Fact: Dumb AI promotes and encourages the behavior of gankers.

[Ian Doncaster]

TBH, I arrived at the same conclusion as the OP, but from the opposite direction.

Cannon-fodder NPCs help enable griefing by allowing most players (and I definitely include myself in this category) to be lazy about their builds, which does set two completely different standards for what might be expected in Solo vs Open.

I'm not sure that's quite it. Sure, the NPCs could be made even stronger, but I don't think that's their problem nowadays. A Deadly NPC Anaconda pirate or assassin is certainly no match for a high-end combat build, or a pilot who knows how to take advantage of its weaknesses, but it's quite capable of being an interesting threat to a mid-range multirole flown by someone other than a top pilot ... and things like the CZ special forces wings are a challenge for most players in most ships, the best aside.

The problem is, fighting NPCs is basically entirely optional.
- all of the tougher NPCs are gated off in "go here for a fight" zones and won't proactively attack (this is mostly fair enough, but you'd expect Elite ranked missions to sometimes send them after you)
- interdiction attempts are relatively rare to start with if you don't stack a lot of missions or hang around in supercruise for ages
- almost all the NPC interdictions are very easily winnable
- even if you can't win, you can high-wake in 15 seconds or in many cases just boost out of range and low-wake even if they mass-lock you. (especially if you have drives engineering)
- security ships will show up in most systems pretty quickly (by NPC standards) even if you can't do that

In Elite, FE2 or FFE the NPCs were individually considerably less dangerous in a stand-up fight than the Elite Dangerous ones ... even when a whole wing of them appeared, a mid-toughness player ship shouldn't have trouble taking them on. But you did actually have to fight them ... and yes, you could high-wake to get away, but you had very limited uses of that and you'd eventually have to fight something to be able to reach a station or another fuel star.

So there's no real incentive unless you like fighting the NPCs to put anything other than a paper shield or any weapons on your non-combat ship ... whereas in the previous games there were about ten systems you could safely take a completely unarmed ship to, and the rest you would die.

Now ... on balance, this may well be the more popular way to design it. Not everyone wants combat in their game ... and Frontier have - while making the NPCs more dangerous - made them even more optional since 1.0. I remember running quite a few "vs NPCs" exploration escorts in 2.0 and 2.1 because the NPCs would quite happily go for explorers back then ... which was itself a toned down version of 1.0's "shell of angry NPCs" that would hit explorers out to about 500 LY regardless. Nowadays, that sort of thing is so rare that when NPCs started firing on explorers at DW2 WP3, no-one was entirely sure if this was supposed to happen or a bug.

But it certainly means that many players aren't prepared for combat at all, because the game has taught them that combat is always completely optional.

 

[Iskariot]

Another post about how we're all mentally deranged.

Your hyperbole misses the point. I was very careful to use the qualifiers I did.
Read again, because you have not understood a single thing of what I wrote.

... unless of course you consider yourself to be part of that very small minority I mentioned.
If that is the case... if the shoe fits...

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I think you might have your "Fact" wrong.

True Griefers and Gankers have a specific mindset.
They want to make other people their content, they want to bully, they thrive on harvesting tears. They crave negative emotional responses.
This type of personality can be observed everywhere in society, including in gaming.[/I]

I disagree. My qualifications for commenting are that I just ganked a conda from an SRV, and this was not my mindset nor were these my motivations. Many gankers I converse with strike me likewise.

You may call me not a true ganker, but how much more grief can be had than when a conda has to log/menu/block/whatever because a dune buggy is shooting it. This is pure true grief.

I believe not all gankers are the same, and your definition limited to a small subset.

 

[Stealthie]

I'm not sure that's quite it. Sure, the NPCs could be made even stronger, but I don't think that's their problem nowadays. A Deadly NPC Anaconda pirate or assassin is certainly no match for a high-end combat build, or a pilot who knows how to take advantage of its weaknesses, but it's quite capable of being an interesting threat to a mid-range multirole flown by someone other than a top pilot ... and things like the CZ special forces wings are a challenge for most players in most ships, the best aside.

....

But it certainly means that many players aren't prepared for combat at all, because the game has taught them that combat is always completely optional.

I guess it's different aspects of the same issue.

Thing is, most long-time players will have reached Deadly/Elite so they'll always be getting the toughest ships the game has to throw at them anyway.
In that case, your own ship can make a difference.
If you're an Elite player and you're flying a tinfoil mining ship then you might be in trouble if you're attacked by a wing of Deadly FdLs and Vultures.

