Discuss the AI here!

[Acid4Brains]

i have to say that yes... for myself aswell the AI is much harder! in the past three days i've lost my FDL, Python and Vulture. i find i get out turned by everything even a Federal Corvette can keep its noise pointing at me in my Vulture... i was like    ! And Eagles.... oh man those little buggers... can barley hit them! it 's annoying let alone get them infront of my crosshairs.

I kinda knew something was up when i came across my first Sidewinder in 2.1 and it took my sheilds down in 3 passes!

I can understan the hard-core fans wanting more/challenging gameplay but not everyone here plays every waking hour. some have jobs, families, life out side. some dont. im not bashing any of them but i think there needs to be some balancing so theres enough for all. not every ship you come across should be uber powered. i feel sorry for the new comers to the game as they will get totally smoked! even more than me!

 

[Titan1978]

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

you can play in open!! why should u have challenging in both open and solo? you like to get your handed to you - do it taking on human cmdrs. you cant have it both ways

 

[pippo]

The best thing I've read so far is the difficutly slider idea... not sure how difficult it is to implement, though.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

you can play in open!! why should u have challenging in both open and solo? you like to get your handed to you - do it taking on human cmdrs. you cant have it both ways

What the heck are you talking about?

 

[Robert Maynard]

If you look at the poll at the top of the page two thousand participants are split equally on this topic.

If the poll was split equally, it would be symmetrical - there would be as many votes for "too easy" as there were for "too hard".

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

The best thing I've read so far is the difficutly slider idea... not sure how difficult it is to implement, though.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -



What the heck are you talking about?

Did you ever play Oblivion?

That game had a difficulty slider. Would you like to recall how effective it was at making the game enjoyable for you?

 

[Ian Skippy]

I can understan the hard-core fans wanting more/challenging gameplay but not everyone here plays every waking hour. some have jobs, families, life out side. some dont. im not bashing any of them

Yes, you are bashing them. In a very immature way, too. So here's a tip from someone with a job, significant other, life outside etc: dont use any of that as an excuse for being unskilled at something.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

If the poll was split equally, it would be symmetrical - there would be as many votes for "too easy" as there were for "too hard".

Holy crap Rob, would you like to think about what you just said before I rip into you?

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

so far... npcs seem all peace loving traders and their escorts. im getting more and more nervous. only combat was an expert level adder who was in a USS i dropped into because of a mission. and i jumped him once i saw he was wanted, wasnt much of a fight. surprise helps i guess. 14k bounty. im going to try more missions someone has to interdict me sometime. not one interdiction in what 2 or 3 hours?

 

[Mixxi Pal]

Just tried a High intensity RES with my winglady and found it really enjoyable and exciting. I fly a DBS while she's in a Cobra (we don't have Horizons) and it's fair to say, we're both absolutely terrible pilots, yet managed fine with some security help. We even managed a wing of three Pythons without much trouble and left after 15-20 minutes with close to a million credits and our hulls at 40%. LOVED IT.

 

[pippo]

Did you ever play Oblivion?

That game had a difficulty slider. Would you like to recall how effective it was at making the game enjoyable for you?

Jesus, between this tone and your other post below, I'm not too sure I should be engaging in a conversation, but hey ho..
I'd be happy to hear what's so wrong about having difficulty settings set by individual players, to match their own expectations?

And yes I played Oblivion, and I still don't get what exactly you're on about...

 

[DaveB]

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!

Seethe away, but if you must, do it from a correct viewpoint. The AI's flying skill isn't getting nerfed, they are just taking away the over-proliferation of engineer mods on NPCs which were the cause of many folks mistakenly blaming the AI changes for problems they were having. They've got too many balance issues impacting the game simultaneously (AI skill, spawn scaling, mod prevalence on NPCs etc) to gather clean data on any of them, so they shut one of them off in order to be able to address the others. This has nothing to do with the "whiners getting their way" but by all means froth away if you need your rage-fix.

 

[Ian Skippy]

so far... npcs seem all peace loving traders and their escorts. im getting more and more nervous. only combat was an expert level adder who was in a USS i dropped into because of a mission. and i jumped him once i saw he was wanted, wasnt much of a fight. surprise helps i guess. 14k bounty. im going to try more missions someone has to interdict me sometime. not one interdiction in what 2 or 3 hours?

