The AI gave itself mods? Skynet has arisen! Wait what I meant to say was didn't the devs give the mods to the ai?
Has The Time Come For Adaptive AI?
- Thread starter shadragon
- Start date
The AI gave itself mods? Skynet has arisen! Wait what I meant to say was didn't the devs give the mods to the ai?
Absolutely not. I consider adaptive AI extremely unfair and exploitable. I'd prefer if they just implement spawn levels based on the system's security level. That way we can choose if we want harder or easier AI, and it's more natural. It's implemented that way in most online games for a good reason.
Funny you say "skynet" as that is actually used in the changelog. The devs gave them mods. However, soon after, they somehow stacked and became magical. You don't remember 2.1.0? rail pulses, plasma MCs? etc.
Ya, I remembered the one time I died because I took on 3 elite FAS in an anaconda with my cargo scoop down while picking up materials. Was it magical? Not quite in my book. Was it a rude slap in the face? Yes. I mean I think bots being seemingly immune to heat damage caused by themselves was more of a cause. I would even support giving bots back mods if they didn't synergize with the differences between us and them.
'Adaptive difficulty' or 'adaptive leveling' system that is present in many modern games(especially RPGs). And pretty much ruins every single game it's in.
I'd much rather see high sec systems actually having much less AI piracy, and in general having low rated and worse outfitted AI ships. So people who are not into combat or want to feel safe - stay in safe and secure systems. It would feel far more natural and actually make sense.
I'd much rather see high sec systems actually having much less AI piracy, and in general having low rated and worse outfitted AI ships. So people who are not into combat or want to feel safe - stay in safe and secure systems. It would feel far more natural and actually make sense.
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I don't think player rating should be completely ignored, because it makes logical sense for mid-rated NPC pirates to go after low-rated players more frequently than high-rated players who might put up a fight. In fact this would be a strong incentive for trade favouring players to "git gud" at combat, if it meant that they could then fly through risky space with less of a chance of interdiction, their rating acting as a deterrent. Of course there should also be the occasional high-rated NPC who thinks they're Tom Cruise, and who will target high-rated players just for the challenge. Just as another player might...
But this current situation, where only NPCs of a similar rank will interdict, is senseless and needs to go. What in-fiction reason would a Deadly pirate have for not going after a fully laden trader flying through his space just because the pilot is Mostly Harmless? Crazy.
I completely agree with this. Moreover this leveling/adaptive thing won't work in ED. Let's say I am great at combat, I have a killer combat ship - so the AI adapts to a high level and afterwards I want to do some trading or exploring and the game throws some terminators on me, so I am pretty much penalized for being good and equipped for combat. Difficulty should be solely based on BGS and location - if I want to challenge myself I fly to low-sec anarchy systems, HAZ res or take some risky mission. If I want to trade peacefully, I can go to high-sec stable systems with strong police response.
Okay imagine you're the NPC Pirate, what's you motivation?
The Deadly Lone Gunman might well take on the 'rich but mostly harmless', but might expect an easy fight & do it in a smaller ship.
Or maybe they have bigger fish to fry so they go after a higher ranked target & leave the Mostly Harmless Trader because they 'probably can't afford to fill that ship with cargo'
I think pirates that interdict you in quiet (population zero), or well policed systems would be largely doing so because they were forced out of areas with better pickings, so they are poor, not that good, and just looking for scraps. 'Your cargo of 2t of food is worth a fortune to me'.
One that has better skills may have contacts in the Smuggling outpost that tip them off about a tasty haul taken from the mission board, and set a trap where they know no Police will be around, because they are experienced & don't want Police around any more than the smuggler does. They know who they are expecting and what ship & combat rank they have from the tip-off. They are busy setting the traps so don't have time to bother the trader carrying who knows what?
So the decision to interdict is based on intelligence (intermediate to high-ranking foe), or desperation (low ranking, cheap ship).
An Elite NPC Pirate is a successful Pirate Lord & doesn't need to to the dirty work themselves, they must be hunted down with a trail of breadcrumbs by assassins.
Also, I think a Pirate is going to use a ship that can carry enough cargo to make it worthwhile. I think this would mean they'll sacrifice SCB/Hull reinforcements for cargo space where for example an NPC Bounty Hunter might not. A Pirate would be more likely to use a multi-purpose rather than a combat ship. If they use fighters (I'm thinking about Vultures here) they will have say a T-6 or 7 in their wing to collect the goods, but if the cargo ship is destroyed they can't make any money so they'll abandon the attack to regroup.
Please, no adaptive AI. Just make it more pronounced when you are in a safe or dangerous systems (or doing easy or hard missions). I would like to have an immersive believable experience when playing this game. Just like in the real world, if you want danger then go to dangerous places, like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. Start delivering weapons to ISIS and buy oil from them, i'm sure you're going to get good profit, that is if you stay alive 
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ps. I do not encourage anyone to actually do what i suggest above, that is just an example.
