Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].

[KaizoMK]

I was talking about the death penalty in another thread, and was pondering if there was a way to keep risk in the game while not heavily penalizing players for dying. It's frustrating to lose progress at all, let alone when it's days or even hours of progress, and personally there just isn't motivation for me to go to open....the NPC's challenge me enough as a player, as does the "I have to play hide and seek" mechanics of some of the game. If I wasn't so worried about dying I'd be much more open to....well, open. Then again, I *want* to be worried about dying and there should be a penalty.

I had considered that maybe negating the death penalty in PvP situations would encourage more open play, but that sounds heavily exploitable and griefable.

Just want to reiterate something I said a long time ago because it keeps coming up with the new PP....

In every adversarial game mechanic being contesting control, there are solo players on both sides. Sure, somebody you can't find will be undermining you, but there are solo players on your side of the fence working against the guys you can't see.

So you really can't claim it's "unfair".

That's all well and good except that the system is built such that systems effectively cannot expand because right now the most efficient thing for a player to do is undermine, and with solo play's existence there's literally no way to stop undermining. I don't know if this is an acceptable consequence, but I don't believe so....the system should make many different facets of PP more viable regardless of whether you play in open or not.

 

[SteveLaw]

That's all well and good except that the system is built such that systems effectively cannot expand because right now the most efficient thing for a player to do is undermine, and with solo play's existence there's literally no way to stop undermining.

There is literally one way to stop Undermining and that is by Fortifying. Open Fortify cancels Solo Undermine. We keep explaining this and yet it keeps getting repeated. Power Play is mode neutral if you play it using the tasks and counter tasks that were designed to use.

And even if that were true, you have Solo players Undermining your enemy. So it's balanced.

 

[KaizoMK]

There is literally one way to stop Undermining and that is by Fortifying. Open Fortify cancels Solo Undermine. We keep explaining this and yet it keeps getting repeated. Power Play is mode neutral if you play it using the tasks and counter tasks that were designed to use.

And even if that were true, you have Solo players Undermining your enemy. So it's balanced.

It cancels it, that's just it. It halts change altogether. Is that good? I don't think so, personally. But there's no way to stop it. And systems won't always be fortified, but they'll almost always be undermined, because the system encourages it due to how easy it is.

 

[relayer]

Well you'd benefit from my suggestions; if high tech, corporate, and core worlds were all safe and saw regular and rapid patrols of military specced Anacondas, Pythons, Vultures and FDLs you'd be ok, as long as you obeyed the law. It's when you step outside of those regions tougher enemies would spawn. That would feel less arbitrary than enemies getting progressively tougher as your rankings improve.

Oh, I agree most heartily. I've brought this up before (but maybe people hate Freelancer?).

I am amazed at how little police & Navy presence there is in ED. In Freelancer, it worked like this -
Planetary forces were concentrated at "established" worlds/sector points close to them. As you got further out from main, crowded sectors or stations, the Navy stayed around the planetary & station orbits while the "outlaw" presences had taken hold in the outer systems, away from the core worlds.

Each of those outlaw "guilds" (dunno what else to call them) had their own sectors. Bandits, as well as Navy, flew rudimentary paths in and out of these sectors, combatting each other sometimes, then all the bandits would fasten on a player's ship (ignoring the Navy, which was stupid) when you entered the area.

You could compare them (but badly) with lo-sec and hi-sec areas. You had reps from various (minor) or local factions who might have jumped in to fight for you, but not always, depending on your rep with them.

This seemed to be both sensible and realistic.

 

[Mouse]

To see the scale of a problem and what it is causing you have to identify it. If numbers would expose the scale it would be a benefit to have them.
Numbers that show the quantity of Open/Group, Solo and "jumpers" would be extremely helpful. Someone in the position to ask the development team or community management about those numbers and the permission to publish them (as raw numbers, percentages, ratio) would help both parties. If we don't have them we, we can just refer to the impressions that the Open players have. To make this short- the impression is that there is a low amount of players in open and this impression would change if there would be a bigger amount of players in open (the quantity of players in Solo/Group).

The amount of voices raised to this topic should be reason enough to take this "problem" seriously and should encourage us on finding a solution.

