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

[SiriusSeven]

I think you miss my point.........
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IF as others say, "Open" is dead.......it makes NO sense for FD to promote that area of the game............if 90% of the players enjoy the Solo game, as claimed, then that is what FUTURE players will enjoy too..........so then FD would stear the game toward a Solo mode........to please the masses..........but that s not happening........
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If the Vast majority of your players enjoy "X".....it makes sense to give them more "X"......it makes NO sense to try and shove a dead and unpopular "Y" down their throats........

We are talking around each other. I understood your point. I just don't agree.

You've misunderstood my point I think -- or maybe you just don't agree?

In case of the former, let me restate my point:

I think FD would run the competition in Open even if only 100 of the 500,000 players played there (for both reasons that I listed). In particular, I am of the opinion that FD want to collect stories about player interactions. And they would happily turn to those 100 hypothetical players to make it happen.

Of course, I think the player populations are much much much more evenly split than that. And I think they are in a huge state of flux as people switch back and forth. This is speculation. Only FD know for sure.

 

[Jenrai]

Very poor that I have to flag for pvp to win a £1000 card.

 

[OgreWookie]

I play in open and have only ever seen one other human player, he nicked a few of my kills at a nav point pirate hunt and managed to say hi once.
As far as I'm concerned there is no difference between open and solo. Why you people have spent 457 pages arguing about it is beyond me.

 

[Sim Maker]

We are talking around each other. I understood your point. I just don't agree.

You've misunderstood my point I think -- or maybe you just don't agree?

In case of the former, let me restate my point:

I think FD would run the competition in Open even if only 100 of the 500,000 players played there (for both reasons that I listed). In particular, I am of the opinion that FD want to collect stories about player interactions. And they would happily turn to those 100 hypothetical players to make it happen.

Of course, I think the player populations are much much much more evenly split than that. And I think they are in a huge state of flux as people switch back and forth. This is speculation. Only FD know for sure.

I see where you are coming from........but our points clash at the reason.............I see no reason for FD to promote an area of the game that is unpopular......IF they have 500,000 players in Solo, well, then that's how Elite players like to play........why would they try and promote open? Why not try and bolster the part of the game that is "so popular"?..............
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If they already have a total "Win" with solo...........why bother to promote open at all? It would be like them trying to promote the game with a Mining competition.
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I should add, I argue this as a Solo player...........I am glad that FD promote Open (which like you I think is pretty even split with Solo) over Solo, as the future of the game is with Human interaction.........I can see that. A solo player will eventually get all the ships, if some of the grinders have not already....get bored and move on..........but you get good PvP games like Counter Strike, and they can go on for years.........that is where the future of the game is.

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I play in open and have only ever seen one other human player, he nicked a few of my kills at a nav point pirate hunt and managed to say hi once.
As far as I'm concerned there is no difference between open and solo. Why you people have spent 457 pages arguing about it is beyond me.

Pop over to Leesti, Diso, Lave......tell us how you get on..........

 

[Cumquat of Pain]

Several comments have been made in this Megathread. I'm an admitted Mode Jumper.

My reasons why I sometimes play in Private or Solo:
1) I've seen and almost been a victim of griefing with the HE Dumbfire missile spam in Tenche
2) I've seen on Twitch the griefing done by commanders hiding in the spaceport killing players docking.
3) I ran into the blockade in Khaka. Interdicted, attempted to communicate, had no idea there was even a blockade, and killed outright, losing 2 mil cr. (note that credits = time).

Reasons I play in Open:
1) I've been interdicted by pirates, forced to drop some of my cargo, but had interesting conversations.
2) I've run from other pirates and fought hard to keep what I had.
3) Met another CMDR about 800 LY out unexpectedly.
4) See some other players smuggling slaves in Haulers. I was a pirate. I could choose to interdict them or have a conversation.
5) Fighting and winning against CMDRs in Lugh. Then losing to a badass wing with an Imperial Clipper in the lead.

Looking back, my reasons for moving to Private or Solo is "unsatisfying gameplay deaths". These are interactions where it feels random, or the deaths had no purpose. Somebody who didn't care about the core game mechanics decided to ruin it for other people for their own self-gratification. This happens in ALL multiplayer games. But, in this case, the loss of credits = time spent. If it was a "free" death like in some first person shooters, action rpgs, etc. with just some XP or it's generally an annoyance. In a persistent game universe all actions have consequences; you can't just roll a new instance and be back with your same stuff. Here, it actually costs time. Imagine exploring the galaxy for two weeks off an on. Then some dude who wants to see everyone die kills you for no reason before you can sell your data and get something for it besides the experience. This is not satisfying for the player. It does not encourage the player to become better. It does not provide anything but frustration.

