Elite: Easymode. NPCs stop shooting 'your' target...whatever next? (rambling rant)

[Amaze]

Just turn off the option in your right hud that automatically calls the cops everytime you get in a fight.

Voila no more Feds "stealing" your kills because you asked them to turn up and help. =/

I like to fly and fight around resource extraction zones and I find very often
there are authority vessels already there when I jump in.

Turning off the option in my right hud makes no difference sometimes.


Honestly the change is a good change its not an "easy mode"
Next you all be saying there should never be an official manual because that would be giving away how to play hints too easily.

 

[Muthax]

an example of good pvp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-dHqX5cFB0

 

[Mephane]

I am so glad FD did this change. Kill stealing NPCs was one of the most annoying things in ED.

 

[Ayerc]

not really.
i used a mildly antagonistic phrase, because that's the only way to get a decent response out the forum these days. otherwise your thread drops off the front page and is never replied to.
got you! :-D

i could have said "oh my! we have a rather large amount of new players around, who don't seem to have grasped the nature of the game, don't we?"
but that would have been boring and non-contentious, and you wouldn't have replied to that now would you?

and also, most of the new players who haven't quite grasped the game will be busy playing it and getting to grips with it.
the Candy Crushing noobs are the ones clamouring for a reduction in "kill stealing".

and your mock offense, as amusing as it is, does nothing to change that, and contributes nothing to this thread, so thank you and goodbye

I can appreciate your subtlety, and your subsequent posts have proven that you can have an intelligent discussion. Your choice to cheapen your opening post with those "antagonistic phrases" does nothing to help make your point.

Sensationalism to "keep your post at the top of the forum" may help your thread, but hurts the overall community. Many new players come to these forums for advice and direction (as there is not much to help you in-game), but instead often receive ridicule and unwarranted hostility. Unfortunately, your OP only adds to that incivility.

Perhaps we as a community can help the game we're all trying to play and enjoy by not drawing lines in the sand and creating "Us and Them" dichotomies. Contrary to where you think the new players are, I'm sure many are silently reading posts while trying to figure out the game. Whether they are an active part of the forums or not, they are a part of the community. We've all paid for this game, and we all deserve (and owe FD and ED) a bit more respect than that.

If your point was to discuss how the recent change to NPC "kill stealing," then yes, it would've garnered attention and discussion. If your point was to discuss the new players and their understanding of the game's mechanics, (of which you failed miserably) then yes, it would've garnered attention and discussion (even by me.) There's plenty of people around here looking to discuss the game at length. Again, using antagonistic phrases does not help make either point in any way.

You may be surprised to hear that I support your side of the argument, and I would've been happy to have added to that discussion. Your OP unfortunately was such a glaring example of what is currently wrong with this community, I couldn't afford to not point it out.

 

[bitstorm]

I like to fly and fight around resource extraction zones and I find very often
there are authority vessels already there when I jump in.

Turning off the option in my right hud makes no difference sometimes.


Honestly the change is a good change its not an "easy mode"
Next you all be saying there should never be an official manual because that would be giving away how to play hints too easily.

I dunno man, as I was saying early, if you don't want interference from Police don't start a fight in front of them, go do it somewhere else.

Aye while this change doesn't suddenly make it easy mode, it's not an isolated change, we keep getting minor changes that make things easier often driven by new players complaining. And look at this change and how it's been done, we now have one rule for players and another for NPCs where motivation for NPCs and players should in fact pretty much align. =(

And as someone's mentioned you can bet upcoming on the list consideration next is friendly fire.

 

[Katkon]

OP - it's not how I would have made the point BUT I do agree that the game appears to be being 'dumbed down' and made easier. I too hope it stops and that game starts to become a bit more challenging in places.

 

[DoxHoliday]

Listen! Games are meant to be fun. It's absolutely jolly well rubbish when you're having a great fight with a juicy bounty and end up with nothing. It's like a kick in the nuts quite frankly. Some crappy NPC lands a random shot as you're both firing at 1% hull. In fact... most of the time there's no NPC there and you still get nothing.

Because the game is as bugged as it was when I first started playing a few months ago.

Sure about that, are you sport?

 

[Armour]

I'm going to repeat what I put in another related thread:

To me, bounty stealing seems fair enough.

