This game needs to impose itself upon the player.

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

The only thing I would say is, combat difficulty is about right, at the moment.

Thargoids, and wing assassination missions are basically the top point, CZs somewhere in the middle, and RES sites down low, and most "wild" NPC's are just low rank so are suitable for those not wishing to get in to combat.

 

[Brrokk]

I'm fed up with suggestions like this.

There are many subtle dangers in ED. A new player can be destroyed in incomprehensible ways by things he hasn't heard of. I remember getting silent running turned on and having to frantically search the key binds to see how to stop it. Another good one was starting an FSD charge while the fuel scoop was still active. After thousands of hours of play you know all these and avoid them, and of course the game is safe. (Although I still had a nasty moment with a neutron star last week).

Dangerous activities are available. Thargoids; PvP; combat zones in small ships. You can still find danger if you want it.

Therefore, saying you want more danger for everyone is really wanting to control other people's game-play. Seriously, this is a very unpleasant disease that the ED community seems to suffer from. It's also wanting to make the already steep learning curve for new players even steeper. Well, once it becomes perpendicular new players will stop turning up and the game's demise will be inevitable.

 

[Morbad]

I do not understate the difficulty just because I have learned how to mitigate the risk.

It's hard to understate difficulty when the mitigations are the defaults.

One has to go out of their way, and force their CMDR to make highly questionable decisions, for there to be any appreciable risk.

it's poor game design to have ONE difficulty for everyone

It's a multiplayer game that depends on everyone playing by the same rules.

Per-player difficulty is poor game design where all players are sharing the same setting and can interact with each other, even if that interaction is abstracted.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

This game should "challenge" us to win every time we login.

It can, optionally, if you want that.

This thread seems to be less about how the game should impose itself on the players, rather more some players who want to impose their preference on others. In that way its no different then from the open-only threads we have from time to time.

How about less "should" and more "could"?

 

[Riverside]

The problem is the way in which challenges are optional.

Having to avoid high-g planets, or refrain from carrying high value cargo, until one's abilities were up to snuff, would be the good way to implement optional challenge.

Requiring one to build a ship with anemic shielding and thrusters to even be at risk while landing on a high-G world, or deliberately fly a deathtrap while hauling that expensive cargo, is the bad way.

Phrases like anaemic or deathtrap are relative, not absolute.

My T-9 has only about 300 shields (and B-rated stuff, reactive armour and a couple of HRPs), it is built to be a player pirate magnet. It wouldn't last long against a determined ganker but I'm not interested in that kind of interaction & would rather just get it over with if all they want to do is blow my ship up. I'm not trying to win a fight, I'm trying to be entertaining content, while enjoying myself.

There are things that could be done to improve the challenge without disrupting others (allowing players to mitigate their own risk) but I think that if you are flying a maxed out ship in the optimal way you are going to succeed a lot and it's going to be boring. So I don't try so hard to be the best, and I don't build my ships to survive being ganked by multiple players because if I do the situations I find myself in 99% of the time will become boring for me.

The game can be better for you, and the OP, but I won't support a proposal that just makes it worse for someone else.

 

[Jukelo]

It can, optionally, if you want that.

This thread seems to be less about how the game should impose itself on the players, rather more some players who want to impose their preference on others. In that way its no different then from the open-only threads we have from time to time.

How about less "should" and more "could"?

I want the game to impose its difficulty on me the player, so that I the player don't have to role-play an absolute moron with a death wish making stupid decisions just for the sake of artificially creating challenge. It's hard already enough justifying my existence as a pirate in a universe where almost every other activity is easier, better paid and with no barrier to entry...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It already forces the toxic wasteland that is engineers on players. I feel that is enough of git gud imposed on vanilla players.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Yeah and the death penalties are pretty much gone.

 

[Lightspeed]

It can, optionally, if you want that.

This thread seems to be less about how the game should impose itself on the players, rather more some players who want to impose their preference on others. In that way its no different then from the open-only threads we have from time to time.

