To Solo Play Players: If You Could Disable PVP, Would You Play in Open Play Mode Instead?

I just wish everyone would stop equating bullying with more general PvP. I'm happy to engage in combat with whoever; what I'm not happy with is running the risk of being one-shotted by someone who has a massively engineered combat ship when I'm in my Cobra MkIII when I've been playing for 3 weeks. There should be some sort of filter or screen whereby a hugely OP combat bully can only engage people within a certain range of their rank and ship capability. Maybe those n00bs would show up as NPC to them?

Yes, the option to switch off PvP would assist me to move unmolested through the galaxy, but it's simply hiding the problem. Ganking isn't PvP it's toxic, bullying, sociopath behaviour which brings nothing to the gameplay of anyone; neither the ganker (bully) nor the victim gain anything from it. PvP combat isn't necessarily about evenly matched opponents, I agree; but it is definitely NOT about using the next generation of (PAYING) Elite customers as tin cans on a wall.

And Frontier have already all the needed tools to give players more options. they could create a second open mode, where we have PvP flag system, or straight blocks PvP etc, etc, for the normal players, this would probably be a really good change, but then we get to the problematic player group, the gankers, who will find ways to grief other players, we have seen time after time how this very small player group destroys the game for everyone.

Station ramming how a few players makes the game worse for the rest of us...
Back in the days, it was not criminal to ram another player to death near a station, favourite ship of the day, The Orca, fast and deadly with lost of HRP's..
So once this got enough attention, new rules around stations was added to the game, speed limits around the station, if you where speeding and collided with another player and that ship got destroyed and you survived, you where guilty part and the station would deal swift justice on you too.

Did not take to long for players to learn about other effects of ramming another ship, we could transfer momentum. ie, I could ram your ship and make it go a little bit faster... if I hit you from the right angle. So now these station rammers, could switch to very cheap sidewinders, boost into your ship flying at the speed limit, transfer a little extra speed to you as they exploded, and now that they died, you survived, and if you where unlucky enough thaht they pushed into speeding, the station now opens fire, and send you to the rebuy screen too for killing that poor innocent griefer...

and removing collisions in elite would in my oppinion be a pretty bad change overall. just to deal with a very small amount of players... other MMO's have for the most part, removed all player to player collisions, becuase they are so abusable for griefers... blocking access to vital places, like quest givers etc. any narrow corridor, doorway, etc could now be blocked off. but sadly this is probably the only real option, as it does not take to much skill, and you only need a cheap sidewinder, so no engineering needed. pick another copy for $5, and the go and harass players for the evening, having a blast with your friends, about how much grief you are causing them, and then a couple of days later, when all the reports get handled, your account get banned. who cares. it was just the cost of a burger, for an evening. and if you are console, you have unlimited amount of CMDR's, just create a new playstation/xbox profile, switch to the new profile and you can do this over and over again...
 
C & P is role play, not punishment for ganking. There is no punishment for ganking nor should there be. There is nothing wrong with it. Ganking is well within TOS.
 
The game was not designed to revolve around PvP either nor is PvP a requirement of any game feature (except CQC, but that's out of game) - so that likely has quite a lot to do with the composition of the player-base that has joined the game over the years.
It doesn’t have to be designed to revolve around PvP to not have ridiculous obstacles to it.
 
Wow, have they got too much time on their hands or something?
probably got tired of the game, and all that potential is has... and they dream of old times about how it used to be, probably with selective memories, and then hoping that FDev will pull the magic cat out of the hat, that will make it fun and interesting to come back and explore/engage with the new stuff. and instead what we got Odyssey, and we finally got space legs and no ship interiors... and some generic copy/paste station interiors, and magically mag boots, that transforms any zero gravity station into a station designed as we had gravity, with open top glasses etc... and regular sofas, chairs etc. so we have mag butts too?
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Why, then, does Elite have a PvP-centric model for handling player conflict?
Why build a game that is so obvious PvE-centric, then haphazardly throw in a C&P system that incents PvP, especially murder (ganking)?
In what way is PvP central to player conflict (in the macro sense) when it is, in and of itself, optional as no player even needs to play with another player to affect the game? Unless it's because players engage, either deliberately or inadvertently, in asynchronous indirect PvP through the BGS, Powerplay, CGs, etc. - in which case it's by design.

