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

[Robert Maynard]

I will say this in closing, Frontier wanted to create an online dynamic, so like it or not this is going to be on the front line of player's minds until it is addressed one way or the other.

Why does how others choose to play the game matter so much? Each player is offered the same freedom of choice as to how to play the game and in which game mode. Players may choose to use any or all of the game modes on a session by session basis. The online dynamic will be created by players playing in open and private groups (albeit on different scales). The fact that some players seem to require that all other players are fenced into one mode goes against Frontier's offer to us all to "play the game how you want to", so I don't expect the game modes to be separated.

 

[Matnik]

Alright! Christ, it was a suggestion from the perspective of encouraging the MMO element, from the point of view that the interaction was a feature. No need to crack out the flamethrowers. Chill out.

 

[Sen Ti]

Too much free time during supercruise for thinking ideas.

 

[Spacejanitor]

No No No No No No No..

Why does any one care if some one plays SOLO / GROUP or OPEN.......

When traders, miners and random jacks of all trades switch to solo, open gets left with decked out fighter ships going pew pew until their running costs forces them to grind some solo. Separate open from solo/group or make a completely new open from which you can't switch from or into, and you get a mode that's actually worth playing. On that note though, no for bonuses, not enough.

Why exactly should traders who want to play in Solo have a penalty on profits? Did they pay less for the game?

As far as I know, I played as much as you Solo traders but somehow I make less credits because it's not viable for me to run around in anarchy systems without weapons and all shields switched to to cargo full of rares..

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Ofc solo is safer than open I distinctively remember David Braben saying all NPC ships are made so easy that a fresh new player is more dangerous. And it's only logical that pirates concentrate on areas with most traffic / best loot, which pretty much means the areas where rare trading happens, areas which are a gazillion times more safer in solo. Jump three systems away and my oh my.. no rares...

"Distinctly"

I've been in solo for a while now (not by choice, mind) and I've been jumped by some pretty hard hitting NPCs. Is DB lying to us?

 

[CMDR Bansidhe]

Nope, you are the one choosing to ignore you can pirate NPC haulers.
You can have that game play as described, without forcing people in front of you who don't want to be there. (oh, and you cannot steal system data, so half your quote is not even valid in game at all)

How? I didn't think you could talk to NPCs?

Besides NPCs wouldn't be a someone they would be a something.

As for half my quote being invalid. It's from the game website. Are you saying the developers are lieing?

That's the thing you miss in your attempts to look clever. Some of us DID research the game we were buying. How were we to know the developers were less than economical with the truth of their claims?

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

No, and I paraphrase, it means you're an unskilled pilot. Skilled pilots eat NPCs for breakfast.

Or to put that another way: No, because that would invalidate my argument and screw you guys, I'm going home!

Gee thanks Ziggy. I can land a cobra on a sixpence on the landing pad. Just can't shoot straight... I get interdictions that last 2 seconds all the way to the red before I've even seen the rabbit hole and there are Elite NPCs out there where the only option is run-for-your-life and avoid the pointy end...

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

How? I didn't think you could talk to NPCs?

Target NPC, F2, left, select conversation option... Something like that.

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Mind you I was paraphrasing. Not my sentiment, but something I was told when I opted the NPCs aren't the walk-over some people claim they are after an NPC Cobra and two NPC Sidey friends showed up to ruin my lovely morning.

Bought some gimbled beam lasers for my Cobra and when to a mining area to try them out. I left shocked that the combat finished after ten seconds. In the past I've only had Pulse/Burst lasers. My, that takes sooo long.

 

[Amaze]

What you are then talking about is a new open mode with a restriction in place such that commanders that play in that mode can never leave. As there is no group switching restriction in place, this would require a reworking of the commander creation system to include nomination as to whether the commander was going to be used in closed-open or in any/all of the existing three modes and a reworking of the launcher to restrict the player's options depending on whether the commander had been created for closed-open or for the other three modes.

There must be an easy way for FD to track which mode you enter or else it would be a nightmare to work out who switched modes in the Race to Elite Competition.

I don't see it as something that could not be done to include a way for group owners to see if a players breaks the mode switching rule
for a locked private pvp group and to then refuse entry/logon into that group if a player has switched.
Or at least a way for them to see and boot them out of the group if they had switched.

 

[Jockey79]

How? I didn't think you could talk to NPCs?

Besides NPCs wouldn't be a someone they would be a something.

As for half my quote being invalid. It's from the game website. Are you saying the developers are lieing?

That's the thing you miss in your attempts to look clever. Some of us DID research the game we were buying. How were we to know the developers were less than economical with the truth of their claims?

I take it you've never heard of "anthropomorphism", shame as it clears up part that sentence and it fits with the rest of the information I've provided.
(On a side note, if you watched some Twitch streams, you'd see some broadcasters use "someone" when describing being attacked by NPC pirates).

As for the system data part - I would not accuse FD of telling lies, but it could be an oversight or an upcoming feature (or a scrapped feature and they have been complacent in removing the info).

As for looking cleaver - sorry, I don't need to try, you guys are doing that for me.

[Edit, forgot to add - I'd not answer you in chat, so how is that different to an NPC ignoring you?]

 

[gary.brain]

decked out fighter ships going pew pew until their running costs forces them to grind some solo.

Interesting, so the fighters jump to Solo to grind...... I wonder why is that because they don't want to loose their valuable cargo ???

 

[snwkill]

Why does how others choose to play the game matter so much? Each player is offered the same freedom of choice as to how to play the game and in which game mode. Players may choose to use any or all of the game modes on a session by session basis. The online dynamic will be created by players playing in open and private groups (albeit on different scales). The fact that some players seem to require that all other players are fenced into one mode goes against Frontier's offer to us all to "play the game how you want to", so I don't expect the game modes to be separated.

