Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread [See new thread]

[Schattenbogen]

PvE players does things which matter (great change from most other MMORPG) and Elite is not a cut-throat universe by nature, it is a civilization in expansion with dangerous areas. Civilization ... civilized (until the war which is coming break out).

You don't want to let peoples choose how they want to play at any moment, you don't like the fact peoples can define their own way of having fun and you simply cannot accept peoples has the right to say "I want to play with other peoples, just not with you".
And I'm pretty sure I don't want to play with some peoples here.

Not at all. You decide. If you know that a game is open world, you decide if you want to play that game and how you want to play.

You made my point : I decide to not play this game in Open World so I can play it as I decided to have fun.
Which is exactly what you dislike in this situation.

 

[gary.brain]

Nice post OP, but I would say, would this be the same post if you were killed and lost it all ????

FD needs to end Solo and Group play, that is for sure...

Never happen, they would loose more people than keep them if they ever did this.......

 

[Astronage]

i want offline with pause, savegames & cheats. like elite, frontier & first encounters
so till then solo all the way

 

[Joe Spivey]

The whole point of this game is fighting, or at least defending one selves.
Ok, so you have a group of 5 000 players.. That is really why the solo and group play must end, so we get more people in the open play.. You will not end playing Elite because you have to go in to the multiplay, that I am quite sure of.

You seem to be labouring under the mistaken belief that ED is a PVP centric game. It isn't and never has been. Ed is a player co-op game with PvP capability, the PvP is meant to be rare and meaningful. Don't believe me? Do some research. It is stated many time by DB in interviews bith written and in front of camera. Oh, and there is a whole huge thread about why the 3 modes exist and why this will not be changed.

 

[Quineloe]

I dont have a good suggestion or anything, but this was just a good read all around. Bravo!

Was it? I had to stop when it was clear the OP couldn't distinguish between RPKs and pirates.

The real question is: What's the point of trading when you have all the ships you want

 

[kilvenny]

I mostly play solo, but with limited time available I am in a Sidewinder still - I have played open a few times and each time death has come quickly from a CMDR. Each time its been shields down and dead in seconds. Pointless experience. I came looking for a fight not a massacre. No issue with losing my ship, just want a chance to at least see my foe before I die. When you bear in mind getting twenty minutes playtime is good and to get to a combat zone takes five to ten minutes from a station its a serious waste of time. In 1.2 with player wings around its an even bigger disincentive.

 

[Bluefalcon8560]

Since I moved to open I have been in less combat as the NPCs are seemingly less aggressive. As a miner, I find that I can now mine until I fill up my Cobra without being bothered.

Seems to me that if you are going to spend your time away from the central systems that open may have advantages over solo.

 

[Flamepreacher]

People need to realise that some of us just want to play the game the way we want to play it.

So true, i get bored of peoples narrow mindedness on this subject

 

[Narius Cen]

You don't want to let peoples choose how they want to play at any moment, you don't like the fact peoples can define their own way of having fun and you simply cannot accept peoples has the right to say "I want to play with other peoples, just not with you".

How did you end up making this up? What I am saying is that the game should have a well-defined ruleset and a well-defined game world. What you do in it is up to you.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

There is no question that you cannot get the same adrenaline rush in solo as in open, but the question is whether players want it. Once you've tasted it, its hard to enjoy anything else. Everything else seems so bland.

I've tasted it. IRL. Now, I need Nexium.

 

[Simi Kusoni]

PvE players does things which matter (great change from most other MMORPG) and Elite is not a cut-throat universe by nature, it is a civilization in expansion with dangerous areas. Civilization ... civilized (until the war which is coming break out).

You don't want to let peoples choose how they want to play at any moment, you don't like the fact peoples can define their own way of having fun and you simply cannot accept peoples has the right to say "I want to play with other peoples, just not with you".
And I'm pretty sure I don't want to play with some peoples here.

You made my point : I decide to not play this game in Open World so I can play it as I decided to have fun.
Which is exactly what you dislike in this situation.

