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

[Commander Silex]

It will be interesting to see what FD come up with to address the issues.

I wonder if pirates and traders might agree that it's the player killers/in game murderers that are the ones causing some traders to think twice about trading in open in a non combat worthy ship?


If a ship destroyed in an unwarranted (in game terms - no bounty - non aggressive and had submitted to piracy) transmitted the events via the escape pod to the federation of pilots who then in turn alerted all ships that Commander X has committed a murder.


That way, traders and non combatants could avoid the murderer and genuine pirates could KOS the murderer (without legal consequence) because the PKer was messing up their trade. That would seem reasonable - it's not stopping people outright from being a PKer but it makes for non-trivial consequences.


We know from Sandro they are looking to balance the pirate/trader encounter. Maybe if traders knew that if they took the submit option that they'd stand a very good chance of not being blown up they'd be more inclined to expose themselves in open.


They'd have a choice - try and run - the pirate then needs skill to disable their drives at which point they either cough up the goods and get on their way - or try and fight it out. Obviously if they fight it out then the pirate can't be blamed as a PKer for blowing them up (they still get a piratey bounty and so forth).


But if traders knew the game mechanics mean that they'd getaway if they cough up the goods I wonder would that make a difference?


Let's face it being blown up by someone just because they can with no real consequences isn't great gameplay for the victim is it?

I agree although the game is unlikely to deal in absolutes. There's a lot of suggestions been put forward by the Devs themselves as to their ultimate aims, and the main reason I still stick my head into these horrible circular aruments is they're genrally the best place to pick up on those posts you missed. Here's some of my favourites in any case, after which I'm bowing out because I'm going a bit stir crazy in this thread.

Griefing, piracy, player killing, scamming, Gameplay modes, player behaviour and so on:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7261&page=10&p=147803&viewfull=1#post147803

Piracy and consequence:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101378&page=25&p=1578407&highlight=#post1578407

The thorny issue of 'winning' and 'losing' in player based direct confrontation. There's a lot here, interestingly Sanro Sammarco's stance on traders running stripped down ships in Open isn't entirely different to some of the more accepting of the PvP side of the game.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101378&page=25&p=1578293&highlight=#post1578293

More various on consequence, potential exploits, piracy and so on:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101378&page=15&p=1575950&highlight=#post1575950

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101378&page=18&p=1576822&highlight=#post1576822

Potential rebalancing of FSD submission escape:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=101378&page=15&p=1576069&highlight=#post1576069

More on consequence and the various issues PvP can raise and how and when to deal with them:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=96319&page=27&p=1544614&viewfull=1#post1544614

Oh and a little more on legacy fines after all

#https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=98631&page=3&p=1535594&viewfull=1#post1535594

Not to mention they've flagged that Point Defense hasn't been working on dumbfire missiles.. this should be a big benefit to traders using them once fixed. Shield cells are here to stay but getting a little nerf to keep them from being too good (which honestly they are. i sue them and I'm willing to admit that).

Anyway I'm out for now, have fun ladies and gents and hope you can all find some sort of common ground.

 

[DaveB]

Ahh, so we're extending it just a little here, now I can't switch modes. No biggy. Worst comes to worst, i invest in a totally separate feeder account. I'll use that one to harvest money in solo, then do a controlled commodity flip to my "locked in Open" killin' alt.

That's the problem with attempting to use game mechanics to discourage player behaviours. I just see it as a challenge to be overcome. If the devs don't want PVP, they can turn PvP off. All that implementing game mechanics will do is just encourage people like me to find ways to continue operations in spite of them.

Go for it. Be as enthusiastic about finding those loopholes in the game mechanics as you like. If FD consider them unacceptable they'll get closed. If not, you're free to still use them. However, reliable means of escaping the negative consequences that FD intend for unprovoked PKing will probably fall on the "unacceptable" side of that line and you'll have to come up with another loophole.

