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

Aha, there it is, all objectors are gankers. Now I don't have to pay attention to anything you write. Ganking is rare outside CGs, PvE is possible uninterrupted in almost all cases. Purists who want zero chance of PvP have closed modes. But some are never satisfied.
If you don't want to gank, why are you bothered when people can't get ganked?
If PvP is so rare, why is it so bad when those who aren't interested can avoid it?
 
No it's not and your comment doesn't make any sense if you think about it.
There already is an 'easy mode' as you call it. It's Solo and PG. This thread is just another request from people who would like to play with others instead of against them.
Why should you get one without the other?
Honest question , got no axe to grind here
 
I'm kind of late to the party, and usually I don't go to these kinds of parties anyway, but for some reason I feel compelled to contribute my perspective. Allow me to elaborate a bit (sorry, long rambling ahead).

I play in Solo. Almost exclusively. Between my Steam main and my free Epic alt I have something like 1700 hours or so, all done in VR. I like to play alone, because I don't fancy people in my "me time". I don't like people, and I hate gamers (no offense) :cool:. I lurk around here a bit mostly for tech stuff (VR) and development and lore updates. I'm too old for the "Lulz", "git guds" and "haha spaceship go booms", so turning off the system chat was the first thing I did. It's disgusting, to be frank. So yes, I qualify for "care bear".

I only ever started playing ED because of VR; without it, I would never have touched it. I'm not in it for a challenge, or shiny pixels, or measuring contests with strangers on the internet. I'm in it, because in VR I'm sitting in a frikkin' SPACE SHIP. Flying around in space is... very relaxing, almost meditative. I enjoy building and rebuilding ships, and of course I also do like a bit of pew pew (I finally made triple Elite a few months ago), but I like the fact that I have control over it.

As I said, Elite is "me time". Life is stressful and challenging enough, I don't need that in my game time. I don't want competitive gameplay in my spare time. And if I fancy, I want to be able to fly my paper plane without some yahoo telling me to "git gud". So I play solo.

Yet I sometimes feel like missing out, so now and then I step out of solo, mostly in Mobius. In the past I have played a few bounty hunting CGs in Mobius and, if I remember correctly, twice winged up with a few nice CMDRs to clear out a HazRes or comprimised nav beacon, which was fun. I took part in Drew Wagar's last in-game story - well, "took part" is a strong word - I watched the stream and flew along. It was fun, and can I acknowledge that, sometimes, having likeminded people around isn't too bad. Some of the shenanigans the non-PVP-streamers and content creators do in a group look fun.

Having said all that, I made and experiment tonight. I hopped into something cheap (I'm having some fun engineering small ships at the moment) and decided to visit a few hot spots in open, fully expecting a few rebuys. My first stop was Jameson Memorial. First realization: Open is pretty empty. It's surely not helped by the fact I'm still playing Horizons, or maybe the action is at the CG right now, but I did meet at least a few hollow markers. Surprisingly noone tried to gank me. Some were sitting in Jameson, outfitting their ships, I presume. But no hostility. I flew around a bit, visited a few material traders and such, but I met - nobody.

Was I wrong? Let's raise the stakes, I thought, and made my way to Farseer in a Cobra. I didn't get pulled or ganked, but when I approached the engineer base I thought I was at a Pink Floyd show. A wing of wanted Anacondas was hovering above the base and delivering a shooting match, as it seemed, with everything that moved, shooting down at the landing pads. There were two or three other commanders, and I didn't bother to check if it was really ganking, seal clubbing or if they just had a bit of friendly jousting. I remembered that I didn't care for that and bolted. I visited a few of the less popular engineers as well as Sol, but again - pretty much nobody out there.

But the turmoil at Farseer? Yeah, I don't need that in my game. I don't want that. I don't want to be on my toes all the time as soon as I travel to a possible "hot spot". The few times I played in private groups it was kind of nice meeting someone; even if we only exchanged a short salute. I did another thing: I watched a few excerpts of streams and VODs of a few known gankers... and I thought: Boy, do I ever really NOT want to play with these tossers.

