Make it hard

[Sellias]

So my 1st alt is Deadly going on Elite (not long to reach that exalted honour ) - just by virtue of playing in CZ's and Haz RES sites, it isn't going to make me a 'super-ace' combat pilot, all I will have done is ticked the box for the required number of elite-ranked opponents...

I find plenty of challenge already, I'd rather not have it made more 'challenging' because a handful of others find the game too easy, thank you

A handful? Sure you might not want more challenge, but others might want it. Again one of the main reasons people play games is challenge.

 

[Rat Catcher]

A handful? Sure you might not want more challenge, but others might want it. Again one of the main reasons people play games is challenge.

Ok, a double handful

Are you sure the main reason is for challenge? Not for recreation?

 

[Sellias]

Ok, a double handful

Are you sure the main reason is for challenge? Not for recreation?

Just like that small double handful who play dark souls and other challenging games

We play for fun, but fun has different aspects. And yes pretty sure since it has been researched

 

[Crasharr]

Way to go with the insults. Nobody here said to globally increase difficulty for new players. But increase the challenge at the higher end of the spectrum.

The only global thing that in my opinion should be changed are populated anarchy systems.

And artificially imposing a challenge on yourself, is well artificial and boring. Whats next I have to play with one arm? Turn off my screen?

A good difficulty curve in a game provides more challenge as player skill and time progresses. And does not flatline completely halfway in. Challenge is one the main reasons people play games.

But hey instead of having, a civil discussion, just keep ranting and screaming

And in regards to : not everyone owns horizons. Im sure the game could check if a player owns it or not, and spawn in npc's according to that.

@leeG
I might not like your playstyle, however I understand your perspective.

Personally I think it might just be time to create completely seperate game modes. Even if the whole fdev shared universe idea goes into the bin.

Otherwise there are ways to play around with combar ranks and faction relations. Which basically boilds down to : do a lot of combat and the danger comes to you.

Fine, you dont wish to hear perfectly viable arguements such as percentages of people who dont or do own the game breaking engineering add-on, it doesnt fit your narrative. I understand that.

Great way of civilised discussing. Sure you dont want to look for solutions you yourself can implement, such as playing with one arm or a turned-off monitor as soo many people have suggested(/s). Because you are right, you have sweated and bled to become so proficiant at this game it feels trivial to you.

Yes Fdev should jump through hoops now for you to be challenged again because thats what infinite-difficulty scaling games do! Every game ever made does this so yes you should have it here, there are no other games that have any sort of playstyle you might enjoy!

So yes, I apologize if I hurt your feelings, I should agree with you, there are no arguements to be made against what you suggest, elite "should be forever dangerous" and while we're at it yes elite open "should turn pvp on", I should not feel antagonized by people who know better than the develors about how to play this game or how the mechsnics "should" work. I am just playing the game wrong.

Thank you for hosting an open discussion in which you enlightened the masses and taught me so much.

Now if you dont mind I'll just continue on my path to become the next sweaty malaka that cheezeas the game LTD mining, enjoying nothing left to do but play for the true endgame goal.... Elite-Forum!

 

[Kaocraft]

Can you show me any discussions or patch notes about it ? I've been playing since launch day and never seen any changes to Interdictions.
The "Openly tweaked" part means I must have missed something.

The interdiction process itself, not how many happen, or under what conditions.

I'm OK with you not believing me, so I'm not going to do any work to change your mind. If you want to dig around on the internet yourself in the interest of general inquiry, my recollection is that these tweaks were occurring mostly around 1.2-1.4 or so, maybe a bit after Horizons launched as well. But by all means feel free to keep on thinking that Frontier haven't made deliberate changes to the difficulty of interdictions.

 

[Kaocraft]

Here we go again, another thread by a bunch of neck-beards trying to force "how things should be" on everyone else!

Take your D-sidey and jump into your nearest conflictzone... There, its dangerous. Stop trying to dictate how this game "should be" without ever even trying to see it from other peoples perspective.

I am a new player and its plenty hard, you're not impressing anyone with your try-hard whinefest.

Play Candy Crush with only your pinky finger while watching Gladiator on endless loop and it becomes an epic hardcore AAA game!

