The "average players" piloting skills = ROTFL!

[Bill Clement]

That might functionally be true for some, but it is not for the vast majority of complaint posts I see. When people complain about "dying in seconds" to a small ship, being unable to outrun a slow ship, or being unable to turn well enough to get a single shot off on an NPC before dying; I am sure they tried their best, but there is no "circumstances don't allow for specific improvement" in those scenarios.

Those are people making repeated basic mistakes. The kind that they could fix with as much effort as they already put into complaining if only they had just asked for help instead and didn't preemptively shield themselves from all help with false claims of "skill cap".

We all make basic mistakes, it's nothing against them. My issue is with nurturing a forum culture that encourages this weird sort of ego-driven arrogance which admits defeat while demanding that no one look at what went wrong and externalizing all blame. This only results in demands for a game that allows for a player making repeated basic mistakes to still win.

I don't want to punish less-skilled players, that is not the point. I am happy to help them out. I don't even want to punish those who die, then come here to complain about, to me, outlandish encounters where a had no business dying if they follwed some basic flight principles.

I want the game culture to simply be one that accepts self improvement. Lots of posters do, sure. I like that. But we also have lots of posters who come in, tell stories of dying in frankly ridiculous ways, and demand to be treated as if they were at the peak of their skills.

They are not at the peak of their skills. Honestly, to me, it's would feel condesending to treat them as if they were; I don't want to tell someone they are not worth helping.

Again mate, while I agree with your post, I've got no way of telling who is who- the guy dripping 'zomg, AI sux, it's waaaay too hard' might just have forgotten he can manage his energy output, or (perhaps) can't get to grips with the notion that a T-7 should lose a fight against a battleconda! But he may also be venting his frustration after trying every trick he knows to stay alive against what appears to be equal opposition.

I've got a suggestion. This conversation is going around in circles. How about I take them at their word. I can offer alternative strategies where I see them. At the same time you can assume they're selling themselves short and offer them useful advice on what to do in identical circumstances? That way we have all bases covered.

It's a genuine pleasure talking to you, by the way. A lot of posters would be losing their stuff by this point.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Again mate, while I agree with your post, I've got no way of telling who is who- the guy dripping 'zomg, AI sux, it's waaaay too hard' might just have forgotten he can manage his energy output, or (perhaps) can't get to grips with the notion that a T-7 should lose a fight against a battleconda! But he may also be venting his frustration after trying every trick he knows to stay alive against what appears to be equal opposition.

I've got a suggestion. This conversation is going around in circles. How about I take them at their word. I can offer alternative strategies where I see them. At the same time you can assume they're selling themselves short and offer them useful advice on what to do in identical circumstances? That way we have all bases covered.

It's a genuine pleasure talking to you, by the way. A lot of posters would be losing their stuff by this point.

Agreed, sir! Thanks for the chat!

 

[jasonbirder]

It's pretty silly and unrealistic to expect people to treat "learning how to play a video game" like it was learning a real useful skill used in real life,

I'd argue that's EXACTLY what people should be doing...Its a Space Flight Sim...the clues in the sim they've always required, learning, practice, reading the manual and hours and hours of learning and watching tutorials before you become even partway competent...

Think of the hours it takes to learn Black Shark, DCS A10 or (the daddy of them all) Falcon 4.0 even something simple like IL2 Forgotten Battles is a lengthy and steep learning curve...now Eliteangerous is nothing like as difficult as those...but there's nothing wrong with treating it with a bit of respect...

Plenty of other game genres out there for those that don't want to commit!

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Even Pong you have to learn how to play. Its easy and quick to learn, but you still have to learn that if you wanna play it.

 

[frostypaw]

<snip>

Brave man

Are you feeling brave enough to do the "Should all interdictions and NPC interaction be optional?" poll? I've not got enough popcorn

 

[Mr_Blastman]

EDITED: for not to be offending towards no one. I'm sorry for the original tone of my thread.

