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

[Fake Newts]

Open + PVP was an idea they had at the beginning of the development. While the idea is interesting, it fails because of human nature and lack of punishment for malicious behavior and for some reason FD don't want to admit that.

For some players it doesn't fail though, that's the thing. I'm not asking you to enjoy it, but others do enjoy Open + PvP and acknowledging that their preference is also valid would help grease the wheels of this conversation.

Yeah, sure, it would be good if PGs didn't have a cap on them, but even with that constraint it's still pretty easy to fly with others without risking PvP, even in Open tbqh.

Result is that open in its current state is ignored by many player, who play now solo or in private groups.

Yes. And? That's fine. This could also be interpreted as different demographics getting nominally what they want from the same game. Fdev built 3 distinct modes into the game so it's not shocking that people are using them - there's no moral imperative for everyone to gather in Open with the same preferences.

FD should remember that the original Elite was a pure PVE (yes, no internet available at that time) game and many who play ED today, played the original and hoped for a similar experience aside from the flood of PVP games.

You just said that many players play in solo or private groups which means that Elite functionally is a pure PVE experience for anyone who wants it, so clearly they do remember that and continue to facilitate it.

Moreover, I play in Open pretty much 100% of the time and I hardly ever see anyone outside my own squadron or at organised PvP events.

I think to a certain extent people's complaints are more on principle than in practice - the game's playable spaces are vast compared to its active playerbase, even if you play in Open you're hardly ever going to see anyone outside of a handful of very specific systems. If you want to actively co-op with people there are multiple channels available to you to achieve that in both PGs and Open but the best way remains to organise it via social media due to the distances involved.

As I said in an earlier post, I'm sympathetic to people who don't want to do PvP... but you don't have to? Why would you want to try and force everyone into one mode when it's perfectly viable to let people stay where they're comfortable? Whether everyone's forced into Open to satisfy PvPers looking for marks or with invulnerability settings to soothe pacifists someone's going to lose out. Nobody has to lose out here, there's ample opportunity to cater to both preferences.

 

[Gleitfrosch]

For some players it doesn't fail though, that's the thing. I'm not asking you to enjoy it, but others do enjoy Open + PvP and acknowledging that their preference is also valid would help grease the wheels of this conversation.

Yeah, sure, it would be good if PGs didn't have a cap on them, but even with that constraint it's still pretty easy to fly with others without risking PvP, even in Open tbqh.


Yes. And? That's fine. This could also be interpreted as different demographics getting nominally what they want from the same game. Fdev built 3 distinct modes into the game so it's not shocking that people are using them - there's no moral imperative for everyone to gather in Open with the same preferences.


You just said that many players play in solo or private groups which means that Elite functionally is a pure PVE experience for anyone who wants it, so clearly they do remember that and continue to facilitate it.

Moreover, I play in Open pretty much 100% of the time and I hardly ever see anyone outside my own squadron or at organised PvP events.

I think to a certain extent people's complaints are more on principle than in practice - the game's playable spaces are vast compared to its active playerbase, even if you play in Open you're hardly ever going to see anyone outside of a handful of very specific systems. If you want to actively co-op with people there are multiple channels available to you to achieve that in both PGs and Open but the best way remains to organise it via social media due to the distances involved.

As I said in an earlier post, I'm sympathetic to people who don't want to do PvP... but you don't have to? Why would you want to try and force everyone into one mode when it's perfectly viable to let people stay where they're comfortable? Whether everyone's forced into Open to satisfy PvPers looking for marks or with invulnerability settings to soothe pacifists someone's going to lose out. Nobody has to lose out here, there's ample opportunity to cater to both preferences.

Your are right that it "doesnt fail for some, I wrote it from my (PVE) perspective.

But that brings me back to the main issue I see, while the current structure is OK for some, it is also not OK for others. If you look now at what possibilites there are to satify the groups, you can see a discrepancy:

• Player who want to be on their own can play solo, that has been made possible by FD (although a solo mode was not planned in the beginning) and the solo actions still affect the galaxy for all players.
• PVP oriented players can all play together in open
• PVE players who would like to play with other PVE (coop) must split among different groups, it is not possible for all PVE player to play together.