What follows are my impressions of the current situation containing opinions and views of people i have talked to through in game Chat and other sources.
I also wanted to point out that the in game talks resulted while participating in PP with people pledged to other factions and we started out of RP talk. Our opinions covered and i can't remember that i have talked to someone who didn't have the same impression.
There might be people of both "factions" (pro Solo/Group and Open) that at agree or disagree with a couple of points. Those points are also from a multi player/RP view.

1) The galaxy feels empty while in open play.
2) "We" do not insist on a pure PvP environment. We would love to play the game with its features (trading, bounty hunting, piracy, etc) with more, or even all owners of the game.

CQC will cater the pure PvP supporters, is appreciated and a welcome addition.
​

3) "We" don't want just meaningless pewpew. (see above)
4) "We" feel in a disadvantage. "We" don't want to deal with just the consequences of performed actions. "We" want to have opportunities to stop actions before they inject a consequence and yes we are aware that because of instancing and different time zones this wouldn't be possible at any time, but it would give as the chance.

Let's pretend that during the end of a cycle there is just a tiny bit of systems left where influence can be made that would change the outcome of "fail or succeed", of "win or loose" and you can expect that the situation gets heated up in those particular systems "we" want to be able to infringe hostile actions, or expect resistance that tries to stop us from hostile actions.​

5) "We" have the impression that enough people, organized or not, take abusive advantage of jumping between modes, or even stay during their actions untouchable out of open play to bypass the risk of being stopped.

This exposes when you can observe the "unwanted" bar/numbers raise but your instance is (mostly) empty. The only chance you now have is to counter this with raising the "wanted" bar/numbers, but you can not stop the cause for the bar/numbers raising. Thus the impression of disadvantage.​

6) "We" have the impression that that same happens to certain systems and their BGS.
7) "We" have the impression that under the current situation achievements made in the galaxy become meaningless and tedious because of above "problems"
8) "We" have the impression that mechanics should be adjusted. BGS and PP feel to be influenced less by reasonable actions, but more by "grinding" and "burning credits". (This might be another topic)

I hope that i didn't offend anyone with above impressions and observations.
Also i would like to add some ideas based on expressions of both parties that might solve "our" problem. Some of them might sound harsh and i don't want to feel anyone offended by those ideas.

• Split Solo/Group and Open. Use the current saves without rolling something back and give the players the choice where they want to use their cmdr. To keep it fair for both worlds, cmdr's can not be copied over after that. Just that nobody get's a bad surprise add a certain time in in game hours as a time of consideration and point out the consequences of the choice.
  • To make it even more fair. People will be able to claim two copies of their cmdr just to not force them to start from scratch if they change their mind. Progress made in Solo/Group will not take influence on Open and vice versa.
  • Both worlds won't affect each other any further.

I think this is, though technically not easy to realize, the easiest solution to make everyone happy. Since i have the impression that Solo/Group players don't care if we exist or not, if we take influence on their galaxy or not, the won't miss the Open players and (at least my impression) vice versa. Threshold values might need adjustment to fit on the quantity of players.

Following ideas shall not give you the impression that any of the modes stop existing:​

• Adjustments to the matchmaking server. Determined by the "skill level" of a cmdr/wing starters will not be matched with higher "skilled" cmdrs. Algorithms would be complicated since a lot of values would be needed (system type/profession rank/playtime/faction rank and reputation/credit balance/ship value/cargo value/security level/etc).
• cmdr traders/explorers have the same appearance on the radar like NPC's and vice versa.
• Depending on Algorithms (system type/profession rank/playtime/faction rank and reputation/credit balance/ship value/cargo value/security level/etc) traders/explorers spawn additional random ships/authorities when there is "enemy" presence.
• Traders/explorers can hire depending on Algorithms (system type/profession rank/playtime/faction rank and reputation/credit balance/ship value/cargo value/security level/etc) security in form of wing members or as as additional presence in SC that will act when necessary. Hired security varies on Algorithms (see above) in number/skill/shiptype/loadout/loyalty/etc.
• Adjustments to interdiction attempts (an already (un)successful interdicted ship gets small cooldown/ interdiction gets harder).
• Traders/explorers can hire cmdr support. A BB mission will be created and remains XX minutes after undocking. Supportive cmdrs can activate "availability" in the ship's functions tab.
  • Available cmdr's will get a notification about a support request and can accept or decline. Depending on the value, route (system types/distance) and other algorithms a price will be estimated.
  • Rules need to be added (supporters are not allowed to attack the client for example)
  • Depending on events, supportive cmdr's might get additional payment through the pilots federation.

