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

[Walt Kerman]

Here is my solution to fixing the problem of making less money in open combat zones compared to solo during dueling community goals.

It avoids changing the way solo/private/open works, so hopefully it makes everyone happy. I wanted to find a solution that avoided the classic open solo argument. Its not perfect but its the best I got.

 

[fademist]

Mobius is tiny compared to the whole playerbase (or this game is in serious trouble). And as has been pointed out in this thread, the average "lifetime" of a PvE player in a game is about two years. Compared to a much, much longer lifetime of a PvP player. By the time everyone in Mobius is bored to tears of PvE in this game, we'll still be around fragging each other and having a blast. And buying paintjobs.

Well - unless they make it totally unfun to do that.

Ideally I'd like to see them do rich content for both the PvP and PvE crowd, since many of use do both, myself included. So your attitude of "PvE good, PvP bad" is kinda weird, especially since you keep on insisting they shouldn't change the base design of the game. Well, that includes Open mode with unrestricted PvP. So which one is it? Can't have it both ways.

and us we all know pvp players life spawn is even less

 

[Joe Spivey]

And as has been pointed out in this thread, the average "lifetime" of a PvE player in a game is about two years. Compared to a much, much longer lifetime of a PvP player. By the time everyone in Mobius is bored to tears of PvE in this game, we'll still be around fragging each other and having a blast. And buying paintjobs.

By 'pointed out' you mean 'pulled out of his hat'. I would love to see sources for all these opinions and hypothesis that are stated as facts by these people soooo desperate to make an argument from their fears and expectations. If you are going to say something like 'the average lifetime of a PvE player blah blah blah' you better have the figures to back it up.

 

[Herik]

they have chosen to exclude themselves from 'some people in the greater game' however they still have the ability to affect the economy, sovreignty and community goals those players they have chosen to ignore are playing for and towards.

They maintain economic control of any system they want to, and military control in that they control the space completely and cannot be challenged. Open players have the same level of economic control, but are at a severely uneven fotting with regards to the military control since they can be attacked and/or blockaded in it. Choosing to play 'in open' puts you at this military/force disadvantage against any player group who chooses to play in closed or open.

Does this sound like fair, equal footing to you? Of course not.

the only argument the closed/solo players have come up with is 'well you can play in closed and choose to have the same economic/military advantage/disadvantage ratio', except that forces me to change my gameplay away from my preferred method to achieve equal footing with another player group, thus not allowing me to play the game 'the way i want to' .. This goes against the core design principle of the game.

And of course the other argument the Solo people have is the bandwidth constraint brought by their ISP....

 

[Ericlas]

...Its a very easy fix by FDEV - Make it so that when a Solo/Private Group player turns in a bond for 30k (example) they get 30k in cash, but it only counts as..15k towards the community goal

Wheras the Open players can turn in the same 30k Bond, Receive the same 30k in cash, but it counts as 30k towards the community goal...

...Comments on this would be welcome....

Sandro, thanks for getting back to us.

Following the OPEN/SOLO - discussion regarding community goals, all I read so far are arguments that a blockade in open won't be successfull, as it can be easily avoided by going Solo or Group. Therefor countering a community goal will be nearly impossible.
CMDR Demiga is trying to make it viable by creating a different value of contribution, depending on, in which mode it is done.

But all this discussion is due to the fact that CGs are missing a fundamental game mechanic...Countering an active community goal if a player wishes to do so.
That could be easily done by introducing a second community goal at the same time, just with the opposite desired outcome.

Then there wouldn't be the need to block players from fulfilling CG1.
Those players could simply contribute to CG2 and by that trying to counter CG1 and vice versa.

Of course they should be equally attractive and not favouring any side (like cap ships on only one side for example).

Maybe my picture isn't big enough or i just overlooked something, but that would be the simplest solution for me.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Sandro, thanks for getting back to us.

Following the OPEN/SOLO - discussion regarding community goals, all I read so far are arguments that a blockade in open won't be successfull, as it can be easily avoided by going Solo or Group. Therefor countering a community goal will be nearly impossible.
CMDR Demiga is trying to make it viable by creating a different value of contribution, depending on, in which mode it is done.

But all this discussion is due to the fact that CGs are missing a fundamental game mechanic...Countering an active community goal if a player wishes to do so.
That could be easily done by introducing a second community goal at the same time, just with the opposite desired outcome.

Then there wouldn't be the need to block players from fulfilling CG1.
Those players could simply contribute to CG2 and by that trying to counter CG1 and vice versa.

Of course they should be equally attractive and not favouring any side (like cap ships on only one side for example).

Maybe my picture isn't big enough or i just overlooked something, but that would be the simplest solution for me.

This. Much better idea imo. The problem with penalising one mode or rewarding another is that it sets an unhealthy precedent.

 

[Commander Debic]

It was Demiga's thread that was merged which was a sensible thread with dev input spoiled by a few solo players who thought it was a "pay players more in open" thread because they couldn't take two minutes to actually read what was being discussed.

