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

[cryon1cang3l]

Fighting a player is different. NPC are stronger now, but still stupid.
They dont remember your name, your friends/group, dont track you down or ignore you if you are not interesting enough or stronger than expected.
People want PvP for a reason. Not everyone wants to play PvE in a multiplayer game.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Fighting a player is different. NPC are stronger now, but still stupid.
They dont remember your name, your friends/group, dont track you down or ignore you if you are not interesting enough or stronger than expected.
People want PvP for a reason. Not everyone wants to play PvE in a multiplayer game.

Not all players will present a challenge.

NPCs don't hold grudges, it's true. I would expect that affiliating with a Power will make NPCs treat a player differently, depending on which Power they are from.

Of course some players want PvP for a reason and not everyone wants to play PvE in a multiplayer game - equally, some players do not want to PvP for any reason and are quite happy to play PvE in a multiplayer game.

Simply put, we don't all want the same things. Thankfully, Frontier have given us core game features that allow us to play in whichever mode we choose on a session-by-session basis.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

I for one, would love NPCs marked as special for killing several commanders. Ala Shadow of Mordor.
They really do need to bring back unnecessary amounts of interdictions for this across all three modes. We're fighting for control of Occupied space!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Fighting a player is different. NPC are stronger now, but still stupid.
They dont remember your name, your friends/group, dont track you down or ignore you if you are not interesting enough or stronger than expected.
People want PvP for a reason. Not everyone wants to play PvE in a multiplayer game.

Sorry if I am being stupid (its a common problem, I cant help it) but, what is your point? - I am not sure who you are referring too!)

I totally agree that not everyone wants to play pure PvE in Elite..... but I have not seen anyone (seriously at least) suggest banning anyone from in role PvP in open.
The option for as much PvP as you can shake a stick at is there in open, you just need to find enough people interested and all to meet up at a WZ, pick a side and hope the instancing gods are kind to you.

but the counter point to your comment is, not everyone wants to do PvP in what has historically been a 100% PvE game, and what even now is mostly a PvE game (dictated by the size of the universe and confirmed by David braben many times in the run up to release). Thank the gods for the different modes so we get the options do do what we want when we want.

 

[fademist]

While "no one" can make you regret it in Solo - the game may in the form of NPC attacks. After SJA's latest improvements, NPCs will now make multiple sequential interdictions and trail you through multiple FSD jumps - even to the point of attacking in the NFZ (much to their digital chagrin when the local security vessels deal with them).

yeah she make them litle stronger but to have still elite rank npcs with no shields isnt good lol

 

[Robert Maynard]

yeah she make them litle stronger but to have still elite rank npcs with no shields isnt good lol

True - but the AI can only work with what the ship and equipment that it is given - maybe the ship / loadout configurator for NPC spawning needs a tweak or two....

 

[cryon1cang3l]

Sorry if I am being stupid (its a common problem, I cant help it) but, what is your point? - I am not sure who you are referring too!)

I totally agree that not everyone wants to play pure PvE in Elite..... but I have not seen anyone (seriously at least) suggest banning anyone from in role PvP in open.
The option for as much PvP as you can shake a stick at is there in open, you just need to find enough people interested and all to meet up at a WZ, pick a side and hope the instancing gods are kind to you.

but the counter point to your comment is, not everyone wants to do PvP in what has historically been a 100% PvE game, and what even now is mostly a PvE game (dictated by the size of the universe and confirmed by David braben many times in the run up to release). Thank the gods for the different modes so we get the options do do what we want when we want.

Yep. But PvE doesnt need human opponents. You can play with a couple of friends, specially because the wing is limited.
PvP on the other side needs a healthy, big player base to fight them and dont meet the same guys every time you want to fight.
Yeah Elite was a PvE game. Back in the days where multiplayer was lightyears behind our modern standarts. Now we have the option for great pvp in space, but we need some help from the developer to make it a) worth it (the risk is high, the reward so far - almost nothing) and b) interesting so people would prefer human opponents over NPCs.
Right now open is risky, not rewarding. It can get you the adrenaline rush, but it doesnt bring you anything ingame so you can actually advance faster.

The main point for me is that open is bleeding out, people are so scared to lose and switch to other modes.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

If you're going to blatantly call out a mode for 'dying out' at least bring out the data damn it. Sources man, do you know what it is!?!?

