Discuss the AI here!

[Windscreen Smudge]

90% of the player base left due to boredom. Of the remaining 10%, half will leave due to 2.1. Before you know it, we'll be the only ones playing it. Smudge - you and I will rule this forum!

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Tactics suck. I want to be able to Rambo every NPC. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-KA-BOOM! Rinse and repeat.

Actually I've been talking with a couple of friends who got bored and left the game, mentioning that the AI has been improved and they were about to jump on a copy of Horizons and get back in the game.

Now that it's been announced that Frontier is thinking about nerfing the AI again I've had to tell them to hold off on coming back to the game because I can't be certain the changes are permanent.

So yeah, a fundamental problem that has been driving players away from the game for over a year just got fixed, and people are trying to get it unfixed. I'm not exactly pleased with our community right now.

 

[Robert Maynard]

So yeah, a fundamental problem that has been driving players away from the game for over a year just got fixed, and people are trying to get it unfixed. I'm not exactly pleased with our community right now.

While the AI itself may be "fixed" as you put it, its application in 2.1 was not and required some fixing itself - hence Zac's thread this afternoon.

Taking Engineered Weaponry from NPCs at the moment need not mean that they will never return - as a matter of fact, I got jumped by an Elite Python this evening and it was doing heat damage to my ship (sadly not recorded - Plays.tv is not playing nicely at the moment).

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

It's current threat level, so 0 is 0 threat...for now. It also *may* be a trap, ships waiting for you to drop in before they jump you so be on guard. Of course, it may also be entirely safe

4 is harder than 2, 2 is harder than 1.

well so far nothing interdicted me but i was jumping through more empty than inhabited. all the USS wer 0 threat degraded emissions and they were mostly wrecks with rescue 1 (and sometimes 3-4 as well) picking over looking at it. one was a pile of materials just there for the scooping. and they stayed until i got all 8 or 9 of them. still looking for interdictions to see freq of, persistence of npcs if i escape, strength of them in a fight. maybe will try doing a few missions.

 

[verminstar]

Wait for a few months after the players started doing upgrades to their ships. I can already see the threads about AI being easy. Just wait.

Cool trick...my nan used to be able to read tea leaves.

Then perhaps in a few months, further adjustments might have been made? Your comment seems to assume that FD have now retired from the programming business and things will go static. That's either incredibly short sighted or just badly delivered sarcasm ^^

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

Actually I've been talking with a couple of friends who got bored and left the game, mentioning that the AI has been improved and they were about to jump on a copy of Horizons and get back in the game.

Now that it's been announced that Frontier is thinking about nerfing the AI again I've had to tell them to hold off on coming back to the game because I can't be certain the changes are permanent.

So yeah, a fundamental problem that has been driving players away from the game for over a year just got fixed, and people are trying to get it unfixed. I'm not exactly pleased with our community right now.

my impression (its not firm info though) is not that they are looking to nerf at all. they are looking at possibly unintended stuff, such as automagically teleporting npc repeat interdictions, that kind of thing. my guess is that npcs should at some point be giving that up and looking for other targets if you keep escaping and they dont seem to. its ok if the odd crazy one does it but not all of them!

 

[JosiahD]

For mine, it shouldn't be a question of nerfing the current AI or leaving it as is - it's a question of 'does the AI (current, previous or future) provide a LOGICAL distribution if NPC skill and ship loadout, even ammunition state?' If the answer is no, then it needs to be adjusted. Personally I can't judge the current AI just yet as I'm 13000 ly out and not back to the bubble yet. My point is that it shouldn't be unversally as difficult as many posts seem to suggest (or universally too easy as was previously the case according to some) - maybe the forums are skewed though in that only those who think the AI needs changing because its too hard or easy post on the forums the most? I need a more balanced appraisal of the AI - the difficulty should be contextual (eg HAZ RES harder than a normal RES, which sounds like it's the case), and more importantly there needs to be a diverse range of AI skill level when I enter a system or instance (eg efen the NPCs in a HAZ RES or CZ shouldn't be universally dangerous or elite rated - not saying they are now, just that I wouldn't expect that to be the case). Still, it will always be difficult for Frontier to balance the AI skill to suit all - so long as the difficulty and NPC loadout is contextually and logically scaled to the situation you enter (eg taking a high value assassination mission vs bounty hunting in a HAZ RES vs a simple courier mission carrying non-attractive cargo) then I'll be happy as it allows an assessment of the risk you're taking beforehand.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

While the AI itself may be "fixed" as you put it, its application in 2.1 was not and required some fixing itself - hence Zac's thread this afternoon.