It doesn't work that way at lower tiers, though.
The same "tinfoil" mining ship is still plenty strong enough to deal with the NPCs you're likely to meet when you're at qa low rank.

On the face of it, that is a fairly sensible way of implementing "progression".
When you're a newbie you can rely on your ship to compensate for your inadequacies.
As you progress, you need the ship and the skillz to defend yourself successfully.

That'd be fine in a single-player game but it doesn't account for the presence of other players in a multi-player game.

In a nutshell, I think it'd make people better prepared for Open if, right from the start, there were tougher NPCs around to teach every player that it's not always going to be a fair fight, that they won't always be able to rely on their ship to get them out of trouble and[/] (possibly most importantly) that situational awareness and evasive flying should be a routine part of life in the ED universe.

Basically, close the skill-gap between PvE and PvP as far as possible/practical/reasonable and people will be more willing to accept that defence is a fundamental part of the ED universe and not something you have to "do differently" in Open.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Basically, close the skill-gap between PvE and PvP as far as possible/practical/reasonable and people will be more willing to accept that defence is a fundamental part of the ED universe and not something you have to "do differently" in Open.

Challenging to do in a four year old game - especially when less than half of base game owners have access to Engineers (from Frontier's statement).

Rebasing the challenge posed by the game now, remembering the varied player reactions to the bugged NPC loadouts of 2.1, is likely to lose players. While there are no doubt some players who would consider this to be "no loss to them", I doubt that Frontier would look at that prospect in quite the same way.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

when less than half of base game owners have access to Engineers (from Frontier's statement).

Agreed this is a problem.

Someone (sadly I can't remember who to attribute) recently suggested buffing base ships, while leaving effective strength of a fully engineered ship the same. I thought this was a suggestion with merit, although it's such a poorly balanced situation I think any approach will be rough.

 

[M00ka]

I disagree. My qualifications for commenting are that I just ganked a conda from an SRV, and this was not my mindset nor were these my motivations. Many gankers I converse with strike me likewise.

You may call me not a true ganker, but how much more grief can be had than when a conda has to log/menu/block/whatever because a dune buggy is shooting it. This is pure true grief.

I believe not all gankers are the same, and your definition limited to a small subset.

Give it a rest, you didn't 'gank a Conda with an SRV', you took a ring or two of shields off the ship. Which couldn't fire back because it was landed. Truth be told, if the Conda has engaged his engines and lifted off you would have probably been a smoking hole in the ground. The Conda pilot was probably wetting himself laughing at you.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Give it a rest, you didn't 'gank a Conda with an SRV', you took a ring or two of shields off the ship. Which couldn't fire back because it was landed. Truth be told, if the Conda has engaged his engines and lifted off you would have probably been a smoking hole in the ground. The Conda pilot was probably wetting himself laughing at you.

I suggest you read the thread on the matter. The CMDR landed after I informed via comms I was going to shoot from my SRV, and he/she tried shooting back from an SRV, and failed. The CMDR exited, came back a few minutes later, and exited again.

The most likely explanation for the method of ending the confrontation is that the CMDR was unaware the "dismiss ship" function existed.

I do not think a pilot who is unaware he/she can dismiss his ship can turn my SRV into a hole in the ground. Do you have much experience turning SRVs into smoking holes in the ground?

I believe if you read this thread and judge the content, not the poster, you will find much merit:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...balance-aka-I-just-ganked-a-conda-from-an-SRV

The bit about the other pilot wetting himself/herself is ironic.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

If what the gankers really wanted was a challenge, they wouldn't pick on the defenceless ships to gank.

Gankers are cowards IRL, and this is their way of feeling some sort of power that they lack. they dont fight people in comparable ships, they only fight people who have zero chance of winning, always.

Yes, it is called 'logic'. If people were looking for an alternative to challenging AI, they wouldnt go for the least challenging PvP. You are arguing people are drinking water because the wodka isn't strong enough. It is just silly.

I love these posts. Always assuming that because they or the target they knew was poorly fitted, that that's exactly why they were targeted.

Couldn't have been because the gankers were looking for that 1 in 10 surprise commander that bites back.

I'm not sure the OP understands the mindset of a PvPer.

We kill players because players are unpredictable, and will do alll sorts of crazy thing an NPC can't be programmed to do. Thats why it's fun.

