the time, of course, but that is how I prefer my games: atrociously hard, but allowing me to just keep trying for as long as I want.
Which is part of what really irks me about ED. The game is reasonably easy, perhaps too easy, but if the player fails it can be a punch to the guts. It's kinda the opposite of what I prefer, of what the original Elite offered.
Yea, I actually love that game, still play it. I was a founding funder for that one. Lots of cool perks. It's a really great PVE shooter. I usually spend some of my time over the holidays playing with old on line friends. We have a heck of a good time, practically the only time I ever spend with my gaming bros. Fire Falls customer service, and support is utterly amazing. You would never have a thread like this with those folks without them heavily involved. They would be right here working with us to the very end.
There PVP arena was simply amazing. I love that sort of PVP, I like challenges with like minded individuals, who are ready to fight and have fun doing it.
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Wanted to rep you, but not allowed.
It doesn't irk me, but I think you've touched on the heart of the problem. There is potentially a lot to lose (mainly time, which is valuable) when you die in this game. I played Frontier, and could save whenever I liked, so if I saw a risky situation but wanted to try it, no problem, the only time I've wasted is how long it took me to die.
Of course, this has nothing to do with Open vs Solo, but it may explain why some players don't wish to risk losing their progress at the hands of another player.
Actually, it has a lot to do with Open vs Solo. And, in more general terms, with the desirability of PvP.
There is a good reason why the most popular PvP games, by a really wide margin, are games where defeat has no negative consequences. I mean, the daily peak in logged players in DoTA2 is about twice the highest number of subscribers EVE ever achieved, which is already utterly crazy, and DoTA2 isn't even the largest PvP game out there. In the same line, most MMOs tend to have as little consequences for defeat in PvP as possible, sometimes going as far as removing part, or all, of the PvE death penalties when the death happens during PvP.
Basically, death penalties suck. Intentionally so, in order to make players avoid death. Which is kinda OK in PvE, where the devs can fine-tune the difficulty, tweaking how often a player will suffer defeat based on his skill level.
(Not getting here into whether making the game punishing, instead of challenging, is a good idea. I, myself, prefer games that are challenging but not punishing.)
In PvP, though, that tuning isn't available, as the devs can't tune how difficulty defeating the other player will be. Most PvP encounters are likely to end with a player defeated and another triumphant, which means PvP activity will cause players to get hit with the death penalty, and the only to turn in that is how common PvP activity itself is. In a game where the death penalty is high, and that as a result was tuned to make death rare, this throws a spanner into the works, as the death penalty is still high but PvP has bumped how often death happens; it becomes a game for those that don't mind being punished, which seems to be a niche segment.
It's why cargo insurance is seen by some ED players as a way to keep more players in Open; it's essentially a reduction of the death penalty, and the way ED was tuned makes the current death penalty an incentive to avoid meeting other players.
Be care full what you ask for. Once ED goes down this road, I'll never switch servers again, as many many others. Not good for open I think, but what the heck do I know. I'm pretty thick, and pretty much don't have even the slightest notion even how a good game should be.
Agree with everything you have written, especially the challenging versus punishing. I certainly don't want to play a computer game that punishes me when something goes wrong.
Honestly, I don't know whether cargo insurance would change things significantly. I still think it's the time that you (the player) stand to lose that is the most punishing thing, and that is far worse for explorers or bounty hunters if something goes wrong.
Indeed - and cargo insurance is to some degree present, but it's not functional. If players could protect their investment, and make destruction slightly less painful and expensive for them - then I imagine that some of them would spend more time in Open. However, cargo insurance wouldn't protect explorers, bounty hunters or combat bondsmen, it wouldn't even protect Pirates as they just wouldn't care about looted cargo and go loot some more
It's a very tricky thing to get right.
Indeed - and cargo insurance is to some degree present, but it's not functional. If players could protect their investment, and make destruction slightly less painful and expensive for them - then I imagine that some of them would spend more time in Open. However, cargo insurance wouldn't protect explorers, bounty hunters or combat bondsmen, it wouldn't even protect Pirates as they just wouldn't care about looted cargo and go loot some more
It's a very tricky thing to get right.
It depends on the objective. If the devs want death to still feel punishing and want to prevent all ways of exploiting it for gain, then yeah, getting all the mitigations equivalent, both across ways to play and matchmaking modes, is really hard. Might even be impossible.
On the other hand, if the devs simply want to make sure players don't lose too much on death, and don't care about exploiting the insurance as long as the amount earned isn't as much per hour as farming the credits legitimately, then it's not actually hard to tune.
BTW, bounty hunters and explorers can be protected even more easily (well, apart from the explorers respawning in the nearest station, halfway across the galaxy); just say that the bounds/bounties and part of the exploration data is transmitted immediately, with the player receiving part of the payment right there, and the rest on successfully docking at a station. The percentages can be changed according to how much the costs of death should be mitigated.
Meta gaming. Min / maxing LOL what is all that about?. Oh well guess I will stick to having fun I am sure someone will post a picture of the "you won" screen when they get there.
I would say that any pay-to-win mechanic in this game will always be poorly done because FD forgot to add any win conditions.
Oh no you can't win, maybe FD will fix that one day and add some win conditions but I hope not.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Frontier decided to have everyone share the same galactic background simulation (GBS) and advertised it as a feature of the Solo / Private Group game modes. When Offline was cancelled, part of the reasoning was that an offline GBS would not offer the game experience that Frontier wanted for the game.
Players resisting such a split are simply wanting the game to stay true to Frontier's vision rather than be changed to suit a particular play-style.
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