FRONTIER DEVELOPMENT any word on when you will make the RNGineer easier and more enjoyable.
News NPC AI, Engineers and Bi-Weave shields....
- Thread starter Zac Antonaci
- Start date
Well. I'm back from a break to try the Engineers update... Went to the same RES where I used to make 1-3 millions a reload with my ok fitted FDL but now I get by literally everything, even sidewinders. Everyone attack me for nothing 2-3 ships at a time launching me tens of missiles. I have to run away from almost every combat ending up with 45% hull... Seriously???! They broke the only thing that I enjoyed to make money in that game but now I can't make any and I'm stuck somewhere bad with it's bad jump range.
We wanted more and new content, not an impossible difficulty level update. Never asked for that. Now the grind is just to survive. Please fix this. add an hardcore mode for sadomasochist, I don't know. I think it was ok the way it was before for many people (except the ships stopped and rotating like an idiot)
We wanted more and new content, not an impossible difficulty level update. Never asked for that. Now the grind is just to survive. Please fix this. add an hardcore mode for sadomasochist, I don't know. I think it was ok the way it was before for many people (except the ships stopped and rotating like an idiot)
What is your combat rank?
My two accounts feel completely different - where I am a novice at combat, I can take down dangerous ranked ships but on the account where I have a master rating, even novice sidewinders can kill me in a few shots.
My theory is that they are taking the player's rank, not the NPC's rank and adjusting the power of the weapons based on that - it's just a theory, since I need more evidence and people to support or disprove this hypothesis.
All I know is that I get interdicted at the absolute worsts times, and I'm trying to avoid all combat. I just try to run, which is impossible in what I fly it seems.
Yep, they went completely the other way. I don't know how many times I just let a target be because they were just rotating. A few times when I broke off, they started fighting again, and then I'd take them out.
I'm just glad I run in cheap ships to insure now.
LOL the hardcore mode for sadomasochist line got me laughing. I agree with you 100 percent I sold my fdl and bought a vulture thinking it might help but not got hit by 1 missile Ina combat zone that somehow disabled all my modules and was a thermal attack and apparently a few other things as well since multiple symbols popped up and I was dead. The games straight broken atm. I'm docked until they finally post some info, kinda sad we haven't heard anything for several days now. Guess we will find out into the weekly newsletter, please let it be full of information and not just completely vague and filled with non answers.
Missiles now do splash damage to external modules (i.e. weapons, and anything in a utility mount). Point Defence is an external module, and if a missile hits, it has a fair chance of taking out the point defence in one go meaning you then have nothing that's going to shoot back at subsequent missiles. The next missile will probably take out your thrusters leaving you dead in space.
Which is redundant anyway, because it's not as if the NPCs need help catching a fleeing player, thanks to all NPCs now apparently being fitted with egnines I can only describe as "whatever engine the player has, but +1".
Also, the fact that Thermal and Impulse attacks are still happening with monotonous regularity isn't helping things either, despite the fact they were supposed to have been removed from NPCs already.
My understanding was that the Thermal and Impulse attacks from NPCs are the "hard coded" modded weapons that we were told would not be removed.
The thermal and impulse attack readings are from top end conventional weapons according to FDev - you should not be seeing any modded weapons and if you are you should be reporting them as bugs for sure
They are just much better at using them now
Which once again highlights another, more disruptive aspect of Engineers - what if someone is playing 1.6 not 2.1?
I heard Sandro say on the livestream that while 'special' weapon attributes would be removed, NPCs would be retaining other mods. So that means if you play 1.6, you are now at a perpetual disadvantage against NPCs.
IMO no NPC should ever have any Engineer modded equipment (not just weapons, I'm talking any module at all) so long as both 1.6 and 2.1 players are playing in the same universe. People with 2.1 can hope to one day achieve their own modded gear...but those playing 1.6 cannot.
Not everyone will agree with you there.
Some 1.6 players will see NPCs having access to additional weapons loadouts as a fun extra challenge to go up against - not everyone plays the game with risk-aversion in mind, many are perfectly happy to see their virtual spaceship explode as part of enjoyable combat.