I'm not sure you understand how good the AI has been in this game at times. [big grin]

Fact: Everything prefaced by 'Fact:' is, in fact, false.

Only if you're an internet tabloid outlet like Newsweek or Buzzfeed, I'd argue. Neither has sent me a check yet so I'll continue to use observations based in reality instead of carefully cultivated clickbait.

Challenging to do in a four year old game - especially when less than half of base game owners have access to Engineers (from Frontier's statement).

Rebasing the challenge posed by the game now, remembering the varied player reactions to the bugged NPC loadouts of 2.1, is likely to lose players. While there are no doubt some players who would consider this to be "no loss to them", I doubt that Frontier would look at that prospect in quite the same way.

How many of that half do you think are actually still playing?

I don't know a single one. Everybody who spends any amount of time in the game always picks up Horizons, or has it from the very start. There's no reason not to when it regularly hits 60-70% off sales.

I think you might have your "Fact" wrong.

True Griefers and Gankers have a specific mindset.
They want to make other people their content, they want to bully, they thrive on harvesting tears. They crave negative emotional responses.
This type of personality can be observed everywhere in society, including in gaming.

Perhaps in a few exceptional situations AI might influence the behavior of some of these miscreants, but... in general their malformed bullying personalities are what they are.

I believe that if your observations about the relation with AI were true than we should have many more griefers and gankers in games than we actually do.
In truth personalities like this are a very small minority.

I have played hundreds, if not thousands of games in my life, many of which had much worse AI than ED, and I never even once felt the need for griefing and ganking. Most people are just like me. A few might only sometimes be drawn to degenerate behaviour and very, very few display this behaviour all the time, whenever they can.

Disclaimer: I am not talking about those who simply enjoy multiplayer engagements.

I'm glad you decided to split hairs on the definition, because it allows me to finish.

My suggestion wasn't given as a complete, perfect solution to gankers. I said it merely promotes the behavior. Maybe 10% of it, and probably only that high on weekends.

The infinitesimally small fraction of players who behave as you describe won't change their behavior regardless of how the game changes, and so were never considered.

The definition of ganker gets applied to anyone who enters someone else's personal space in the mail slot though, so I chose to use that interpretation of the label since my OP was targeted at the people who requested the AI be dumbed down. The two traits almost indefatigably go hand in hand.

 

[Stealthie]

....especially when less than half of base game owners have access to Engineers (from Frontier's statement).

Hmmm....

I suspect that statement falls into the category of "lies, damned lies and statistics" (see references to "2.8%" for further details).

IIRC, INARA still seems to think that the Sidey is one of the most popular ships in the game, too.
Possibly for a related reason; a heap of people will have bought ED, played it for a few hours and then stuck it on the shelf, never upgrading from a Sidey, never unlocking any engineers and never buying Horizons.

I suspect that if FDev concentrated on the stat's of active players, rather than the sum total of all players, the results might be a bit different.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Hmmm....

I suspect that statement falls into the category of "lies, damned lies and statistics" (see references to "2.8%" for further details).

IIRC, INARA still seems to think that the Sidey is one of the most popular ships in the game, too.
Possibly for a related reason; a heap of people will have bought ED, played it for a few hours and then stuck it on the shelf, never upgrading from a Sidey, never unlocking any engineers and never buying Horizons.

I suspect that if FDev concentrated on the stat's of active players, rather than the sum total of all players, the results might be a bit different.

Can I agree with both you and RM?

I do think they juke the stats, but also suspect many active players are locked behind the grindwall even with horizons.

 

[Zeeman]

We had competent NPC's, then all the snowflakes cried and they were gone.

Z...

 

[M00ka]

I suggest you read the thread on the matter. The CMDR landed after I told him on comms I was going to shoot him from my SRV, and he tried shooting from his SRV, and failed. He exited, came back a few minutes later, and exited again.

The most likely explanation for his method of ending the confrontation is that he was unaware the "dismiss ship" function existed.

I do not think a pilot who is unaware he can dismiss his ship can turn my SRV into a hole in the ground. Do you have much experience turning SRVs into smoking holes in the ground?

I believe if you read this thread and judge the content, not the poster, you will find much merit:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...balance-aka-I-just-ganked-a-conda-from-an-SRV

The bit about the other pilot wetting himself is ironic.