Please don't ever apologize for offending someone, OP. Don't do it. Don't bolster the turbid insanity's position society is being poisoned with. Offend them and be proud!

 

[jericho447]

the 2.1 ai is fine. i love it. they just need balancing cause they kill you to fast and they have bugged engineer weapons. witch frontier are working on fixing

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I'd argue that's EXACTLY what people should be doing...Its a Space Flight Sim...the clues in the sim they've always required, learning, practice, reading the manual and hours and hours of learning and watching tutorials before you become even partway competent...

Think of the hours it takes to learn Black Shark, DCS A10 or (the daddy of them all) Falcon 4.0 even something simple like IL2 Forgotten Battles is a lengthy and steep learning curve...now Eliteangerous is nothing like as difficult as those...but there's nothing wrong with treating it with a bit of respect...

Plenty of other game genres out there for those that don't want to commit!

I grew up with Falcon MC, A-10 Attack, and those sorts of flight sims that came with novel-sized books that taught Air Combat Manuevering, bombing techniques, and all the rest. Reading the manual was half the fun.

I think FD can appeal to both the sim crowd and those who would rather just pick up an Xbox controller and fly, though.

One side just needs to concede that putting so much into their flying, and so being better than most, naturally means a real challenge is going to be rare unless you specifically go looking for it (HasRES/High Intensity Conflict Zones, ideally for now). And the other side needs to accept that sometimes, getting thoroughly outflown and having you face caved in by your opponent, or even just surprised and killed before you can react, is just part of the game. (not that this does't happen to simmers, we just seem to like it more)

FD has proven that technically, they can totally accomplish this. They have all the puzzle peices. It's the community that needs to make peace with it.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Please don't ever apologize for offending someone, OP. Don't do it. Don't bolster the turbid insanity's position society is being poisoned with. Offend them and be proud!

That's just as braindead as always apologizing.

If you (non-specific you) offend, stop and think about what you said, how you said it, and why the other person was offended. Then act:

If you could have said it better, or feel you were misguided in your initial thought, apologize and try to do better next time. If you think you could not have avoided offense without compromising your message, and feel your message needed to be said, own causing the offense and accept it, but there's no point in gloating over it.

 

[Mr_Blastman]

That's just as braindead as always apologizing.

If you (non-specific you) offend, stop and think about what you said, how you said it, and why the other person was offended. Then act:

If you could have said it better, or feel you were misguided in your initial thought, apologize and try to do better next time. If you think you could not have avoided offense without compromising your message, and feel your message needed to be said, own causing the offense and accept it, but there's no point in gloating over it.

Nope.

Too many people are offended by the slightest thing these days to the point of absurdity. What, with all the safe space nonsense and micro aggression, I'm probably triggering with this post, alone, and I don't care. Because triggering is a stupid word, as is all the nonsense about offended this or slighted that.

On rare occasion something is legitimately offensive--the kind of stuff we might have been offended from over thirty years ago. But nowadays? This seldom happens, as the bulk of offense is due not to the offender but the perpetually offended.

 

[Ziljan]

Thing is this is a game and I think the vast majority of gamers wont be interested in having to invest time to "learn how to have fun in this game" in the same manner that previous old timer poster did in real life to learn the cello.

It's pretty silly and unrealistic to expect people to treat "learning how to play a video game" like it was learning a real useful skill used in real life, absurd even except for maybe them moba professional types that are trying to earn money in Esport events.

If you think 35 is "old timer" it will probably be another 10 years before you figure this out for yourself but: anything worth doing takes time to learn.

Likewise, anything that is easy to do is probably a waste of your short time on this planet. Your brain is a use-it-or-lose-it organ. Unless your goal in life is to be a static lump of unformed drooling clay, I suggest you try at least one new challenging thing every day.