Video games change their models as time go yo, this is nothing new. But as I've said before, certain game mechanics are just simply suited better to an all Multiplayer or all Single player environment. There are rare cases that it works for both simultaneously and that takes time to actually see in motion.

For now, certain elements remain as I said, better. Could be far better, but at least its working and they seemed to have made the Instance Bubble far better and greater. I've seen more players now in Open Play than I have in 1.2 and 1.1 combined. Instancing is FAAARRRR better than it was. Let's see how better it can get.

(Time is what we need to give this update, it's still fresh like the day we stole the rare goods)

Edit: So you know, I'm not looking at this as a PvP thing, its just an interactive Player experience WITH other players and NPCs together. My Immersion~~~~

 

[Jockey79]

Attacking and being attacked is a third of the interaction available to players atm. Without it you can only talk to players or wing up. Removing It basically de-fangs open. Fly around with, a million credit bounty, a no shield or weapon cargo ship, in a rival powers system, or kill steal in a res, and noone can make you regret it.

So I am right, this entire "debate" is about the desires of some, to shoot those who are not interested in PvP.
Because those who are interested, are all ready in Open - so you're asking for now, is to force the rest of us over by messing with modes or rewards.

Fighting a player is different. NPC are stronger now, but still stupid.
They dont remember your name, your friends/group, dont track you down or ignore you if you are not interesting enough or stronger than expected.
People want PvP for a reason. Not everyone wants to play PvE in a multiplayer game.

Some people want PvP to test their skills versus like minded players, they play Open all ready.

The rest only want to mindlessly pew pew weaker targets and will not engage in a "real" fight.
Well, I'm not sorry to say - I'm not joining in being the seal for you to club. You can seal-club without me. If you want to buy me a copy of the game, pay me an hourly rate (starting offers from £10 per hour upwards) I will consider being a seal for you to club - until then, I paid for what FD advertised, 3 modes I can freely use and the choice of who I play with.

 

[cryon1cang3l]

If you're going to blatantly call out a mode for 'dying out' at least bring out the data damn it. Sources man, do you know what it is!?!?

The game was released on steam (and this is a heavy load of new people jumping in). Population in open: still low.
I dont have the data, Frontier does. But i can say, for heavy, massive PvP its not enough. You see the same guys over and over again.
Once i get the MASSIVE part of the MMO expirience in this game, i will be happy.
This also means - removing the pesky p2p system behind it and increasing the limit, also removing the separation between supercruise and normal space, we should see both.
My point is to have some nice massive fights and constant pvp in this game. For now i paused and many other people too. We are bored, and this has a reason.
PP gave us some new options how to grind, but it still didnt improve the multiplayer expirience.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

The game was released on steam (and this is a heavy load of new people jumping in). Population in open: still low.
I dont have the data, Frontier does. But i can say, for heavy, massive PvP its not enough. You see the same guys over and over again.
Once i get the MASSIVE part of the MMO expirience in this game, i will be happy.
This also means - removing the pesky p2p system behind it and increasing the limit, also removing the separation between supercruise and normal space, we should see both.
My point is to have some nice massive fights and constant pvp in this game. For now i paused and many other people too. We are bored, and this has a reason.
PP gave us some new options how to grind, but it still didnt improve the multiplayer expirience.

Are you basing your stuff from 1.1 and 1.2 respectively? Dude, look at the now, the instancing is FAR better than it was ever in the past. It's not the greatest but at least it gets the job done. Until you have that relevant data, its assumed that Private and Solo players are a small, but noticeable percentage of players. I promise you a majority of players, play in Open Play.

Yeah the option's there to do as you please, but we only have 32 players per instance.(which I agree is dumb)

It's not a perfect system whatsoever and there are bits a pieces that still would benefit from having bigger instance bubbles.

Edit: I really dislike this whole "Honor" system of having to tell your opponent "Hey, I'm going to rob you" or "I'm going to kill you for xyz" in this thread. It doesn't really appeal to me when there are really good self-policing and anti-griefing mechanics.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Yep. But PvE doesnt need human opponents. You can play with a couple of friends, specially because the wing is limited.
PvP on the other side needs a healthy, big player base to fight them and dont meet the same guys every time you want to fight.
Yeah Elite was a PvE game. Back in the days where multiplayer was lightyears behind our modern standarts. Now we have the option for great pvp in space, but we need some help from the developer to make it a) worth it (the risk is high, the reward so far - almost nothing) and b) interesting so people would prefer human opponents over NPCs.
Right now open is risky, not rewarding. It can get you the adrenaline rush, but it doesnt bring you anything ingame so you can actually advance faster.

