Hi Community!
I thought I'd chip in on this new Open vs Solo Topic. I read through much of everything under this topic, and I took some notes of what I was thinking about and reading. I'm not saying all these things should be adopted or are our best options. For instance, I'm not too fond of #4, but I thought I'd throw it out there. I think #1 and #7 would yield the best results in balancing the modes. #6 would enhance all modes, but may benefit Solo players most.
1. Let players influence the official formation of a blockade, making it where NPCs join the official blockade to level the playing field across all modes. This won’t make things perfectly even, as actual players and NPCs have a wide gap in difficulty (for the most part). But the Solo players will have to deal with the blockade ships, as opposed to being able to deliver CG items with far less risk in Solo. Perhaps such official blockades could only be brought about during a time of war, lockdown, or an unusually high number of illegal transactions (smuggling), via Community Goals. If X number of commanders sign up for the CG Blockade, then the blockade is up in all modes (or maybe only in Solo since in Open there’s a blockade of human players?).
2. Also, increase smuggling payouts (black market values) in systems in a state of war and a little more during official blockades, especially for weapons. Not an Open vs Solo suggestion, but I think it would go well with the idea of blockades and give smugglers a new, challenging way to make more credits.
3. I favor Open players getting bonuses for trading, combat, bounty hunting, and exploration, and Solo players getting only the normal rate for their actions (simply because more risk should yield more reward).
4. Perhaps Solo mode NPCs should be more difficult, on average, than Open NPCs. This has the potential to hurt Solo, so this idea definitely needs to be weighed carefully, more so than bonuses in Open as more difficult Solo NPCs would add more risk to Solo. I wouldn’t suggest harder NPCs in Solo in combination with bonus payouts in Open. Also keep in mind that some players play Solo not just to “game the system” by gaining advantage. Some either don’t want that level of difficulty as it may not be suited to their abilities and play style, or simply because they don’t want to. Perhaps Solo players should be able to choose a difficulty level, whereas Open is at a set difficulty, or unchangeable?
5. With the idea of Open and Solo carrying different weight with players contributing to Community Goals, I think this could be effective in combination with higher payouts for Open players. Perhaps instead of Solo players’ CG contributions carrying less weight, perhaps Open players’ contribution carry more weight (in other words, Solo players still able to contribute 100T and it still counts as 100T, but Open players get an extra 10% toward their CG contributions). The key here is you want to encourage people to play Open (rewarding for higher risk) but you don’t want to discourage Solo (punish for playing alone/lowering base payouts).
6. One way to encourage Solo Mode play would be to give the NPCs more character. Give players the option of hailing NPCs and interacting with them, in a similar way to Starflight. Some Solo players are inevitably going to feel the game lacks personality at some point. Open mode has the benefit as the only mode with potential for complex, in-depth interactions with other ships. Solo players do not get to experience this level of interaction and immersion, so NPCs that real players can interact with would enrich Solo Mode greatly, and enrich Open (perhaps not as much as it would enrich Solo due to the already present possibility of interaction in Open).
7.
The best way to improve Open Mode- Frontier needs to keep trying to deal with rammers, exploiters/cheaters, combat loggers, and other types of unfair or unwanted behavior. There are quite a few who want to play in Open Mode but fear they may be cheated by getting killed in a cheap way. These people who want a fairer Open mode will not be satisfied with the answers, “Go play Solo,” or “Play something else.” Going Solo is not a solution for people who want to play in Open, but have legitimate concerns. I feel that this one would bring back players who are hesitant of playing in Open. And with 1.3’s changes coming, I think that’ll help Open be a fairer experience.
The list is just my thoughts so far. I'll keep thinking on it and reading, and try to come up with some more ideas
