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

[Im_Lost]

I guess we agree that the reason for the modes is that with the technical limitations this provides the most options and opens the game to the most people. As for having server instances for each mode without them influencing eachother, this would be a nightmare since each group would require new servers to be spun up on creation. Even in the cloud computing age, it would become unaffordable, especially with a pay-once business model.

Exactly. Seperating them would mean they would have to run multiple versions of the galaxy, all needing their own maintenance and patches etc. It's not practical.

The game is what it is. If you don't like it your in the wrong game. They aren't going to change it to suit the minority. The game catters to all types of players, while allowing them to take part in the same evolving galaxy. That is a big plus and a major selling point for the game.

 

[Philip H]

So let me get this straight ppl playing OPEN are saying the games bad because others are playing SOLO/GROUP and theres no easy targets to pick on mmmmmmmmm, also saying that doing SOLO/GROUP is easy mode ,sorry but theres no difference in any of the modes all are the same , all affect the same universe.
The game was advertised in that it would come with 3, yea thats right 3 modes of play and that you could play as you want ,again AS YOU WANT to play.


Again we have ppl saying but hey ppl playing in SOLO/GROUP effect my game in OPEN, yep it does and so does what ppl do in OPEN affects ppls game in SOLO/GROUP,

So lets drop SOLO, where do you think those ppl are going to go, yep into group play, but hey there still effecting my play in OPEN, Ok lets drop group mode as well now we only have OPEN mode, cool say all the pirates, do you honestly think ppl that play in SOLO/GROUP are going to then play in OPEN now that SOLO/GROUP as gone, sorry in my case not going to happen i would be the first to, a. stop playing ED. b, start a refund request for a game that was not as advertised. Which means ED loses me as a paying customer,thats lost revenue now and in the future.

Sorry but you trying to force the ppl from SOLO/GROUP into OPEN play just cause you want it that way, isnt going to work , you also do realise that the max amount of players in any instance is 32 and also this is on a peer to peer network so if you haven't got or set your router right you wont see other players even in OPEN,

So the way i see it now we have a few ppl in OPEN play that want ED to be only one play mode ;ie OPEN, not going to happen guys, game was advertised as 3 modes and even the DEVS have said this is what THEY want , you have been given 3 ways to play this game the way you want thats the options dont like any of them .then i am sorry no amount of complaining /whining is going to make it any way like what you want.


phil

 

[Im_Lost]

So let me get this straight ppl playing OPEN are saying the games bad because others are playing SOLO/GROUP and theres no easy targets to pick on mmmmmmmmm, also saying that doing SOLO/GROUP is easy mode ,sorry but theres no difference in any of the modes all are the same , all affect the same universe.
The game was advertised in that it would come with 3, yea thats right 3 modes of play and that you could play as you want ,again AS YOU WANT to play.


Again we have ppl saying but hey ppl playing in SOLO/GROUP effect my game in OPEN, yep it does and so does what ppl do in OPEN affects ppls game in SOLO/GROUP,

So lets drop SOLO, where do you think those ppl are going to go, yep into group play, but hey there still effecting my play in OPEN, Ok lets drop group mode as well now we only have OPEN mode, cool say all the pirates, do you honestly think ppl that play in SOLO/GROUP are going to then play in OPEN now that SOLO/GROUP as gone, sorry in my case not going to happen i would be the first to, a. stop playing ED. b, start a refund request for a game that was not as advertised. Which means ED loses me as a paying customer,thats lost revenue now and in the future.

Sorry but you trying to force the ppl from SOLO/GROUP into OPEN play just cause you want it that way, isnt going to work , you also do realise that the max amount of players in any instance is 32 and also this is on a peer to peer network so if you haven't got or set your router right you wont see other players even in OPEN,

So the way i see it now we have a few ppl in OPEN play that want ED to be only one play mode ;ie OPEN, not going to happen guys, game was advertised as 3 modes and even the DEVS have said this is what THEY want , you have been given 3 ways to play this game the way you want thats the options dont like any of them .then i am sorry no amount of complaining /whining is going to make it any way like what you want.


phil

Well, even if they got rid of solo and group play. You could still play solo by just blocking all P2P traffic

 

[Zenicetus]

Yes I suspect we are looking at the future of online multiplayer choice based gaming. Its quite revolutionary, and I believe it will absolutely catch on.