The same goes for 1.6 players vs 2.1 players - many will actually enjoy the imbalance and see it as a greater test of their skills.
dont know wheres the right place to put this, but
pls, fix bursts - mag reload should cancel it.
i've modded frags to double shot and whenever theres one shot left in mag the second follows after mag reloads, a lot of the time shooting into thin air. annoying waste of ammo..
heres video
http://sendvid.com/88uzccz1
all in all enjoing being back for a week since i left in sep 2015!
pls, fix bursts - mag reload should cancel it.
i've modded frags to double shot and whenever theres one shot left in mag the second follows after mag reloads, a lot of the time shooting into thin air. annoying waste of ammo..
heres video
http://sendvid.com/88uzccz1
all in all enjoing being back for a week since i left in sep 2015!
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I think most of us do not have a problem with this occurring in combat zones, even high intensity (let alone hazardous) resource zones. You're going to have people buzzing around and expecting combat.
What many of us have a problem with is the interdiction realities well away from them. Even without engineering upgrades, the only way to play now is to drop back to a ship that doesn't cost much to insure. It's why I stopped flying a Python and am now in a Vulture. I can usually make 2x over in a Vulture from the insurance costs. The Python is going to be a 20-40% proposition (profit increase of total insurance loss, so losing 2.5-5x in insurance costs over profit) every few hours.
I guess if I ran slaves I could make break even or profit. In fact, the few people here saying they like the challenge are making 10-15M/hour running slaves. But that says something if those of us who legitimately mine, trade, even local explore (let alone get kill when heading back from distance exploration) cannot make a profit in a Python or Anaconda now.
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Thank you very much!
Welcome to the jungle. It's why I no longer play. Even if I avoid the RES, I still get interdicted, including in the rings well away, but definitely after, before I can sell (mission or not).
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I'm on XBox. My first experience with the Horizons update this week was a ridiculous amount of interdictions by elite level large NPC's. I was playing in a private group, and had picked up several missions and probably had at most 3 missions at any one time. What I didn't realize at the time was that missions now let you pick up higher difficulty missions, whereas before I was restricted to missions at my combat rank or below.
I don't have any logs, of course, but I'm fairly good at remembering the number of times I had a rough encounter. I played an excessive amount over the weekend, and was interdicted about 20 times. (Again, I'm holding missions, whether I'm working on them or not) Of those 20, about 18 of them were Elite level ships, 3 of which were Anacondas. The other 2 occurrences were one deadly, and one mid-level pilot. I'm in my new-ish Anaconda that isn't truly battle fit yet (class D items mostly), and more of a trader/explorer fit. I tried taking on the lower level pilot, but he brought a friend in instantly, and the two of them shredded me so fast I couldn't tell what was going on. The security service pilots appearing to help me out seemed to have just been fresh out of the Academy and using spit ball cannons, and did next to nothing against any of these encounters.
I don't like being 'cheaty' and doing combat logs. But, I had to. About 10 times! I have maybe combat logged once or twice before this run.
Now, this isn't so much a bug as misinformation. I had no idea why I was being interdicted until a few days into playing where I realized there was an Elite ranking available to me for missions that I couldn't get before. My only guess is that I was holding on to one of these elite missions for far too long. My feedback here is that some sort of game interaction could be added that verifies you really want to take on a high-level mission above your pay grade. It could also remind you in some way that while you hold on to missions, you might be a target...maybe the NPC conversations could include language that clues the player in that the NPC is there because of the mission. "I heard about you..." just doesn't convey that. It's too vague. Something more like, "I heard about your mission for xyz faction to recover those data cores. That isn't going to happen!" I just had no idea what was going on, and since I had heard of the crazy hard AI, I thought I was just experiencing the worst of it. After I realized this, during the rest of this week, I have not had this problem. Maybe there was a server side adjustment, or it was a mission I was holding, but after I paid attention to the difficulty, I had no more excessive Elite encounters.
I love the idea of the harder AI. It was very simplistic before. I even like the idea of them having engineer upgrades, but maybe on crazy rare occasions, like when you're in a player wing of 3 or 4, or they only get up to level 2 modifications. In that case, they could be said to have upgraded their ship themselves, and not gone to the engineers for it...maybe that will fit in with the spirit of the story.