But, playing this way limits the one on one interaction. I've had several memorable experiences with other players really into the role playing. Other commanders jumping in to help me out when I got interdicted. And they got nothing for it.

There are good commanders (even filthy pirate scum) who make the game fun. Then there are people that are out to be the most infamously irritating players out there (see some of the Twitch streamers).

Most MMOs have set up systems to be PVP or PVE depending on what you want to do. A comment was made that "most people don't want PvE". I show as an example the game Warframe. It's almost entirely PVE and has a substantial installed userbase. Other games like Left 4 Dead which offer both modes, each of which are fun.

The key takeaways:
1) There MUST always be a PVP and PVE distinction to maintain player interest and minimize frustration.
2) PVP MUST have the same risk to both parties. This goes to the minimial amount of penalty for killing a player. But this adds another problem. Some CMDRs have built up so much money that it's now effectively meaningless. If you have 500 million credits, what's a 16k fine or the loss of a 50k Viper?
3) PVE can be successful if you can maintain the constant CMDR communication with other PVE players in the universe. There are private groups, but this is a kludge of a system for such things.

Most games can handle this. And in truth, Elite's problem to solve is the unlocalized PVP nature. MMOs have "PVP zones" or "Duel Request". With Piracy, Bounty Hunting, etc. in Elite, this can't be done like that. I don't know what the practical solution is, really. Community Goals should be that. Ideally, I'd say a you could have a separate PVE and PVP version; i.e. everyone working against the NPCs and the other with another player faction. But that doesn't factor in the usual "random" interactions.

In short, I'd still play if it was solely PvE. But the player interaction NEEDS to be there somehow. That's what makes the game great.

 

[SiriusSeven]

I should add, I argue this as a Solo player...........I am glad that FD promote Open (which like you I think is pretty even split with Solo) over Solo, as the future of the game is with Human interaction.........I can see that.

Forgive this self deprecating post, but do you not find it odd then that we are both PvE players (I play on Mobius), but we both see the present implementation of Solo and Group as being detrimental?

 

[Sim Maker]

Forgive this self deprecating post, but do you not find it odd then that we are both PvE players (I play on Mobius), but we both see the present implementation of Solo and Group as being detrimental?

I think for me, it is just a sense of fair play.......and the community goals really brought that home......
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In general play.....I play in Solo and can do a rares run pretty easy........An open player doing the same thing, is going to have a harder time......but......what I do, does not affect what he does.........IF we both get to Scott station, there will be a Leathery Egg waiting for each of us.........
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The problem comes with these Community Goals...........Now there is only one Leathery Egg.....and I get to stroll in, Red Carpet treatment, and the Open player loses 3 ships, and I am long gone with the egg by the time he gets there.........THAT, is not fair........and frankly, it has disgusted me that some "Solo" players have tried to argue that it is fair.............that's why, as a Solo player, I am quite happy to argue for Open.........
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I assume you have a similar sense of fair play......

 

[Mohrgan]

LOL....I know you are trying to cling on any way you can..........but lets re-wrod it shall we?
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This competition is being used to promote FDs and Elites most important mode of play..............it would not make sense for FD to promote a dead area of the game.......if there are Millions in Solo, well, that's where their important market would be.......correct?
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But, it ain't.......

In reality the choice to do it in open is to avoid the "open is harder this gave the solo,players an advantage' nonsense. Open needs something to make it attractive, so FD tries to do what they can. Why else do you see the open guys calling for incentives, just to get enough people to shoot at. FD have been doing everything they can to get you targets, but what they can't do is reduce the Solo/Group in relative stature or risk, let's be forgiving, half of their customers.

 

[Sim Maker]

In reality the choice to do it in open is to avoid the "open is harder this gave the solo,players an advantage' nonsense. Open needs something to make it attractive, so FD tries to do what they can. Why else do you see the open guys calling for incentives, just to get enough people to shoot at. FD have been doing everything they can to get you targets, but what they can't do is reduce the Solo/Group in relative stature or risk, let's be forgiving, half of their customers.

See my above post......

