Is there decent co-op/pvp content?

[Vhayne]

Played this game a bit here and there over the years, but never really got far into it. Mostly just basic laser mining and hauling cargo runs. But I've been playing Sea of Thieves recently and having a blast. I was thinking, "are there any other games like this? Where there are goals/missions, and along the way I can attack or be attacked by other players?" I thought of Elite, as being a more "grown-up" game compared to SoT, with a similar PVE structure.

However, I know absolutely nothing about it's multiplayer aspect. I think I read that the galaxy is HUGE and it is temp server population (again like SoT). So considering this, I assume player interaction is rare?

I'm trying to determine if it is a good game for me and a couple of friends to play together. Obviously we would each be in our own ships. But can we run missions together, mine together, fight npc's together? Is the game balanced around having co-op buddies grouping with you?

As for pvp, I do not like "arena" or "battleground" pvp much, where you log into a server or whatever, and everyone's main goal is to kill each other. But I absolutely LOVE open-world pvp. The risk of being ganked, as well as being the ganker (as long as there are rewards - loot). Hunting down others who have been attacking other people (pirates). I'm sure Elite has this, but is it in abundance? It is something that my friends and I can decide one evening that, tonight, we are going player hunting?

Are the player-interaction areas limited to certain areas? Or can you find people all over? With a galaxy so large, and a multiplayer server limitation so small (think I read less than 100 players), it seems almost impossible to actually find anyone.


Please elaborate on your answers. Thanks in advance for any response. :)

[ShelLuser]

This is probably not your game.. yes, there are more players (it's a multiplayer game afterall) but considering the 40,000,000 star systems it's kinda unlikely you're going to run into those players. Unless you visit more popular areas, engineering systems always attract players.

[Crimson Echo]

Elite may not be the game for you. Have you tried Eve online? Seeing other players in Elite is relatively rare due to the instancing mechanics, and networking arch. There are player gathers/events, but they are typically in invite only Private groups and any trouble makers get banned from the group quickly.

[Kaine Madjere]

If you're looking to run into a lot of people, all the time then you're going to need to hang out in hotspots like the old CG's and engineering systems, mining hotspots etc. As for everything else? Yes there are group activities called wing missions. They can be a little...wonky at first to get used to how to do and share them but they can also be very rewarding.

[Fluffy The Destroyer]

For pve or co-op you'll be well served with this game. I play with a small group of friends on ED and I use private group server when you start the game.

PVE-COOP:

You'll be able to mine together, or 1 or 2 can mine and another person could be defense depending on where you are. If you're in a Hazardous ressource extraction site, you'll have NPC pirates trying to scan your cargo. If you got anything in there then they'll start attacking you and ask you to drop 1-2 things from it, if not you'll lose your ship.

for missions, you can have "wing" sharable missions and missions you can do with other people. I'm not an expert but I believe your partners in your "wing" will have a small percentage if you killed npc ships as they usually have a bounty ( you receive cash for them).

You can also ask a friend to get in your ship if the ship supports multi-crew, they will be able to take control of certain parts of the ship and at the end, they'll receive a stupidly small amount of cash.

PVP Open Play:
In open world I can't really help you here since I honestly never did it and I don't have a reason in my opinion to do it. I play with my friends and thats enough for me but the option is there.

You should encounter some, a lot or a small amount of people in the bubble ( the place in the universe where all players start aka: powerplay area if you look at the galaxy map). They could shoot you but I got no information on that, I guess someone else could fill you in.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

but considering the 40,000,000 star systems

Just a nitpick: there are 10,000 times more star systems in this game. As in ~400,000,000,000. ;)

[antoca]

Just get to Khun. Gankers are waiting for you there if you so love to be ganked. Multiple times and with different angles if you want. After they destroy you, they fly under your wreckage like in space movies.