Regarding the second point, PvP exists in this PvE centric game simply because players can shoot at anything they instance with - and Frontier seem reluctant to have significant disparities between the "punishment" aspects of C&P for crimes against NPCs vs crimes against other CMDRs.
 
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You want people to play together in open? Give them more reasons to play together.

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Good assessment.

I do play in Open some of my time, but when it comes down to it I don't really have much motivation. Possible reasons for me to choose Open fall into:

1. Wanting to group up with some people for an organised activity when we don't have a PG in common.
As you say, this suffers from the fact that there aren't many coop activities to do. And among the people I play with, we usually do have a PG in common and it gives better instancing and screenshots.

2. Wanting to meet random people.
As you say, the size of the galaxy or even the bubble means this doesn't often work.

3. Wanting to get attacked and have fun escaping.
I don't find that fun so don't bother with it.

4. Wanting to feel macho and be able to boast about playing in Open.
I don't want to feel macho anyway.

More coop options would help, as would better C&P.
 
As an open trader I'd say the size of the galaxy is only relevant if you're looking for explorers.
In terms of traders, the Bubble is 20,000 systems of which the outer regions see little traffic whilst the core systems see enough to keep them in boom state most of the time.
The galaxy map will even show you trending trade routes. If you can't find anyone you aren't looking.
This is part of reason I find CG campers annoying, they just sit in the CG system not going anywhere else even when it's obvious where traders have to go to get commodities.
It is perhaps slightly absurd that I have to reawaken the old commerce raider in order to say "hello" to someone...
 
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In what way is PvP central to player conflict (in the macro sense) when it is, in and of itself, optional as no player even needs to play with another player to affect the game? Unless it's because players engage, either deliberately or inadvertently, in asynchronous indirect PvP through the BGS, Powerplay, CGs, etc. - in which case it's by design.

Regarding the second point, PvP exists in this PvE centric game simply because players can shoot at anything they instance with - and Frontier seem reluctant to have significant disparities between the "punishment" aspects of C&P for crimes against NPCs vs crimes against other CMDRs.
I'm going to work on your words backwards, hang in there. All good points!

Frontier's reluctance is understandable, even if we only play the 'lore' card. Pilots of NPC craft are people, too, right? It makes sense they would be beholden to similar rules of engagement by design. If an NPC can interdict, so can a player, and vice versa. I don't take issue with PvP existing in Elite. Good grief, the second half of the title is Dangerous...granted, I think most can agree the title is hardly deserved in this day of runaway engineering and years-old-balancing issues.

On your first point, I would say PvP is central to all player conflict - but I think you meant direct (combat) PvP - and in that we're probably of like minds on my definition. The BGS is, largely, a PvP feature when viewed through this lens. So, I want to start by saying we can get way off in the deep on semantics if we're not careful. You know that, I know that, so let's go from there:

First, let's only discuss Open Mode. PG is rules based, and solo is...well, solo. Any real concerns about PvP need to be kept to the realm of open, as PG control renders balancing PvP a moot point, and solo only has indirect PvP via the BGS and, well, not much else. FC economics, perhaps.

In open, I would argue you're right: PvP is optional as, "no player even needs to play with another player to affect the game". The thing is, even if they DO interact...it still doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way. I've long argued on many forums that a surefire recipe for a ganking 'problem' (real or perceived) starts with player agency being pointless. Because if I can't affect the game...then I'll affect your game. Ethics aside, Elite allows this sort of behavior and (I think) incents it.

This is why I say Elite has a PvP-centric model for handling player conflict. Because non-player conflict (PvE) features virtually no ties to PvP. Either you stick to solo/PG and move the algorithm in BGS that way - which we can call indirect PvP - or you try to enact PvP directly in open and...what? Murder. By straddling the fence, FDev made 'meaningful' PvP (the notion of factional/squad wars, controlling territory, picking sides in a CG) largely an affair for indirect interactions. Because direct interactions will see the prescribed meta unfold: massive ganking until only the 'elite' (pun intended) remain. Significantly pushing others to not return to the mode, knowing a lot of griding awaits them if they want to engage in this again.

