Well...YARRRRR!!!
Why is being a "prey" of a pirate in open a bad game design...
- Thread starter Alsteif
- Start date
Just impose a personal 'iron-man' mode on yourself.
Any time you lose your ship, you delete your save and start again.
Wouldn't change the spectrum of challenges the game itself can and adding further contrivances isn't the nature of challenge that leads to greater verisimilitude for me.
If I always play the character I want to play, and have him take his life as seriously as I take mine, the odds of him losing his ship, even I never take him out of Open, are essentially nil. Outside of organized PvP matches, where the whole point is a fight to the finish (and would thus be as incompatible with ironman as CQC is), my CMDR loses a ship maybe once every 12-18 months, invariably when I have him stick around too long after doing something profoundly reckless, where I've deliberately gone out of my way to put him in harms way.
Magnitude of potential loss is just one of many factors influencing the level of immersion I experience and not always the overriding one.
Having to play by a different set of rules as everyone else is already frustrating enough without a self-imposed ironman mode anyway. Having foes who can reappear in the same fight after being shot down twice (as an example), is just as immersion defying as playing a character who cannot die.
I like that idea, and an interesting proposal would be a sudden-death "hard-core" mode.
In such a mode, one would have to log in and start in an open-only mode. Losing would wipe out everything. Destroyed player loses all credits, vessels, unlocked locations, access to areas they'd gained, reputation, ranks, and any and all engineers. There would be no way to transfer anything to or from another mode of play.
Of course, darn few would opt for such a brutal mode.
One of the ways that Star Citizen handles "rebuys" is a system of progressively more significant consequences to one's character. Insurance becomes more expensive the more ships one loses, until whole limbs are lost and replaced by cybernetics. At some point permadeath actually becomes a thing, IIRC.
A similar mechanic in Elite wouldn't go amiss, IMO.
So much this!
So why not just toss all the PvP players into a Free4All group and open is a PVP optional game?
Why not turn it the other way around?
Why are people who don't like PvP forced into a PG group or Solo?
Looking at the numbers of Mobius etc, where players are flocking to, who don't want PvP, so popular?
I'd play in Open-PvE any day if that would be an option.
"Open pve" mode would be a very good solution to the problem. But what about abusing the ability to switch to other modes to avoid danger? A player in "open pvp" mode can simply switch to "open pve/solo/PG" mode in case of danger? For example, a gunker attacked a player who was more experienced in Pvp combat. The gunker begins to lose the fight. What will prevent the gunker from escaping to another game mode and leaving the battlefield in peace? Except for 15 seconds on the timer output in the menu? An honest Pvp player is unlikely to be satisfied with this "open pvp" mode. And imagine that the gunker will switch to "open pve" and becoming not vulnerable will fly around his former rival?
One suggestion made a few years ago was that your account was locked to a particular mode for a certain length of time (a week, or a month for example) or permanently. Whilst that would prevent ducking into Solo to avoid a confrontation it also prevented the situation where a pilot just didn't want to play in open today and preferred solo.
Perhaps your account could let you have three independent pilots each locked to a particular mode.
Not sure how easy this would be to achieve in terms of development.
It might not even solve MadSinUN's concerns.
The issue that people seem to keep bringing up with Open-PvE is combat logging and mode switching as a further form of griefing (note that I'm loathe to use that term, coz I play my game how I wanna play and you play it how you wanna play and if you're better than me then 
).
As I've stated, my personal opinion is that I'd only log back into Solo if I was hauling six month's worth of cartography data back from the black. Now, under what some players propose about restricting mode switching would I be penalised for that? That seems unfair, especially because we all have those 'real lives' that keep us from wasting all our time in space and I really don't want to lose six months of gameplay progress for the lolz, but by the same token I understand people worried about PvP ambushers realising they've picked a fight they can't win and combat logging. That's a bit shady, innit.
But at the end of the day the game is what it is, we're obviously still enjoying it or we wouldn't keep complaining about it! Let's just keep playing the way we want to play, accept the ups and downs of it, and let everyone else enjoy the game in their own way. I'm still very much new to the game mechanics and online community, but nothing I've seen in or out of the game so far has made me want to turn back now.
).As I've stated, my personal opinion is that I'd only log back into Solo if I was hauling six month's worth of cartography data back from the black. Now, under what some players propose about restricting mode switching would I be penalised for that? That seems unfair, especially because we all have those 'real lives' that keep us from wasting all our time in space and I really don't want to lose six months of gameplay progress for the lolz, but by the same token I understand people worried about PvP ambushers realising they've picked a fight they can't win and combat logging. That's a bit shady, innit.
But at the end of the day the game is what it is, we're obviously still enjoying it or we wouldn't keep complaining about it! Let's just keep playing the way we want to play, accept the ups and downs of it, and let everyone else enjoy the game in their own way. I'm still very much new to the game mechanics and online community, but nothing I've seen in or out of the game so far has made me want to turn back now.
They aren't, but the baseline is that anything that the game supports goes, because that was what was most in accordance with the game's original vision.