I'm actually all for retaining solo mode, I think it's a great option, but my understanding is that currently you can move credits from solo into open mode? That shouldn't happen, solo should be treated as a separate game, if people are going to grind out money and new ships solo they should be able to use those resources in solo only.

As for "open world" PvP in Elite, there are a number of imbalances on both sides. Even for "pirates" this game is very risk-free, losing your over-fitted £800k viper is only going to cost you around £40k. Didn't leave a £40k buffer in place? Don't worry, free 0% loans for all!

You may market perfect safety and consensual PvP as the "popular" choice, but is it the long term choice? There are no real money sinks in this game, some people are already racking up tens and hundreds of millions of credits with no danger of them ever running out of money for the remaining time this game exists. There is also, more importantly IMHO, nothing to fight over. There is no need to fight over resources, or control of a system or maybe even a single drop because money spews forth from every single orifice that Elite has to offer with absolutely zero risk of that money ever being lost.

I honestly feel that this is not a long term design strategy for a multi-player game, this is a solo player that has had multi-player bits tacked on.

 

[Narius Cen]

I'm actually all for retaining solo mode, I think it's a great option, but my understanding is that currently you can move credits from solo into open mode? That shouldn't happen, solo should be treated as a separate game, if people are going to grind out money and new ships solo they should be able to use those resources in solo only.

That's the thing, you can freely move between Open and Solo/private. Not just credits, everything is moved. It is more like having a switch that turns other players off. That's not exactly conductive to a healthy multiplayer game.

We can talk balance and risks and death penalties for days but they aren't the root of the problem; first we need one coherent game world.

 

[Simi Kusoni]

That's the thing, you can freely move between Open and Solo/private. Not just credits, everything is moved. It is more like having a switch that turns other players off. That's not exactly conductive to a healthy multiplayer game.

We can talk balance and risks and death penalties for days but they aren't the root of the problem; first we need one coherent game world.

Well, either that or two coherent game worlds that aren't linked

 

[gary.brain]

That's the thing, you can freely move between Open and Solo/private. Not just credits, everything is moved. It is more like having a switch that turns other players off. That's not exactly conductive to a healthy multiplayer game..

Ok just to clarify it is a simple switch......... that's what makes this so great.

Solo = You see No Players.
Group = You see your friends.
Open = You see everyone.

if they took away the Icon that tells the difference between Player and NPC and then took away the CMDR at the beginning then NO ONE would know if they were a player or npc.

So would that make the game any better or worse.

I player solo/group just to get away from the LAG of other players and the rubber banding of ships and the increase loading times.

But I love that I am a member of a bigger community even though I can't see them.

 

[DarkWalker]

Well, either that or two coherent game worlds that aren't linked

Without moving to a fully server-based architecture that would be useless. Five minutes with Google can give you not only the instructions to tweak your firewall to guarantee you never meet another player even when selecting open, but also a way to toggle that on and off with but a keypress.

And moving to a fully server-based architecture would involve increasing all latencies in every multiplayer situation, preventing players from ever playing if their connection is misbehaving (currently open can detect a bad connection and allow you to still play, just not seeing anyone else until your connection improves), re-engineering a good part of the game client, and draining way more from the game's cash reserves with ongoing costs (which in turn means the game will have to close down servers earlier). Some players would be thrilled, but I believe for most players it would instead be a net negative.

 

[Dave1235]

Well if you are tired and not in good mood, and dont bother to read/even try to understand what I wrote, then please dont bother to answer at all.

And no I have not read this thread, my "Dangerous Suggestion" thread (below) got merged here.

I did not consider my suggestion giving any huge advantage to people in Open, just nominal motivation for people to choose Open if they really dont care that much and might switch modes often (like you).

I did read your post a couple of times, to answer a much of it as I could.

If you consider 20% a "nominal motivation" I would love to see your logic, I think 20% is huge, I am personally interested in this logic, I have my yearly review at work next week, if I can convince my boss that a 20% pay increase is actually "nominal motivation" I will be a very happy guy.