If the reason for no PVE mode is that FD wants to keep the spirit of the game "dangerous" and a PVE only mode would contradict the idea, why is there a solo mode? Solo is a pure PVE mode, just limited to one player per galaxy, what is even less dangerous than a PVE coop mode with other players.
Therefore I also dont agree with the statement made by Bruce in this thread:
"I can't see a version of Open where PvP can be toggled off, even if there are many who would like to play that way. IMO, it would go against the spirit of Elite and certainly against the idea of "Dangerous". It's also not easily explained through in-game lore."

 

[Ettanin]

If the reason for no PVE mode is that FD wants to keep the spirit of the game "dangerous" and a PVE only mode would contradict the idea, why is there a solo mode?

exactly. Why the excuse?

 

[Andy13460]

Good for you. (Although, I don't know what SPEAR is...LOL)

PvP can be fun, but Gankers do not want PvP. If they did, then allowing people to turn off PvP wouldn't affect them, because they would all have PvP turned on and would be enjoying fighting each other.

You will find a lot of PVP players will do a bit of ganking but most prefer actual fights. SPEAR are a player group that attempt to protect players which usually ends up with wings of SPEAR trying to kill wings of PVP players. I would say some people gank just to get at SPEAR.

 

[Fake Newts]

• PVE players who would like to play with other PVE (coop) must split among different groups, it is not possible for all PVE player to play together.

The reason for no dedicated Open-PvE mode is probably, as has been suggested before, because of the mechanical complications in implementing it. As far as PG population caps go it's probably a database or other technical issue. One would have to ask the devs in charge of networking.

I would like to once again offer my assurances that Open is far from being a constant whirlwind of PvP violence though, as well as being extremely sparsely populated in general. Anyone who's attempting to hook up for multiplayer shenanigans, pvp or otherwise, pretty much has to rely on a certain amount of 3rd party tools as it is.

Again, I feel like sometimes people who don't play in Open have a skewed vision of what Open is actually like - possibly following one bad experience at CG or something. Being in an uncapped PG would probably not greatly influence the number of emergent co-op interactions. It'd certainly make Mobius et al's admin easier, but I think you're overestimating quite how dynamic Open play is.

 

[Ettanin]

I would like to once again offer my assurances that Open is far from being a constant whirlwind of PvP violence though, as well as being extremely sparsely populated in general. Anyone who's attempting to hook up for multiplayer shenanigans, pvp or otherwise, pretty much has to rely on a certain amount of 3rd party tools as it is.

Save for well-known stations, engineers and CG hotspots.

 

[Fake Newts]

Save for well-known stations, engineers and CG hotspots.

Currently it's pretty much only CGs that are consistently dangerous, carriers spread the playerbase out and chokepoint systems got less reliable as hotspots. What you can do if you want to co-op is go to a CG in solo/PG and use system chat - being pan modal - to find people to wing up with, then add them as friends and jump to a PG together. It's not a perfect solution, but essentially that's what a lot of people do from open anyway, for stability in CZs and things.

I still think a lot of people just think the p2p system is capable of more than it is, and that they're being forced out of some super-dynamic mega-exciting party with hundreds of player ships all hanging out together... that just doesn't happen. Even at a CG you'll be lucky to instance with more than ~5 people at once and if you get more than that the game starts to come apart at the seams anyway.

 

[Brrokk]

...
Therefore I also dont agree with the statement made by Bruce in this thread:
"I can't see a version of Open where PvP can be toggled off, even if there are many who would like to play that way. IMO, it would go against the spirit of Elite and certainly against the idea of "Dangerous". It's also not easily explained through in-game lore."

To be fair, I think Bruce's comment is his own rather than an official FD view, and it's a view which many people have expressed. IMO it misunderstands why the game has the name it does and why many of us enjoy playing it.

The reason for no dedicated Open-PvE mode is probably, as has been suggested before, because of the mechanical complications in implementing it. As far as PG population caps go it's probably a database or other technical issue. One would have to ask the devs in charge of networking.
...