Tell me, what happens when your open killer account finds itself locked into "PK hell" instances, no matter how often you wipe your save or which mode you select, and your feeder account can't reach it to commodity flip because it's NOT associated with persistent PK activity?

"Turning off PvP" is not something that is going to happen because how can a pirate enforce his demands on a player if he can't make a credible threat? How are bounty hunters going to claim on a wanted player if they can't shoot at them? Making the game mechanics handle it is by far the best solution - you make senseless PKing something the game punishes automatically and severely while still leaving open the option of the more limited and game-structured PvP that should remain viable. Was always meant to be possible, was never meant to be the focus and FD have been and are moving to ensure that remains the case.

 

[Rivka]

I see where you are coming from... like having the Route toggle that turns off a particular port so that the player can avoid interdictions not of his own choosing and still fly in open.

Still, spending an extra £35 in order to do commander switching is on the extreme end. At the moment there is no challenge to the PKer role. It's easy to do. If it was made a little harder it might encourage PKers to pick a slightly different role. From most posts, it's the unreasoning murder that pushes players in to solo. It appears that these unreasonable murderers want to stop people from doing that.

For a game that was never intended to be a PKer's paradise, that's not too unreasonable. Better that than crippling the modes...

I admit, I did take it to the extreme (and thanks for being cool about the debate too, that's awesome). Thing is, I've BEEN in a game where the devs tried to use game mechanics to discourage activities like "mindless PKing". It failed badly because, in trying to prevent people from performing said action, it just "hardened the resolve" of the PK types. They got to the point of being more than willing to go ahead and take those extreme actions, get highly organized, and cause MORE issues for the innocents. Had said game company just left well enough alone, or just made minor tweaks here and there, the innocent types wouldn't be facing a hardened organized group of people.

What ends up happening is, those types of people just stop playing the game as intended. It would go from playing "Elite: Dangerous" to "Elite: Blow up every trader we see". You've stopped playing for the traditional roles and motivations, and started playing for an entirely separate goal....and you can streamline that narrow-focus goal quite a lot better.

The non-combat types in Elite have it rough right now, I'll be the first to admit it. They need more tools, not "plot armor". In my ideal Elite world, the traders would have the ability (if smart and kitted out right) to escape a few interdictions, blow past unskilled PKers, skin of the teeth get away from an equally competent PKers, and get destroyed by a superior PKers. The PKers, conversely, would only have a limited amount of time they could spend in a specific area before the police get too hoppy, and they're forced to retreat back to a pirate friendly Tortuga style stronghold (caveat, this "heat" is a separate beast from bounties, and is something that'd take less than a typical game session to clear). Of course, they'd also have a lingering bounty and wanted status, but there'd be some pirate-centric style things to do in my hypothetical Tortuga to help with that.

The whole goal of this is to provide both sides with some fun. The trader gets to outsmart the killers sometimes, the killers get to nuke the traders sometimes. Both sides end up with a fun, enjoyable game session....said traders have an exciting run, the killers get to score some hits, maybe some loot, perhaps a few kills.

Now, if you're a trader who DOESN'T want that style of interaction to be possible, the best spot would be to play in Solo, or within a trusted group.

 

[Uueerdo]

I could use a counter argument: why can't people that don't want to interact with other players accept the limitation of separate offline / online save ?

This is really why they need two "Open" modes. The current one and a PVE one, so people can stop equating distaste for PVP with distaste for interaction in general.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

LOL @ claiming statements by Sandro trump those of the CEO, and misinterpreting them to boot. Sandro is indeed the lead designer but just who's vision for the game would you say it is his task to design? Hint: Not yours. There is nothing in anything any official FD source has posted here or anywhere else that runs counter to the philosophy DB expressed.

PvP is a *part* of ED, as in it will happen, but the game is designed such that (a) it has negative consequences for the pilot initiating it (b) non-consensual PvP is trivially easy to avoid for players who want.