[s0laris]

From multiplayer perspective, this is the least multiplayer experience in the history of multiplayer games. The design from the ground highly discourages player interaction despite the "multiplayer" sticker on it in the Steam store. Very limited amounts of co-op options, PvP is about ganking or get ganked, but to be able to reliably gank youll need heavy amounts of engineering. Rebuy costs and time lost heavily discourages open play so i dont think there are more than a few hundred players at most at a time out in the open.

Treat the game for what it is, truck simulator in space with added multiplayer chat features. You can have a blast with your friends just discovering and building up the ships you fly, trying out the limited co-op etc. But if you are in for an adrenaline rush, an unpredictable cut-throat experience (as E:D was advertised), look for another game.

(You can also look for a squadron - clan - to join that has similar goals, they might have a better idea.)

[Vhayne]

Thanks guys. Well that is rather disappointing. Personally I can be satisfied with the PvE experience as long as there is enough varied content to grind. But my friends are all about PvP. So I'm guessing they aren't going to be very interested in this.

I made a new character, and later I had a friend DL and try out the game, and it appears we start in the same system (we weren't playing together at the time). So, with that logic in mind, wouldn't it be safe to assume that other n00bs would be hanging around those starter systems and be capable of emergent pvp? At least until they "grow up" and flitter off to more distant systems...

[Kaine Madjere]

Originally posted by Vhayne:

Thanks guys. Well that is rather disappointing. Personally I can be satisfied with the PvE experience as long as there is enough varied content to grind. But my friends are all about PvP. So I'm guessing they aren't going to be very interested in this.

I made a new character, and later I had a friend DL and try out the game, and it appears we start in the same system (we weren't playing together at the time). So, with that logic in mind, wouldn't it be safe to assume that other n00bs would be hanging around those starter systems and be capable of emergent pvp? At least until they "grow up" and flitter off to more distant systems...

You're not going to run into very many new players in the "kindergarten" systems which are permit locked so new players can't get roflstomped by older players just waiting for easy ganks.

Edit: feel free to add me

[Witcher]

Originally posted by antoca:

Just get to Khun. Gankers are waiting for you there if you so love to be ganked.

Really? I've been to Khun 3 times of late and encountered one other player - either a Krait II or Python IIRC.

[David Davidson]

From my experience, no. This isn't really a good group or PvP game. There is no way to tackle an interdicted target other than to destroy their FSD and I think the log off and disappear timer is only 15 seconds, so even if you do destroy an FSD your target can still log off.

Maybe you should try EvE online. It's been wrecked by whining carebears over the years (previously you could steal from people and only they and their corporation could attack you without repercussions, it then changed to you being a target to everybody, I adapted to this) you could also declare war on a corporation (players had to form a corporation to be elegible) for any reason, then they upped the cost by 50x, we adapted, they then added the ability for any other Corp to enter the war for free, we adapted, then they nuked the wardec mechanic by making it so you could only declare war on corporations with structures in space. That was when I packed my bags and left, along with many other players.

However in it's defence you can still PvP in low security or null security space, you can stop targets from escaping using either an AOE warp disruption bubble (nullsec only) or a targeted warp disruption device (high low and null), you can run missions with friends, do exploration with friends (exploration was fun and lucrative when I played) and in low and null security space you can PvP with friends.
There is a levelling system in place however to 'earn experience' you don't even need to be playing, you just select a skill for your avi to learn and you gain skill points over time (which can be sped up by implants or skills) and you can't really play EvE (to its full extent) alone. You need to have friends.

I would recommend you try it, EvE now has an unlimited trial period, but you are locked down to certain ships. After that it's pay monthly, however if you can earn enough you can buy PLEX (pilots licence extension) with ingame money and not pay IRL.