My big suggestion: Have methods in place where the player can choose the difficulty more clearly. One way is to provide feedback through the game voices or NPC chats. They could indicate when dropping in to a low risk RES that the pilot should be safe here with security forces around, or something like that...and it scales with the higher risk RES's like you eventually have with the warning on a Haz RES. (I also think the wording needs to be switched on this...it should be 'high security' to reflect the presence of security forces...the way it's described now isn't clear, especially to new players) You could also have a verification prompt to confirm you want to take an elite mission when only a master level.
Also, have methods or text, or vocal comments that tell players of places they can go. New players are dropping into a VAST world with very little direction. They wander off, and can't find their way back to anything remotely easy to learn, and get bored. Give players several new player missions (that experienced players with new accounts can skip) that show them different things they can do. Also, have these missions available at different stations so the pilot can get back to 'training' if they wander off. Maybe even have some rookie Pilot's Federation rank that is training for the game, and put it inside the game as they first start. The tutorial missions are good for basics, but further training or information on what to do in the game is non-existent (I didn't know about nav beacons for 3 hours into the game). Another example of this is if the player wants to experience Mining, they should have a mission thread that teaches them about different things like scooping, refining, collector and prospector limpets, etc. The mission thread could take them to a solo-play environment where they can experience the game without griefers and learn if that's what they want to do.
Especially on the Xbox, player do NOT want to look up information online. This was the huge problem that Bungie had with Destiny...we didn't want to go online for the story. We're sitting on the couch, in the living room, with maybe our phones nearby and not much else. We want to relax and enjoy a game, and not have to look everywhere and anywhere for game information. The information bits you post online should be on the web, but also easily found and front and center for pilots to see in the game.
Finally, keep in mind that with the XBox, we can't maneuver and respond to AI encounters as easily as a PC player. Even the PC player using an xbox controller still has extra controls available on the keyboard. Console players only have the single controller. We can't move on a target in the same way a PC player can...in particular, we have take our fingers off the analogue stick to select a D-pad option. That means we're flying straight for a split second and are no longer following the turn of a target. We also can't throttle like a player with a throttle stick. So, an AI that's tuned to the PC way of playing may be a little over-tuned to an XBox pilot.
Thanks for listening, and sorry for the wall of text! Loving the game!
I don't have any logs, of course, but I'm fairly good at remembering the number of times I had a rough encounter. I played an excessive amount over the weekend, and was interdicted about 20 times. (Again, I'm holding missions, whether I'm working on them or not) Of those 20, about 18 of them were Elite level ships, 3 of which were Anacondas. The other 2 occurrences were one deadly, and one mid-level pilot. I'm in my new-ish Anaconda that isn't truly battle fit yet (class D items mostly), and more of a trader/explorer fit. I tried taking on the lower level pilot, but he brought a friend in instantly, and the two of them shredded me so fast I couldn't tell what was going on. The security service pilots appearing to help me out seemed to have just been fresh out of the Academy and using spit ball cannons, and did next to nothing against any of these encounters.
I don't like being 'cheaty' and doing combat logs. But, I had to. About 10 times! I have maybe combat logged once or twice before this run.
Now, this isn't so much a bug as misinformation. I had no idea why I was being interdicted until a few days into playing where I realized there was an Elite ranking available to me for missions that I couldn't get before. My only guess is that I was holding on to one of these elite missions for far too long. My feedback here is that some sort of game interaction could be added that verifies you really want to take on a high-level mission above your pay grade. It could also remind you in some way that while you hold on to missions, you might be a target...maybe the NPC conversations could include language that clues the player in that the NPC is there because of the mission. "I heard about you..." just doesn't convey that. It's too vague. Something more like, "I heard about your mission for xyz faction to recover those data cores. That isn't going to happen!" I just had no idea what was going on, and since I had heard of the crazy hard AI, I thought I was just experiencing the worst of it. After I realized this, during the rest of this week, I have not had this problem. Maybe there was a server side adjustment, or it was a mission I was holding, but after I paid attention to the difficulty, I had no more excessive Elite encounters.
I love the idea of the harder AI. It was very simplistic before. I even like the idea of them having engineer upgrades, but maybe on crazy rare occasions, like when you're in a player wing of 3 or 4, or they only get up to level 2 modifications. In that case, they could be said to have upgraded their ship themselves, and not gone to the engineers for it...maybe that will fit in with the spirit of the story.