If it becomes a matter of players avoiding open because of the PvP activity there, something we are already seeing, then you can expect the game mechanics that discourage PvP to be strengthened not nerfed. We've already seen that with the increase of bounties for murder. If that isn't enough to make the PvP discouragement sufficiently strong (it isn't) then we can expect more mechanics to discourage it to be introduced.

This is not a PvP-centric game and never will be, not in any of its modes. If you bought it thinking it was, you didn't do your research.

I didn't claim anything of the sort Dave, nice try though. Statements made by the CEO when? 9 months before release? So they are set in stone right? They will never change? Like offline mode right? You seem to think you are more intelligent than you actually are. What i actually said was that pvp is one aspect of the game, which it clearly is. Not sure what made you think i said its the focus of the game apart from the fact you constantly comment half cocked on peoples posts and you maybe don't read so well.

I never said it was my vision, get over yourself. Yes pvp is a part of ED, well done, very observant of you. I have no issue with the game mechanics to punish people for murder and the like being strengthened, they are already too weak, and they are being strengthened which is good new. Though they aren't doing it to actively discourage pvp, they are doing it to make being a real nasty guy realistic. Its fracking obvious.

It won't affect pirates, because pirates shouldn't have to murder, unless the trader has no concept of risk vs reward as Sandro already touched on in that post. Hauling is not supposed to be risk free. It might be in solo but it shouldn't be in a dynamic player populated galaxy. Trading should require preparation, caution and situational awareness. Right now its over flowing with morons who fly right into rare trading areas in open mode then cry when they get interdicted and try and run from a ship that mass locks them. Its like the most simple concept, yet people constantly fail at it, and therefore they all want to play solo rather than put slightly more effort in to avoid interdiction and obvious high risk areas. Solo mode is for these people.

Which is what Sandro was getting at in his post i linked. Its not hard to understand.

As for your naive statement about how easy it is to avoid pvp if you want, have you seen a trader in a type 6 or lower interdicted by an asp? Obviously not. When the game was released and all the new players were in small ships then yeah, easy as pie. Now lots of players are making money, buying asps etc. And this will only increase. When all the pirates are in asps instead of vipers, maybe you wont be so flippant about it.

For your information, i bought the game thinking it was an MMO in a spaceship. Right now its neither that nor a pvp centric game. I don't care so much about pvp, i make my money through trading like most people that want to actually make money. However, i want to be in a dynamic universe, not some cookie cutter safe haven where everyone picks space flowers together, threads them into each others hair, and then laughs hysterically at the abysmal, easy mode, non threatening AI. If this game was all solo, the only reason anyone would would ever die is from stupidity.

 

[tagos]

Ahh, so we're extending it just a little here, now I can't switch modes. No biggy. Worst comes to worst, i invest in a totally separate feeder account. I'll use that one to harvest money in solo, then do a controlled commodity flip to my "locked in Open" killin' alt.

That's the problem with attempting to use game mechanics to discourage player behaviours. I just see it as a challenge to be overcome. If the devs don't want PVP, they can turn PvP off. All that implementing game mechanics will do is just encourage people like me to find ways to continue operations in spite of them.

Circumventing their mechanics by giving Frontier more money. That'll learn them. That'll learn them real good.

 

[Antmax]

This is really why they need two "Open" modes. The current one and a PVE one, so people can stop equating distaste for PVP with distaste for interaction in general.

The game will be fine the way it is once penalties and measures to counter murder have been implemented properly. The upcoming ones sound promising and you won't be able to wipe the slate clean by simply dying. PvP in the game is fine when it works as intended, but not when people abuse it to prey on the weak and innocent with no repercussions. It's basically griefing that upcoming changes are trying to reduce and hopefully will succeed in.

There are rules for PvP that the devs intended and in time they will probably figure out effective ways to enforce them.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

Agreed. How do you make Open more appealing?

I mean, apart from the things that are in the pipeline?

More fully supported co-op. More awareness, that to make money you dont need to run the gauntlet in rare zones or core systems, like so many do now and think the game is full of nasty pvpers.