I imagine there is even more potential that might get us closer (if you agree to a certain point that i wouldn't be too bad)
I hope that we might all get happy with a solution that doesn't separate us even further and i hope no one feels offended by this.
I would like to post this in the vox populi thread but i don't know if i will edit or add some points. If you agree with me (to a certain point) and have suggestions that i should add, tell me.

You are saying the universe feels empty, I don' t know if your idea about matchmaker will help. It seems it makes it so the higher you go the less people you see unless all the higher ups in one area.

As for your "We have the impression"... I can't accept that. Please tell me that isn't the whole basis of your argument. Saying that without any proof we feel x is happening so we want the game changed and others game play effected does not seem like a valid reason for changing.

 

[SteveLaw]

It cancels it, that's just it. It halts change altogether. Is that good? I don't think so, personally. But there's no way to stop it.

If you don't Fortify your system's upkeep will be increased. That is what happens to an Undermined system. You have prevented that. No, there is no method in Power Play to completely prevent an Undermine from cancelling your Fortify. That is true of all modes and would be true if there was only Open. That is not an option of Power Play because FD know that it is impossible for players to guarantee that they can even see other players due to time-zones and geography if nothing else. It can not be controlled so it is not a supported method. You cannot expect changes to be made to support an unsupported action. You can change the rules of a game if you want, but unless every other player agrees to your variation, you can not control the outcome.

Imagine four people playing Monopoly. Two of you decide that you want to collect £400 every time you pass go but the other two don't, the other two want to stick with the official rules. What do you do? Shouldn't the official rules trump the unofficial variant where there is a conflict? That's what we have. You want to play a variant ruleset where you can stop players from even performing Undermine actions but the official ruleset says that you have to do it with a Fortify.

You want to change the whole game to suit your unofficial ruleset. I don't want you to. What now? We have a stalemate, so the official rules should stand.

 

[Roybe]

...Or give us two realms with two bg-sims: A PvP enabled and a PvP disabled realm. Give it a try - it won't work for long because there wont be any targets for griefers (other griefers are a much too high risk for the most). There would be nearly no player influence on the PvP BG-sim, because most players doing mostly PvE, would stay on the PvE realm.

That's where CQC comes in. If it was not a separate game mode but a separated area in our galaxy, giving a visible "Arena"-ranking and profitable rewards, it could work. But there is no reason to go there, if it is not connected to the game, doesn't give any advantages.

PS: All Elite players I know, associate Elite with PvE, most of us play in private groups, some strictly solo. None of us wants to participate in PvP, wants to disturb another's gameplay or be disrurbed.

splitting the galaxy is impossible. This is not an issue of FDev not wanting to...they cannot.

 

[SteveLaw]

splitting the galaxy is impossible. This is not an issue of FDev not wanting to...they cannot.

Of course it isn't impossible, what nonsense. It may be impractical, but mainly FDev don't want to do it.

 

[FuzzySpider]

• Split Solo/Group and Open. Use the current saves without rolling something back and give the players the choice where they want to use their cmdr. To keep it fair for both worlds, cmdr's can not be copied over after that. Just that nobody get's a bad surprise add a certain time in in game hours as a time of consideration and point out the consequences of the choice.
  • To make it even more fair. People will be able to claim two copies of their cmdr just to not force them to start from scratch if they change their mind. Progress made in Solo/Group will not take influence on Open and vice versa.
  • Both worlds won't affect each other any further.

I think this is, though technically not easy to realize, the easiest solution to make everyone happy. Since i have the impression that Solo/Group players don't care if we exist or not, if we take influence on their galaxy or not, the won't miss the Open players and (at least my impression) vice versa. Threshold values might need adjustment to fit on the quantity of players.​

​

I play mostly Open. I've been in Solo for the past week though. Last weekend I got interdicted by an Anaconda while in a Diamondback Scout and when I asked why he was interdicting me he said, quite literally "no reason" (I still have the screenshot if anyone wants it), which hacked me off. Then later that same day, in my own Anaconda, I was interdicted by an Asp and attacked. I wondered what the hell it was about, until he used SCB number 10 as my own shields popped... jump > log out > solo. But I'm gravitating back to Open again.