As a point of reference, it's already been that way for many years on the World of Warcraft PvE and RP servers. Players have options. They can stay completely in a PvE world, or self-flag for PvP within the wider gameworld, or enter a purely PvP arena in the Battlegrounds. The mechanics are a little different from how ED is doing it, but the overall philosophy of player choice is still there. I've heard that WoW is... er, moderately successful as an MMO.

There are also dedicated PvP servers in WoW, but one look at the percentage of PvE to PvP servers in WoW (roughly 60% PvE and PvE/RP vs. 40% PvP last time I looked) says something about the popularity of this approach. That may have something to do with how the new Lord British project is being designed.

 

[CMDR Bansidhe]

Well they are of course subject to the advertising and sales laws that protect consumers where they are based as well as where they are selling, which prevents them from selling a product as one thing and then changing it fundamentally to something else down the line. As such they actually don't have an option to remove Solo, not because they care about loyalty, but because they care about the giant class action law suit theyd get slapped with and lose if they were to remove it.

If they stopped people moving between them they would escape this typical, gamer-threatened, class-action lawsuit. I can't think of a game I have played yet where somebody on the forum didn't mention one of these. Care to name any that actually happened?

Within the gaming community (and I don't mean the people on Facebook browser games, Candy Crush and other solo interactive pursuits) there is a sense of fair play and balance. The ability to make gains in the relative safety of solo that they can then use in multiplayer flies in the face of this fairness and balance. I have looked but I cannot find the part on the website where it tells you that players can freely move between the modes at any time. That is why it comes as a surprise to many of us. Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

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"For the less scrupulous - Why buy a hold full of cargo, when you can pirate it from someone else? Why go to the bother of exploring a system to sell the data, when you can simply take it from them by force?"

Regardless of what the developers said in the past this is what they say now on the game website. I think you have it wrong.

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)

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.

You can make a healthy profit as a smuggler or an honest trader. But beware the pirate looking to make their own profit - from you. - From the website.

 

[Zenicetus]

I have looked but I cannot find the part on the website where it tells you that players can freely move between the modes at any time. That is why it comes as a surprise to many of us. Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

If by "multiplayer crowd" you mean the portion of people who demand that everyone they see in the game is playing the exact same locked-in PvP mode, I suspect you're right. That would be about 40% of the players on WoW incidentally, so we're not really talking about a single "multiplayer crowd" who all enjoy the same thing.

On the positive side, this means ED has a unique place in the developing niche of modern cockpit-level space games. It's offering players something they won't get in EvE Valkyrie or Star Citizen. Offering new ideas is how companies survive, when a market starts to get a little crowded. The path to ruin is when game companies try to mimic exactly what others are doing, instead of offering new niches for gameplay (witness the lack of serious competition to WoW over the years).

 

[Dabba]

If they stopped people moving between them they would escape this typical, gamer-threatened, class-action lawsuit. I can't think of a game I have played yet where somebody on the forum didn't mention one of these. Care to name any that actually happened?

I doubt it has as companies actually in the business are smart enough to know better than to attempt a bait and switch, and so I dont expect this will be any different. Im not threatening anything, just letting you know what would happen. It wont of course because Frontier knows better. Im still not seeing this issue with fair play and balance, since everyone has the exact same options. It would be one thing if only a select group of people could do it, or you had to pay extra to access Solo, but as it is I see no imbalance or unfairness.

Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

We will have to agree to disagree here, as I believe once it becomes common knowledge then it will draw even more people here. The only ones that wont touch it with a barge pole are the small subset of the overall pvp crowd that need to prove their dominance by forcing themselves on others that don't want that interaction. That is actually a pretty small group and the community is better off without them anyhow.

 

[DarkWalker]

Until those revenues are in and counted. Then what incentive is there for the developers to cater to any of us? The only players that will matter, from now on, are the ones that have still to pay. It is the wishes of those who do not yet own this game that will determine the direction of any and all future development.

In a buy-to-play model without a cash shop, and without expansions, true. But those, with very few exceptions, tend to be single player offline games, so in that case players always have the choice to keep to an earlier version they liked or to mod away changes they disliked.

In a game with a cash shop, and that intends to sell paid for expansions, that is simply not true. What's more, it's typically far harder to attract new customers than to keep existing ones; coupled with the traditional sales curve of games, where the vast majority of sales are concentrated in the first month, it's likely that Frontier's best approach, from a pure revenue point of view, is indeed to keep current players happily engaged with the game in order to convince them to purchase the expansions.

Of course FD will try to reassure us otherwise but as a commercial entity they will be steered by financial motives and not out of any loyalty to the desires of PVP or non-PVP types. To think otherwise, to think that a trading company actually cares about what you want is the height of naivety.

Money is the end objective, true enough. But other elements play a part in obtaining that money in the first place. Trust, for example: would you purchase a game from a company you knew to change their games to attract new players with no regard for the already existing players?

In fact, I know a few potential players, ones that love space sims, that decided to skip ED due to Frontier going back on the offline mode. Not exactly because they wanted the offline mode, but because they don't feel like trusting a company that explicitly promises something and goes back on that promise.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

If they stopped people moving between them they would escape this typical, gamer-threatened, class-action lawsuit. I can't think of a game I have played yet where somebody on the forum didn't mention one of these. Care to name any that actually happened?

Within the gaming community (and I don't mean the people on Facebook browser games, Candy Crush and other solo interactive pursuits) there is a sense of fair play and balance. The ability to make gains in the relative safety of solo that they can then use in multiplayer flies in the face of this fairness and balance. I have looked but I cannot find the part on the website where it tells you that players can freely move between the modes at any time. That is why it comes as a surprise to many of us. Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

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You can make a healthy profit as a smuggler or an honest trader. But beware the pirate looking to make their own profit - from you. - From the website.

Solo has pirates, BHers, and all manner of characters too.... Hell elite had them back in 1984 before online gaming even existed!. You make it sound like in solo I would be the only character in the game which is a bit silly. Ignorance is fine so long as when you are informed you are prepared to change your stance to accept the new information. Multiple times you have been shown the quote which states you can swap modes..... So knowing this I do not understand how you can still say you are unaware of it

Will this please everyone? No of course not but there are loads of primarily based PvP shooters out there where everything is all about balance etc etc but there has been naff all in the way of elite for ages. There are a lot of people who see this game as a breath of fresh air, as well as some who hate it. If metacritic shows us anything it is that elite is marmite. Last time I looked tho marmite seems to sell quite well.

Even escapist zero punctuation likes it which is a rarity in is self..... (I wonder if angry joe will like it?.... But I digress).

I do wonder tho why more here hating on elite are not playing star conflict or star citizen dfm?

 

[DaveB]

...The ability to make gains in the relative safety of solo that they can then use in multiplayer flies in the face of this fairness and balance. I have looked but I cannot find the part on the website where it tells you that players can freely move between the modes at any time. That is why it comes as a surprise to many of us. Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

It only feels like that because you're used to it being unthinkable. Earlier posts on this thread have pointed out other games, either currently existing or planned/in-development where this mechanic or an equivalent exists. It's a dynamic that is changing - that's always uncomfortable for folks who have difficulty with anything other than "the way it's always been done" - and I'm not denigrating folks that feel that way, it applies to the vast majority of humanity, that's why "visionaries" always have a tough time.

