Gah... I really hope this is the result of rushing (again) to get an update out the door and not the way the game's going to be.
I also can't for the life of me figure out why they would have any kind of "global" AI setting at this point. From the get-go Elite Dangerous has been set up to handle levels of difficulty based on the environment rather than an arbitrary "Novice/Beginner/Experienced/Expert" skill selection. From launch, there has been a security level buried deep in the details screen of every system in the game that has never been used for anything until 2.1. Apparently there is improved police response in High Sec systems. Great! Why not have it run the spectrum from Rich, High Sec to poor low sec to Anarchy, and leave it up to the CMDR as to where they fly? You want to do space trucking? Stay in the good neighborhoods. You want danger and excitement? Run missions in low sec or Anarchy and face bigger risks, and get bigger rewards.
Same thing with pilot skill level. They took a HUGE step in the right direction by trying to scale NPC skills to the pilots involved, but because AI was so brain dead for the past 18 months since launch, most pilots have never learned anything other than "Elite" means "Biggest Bounty." And it's not the players' fault, either. The "Git Gud" crowd can laugh all they want, but the rules have changed in this game for the first time in a
year and a half. I forget which country it was, but a long while back they switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right (or vice versa) and saw more traffic accidents in the next weeks than the rest of the world combined. It wasn't that people were bad drivers, they had just been doing things the same way forever until it became habit. Then the rules changed and all the sudden it was a demolition derby.
Anyway I got off point. NPC Skill level maybe shouldn't be tied to PC skill level so much as system security again. High Sec, the proportion of Elite and Deadly pilots will all be law abiding or cops themselves, looking out for the flock. The more you slide toward low sec and Anarchy, the greater the chance the Elites will be one of the bad guys.
The segregation of the resource sites into low, medium, high and hazardous is great. HAZREZ (and compromised beacons) were a great idea, and should be places only crazy good pilots can survive, or people who wing up. There should be HUGE bounties and booty to be won there, but CMDRs should have to work for it. And again, people not interested in a fight should steer clear.
"Blaze Your Own Trail" should mean that if a player WANTS to do Euro Truck Simulator in space unmolested they can - if they stay in the good neighborhoods. The flip side is that there should be cutthroat parts of the galaxy where if you're not part of the criminal or government faction that runs the place you are crying for port because you're in the wrong place, and you're there because you wanted to pick a fight or you got careless and plotted a course that took you down the wrong alley.
It seems like all the pieces are in the game engine to make this possible. They have been for a long time.
I'm still holding out for the next update, for this and for fixes to the mission system and background sim. It's the weekend so I'm thinking Tuesday earliest for .03. They're so close to giving this game some real GAME.
Or to breaking my heart one more time.