Wrong. My argument was that any player who contributes to a community goal should receive exactly the same treatment as any other player, and I mentioned in my posts that PVE players goals awards and contributions should be treated in the same manner, not relegated to some second class player class because of PVP players shouting as loud as they can, about unfairness by PVE players taking part in community goals. If you want parity in community goals then stop waving the stupid unfairness flag at pve players and go play community goals in solo or group, and stop trying to score some sort of one-upmanship against PVE players by getting the game changed.
Otherwise put up with less chances in PVP playing as that is your choice in the same way that other players make their choice to play in solo or group.

 

[Gomorragh]

Ok - so new idea, lets get rid of not only offline mode, but lets penalise the solo mode by not giving them as much reward as the people who are playing open, sorry but one of the things that was said by Braben himself "solo/group/open there will be no difference, all will make a difference to the universe equally". Has the PvP community not yet figured that thier type of gameplay kills off games? waaa we want this, waaa we want that awww the game failed, next game, same thing, 6 months later, free to play because not making money.

The pvp pew pew squad have thousands of games out there to kill eachother on, but they want to impose themselves on every game thier little minds want to play on for the 2 or 3 months that they can keep focus for.

really, i see this company bend over and take it in the rear again, ill be uninstalling and then ill be telling the 5 or 6 people i know thinking of buying the game not to bother, and ask them not to promote elite dangerous. Sorry, i know it wont make much difference but they may as well save thier money.

The pew pew missile spam types killed the X series games, right under egosofts feet . i cant sit there and shut up while they do it again to this

 

[Herik]

Hello Commander jp josh!

We've hopefully got a fix for Capital ship farming exploits lined up (provisionally for 1.3, but no guarantee).

What I took from Commander Demiga's suggestion was that there might be a consensus that activities carried out in solo mode are "safer/unfair" as there is no chance for other Commanders to oppose them.

I'm not going to take a side at the moment, because I'd like to consider it more.

It could definitely be seen as an attempt to entice folk into playing open, though if the personal rewards remained unchanged I'm not sure that this would be an utter evil.

Fundamentally, Community goals are about Commanders working together, in concert or in opposition. It does not seem completely unreasonable that for such elements we might encourage direct interaction more.

On the other hand, I'm wary of the precedent this might set, and want to make sure that solo mode always fulfils all the requirements it needs to, remaining the completely valid option that it is.

So this is something we would not consider lightly.

I'm glad your looking at this (closely) Sandro, In 'Community Goal' scenarios; using stringent controls on Solo/group modes will (change/limit) the Solo/group players interest in Community goals.

Also those players (if they're like me), won't shift to 'Open' to play for these goals; we'll just leave the area, this part of the game will not be worth our time...

If this was to occur, folks like me will strongly see this as a move by FD to further remove Solo play as an option in the game, (aka Solo Offline).

I also see this limiting of my kind of play as a definite drift toward 'Eve' mechanics kind of play; Allowing the lone player only certain parts of this galaxy for (this games) Solo kind of play, where all the 'lone player' can do is hide and run in Open play. Of course some of 'Eve' decisions were ok; but on this one they certainly ran me out of the game.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

regarding the CGs...

To be honest if a bit of a weighting is put in for your position in the CGs, and therefore your final position and final bonus, I do not think the sky will fall too much (so long as this is all that is altered)
To be fair, I finished top 5% in the smugglings one, and this would have practically been impossible in ALL after watching the latest Kerrash landing with so many humans, who were all on the same side and the second someone showed red they god decended on by swarms of gankers.

That being said, I do not think this is the "best" way of doing it..... better imo to simply have better warzones which do not lead to loads of downtime with too many players sitting around with nothing to shoot, and then (in CGs only) tie in an increased bonus for killing a PF member - aka player - after all they are preferentially shot anyway.

I do think a lot of PvP types however are being disingenuous.... The notion some are saying now that "we are not saying ban solo or swapping we just want CGs made fair!" is completely disingenuous from many of the posters, it seems obvious to me that some are seeing they have not got their way on forcing everyone into ALL or for ever be banned from it, they are trying to start the ball rolling another way - thin end of the wedge and all that..................

And stopping mode swapping is something I will never ever support, as it would completely ruin the game for me. I have some mates who are ALL players, some who generally play solo. I WAS an ALL player till I saw weaknesses in the security and fine rinsing being exploited so i joined mobius hopefully temporarily, however even so, I will always need access to solo due to only having access to decent internet some of the time and I have zero interest in starting 2 separate characters.. That was not the game I bought! any more than I would accept suddenly having to pay monthly subs (something else some people have decided must happen or the game will fail!)

To me it is as stupid and game breaking a suggestion as frontier ditching the 1st person view and becoming a 3rd person shooter. - and I doubt anyone (sane) would demand that!

I bought as advertised a game with mode switching at will depending on my mood., and that is what i expect to play.

 

[Insomnia]

I'm a solo player. And I have absolutely NO CLUE what community goals are. Wings doesn't interest me either.