"Play the game how you want to," is exactly the part I am thinking about. What if I and a group of friends want to blockade a port or help a minor faction because we don't like the politics? I don't think you should be fenced in at all, but things you do on your own time and by yourself shouldn't effect the outcome of global politics and especially shouldn't effect the stock of wares. You are fencing in the players that want to do dynamic politics into something else that they don't want to do because they can be undermined by offline players. With two separate game worlds nobody gets fenced in.

I think it is a moot point at this juncture, because there are so many variables already. Instancing needs to be improved, missions need to be improved and dynamic politics need to be improved. In the future it is definitely something that needs to be addressed though, depending on what direction Frontier wants to take. I think they will have to do something, simply because this subject is tearing the community apart, if nothing else.

 

[Robert Maynard]

There must be an easy way for FD to track which mode you enter or else it would be a nightmare to work out who switched modes in the Race to Elite Competition.

I don't see it as something that could not be done to include a way for group owners too see if a players breaks the mode switching rule
for a locked private pvp group and to then refuse entry/logon into that group.

Indeed - Frontier know who has played in which game mode and when - and what they did when they played - it will exist in the transaction logs.

Monitoring whether a player had played outside a private group after joining it could be implemented - the question is whether or not it should be.

 

[ermtony]

Just posted this in a thread in General Discussion, figured I'd put the idea here with a bit more fleshed out to it. Sorry if it's been suggested before.

Ad nauseum.

Next.

 

[CMDR Bansidhe]

I take it you've never heard of "anthropomorphism", shame as it clears up part that sentence and it fits with the rest of the information I've provided.
(On a side note, if you watched some Twitch streams, you'd see some broadcasters use "someone" when describing being attacked by NPC pirates).

As for the system data part - I would not accuse FD of telling lies, but it could be an oversight or an upcoming feature (or a scrapped feature and they have been complacent in removing the info).

As for looking cleaver - sorry, I don't need to try, you guys are doing that for me.

[Edit, forgot to add - I'd not answer you in chat, so how is that different to an NPC ignoring you?]

So how do I get an NPC to drop a specific type of cargo?

You didn't address my rebuttal of your "should have researched the game" idea. How can we be at fault if the game is not as it claims to be? You incorrectly assume that people mistakenly bought this game thinking it was something else. That isn't true. The advertising for this game is at best misleading and at worst deliberately false. Oversights are not really allowed in advertising. They are called false claims.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think they will have to do something, simply because this subject is tearing the community apart, if nothing else.

The 1 thing they *could* do imo which I think can only benefit us all would be for one of the senr devs to come out publicly and state.

"like it or not this is the game we advertised, mode switching is here to stay, so live with it or leave"
or
"mode switching is an advertised mode, and is here to stay, however we are considering ways to limit how and where the switching can occur"
or
"Currently the game is not working as intended for the majority of our gamers, and thanks to feedback from the community we will consider scrapping the mode switching scheme, or dropping modes other than all!". (clearly this would be the one which would be a complete game breaker for me, but is the one many of you guys are after)

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

I don't like the gimballed stuff, so a Cobra didn't work very well for me with the hardpoints at the wings. I like having to aim for the stuff I'm trying to hit. The each their own

So now the Cobra is for mining, the Viper is for fighting.

Keyboard only and the stutters make it hard to point straight. Limitation is the hardware and low end graphics. It's why I'm in solo. The moment I entered Open I started to slideshow during any 'meaningful engagement.' It's why I'm limited to Solo. Don't want to lag anyone else's connection, it just would not be tennis.

 

[Wizaerd]

Alright! Christ, it was a suggestion from the perspective of encouraging the MMO element, from the point of view that the interaction was a feature. No need to crack out the flamethrowers. Chill out.

IT'S NOT AN MMO... There are only 32 live players in any given instance.

 

[Robert Maynard]

"Play the game how you want to," is exactly the part I am thinking about. What if I and a group of friends want to blockade a port or help a minor faction because we don't like the politics? I don't think you should be fenced in at all, but things you do on your own time and by yourself shouldn't effect the outcome of global politics and especially shouldn't effect the stock of wares. You are fencing in the players that want to do dynamic politics into something else that they don't want to do because they can be undermined by offline players. With two separate game worlds nobody gets fenced in.

I think it is a moot point at this juncture, because there are so many variables already. Instancing needs to be improved, missions need to be improved and dynamic politics need to be improved. In the future it is definitely something that needs to be addressed though, depending on what direction Frontier wants to take. I think they will have to do something, simply because this subject is tearing the community apart, if nothing else.

When you mention "you" you should really be referring to Frontier - they created the stated game design - they implemented that design in the game as released - they decided that all players affect the same background simulation regardless of which play-mode the players play in.

Blockading a port is an interesting example. You cannot guarantee that every player in open will join the instances that your blockaders will exist in if they approach the station in question. I would not expect that your group will be playing 24/7.

There are no offline players - all of the game modes are online and are simply different settings of the matchmaking system (i.e. encounter no other players; encounter players playing in the same private group; encounter players playing in open) and use the same background simulation. Requesting that players outwith open should not affect the background simulation would necessitate the duplication of the servers running the background simulation and therefore cost Frontier more to run the game.

While you contend that "it is definitely something that needs to be addressed", the fact that Frontier have released the game with the game mode and group switching features intact since the earliest published game design information (over two years ago) tends to suggest that the way that it is is the way that it is going to be.

 

[Ixnatifual]

Traders already have far better profit than other professions. Increasing this discrepancy further would be bad.