. ps. I do not encourage anyone to actually do what i suggest above, that is just an example.
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Please enlighten me, how could a difficulty bar be "abused"?
If I'm a seasoned fighter pilot in a combat fitted vessel, I'll crank it up to have a challenge.
If I'm a returning explorer, then I'll dial it down so I have a chance to survive a random encounter.
Right now we must remain on the same AI level that we had before, because the game is "balanced" around that. Which leaves the minority of PvE combat oriented pilots a dull gameplay.
Your premise revolves around a "dynamic" AI, that must guess where a player wants his difficulty slider to reside according to the current gameplay.
I predict that it'll get it wrong a lot of times. So just implement the slider and be done with it. Even though the combat PvE players may be a minority, it is not too much to ask to have them implement a feature that makes their play a bit more fun without impacting others and forcing them to combat log.
The solution I think is simple.
If you take missions that require a higher combat skill level than you have then you take the risk. If you enter into known warring systems, systems with a pirate problem, etc, etc then you take the risk. Would mean people would actually need to think about plotting the route to their destinations both intra system as well as inter system and choose the missions more carefully.
Of course this would only work if the mission system provided much more information about the mission risks than it does and the galaxy map allowed you to plot your own course between systems (instead of you having to take 1 system at a time as you would now).
It should be all about informed choice I think.
If you take missions that require a higher combat skill level than you have then you take the risk. If you enter into known warring systems, systems with a pirate problem, etc, etc then you take the risk. Would mean people would actually need to think about plotting the route to their destinations both intra system as well as inter system and choose the missions more carefully.
Of course this would only work if the mission system provided much more information about the mission risks than it does and the galaxy map allowed you to plot your own course between systems (instead of you having to take 1 system at a time as you would now).
It should be all about informed choice I think.
Solid reasoning, but it does not stop getting interdicted (and mashed) by AI of much higher ability than you.
You don't always have a choice of when you fight.
Should we always?
Yes. Otherwise the game isn't fun when you could loose months of gameplay to a random encounter that you could not do anything about it.
Craith
Volunteer Moderator
See, for me it is not fun if I am never in danger of losing. Than I lose 1.5 years of gameplay (or more). I shouldn't be in danger of losing my ship every day when I try to avoid risks, but never? thats a bit much, don't you think?
When the end result is predetermined (be that never lose, or always lose), why play? If I can't influence it anyhow?
No, pretty much against this.
Learning the game and how it works should be the game. Adaptive AI behaviour will just make a mockery and a nonsense of it.
Learning the game and how it works should be the game. Adaptive AI behaviour will just make a mockery and a nonsense of it.
Yeah well...hopefully. At least they can keep their coveted cheating AIs for those that select the hardest levels of NPC behavior...if ANY select it
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The game is a mockery with cheating NPCs now ...unless you think cheating is cool.
That would be my definition of 'not fun'. All reward, no risk or excitement. Nothing to lose unless we 'allow' it.
We can already almost guarantee escaping an interdiction without dying, with over a 95% probability. How much less risk should there be?!
There's some logic to that I guess, but it still doesn't feel like sufficient justification for the design decision. Given how quickly events transpire in the ED galaxy, I'd think it more likely that the pirate would interdict the Mostly Harmless trader anyway, run a cargo scanner over him and determine with absolute certainty whether or not the loot was worth the effort. Remember that we're rarely dealing with a situation where there are two otherwise identical targets the differ only in rating, and that going after one will let the other get away. Mostly it's a single lone trader and a lone or winged pirate, so the only decision should be whether to interdict or not.
In my scenario I was assuming that the trader had entered the pirate's low security domain (hence "his space") rather than the other way around, but maybe I could have been more explicit in that.
I like that you've given some thought to this, so have a +1 for that, but for me it doesn't offer enough of what Donald Bellisario delightfully referred to as "post-creative rationalisation", the mental gymnastics you have to go through to shoehorn a creative decision into existing lore.
What it all boils down to is consistency; if an Deadly commander flies a T9 laden with palladium into an anarchic system full of civil war zones and is attacked by Deadly and Elite pirates, then a Mostly Harmless commander who does exactly the same should expect the same response, not a gentle tickling from Novice brigands because his rating isn't high enough to warrant attention from the big guys.
If it's the other way around and the pirates are coming into high security space then yes, only the desperate and gung-ho are likely to try their luck so the "bracketing" scenario might just work for the fiction there. But if this mechanic is in place across all of human space then I just can't rationalise it for low security or anarchic systems, which is where the bulk of NPC-on-player piracy currently takes place.