Let's discuss the skill gap in Elite Dangerous between players

[Cosmos]

The skill gap between "NPC fodder" and "can survive 99% of encounters" is actually really really small.

That being said, the skill gap between "competent pilot" and "steely eyed killer" is rather large. That is because a Elite has a low threshold for competency, but a high skill ceiling. That's actually a sign of a well designed game mechanic.

Yeah agreed. Easy to pick up, hard to master.

From what I've read here over the years I think there are a few issues. First, the game was too easy before, faceroll easy, and folks got used to it. That wasn't a good situation because folks ended up getting bored with the game, a challenging game has people continuing to play it.
For some having to actually work for kills or understand they need to improve has come as a bit of a shock.

Over the years I've observed there seems to a quite a large number of people who seem to avoid combat at all costs. Play how you want and all but for a game genre like ED its always struck me as odd to never learn how to fight. Its not uncommon for people to do no combat and trade or explore their way to vast riches and a large powerful ship. The ship does not make the pilot. By avoiding combat in such a manner those folks have not been through the process of learning the ropes and have little experience. Then, Mr Elite explorer/trader hops into powerful ship, blistering with weapons and is surprised when they are terrible. Its my hypothesis anyhows..

Ironically one of the best ways to be good at combat is to have fought other players, particuarly ones who are better than you. It would be a crying shame if Frontier give into this and make the NPCs easy again, particulary because getting better at fighting is within everyone.

 

[anikaiful]

Ironically one of the best ways to be good at combat is to have fought other players, particuarly ones who are better than you. It would be a crying shame if Frontier give into this and make the NPCs easy again, particulary because getting better at fighting is within everyone.

If one can survive encounters with actually good player pilots and live to tell the tales, then they certain are good enough to tackle any AI whatsoever (regardless if they learned to run effectively or kill effectively).

 

[Nicky the Hutt]

Losing 1 Fer-de-lance, 6 Cobras or 36 Adders costs the same amount in insurance cost.

If you fought over 36 NPC's in a beginner ship and died 36 times, you're probably less a beginner than me in combat, you will have learned more skills. We're talking about defeat tolerance more than skill or PvP practice really.

When people are telling you to avoid expensive ships or low security systems, we're not lecturing you on how to pilot your ship, we're giving you missing pieces of the puzzle in a not-so-clear sandbox. I would never have known myself just by reading the UI what damage and resistance did this or that weapon and class, the outfitting interface is new to most and people aren't even looking at it because they trust their coriolis-guaranteed setups.

Go crash some adders, it's almost free, then we can talk about "skill gap".

 

[kilvenny]

As a solo player, I can play, but I have to be very careful and there are lots of places I don't go. No issue with that personally, but it does make me appreciate that a subset of this game is lost to me. If I didn't love the game it might be something that eventually drove me away.

The lack of NPC wings is a big problem. If FD provided the ability to hire and skill up NPC pilots then most of this discussion would be irrelevant. Players without the skill level or confidence, could hire NPC wings.

What is needed is a system that allows a player to be matched at the level they are at. So hard should be hard for me, but that hard will be easy for other people. I would be profiling kills by ranks and type. I think if you looked at a players mix of kills by rank, player and npc I think you would very quickly get a picture of what level they were at and it would be a better base than their rank.

 

[Rimsplitter]

I was making a comparison about learning, and that even 'the best' don't just do things though talent: They learn.

You have to start from the baseline of talent first.

I do know how easy it is to fly a Cessna, that was my point.

 

[Krait_79]

And this may be a bigger problem than I would have expected.

We just arrived at a AI level where one third is happy with, one third thinks it is too frustrating and difficult and the last third still thinks it is too easy. Or anything similar to that.
Every day a new thread is created claiming AI is too powerful now as a player didn't manage to destroy a Vulture in his Python in less than 5 minutes and was actually in danger.
On the other hand we have posts about AI behaving weird as they can not calculate the risk they are currently in properly and therefore act differently than a human player would do, making them pretty predictable and easy to deal with.

But for the furutre design of the AI and the balance between the players.


Do you think the skill gap between players in Elite: Dangerous is significant and do you think FD should be concerned?