It's not "just a game" or even an escape hatch from reality. It's quite literally brain food. If ED were the mental equivalent of doughnuts and ice cream, then it wouldn't be worthy of our precious free time. No matter how much or how little time we spent on it.

 

[Surly_Badger]

Too many people are offended by the slightest thing these days to the point of absurdity.

Don't worry about it. Being offended is no substance for having arguments that are defensible. "I'm offended!" has become a kind of universal complaint. But, "political correctness!" has become a counter-complaint: complaining about people complaining about their feelings. Just stay focussed.

Offend them and be proud!

If you're offended by people being offended don't be offensive. Just focus on their arguments and acknowledge their feelings as matters of their personal opinion, then move on.

If they aren't offering anything of substance other than their feelings, you can just pat them on their heads. Like I'm doing to you.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Nope.

Too many people are offended by the slightest thing these days to the point of absurdity. What, with all the safe space nonsense and micro aggression, I'm probably triggering with this post, alone, and I don't care. Because triggering is a stupid word, as is all the nonsense about offended this or slighted that.

On rare occasion something is legitimately offensive--the kind of stuff we might have been offended from over thirty years ago. But nowadays? This seldom happens, as the bulk of offense is due not to the offender but the perpetually offended.

Very hard for me not to get into this (the topic interests me), and the best I can do is keep it short, as this is not the place, but basically you're ignorant about what "triggering" and "safe spaces" actually mean. I used be in the same place as you, and think just as you did, but it was entirely due to believing the popular "rage against triggering" definitions of the terminology and goals, and not the actual meanings and goals behind the concepts. Some people take it too far, I still think, but that doesn't make the concepts wrong.

Also, if on rare occasion something is legitimately offensive... that's why it's foolish to discount all introspection. Being extreme in being reactionary is just as foolishly extremist as the imaginary extremes you're trying to react against. Measured response is always best.

/having said that, personally, not much of anything offends me
//that's short for me.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Very hard for me not to get into this (the topic interests me), and the best I can do is keep it short, as this is not the place, but basically you're ignorant about what "triggering" and "safe spaces" actually mean. I used be in the same place as you, and think just as you did, but it was entirely due to believing the popular "rage against triggering" definitions of the terminology and goals, and not the actual meanings and goals behind the concepts. Some people take it too far, I still think, but that doesn't make the concepts wrong.

Also, if on rare occasion something is legitimately offensive... that's why it's foolish to discount all introspection. Being extreme in being reactionary is just as foolishly extremist as the imaginary extremes you're trying to react against. Measured response is always best.

/having said that, personally, not much of anything offends me
//that's short for me.

Whist I agree that this isn't the place to discuss such things - I have personally found that interns are getting more and more "fragile" each passing year. Whatever the education system is doing these days, it does not seem to be producing people with either A: the learning skills required to genuinely compete in a completely skill-driven environment, or B: the social skills required to genuinely survive in a completely open environment.

I'm not saying that to offer offense to anyone - but well, when these people get into the real job market, I think that many of them will have real problems.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Whist I agree that this isn't the place to discuss such things - I have personally found that interns are getting more and more "fragile" each passing year. Whatever the education system is doing these days, it does not seem to be producing people with either A: the learning skills required to genuinely compete in a completely skill-driven environment, or B: the social skills required to genuinely survive in a completely open environment.

I'm not saying that to offer offense to anyone - but well, when these people get into the real job market, I think that many of them will have real problems.

Yeah, but kids having real problems when they hit the job market is always a thing, that's nothing new. We do tend to forget it more as we age though.

I think what you're seeing isn't that people are more easily offended or hurt; it's that people are more willing to speak up about it when they are. It's like how we have "more" cancer or "more" autistic people. It's not "more" it's just more visible and better diagnosed. This is entirely a good thing, I feel, as exposing problems allows them to be solved.

 

[Ziljan]

I'm afraid the only ones who understand this lecture are those who don't need this lecture anymore. There are so many things in life that can't be learned just by some words.

