MarcOmega

M. Lehman

I don't suppose that it would be worth mentioning that the overwhelming majority of the PP community was in favor of that proposal, would it?

Besides, how does keeping PP mode-agnostic protect new players from being attacked?

Maybe you should explain that. If the overwhelming PP community is in favor of all Open operations, then why aren't the overwhelming majority of all PP players already in Open? If they all want it to work that way, they could all simply be doing it that way. There is nothing stopping them from doing it freely by choice. I am not sure I understand the part where someone wants to do something they can freely do, but they won't do it until someone else forces them to do it.

The answer to the last one is, the point is not to protect new players. The point is that the constant refrain is that if a player doesn't like someone's behavior in Open, they can go to Solo/PG. What happened to that response again? Does that only count until the same person decides that if enough people make the choice to go to Solo/PG, that they have to be denied that choice?

MarcOmegaMaybe you should explain that.  If the overwhelming PP community is in favor of all Open operations, then why aren't the overwhelming majority of all PP players already in Open? If they all want it to work that way, they could all simply be doing it that way.  There is nothing stopping them from doing it freely by choice.  I am not sure I understand the part where someone wants to do something they can freely do, but they won't do it until someone else forces them to do it.

M. Lehman

I'd say that that question was answered in the text of Sandro's proposal, where he mentioned that PP seemed the ideal vehicle for giving PvP greater in-game relevance, and so it made sense to ask the question as to whether or not it should be made exclusive to open. I was in agreement with that notion, and still am.

The conversation that I've seen since goes something like this:

Naysayers: PvP has no relevance to the greater game.

Frontier:  Okay, how about we make Powerplay open-only so that PvP becomes a little more relevant? Just Powerplay. Not the BGS. Not your ability to grind credits or mats. Just Powerplay, which relatively few people even touch.

Naysayers: HOWDAREYOUFORCETHISONMEALLMODESAREEQUALREEEEEE!!!!

Needless to say, I've been left with the awful impression that there are certain among the community who gleefully point out the irrelevance of PvP to the greater game, and even more gleefully kneecap any suggestion that would lend relevance to it...

Sakashiro

M. LehmanI don't suppose that it would be worth mentioning that the overwhelming majority of the PP community was in favor of that proposal, would it?

Prepare for the game you have, not the one you want. I believe that's what you said. You didn't suddenly change your mind, did you?

M. LehmanBesides, how does keeping PP mode-agnostic protect new players from being attacked?

SakashiroBy allowing them to participate in PP without leaving the mode that protects them from being attacked, duh!

MarcOmega

M. Lehman

I'd say that that question was answered in the text of Sandro's proposal, where he mentioned that PP seemed the ideal vehicle for giving PvP greater in-game relevance, and so it made sense to ask the question as to whether or not it should be made exclusive to open. I was in agreement with that notion, and still am.

The conversation that I've seen since goes something like this:

Naysayers: PvP has no relevance to the greater game.

Frontier:  Okay, how about we make Powerplay open-only so that PvP becomes a little more relevant? Just Powerplay. Not the BGS. Not your ability to grind credits or mats. Just Powerplay, which relatively few people even touch.

Naysayers: HOWDAREYOUFORCETHISONMEALLMODESAREEQUALREEEEEE!!!!

Needless to say, I've been left with the awful impression that there are certain among the community who gleefully point out the irrelevance of PvP to the greater game, and even more gleefully kneecap any suggestion that would lend relevance to it...

Ah, so, now it sounds like it is not the PP community that is in favor of the proposal but instead, it is the PvP community that is in favor of it. That makes more sense from the perspective of demanding that players be forced into a mode of play.

M. LehmanThe conversation that I've seen since goes something like this:

Naysayers: PvP has no relevance to the greater game.

Frontier:  Okay, how about we make Powerplay open-only so that PvP becomes a little more relevant? Just Powerplay. Not the BGS. Not your ability to grind credits or mats. Just Powerplay, which relatively few people even touch.

Naysayers: HOWDAREYOUFORCETHISONMEALLMODESAREEQUALREEEEEE!!!!

Sakashiro

M. LehmanThe conversation that I've seen since goes something like this:

Naysayers: PvP has no relevance to the greater game.