However, give me my own hermetically sealed universe with only me in it and you'll never see me again!

Ohhh and by the way "jumpers" account for most of the players of the game. Most people slip in and out of both modes depending on their mood. Force them to choose and most will probably pick the more stable and secure option - solo. Restrict stuff earned in solo from being carried to open and none of the jumpers will bother with it.

 

[Robert Maynard]

splitting the galaxy is impossible. This is not an issue of FDev not wanting to...they cannot.

I get the impression that it's the other way about - Frontier want everyone to affect the same galaxy so that the shared galaxy state is affected as much as possible by player actions - the galaxy is huge after all and individuals do not affect it much. I would expect that running a separate galaxy state would be possible but not desirable (and, possibly not a welcome additional expense on servers / curating / etc.).

To quote from the DBOBE interview at E3 with Arstechnica, again:

There are no changes planned to separate solo and online saves, and players will continue to inhabit the same shared galaxy whether they’re in solo or multiplayer—again, continuing with Braben’s contention that there’s no ‘right’ way to play.

 

[DarkWalker]

So what's your opinion on Power Play?

Something I don't plan on taking part, regardless of mode. Well, except maybe to grind some of the exclusive rewards, but even that would be uncertain; I dislike the very core concept of Power Play, I have no interest in this kind of multiplayer Risk-in-space game they pushed.

 

[KaizoMK]

If you don't Fortify your system's upkeep will be increased. That is what happens to an Undermined system. You have prevented that. No, there is no method in Power Play to completely prevent an Undermine from cancelling your Fortify. That is true of all modes and would be true if there was only Open. That is not an option of Power Play because FD know that it is impossible for players to guarantee that they can even see other players due to time-zones and geography if nothing else. It can not be controlled so it is not a supported method. You cannot expect changes to be made to support an unsupported action. You can change the rules of a game if you want, but unless every other player agrees to your variation, you can not control the outcome.

Imagine four people playing Monopoly. Two of you decide that you want to collect £400 every time you pass go but the other two don't, the other two want to stick with the official rules. What do you do? Shouldn't the official rules trump the unofficial variant where there is a conflict? That's what we have. You want to play a variant ruleset where you can stop players from even performing Undermine actions but the official ruleset says that you have to do it with a Fortify.

You want to change the whole game to suit your unofficial ruleset. I don't want you to. What now? We have a stalemate, so the official rules should stand.

What are you talking about even?

Sorry, I should explain the problem a little bit better.

There are various things you do do in Powerplay, and most if not all of them award you merits. However, undermining by shooting down enemy ships is by far the most profitable, with 15 merits per kill, as opposed to fortification, which costs you money to do quickly or generally goes very slowly. The end result is that every system is virtually guaranteed to be undermined, every time, meaning systems can never expand. Furthermore, there's no bonus for undermining/fortifying past 100%, as both cancel each other out.....but players are undermining anyway because it's profitable. So you end up seeing systems that are 100+% fortified, but 900% undermined. This doesn't strike you as a problem, or odd?

 

[relayer]

That's all well and good except that the system is built such that systems effectively cannot expand because right now the most efficient thing for a player to do is undermine, and with solo play's existence there's literally no way to stop undermining. I don't know if this is an acceptable consequence, but I don't believe so....the system should make many different facets of PP more viable regardless of whether you play in open or not.

OK, let's take a RL example: the brewing hostilities between Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states.
Most people think the threat of a nuclear war is over. Eastern European nations have a completely different idea in that they see various movements, skirmishes & border-crossing military troops.

Putin has put forth that he thinks he can win a war with tactical battlefield nukes. He has blustered that he can win a tactical strike because the US and European Allies, as well as NATO, might be reluctant to engage in a full-out declared war.

This is a propaganda war, a demonstration of brinksmanship and troop movenments on both sides around the borders of Ukraine & Crimea. Putin is betting that NATO would back down from such threats and so he consideres the option of invasion. He's also betting that the US wouldn't want to intervene in such a "small war." However, such an incident would test NATO's resolve. If they do not intervene, it would fall to the US to follow their NATO responsibilities.

ALL OF THAT is a smokescreen for Putin's inner goal, which is to break NATO completely. And no shooting is being done.
THAT is Power politics.