That's how it works in EVE, by the way, and there's a whole community that loves (and loves to argue about) it. Might makes right, start over and try again.
Except most don't start over. Not in Open mode. The majority of the market (for this genre) isn't interested in that kind of PvP.

The trouble isn't that Elite has a PvP-centric model, that the only real change and advancement of the game's world is through indirect or direct player conflict. Lots of games have this model - EVE Online being the grand-daddy of PvP in space games these days - and it can work just fine. It tends to attract a smaller population in the market, too, but that's a high level decision made at the start of a project and accepted. EVE will never have the player counts of Elite, just as Elite will likely never have the player counts of something so broad as World of Warcraft (now, finally, in decline).

The trouble is that Elite is a PvE game, at its foundation, but lacks a model of player conflict to match that. PvE-centric player conflict (PvPvE, as some use) isn't built around enabling players to kill other players...but out-compete them. We see this in the BGS, now, where the #1 source of player conflict isn't ganking or the CQC or even player organized tournaments. It's moving numbers on the BGS. But why? Why is 5th column such a hot topic in PP, and PG squads flipping CG outcomes, and PvPers screaming it isn't fair, I can't shoot what I can't even connect with!

Even Powerplay - a bona-fide, but incomplete, 'legal' PvP system sees less interaction than just random factions being supported by rookie players without a clue. The systems to better support PvP in this PvE game exist, but are woefully underbaked or outright ignored. That leaves only a few methods for direct interactions - that are meaningful to the player with other players.

And that's the root of the problem, to me. Open mode offers nothing to players wanting to play with others except murder. Wing missions can be done solo with relative ease (emphasis on relative). You don't need a gunner or SLF pilot for Thargoid encounters. Wing mates are uncessary for the toughest of assasinations. The scorpion, while fun, doesn't actually provide much more benefit over the scarab if your friend can drive their own. Elite's model of multiplayer play is almost exclusively geared towards conflict between players, not cooperation. Does cooperation happen? Of course it does (Fuel Rats shoutout here).

But the game pushes players to fight. Not fight over things, but with each other. That's not bad - it's a kind of design - but it doesn't match how the rest of the game is built. And so, players engage in PvP in the only way that feels mildly meaningful: either indirectly, via the other modes of play, or if in open...with murder.

The question, is, is that bad? I think it's safe to say most everyone can agree it is bad, but not on how or why it is bad. And that happens - a lot - when you developmentally (and fundamentally) straddle the fence. You end up with a highly fractured, impossible to placate, communal argument.

An analogy might be FDev decided to invite the socialists, capitalists, christians, buddhists, polygamists, and anarchists to a design meeting and told them, "We'll build whatever you want."
Then did it.

It'd be a fine achievement, except unsurprisingly, the many player groups they listened to inherently disgree with the design choices of other groups but feel ownership over the whole project. Which is why you DON'T DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE. In seeking to attract as many players as possible, perhaps because of the constraints of kickstarting a project (which has a lot in common with a political campaign: a lot of false 'promises'), FDev created a system of features at war with themselves, and not in the vein of 'entertaining' war.
 
There are no obstacles to engaging in PvP, apart from finding someone to shoot at / be shot at by - being competitive against the best, in a game where gaining the gear may take quite some time, is a different story.
To echo this point...

CQC exists.

There are no obstacles to PvP in Elite. None. The mode is even halfway fun, if people used it, but FDev has a strange approach to development funding being tied to how much a feature is utilized, rather than asking why is that feature underutilized and then adapting to the answer.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
Frontier's reluctance is understandable, even if we only play the 'lore' card. Pilots of NPC craft are people, too, right? It makes sense they would be beholden to similar rules of engagement by design. If an NPC can interdict, so can a player, and vice versa. I don't take issue with PvP existing in Elite. Good grief, the second half of the title is Dangerous...granted, I think most can agree the title is hardly deserved in this day of runaway engineering and years-old-balancing issues.
NPCs aren't members of the Pilots' Federation - and the "official" reason for the title relates to the rank, not "danger" (although there's a double meaning in there). While PvP exists in the game, it does not dominate the game and any "danger" posed by other players is of little relevance to those who can choose not to play with them.
On your first point, I would say PvP is central to all player conflict - but I think you meant direct (combat) PvP - and in that we're probably of like minds on my definition. The BGS is, largely, a PvP feature when viewed through this lens. So, I want to start by saying we can get way off in the deep on semantics if we're not careful. You know that, I know that, so let's go from there:
All players affect the BGS - whether they are actively trying to affect Factions supported by other players, or not. It's not exclusively indirect PvP.
In open, I would argue you're right: PvP is optional as, "no player even needs to play with another player to affect the game". The thing is, even if they DO interact...it still doesn't affect the game in any meaningful way. I've long argued on many forums that a surefire recipe for a ganking 'problem' (real or perceived) starts with player agency being pointless. Because if I can't affect the game...then I'll affect your game. Ethics aside, Elite allows this sort of behavior and (I think) incents it.
The recipe for ganking begins and ends with the ability for players to shoot at anything they instance with - some players seem to be predisposed to engage in the activity because they find it to be "fun", even if others may not - and,. if there were another PvP feature in the game then ganking would not cease.