Frontier:  Okay, how about we make Powerplay open-only so that PvP becomes a little more relevant? Just Powerplay. Not the BGS. Not your ability to grind credits or mats. Just Powerplay, which relatively few people even touch.

Naysayers: HOWDAREYOUFORCETHISONMEALLMODESAREEQUALREEEEEE!!!!

Now you're framing the story as if the petition came from FDev.

M. Lehman

By the time a player is dabbling in powerplay they aren't really new, are they?

MarcOmega

M. Lehman

By the time a player is dabbling in powerplay they aren't really new, are they?

If Fdev allows activities for PP from PG/Solo but just changes the background tallies so that actual expansions/contractions, etc don't count if the activities take place in PG/Solo, then I am sure no one is really going to mind besides the PP community that will lose some of their workers that help toward goals. The players that simply pledge to pick up a module reward are hardly going to care one way or the other.

If I were actively interested in PP factions and working on one besides just to pick up a module here and there, I would be actively lobbying FDev against it because I would want to keep my existing contributors.

The article that was linked sounds really good until you start remembering the way actual instancing works and then the idea of having escorts and protection wings, along with attack wings, simply starts to fail due the problematic instancing.

And if they go the other way, and declare PP modules to be unobtainable except in Open, then see my post about blocking because that will definitely be on the rise and not just for "carebears." We already know that PvP players use block lists to avoid interaction with other players that they don't want to encounter for a variety of reasons. Easy enough to extend that into PP activities to duplicate the exact same function that PG/Solo is used for now.

M. Lehman

The potential to use the blocking mechanic in ways not intended (or at the very least, envisioned) by the devs is indeed unfortunate, and may well have been the reason that OOPP was never implemented.

MarcOmega

M. Lehman

The potential to use the blocking mechanic in ways not intended (or at the very least, envisioned) by the devs is indeed unfortunate, and may well have been the reason that OOPP was never implemented.

Instancing on ED is always going to be an issue.  P2P networking is client based and is always going to have limits based on the clients not having the same level of resources as a centralized server could have.  If you want to move away from P2P instancing, you have to have centralized servers and those are going to be high cost, which will force one of two modes for ED, either a subscription model, or higher levels of monetization.  And not just the cosmetic kind, but instead, pay 2 win or pay 2 avoid grind monetization because that will be pretty much the only way to generate enough revenue to cover operating costs, along with reasonable returns to the dev/publisher.  

If you wonder why Free to Play games have so much monetization, the reason is that there is no other choice.

For P2P, the larger the groups that people want to get together, the more load on the client and that means, the ultimate limit is the weakest client.  Take the lowest bandwidth, highest latency client that is attached to any instance, and that is your limiter.  So, if you wonder why sometimes you can get 20 commanders in an instance and sometimes struggle with just 4, likely one of the commanders is the weak link as far as network bandwidth and latency in that instance.  If you have ever tried to get into an instance and not been able to, one explanation is that either one of the existing instance clients is at capacity and no one else is allowed, or your own client won't let you attach because of a resource mismatch, you are either too fast or too slow.

That is without taking into account blocking dynamics which can cascade based on how the p2p client handles affinity for connections.

So, the idea that you can flip a switch and make things Open Only and then immediately have epic battles with 50 commanders vying for supremacy in the system is simply fantasy.  

As a matter of fact, the more people you add to your wing within any one system and the greater the chance that you won't see any other commanders at all.  Because once the instance is at peak based on the capacity of the weakest client, no one else will be in that instance.

With this in mind, I can put a bandwidth limit on my internet connection for ED, throttle it down to lower levels and ED will test the connection and then avoid instancing me with pretty much anyone else even when I am in Open.  I don't even need the block list.

M. Lehman


Yes, I'm aware of the limits of P2P architecture, having both a New Zealander on my friends list (though in fairness to Frontier their instancing has improved quite a bit in terms of us seeing each other in game) and having participated in the Salome event for Premonition.

Still, I don't think that Frontier would be well served by giving up on making PvP relevant just because some players might exploit the block mechanic or cheese their router settings. P2P is the bed that Frontier made, and for better or worse we all have to lay in it.