Get out of the core systems, and an apology to FDEV

[peteuplink]

I owe FDEV an apology! For a while now I've been banging on about not getting interdicted by NPC space pirates and saying that the game is boring as a result of this. It's been going on for months and I really thought it was a game fault. I've been stationed in the Gateway system trading in and around the neighbouring systems. I wasn't seeing any NPC pirates and I thought it was a fault with the game, but it turns out it was a fault with the way I was playing the game. I wasn't taking into account the security levels of the systems, which in this area are mostly high and medium systems. So I was trading in complete safety. It wasn't until I took a good look at the galaxy map and chose a new home station in an area comprised of medium to low security systems that the game suddenly came alive for me.

It seems really obvious now, and I feel very dumb for not noticing it sooner, but getting away from areas around the major systems and more out towards the edge of the bubble really makes a difference to the game. I'm having a blast all of a sudden, doing my trading and having encounters with NPC pirates. It's making me feel like I'm playing the original '84 Elite again, and I'm loving it!

So, apologies to FDEV for blaming my lack of NPC encounters on game design rather than where I was choosing to set up my home base...

 

[Dsign]

If you want lots of action going around you, try and and join in any community goal ! It's a fun way to make money and you often make new friends there !

 

[verminstar]

All the little mission hubs I use are fairly close to anarchy systems...theres a very good reason fer that...glad yer starting to learn the lessons too OP ^

 

[o'moylan]

Rep to you for admitting your mistake.

This reminds me of a saying from Wonder.

"If you have the choice to be right or kind, choose kind".

 

[Jack Schitt]

This is how the game should have worked from day one, just like the earlier versions did.

Every time a thread has diverged between "NPC's are a pushover; game is too easy" and "I keep getting killed; game is too hard" this has been my fallback position. That there's no need for the whole PVE game to be made harder or easier in one big chunk by the movement of a hidden difficulty lever, but that the toughness of NPC enemies should be dictated in the main by where you choose to travel, with other variables like mission cargo or notoriety working on top.

But for some reason, either by deliberate design or by a lack of nuance in the BGS, this didn't seem to be the case for a long time. Now everything seems finally to be coming together. Security levels mean something. Political states mean something. Route plotting means something.

There are no doubt still a handful of players who think that the entire galaxy should be their "easy mode" playground, or alternatively that every system should be swarming with Elite Corvette pilots. But what we have now sure as hell feels more like the Elite and Frontier that I remember.

 

[verminstar]

This is how the game should have worked from day one, just like the earlier versions did.

Every time a thread has diverged between "NPC's are a pushover; game is too easy" and "I keep getting killed; game is too hard" this has been my fallback position. That there's no need for the whole PVE game to be made harder or easier in one big chunk by the movement of a hidden difficulty lever, but that the toughness of NPC enemies should be dictated in the main by where you choose to travel, with other variables like mission cargo or notoriety working on top.

But for some reason, either by deliberate design or by a lack of nuance in the BGS, this didn't seem to be the case for a long time. Now everything seems finally to be coming together. Security levels mean something. Political states mean something. Route plotting means something.

There are no doubt still a handful of players who think that the entire galaxy should be their "easy mode" playground, or alternatively that every system should be swarming with Elite Corvette pilots. But what we have now sure as hell feels more like the Elite and Frontier that I remember.

^ This basically...repped ^