However, let's pretend it is bad design - then it needs to be fixed, not covered over with another bad design choice. Two wrongs don't make a right, "lipstick on a pig" and all that.

I actually think the issue is indicative of two far more fundamental flaws:

1. Being easily able to tell PCs from NPCs at a glance with the whole Pilot's Federation "CMDR" tag.
2. Players being unable to take faction security jobs.

If those two problems were addressed, I think bounty stealing would be seen as a valid bit of the gameplay, as opposed to the game screwing us over.

 

[DraigUK]

You're not a nice man according to my friend Teezo who is reading this. You're full of bluster and lacking in empathy. We're not even sure you've even played Elite: Dangerous in fact. If you fast forward to near the end you can hear us talking about you.

I play. A bit less recently than previously, but then again I've been playing and testing for months. Still, this screenshot is from earlier this evening so, yes I do play. I have no interest in what you or your friend say about me.

View attachment 5447

I've a pretty low tolerance for people who want to make incremental changes to a game I love and make it easier and easier and easier until the game I love no longer exists. They don't even see what they are doing, and they certainly don't care. Your one of them.

You want to make these sorts of changes, such as the one highlighted in this thread, not for the good of the game, but more often than not just because you are new, haven't played it long enough and therefore find it hard, or don't understand how (or want) to try and do things better. Because you don't understand taking 20 mins to kill anything is ridiculous, or how much more satisfying it is to get a kill despite 3 cops joining in, and so on.

Instead of embracing the inherent challenge involved and getting better at killing ships before the cops even show up, you prefer the cops back off from a kill (ludicrous) and if you land one shot on a target up to 10 seconds (which is a lifetime) before he dies you get the credit. Stupid beyond belief, and totally immersion breaking in my opinion. All because you don't like an NPC getting in the last shot occasionally. Well, do it better then! Don't allow him to do so.

I'm getting more frustrated and annoyed with FD for actually giving credence and implementing these sorts of changes, instead of just coming on the forums and saying that's the way it's meant to be and deal with it.
It has been this way ever since you could shoot another ship 30 years ago, and less than a week into release they change it to this joke instead.

If they insist on making it easier to do everything, it all becomes meaningless and is no longer Elite. It's already far more forgiving and easier than it should be and seems to offer no new challenges, it just gets dumbed down with every patch.

You don't even get why saying having some stray shots into a cop do no damage is a bad idea!
This will be the next thing to complain about I expect.

Slippery slope indeed, and it is getting steeper.

 

[bitstorm]

How about some lateral thinking :

The two complaints mentioned in this thread

• NPC gets the last hit and takes the bounty (forget whether that's right or not)
• NPCs immediately attacking you for a stray shot (again right/wrong is not an issue)

So combine these two aspects and there's your solution.

Spoiler

When you're target is low throw a few shots at an NPC voila you now have no-one else attacking your target. I haven't tried it, but it seems viable.

 

[Ghostlight]

because once you've progressed just a tiny bit further in the game, you'll realise that kill stealing is not an issue once you've got some decent weapons and can kill the enemy before anyone turns up..

That the whole point. It was the enemies that were actually difficult and took 10+ minutes to kill from all their weaving about, (or their ship outclassed yours totally) that were problematic when kill-stolen by AI. The ones you REALLY fought for. That was bad design. Don't worry, once the game heats up I bet there will be plenty of human pilots happy to step into the AI's shoes and KS from you all day long.

 

[gumbie]

If they insist on making it easier to do everything, it all becomes meaningless and is no longer Elite. It's already far more forgiving and easier than it should be and seems to offer no new challenges, it just gets dumbed down with every patch.


Slippery slope indeed, and it is getting steeper.

The first time I screwed up a landing and discovered space stations were now made of rubber I was pretty disgusted.

Still looking for the danger and unforgiving universe.

At least yesterday I managed to die, even if it did involve supercruise, a star and going to make a cup of tea.

 

[Mixxi Pal]

I've a pretty low tolerance for people who want to make incremental changes to a game I love and make it easier and easier and easier until the game I love no longer exists. They don't even see what they are doing, and they certainly don't care. Your one of them.

With all due respect (Teezo loves you really) all I've ever said is that... it's the most rage inducing gameplay I've ever experienced. I'm perfectly willing to accept I'm simply doing stuff wrong and I'm not good enough to experience any joy in this game. Whatever. All I'm saying is... it really aggravates me.