You're clearly a multiplayer player, and it seems to me that you're prodding away pretty vigorously with that barge pole. I bought in during premium beta and I was able to discover that mode switching was available before I did so. Weren't you? Or did you skim over that info thinking "Naaah, they can't mean that, NOBODY does that.... "

It's not a game-breaker even for hardcore PvPers, given the other considerations that apply to this game. It may take a shift in your viewpoint to see that and I'll agree that there will be some folks that can't make that shift, that will always suffer a bit of grumbling resentment over it. The majority of players, however, will be playing the game as it is and finding the ways to enjoy it and succeed within the game mechanics as they are.

 

[Wizaerd]

Well, trading is already so overpowered so increasing rewards is wrong.
Instead a better way to "fix" this is to give 20-30% less rewards to soloplay trading.

There is nothing to "fix" at all, there is nothing wrong.

 

[DarkWalker]

If they stopped people moving between them they would escape this typical, gamer-threatened, class-action lawsuit. I can't think of a game I have played yet where somebody on the forum didn't mention one of these. Care to name any that actually happened?

It usually doesn't happen because:

- Few companies are crazy, or dumb, enough to give cause to such a lawsuit. For every person angry enough to file a lawsuit, there are likely hundreds more that were also affected and decided to simply never deal with that company again (and, to make things more interesting, there is research pointing that, between first and second hand tellings, unsatisfied consumers will on average make 50 potential consumers aware of their bad experience). If your livelihood depends on selling things to individual consumers, getting them that angry is a very, very bad idea.

- If it comes to that, the company will typically fold without going to the courts and give instead some kind of compensation to the angry consumers. Even not taking into account whether the consumer is likely to prevail or not, the last thing many companies want is to make the news by fighting their own consumers, it's exceptionally bad PR.

 

[aeshec]

The system is working as intended. The only players complaining are the ones who need to ruin other player's experiences to get their rocks off. Players who actually PvP properly aren't complaining because there is no reason to complain.

Embrace the actual PvP community, embrace the actual PvE community, and forget about the griefer community because their time is quickly coming to an end.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If they stopped people moving between them they would escape this typical, gamer-threatened, class-action lawsuit. I can't think of a game I have played yet where somebody on the forum didn't mention one of these. Care to name any that actually happened?

Within the gaming community (and I don't mean the people on Facebook browser games, Candy Crush and other solo interactive pursuits) there is a sense of fair play and balance. The ability to make gains in the relative safety of solo that they can then use in multiplayer flies in the face of this fairness and balance. I have looked but I cannot find the part on the website where it tells you that players can freely move between the modes at any time. That is why it comes as a surprise to many of us. Once this becomes common knowledge then we had better hope that the single player community has deep enough pockets to fund future development because I really do not think the multiplayer crowd will touch it with a barge pole.

From the official game website:

Multiplayer:
And the best part - you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours...

From the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter (my emphasis):

How does multiplayer work?
You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.

You will be able to save your position in certain key places (probably just in space stations, but possibly while in hyperspace too, if we feel it is needed). A save-and-quit option will be freely available at those points, as will the subsequent reload, but there will be a game cost for a reload following player death. Your ship will still be intact in the condition it was when the save occurred, but there will be a game currency charge (referred to as an insurance policy) for this. This is to prevent the obvious exploit of friends cooperating and killing each other to get each other’s cargo. If you can’t pay, then it will accumulate as an in-game debt, and the police may chase you!

There are no multiplayer lobbies, and the game will be played across many servers, augmented by peer-to-peer traffic for fast responses. Session creation and destruction happens during the long-range hyperspace countdown and hyperspace effect (which is a few seconds only), so is transparent to the player.

We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will, though it will be possible to be banned from groups due to antisocial behaviour, and you will only meet others in that group.