How about less "should" and more "could"?

This thread invites personal opinion and, in so doing, encourages contributors to express their perception of the game from their level of experience. Who knows, it might encourage FD to look again at the overall game balance ? They could do it, indeed they should.

 

[Leper Messiah]

It's a multiplayer game that depends on everyone playing by the same rules.

Per-player difficulty is poor game design where all players are sharing the same setting and can interact with each other, even if that interaction is abstracted.

I disagree, just scale back rewards/xp/whatever to the skill setting...better players get more rewards, but less skilled players can still play the game and enjoy it (and if they improve then they can up the skill level to match their progress and get those rewards).

mind you MMO's are poor game design full stop because of the premise of "level playing ground", which cannot exist because of difference in player skill level. Imagine a sport with NO leagues, everyone lumped in together...pretty crap, and that's MMOs in a nutshell.

I hate MMO's....although I have dabbled in TESOL.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Dangerous activities are available. Thargoids; PvP; combat zones in small ships. You can still find danger if you want it.

Combat, combat, combat.

Thargoids are not a threat, because I can elect to not encounter them.
PvP is not PvE.
Combat zones in small ships are easily winnable.

New players are going to struggle with combat. After they get over the combat hump there is no more challenge in the game. Everything in the environment is a total gimme. The game should challenge us every time we login.

Human wars are not a threat because the war is not imposed upon the player. Thargoid wars are not a threat because the war is not imposed upon the player.

I want the game to Impose itself on me. I want markets to generally tank in times of war, with prices for weapons, foodstuffs, and medicine skyrocketing. I want these prices to vary based on the victory level of the conflict and the owner of the commodities market, and most importantly, I want flying those commodities to market to be an exercise in hell, worthy of the credit reward when I hit the sell button. When one or both sides of a conflict hold majority influence in a system during a time of war, that system should go on absolute lockdown by those powers, and anyone flying into it better be damn good at staying alive.

 

[Morbad]

There are many subtle dangers in ED. A new player can be destroyed in incomprehensible ways by things he hasn't heard of. I remember getting silent running turned on and having to frantically search the key binds to see how to stop it. Another good one was starting an FSD charge while the fuel scoop was still active. After thousands of hours of play you know all these and avoid them, and of course the game is safe. (Although I still had a nasty moment with a neutron star last week).

Anyone who skimmed the manual and spent 45 minutes doing the tutorial missions isn't going to make most of these mistakes and it sure doesn't take thousands of hours to learn the core mechanisms inside and out, even by pure trial and error.

If the game has to cater to lazy illiterates who can't even be bothered to learn their own controls, it's no wonder the bar is set so low.

I think that if you are flying a maxed out ship in the optimal way you are going to succeed a lot and it's going to be boring.

I'm of the opinion that there should not be a universally optimal way and no loadout should be able to mitigate all risks. Many of the paths to get to such a point should also be creating risks.

My CMDR has murdered thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people in the name of expediency and entertainment. He smuggles slaves, shoots cops, fights for both sides at the same time in wars, smashes occupied escape pods for fun, etc and so forth. Even if there was a way for him to conceal such actions, he'd likely not have been that careful. In any vaguely credible setting, my CMDR would need an expensive army of bodyguards, fixers, food tasters, and a full time job to cover all the bribery he'd need to stay alive. He'd have a million enraged survivors clamoring for his blood; pooling resources to openly apply constant political, social, and economic pressure against him; and less openly sending a constant stream of hit squads and assassins after him. By all rights, he should have about as much chance of survival as an ODESSA agent with a public Facebook profile throwing slag at the Mossad. Yet, my CMDR's enemies largely ignore him because he pays his parking tickets on time, and even when they do deign to make their displeasure known, they insist on honorable duels, using ships of similar class to whatever my CMDR happens to be flying at the moment, which, of course, they are doomed to lose.

Clearly, I've already had my CMDR choose what should be a perilous road, but the difficulty is just not there because I won't play an overtly suicidal character.