My big suggestion: Have methods in place where the player can choose the difficulty more clearly. One way is to provide feedback through the game voices or NPC chats. They could indicate when dropping in to a low risk RES that the pilot should be safe here with security forces around, or something like that...and it scales with the higher risk RES's like you eventually have with the warning on a Haz RES. (I also think the wording needs to be switched on this...it should be 'high security' to reflect the presence of security forces...the way it's described now isn't clear, especially to new players) You could also have a verification prompt to confirm you want to take an elite mission when only a master level.
Also, have methods or text, or vocal comments that tell players of places they can go. New players are dropping into a VAST world with very little direction. They wander off, and can't find their way back to anything remotely easy to learn, and get bored. Give players several new player missions (that experienced players with new accounts can skip) that show them different things they can do. Also, have these missions available at different stations so the pilot can get back to 'training' if they wander off. Maybe even have some rookie Pilot's Federation rank that is training for the game, and put it inside the game as they first start. The tutorial missions are good for basics, but further training or information on what to do in the game is non-existent (I didn't know about nav beacons for 3 hours into the game). Another example of this is if the player wants to experience Mining, they should have a mission thread that teaches them about different things like scooping, refining, collector and prospector limpets, etc. The mission thread could take them to a solo-play environment where they can experience the game without griefers and learn if that's what they want to do.
Especially on the Xbox, player do NOT want to look up information online. This was the huge problem that Bungie had with Destiny...we didn't want to go online for the story. We're sitting on the couch, in the living room, with maybe our phones nearby and not much else. We want to relax and enjoy a game, and not have to look everywhere and anywhere for game information. The information bits you post online should be on the web, but also easily found and front and center for pilots to see in the game.
Finally, keep in mind that with the XBox, we can't maneuver and respond to AI encounters as easily as a PC player. Even the PC player using an xbox controller still has extra controls available on the keyboard. Console players only have the single controller. We can't move on a target in the same way a PC player can...in particular, we have take our fingers off the analogue stick to select a D-pad option. That means we're flying straight for a split second and are no longer following the turn of a target. We also can't throttle like a player with a throttle stick. So, an AI that's tuned to the PC way of playing may be a little over-tuned to an XBox pilot.
Thanks for listening, and sorry for the wall of text! Loving the game!
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Today i'm back to try the live 2.1 and i have to say, it is no more fun. 2 times interdict and 2 times see my ship blow up. Before i escaped witn minimal hull and that was ok. A little bit risk and hope, but now, i don't try to escape, because a npc ship fired 3 times on me and the shield is down. Another 3 times and my ship is gone. I lost 1 Million because i can't finished the mission and have to rebuy my ship.
That's not funny. I love the game, but not like that.
I don't want to build a wing. Just want to earn some money and explore the galaxy on my own. But the hard AI ruin my fun in the game.
Pls change the AI back to normal.
That's not funny. I love the game, but not like that.
I don't want to build a wing. Just want to earn some money and explore the galaxy on my own. But the hard AI ruin my fun in the game.
Pls change the AI back to normal.
Different people enjoy the game in their own way. Why not, they paid real currency for the entertainment, but entertainment has different meanings for different people. Some like to go RES hunting and find conflict zones, some like to mine, explore, or trade. The NPC should be notched back until a more reliable method of judging just what a player experiences, can be established. I would recommend using the statistics page for this, as it outlines profits made, per person, in what activity. If you favor combat more, then you should get a better experience. Likewise if you favor exploration and trading more, then you should equally have an equal experience. Do not get me wrong, I do not mind a more difficult AI, nor do I dismiss risk levels, in lower security systems, but at its' current rate, and with the freshly rushed blunders of a very recent past, I will state--as a real-world business owner, it is simply bad for business.
Lots of people seem to want to impose their vision of the game on others – no idea why. I play in solo, which does not affect others. Why can I not chose the level of challenge I wish to face and continually change it depending on how I feel? I play to have fun. What game mechanic is broken by this. If this means never playing in open I am content with this. I wont anyway. It sometimes appears like this game is confused with real life or a moral quest. (this post is not a reply to any specific post.).