If you dont take missions, dont have cargo, arent in powerplay and stay in high=sec you want get interdicted much at all anymore. But go in low-sec with a mission, cargo full of gold and registered to a power: interdiction carnage.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Just tried a High intensity RES with my winglady and found it really enjoyable and exciting. I fly a DBS while she's in a Cobra (we don't have Horizons) and it's fair to say, we're both absolutely terrible pilots, yet managed fine with some security help. We even managed a wing of three Pythons without much trouble and left after 15-20 minutes with close to a million credits and our hulls at 40%. LOVED IT.

Heh....casuals won agai.....40%?! Good on you mate!

 

[Mengy]

So, I keep reading posts by commanders who possess amazing combat skills wanting more challenge in the game, and many of these pro Elite players seem down that the npc's are losing their engineer weapons and "getting made easier for the casuals". So, here is an honest question for the Elite combat rated Elite players who desire a more challenging game:

what ship are you flying into combat?

I mean honestly, are you fighting in A-rated Corvettes? Fully decked out FDL's? If you want more challenge why not jump into combat zones flying an Eagle or a Viper and see how challenging it is? You can very easily make the game very challenging by not flying the best ships the game has to offer...?

 

[Patrick_68000]

It will be difficult to satisfy everyone

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Jesus, between this tone and your other post below, I'm not too sure I should be engaging in a conversation, but hey ho..
I'd be happy to hear what's so wrong about having difficulty settings set by individual players, to match their own expectations?

And yes I played Oblivion, and I still don't get what exactly you're on about...

The biggest running joke about Oblivion before the Horse Armor debacle was about how utterly useless the difficulty slider was. Every game that has had a difficulty slider has been laughed at similarly since, because it never works. It's either horribly inaccurate for setting a difficulty that's enjoyable for anyone, or in order to make it work the devs have to cheese it by doing things which currently on this forum have been placed under the label of "Cheating" and used under false pretenses to blow up FUD about the AI.

So I would recommend renaming your request to either a "Frustration Slider" or a "Cheat Slider" because that's what it will be.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

So, I keep reading posts by commanders who possess amazing combat skills wanting more challenge in the game, and many of these pro Elite players seem down that the npc's are losing their engineer weapons and "getting made easier for the casuals". So, here is an honest question for the Elite combat rated Elite players who desire a more challenging game:

what ship are you flying into combat?

I mean honestly, are you fighting in A-rated Corvettes? Fully decked out FDL's? If you want more challenge why not jump into combat zones flying an Eagle or a Viper and see how challenging it is? You can very easily make the game very challenging by not flying the best ships the game has to offer...?

Right now I'm an Expert ranked pilot flying a Courier with no weapons.

Fite me.

 

[pippo]

So, I keep reading posts by commanders who possess amazing combat skills wanting more challenge in the game, and many of these pro Elite players seem down that the npc's are losing their engineer weapons and "getting made easier for the casuals". So, here is an honest question for the Elite combat rated Elite players who desire a more challenging game:

what ship are you flying into combat?

I mean honestly, are you fighting in A-rated Corvettes? Fully decked out FDL's? If you want more challenge why not jump into combat zones flying an Eagle or a Viper and see how challenging it is? You can very easily make the game very challenging by not flying the best ships the game has to offer...?

I'm pretty pleased with the AI change but have to admit that in order to keep enjoying the game, I had to leave my decked out FDL station side and run around in a much cheaper ship... my kill ratio has dramatically dropped but I think it's for the best.

I mean, you don't send a huge battleship to war unless you know you can afford the loss, don't you? I can't at the moment, maybe in the future...

I think many players have lowered their expectations and many are now flying smaller ships for the same reasons (only guessing), but if you think about it, it's as good as clearing your save to rediscover the game, no? I recall reading a thread about someone doing just that again today.

 

[Garik]

Any one else notice how the just right votes soared into an impressive lead almost over night....they were then slowly overtaken by the too hard voters.....dunno if it tells us anything though. Casual players voting casually maybe?

 

[Bazil]

What we seem to keep getting is two camps fighting it out. One wants all of the AI to be generally easy, the other wants all of the AI to be hard as nails and challenging.

Has everyone lost the ability to see things from another perspective and compromise?

I thought before we were getting to some kind of agreement that the AI should get progressively harder as combat rank increases? i.e. To go from easy as 2.0 for harmless to as hard as is programmably possible for Elite.

 

[pippo]

So I would recommend renaming your request to either a "Frustration Slider" or a "Cheat Slider" because that's what it will be.

I hear you, then I hope SAJ's adaptive AI will work instead.
But out of curiosity, why would you care if I play elite after having ticked "easy" or "hardcore"... PvP will remain the same, only my interaction with NPC will differ to yours.