 

[Distance]

There is indeed only one mode with different settings on the matchmaking system.

While Sandro does indeed talk about the possibility of a target of perceived griefing switching to solo or private groups from open - that is not the only reason for the modes existence - all of the game modes have been part of the stated game design from the outset.

Your comment about human nature is absolutely spot on in my opinion - at this time not all of the consequences for attacking players that were discussed in the DDF have been implemented - we'll see how those affect the incidence of PvP....

I would disagree regarding groups equating to setting the PvP flag off - anything goes in private groups that the groups want to support - it's up to them.

We'll see how things develop with respect to meaningful consequences for player killing.

The way I see the "modes" are a pvp setting of :
- Solo=off
- Group=minimal/selective
- Open=any.

Groups having an "anything goes" aspect is more a by product of the pvp flags as it's unenforceable via the actual game mechanics and is more of an honour based system. This only works due to the small number of players in the group compared to open.

Whilst they have been a part of the game design from the beginning this thread is pretty much discussing bad game design. Just because it was always intended it doesn't mean it's a good thing. Whilst it sounded great on paper in reality, due to human nature it's the cause of the majority of problems between players.

I believe the main reason for the naming convention is so the offline players and the players wanting (and backing via kickstarter) a solo mode don't kick off.

I'm personally happy with the mode switching until it comes to community goals where it's blatantly obvious to anyone who's tried them in both "modes" that there's a massive advantage to be gained by switching to solo or group BUT community goals need to be structured better in the first place as there are a ton of inherent problems with them as they are currently structured which even without the advantage gained from mode switching tend to force people out of open and in to a different mode.

Considering the above and "Open" being the main mode then the argument of "it's your choice to play in open over solo" doesn't hold water. FD need to police open better and people playing in group or solo need to realise that it's a flag they are setting and not a mode they are playing in and it's their choice to set it and not an open player.

 

[SiriusSeven]

I assume you have a similar sense of fair play......

Yes. Exactly.

But more than that, I crave player interaction. I like talking with people (lately I've been chatting in the forum more than playing the game). For PvE, Mobius is all I've got, and it's only 1% of the player base. I believe there are more PvE players out there... many who don't even know Mobius exists. I want both player interactions, and limited exposure to PvP (perhaps none, or perhaps in designated areas). Given my "sense of fair play", I don't see mode switching as the ideal way to accomplish this. In fact, I have argued very strongly that switching should not be allowed.

Maybe that makes me hypocritical? Or bipolar or something? I don't know.

Or maybe I just want a darned Open PvE mode.

 

[Sim Maker]

Yes. Exactly.

But more than that, I crave player interaction. I like talking with people (lately I've been chatting in the forum more than playing the game). For PvE, Mobius is all I've got, and it's only 1% of the player base. I believe there are more PvE players out there... many who don't even know Mobius exists. I want both player interactions, and limited exposure to PvP (perhaps none, or perhaps in designated areas). Given my "sense of fair play", I don't see mode switching as the ideal way to accomplish this. In fact, I have argued very strongly that switching should not be allowed.

Maybe that makes me hypocritical? Or bipolar or something? I don't know.

LOL.....you sound "normal" to me...but that might not be saying much either..........
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It's funny, I can go back to my posts in this thread from when I first joined the forums. I was 100% SOLO sided..........would sound like some of these other chaps. "If it changes I will quit, if you force me in to open, I will quit"......well, I am still in Solo, bar two 2man Private Group sessions to teach a friend the ropes......but after reading these forums.......I begin to realise something.
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I was acting out of an irrational fear of the unknown...........Fear..........and now that I have had time to converse with many Open players, I am tempted to finally make the move......sure, I may meet some weenie out there, but I had so much fun with my friend in our little Wing........well, that's where the future looks for me............
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I think this forum totally warps what is actually happening in-game...........FD know it, they have the data..........so they are trying to "tickle" us in to open.......cuz they know we're going to have fun there. I just want them to know, it wasn't them that finally started to convince me to try it.......it was this forum. The Open players, have won my respects....and the Solo players, some of them.........well............
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Right, it's Friday......... Have fun CMDRs..........

 

[Arioch]

The FUROR over the loss of Offline mode was hardly a furor at all. In comparison to other games launch decisions, the loss of Offline mode barely made a blip in gaming news, or even in these forums. I don't see a "bring back Offline mega thread" where moderators continually dump new threads into, constantly at the top of the forums.