Youth is wasted on the young? Maybe. Not always though.

Teaching is merely planting a seed of a concept. Actually learning is done by living it, trial and error. So the hope is that by planting an idea, they'll recognize it when they finally see it in action enough times. Won't change anything, except maybe perspectives. But that is enough.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Youth is wasted on the young? Maybe. Not always though.

Teaching is merely planting a seed of a concept. Actually learning is done by living it, trial and error. So the hope is that by planting an idea, they'll recognize it when they finally see it in action enough times. Won't change anything, except maybe perspectives. But that is enough.

Back in the 90's, when I was at university - it was explicitly stated that we were there not to "learn", but how to "think". Then an hour later it would be "learn X and don't even bother thinking about it". Later it would be "Your input is much valued, but your submission doesn't match up with what I was thinking the subject matter was".

I gave up on the whole nonsense, left, and used my skills to make money and work all over the world

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Please don't ever apologize for offending someone, OP. Don't do it. Don't bolster the turbid insanity's position society is being poisoned with. Offend them and be proud!

Being offensive is easy. Apologizing is not. It's fine you take the easy route, but let others decide for themselves which route to take.

 

[Ziljan]

Back in the 90's, when I was at university - it was explicitly stated that we were there not to "learn", but how to "think". Then an hour later it would be "learn X and don't even bother thinking about it". Later it would be "Your input is much valued, but your submission doesn't match up with what I was thinking the subject matter was".

I gave up on the whole nonsense, left, and used my skills to make money and work all over the world

Luckily not all universities are the same. At mine, we "learned how to learn." Mostly by setting us up with seemingly impossible to solve problems and seeing how far we could go before falling flat on our faces. The same difficulty curve you would find in real life. We were evaluated based on our body of work, logic, and resourcefulness. Having the correct answer was important too, but only for the reason of having proven you could find it again under any circumstances.

I'm pretty confident that if everyone went to a univerty like mine, we'd already have Warp 1 technology

I honestly hope that is where we are heading now that we have nearly unlimited access to information.

 

[Roland2]

I'd argue that's EXACTLY what people should be doing...Its a Space Flight Sim...the clues in the sim they've always required, learning, practice, reading the manual and hours and hours of learning and watching tutorials before you become even partway competent...

Think of the hours it takes to learn Black Shark, DCS A10 or (the daddy of them all) Falcon 4.0 even something simple like IL2 Forgotten Battles is a lengthy and steep learning curve...now Eliteangerous is nothing like as difficult as those...but there's nothing wrong with treating it with a bit of respect...

Plenty of other game genres out there for those that don't want to commit!

I note you said "space flight sim", not "space combat sim". There is a big difference. If all you want to do is trade and explore, spending hours doing combat is not fun, and a waste of time. If combat is your thing, learning combat is necessary, but you may think exploring and trading are boring and a waste of time. One of the things I've heard most about ED is play it your way. A player shouldn't have to spend hours learning a part of the game they are not interested in.

If you think 35 is "old timer" it will probably be another 10 years before you figure this out for yourself but: anything worth doing takes time to learn.

Likewise, anything that is easy to do is probably a waste of your short time on this planet. Your brain is a use-it-or-lose-it organ. Unless your goal in life is to be a static lump of unformed drooling clay, I suggest you try at least one new challenging thing every day.

It's not "just a game" or even an escape hatch from reality. It's quite literally brain food. If ED were the mental equivalent of doughnuts and ice cream, then it wouldn't be worthy of our precious free time. No matter how much or how little time we spent on it.

Yes, it is "just a game". It may, or may not have other benefits, but unless those benefits are what drive you, then they don't matter. To some, they play games to "waste time". That is the main purpose of computer games. If you consider that "doughnuts and ice cream" that's your opinion, and that's fine (since I ate a bowl of ice cream while writing this). What you consider "worth of our precious free time" may be different from what others think.