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

[cherbert]

Whatever FD do will have to be thought out very carefully in order to avoid that. I'm all for well considered tweaks to gameplay to keep everyone happy, but I can see any major boost to Open Only play being used as a lever in the metagame. If Open appears to be favoured over any other mode, there will be a massive inrush of "See! We told you so!" posts, and immediately after that will be the soul-crushing avalanche of "Now Open is obviously the only mode, we MUST have stations, and guilds, and territory to own, and declare war on other guilds and take their space, oh it will be so EPIC do it now! And pets and NPC automation, and crafting, and guild-halls! Yes, we must have guild-halls and an auction house! And MOAR chat rooms!"

That made me feel quite ill.

Maybe I should just thow the towel in now - it all seems quite plausible. I have just come from the immersion breaking Nvidia competition thread to find this thread for the first time. For a minute I thought it must be 1st April today but alas I think Frontier are just loosing the plot.

 

[DarkWalker]

Hello Commander Jerakeen!

Possibly I could attempt a counter that suggests at the moment it is unfair against open play mode - you have more risks and challenges but only get the same rewards.

I take your point though.

Possibly, community goal thresholds, when it came to determining where each player sits, could be adjusted to ensure that solo players' actual amounts were considered, which I *think* would prevent any loss of goal rewards.

Like I said though, we'll need to chew over this some more when we get the time. Nothing is going to happen right away.

Now about, instead, tweaking the rules and the scoring to bet to a better parity between solo and open, but without artificial boosters to one mode or another?

For example, if the issue is every enemy converging to players that just arrived and ignoring the NPCs, how about making, for the community goal sites only, everyone not on your wing indistinguishable from a NPC, at least until the new arrival is scanned? Players are still facing each other, after a while they will surely identify other humans on the battlefield by how they fly, but this at least buys new arrivals some time.

Or, if the issue is that players in open die more often and lose their bonds, how about allowing some of the bonds, or even all of them, to survive ship destruction? Or, perhaps, to survive ship destruction only when another player was involved? This would help reduce the discrepancy without the need for extraneous bonuses.

Or, if the issue is that fights in open take longer, resulting in more time needed to earn each bond, what about reducing a bit the payment for destroying ships of the other faction and using the difference to create a payment for the time engaged against the other faction? It even makes sense from an in-universe point of view, as an opponent otherwise occupied isn't able to attack other targets.

In other words, instead of creating artificial bonuses, just tweak the rules for awarding rewards to make them less discriminating, but keep them the same for solo, group, and open.

 

[cherbert]

if the issue is every enemy converging to players that just arrived and ignoring the NPCs, how about making, for the community goal sites only, everyone not on your wing indistinguishable from a NPC, at least until the new arrival is scanned?.

+1 This.

This is a far more intelligent and reasonable suggestion and I am sure there are many other ways to achieve balance without interfering with either mode.

This is the only reason I don't do Conflict Zones in Open.

 

[SiriusSeven]

I don't think anything should happen. We already lost Offline Mode so don't go and create another PR disaster of epic proportions and nerf Solo.

It would be hard to claim being disenfranchised if they keep payouts equal and consistent. Any more technical arguments would *not* be a PR disaster because the details are too technical or inside baseball for the news outlets and general public to care about.

 

[Asp Explorer]

For a minute I thought it must be 1st April today but alas I think Frontier are just loosing the plot.

Not really, this has all been very carefully rehearsed and orchestrated since well before Alpha - but with FD's once-adamant stance on game direction has now been seen to waver. If the meta-groups push hard enough, they believe there is a chance that they will get what they want - i.e Eve with cockpits.

We've already seen hard evidence of sockpuppets, multiaccounting and tor-based evasion in order to further this agenda. FD really have to take a good look at their gameplan and stick to it as far as reasonably possible, because something like an Opengate fiasco could have very serious consequences for them that they may not easily be able to recover from.

 

[cherbert]

It would be hard to claim being disenfranchised if they keep payouts equal and consistent. Any more technical arguments would *not* be a PR disaster because the details are too technical or inside baseball for the news outlets and general public to care about.

Trust me word will get out. I myself only discovered this 400 page discussion thread tonight. Up until today I assumed it was the age old Solo vs Open debate that has been going on for months and so never step foot in here. I am sure this is probably the same for hundreds of other people.

Little did I know that the chief Game Designer was in here taking on board ideas about how to nerf Solo Mode. I find that in itself a bit underhanded.

How about putting the theory to a test and creating a new thread called "Frontier's proposal to nerf Solo". Lets see how that goes down.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

Sorry, forgot to answer you...

You're right, many would not do that - if FD screwed over solo players (former offline people) any more, they'd quit the game.
The people who mainly funded the game, up front, because they wanted '84 Elite on 2013+ era computers - before any of these PvP whiners came on the scene, those guys we should thank for getting this project up and running... they'd be gone.

Also, once the PvP crowd get bored and move on, who will FD get money from then? As the "core" player base now currently will have left and the new EVE style focus lot will get bored (heck, they are all ready moaning they are bored a few months in)

So you and you're friends will leave over this change but the PvPers are fair weather friends?

 

[Dave1235]

I have 8 pages to go to catch up, no playing for me tonight.

Can someone do me a favour please.

Link the post from ~ 100 pages back, if you know the one I mean, the video where DBOBE was on the stage at the recent show & was asked "will clans, corporations or guilds be supported".