 

[Sellias]

Fine, you dont wish to hear perfectly viable arguements such as percentages of people who dont or do own the game breaking engineering add-on, it doesnt fit your narrative. I understand that.

Great way of civilised discussing. Sure you dont want to look for solutions you yourself can implement, such as playing with one arm or a turned-off monitor as soo many people have suggested(/s). Because you are right, you have sweated and bled to become so proficiant at this game it feels trivial to you.

Yes Fdev should jump through hoops now for you to be challenged again because thats what infinite-difficulty scaling games do! Every game ever made does this so yes you should have it here, there are no other games that have any sort of playstyle you might enjoy!

So yes, I apologize if I hurt your feelings, I should agree with you, there are no arguements to be made against what you suggest, elite "should be forever dangerous" and while we're at it yes elite open "should turn pvp on", I should not feel antagonized by people who know better than the develors about how to play this game or how the mechsnics "should" work. I am just playing the game wrong.

Thank you for hosting an open discussion in which you enlightened the masses and taught me so much.

Now if you dont mind I'll just continue on my path to become the next sweaty malaka that cheezeas the game LTD mining, enjoying nothing left to do but play for the true endgame goal.... Elite-Forum!

You mean how I always flew a small ship with fixed weapons, took on medium ships two ranks higher than me?

But hey screw game design theory on how to implememt proper difficulty curves and challenges.

But keep ranting, instead of looking for solutions for both player types.

Also I never mentioned infinite scaling difficulty. Or even mentioned pvp. And LTD's? Never even seen one ingame.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Just like that small double handful who play dark souls and other challenging games

We play for fun, but fun has different aspects. And yes pretty sure since it has been researched

Wow! 30 Adults participated in making a study... That is a massive slice of the gaming community...

So I'll change my comment from a double handful to 30

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

And just to prove a case...

Okay seriously, WHAT THE HELL is with combat these days???

Okay look, some of you might be thinking "oh look, another combat-is-broken thread", but I just felt like I really needed to vent right now. Hopefully that's okay. a few weeks ago I came back to Elite after a significant break and I noticed combat had gotten significantly harder than before, so...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Crasharr]

You mean how I always flew a small ship with fixed weapons, took on medium ships two ranks higher than me?

But hey screw game design theory on how to implememt proper difficulty curves and challenges.

But keep ranting, instead of looking for solutions for both player types.

Also I never mentioned infinite scaling difficulty. Or even mentioned pvp. And LTD's? Never even seen one ingame.

Just thought of the easiest and most perfect solution for all these repetitive topics: disabling of module stacking.

See I came up with a solution for both types of player. Not that hard to theorize about difficulty and challange curves, ED on the otherhand is hard, my poor little chieftain has to fight anaconda's in flight-groups of 4. Also 2 ranks higher than me...

Not a bad solution for all the pvp-discussions, dificulty-discussions, economic-discussions, progress-discussions and not to forget the immersion-discussions.

I should rant more, what have you come up with that fixes this game in one fell swoop?

 

[Rat Catcher]

And just to prove a case...

Okay seriously, WHAT THE HELL is with combat these days???

Okay look, some of you might be thinking "oh look, another combat-is-broken thread", but I just felt like I really needed to vent right now. Hopefully that's okay. a few weeks ago I came back to Elite after a significant break and I noticed combat had gotten significantly harder than before, so...

forums.frontier.co.uk

I did post a polite response in that thread as I think I know what is amiss...

...but, even I've noticed that NPC ships and tactics are 'more challenging' than last year, CZ's in particular appear to be spawning some tough-to-kill (time-wise) ships and even Haz RES ships of higher rank seem 'tankier' - so I posted some encouragement

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

I did post a polite response in that thread as I think I know what is amiss...

...but, even I've noticed that NPC ships and tactics are 'more challenging' than last year, CZ's in particular appear to be spawning some tough-to-kill (time-wise) ships and even Haz RES ships of higher rank seem 'tankier' - so I posted some encouragement

I just love that in the last week or so, there have been a few 'Game is dead with no challenge' ideas touted around, then just like that the polar opposite view shows up. Just proves, I guess, that there are no facts around gameplay.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I just love that in the last week or so, there have been a few 'Game is dead with no challenge' ideas touted around, then just like that the polar opposite view shows up. Just proves, I guess, that there are no facts around gameplay.