Arbitrarily excluding CMDRs from the potential for harm by others wasn't.
I don't think the majority of those who'd be in favor of a mode-reentry delay are talking about delays of anywhere near the time span MarkAusten is.
Being able to switch modes is the intended functionality of the game. Being able to use a mode in a tactical manner to harass other players is not and could be largely eliminated with say a 10-30 minute delay on one's return to Open.
Whilst this might possibly satisfy the PVP pilots, the question would still be taken up by those who work the BGS. Their main beef, if I recall correctly, it that players in PG or Solo were free to manipulate the BGS without "interference". Whether or not tis is correct, one solution for the PVP pilots may not satisfy the BGS pilots and vice-versa.
It may very well be that solutions for all parties turn out to be mutually exclusive!
The issue that people seem to keep bringing up with Open-PvE is combat logging and mode switching as a further form of griefing (note that I'm loathe to use that term, coz I play my game how I wanna play and you play it how you wanna play and if you're better than me then
As I've stated, my personal opinion is that I'd only log back into Solo if I was hauling six month's worth of cartography data back from the black. Now, under what some players propose about restricting mode switching would I be penalised for that? That seems unfair, especially because we all have those 'real lives' that keep us from wasting all our time in space and I really don't want to lose six months of gameplay progress for the lolz, but by the same token I understand people worried about PvP ambushers realising they've picked a fight they can't win and combat logging. That's a bit shady, innit.
But at the end of the day the game is what it is, we're obviously still enjoying it or we wouldn't keep complaining about it! Let's just keep playing the way we want to play, accept the ups and downs of it, and let everyone else enjoy the game in their own way. I'm still very much new to the game mechanics and online community, but nothing I've seen in or out of the game so far has made me want to turn back now.
You can restrict switching between open pvp and open pve modes. Exclusively for open mode, provide a voluntary choice of playing style on a permanent basis. a player who positions their style of play as pve will also be able to remain completely safe in open mode, but they will never be able to attack players themselves. a player who voluntarily chooses an open pvp mode will be subject to all the dangers that open pvp provides, such a player can only attack players who also choose the "open Pvp" mode without the possibility of blocking players and changing the game mode in the presence of other players of any positioning. For example, in the zone of one star system. Also, changing the game mode can only be available in independent anarchy systems.
I believe something like this was proposed before but the arguments against it, mainly technical, would probably have made it unworkable. Perhaps RM can remember where that particular thread was as I don't.
There are many positions that are advocating for a change in the intended functionality of the modes.
My statement assumes that Frontier's intent is still largely the same and that no new modes nor radical reworking of current modes are forthcoming. Within that constraint in mind, curtailing unintended abuses of functionality, without dramatically affecting intended utility, should be the goal.
More dramatic changes that rework the fundamental game are certainly being suggested, but are inherently more contentious and less likely to be considered.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Rather than a house, it's more like an apartment block where the owner chooses to offer shared spaces that can be used by all of the residents if they choose, or not.
If smoking, watching TV loudly and burning car tyres is not prohibited by the terms of the agreement signed when buying an apartment then it's ones choice whether to remain if one does not like those things occurring.
I specifically specified: "you love this house."Why is it not accepted to negotiate with a neighbor and make changes to the contract? I gave this example in response to friendly suggestions to "change the game". I think even Fdev won't be happy that all the players who don't like something about the game will leave it. What do you think?
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For some time I saw just this problem, it is called "Where it was offered". On the forum and other information resources on the game ED many times opened topics similar to the one that we are discussing now. For some reason, these long-standing discussions did not find solutions to the problem and these discussions were forgotten. Instead of continuing to search, continue to offer, continue to seek a response from Fdev. I do not understand this view of the solution of the problem "discussed and forgotten".
Again, it's a question of numbers. We don't know how many people stop playing Elite Dangerous, we all know of some, usually the most vociferous, but FDev are the only ones that have access to this data.
Many, many players in this and other forums have threatened to leave or predicted that if FDev didn't do this, that or the other, the players would leave in droves and that the game was doomed. Some even before the game was officially launched.
But it is still here and it is still played.
My tentative conclusion, therefore, is that the revenue that Elite Dangerous generates for FDev is still sufficient for them to continue its development and to a certain degree, they don't really worry too much about players leaving, or more precisely, saying that they are going to leave.
It will be interesting to see Frontiers quarterly results after Odyssey is released.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
The neighbours aren't in a position to agree changes to the contract - each resident would require to seek changes to the contract directly with the owner.
Frontier have been aware that not all players agree with their stance on a number of aspects of the game for years now - that has not caused them to change those particular aspects.
I doubt that Frontier could change the game so that all players were happy with all aspects of it. That being the case, some aspects will not satisfy some players - and those players, as a consequence, may choose to leave. That's not to say that changes should necessarily be made to the game in an attempt to dissuade any player who threatens to leave the game from leaving - as there are other players to consider when thinking about changes to the game - and caving to pressure once would lead to further attempts to achieve change by threatening to leave.
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