I think it would annoy me less if my friend and I didn't have to ss about for ages (I'll email you the 100 hours of footage buddy) trying to find each other. The little niggly things build up. Not that the multiplayer being broken is a wee niggle but... it is. Ish. Anyway. Carry on. No doubt Ian Phillips is waiting for me to say something so as he can pounce.

 

[Jackboot]

There is an immersion argument for me as to why this is bad, but its part of a bigger problem.

I know some think its a ridiculous argument, but lets just pretend that you really are a space pilot hunting bounties some year far into the future. Others are also hunting bounties, including the police force trying to keep the place safe. Bounties are awarded for kills.

Now ask yourself why would you share a bounty with a perfect stranger who was competing with you for it? Because they attacked too? Nope, you'd keep it. I would anyway. So should the NPC's you are competing with. This is just how the world should work, and did for a few days. Now they don't even claim it. No idea why, wouldn't you if you were them?

This is a stupid change and is exactly what I feared, the devs are going to water this game down more and more because people whine and complain and ruin the experience for those of us who are enjoying themselves and don't have the time to go to the forums all day and try to defend why the experience should try to stay as realistic as possible even if that means it is too difficult for certain types of people. I've seen this happen sooo many times before with games I've enjoyed, its always a race to play as much as possible in the beginning before the devs crack and make everything stupid easy for everyone.

Hope to get another month out of this one but at this rate it won't be long before the rep system is "fixed" to have numbers showing you exactly where you stand with everyone and it rockets up every time you do hardly anything and trading will be obvious exactly where to go to get tremendous profits because station A always sells low and station B always buys high with no thinking involved at all and bounties will be shared with everyone who does any damage at all and everything will just be easy easy easy to appease the masses

I give it maybe a month, probably more like two weeks.

 

[ste]

everything will just be easy easy easy to appease the masses

I give it maybe a month, probably more like two weeks.

Its already too late. 10 hours without fear of enemy interdiction tells me its already too late.

 

[JACyo]

Until FD finally implement some form of bounty sharing mechanism ( for example bounty reward is shared according to how much damage you've done to the target ) , I prefer having this work around to temporary "fix" this issue. After they've implemented bounty sharing (or if they will ever do it anyway), then I do think npc should revert back to how they were used to be before this patch.

 

[ste]

Until FD finally implement some form of bounty sharing mechanism,

To be honest I think that would be even worse.

We wanted to stop NPCs stealing our hard earned cash, we got it, I think we should just leave it at that. Yes it makes zero sense, but it stops us not feeling like we got robbed.

 

[zorianarki]

Hmm, I find it more immersion breaking that the cap ships keeps rejumping in timed perfectly with player arrival, but that might just be me.

Also if I was a bounty hunter I'd share my bounty with people who helped out, but we don't have that option so... I really don't mind this change much but I find the reaction from some of you pretty hilarious.

tbh, FD have states many times that gameplay > immersion / realism. Look at the flight mechanics. And this, in my opinion, improves gameplay at a very minimal cost to immersion for a group of players.

 

[Alric]

Kill stealing is an awful mechanic. It doesn't make games hard, it just makes them silly and annoying.

If you want a hard game, ask for pirates interdicting you in mobs of 10, or Thargoids attacking you in mid hyper jump, or space creatures that swarm miners. Police that hunt you down in force, or ship malfunctions that you have to work around. Surges of radiation or dangerous regions of space or NPC traders who call in tooled up reinforcements when you jump them.

Don't ask for NPCs who magically know which gun zapped the last "hit point" and pay bounties based on it. Because that is not hard, that is silly.

 

[zorianarki]

Kill stealing is an awful mechanic. It doesn't make games hard, it just makes them silly and annoying.

If you want a hard game, ask for pirates interdicting you in mobs of 10, or Thargoids attacking you in mid hyper jump, or space creatures that swarm miners. Police that hunt you down in force, or ship malfunctions that you have to work around. Surges of radiation or dangerous regions of space or NPC traders who call in tooled up reinforcements when you jump them.

Don't ask for NPCs who magically know which gun zapped the last "hit point" and pay bounties based on it. Because that is not hard, that is silly.

THIS I want all these things!