 

[tagos]

I bought as advertised a game with mode switching at will depending on my mood., and that is what i expect to play.

Quite. We knew full well what we were buying. If people didn't want to play a game with mode switching they shouldn't have bought it in the first place. It's unbelievable arrogance to knowingly buy a game and then launch a 400 page and counting campaign to get it changed into something else against the wishes of people who bought the game in good faith. The day modes are split or penalties used to drive people to become forced targets for other people is the day Frontier see no more of my time or money. I want and expect to play the game I paid for, not the game some people want to turn it into. And that game is one where I can play whatever mode the mood takes me.

 

[Loriath]

I'm a solo player. And I have absolutely NO CLUE what community goals are. Wings doesn't interest me either.

I completely understand this ^^

I play Solo or Group. Never tried open, and since I refuse to frequent an establishment where others are ruining my night out, I probably won't try it either. Shame for the Establishment, but that's what happens.

As far as punishing or rewarding different modes, how about this idea.

Play whatever game you want. Solo, Group, or Open, and quit worrying about what the other guy is doing.

That being said, if there is a problem with a game mechanic, it's going to affect all of us. That needs to be looked at, but there is no reason to want to reward or punish a mode of game play just because YOU don't like it or play it.

This thread has gone on too long.

 

[fademist]

Quite. We knew full well what we were buying. If people didn't want to play a game with mode switching they shouldn't have bought it in the first place. It's unbelievable arrogance to knowingly buy a game and then launch a 400 page and counting campaign to get it changed into something else against the wishes of people who bought the game in good faith. The day modes are split or penalties used to drive people to become forced targets for other people is the day Frontier see no more of my time or money. I want and expect to play the game I paid for, not the game some people want to turn it into. And that game is one where I can play whatever mode the mood takes me.

the problem is that FD listen to them....and prolly will pay the price for it too

 

[Shiora]

I'm a solo player too. I don't think I ever want to venture into open because I'm here to have fun on my terms, not to be cannon fodder for someone interdicting everyone they can find. I had enough of that in EVE, and frankly got quite tired of it. I play for the game, not the interaction.

I like the community goals, but can understand if they need diminished rewards on the counter to make it 'fair'. Risk = Reward after all. Wings hardly interests me as I've no friends that play this game.

 

[ianw]

Sandro, thanks for getting back to us.

Following the OPEN/SOLO - discussion regarding community goals, all I read so far are arguments that a blockade in open won't be successfull, as it can be easily avoided by going Solo or Group. Therefor countering a community goal will be nearly impossible.
CMDR Demiga is trying to make it viable by creating a different value of contribution, depending on, in which mode it is done.

But all this discussion is due to the fact that CGs are missing a fundamental game mechanic...Countering an active community goal if a player wishes to do so.
That could be easily done by introducing a second community goal at the same time, just with the opposite desired outcome.

Then there wouldn't be the need to block players from fulfilling CG1.
Those players could simply contribute to CG2 and by that trying to counter CG1 and vice versa.

Of course they should be equally attractive and not favouring any side (like cap ships on only one side for example).

Maybe my picture isn't big enough or i just overlooked something, but that would be the simplest solution for me.

That actually seems like a good idea and is blindingly, simply obvious when you think about it.

Which means it's bound to be ignored.

+ rep

 

[Gomorragh]

Actually - one way of sorting the whole problem, Stop anyone in a friends group claiming your bounty, that way pirates wont be able to abuse a system that was there to stop players from overly being griefed, if you are going to "nerf" solo/group do it to open too

 

[Distance]

Regarding the weapons running/blockade community goals :

It's like playing a game of ctf where half the red team have the flag and cap in their own server whilst the other half are in the blue server shooting the blue team. You can tell the blue team to do the same as much as you want but it still doesn't make for a good game of ctf.

Why not have two games of ctf running at the same time in different server and then total up the score at the end of it. Sure it's not ideal but it allows people to play how they like and everyone contributes equally.

inb4 it's not ctf

 

[Insomnia]

Play whatever game you want. Solo, Group, or Open, and quit worrying about what the other guy is doing.
This thread has gone on too long.

^^^This.

 

[gary.brain]

Guys have you every tried to Blockade in OPEN now, why don't you get a handful of people to blockade a station and then advertise that you are doing this. Then get people to come to that station in OPEN and see how many people join your instance or just appear in their own.


This games net-code is not designed for mass players, they are instances of small number of players so any type of Role Play to blockade / deny access etc is limited to the players who are in your instance. And this stumps the argument on the Community Goals.

Lets take the example of the other day when a few "Twitchers" grouped up and when to the Lugh system. They were in an instance with the Capital ship. Watching the stream ( great btw ) I only saw a small set of players yet I was in the system ( thought I would get Angel while she was hiding inside the capital ship ) but I could not once get into the same instance.

And I imagine there were hundreds of players all trying to-do the same grind in that system for the goals.

It all comes back down to the net-code and the number of players, until this becomes open and you can have hundreds of players in the same instance then the argument regarding solo/group/open is a dead subject.