I trade only 60-70 LY from Sol, i have a route that i make 2 mil an hour in a type 7, and i have seen only small numbers of players. I would never fly my type 7 into a rare trading system. Sure i could, and 9/10 im not going to suffer. But unlike a lot of the people who seem to trade, i understand the concept of risk. I don't think, "oh it will be ok", i just don't do it.

I am sure there are many ways they can make open mode more appealing, and as the months go on, i have no doubt FD will amaze us with their ingenuity. All i think, is trying to quash all desire to pvp is not the way to enrich this game or keep it alive in the future, just because some guy played elite or frontier decades ago and wants the same game now.

They don't make games like they did 20-30 years ago for good reason.

 

[tagos]

The non-combat types in Elite have it rough right now, I'll be the first to admit it. They need more tools, not "plot armor". In my ideal Elite world, the traders would have the ability (if smart and kitted out right) to escape a few interdictions, blow past unskilled PKers, skin of the teeth get away from an equally competent PKers, and get destroyed by a superior PKers. The PKers, conversely, would only have a limited amount of time they could spend in a specific area before the police get too hoppy, and they're forced to retreat back to a pirate friendly Tortuga style stronghold (caveat, this "heat" is a separate beast from bounties, and is something that'd take less than a typical game session to clear). Of course, they'd also have a lingering bounty and wanted status, but there'd be some pirate-centric style things to do in my hypothetical Tortuga to help with that.

The whole goal of this is to provide both sides with some fun. The trader gets to outsmart the killers sometimes, the killers get to nuke the traders sometimes. Both sides end up with a fun, enjoyable game session....said traders have an exciting run, the killers get to score some hits, maybe some loot, perhaps a few kills.
.

That's all most of us traders actually want. An equality of consequences where intelligence matters. I'm all for having pirates who actually want to embrace the outlaw life.

 

[ianw]

As for your naive statement about how easy it is to avoid pvp if you want, have you seen a trader in a type 6 or lower interdicted by an asp? Obviously not. When the game was released and all the new players were in small ships then yeah, easy as pie. Now lots of players are making money, buying asps etc. And this will only increase. When all the pirates are in asps instead of vipers, maybe you wont be so flippant about it.

Well you can avoid PVP by dropping out of SC before anyone gets a tether on you - then you just scuttle off to your destination via a different route.

Seems to work regardless of the ship types involved - and it is easy.

 

[Antoon]

I like the 3 modes, keep it the way it is

 

[Alpha November]

I like the 3 modes, keep it the way it is

Same here, and they will.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

Well you can avoid PVP by dropping out of SC before anyone gets a tether on you - then you just scuttle off to your destination via a different route.

Seems to work regardless of the ship types involved - and it is easy.

Well in all fairness i didn't realise that is how it works, i thought you could still be tracked in that respect. I see your point. I guess i don't know enough about the mechanics for seeing/finding people who drop in/out of supercruise etc. Well maybe they will do something about that, who knows. What i do know if you get interdicted by an asp in a smaller ship or even a type 7, its not going to end well if you aren't in an asp or larger yourself.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

There should be room for murderers, pirates and evil griefing people. The solution is not to exclude psychopaths. The solution must be balance, consequence and content. Pirates and socalled "griefers", psyhos that just wanna a bit o' fun, should ideally see serious consequences on numerous fronts from their heinous actions. Only the most skilled pirates and brigands will be able to pull of evil actions, and the more they do it the more severe the consequences. That way both the psycho crowd and the carebear crowd will be pleased. I love being a psycho myself, but I definately also like to be a carebear from time to time. It's diferent roles, and no one should be forces in to any role. BTW even carebears can sometimes feel the need for fear and danger. And no, I don't see 'carebears', 'griefers' or 'psychos' as negative words. It's simply playstyles, I like to shift between these roles. Monkey do because monkey want, and lets face it what are we but are monkeys.

