Having spent the last 30+ years playing against AI in computer games, I find humans immensely more interesting than any computer algorithm. That applies to when I'm the aggressor or the pursued. Or maybe I'm just minding my own business. The human element still makes it more interesting.
No one here claims that humans aren't more
interesting opponents than NPCs. But there are two distinct reasons why that is so:
1. Compared to NPCs, humans draw from a vastly wider spectrum of potential strategies, tactics, decisions, are less predictable (while not just being random), and can be fully communicated with.
2. A human opponent is an actual person with actual feelings, not a lifeless algorithm.
For example a PvPer purely in the #1 camp would be a genuine pirate who steals from human players because NPCs just follow the same patterns, cannot be talked to etc.; such a pirate demands cargo from player traders and lets them go if they comply.
A PvPer purely in the #2 camp is our typical griefer, relishing on the fact that the opponent has actual (bad) feelings about their ship being destroyed.
Everyone would love for NPCs to fulfill #1, too, but this is indeed a long way off still. Lots of people who regard themselves as PvPers in the #1 camp would not care whether their opponents are human or AI if they were 100% indistinguishable from another.
But then with #2, there is a catch, it is a double-sided coin. One extreme end is the one I mentioned, the griefer. The other side of the coin is the coop player, who wants to have other players around to help each other out, do stuff together etc, where NPC companions can never* fulfill the social aspects.
And then again, of course, #1 and #2 often are mixed together. A coop player may want to have human wingmates instead of NPCs not just because there are actual people to socialize with, but also because of all the reasons from #1. A PvPer may seek the full range of human decision-making and the challenge resulting from that, as well as the knowledge that if they defeat the opponent, someone on the other end there has actual feelings about it (these are not your garden variety griefers who attack Haulers with their Vultures - no challenge in that; these players are, for example, doing competitive tournaments, relishing in victory and the defeat of their opponents as well as the challenge and sportmanship).
The reason why I am writing all this is thus: you describe yourself as belonging clearly only in the #1 camp. You find NPCs too dumb and predictable, too easy and boring. You don't need a change to the modes in ED, you already have exactly what you wish for in Open Play. What you don't get is to fight people who have no wish to do so, either in general or just not as mere victims in their little freighters (you may see them in Open Play once they feel confident enough about their fighting skills as well as their equipment). If you could force them to be in Open Play mode anyway, they would pose no challenge to you, and may possibly even be easier to defeat than a typical NPC, therefore not even satisfying the very reason you stated for wanting to fight against human players.
The way ED is set up suits exactly your type of player already, you just don't seem to realize it. (Or you are being dishonest here not to mention that you also belong into camp #2.)
(*Eventual personhood of AI and common acceptance thereof notwithstanding.)
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
