Good analysis and suggestions. I'd also limit players who got a PvP bounty to Open until it's claimed.
How Frontier Empowered Gankers, and How to Fix It
- Thread starter Frenotx
- Start date
- Status
I’ve always been in favour of that too. TBH I don’t like the easy mode swap gameplay of FD and think players should have two accounts that cannot interact; One for Open and another for solo. The Open should be always 100% Open and the solo should have access to Group. That’s a side topic though and doesn’t address the OP.
In the blending scenario, a fully scanned pc vessel would not appear different from an npc, only flight paths would be the giveaway, and right this second a cutter or Corvette, since NPCs do not use those. A double blind system.
Ideally, specifically targeting players over NPCs would be reduced, but, as frenotx pointed out, the sacrifice is more stress on traders since they can't be sure who is pulling in behind them until it's too late, highly increased paranoia, at which point the PvP to PvE rift is still there when it is a player.
Ideally, specifically targeting players over NPCs would be reduced, but, as frenotx pointed out, the sacrifice is more stress on traders since they can't be sure who is pulling in behind them until it's too late, highly increased paranoia, at which point the PvP to PvE rift is still there when it is a player.
In an ideal ED world, the difference of rift caused by the unbalance has been tuned down like in the OP, such that there is no immediate difference between npc interdictor or a player one thus the paranoia and stress issue no longer present.
I quite like that, I had a broadly similar idea but for shields a while back:
Stronger Shields if Hardpoints are not Deployed
They briefly made NPCs similar to low level pvp players and there was such an outburst they ended up lobotomising them again.
To be fair, a not-insignificant amount of that backlash came from NPCs being bugged with superweapons (Plasma frag cannon, anyone? Multicannon rail gun?), plus people being ignorant of engineering and thinking the resulting absurd DPS was just coming from NPCs being engineered / having better AI.
Last edited:
True, but FD chucked the baby out with the bath water as a result.
Bob Lighthouse
Banned
Plenty of good ideas but I would rather see a reigning in of the defensive boosting of ships instead of making all ships harder to kill.
Excellent idea, Rep.
That's clever and it makes sense.
No. They are simply iterations on the same theme and Frontier have already attempted quite a few of these changes, with variable degrees of success. You've actually missed the elephant in the room that is power-creep, and mass-lock. They have combined, to make it a very trivial exercise for a medium ship (Python, FAS, FDL, et-all) to engage a large ship with ruthless efficiency. Python and FDL can mass-lock a type-9. Who the hell knows why Frontier thought this was acceptable at the time. Quite a few combat ships can.
It boggles the mind they still consider that acceptable. Yes you can high-wake. Or just, you know, combat log, since that's expedient and zero-consequence. Or just 'die'. Rebuy works, and it's pretty efficient now, as far as the timeline of being shot, and being at rebuy screen. It's all quite efficient.
One of my recent trips in type-9 resulted in a pretty fireball, but I didn't care overly as my commander is wealthy (as frontier assumes it would be) and the perp got hit with a 3mil tax on my rebuy. Which is fine if you have a decent buffer in credits (but we can't have that, because that's not playing correctly) so.. really I don't think more barbaric punishment has any value.
Neither is just 'more hull' or 'more shields'. The solution isn't making players not shoot each other, either; since that's a core part of the game. Or even yet more power creep (because surely if you have enough gun, or enough engineered armour everything will be fine) it's solving the actual cause of the balance point; mass-lock and ship capability versus purpose, against a backdrop of relative player wealth.
The game assumes commanders will be wealthy by the time they have large/ expensive ships. The game's expectation, does not align with actual. Because apparently credits are unimportant (and yet they are a pivotal part of supporting the rebuy mechanic, never mind the entire credit-sink aspect of the game people love to conveniently forget exists).
The entire line of ships needs a rethink for mass-lock and what the relative power balance should be. Frontier also need to get a handle on the considerable amount of credits they naturally assume commanders now have due to the endless addition of ships and wealth now required to own more than just 2-3 ships. It's Frontier simply getting a better handle on what the experience is; and not being afraid to make dramatic changes to improve.
The ways and means are the least of the problems at this point. There are endless solutions. It's Frontier being prepared to make some hard decisions, adapt the vision to match actual and risk the ire of some, to improve the results for all. Powerplay is exactly an example of that; and if it survives being shouted down, I will be (pleasantly) shocked.
Last edited:
Repped.
I would love to see a "Special Weekend" with the following changes only (for testing purposes):
- mass lock factor directly related to ship mass*
- rebuys zero'd
You'd still have consequences due to losing time and cargo, but no more rebuys.
I bet the Corvettes and Anacondas would come out in force in open like with the beta.
*that one more for immersion purposes though. The big factor would be the rebuys I guess.
I guess from my perspective? Change the entire paradigm. So here's some dramatic changes that will ostensibly reset the field. Are you ready? Here we go.
- Set hardness of trade ship hulls to high number, so that there is a much higher penetration resistance; sniping modules becomes a case of having to beat down a lot of hull first.
- Remove mass-lock; it's a garbage bin fire of nonsensical twaddle and is made redundant by high-wake, logging and the rampant speed now available due to engineering.
- Create small and medium hardpoint scaled defence modules that mitigate large amounts of incoming fire (have it target and hit most projectile types)
- Consider adding cargo insurance as an optional commodity tax that covers cargo in the event of total ship loss
Cargo insurance basically would have to be like a tax on commodities; essentially on total ship loss you get the load back. This creates choice to either maximise profits, or minimise risk.
Essentially, the game assumes combat people need help to combat, and that trade ships are just like fort knox and so this is all very hard to deal with. The actual reality of the situation couldn't be more different.