Many simple ways of implementing Open-PvE have been suggested.

1. Note that all damage sources are already tagged, so that the game can award bounties, combat bonds and notoriety, so that smart ammo can work, and so that you can be told who killed you at the rebuy screen. All of these tags are already working. A check at the end of the damage application process "If PvE-mode and source=player then set damage=0" would do.

2. Alternatively, one I've suggested before:
If you get a bounty from shooting another player, you get chucked out of "Open-PvE" for a week.
If you send another player to rebuy you get chucked out of "Open-PvE" for six months.
- no other changes needed.

Yes, ramming etc. could still be annoying. Only the smallest-brained would infiltrate a PvE mode to do that though, and they are what Block is for anyway.

 

[n13L5]

Personally I use the Mobius group, I joined the “EurAsia” group given my location. To date, I’ve never seen another CMDR… and I’d enjoy the company every now and again! Maybe the other Mobius group is more popular.

I tried open a few times and got murdered while minding my own business. “Gitting gud” or whatever is the lingo just so I could survive wasn’t my bag. I like to fly around in a big ship with a high rebuy, and I simply don’t have the time to generate billions of credits to make it worth risking staying in open.

Horses for courses though, I’m comfortable as is and respect everyone’s play styles. I do think it would be cool to merge the groups and allow a more sociable and less murderous experience.

Really...

Should you actually respect the playing styles of those who won't respect yours...?

I don't think so. That would devalue the whole idea of respect... turn it into living on your knees

 

[Nekozji]

Respectfully I don't think you've considered the mindset of people who currently play in open and enjoy it (not all of whom are gankers).

It doesn't really matter to me if not everyone in Open is a ganker. If any of them are, I'm not interested in being visible to them.

Right now, what I think we have is:

• People who explicitly seek out PvP in Open
• People who don't mind unexpected PvP in Open
• People who don't want PvP in Solo, or Mobius

...and that's about it? But Mobius isn't official, and I suspect that for every player who knows about it, there are 10 who don't. How many of those 10 are in Solo because they don't like the sound of Open?

Now if we had Open (PvP) and Open (PvE)... I'm not sure if the numbers in PvP would drop, but it's likely that there's a lot of people who never go Open who would jump into PvE. Elite encourages you to build up a lot of stuff and it's reasonable that many players actually don't want to build up and then lose it because of one unlucky jump in their non-combat ship.

I'm not saying FDev should shut down PvP, I'm saying it should be an option for players to not have to engage in it. Whether that's a flag in Open, or Open (PvE), doesn't matter to me personally. Either situation is likely to get a lot more players into some form of multiplayer than there are right now, and I think both should be raised, debated, and possible sent out as questionnaires to players

Because of capped instancing it's not beneficial to water down either pool.

I'm not sure how we would go about this however. It is likely that some current Open (PvP) players would jump ship to Open (PvE) if it existed, just as some would surely turn on a PvE flag if it were provided. That's really something only FDev can decide whether they want to take the hit on, or not. Do they want to engage the people who reject Open (PvP), or do they want to protect those who are already using it?

In the end, this isn't a hill I'm interested in dying on I would like an Open (PvE) option next time I'm in the mood to play a bit. If one showed up tomorrow, it'd definitely incentivise me to play. If it never does - I'll cycle back to ED eventually. There's a reason I lurk the forums; I want to know if there's a month when everyone is really happy with the SOTG, and that will be the month I come back for a bit!

 

[Nekozji]

If you get a bounty from shooting another player, you get chucked out of "Open-PvE" for a week.
If you send another player to rebuy you get chucked out of "Open-PvE" for six months.