Watching him go from "ha ha ha" from the previous question to a look of "your sacked" / "I just vomited in my mouth" gives me hope, you can't fake that!, and yes, please do post a link.

 

[Cody]

Little did I know that the chief Game Designer was in here taking on board ideas about how to nerf Solo Mode.

To be fair, Sandro's comments were in another thread (which unfortunately got merged into this one).

 

[ViciousMink]

Trust me word will get out. I myself only discovered this 400 page discussion thread tonight. Up until today I assumed it was the age old Solo vs Open debate that has been going on for months and so never step foot in here. I am sure this is probably the same for hundreds of other people.

Little did I know that the chief Game Designer was in here taking on board ideas about how to nerf Solo Mode. I find that in itself a bit underhanded.

How about putting the theory to a test and creating a new thread called "Frontier's proposal to nerf Solo". Lets see how that goes down.

To be fair, Sandro commented on a regular thread in Dangerous Discussions, but somewhere along the line it got merged into this thread. He didn't start posting in here. (In fact I don't think he's posted in here since the merge.)

ETA: Darn ninjas!

 

[Walt Kerman]

To be fair, Sandro's comments were in another thread (which unfortunately got merged into this one).

Yeah, when I saw that happen I laughed. The mods inadvertently killed that conversation real fast by throwing Sandro into a pit of alligators.

 

[Tovrin]

personaly speaking i have zero interest in open play...pvp has absolutely no interest for me nor do any other aspects....i have dipped in to "see whats what " as it were....and in all honesty...il stay solo....but then im an antisocial git at the best of times lol, but essentially Elite always was solo and thats why i bought the game...no solo = il say goodbye with a heavy heart

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Cody]

ETA: Darn ninjas!

<smirks> We own the night!

 

[Demiga]

I continue to be dead against anything that deliberately makes stuff easier or have different values in one mode rather than the other. I want to see FD continue to invest in the AI, and in the spawning process (for example gathering metrics about levels of PC interdictions in open mode, and using them to inform the spawning of NPCs in solo mode in the same system) so that solo is not easy mode. That way we all get a better game and, hopefully, many of those that fled to solo 'because it is easy mode' would go back into open, leaving just those that simply do not want other PCs in their game in solo. Of course, doing the transponder would also significantly improve matters, because PKers would not be able to deliberately preferentially target PCs.

Oh of course I Definitely agree with you there. I only even suggested any of this because look where its headed. Open is demanding either solo/group be shut down (never will happen) or they demand the solo/group not be included in CGs -or have completely different CGs - My suggestion was only ever intended as a Band-Aid, as a temporary measure until they can increase the AI, or make solo much harder, or do something to improve the relationship between open and solo - I mean honestly, does anyone from solo want to be completely separated from open as far as goals and background sim goes?

I just want this compromise to be a valid solution over FD going nuclear on everything or feeling like they need to massively change everything because of the overall reactions. I had an idea, and it didnt look like anything else was proposed that came close to it so I figured id share it as a compromise which, in all honesty, give open players a reason to go back to opeb while also not really affecting solo players all that much

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Yeah, when I saw that happen I laughed. The mods inadvertently killed that conversation real fast by throwing Sandro into a pit of alligators.

Ugh tell me about it - I couldnt find my own post till someone linked it for me - we had a decent debate besides the people that brought up the whole solo vs open debate...ohh well

 

[cherbert]

I mean honestly, does anyone from solo want to be completely separated from open as far as goals and background sim goes?

Erm... Yes

 

[Demiga]

Erm... Yes

Why? I want to contribute to the same goal...I just want to do it from solo where I am happiest...I dont want to play in open - maybe eventually - but it doesnt mean I should get excluded from everything

 

[SiriusSeven]

To be fair, Sandro's comments were in another thread (which unfortunately got merged into this one).

Yes. The other thread was specifically about solo and community goals. Sandro was responding with the expectation that people would understand the specific context (which was lost in the merge)

 

[cherbert]

Why? I want to contribute to the same goal...I just want to do it from solo where I am happiest...I dont want to play in open - maybe eventually - but it doesnt mean I should get excluded from everything

I'd rather we had our own Galaxy than live in fear of constant meddling of the game by its designers to nerf our experience because the Open PvP crowd throw their toys out the pram.

...and probably the same "why" that drove thousands of people to want an Offline Mode.

 

[Jockey79]

So you and you're friends will leave over this change but the PvPers are fair weather friends?

That is not what I said. For a start, I've stated I play in private groups.
I also pointed out some of the solo crowd were the former offline crowd - in fact, I'd risk saying a fair few were, and I think they would leave if Open got any sort of boost or benefit over solo mode.

And yes, PvP players are a fair weather crowd - very few PvPers stay in 1 game for the long haul, they like the new sparkling pew pew games that come out each and every year, hence other games started out with huge PvP crowds, but they shrank once newer games came out or they didn't get their way and left.

And to be quite frank, there are games out there for the PvP crowds anyway, WoT, Robocraft, War Thunder, Battlefield range, heck even Clash of Clans (and many many more) - the problems with those game are because those games force fair(ish) fights.

And just to be very clear, I play in private groups and I've never taken part in a CG yet. The only reason I'm against any form of "boost" / "Bonus" / "incentive" (or any other term) - is you do it for 1 aspect of the game, wont be long before the same people start screaming for it in others.

 

[Cody]

Yes. The other thread was specifically about solo and community goals. Sandro was responding with the expectation that people would understand the specific context

<nods> In light of that, I wonder whether Sandro's comments actually belong in the OP of this thread?