Because this is basically like a match based shooter game with a matchmaker (ED CQC for example). Newbies don't really like it to get matched with veterans (well, I do like it tho hehe) and vice versa: veterans don't like newbies in their match.
I am not saying we should devide this player base based on a skill level but I really do thin kthe skill gap is HUGE.

To be honest I do not feel that the A-rated Python player who struggles against an AI Viper should get rewarded the same way as an experienced player who is able to destroy Elite AI Pythons in a Viper.


But back to the question: Do you think the skill gap between players in Elite: Dangerous is significant and if so do you think FD should be concerned?

Every game has a skill gap and it's not something that is necessarily easy for a developer to account for especially where multiplayer is concerned.

At the end of the day all the developer can do is make the game easy to understand. Being able to play it at a good skill level is down to the player and their willingness to improve.

 

[Boomer Kay]

At the end of the day all the developer can do is make the game easy to understand. Being able to play it at a good skill level is down to the player and their willingness to improve.

Well, one of the most popular games at the moment (league of legends with it's 37 million players) is neither easy to understand nor easy to play. (I'd attribute it's popularity to the possibility to blame every loss on your teammates, since you clearly are much better than them )
They've tried to streamling the "leveling" process by doubling the exp, leading to more "high level" (that rating's as meaningful as the combat rating in ED) players who can't even win matches against bots (which are very easy to outplay).

 

[Bomba Luigi]

CQC is actually a good place to train some combat skills, nothing to lose there and good enemys to learn a few things (well, not always, but mostly).

 

[Robert Maynard]

CQC is actually a good place to train some combat skills, nothing to lose there and good enemys to learn a few things (well, not always, but mostly).

.... in which case, access to more of the game's ships in additional CQC modes would be useful....

 

[bkrownd]

Over the years I've observed there seems to a quite a large number of people who seem to avoid combat at all costs. Play how you want and all but for a game genre like ED its always struck me as odd to never learn how to fight. Its not uncommon for people to do no combat and trade or explore their way to vast riches and a large powerful ship. The ship does not make the pilot. By avoiding combat in such a manner those folks have not been through the process of learning the ropes and have little experience.

Avoiding combat, yes. My motivation in ED is to fly spaceships, dock at outposts, zoom around looking at beautiful planets taking nice pix, explore the galaxy, fly missions to influence the political and social "BGS" sim (wish that part was much more fleshed out), watch busy "space traffic" go about its peaceful business kind of like watching an ant farm. Sometimes I just hang out near the starport or on my landing pad for a bit watching a few ships go in and out. Some mining will be my next thing - floating around the asteroids looking for precious metals/minerals and enjoying the view. I spend my time doing the things that really interest me and make it possible to imagine a living working galaxy.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Do you think the skill gap between players of Elite: Dangerous is significant, and do you think FD should be concerned?

Given historically how different PvP and PvE have been in this game, and that PvE has been very easy, the only honest answer to the question for me at the moment is "I don't know."

Is there a skill gap between players? It stands to reason, yes. Is it enough to justify the frankly malevolent responses I've seen on the forums? No. Do FD need to be concerned about the skill gap? Not if they can get their matchmaking working properly.

 

[Cosmos]

Well, one of the most popular games at the moment (league of legends with it's 37 million players) is neither easy to understand nor easy to play. (I'd attribute it's popularity to the possibility to blame every loss on your teammates, since you clearly are much better than them )
They've tried to streamling the "leveling" process by doubling the exp, leading to more "high level" (that rating's as meaningful as the combat rating in ED) players who can't even win matches against bots (which are very easy to outplay).

I remember trying to get good at Starcraft 2 a while back. The skill gap between players in that game is insane. I did improve quite a bit with a lot of effort but I realised I was never going to be a Master or GM without devoting my life to it. Whilst I'm not a big fan of Blizzard anymore I do respect that they haven't dumbed that game down.

My concern here is that Frontier are going to revert the changes they've made and make it easy once again.

 

[Siranui]

You have to start from the baseline of talent first.

I do know how easy it is to fly a Cessna, that was my point.

You have still entirely missed mine!

 

[Bomba Luigi]

.... in which case, access to more of the game's ships in additional CQC modes would be useful....