* * * * * * * * * * *

"right now the most efficient thing for a player to do is undermine, and with solo play's existence there's literally no way to stop undermining."

Sure there is! In fact, there are several ways. But most people complaining about "stealth actions" seem to only consider one tactic: shooting down players. As has been explained in this thread many times, due to the architecture of the game, you probably won't see anyone else (or the rare 1 or 2) to combat. It seems like the other options of PowerPlay are dismissed or demeaned from a combat-player's view. If you want to stop PP actions, you have exactly the same tools as solo/group players; even moreso, because solo/group players don't have any chance of shooting you down.

 

[Derath]

the universe feels empty because they chose to make an ambitiously enormous universe rather than a smaller scale one, it gets huge bonus points for scope but the size really limits the possibility of the background sim and the scope of focusing the playerbase. Though I'm fairly certain that was cited as a feature, that meeting players would be a rare and meaningful experience, which sounds pretty good to me.

 

[SteveLaw]

What are you talking about even?

Sorry, I should explain the problem a little bit better.

There are various things you do do in Powerplay, and most if not all of them award you merits. However, undermining by shooting down enemy ships is by far the most profitable, with 15 merits per kill, as opposed to fortification, which costs you money to do quickly or generally goes very slowly. The end result is that every system is virtually guaranteed to be undermined, every time, meaning systems can never expand. Furthermore, there's no bonus for undermining/fortifying past 100%, as both cancel each other out.....but players are undermining anyway because it's profitable. So you end up seeing systems that are 100+% fortified, but 900% undermined. This doesn't strike you as a problem, or odd?

You were talking about not being able to stop them, now you are talking about an imbalance in rewards. That has nothing whatsoever to do with Solo or Open. If you over Undermine you have wasted time and effort, that's bad strategy, their time has been used badly they are likely to have left an opening somewhere else, look for that.

 

[KaizoMK]

Sure there is! In fact, there are several ways. But most people complaining about "stealth actions" seem to only consider one tactic: shooting down players. As has been explained in this thread many times, due to the architecture of the game, you probably won't see anyone else (or the rare 1 or 2) to combat. It seems like the other options of PowerPlay are dismissed or demeaned from a combat-player's view. If you want to stop PP actions, you have exactly the same tools as solo/group players; even moreso, because solo/group players don't have any chance of shooting you down.

....you don't seem to understand that I can literally go to any system I want and shoot down NPC ships, and there's not a single thing anyone can do about it, short of ban me or kill the servers. The problem is that it's too easy to stop PP actions BECAUSE there's one way to gain rank that is far more optimized than other options, and that one option halts change.

Can someone that understands this please address this? I'm sick of posting the same thing over and over.

 

[SteveLaw]

....you don't seem to understand that I can literally go to any system I want and shoot down NPC ships, and there's not a single thing anyone can do about it, short of ban me or kill the servers. The problem is that it's too easy to stop PP actions BECAUSE there's one way to gain rank that is far more optimized than other options, and that one option halts change.

Can someone that understands this please address this? I'm sick of posting the same thing over and over.

Now you really are confusing me. First you say "there is literally no way to stop them" and now you say "it's too easy to stop them".

It doesn't matter how much they Undermine, if you have done 100% Fortify then leave them to it they are wasting their time and not doing other tasks. Go and Fortify all the rest of your systems then you can start Undermining theirs. Or Expand, or Prepare, or whatever else you want to do. There will be something they failed to do because they are spending all their time Undermining. Its a strategy game, use good strategy against bad strategy.

 

[Cody]

I'm sick of posting the same thing over and over.

Hmm... what can I say? <chortles>

 

[KaizoMK]

Now you really are confusing me. First you say "there is literally no way to stop them" and now you say "it's too easy to stop them".

There's no way to stop people from undermining systems. It's too easy to stop systems from expanding.

 

[Derath]

Now you really are confusing me. First you say "there is literally no way to stop them" and now you say "it's too easy to stop them".

Isn't the issue that its both? fortification and undermining both take very little time, counter each other and cannot be stopped, undermining is also the #1 way to earn merits if you aren't dumping your cash to buy them so that one gets done a huge amount basically everywhere.

I think thats KaizoMK's point, its certainly an element of powerplay that seems pretty daft its no wonder the 5th force expansion on crazy systems, its about the only activity that has any effect