The player-base will decide whether PvP "works", or not, by playing in whichever mode they want to.

You seem to hope / expect that the developers will buff certain aspects of Open to encourage PvP - I would not necessarily hold my breath waiting for those buffs to be implemented.

I would agree wholeheartedly with "Right now open is risky, not rewarding. It can get you the adrenaline rush, but it doesnt bring you anything ingame so you can actually advance faster." - it's as I expected it to be - the same game as Solo but with players to interact with / be opposed by / fight for kills against / etc. - surely that's what multi-player is all about?

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

I would agree wholeheartedly with "Right now open is risky, not rewarding. It can get you the adrenaline rush, but it doesnt bring you anything ingame so you can actually advance faster." - it's as I expected it to be - the same game as Solo but with players to interact with / be opposed by / fight for kills against / etc. - surely that's what multi-player is all about?

Ehhhhhhh, noooot exactly. If you and I have the same Community Goal we're doing, and I'm being interdicted by players in Open and you aren't being interdicted by the NPCs as frequently in Solo.

Which mode do you think I am going to gravitate to?

That's why NPCs being a little bit more immersive and interactive a little bit more in Solo is a better solution. Especially when you're working against their cause ala the War for Lugh. Back in 1.2, the tools weren't readily available and interdictions weren't as frequent as they are now (And its still not enough in my opinion). It's to be expected players are going to interdict one another, but at least now, we have the tools to see who is a friend and foe in Power Play.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

Oh so you're just asking for a complete overhaul of the system on which the game is based?

No, it seems he's asking for there to be less of a grind and more interactions that immerse players in Open Play (And this goes without saying in the other two modes as well). I don't see anything wrong with that. Putting the Open/Solo debate aside, he's got a point as I've argued before, it feels like a grind overall. He wants massive fights that matches the game's amazing storytelling.

Certain bits of the game are a tad underwhelming and people like to be immersed in conflicts that last hours, days, weeks and all that cool jazz. Everyone likes being apart of the story.

 

[cryon1cang3l]

Oh so you're just asking for a complete overhaul of the system on which the game is based?

Why not?
p2p is well know for being bad for multiplayer compared to the usual server=client system where clients dont connect to eachother.
And this is specially bad for MMOs because the connection cant handle the amount of clients connecting.
Competetive PvP needs a stable, low ping server. Player with high ping or unstable connections will suffer, but anyone else would be fine. Now a instance host can ruin your expirience.

 

[Jockey79]

The game was released on steam (and this is a heavy load of new people jumping in). Population in open: still low.
I dont have the data, Frontier does. But i can say, for heavy, massive PvP its not enough. You see the same guys over and over again.
Once i get the MASSIVE part of the MMO expirience in this game, i will be happy.
This also means - removing the pesky p2p system behind it and increasing the limit, also removing the separation between supercruise and normal space, we should see both.
My point is to have some nice massive fights and constant pvp in this game. For now i paused and many other people too. We are bored, and this has a reason.
PP gave us some new options how to grind, but it still didnt improve the multiplayer expirience.

You see the same guys over and over because they are the ones who want to play Open and have a decent connection back to you.

"Massive" in MMO has nothing to do with how many players you can see - this has been covered and is in my wall of information (Page 1, Post 3).
* it is a "Massive" universe,
* Played on a "Massive" network,
* By a "Massive" number of players (this part is subjective)
* All in their own instances, part of a "Massive" power struggle to control known space.

Massive can be any aspect. But it is not, and has never been, the number of players you will see or "interact" with. (Also covered by DBOBE, video in my wall of information)

The game was built on the P2P system, so you need to build a whole new game based on a server side game if you don't like the "Massive" P2P network. So the game never has, and never will support "Massive" fights (I feel I should insert a go back to EVE comment here). So if that is why you came to ED, you are here for the wrong reason.

Bored you say? Not my fault you lack imagination. My friends and I are loving this game and it just gets better and better for us. It is really nice how much you can do with a co-op multiplayer flexi-game like Elite: Dangerous.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh so you're just asking for a complete overhaul of the system on which the game is based?

