Should Elite have a difficulty setting?
- Thread starter Skybird
- Start date
I'm not sure how it would work with an always online, interactive universe. You can't have difficulty settings without single player.
Unless the actions of players on lower difficulties have zero effect on the "persistent" universe, no.
![[VR] Frank_G](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/59/59394.jpg?1553527111){kind=avatar}
Hmm... no.
Good God No ! This isn't a console game.
Well - there already is: PVE group/solo/open
Yes why not:
#1 - Dead
#2 - Deader
#3 - Deadest
#1 - Dead
#2 - Deader
#3 - Deadest
+1 This. We don't need a "difficulty setting", just like we don't need a "save game" function. You learn, you improve or find other ways to deal with things, you grow with the game. I'm never going to be a great PvP dogfighter, so I avoid the situation (at least until I get an Oculus Rift) by playing Solo. Why would you want a difficulty setting?
Hmm, no, I guess. I think Solo/Private Group/Open are reasonable enough. Though an option to ramp the difficulty up a bit might be nice at times 
Speak for yourself. I want to be able to save my progress to a floppy disk, like the good ol' days
Speak for yourself. I want to be able to save my progress to a floppy disk, like the good ol' days
Speak for yourself. I want to be able to save my progress to a floppy disk, like the good ol' days
And then do some hex-editing magic
.
In Elite and Frontier there was a difficulty setting, sort of. If you wanted to play space trucking money-making simulator in "easy" mode you ferried high tech goods between the heavily policed and politically stable systems such as Sol and Barnard's Star. You could do this literally for ever in an unshielded cargo ship because NPC pirates never attacked in those systems.
If you wanted to play Biggles-in-space interplanetary pew-pew in "difficult" mode you went to Riedquat with a hold full of expensive cargo, or did one of the system-specific cheats to force a Witchspace misjump, and pitched yourself against pack of pirates or a Thargoid interdiction fleet.
Most people chose a career path that moved somewhere between these two extremes.
The problem with Elite: Dangerous is that there's none of that granularity. It's a galaxy of uniformity, the threat level of which is determined far more by the mode in which you play than the areas to which you travel. The most unlawful anarchy systems are a cakewalk in Solo mode because very few of the NPCs have teeth and those that do (twin railgun Sidewinders or plasma Anacondas) only attack one at a time. While over in Open mode the very systems that are supposed to be the safest are where the PvP-loving players lurk in massively armed ships because they know that's where the marks will be and that there's next to no disincentive against random attack.
In short, players should be able to choose their "difficulty setting" in any Elite game by virtue of the ship they fly and the systems they visit. But they can't do that in ED because the whole thing is so fundamentally broken. Granted it's not nearly as easy to control player behaviour in a multiplayer environment as it is to code IF POLICE_LEVEL=100 THEN LET PIRATES=0 in a single-player game but there are mechanisms within this game, even the shallow shell we have right now, with which FD could at least attempt to restore a sense of political continuity with the earlier games and with the official fiction of which they're so proud. But so far it's been basically non-existent.
If you wanted to play Biggles-in-space interplanetary pew-pew in "difficult" mode you went to Riedquat with a hold full of expensive cargo, or did one of the system-specific cheats to force a Witchspace misjump, and pitched yourself against pack of pirates or a Thargoid interdiction fleet.
Most people chose a career path that moved somewhere between these two extremes.
The problem with Elite: Dangerous is that there's none of that granularity. It's a galaxy of uniformity, the threat level of which is determined far more by the mode in which you play than the areas to which you travel. The most unlawful anarchy systems are a cakewalk in Solo mode because very few of the NPCs have teeth and those that do (twin railgun Sidewinders or plasma Anacondas) only attack one at a time. While over in Open mode the very systems that are supposed to be the safest are where the PvP-loving players lurk in massively armed ships because they know that's where the marks will be and that there's next to no disincentive against random attack.
In short, players should be able to choose their "difficulty setting" in any Elite game by virtue of the ship they fly and the systems they visit. But they can't do that in ED because the whole thing is so fundamentally broken. Granted it's not nearly as easy to control player behaviour in a multiplayer environment as it is to code IF POLICE_LEVEL=100 THEN LET PIRATES=0 in a single-player game but there are mechanisms within this game, even the shallow shell we have right now, with which FD could at least attempt to restore a sense of political continuity with the earlier games and with the official fiction of which they're so proud. But so far it's been basically non-existent.
There is only one appropriate difficulty level for Elite.
Everyone Must Die Nightmare Insanity Masochism
Everyone Must Die Nightmare Insanity Masochism
Really??
I have found the combat to be go and make a cup of tea while you win easy
I said there was only one "appropriate difficulty." Not that it actually was difficult.