Fighting thargoids has become miserable since update 15

[Uiros Ueramos]

It seems clear they're making things more challenging because players were doing things too easily.

I have no problem with that, in principle, as long as it has some logic , it is made progressively and after proper QA. But proper QA seems a concept that FDev has difficulty in grasping.

Some things do need to be fixed, like non-glowing hearts and no EMP warnings,

They must and shouldn't even have bugged out.

but others like Glaives can probably be adjusted to. From what I understand, they don't damage your modules too fast, and like 3 volleys of mod plasmas will kill them.

IIRC, 3 volleys of 5x mod plasmas and getting 30% damage to them.

That said, I'm not sure Fdev have considered properly how difficult it is to repair non-module-reinforcement modules. It takes time and isn't terribly fun.

Agreed. It isn't.

 

[Maxxor399]

They are making the game unbearable in order to make people stop playing so they don't have to work on a title they've stopped caring for since, like 2016. Simple as.

You are not wrong there, since Odyssey the only "content" that we got was the thargoid war and the maelstrom, correct me if I'm wrong though.

It seems pointless to wonder if any on FDev's ED team actually plays the game that they are developing...

Not the first developers that don't play their game, same experience with Escape From Tarkov developers Battlestate Games.

 

[Krieger]

I read that silent running + heat sinks and high wake might allow one to escape the Glaives?

Thanks. I'll try that. On small ships like the Cobra there are only 2 utility slots so I have to sacrifice a (much needed) shield booster. In the Cobra I used to deal with the shutdown field by boosting (625 m/s) and switching to FA-off letting it drift while it was shut down. That doesn't work anymore with those fast Glaives around. So I probably have to sacrifice the other booster for a shutdown neutralizer.

 

[Krieger]

It seems pointless to wonder if any on FDev's ED team actually plays the game that they are developing...

I think its the people that make the decisions who don't play the game. I remember from a live stream a dev who plays the game on his private account. Also two community managers did many live streams where they were taught the fine points of playing Elite by player groups varying from The Fuel Rats to PvP groups.

 

[Sublime]

There is a “fun” threshold that FDEV will tolerate with any aspect of this game. Once that threshold is exceeded FDEV will actively modify things in order to curb the amount of fun players experience with that particular activity in order to make it more in line with other activities.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Thanks. I'll try that. On small ships like the Cobra there are only 2 utility slots so I have to sacrifice a (much needed) shield booster. In the Cobra I used to deal with the shutdown field by boosting (625 m/s) and switching to FA-off letting it drift while it was shut down. That doesn't work anymore with those fast Glaives around. So I probably have to sacrifice the other booster for a shutdown neutralizer.

If you are intent on running in Thargoid areas, I think that might be advisable. But don't forget that Silent Running drops your shield.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I think its the people that make the decisions who don't play the game. I remember from a live stream a dev who plays the game on his private account. Also two community managers did many live streams where they were taught the fine points of playing Elite by player groups varying from The Fuel Rats to PvP groups.

Yes, but wandering around ED on some livestreams is not playing the game, per se...

 

[Rat Race Choir]

Ah, the hearts are bugged. I had a miserable time last night going back to an outpost defence scenario for the first time since update 15.

But I'd also been drinking, which I guess didn't help...

 

[ArrakisX]

Hearts not glowing red?
Gah, how do they break things like this???

Another blunder by FDev?

Not only have they broken glowing hearts. The EMP pulse thing that interceptors do no longer have a warning.

I have also noticed excessive sniping of modules that did not occur anywhere near as much pre update 15.

Ah, the hearts are bugged. I had a miserable time last night going back to an outpost defence scenario for the first time since update 15.

But I'd also been drinking, which I guess didn't help...

Heart not glowing problem - do drop a vote or contribution... o7

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

 

[alexzk]

Not only have they broken glowing hearts. The EMP pulse thing that interceptors do no longer have a warning.

interesting. I never had the warning since 2019 . It was trying to say something 1-2 times, then sound got jammed by EMP (crackling effect) and done, ship is silent until hyper cruise. I thought that is the feature of thargs all those years.
However in current state, this also drops my FPS to 0 (yes, zero), which leads to disconnect in about 1 minute so I couldn't fight thargs yet.
And now .... looks like others got this bug, maybe it will be fixed finally.