Taking Engineered Weaponry from NPCs at the moment need not mean that they will never return - as a matter of fact, I got jumped by an Elite Python this evening and it was doing heat damage to my ship (sadly not recorded - Plays.tv is not playing nicely at the moment).

You've been around long enough to know how this works. Don't try and butter it up, anyone who has seen how FDev works when they "pull something from the game for further testing" knows exactly where this road leads.

my impression (its not firm info though) is not that they are looking to nerf at all. they are looking at possibly unintended stuff, such as automagically teleporting npc repeat interdictions, that kind of thing. my guess is that npcs should at some point be giving that up and looking for other targets if you keep escaping and they dont seem to. its ok if the odd crazy one does it but not all of them!

Buddy the damage is done. FDev are in a full defensive panic and they're going to rip parts out of the game that had nothing to do with the bugs that are causing the problem, and the bugs are still going to be there when they're done because for every one person giving clear and valuable information about what the problem was there were 99 other people screaming "THE AI IS CHEATING THIS IS INSANE YOU'VE LITERALLY RUINED MY LIFE DAVID BRABEN I'M LEAVING FOREVER AND EVER!"

I find this particularly piquant after reading about how the Devs for No Man's Sky received Death Threats because they delayed the game to give it a little polish.

Same childish mentality, it just wasn't taken to that extreme this time.

https://www.destructoid.com/no-man-...ds-of-death-threats-due-to-delay-364479.phtml

 

[Para Handy]

Just a bit of info post the "modded NPCs removal" and the screams of outrage from the "hard nuts" (only teasing).

Just this evening, in my AspE (still), whilst manoeuvring to land on a rocky moon (terrain thingey) a contact slips into view and scans me, it turned out to be an Elite ImpEagle and was clean so I ignored it. However it then started attacking with an impulse attack so I had to fight back. Took ages, really ages, lots of FA off, viffing etc, cleared it's shields a couple of times and even threw some missiles at it (no security turned up even though it is high sec system) before it finally blew up. My reward - 600Cr (yes I did KWS it) - so just the bounty for attacking me. That means to me that the NP must have just spawned post the server changes and yes it still had modded weapons.

I think the people who bemoaned all NPCs losing modded weapons will be a bit happier if indeed Elite rated AI still has some.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Just a bit of info post the "modded NPCs removal" and the screams of outrage from the "hard nuts" (only teasing).

Just this evening, in my AspE (still), whilst manoeuvring to land on a rocky moon (terrain thingey) a contact slips into view and scans me, it turned out to be an Elite ImpEagle and was clean so I ignored it. However it then started attacking with an impulse attack so I had to fight back. Took ages, really ages, lots of FA off, viffing etc, cleared it's shields a couple of times and even threw some missiles at it (no security turned up even though it is high sec system) before it finally blew up. My reward - 600Cr (yes I did KWS it) - so just the bounty for attacking me. That means to me that the NP must have just spawned post the server changes and yes it still had modded weapons.

I think the people who bemoaned all NPCs losing modded weapons will be a bit happier if indeed Elite rated AI still has some.

That just means that either the change hasn't gone through yet, or FDev screwed up trying to fix something by screwing up something else, resulting in a double screw attack.

I want no part of this, we're entering Bizarro territory now.

 

[AnrDaemon]

Until the bug with NPC one-shot player ships is fixed, th poll is senseless.

 

[lysan]

That just means that either the change hasn't gone through yet, or FDev screwed up trying to fix something by screwing up something else, resulting in a double screw attack.

I want no part of this, we're entering Bizarro territory now.

Just did a quick test, however I really don't know if the server has been updated or not, so I might just have been unlucky.
It was easy, too easy. My vulture managed to take down dangerous and Elite Python, FDL and one Anaconda with one Eagle as wingman.

Sorry that is not fun for me, so now that The Witcher Blood and Wine are on my computer I will play that for awhile, until we know if this was just a coincident or how it is suppose to be.

 

[PavelKCZ]

Buddy the damage is done. FDev are in a full defensive panic and they're going to rip parts out of the game that had nothing to do with the bugs that are causing the problem, and the bugs are still going to be there when they're done because for every one person giving clear and valuable information about what the problem was there were 99 other people screaming "THE AI IS CHEATING THIS IS INSANE YOU'VE LITERALLY RUINED MY LIFE DAVID BRABEN I'M LEAVING FOREVER AND EVER!"