You can argue all you want that "it's just a game, don't get upset about pixels, it doesn't mean anything"... because it does. A game like ED is a time investment, and can also be an emotional investment. That's how people are, especially when their game time is limited by life in the real world. It's like when your toddler builds a sandcastle at the beach. It's unfortunate and inevitable when the sea washes it away, but it's much worse when the neighbour's ill-mannered brat stomps it down repeatedly, even if the result is the same (a destroyed sand castle).

So my TL;DR to my very long ramblings would be: I guess I would come out of Solo more often if I wouldn't have to worry about wannabe-space cowboys and man-childs spoiling my game. I think I would welcome either an Open PVE mode, or a PVP flag (that I can turn off and never touch again ;)). And no, Mobius isn't exactly that. It's limited and it's fractured across mutliple groups.

And yeah, I'm a care bear. I'm good with that.
 
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Proposal:

High sec makes your all knowing pilots federation CoVaS not fire on player ships at all, rams do magically no damage.
Tech is already there (no route plotting to locked systems etc.)

Med sec and low sec reduce damage by 75 and 25 percent, respectively. Gets 25 and 50% trade bonus.

Anarchy has no protection, as has 'empty' space. Anarchy gets 100% trade bonus.*

You can chose to revoke your Pilots Federation license, this is a once forever decision.
Doing so removes your ability to dock in high sec, and disallows you from docking at Jameson / Shin Dez, or taking part in community goals.
All above fire restrictions are revoked, but your PF insurance is also revoked.
This would still allow ganking even in high sec, albeit at a much higher risk.

Bounties on players are unlimited, not capped at 2 million.
Notorious CMDRs and CMDRs who revoked their PF license can't cash them in.

Block is removed to com only.

Admittedly it'sa bit light on the "what do the gankers get" but this would be a solution not hurting
my suspension of disbelief and it would propably remove ganking by a significant amount.

*in open would be optimal to stop people cheesing this system, alternatively make pirate lords roam Anarchy systems, attacking
traders (Anarchy should be dangerous like in the old games) all the time.

Thoughts?
I like this proposal. I think that the actual design and mechanics of the security levels is not noticeable at all. Every system basically feels the same to me. Sure one could point out all the little nuances that make them different, but the point is they don't feel that way. I don't give any thought what-so-ever about system security while going about my play session.

I don't know about com block only though. I do find that block is useful for players who's objective is to use the game to just cause frustration outside of it. They aren't a huge population as some seem to think, but with enough experience, they are easy to spot. With thoughtful blocking and some time Open becomes an personal environment that adds to the experience.
 
Nope, apparently you don't know what Moebius is.
You go check mobius website to see their functionality first.
You want shoot these new comers or someone happened to be in a less combat capable ships then go to a pg full of gankers.
Gankers are not about skilled but an easy win, personally I dont think they are legit PvP at all and these ppl need to be placed into a seperated pg.

Keep doing that in open will end nowhere but get blocked by every victim. Sooner or later gankers will only see gankers in open, they deserve that.
Then gankers will come asking similar things here begging victims to come back to their feed ground haha.
 
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Seal clubbers are a symptom of a broken game.
Least in pvp terms.
Pvp should be about skill and daring. There's specific roles that could be filled by them, skilled "in character" pirates n smugglers, bounty hunters etc
But seal clubbers gankers whatever u wanna call em, should not exist. They cluster around the hotspots unchecked. Killing noobs as they approach for engineering. Where's the logic in this?
So we all approach in solo thus avoiding losing a ship to lulz.
It's childish!
And the fact that fdev have done nowt to stop it, is a reflection of their lack of understanding, nay I'd say their unwillingness to "fix" what's clearly broken.
Ganking ruins gameplay. There isn't any justified reason why it exists.
Yet it does....
Why leave it this way? Why not make it better.
I'm an advocate for open only always have been. I'm a pvper too. But l don't gank.
I fly past noobs in open at farseer etc and watch as they descend safely. If l see a ganker fly towards them l intervene.
Now this is gameplay. I feel I'm doing something right.
If fdev knew how bad it is, how childish it is, they'd do something...or not... seeing the many unfixed 5 Yr old bugs leaves me cold thinking they won't change a thing.
Law n order is a joke.
And until they address it ganking will undermine pvp tainting it with a pukish hue.
Pvp in elite is a dirty word. Immediately tagged as a ganker.
I don't know how they could fix things. But it needs change. Drastic change.
Else the game lose cmdrs because of shallow back alley gameplay.
2021 and this still goes on. Frankly I'm amazed fdev ain't addressed it. Disappointed.
 