The only reason PVP folk spend much more time trying to snuff each other out, is the rampant power creep that's turned combat ships into an actual fort knox and so it's all about squeaking that last MJ of DPS and inch of heavily engineered hull. Anything else that's not running true apex builds? Most likely dead. I mean you can build for survival? Sure. But the game does a lousy job of helping you do that.
The thing is, Frontier knows this. They absolutely know this. They know most all of this now. It's been endlessly, and I do mean endlessly debated. This, is surely not our issues at this point.
But knowing a thing, and the willingness to address and correct that thing? Entirely different. The issues have never been how. It's always been why. And the willingness of Frontier to make hard decisions, that improve the outcomes, but not without some cost. It's really easy to nerf or buff a thing. Much harder to make difficult decisions that fundimentally change outcomes. Because that stresses people. And that can lead to concerns and cold feet and reversions and all the other drama.
None of this is easy. But I think, after five years, Frontier are showing some signs they will try? Powerplay changes are an example. I hope so. For the sake of the franchises future, really. And Frontier's.
--
The op kinda makes the same mistake many do; assuming the issue is simply not knowing how to fix the problems. It's not that Frontier don't know how at this point. It's the ability and willingness to action them and be brave enough to stay the course, when it's super important they do.
edited heavily
Last edited:
Re 2.1 NPCs - FDev made the mistake of implementing too many changes at the same time:
1. Fixed bugs and improved combat flight patterns. This change alone would make NPCs significantly more dangerous for most CMDRs.
2. Allowed NPCs to target modules, at a time when MRPs didn't exist. On several occasions my ship got immobilized with 80% hull, which simply did not happen before 2.1.
3. Equipped NPCs with engineered modules while players didn't have any. At this point we know how strong engineering is but with 2.1 release players simply didn't understand how much more powerful some NPC ships are.
4. Allowed NPCs to use experimental weapon effects while many of them were seriously overpowered and players didn't know how to deal with them.
5. Added highly aggressive Powerplay NPCs to RES locations. These usually came in wings of 3 and were able to destroy a stock ship within seconds. This only was an issue for PP pledged players.
All these changes combined made NPCs possibly 5x or 10x more effective in combat which was quite a shock for many players, myself included. I had to switch to flying small ships and got destroyed quite a few times before I could re-learn the NPC threat levels - i.e. what kind of ship (+ combat rank) I can afford to fight and when I have to retreat.
Points 2 and 4 were quickly patched out, point 3 was reduced in magnitude, point 5 was fixed later (by making PP ships neutral unless a player carries PP cargo or undermining vouchers).
I believe that today, with players having engineered ships and the mods themselves being much better balanced, 2.1 NPCs would be quite manageable. Too bad FDev got so scared that they never tried to re-introduce some of the improvements.
1. Fixed bugs and improved combat flight patterns. This change alone would make NPCs significantly more dangerous for most CMDRs.
2. Allowed NPCs to target modules, at a time when MRPs didn't exist. On several occasions my ship got immobilized with 80% hull, which simply did not happen before 2.1.
3. Equipped NPCs with engineered modules while players didn't have any. At this point we know how strong engineering is but with 2.1 release players simply didn't understand how much more powerful some NPC ships are.
4. Allowed NPCs to use experimental weapon effects while many of them were seriously overpowered and players didn't know how to deal with them.
5. Added highly aggressive Powerplay NPCs to RES locations. These usually came in wings of 3 and were able to destroy a stock ship within seconds. This only was an issue for PP pledged players.
All these changes combined made NPCs possibly 5x or 10x more effective in combat which was quite a shock for many players, myself included. I had to switch to flying small ships and got destroyed quite a few times before I could re-learn the NPC threat levels - i.e. what kind of ship (+ combat rank) I can afford to fight and when I have to retreat.
Points 2 and 4 were quickly patched out, point 3 was reduced in magnitude, point 5 was fixed later (by making PP ships neutral unless a player carries PP cargo or undermining vouchers).
I believe that today, with players having engineered ships and the mods themselves being much better balanced, 2.1 NPCs would be quite manageable. Too bad FDev got so scared that they never tried to re-introduce some of the improvements.
I don't think that structuring the OP in this manner can be interpreted as a mistake. This is just OP's way of starting a discussion and raising awareness about issues.
I can easily imagine a new thread listing just the issues, followed by a quick series of whitish posts "whine! whine!" followed by swift moderator action titled "ok we've had enough of these" on page 2.
Ok, so FDEV may even acknowledge OP's points as problems and have their own solutions for them. That still doesn't make the thread useless - if there are more of us thinking the same way, and by a glance in this thread, there are, then I welcome those that stand up together and say: "look Frontier, we care less about your Krait and whatever other Q2 tomfoolery you have lying around, we care more about these issues which make the game unplayable for some of us!".
What you have just described is a HUGELY unbalanced set of changes.
- Why should trade ships have extra hull hardness? They're meant to be tin cans with cargo racks. They aren't tanks.
- Mass lock forces people to make a risk determination: guaranteed 15-second safety but you have to leave the system OR potentially a longer jump but you get to stay.
- Defense modules like that would be unbelievably unbalanced. You already have a module that mitigates a large amount of incoming fire. It's called a shield.
If traders are getting smoked in open, it is because of their own greed or inability to outfit their ship for the risks they will be facing. Stop the hand holding and let them be responsible for their own safety.
Those suggestions are just fuel on the fire of the power creep.
I generally agree with your view (don't be greedy) but there is little to be learned from a very quick death. More TTK means more time to see what's going on & learn from it situationally as the scenario plays out. Too much TTK leads to complacency I agree.
- Status