Last updated: Wed, Nov 14 2012 12:52 PM +00:00

 

[AJ79]

Solo has pirates, BHers, and all manner of characters too.... Hell elite had them back in 1984 before online gaming even existed!. You make it sound like in solo I would be the only character in the game which is a bit silly. Ignorance is fine so long as when you are informed you are prepared to change your stance to accept the new information. Multiple times you have been shown the quote which states you can swap modes..... So knowing this I do not understand how you can still say you are unaware of it

Well, this certainly didn't need 39 pages of the kickstater information, DDA information, Dev Diary videos, Store page information and all the rest to highlight, that at no point in the games advertising did it say all the contacts on the scanner would be players.
NPC Pirates steal from you (had it done to me), NPC Bounty Hunters come after you if you are wanted (also had this done to me), NPC Smugglers keep getting killed trying to get in / out of stations.

Yet some people are going to just keep banging on, even after the evidence is shown, that "it should be humans".

Would be nice if FD would give the stats on what % each mode has playing in it, with how it is changing over time.

 

[Darth_Wayner]

Would you lot give up already!

LOL. My thought exactly! The horse has been eaten by the worms, the worms eaten by birds, and now the birds are dead too! Just. Please. Stop.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

Would be nice if FD would give the stats on what % each mode has playing in it, with how it is changing over time.

that would just add fuel to the fire as the average in online games is something like 80% pve to 20% pvp.

 

[snotface]

We are now on page 39 and still nobody has answered my very simple question on page 38.

After 37 pages people are still arguing about playing this game in one or another mod.

As I said at the start of this thread and all the way through *It should not matter which mode you play in* as its a game which can be played in many different ways.

Open is so much easier to play in and I have made so much money from bounty killing I do not need to do hauling as much, but the extra cash comes in handy.

Why can't people just let everybody else play the game they want?

I want just one person on this forum to explain to me very clearly why the way I play this game has anything to do with them?

Do I hurt them, does the way I play cause them any personal pain or injury?

Do I cause there game play to be affected in any way that would breach any game rules?

If the answer are all yes, then a nice detailed explanation would be nice.

Oh and if my game play hurts them that much why haven't they made complaints about me and my game play by use of the Report player button in game.

I do hope that just one person can give me a full answer because then everybody will know where they are going wrong.

Now by the time this gets posted you'll be shouting at each other on yet another page about nothing.

The simple answer to this is getting very old.

If you want everybody in PVP just because you want to kill their ships you will be on the side of "Its killing the game and its hurting me really badly that I can't kill the traders and make cash", where as most people are thinking, "I just want to play the game without any hassle."

Make your mind up and quit the complaining about something that really has no effect on your life.

 

[Spook]

Well, this certainly didn't need 39 pages of the kickstater information, DDA information, Dev Diary videos, Store page information and all the rest to highlight, that at no point in the games advertising did it say all the contacts on the scanner would be players.
NPC Pirates steal from you (had it done to me), NPC Bounty Hunters come after you if you are wanted (also had this done to me), NPC Smugglers keep getting killed trying to get in / out of stations.

Yet some people are going to just keep banging on, even after the evidence is shown, that "it should be humans".

Would be nice if FD would give the stats on what % each mode has playing in it, with how it is changing over time.

Producing stats, while informative would just be "twisted" to suit peoples POV.

Stat A - Players moving to Private Groups increasing, population in open declining.

"I told you so, way too many ADHD afflicted gankers - clean up Open"

"I told you so, SOLO is being abused as an easy mode, - remove the ability to switch"

Stat B - Players moving to Private Groups decreasing, population in open increasing.

"I told you so, nobody wants to stick around in private groups of one, stop wasting development time on the grouping mechanic, get rid of it in entirety. "

"I told you so, as people become more comfortable in the game, they gravitate to Open, if you increased the bounties and fines and restricted PvP some more the move would be even greater."


Lies, damn lies and statistics

 

[spiralarchitect]

I'm beginning to see why they consolidated this whole argument into this one thread. The zealots on both sides of the PvE vs PvP fence are wrong. Here's hoping the game achieves and maintains a happy balance as it develops