snip

You can argue all you want that "it's just a game, don't get upset about pixels, it doesn't mean anything"... because it does. A game like ED is a time investment, and can also be an emotional investment. That's how people are, especially when their game time is limited by life in the real world. It's like when your toddler builds a sandcastle at the beach. It's unfortunate and inevitable when the sea washes it away, but it's much worse when the neighbour's ill-mannered brat stomps it down repeatedly, even if the result is the same (a destroyed sand castle).

snip

"It's unfortunate and inevitable when the sea washes it away, but it's much worse when the neighbour's ill-mannered brat stomps it down repeatedly, even if the result is the same (a destroyed sand castle)."

Emphasis on even if the result is the same.
This is why PvE-centric titles don't gel with non-consensual PvP on the scale Elite has it.

An excellent explanation of why it's important to recognize ganking sucks for more people than it benefits.

Elite allows ganking. Full stop. Fdev supports ganking. Full stop.
Ganking is not bad. It's a type of gameplay.
It usually hurts more people than it benefits in terms of net enjoyment of a game UNLESS that game is purpose-built for PvP-centric audiences.

I'd pay for an Elite built around non-consensual PvP. Can you imagine Planetside 2 a la Elite? It'd be incredible. The flight model alone, with properly balanced engineering and PvP-centric features like a revamped Powerplay, Squadron Wars, and Destructible stations and Fleet Carriers...it'd be an amazing experience.

What we have is a PvE-centric game with three modes, one of which 'sounds' like the majority mode but may in fact be a minority mode: Open Play.

We often debate if Open Play should be the only mode. I've wondered if Open Play should be eliminated as a mode. Elite is horribly designed for large scale multiplayer, its wing mechanics are glitchy, multicrew really is still in alpha, and the vast majority of player groups from duos to massive squadrons rely on PG to ensure continuity of gameplay and enjoyment.

Why do we have Open Play anyways?
(Crazy, conflict-ridden question, I know. Just food for thought.)

Really now, imagine Open Play just stopped existing tomorrow? Who would it hurt? Gankers for sure, so that's a (small but not insignifcant) playerbase instantly lost. It would disrupt open play squads and groups, but a little bit of communication outside of game - tools everyone already uses anyways because Elite doesn't have any in-game communication tools wort using - and they'd be in PG in no time, as if nothing happened.

New players would end up in solo and, if they got lonely, would take to the usual channels to find groups/squads in PG.
Like they already do now.

So...what happens if Open Play goes away?
You lose gankers who either, A) go to another game because ganking is what they like or B) they turn to more structured/consensual PvP via PG's that orient around PvP-centric rules and/or CQC. In other words...nobody actually loses out.

Spooky. Totally not going to happen, yet...what if it did?
 
What kind of a question is this. If you could disable pvp, there would be no reason to maintain separate player clouds. The separation is the solution the developer implemented to achieve exactly that.

I don't know OP but I can hardly imagine anyone opening another one of these threads without an ulterior motive.
 
What kind of a question is this. If you could disable pvp, there would be no reason to maintain separate player clouds. The separation is the solution the developer implemented to achieve exactly that.

I don't know OP but I can hardly imagine anyone opening another one of these threads without an ulterior motive.
Woah, this is prime r/selfawarewolves material here.
 
How about the pilots federation installs a new module on every ship and whenever a player attacks another player in the designated safe zones, the module activates an instant self destruction of ship.

Yes, I know what some think now. I don't take that serious myself.
 
I like the idea of a galaxial wide system whereby instant response is available.
If someone's getting ganked it lights up on a UI added screen.
we click it, boom we're in the instance regardless of distance (within the bubble or colonia).
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
The reason to maintain separate game modes is not PvP.
It's the presence of certain game loops designed primarily for single player (like pad blocking or Guardian ruins, for example).
Not only that (although the modes are useful to avoid issues like that) - they exist to let players choose who to play among.

There's no compelling reason to remove any of the three game modes, in my opinion.
 
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