[Vhayne]

I have tried EVE off and on multiple times in the past (15?) years. 3 things kept bothering me. 1, the point and click of a space game just seemed wrong. However, I could see myself adapting to that eventually. 2, because of this control scheme, or lack of a "sim feel", I know my friends wouldn't even give it a chance. I seriously doubt my ability to "sell" the game to them. 3, the time-gained-skills thing. Maybe it's changed over the years since I played. But realizing that it's going to take a week or more of just waiting for time to pass instead of actually grinding out something to reach your goal was also irritating. Due to this restraint, starting this far behind, you are going to be literally years behind most people and that fact alone deters me from ever attempting pvp.

I suppose I'll keep attempting Star Citizen. I think it seems the closest to SoT. It's actually extremely surprising that more games haven't adopted the emergent pvp of games like Division (dark zone), and SoT's open world, full loot pvp. It is obviously extremely appealing to many players if done right. SoT just announced 15 million players. I'm REALLY hoping more games will utilize this feature. As the world just feels more alive when you have to constantly be on the lookout for threats while you are doing PVE content. ....as long as there is loot for doing it and not just some "points".

[David Davidson]

Originally posted by Vhayne:

I have tried EVE off and on multiple times in the past (15?) years. 3 things kept bothering me. 1, the point and click of a space game just seemed wrong. However, I could see myself adapting to that eventually. 2, because of this control scheme, or lack of a "sim feel", I know my friends wouldn't even give it a chance. I seriously doubt my ability to "sell" the game to them. 3, the time-gained-skills thing. Maybe it's changed over the years since I played. But realizing that it's going to take a week or more of just waiting for time to pass instead of actually grinding out something to reach your goal was also irritating. Due to this restraint, starting this far behind, you are going to be literally years behind most people and that fact alone deters me from ever attempting pvp.

I suppose I'll keep attempting Star Citizen. I think it seems the closest to SoT. It's actually extremely surprising that more games haven't adopted the emergent pvp of games like Division (dark zone), and SoT's open world, full loot pvp. It is obviously extremely appealing to many players if done right. SoT just announced 15 million players. I'm REALLY hoping more games will utilize this feature. As the world just feels more alive when you have to constantly be on the lookout for threats while you are doing PVE content. ....as long as there is loot for doing it and not just some "points".

If you want to sell EvE to your simulator friends sell it as a space strategy and command simulator.
It's been years since I played but when it comes to Tech 2 ships and stuff they had lowered the bar for new players significantly, skill training is now a fair bit faster, IIRC they removed the skills that increased your attributes and just increased everyone's base attributes, they also made getting T2 ships easier as for example to get a tech 2 cruiser you originally needed to unlock the tech 2 frigate line (frigate to 5) then go for cruiser to 5, now you just train cruiser to 5. As for capital ships, you can train for them much faster too, if you want to fly a big slow ship.

Honestly though the only thing older higher SP players have on a player who has been playing for 6 months to a year now is a greater diversity of ships at their disposal, you could really specialise into two, maybe 3 kinds of ships in 6 months and be competent in one ship type in 3 months.

A lot of the skills in EvE are 5% increase skills so if you train them to 4 instead of 5 (training to 5 takes much, much longer), IIRC older players could extract and sell skills too which could be 'injected' instantly, however it looks like CCP has gone down the Pay2Win route now by selling "Daily alpha injectors" (skill points) for RL money. That last bit pretty much guarantees that I'm never going back, but it might suit you. They aren't too expensive either at half a million SP for just over £5.

[Vhayne]

Thanks for the write up. :) It does sound like things have been made a bit easier to start out now. I might hop on there and give it another shot and see if I can really get into it. At that point I will have alot more knowledge to relay to my friends. Some of them hate "pay to win", others don't mind and are happy to take advantage of it. Kind of a toss up on that one.

At the moment though, we are all playing SoT so it's going to be a while before I can even attempt to push them in a different direction.

One of them doesn't like SoT, so I recommended Elite to him. That's why I'm here. He played it a bit, and likes it, but is also wondering about the "other players" element.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

Evochron Legacy has Newtonian Physics and it actually works really well and it makes combat absolutely insane. Dog fighting in it felt really good.