(04-08-2018, 06:51 PM)Antonio Wrote: Freelancer is based solely on player interaction, not "exploring". What "discovery" are we talking about when the forum nav map updates the day the patch comes out? "Exploring" by flying in empty systems with 1 unique visit per month is the definition of playing singleplayer in multiplayer. We need less of that, not more. The main purpose of changes should be to keep encouraging player interaction, that's what this mod and game are based on.
What is sometimes neglected is that "single player" activities is what keeps people playing before they find friends. Having 30 more people doing "single player" activities (in places where they will still meet other players anyway) will still give you more interactions with them than if they stopped playing after a few weeks because they found nothing fun to do alone. Single player activities are the only reason to log at all if you don't know how to find players to interact with, which is very common now.
Although exploring remote places isn't one of those activities, it's still a motivator to play the mod, gather ships and gear, and potentially go to hard to reach places together with other players because they're too hard to reach alone. There were a few mods where that was a fun activity, and it used to be like that in 4.84 and 4.85 when NPCs had CDs and were really tough.
In order to bring that back, I'd be in favor of filling some of the systems that are intentionally "drained" of players through the jumphole overhaul with tough NPCs that have CDs, make NPCs spawn regardless of player number (or at least at a much higher player number than now), and remove/hide those systems from the interactive nav map so they really have to be explored. That would give back some of the old mysteries and challenges that are now totally absent. The "uncharted territory" events bring that a little bit, but nowhere as much as in 4.84/85.
EDIT: Whooa... this went really off topic. Maybe talk about it in another place.