Yep read it, included the proposed SRV duel, did that happen, did you get your dose of manhood by destroying the SRV? Funny no mention of that. Heck I wouldn't have dismissed my ship either, I could have walked outside to the balcony, had a smoke, wandered back in, poured myself a nice drink and you might have got one ring down on the shield. The Conda was never in danger.

And pray tell, since when did a mutually agreed on combat suddenly become a gank?

What is next, claiming a gank when bounty hunting, bragging about your gankiness when mining for Void Opals, griefing a station by landing on your assigned pad?

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

dose of manhood

Classy.

 

[sollisb]

Lol, ya got me.

I still want to see some stupidly hard NPCs. With a warning: Restricted area, experienced combat veterans only.

And then come here and read the posts from 2 week Conda folk who lasted seconds.

My latest account £9.99, is 14hrs played, Trade Tycoon, Combat Harmless, sitting a full A-Rated Conda, with another 500m in the bank.

Are you implying I can't fly it ?

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Yep read it, included the proposed SRV duel, did that happen, did you get your dose of manhood by destroying the SRV? Funny no mention of that. Heck I wouldn't have dismissed my ship either, I could have walked outside to the balcony, had a smoke, wandered back in, poured myself a nice drink and you might have got one ring down on the shield. The Conda was never in danger.

And pray tell, since when did a mutually agreed on combat suddenly become a gank?

What is next, claiming a gank when bounty hunting, bragging about your gankiness when mining for Void Opals, griefing a station by landing on your assigned pad?

Yeah no offense here M00ka, but lets not try to descend into childish name calling.

Clearly the person with the 'Conda thoght it was griefing, seeing as he done a log.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Hmmm....

I suspect that statement falls into the category of "lies, damned lies and statistics" (see references to "2.8%" for further details).

I suspect that it does not - simply because it was a statement to the market and there are laws in place to punish false statements.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail/FDEV/13959476.html

IIRC, INARA still seems to think that the Sidey is one of the most popular ships in the game, too.
Possibly for a related reason; a heap of people will have bought ED, played it for a few hours and then stuck it on the shelf, never upgrading from a Sidey, never unlocking any engineers and never buying Horizons.

Inara is available to those who know about it - not all players know about it. It relies on those players updating it - again, not all players will update it once they've made an initial profile.

I suspect that if FDev concentrated on the stat's of active players, rather than the sum total of all players, the results might be a bit different.

I suspect that Frontier might quite like lapsed players to come back to the game at some point - and might choose not to make it too difficult for them to do so as players that don't play don't buy cosmetics.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Yep read it, included the proposed SRV duel, did that happen, did you get your dose of manhood by destroying the SRV? Funny no mention of that. Heck I wouldn't have dismissed my ship either, I could have walked outside to the balcony, had a smoke, wandered back in, poured myself a nice drink and you might have got one ring down on the shield. The Conda was never in danger.

And pray tell, since when did a mutually agreed on combat suddenly become a gank?

What is next, claiming a gank when bounty hunting, bragging about your gankiness when mining for Void Opals, griefing a station by landing on your assigned pad?

As I said, for a lot of people the word Gank has pretty much become synonymous with mildly hostile or even just vaguely unfriendly player interaction. It's a sad state of affairs.

Not to mention I don't think I've ever seen the word used properly on this forum. If the target was dogpiled in true gank fashion that's usually when the faff about psychopathic animal abusers and rapists starts being thrown about with some very colorful adjectives.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

IIRC, INARA still seems to think that the Sidey is one of the most popular ships in the game, too.
Possibly for a related reason; a heap of people will have bought ED, played it for a few hours and then stuck it on the shelf, never upgrading from a Sidey, never unlocking any engineers and never buying Horizons.

I suspect that if FDev concentrated on the stat's of active players, rather than the sum total of all players, the results might be a bit different.

Well, the specific "half have Horizons" stat was from a financial report where activity wasn't particularly relevant.

They do seem to more-or-less concentrate on active players for most other things ... though of course they won't want to make the game difficult to return to after a long break, either.

 

[sollisb]

Give it a rest, you didn't 'gank a Conda with an SRV', you took a ring or two of shields off the ship. Which couldn't fire back because it was landed. Truth be told, if the Conda has engaged his engines and lifted off you would have probably been a smoking hole in the ground. The Conda pilot was probably wetting himself laughing at you.

Funniest thing I've read here in awhile!!

SRV vs Anaconda. lulz.