Its suprising how much you can learn how to properly fly a FDL from a Condor
not to mention how cheap you can get a fully kitted out FDL thanks to cqc!

 

[Siranui]

Avoiding combat, yes. My motivation in ED is to fly spaceships, dock at outposts, zoom around looking at beautiful planets ...

And more power to you for enjoying those aspects of the game.

I think that the issue many pilots such as yourself are now experiencing is that while it's all well and good to enjoy experiencing nature in all its glory by wandering the Okavango, one should always be aware and mentally equipped for the possibility of crocodiles. It is not a 'safe' galaxy, and the recent patch has brought that home.

 

[MahdDogg]

If this game wants to fail yes. You are basically saying that the game is fine and everybody likes it, its not what I am seeing from all my friends, from 50 friends, only me and maybe another friend visit here, so, just ignore the players and this game will fail.

No, I'm saying that a couple of hundred players out of a nearly 2 million strong playerbase is statistically irrelevant and as such their particular sway one way or another is not a reasonable indication of the feelings of the playerbase. Your anecdote aside (those 50 friends are even MORE statistically irrelevant because you are more likely to be friends with people who have similar tastes and opinions to yourself; human nature). I'm basically saying something totally different to your strawman but please, please I do enjoy having words put in my mouth.

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The tiny minority who observe that the AI is too hard, the tiny minority who observe that the AI is just right or the tiny minority who observe that the AI is too easy?

All of them.

 

[anikaiful]

What you're basically saying is that the devs should ignore all of us then, including you.

Indeed. What they should keep eye on is actual bug reports and forget the rest.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Indeed. What they should keep eye on is actual bug reports and forget the rest.

.... even better - make extensive use of their in-game analytics to examine player destruction rates before and after the implementation of the changes....

 

[Chummy62]

And Minecraft has sold over 100,000,000 copies. What are the consequences of dying when playing League of Legends? I'll remind you: "When the death timer reaches zero the dead champion is revived on the summoner platform." No insurance, no loss of cargo, only a delay until you can start to play again. The consequences of death in ED combined with the high skill requirement are what are going to drive players who are not naturally highly skilled at being a fighter pilots away. You must consider the sum of all the moving parts. I get that you don't get it. But just like I get my ship shot out from under me, the drive to increase the difficulty is going to net less continued funding for the game we both love. The point I have been trying to make since Beta is that there is so much more to ED than being a fighter pilot. David and the team are masters of procedural generation and have lead the way creatively and with ground breaking innovations. Two overarching problems are: 1. Too much focus on combat 2. Too many other projects. One of the other biggest problems ED has is the design decision that makes our space ships space planes. A larger ship, with a larger power source and the ability to have thicker heavier armor and more and larger gun placements should be able to obliterate smaller less powerful ships. To the detriment of the game, the earth bound airplane model has been pressed over the ship model resulting in a clear mismatch between what the majority of average players are expecting and what the developers made. ED is destined to be just another jet fighter flight sim if they continue to ignore the other aspects of the game. Other development teams are already capitalizing on this narrow focus which is why I'm pointing at "No Man's Sky" so much. Frontier Development could of, should of will be the mantra soon after it's release.

I for one find that a figure of around 2,000,000 as a player base to be unacceptable. This number should be 25,000,000 or greater. Please ask yourself one simple question; what is keeping ED from becoming that popular?

 

[Anson22]

I had the pleasure of meeting SJA's Ferdie this morning He was sent to intercept my mission. Decided to try fighting in my Courier. Loaded down with 16tons of cargo, I found I just couldn't turn quite quick enough to stop him getting behind me - or to put it another way, I wasn't quite good enough. Only one complaint about the ship loss - we battled for around 5 minutes close to a station in an Empire system which is always crawling with ISS Vipers and Anaconda's yet not a single security ship showed up! I wonder if they were bought off
After rebuy, I did the mission again and when he interdicted me I was on the Boost button immediately... Once bitten, etc... He didn't even get close enough to fire a shot!

I know I need to improve and I'm enjoying the challenge of doing so... Had a couple of quick fights at lunchtime with a Deadly Cobra III and Expert Vulture - both successfully dispatched. Probably pop over to the next system this evening and work a res site - it's all good practice