...tell you what though, you're probably right. It would still suck to get blown up by someone's kitted out FDL (is that the combat meta these days? I've been away a while...), but at least you know they aren't getting anyone else for 6 months, unless they want to keep paying for new accounts. The average troll/ganker isn't going to pay for the privilege

Although I do think there should be something like a '3 strike' system with regards to shooting, else it will be a sport to fly between players and the asteroid they're mining or the NPC they're hunting. One shot could be engineered by the other player. Two shots... well, if you're very unlucky. Three shots and you did that on purpose. And it's going to be amazingly hard to kill another player by accident. Especially if there is, for example, an option to shut off the weapons for 5 seconds and hoot a loud warning if you have just shot a player ship. We might even consider an apologise button that the attacker can press, which allows the player who was shot has the option to automatically clear the strike because they realise you were both dogfighting the same NPCs and it was only an accident.

(There might need to be an appeals mechanism for people who detonate an asteroid while someone's unshielded junker is sitting right next to it. But it just won't happen a lot, and as part of that process, FDev would identify players who are intentionally trolling PvE mode with this behaviour. And it's not like the affected innocent player can't just play Solo for a few days until it gets sorted. It doesn't feel like it would be a lot of support time required for these fringe cases.)

 

[Fake Newts]

The amount of thought you're already putting into it in a forums thread is probably why Fdev will continue to go "ah, just let them sort it out in private groups".

Honestly all focused multiplayer already happens through discord anyway, Elite's best module.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Overall, I think the solution to this would be better coming from adjustments to the crime and punishment system to make sure there are meaningful risks/deterrents in place for non-consensual PvP encounters rather than from a binary PvP on/off toggle.

There's no possible meaningful risk/deterrent in this context. Nothing even close.

You could implement it so that if you kill another player in any context where you'd currently get a bounty for it, your ship instead immediately initiated its self-destruct sequence, and the rebuy process then carried out a full account reset. I don't think there's much greater possible on the "meaningful deterrent" side (and obviously it's clearly ridiculously over the top).

It still wouldn't stop non-consensual PvP of the current sort entirely - people wanting to do that could just grab an alt, fund it up off their carrier, buy it a frag vulture or something similarly cheap and effective versus un-hardened targets, and make a kill, then repeat. It'd slow them down, but not necessarily by very much, and it would be cheaper to their main account to fund this vulture parade than it would be to pay the current C&P bounties off. So anyone who absolutely doesn't want to risk it would stay in PG/Solo still (and anyone comfortable with some level of risk is probably already playing Open those days for its other advantages).

Meanwhile, the station ramming incidents (and other creative ways to trick someone into killing you) would obviously be absolutely flooding Support and the forums with ragequit messages. It'd be a big enough risk that I'd certainly switch from "99% Open" to "entirely Solo".

Frontier have already tried "turn up C&P strength to solve the problem" in 3.0 - it didn't make any difference at all to the amount of PvP crime after a few days for the murderers to adapt, but you've been getting lots of complaints - amplified further by Odyssey's wider range of illegal activity - from PvE players who find it unnecessarily deterring already.



There's also the issue that "non-consensual PvP" and "attacking someone who doesn't have a local bounty" are not the same thing. There's a lot of overlap, obviously, but PvP can be consensual and involve bounties (BGS wars, a PvP pirate fires back on a PvP bounty hunter, etc.) or non-consensual and not involve any bounties at all (an exploration expedition gets ambushed and wiped out 30,000 LY from the bubble, etc.) or technically non-consensual and involve bounties but not be the sort of thing you want to stop (a vigilante PvPer defending traders interdicts and fires on a locally clean known murderous PvPer - who would rather that hadn't happened, naturally - to stop them interdicting a trader/explorer)

 

[NinjaClarinet]

Really interesting conversation, thanks for raising this one. I'll throw in my two cents.

I can't see a version of Open where PvP can be toggled off, even if there are many who would like to play that way. IMO, it would go against the spirit of Elite and certainly against the idea of "Dangerous". It's also not easily explained through in-game lore.

However, I do sympathise with those who would like to encounter and interact with other players during their sessions without getting killed. Obviously there are private groups for that, but it's understandably not quite same since you could only meet people you already know.

Overall, I think the solution to this would be better coming from adjustments to the crime and punishment system to make sure there are meaningful risks/deterrents in place for non-consensual PvP encounters rather than from a binary PvP on/off toggle.