Well, if I would want to be harsh, I can use the same rhetoric which I already read plenty of times on this forum, especially from players from "make it harder" camp.

Maybe this game is not for you. Go and play something else. Git Gud.

But, because I am well behaving man, I will not write it.

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Just did a quick test, however I really don't know if the server has been updated or not, so I might just have been unlucky.
It was easy, too easy. My vulture managed to take down dangerous and Elite Python, FDL and one Anaconda with one Eagle as wingman.

Sorry that is not fun for me, so now that The Witcher Blood and Wine are on my computer I will play that for awhile, until we know if this was just a coincident or how it is suppose to be.

http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/thumb/6/60/Viva_La_Resistance.jpg/250px-Viva_La_Resistance.jpg

The patch was not yet implemented. Maybe you are as good as Chuck Norris

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Maybe this game is not for you. Go and play something else. Git Gud.

Oh how CLEVER! You've really swayed my opinion of the community with your astute application of text color to make an appropriately mature comment given what you were replying to.

 

[PavelKCZ]

Oh how CLEVER! You've really swayed my opinion of the community with your astute application of text color to make an appropriately mature comment given what you were replying to.

I am sorry, but I am really tired of those endless discussions between the hardcore minority of players and the rest of ED players. I apologize and do not be so serious. After all, it is just a computer game.

 

[Katkon]

Just did a quick test, however I really don't know if the server has been updated or not, so I might just have been unlucky.
It was easy, too easy. My vulture managed to take down dangerous and Elite Python, FDL and one Anaconda with one Eagle as wingman.

Sorry that is not fun for me, so now that The Witcher Blood and Wine are on my computer I will play that for awhile, until we know if this was just a coincident or how it is suppose to be.

http://wiki.urbandead.com/images/thumb/6/60/Viva_La_Resistance.jpg/250px-Viva_La_Resistance.jpg

Oh that's just wonderful. I'm seething right now. Truly hacked off that the whiners got their way. Give them a separate "Easy Mode" but don't remove the challenge for those of us who like it!

 

[Fangwulf]

The AI difficulty is one of the reasons I stopped playing the game regularly, and that was a few updates back. Even the broken AI from last update were tough when they weren't spinning in place. I suppose I'm too casual for the game anymore, but I do miss being able to play for 30 minutes and do some worthwhile bounty hunting. I like all of the additions the updates have brought so far, except a lot of the AI changes. Some was good, most just make the game not as enjoyable to me. I have played plenty of difficult games that I was eventually able to overcome with changes in tactics or practice, but not with Elite. I suppose it is an MMO right? They even have healing beams now. My friends left the game long ago anyway. I really hope things will change in some way though. I really want to enjoy the other things updates bring, but not if I die every time I take a mission. Heck, I would pay for an offline version of the game with difficulty settings.

Actually, what we need now is the ability to create our own wings with NPCs. Make them just as good as the enemy AI, even if only in solo. I would love to be able to have three other NPC friends in my wing, then you could keep the current AI as they are!

 

[Katkon]

I am sorry, but I am really tired of those endless discussions between the hardcore minority of players and the rest of ED players. I apologize and do not be so serious. After all, it is just a computer game.

I find the "hardcore" reference amusing. We're not hardcore - we just like a challenge. That is what Elite used to be about, and that is what it (very briefly) was with 2.1. Also - speaking of being serious: I think it's exactly those who were afraid of losing in-game pixels that were serious and rage-quitting left, right and center. Not to the so-called hardcore element: we recognize that it is a game and there to be enjoyed. But we want challenge not "easy mode".

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

I am sorry, but I am really tired of those endless discussions between the hardcore minority of players and the rest of ED players. I apologize and do not be so serious. After all, it is just a computer game.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but this entire forum is a minority of the community, and there is no "hardcore minority" that are pushing on anyone else within the especially small minority of the forum posters. If you look at the poll at the top of the page two thousand participants are split equally on this topic.

I've stopped talking about the game long ago. This has been about the cesspit forums and how a vocal minority are allowed to dramatically influence the way the vast majority spend their free time, simply because they played the victim card.

 

[Titan1978]

hope the ai is nerfed...cant wait to restart my bounty hunting earnings

 

[pippo]

Oh that's just wonderful. I'm seething right now. Truly hacked off that the whiners got their way. Give them a separate "Easy Mode" but don't remove the challenge for those of us who like it!

I'm not sure this post will remain unnoticed.
Good luck!