 

[HRDiagram]

I think we have got it all wrong.
This game is not for us, we have been fooled!
We are part of a simulation, we are inside a videogame for Thargoids, and FDev have just nerfed the humans because many Thargoid AX players were moaning on their forums about those human funny non flower shaped vessels!

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I think we have got it all wrong.
This game is not for us, we have been fooled!
We are part of a simulation, we are inside a videogame for Thargoids, and FDev have just nerfed the humans because many Thargoid AX players were moaning on their forums about those human funny non flower shaped vessels!

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@CMDR Aldebaran
Welcome to 1984.

 

[Krieger]

If you are intent on running in Thargoid areas, I think that might be advisable. But don't forget that Silent Running drops your shield.

I was inter- and hyperdicted three times by Glaives in my Cobra and I managed to escape once with 40% hull left. Dropping heat sinks seems to lower its accuracy same as with Interceptors but it still did massive damage and quickly disabled many modules (including Guardian FSD booster) using the lightning weapon. It is too fast to keep it at a distance large enough to make it miss like Interceptors.

 

[CMDR Aldebaran]

@CMDR Aldebaran
Welcome to 1984.

Not sure if that's a reference to the original game or something to do with George Orwell?? If the former, I've been there, got the T-shirt (no Hutton mugs back then). At least you knew where you stood with that version of the game!!

Edit.. I remember loading Elite from cassette on a BBC B computer. Just getting the game to load was an achievement...

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I was inter- and hyperdicted three times by Glaives in my Cobra and I managed to escape once with 40% hull left. Dropping heat sinks seems to lower its accuracy same as with Interceptors but it still did massive damage and quickly disabled many modules (including Guardian FSD booster) using the lightning weapon. It is too fast to keep it at a distance large enough to make it miss like Interceptors.

Have you tried the boost away and when the Glaive starts to catch up, go FAOFF Reverski and boost almost straight at it?

If it is going fast enough it might have trouble stopping right away and then you can have the opportunity to extend away until it turns and gains speed again.

That might allow for you to High Wake out of there...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

This is only a sample size of one, but I solo'ed a planetary CZ up to the Hydra stage tonight as easily as before U15. Scouts are back to normal damage and behavior. they just don't camp at the station anymore. I had no Glaives turn up, so that might have spiced it up a bit, but I could very much ignore or choose to fight the Scouts the same way I could before U15. Zero difference.

As for the pulse warning, that was only the very first one for me. All others triggered the correct warning. The lack of heart glowing is unfortunate though; I was fighting with an enhanced scanner, so I could mark the heart as soon as it was exerted - for a brief period, there is a white glow on it that then gives way to the red glow, only the red glow does not happen. But I can see how that is an issue.

Having said that, seems 15.01 fixed the Scout issue completely. The Glaives are another thing though; I love them. Nasty little things. I played around with Glaive interdictions a bit in my shieldless AX Krait with a pair of MCs and Gauss cannons. The Gauss are dead pretty quickly, but I had no real issue killing a single Glaive with the two MCs. The biggest issue is the large amount of caustic damage they do via the barrage of missiles they launch.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

@CMDR Aldebaran
Elite reference, on a school computer, BBC Model B iirc... after hours till caretaker said out. Then my spectrum & c64 & amiga on friends.
Bit like shooting a station / encountering a thargoid, bad idea but i like how it mimics these things.

 

[tolm]

I think ED is suffering from the same thing a lot of modern games do: it’s difficulty is being scaled based on the best players rather than the average player.

Now, I get that “endgame content” is intentionally designed for the best players … but the Thargoid War is the only new content. And if they expect humanity to win, it needs to be more accessible. Which I do think was happening with surface port CZs, modded guardian weapons, the caustic sink launchers, etc. But now it seems to have turned back the other way.

Scaling up the Maelstrom stuff for the best players I would understand but why mess with the other AX areas? IMO, these were ticking along nicely with a choice of risk/skill levels that would allow a greater number of CMDRs to get involved. Which is surely a good thing for the game, right?!

 

[Chaparral]

I'm in the process of downloading the 15. whatever patch, but it's not progressing as normal. I think a glaive degraded the guardian module in my launcher.

Honestly, I'm getting more fun reading the forum than playing the game right now.