I disagree, just scale back rewards/xp/whatever to the skill setting...better players get more rewards, but less skilled players can still play the game and enjoy it (and if they improve then they can up the skill level to match their progress and get those rewards).

The reward for me, as a player, is the challenge.

Handing my CMDR more money or materials may suit his goals, but does very little to satisfy my desire to play a character that has to face credible challenge in the Elite setting.

mind you MMO's are poor game design full stop because of the premise of "level playing ground", which cannot exist because of difference in player skill level.

A level playing ground is a rough equality of opportunity, nothing more.

Imagine a sport with NO leagues, everyone lumped in together...pretty crap, and that's MMOs in a nutshell.

The game isn't supposed to simulate an organized sport, but the lives of our CMDRs.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Yeah... folks keep bringing up new players. Are they supposed to remain new forever? Perhaps starting zones could be tweaked in their favor but outside of that it’s on like Donkey Kong.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Regarding dangerous exploration I had a little think on the matter, FD could add "Dangerous Stellar phenomona" with a high reward for scanning them at UC but with the extra risk. Getting tags on them could be a real "top of leaderboard" situation?

I want the game to impose its difficulty on me the player, so that I the player don't have to role-play an absolute moron with a death wish making stupid decisions just for the sake of artificially creating challenge. It's hard already enough justifying my existence as a pirate in a universe where almost every other activity is easier, better paid and with no barrier to entry...

Piracy and a criminal career path should be added to the game, with higher risks AND rewards.

 

[bradLP560]

Captain Kremmen had this right years ago. Everything should be harder to do and have more consequences in low Sec systems. Scale the difficulty levels by security levels and then everybody can play the game they want by picking the areas they play in. Obviously it would be a little more involved than that to balance across the bubble but not impossible.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Combat, combat, combat.

Thargoids are not a threat, because I can elect to not encounter them.
PvP is not PvE.
Combat zones in small ships are easily winnable.

New players are going to struggle with combat. After they get over the combat hump there is no more challenge in the game. Everything in the environment is a total gimme. The game should challenge us every time we login.

Human wars are not a threat becausethe war is not imposed upon the player. Thatrgoid wars are not a threat because the war is not imposed upon the player.

Once again there is NO "us". Just because "you" and others are not challenged does not mean others are not challenged.

 

[Macy]

Yeah op. If i have a bounty on my head i want to be scared about it. There should be ships after me.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

That's true and obvious. But what really saddens me is that they abuse the modes to let them justify all the shortcomings of each other mode so you're quickly lost in an endless loop of justifications. Want a challenge? Go Open and look for PvP. PvP is unbalanced and unfair? Go Solo or Mobius and all is fine (not). This way there's no pressure for FD to seriously improve PvP, but also not to improve PvE and give more meaning and coherence to ingame events. See what I mean? Not sure about you, but often makes me feel like being taken for a ride. Nothing against the modes as such, but please not in such a cheap manner.

I totally see what you mean. Good point.

Yeah op. If i have a bounty on my head i want to be scared about it. There should be ships after me.

Straight up. And if I'm flying commodities into an Anarchy, pirates should be on me like white on rice.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Captain Kremmen had this right years ago. Everything should be harder to do and have more consequences in low Sec systems. Scale the difficulty levels by security levels and then everybody can play the game they want by picking the areas they play in. Obviously it would be a little more involved than that to balance across the bubble but not impossible.

Yep - properly implemented security levels would go a long way.

But we need the rest of the "E" in PvE to be challenging, too.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

It can, optionally, if you want that.

This thread seems to be less about how the game should impose itself on the players, rather more some players who want to impose their preference on others. In that way its no different then from the open-only threads we have from time to time.

How about less "should" and more "could"?

Like I said, if I want to make the game really hard I can just turn off my shields and boost into the side of the space station every time I login. But that's just a dumb, superficial way of imposing "difficulty", and a game shouldn't rely on players self-imposing challenge.