 

[Simi Kusoni]

Without moving to a fully server-based architecture that would be useless. Five minutes with Google can give you not only the instructions to tweak your firewall to guarantee you never meet another player even when selecting open, but also a way to toggle that on and off with but a keypress.

Surely if your client is blocking all connections with other clients, but still connected to ED's server, then this is ridiculously easy to detect? Obviously ED's server is managing the player connections, maintaining a record of who is host in what system/instance etc, it would be trivial to have clients report when they cannot connect to a client that is supposed to be in system with them and flag clients that frequently aren't connectable.

Failing that as you said the game automatically detects bad connections, blocking p2p connections is probably going to get you dumped back into solo play anyway.

And moving to a fully server-based architecture would involve increasing all latencies in every multiplayer situation, preventing players from ever playing if their connection is misbehaving (currently open can detect a bad connection and allow you to still play, just not seeing anyone else until your connection improves), re-engineering a good part of the game client, and draining way more from the game's cash reserves with ongoing costs (which in turn means the game will have to close down servers earlier). Some players would be thrilled, but I believe for most players it would instead be a net negative.

No one is claiming that they should move away from P2P, it's too late for that, but lets not pretend latency was the primary motivation for going P2P rather than reducing the costs of server infrastructure. As you said five minutes with google, whilst not showing up a firewall hack for me, does show trivial to implement methods for boosting shields/damage by modifying game memory.

This is somewhat beside the point however, actual hackers are for the most part a niche issue, the way this game is designed that renders all multi-player elements redundant is a larger problem when it comes to longevity. Even in open mode player interaction is limited, so I will stand by my point that this is a single player game with MP elements tacked on.

 

[Sazon]

To all those people who are encouraging open play: +1 to you!

I have watched to open/pvp closed/pve debate with mild interest and have generally played closed games. Why? Because I have more than done my share of pvp over the years and... well... as the years have gone by I have seen more and more cheating and griefing... and the attitude of such players is positively offensive.

[For the avoidance of doubt I know for a fact that people did not used to cheat because the only multiplayer stuff was at LAN parties and you could literally look at their monitors over their shoulders - Yes, I am that old. But I digress...]

My point is that I now have enough cash under my belt so it is not a catastrophe if I die and I will be playing more in open... But beware, I will frequently be in a wing and you pull one of us you pull us all

 

[Sazon]

I'm actually all for retaining solo mode, I think it's a great option, but my understanding is that currently you can move credits from solo into open mode? That shouldn't happen, solo should be treated as a separate game, if people are going to grind out money and new ships solo they should be able to use those resources in solo only.

Making money in solo mode is no easier or different to open... unless you are saying that player pirates make a difference. The former means that solo players are doing no harm. The latter means you are trying to impose PVP game play whether people want it or not. Either way, live and let live; let them choose what they want to do because it does not impact on you.

 

[Ancipital]

You seem to be labouring under the mistaken belief that ED is a PVP centric game. It isn't and never has been. Ed is a player co-op game with PvP capability, the PvP is meant to be rare and meaningful. Don't believe me? Do some research. It is stated many time by DB in interviews bith written and in front of camera. Oh, and there is a whole huge thread about why the 3 modes exist and why this will not be changed.

Until wanted status sticks for a while, and system authority vessels are actually a problem for most players, what DBOBE said in those interviews isn't worth a thing. Right now, due to missing or cack-handed implementations of those systems, it really is a PvP game, whenever you run across a bunch of bored tweens. You will get ganked just as a twitch response rather than for any organised reason.. That's fine in a modern MMO where death has mild consequences, less so in ED, where it costs a fortune. There should be a genuine downside to behaving like a tool- right now, there is none..

I agree that what DBOBE described is how it should be, but you'd have to be hitting the Onionhead pretty hard to claim that it's anything like that right now. Like a lot of things that he promised (DRM-free offline mode, anyone?), what was delivered is very different indeed.