I don't normally comment on forums, but the above quote? Really? Are you sure it wasn't more than a "blip"? The 1000 page Threadnaught that spilled into a second multi-hundred page thread? Not the news stories on major gaming sites? Not the thousands of comments on the Kickstarter page? Not the many, many angry comments on the DB interview he gave recently? The continuing efforts of people to get refunds? I know the refund experience thread got hidden away sharpish in the Support section and isn't exactly very visible, but I'd definitely classify it as a "furore".

 

[Fenster]

I play in open except for community goals - where it is just a mess - choose wrong faction, insta-dead!

Also, in SC I end up getting (literally) 100 contacts near these goals - Lave was nuts - and the game comes to a crawl...

 

[SiriusSeven]

I play in open except for community goals - where it is just a mess - choose wrong faction, insta-dead!

Also, in SC I end up getting (literally) 100 contacts near these goals - Lave was nuts - and the game comes to a crawl...

Yes. These issues are echoed by other CMDRs. It's too bad community goals are best done by isolating yourself. Hope the technical issues can be addressed. Social issues are less likely to have "easy" solutions (not suggesting that the technical issues are trivial... Just that they are less hard)

 

[Sir_Robin]

LOL.....you sound "normal" to me...but that might not be saying much either..........
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It's funny, I can go back to my posts in this thread from when I first joined the forums. I was 100% SOLO sided..........would sound like some of these other chaps. "If it changes I will quit, if you force me in to open, I will quit"......well, I am still in Solo, bar two 2man Private Group sessions to teach a friend the ropes......but after reading these forums.......I begin to realise something.
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I was acting out of an irrational fear of the unknown...........Fear..........and now that I have had time to converse with many Open players, I am tempted to finally make the move......sure, I may meet some weenie out there, but I had so much fun with my friend in our little Wing........well, that's where the future looks for me............
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I think this forum totally warps what is actually happening in-game...........FD know it, they have the data..........so they are trying to "tickle" us in to open.......cuz they know we're going to have fun there. I just want them to know, it wasn't them that finally started to convince me to try it.......it was this forum. The Open players, have won my respects....and the Solo players, some of them.........well............
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Right, it's Friday......... Have fun CMDRs..........

The two of you are restoring my faith in humanity

I too play more Solo than Open. And will always want solo to be there for when I want a quiet time without others intruding or feeling I have to be on top of my game. However I still know that (for me) the truly epic moments will come from open - and I hope FD does what it can to help engineer those epic moments you get with real people engagement you can't get with NPCs

What I certainly don't want is solo to be nerfed - as I'll probably continue to play a lot of my time in that mode.

However that doesn't stop me hoping there will be better open events. Even if to make them better requires changes to the game for those particular events that stop say a solo player avoiding a blockade. So long as there is another goal or event the solo player (which could very well be me) can enjoy and have an meaningful impact to the ongoing story at the same time.

It's all about choice and different tastes for me - and I hope (and believe) the game can cater for both.

Whatever our feelings and posts about solo and open - we're in an fairly distinct subset of people who all love a game that tries to model the galaxy as closely as it can. And thats in a world around us that is obsessed with dumbed down reality TV and celebrity gossip. As such I genuinely hope we can be a bit more supportive of each others desires to play the game the way they want to.

In the words of the post above.

It's Friday CMDRs - have fun!

SR

 

[Jockey79]

No. Because as an Open player, it seems really baffling that in this day and age, a majority of people would play a game like this by themselves.

Well, as it was funded in KS mainly by those who played the '84 version and a few from the other versions (all single player games) - it stands to reason, they were paying for a remake of the '84 game.
(that and read the fall out threads from the news about the drop of offline mode confirm that).
Single players games are still quite big, as lots of people like to be drawn in to a deep and meaningful story that whisks them away from the real world (also had threads here about the lack of this).

If you also look at how the game was released, with lack of any real multiplayer features (no local chat, no wings, matchmaker didn't work properly and lots of people were lonely), plus you could tell how multiplay was an after thought, a badly tacked on feature. (Read the patch notes to confirm what they've had to do for open to work properly and for folks to see other folks).

So, it was a single player game for the most part, even DBOBE said to see another CMDR was going to be "rare" - so everyone was expecting a single player game with optional multi (for those who could make that work).