However making carebears able to escape into solo resulting in almost NO traders in open at all. That's just destructive to dynamic gameplay. I canøt for the life of me understand why on this particular issue FD does not use EVE as an example. Low sec, high sec and zero sec is a great concept, it works. I am sure it would work just as well for ED.

 

[Rivka]

That's all most of us traders actually want. An equality of consequences where intelligence matters. I'm all for having pirates who actually want to embrace the outlaw life.

Me, I'm all for giving the trader the tools they need to make things equal. I think the major flaw between the two groups though, are differing definitions of what is considered fair and equal.

From the traders side, I get the vibe of "anything that interferes with my trading runs is unfair. If I'm forced to sacrifice cargo space, time, or credits (lost to damage or stolen cargo), then I'm being treated badly. Any attempt to do those things should result in the attacker getting stomped hard by game mechanics."

From the bad guys side, I get this vibe: "Giving traders any kind of ability to escape from a brutal pounding when caught is unfair. We already get bounties and wanted status piled on us, and all the trader needs to do is go to Solo mode to totally avoid us. Giving traders the tools to escape our wiles in Open is utterly unfair."


Both perspectives are honestly full of bull. A compromise should be met that's fair, and most importantly, fun for both sides of the equation. Both sides of the coin need to accept that part of the game is losing once and awhile. The trick will be, getting that loss balanced for both sides so that, in the end, fun was had.

Trader: "Oh man, that was an epic battle! That pirate interdicted me, dragged me down, and we tangled hard. I almost slipped away from him when I used my (not in the game) decory drone, but he caught me making an obvious move and burned me. What a rush! What can I do next time to avoid that?"

Bad guy: "Oh man, that was an epic battle. I managed to interdict that trader, but he had one of those newfangled counter interdiction devices. When we dropped, my shields were already down! We tangled for abit, but he managed to pop some chaff, scramble my lock, and scoot out just before his hull popped! What can I do next time to get him?"

 

[Joe Spivey]

Ok then mate well maybe David Braben (like how long ago did he actually talk about it? Since release? No, ok moving on. We are in release now) changed his mind slightly, you know, like a human being making a video game in a very tough and competitive modern market? Or perhaps his Lead designer has gone rogue?

Here it is again, in case you missed what you are actually posting about. Maybe read the whole thing and understand what he is saying. He is talking about pvp. yes i know, its amazing. A dev, talking about pvp, and with some gusto too. Hope no one is too upset, has this burst some little Braben party line bubbles?



Mind blown!

EDIT: Oh and in case you missed this line, ill repost it for your viewing pleasure:

"And I have to say that this is a core concept for the trader's basic journey. It really has nothing to do with them "beating" or "losing" to ships that are designed specifically for combat. It's about the dangers and efficiencies of haulage."

Sounds to me like pvp is a serious contender, because AI interdictions are laughable at best. Enjoy.

Having read Sandro's post I actually agree with... well everything he said. However, I think you are rather reading more into it than was actually there... or at least applying a mental bias to the words. Anyway, thank you for highlighting the line you did. I feel it only fair I reciprocate:

"For the combat ship Commander, who presumably wants to fight - they now have a bounty which allows anyone to attack them in the area. Both player and AI ships can take advantage of this, and, again, almost certainly through some ongoing balancing, they should get more fights, which is kind of what they want, I would hope. The idea we want to create here is that living by the sword means risk of dying by the sword, potentially quite often."

So you see, you are not the only one who can cherry-pick. But to be serious. Do you agree that what Sandro was trying to convey with this was that, yes, traders have to accept the risk of their trade and it is therefore beholden to them to equip their ships accordingly or potentially loose all. But at the same time players whose interest is in combat will face increasing pressure from authority vessels the more they choose to pick on weaker ships? To me, this is how it should be and is fair to both sides. However, Sandro's post is by no means giving PvPers carte blanche to slaughter every Sidewinder without fear of reprisal. His post seems to be a veiled warning that says if you go beyond a certain point there will be ever increasing consequences.