No, it seems he's asking for there to be less of a grind and more interactions that immerse players in Open Play (And this goes without saying in the other two modes as well). I don't see anything wrong with that. Putting the Open/Solo debate aside, he's got a point as I've argued before, it feels like a grind overall. He wants massive fights that matches the game's amazing storytelling.

Certain bits of the game are a tad underwhelming and people like to be immersed in conflicts that last hours, days, weeks and all that cool jazz. Everyone likes being apart of the story.

He said he wants rid of the P2P system - so yes, he is asking for a COMPLETE overhaul of the game, from the ground up.
If he hates so much of the game, I have to ask myself why is he still here? Because last time I disliked a game that much, I walked away from it and never looked back.

- - - Updated - - -

Competetive PvP needs a stable, low ping server.

Good job this was not and never will be a competitive PvP game then

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

Yeah I just saw that post, weeelllp.

Only bit I agree with is the MASSIVE SUPER AWESOME FIGHTING, which I'm p-sure will happen regardless of the modes. But the PowerPlay competitive element is reaaallly lacking. It's a bad grind stacked on top of semi-ehhh Player Interactions.

Federal Capital ship versus an Imperial one? Yessur yessur. Blowing them up? YESSSSUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Edit: I love EVERYTHING about this patch excluding Power Play. The game has benefit A LOT from 1.3. Not so much of Power Play itself, just yet.

 

[MegaJohnny]

No, it seems he's asking for there to be less of a grind and more interactions that immerse players in Open Play (And this goes without saying in the other two modes as well). I don't see anything wrong with that. Putting the Open/Solo debate aside, he's got a point as I've argued before, it feels like a grind overall. He wants massive fights that matches the game's amazing storytelling.

Certain bits of the game are a tad underwhelming and people like to be immersed in conflicts that last hours, days, weeks and all that cool jazz. Everyone likes being apart of the story.

I have to agree with the grindy feel. If something as exciting as bounty hunting can be reduced to something as dry as credits per hour, there's definitely something wrong.

 

[cryon1cang3l]

Nice to see the quote in your sig But please write my name correctly.

I like the IDEA of the game and some parts of it. But it doesnt stop me from giving feedback and trying to improve and change the game (and there is nothing wrong with it, games based on the community feedback are usually the best).
Leaving games is not what i like. Usually i do beta&alpha-testing, help people out with addons/plugins and give feedback because i like the game.
World of Warcraft took about 6 years of developing to make me leave it. And mostly because it changed the way how people would interact with eachother.

"Massive" means for me not only the massive amount of people playing it overall. I dont call Counterstrike:GO or League of Legends massive - but they are if you think about it.
With massive i mean the amount of units on my goddamn screen, interacting with eachother. And i prefer human units over NPCs. I talk about hundreds - if there is a CG, i want to see anyone flying around in this system. Think about a trading CG and how many people are doing it.

P.S.: changing the game - that happened before and will happen again. Think about WoW and DX11 upgrade. On the fly, they improved the old engine several times without rebuilding it. It is possible. I expected the p2p solution not to be permanent, because anyone knows that it IS bad for an MMO, limited and depends on the client and his connection. Its also open for manipulation aka lag switches etc. I dont like developers taking the full price and cutting anything off to save a couple dollars here and there.


@Ziggy Starduster

Yeah its fine to change the game pretty radical. Many MMOs have done it, losing the core (hardcore) crowd for more casual-friendly mixed crowd. Same game again, WoW - changed so much.
Still nothing wrong with it, people leave the game if they dont like it anymore, after it has changed. And other people enjoy it. There will be always a losing side when something changes, because its impossible to make it right for anyone. But it is possible to use at least the best systems in the background to make sure that the expirience is not affected by third party tools and hardware as far as possible. Investing more money into it - always worth it and i would pay extra for a usual regional server cluster system behind the game. It will make PvP feel better, specially when people from different parts of the world meet together. Right now the system will choose the "opponent" for you, but you can add people from anywhere and play with them. And we all know how bad a connection can be across the globe.

 

[TheSpaceTexan]

With the follow up question, do you think it's fair to those people who did inform themselves before they bought the game to alter it in such a way?

Yes. Certain games need certain updates, not the one he's asking for but in general. But the real ehhh bit was the "PVP will be rare", why should it be rare when we now have mechanics that are practically calling for Player interaction, be it working or undermining one another? It just seems plain silly, or rather, weird.

Let's just see how it plays out in the future.