Players cannot directly affect those who can choose not to play with them, through mode choice, or, even in Open, particular CMDRs can be excised from ones game using the block feature.
This is why I say Elite has a PvP-centric model for handling player conflict. Because non-player conflict (PvE) features virtually no ties to PvP. Either you stick to solo/PG and move the algorithm in BGS that way - which we can call indirect PvP - or you try to enact PvP directly in open and...what? Murder. By straddling the fence, FDev made 'meaningful' PvP (the notion of factional/squad wars, controlling territory, picking sides in a CG) largely an affair for indirect interactions. Because direct interactions will see the prescribed meta unfold: massive ganking until only the 'elite' (pun intended) remain. Significantly pushing others to not return to the mode, knowing a lot of griding awaits them if they want to engage in this again.
I suspect that PvE features have no ties to PvP simply because direct PvP is an optional extra that no player needs to engage in, if they don't want to. It seems clear from the design that there's no direct territorial control, nor was there expected to be. The implementation of Squadrons reinforces this - as multiple Squadrons may affiliate with a single Faction and doing so grants them no control over the Faction.

The main way to stop players succeeding in the PvE game features that the game is comprised of is to destroy them - and if PvP did affect PvE game features then players would, without doubt, collude to influence the game in uncontested encounters.
That's how it works in EVE, by the way, and there's a whole community that loves (and loves to argue about) it. Might makes right, start over and try again.
Except most don't start over. Not in Open mode. The majority of the market (for this genre) isn't interested in that kind of PvP.
EVE seems to encourage player behaviours that put players off playing among other players - thankfully this game isn't trying to be that game.
The trouble is that Elite is a PvE game, at its foundation, but lacks a model of player conflict to match that. PvE-centric player conflict (PvPvE, as some use) isn't built around enabling players to kill other players...but out-compete them. We see this in the BGS, now, where the #1 source of player conflict isn't ganking or the CQC or even player organized tournaments. It's moving numbers on the BGS. But why? Why is 5th column such a hot topic in PP, and PG squads flipping CG outcomes, and PvPers screaming it isn't fair, I can't shoot what I can't even connect with!
There are "hot topics" simply because those who can't accept that no-one needs to play with them to affect game features are more likely to complain that "it isn't fair" than to accept that they bought a game where no players need to engage them in PvP.
And that's the root of the problem, to me. Open mode offers nothing to players wanting to play with others except murder. Wing missions can be done solo with relative ease (emphasis on relative). You don't need a gunner or SLF pilot for Thargoid encounters. Wing mates are uncessary for the toughest of assasinations. The scorpion, while fun, doesn't actually provide much more benefit over the scarab if your friend can drive their own. Elite's model of multiplayer play is almost exclusively geared towards conflict between players, not cooperation. Does cooperation happen? Of course it does (Fuel Rats shoutout here).
Open offers the possibility to play among random players, for good or ill - and the game as a whole needs to be single player friendly as not all players will want to play multi-player (and some players cannot play in the multi-player game modes as they don't enjoy premium platform access).
But the game pushes players to fight. Not fight over things, but with each other. That's not bad - it's a kind of design - but it doesn't match how the rest of the game is built. And so, players engage in PvP in the only way that feels mildly meaningful: either indirectly, via the other modes of play, or if in open...with murder.
One can play the game without consciously engaging any other player in even indirect PvP - as there's no direct link between Factions and players - so I'd disagree with the contention that the game "pushes players to fight". Some players just want a battle - so they will fight over anything that's available to them, against players if they can find them,
The question, is, is that bad? I think it's safe to say most everyone can agree it is bad, but not on how or why it is bad. And that happens - a lot - when you developmentally (and fundamentally) straddle the fence. You end up with a highly fractured, impossible to placate, communal argument.
Which ways the game could be improved rather depend on ones preference, or lack thereof, for direct PvP - and players of this game don't even need to tolerate, much less engage in, PvP if they don't want to - so those who like PvP won't necessarily agree with changes proposed by those who don't, and vice versa.