So much for Sandro's post anyway. Now then, your other concern. You make great play of the fact that DB's oft quoted comments on the discouragement of PvP are old. Yes, they are. But they have never been withdrawn or even tempered. The words are still there and read just as strong as ever. And they will continue to do so until refuted or removed. There is nothing in Sandro's post that does this, no matter how much some people wish it were so.

PvP remains as just one small and relatively unimportant part of the game. The game remains a primarily player co-op game, as it was designed to be.

 

[CMDR Reza Malin]

It will be interesting to see what FD come up with to address the issues.

Let's face it being blown up by someone just because they can with no real consequences isn't great gameplay for the victim is it?

I think this we can all agree on!

 

[Uueerdo]

The game will be fine the way it is once penalties and measures to counter murder have been implemented properly. The upcoming ones sound promising and you won't be able to wipe the slate clean by simply dying. PvP in the game is fine when it works as intended, but not when people abuse it to prey on the weak and innocent with no repercussions. It's basically griefing that upcoming changes are trying to reduce and hopefully will succeed in.

There are rules for PvP that the devs intended and in time they will probably figure out effective ways to enforce them.

I'd like to think that; but realistically, in a game like this (where going from start to combat ready is relatively quick for a determined player) any "effective" penalty would just be circumvented by clearing save.

Otherwise, I'd be all for the payoff of the "bounty" being equal to the part of the insurance the "killed" player didn't cover. I mean, you don't think an insurance company is just going to take that kind of financial hit without doing anything about it do you? The reward for the bounty should only be 10% of the payoff though; to prevent gaming the bounty system. It'd also make being unable to dodge bounties on death make a lot more sense, since the insurers are everywhere. (I'd still leave the option to avoid payoff by foregoing insurance though.)

I can imagine the Insurance Investigator being a highly feared NPC.

 

[ianw]

Well in all fairness i didn't realise that is how it works, i thought you could still be tracked in that respect. I see your point. I guess i don't know enough about the mechanics for seeing/finding people who drop in/out of supercruise etc. Well maybe they will do something about that, who knows. What i do know if you get interdicted by an asp in a smaller ship or even a type 7, its not going to end well if you aren't in an asp or larger yourself.

I think you can still be tracked - but it's a question of timing and distance to the wake thing.

When I was in a shieldless Cobra (I accepted the potential risk as a trade off for the extra jump range) I had eyes on swivels as soon as I entered SC. You can tell roughly how far ships are away and if there was a ship I didn't like the look of (player or NPC - it was NPC mostly) I'd just throttle back - drop out and re-route or wait a bit (whilst ready to jump if trouble arrived).

It works very well - though I can see when wings arrive - if a wing of pirates space themselves out in SC it may be harder to pull off - we'll see.

But at the moment - it works no prob at all.

On a separate note I'd like to test my actual interdiction win the tug of war skills against a player - only had one when I wasn't paying attention, which I managed to escape, just.

It definitely seemed harder than NPC but I didn't get to see what ship it was.

 

[Rivka]

I'd like to think that; but realistically, in a game like this (where going from start to combat ready is relatively quick for a determined player) any "effective" penalty would just be circumvented by clearing save.

Otherwise, I'd be all for the payoff of the "bounty" being equal to the part of the insurance the "killed" player didn't cover. I mean, you don't think an insurance company is just going to take that kind of financial hit without doing anything about it do you? The reward for the bounty should only be 10% of the payoff though; to prevent gaming the bounty system. It'd also make being unable to dodge bounties on death make a lot more sense, since the insurers are everywhere. (I'd still leave the option to avoid payoff by foregoing insurance though.)

I can imagine the Insurance Investigator being a highly feared NPC.

"Sorry sir, but that bullet shaped hole in your life support system was obviously prior damage and unrelated to your combat loss claim. I'm afraid we're going to have to deny this"