I've personally never been attracted to single player games and have only ever played a few (I'm not an '84er... I was 5 years old back then ).
I came to ED for the private group aspect, for my friends and I to play together. I didn't even know when I bought the Beta in November the game had the MMO tag - and it only just qualified by the *technical* definition of MMO, but most certainly not by the common definition of it (as was argued in this thread, and added to my wall of info).

So there you go, that is why lots of people expected to play by themselves.

It's what they paid for years ago.

 

[SpySat1]

I don't know why people are confused about these three modes. It's really simple.

Solo is the mode you play when you want to grind. (Think of it like your favorite JRPG or Euro Truck Simulation. Finish a job: Ding! Defeat a monster: Ding! You get better and get cool stuff.

Group is the mode when you want to play with friends. This is the equivalent of joining a friend or community minecraft server. play about, see what others are doing, occasionally group up and fight the big bads. Maybe one day they'll let us build tree houses, eh?

Open mode is when you want to fight against stranger, whether it's legit "fair and role played" or straight up grief or be griefed. This is the only mode you can eat others or be eaten, and that's your only reward, eating or being eaten by strangers. There are no other carrots or rewards in open. (sure there are the occasional social butterflies who love to talk to strangers they meet at a bus stop, but even they eventually give up after their credits run out from being eaten.)

That's it. Simple as that. Now if you want a different reason to do those modes, then that would require new features and serious gameplay changes. but we all know that and have talked about it ad nauseam. (Sure would be cool to build a treehouse with friends though.) But until then, just follow the above, and you'll be fine!

 

[DarkWalker]

The FUROR over the loss of Offline mode was hardly a furor at all. In comparison to other games launch decisions, the loss of Offline mode barely made a blip in gaming news, or even in these forums. I don't see a "bring back Offline mega thread" where moderators continually dump new threads into, constantly at the top of the forums. Again, either hubris or PURE CONJECTURE.

You weren't in the forums back then, apparently. The forums exploded, with so many topics being created about it that it dominated the first page for a while. When the mods started to merge all threads about offline into a single one, the first threadnought broke the thread size limit — about 10K posts — in just six days (you can tell by the time the posts were made), which means it was growing at the utterly insane speed of about a hundred pages per day; you would start answering a post and, by the time you were done, a few pages were already added. By the time the second thread was closing on 150 pages, Frontier decided that new threads about the offline mode weren't allowed in the forums anymore, with any new threads about it being quickly locked.

The thread where players asking for refunds share their experiences, alone, has almost 150 pages. It's a heavily moderated thread where off-topic posts are summarily deleted, BTW.

Also, look at the game's Kickstart discussion, where only those that backed the game can post; it's almost exclusively complaints about the removal of the offline mode and sharing experiences about the refund process, with a few scattered posts that aren't about this. And the comments session of nearly every single article about the game (specially interviews about the future of the game) tend to quickly degenerate into shouting matches between players complaining about the lack of offline mode and those that defend ED. Heck, in the week Frontier announced that the offline mode was being removed, the single most asked question to Chris Roberts (of Star Citizen) was if that game's offline mode was truly confirmed for launch (and yeah, it is).

So, not hubris or pure conjecture. This thread, for all its size and how fast it grows, hasn't managed to attract as much attention in two months as the one about offline got in just six days.

 

[Distance]

I don't know why people are confused about these three modes. It's really simple.

Solo is the mode you play when you want to grind. (Think of it like your favorite JRPG or Euro Truck Simulation. Finish a job: Ding! Defeat a monster: Ding! You get better and get cool stuff.

Group is the mode when you want to play with friends. This is the equivalent of joining a friend or community minecraft server. play about, see what others are doing, occasionally group up and fight the big bads. Maybe one day they'll let us build tree houses, eh?

Open mode is when you want to fight against stranger, whether it's legit "fair and role played" or straight up grief or be griefed. This is the only mode you can eat others or be eaten, and that's your only reward, eating or being eaten by strangers. There are no other carrots or rewards in open. (sure there are the occasional social butterflies who love to talk to strangers they meet at a bus stop, but even they eventually give up after their credits run out from being eaten.)

That's it. Simple as that. Now if you want a different reason to do those modes, then that would require new features and serious gameplay changes. but we all know that and have talked about it ad nauseam. (Sure would be cool to build a treehouse with friends though.) But until then, just follow the above, and you'll be fine!

Nope :

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=131730&p=2018048&viewfull=1#post2018048