The player-base arrived pre-fractured - the three game modes affecting a single galaxy state guaranteed that.
 
When I fly around the bubble on Thursdays looking for suits I'm surprised at how many aircraft carriers there are in each system. There are a lot of people in the game.
But I think a lot of people fly into single player just out of low NPC combat ability, and I can always choose to fight me or not.
I get intercepted I run away, I can fly unarmed.
I choose to dig, the pirates spin and fly away, I need weapons.
Why do I need guns and a ship against the Targoids when I can choose when they attack me.

In the open world I am not asked when they will attack me and my opponent is strong it prevents grind in the game since grind is the main time spent in the game.
 
It is precisely because of planning for the worst that people play the single-player game on the PC.

So I'm just going to play a single game. Even gankers when they run out of materials for premium charges also switch to single-player.
 
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Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
So I'm just going to play a single game. Even gankers when they run out of materials for premium charges also switch to single-player.
It might be better to create a Private Group and invite like minded players - or find and join an existing PG that offers the desired gameplay.
 
It might be better to create a Private Group and invite like minded players - or find and join an existing PG that offers the desired gameplay.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
How do I choose the right group within the game? I do not use the forum, discord, inara, etc.
I want to interact with random people in the game.
 
When I fly around the bubble on Thursdays looking for suits I'm surprised at how many aircraft carriers there are in each system. There are a lot of people in the game.
But I think a lot of people fly into single player just out of low NPC combat ability, and I can always choose to fight me or not.
I get intercepted I run away, I can fly unarmed.
I choose to dig, the pirates spin and fly away, I need weapons.
Why do I need guns and a ship against the Targoids when I can choose when they attack me.

In the open world I am not asked when they will attack me and my opponent is strong it prevents grind in the game since grind is the main time spent in the game.
And here the deception starts again....

All those carrier owners are not just hiding in solo and private groups out of reach for you.. it is even worse, alot of thjem, are hiding in OPEN totally out of reach for you... and if you want to reach them, you have to buy the game two more times and to be on the safe side, you have two Odyssey aswell. as Horizon and Odyseey players do not mix...

Soi if you are playing oin PC, you have to get a compatible Xbox and Playstation, if you don't already have that, and then buy the game and expansion on these two new platforms. and then start two new CMDR's do it all over on these two new platforms...




And you have been present in enough of these threads that you are well aware that there is no crossplay...
 
And here the deception starts again....

All those carrier owners are not just hiding in solo and private groups out of reach for you.. it is even worse, alot of thjem, are hiding in OPEN totally out of reach for you... and if you want to reach them, you have to buy the game two more times and to be on the safe side, you have two Odyssey aswell. as Horizon and Odyseey players do not mix...

Soi if you are playing oin PC, you have to get a compatible Xbox and Playstation, if you don't already have that, and then buy the game and expansion on these two new platforms. and then start two new CMDR's do it all over on these two new platforms...




And you have been present in enough of these threads that you are well aware that there is no crossplay...
I'm sorry I don't quite understand you from the translation.
I didn't write about costumes for nothing; costumes don't disappear on their own, they get bought up.
That is, these people play on the computer and in the Odyssey only.
As for the solo, before the release of the Odyssey, I played a 4 year single game so I had to collect, money, weapons, open all the necessary engineers and only after that I started flying in the open game.
Since the release of Odyssey I now also play only in single player so I need to open all the right engineers, comtumes and weapons to improve it all and only then go into the open game.
Do you know how many production instructions are needed for all this?
For the mission give only 5, and I'm not ready to fail a mission because of the occasional player, I have enough of those failures that occur due to server failure.
 
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