What's the "lore explanation" for playing in Solo? What's Dangerous about Solo? This take is very contradictory. The current set-up is very silly IMO. Just make one world where PvP and Chat are toggleable. Best of everything. A game has never gone wrong by putting power and preference in the hands of its players.

 

[Helvellyn]

What's the "lore explanation" for playing in Solo? What's Dangerous about Solo? This take is very contradictory. The current set-up is very silly IMO. Just make one world where PvP and Chat are toggleable. Best of everything. A game has never gone wrong by putting power and preference in the hands of its players.

You do know that "Elite" and "Dangerous" merely refer to the combat ranks? It's rather silly seeing people using it to justify shooting at everyone they come across.

Where's the "lore explanation" that attacking everyone on site has no real consequences?

 

[Fake Newts]

Just make one world where PvP and Chat are toggleable. Best of everything.

No it's not, please read previous responses.

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

My concern is that FD doesn't have any good choice of difficulty, so I expect they just shove in more bulletsponge. Open powerplay has its merits, but i wouldn't know how to handle the current reward structure in that. Design possibilities exist, I've explored a few as examples here...

forums.frontier.co.uk

This one for example. Learn how P2P works and please acknowledge that lumping everyone into one shared mode with invulnerability options toggled on would not be 'best for everyone'. It's fine to have different preferences, it's less fine to completely ignore the preferences of others.

 

[DANgerous25]

Really...

Should you actually respect the playing styles of those who won't respect yours...?

I don't think so. That would devalue the whole idea of respect... turn it into living on your knees

I don’t mean it in that way. The “open” game allows people to play how they want whether I like it or not, and I have the choice to either accept that or go elsewhere. So if people want to play in a way that doesn’t suit me, I’m ok with that because I have options. Similar to being a vegetarian and going to a restaurant with someone eating meat (or vice versa) - you don’t have to like it but you can respect that other people are into different things.

 

[V'larr]

As I believe has already been mentioned in the thread, doing so would be costly in terms of development time. Groups like Mobius are moderated by players, damage still functions the same as in any other mode. If Frontier were to create their own PvE mode they would have to ensure they had closed off all avenues of damage between players, ramming, station griefing etc, ensure that any resulting exploits were ironed out (there would be exploits, mark my words). They would also have to decide whether there would be systemic exceptions in CZs and code for that.

From their perspective you can see it'd be fairly attractive to let players carry on with the tools available, i.e. player-moderated PGs, the block feature, whatever. Ultimately all anyone can realistically hope for are small-scale instances of like-minded players, something which is already possible with the current implementation.

I don't believe the cost outweighs the benefits here. Exploits have to be dealt regardless. Exceptions can be handled on a case by case basis. It's a straightforward process, it just takes commitment to make the change.

 

[Fake Newts]

I don't believe the cost outweighs the benefits here. Exploits have to be dealt regardless. Exceptions can be handled on a case by case basis. It's a straightforward process, it just takes commitment to make the change.

Everything's easy to type about in this forum, but they haven't even got working anti-aliasing in Oddity currently.

Also the point is not precisely how little effort it would take, it's how much effort it would take relative to the benefits - everything people say they want, that is to say safe spaces to do co-op pve, already exists. I know it's aggravating to feel like Elite isn't catering to you, but you're essentially discussing a solved problem for most people. Would it be nice to remove the PG player caps? Sure, but I still firmly believe people misunderstand what's even possible with the current P2P system and a large part of the complaints stem from the principle rather than the practice. People often feel underserved by the game generally speaking, PvP players feel the same way.

The game is extremely limited in what it can do from a multiplayer perspective. If you use the tools you already have the resulting experience in terms of instancing will be about as good as it can be. Use system chat, PGs, squadron chat, discord, inara, Reddit, this forum, prudent mode flipping depending on location and task, that's what everyone has to do anyway regardless of preference.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I play solo if I want to get something done without interruption from PVP ambush.
Rest of the time the risk of PVP attack adds a little excitement, or there is the enjoyment of encountering friendly commanders.