I've been having fun debating the same in another thread, I find the game pretty well matches my ability when it comes to combat, so naturally I enjoy it hugely, others think differently - but if we were all the same...

Being pointed to a study that determined 'why people play games' by one who stated most play for a challenge, I admit to reading said article and pointing out that if a case study of 30 folk (who I suspect were 'chosen' rather than at random by reading into the article) represented all gamers...

 

[Galafrey]

Never expected this to be so hotly debated, but does show a really interesting spectrum of how difficult people perceive the game to be. Without trying to be contentious, I'd say the game is easier now than at release when I spent a week of play trying to upgrade from a hauler.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Never expected this to be so hotly debated, but does show a really interesting spectrum of how difficult people perceive the game to be. Without trying to be contentious, I'd say the game is easier now than at release when I spent a week of play trying to upgrade from a hauler.

Interesting that you say that...

A returning player may disagree with you:

Okay seriously, WHAT THE HELL is with combat these days???

Okay look, some of you might be thinking "oh look, another combat-is-broken thread", but I just felt like I really needed to vent right now. Hopefully that's okay. a few weeks ago I came back to Elite after a significant break and I noticed combat had gotten significantly harder than before, so...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Sellias]

Just thought of the easiest and most perfect solution for all these repetitive topics: disabling of module stacking.

See I came up with a solution for both types of player. Not that hard to theorize about difficulty and challange curves, ED on the otherhand is hard, my poor little chieftain has to fight anaconda's in flight-groups of 4. Also 2 ranks higher than me...

Not a bad solution for all the pvp-discussions, dificulty-discussions, economic-discussions, progress-discussions and not to forget the immersion-discussions.

I should rant more, what have you come up with that fixes this game in one fell swoop?

That might partially solve the problem, it would mean you can't stack shield boosters and that kind of stuff. However if the AI can't even hit me, then it still won't matter. That change will only affect the numerical side of it,its basically tweaking difficulty by increasing and/or decreasing HP and or damage of either the players or enemies. And if you have played any bethesda game, that is a horrible way of doing it.

• Update Enemy AI on the higher ranked NPC's, make them able to perform more advanced combat manoeuvres.
• Update enemy load outs, give Dangerous, Deadly and Elite NPC's loadouts that players use
• Change NPC wing composition, for example you might face a medium ship which is tanky and used drag effects on you, while two smaller ships will be the hard hitters.
• Change how faction relations work : If you start killing a lot of pirates of a faction, they will start hunting you if you are in their systems
• Make Higher ranked NPC interdictions an actual threat

Creating good challenge and difficulty in a game is, well its challenging and difficult. It's not just an easy fix by adjusting a bunch of statistics, or removing a mechanic which affect only the statistical side. Its dependent on multiple intertwined factors within a game. And sadly the chances of a proper overhaul in this will never happen based on the development history in the game.

 

[leeG]

I might not like your playstyle, however I understand your perspective.

Which is precisely the point. I don’t play your way and I don’t expect you to play my way. So be careful when you‘re completely redesigning the game to your fit your particular style. What may seem so obvious to you and surely what everyone must really want, doesn’t look at all the same to me. The trick, if you want a successful, financially viable game, is to design a game that appeals to the broadest possible cross section of players and accommodates as many varied play styles as possible. Allow people to play the way they want. Just like, oh I don’t know, Elite Dangerous?

 

[Alsteif]

Maybe instead of changing the game we could do it in a way, that is simillar to the Thargoid encounters? We have so much unused space in the game. Wouldn't a very difficult, new part of the bubble, with very difficult npc's and challenges fix the issue with majority of the game being easy (and the only difficult factor being how much time you need to do something, even when it's easy)?

 

[CMDR DragonHorn]

Sad part about AI and NPCs is how lazy it is set up in the game. As soon as I hit Expert or Dangerous, I don't remember last time I had a contract for anything other than Conda or Vette. Same about NPCs that hunt you on "trade" missions. Build variation is also pretty pathetic. More variety of ships per combat rank for CMDR could do wonders, along with updating AI at higher rank and possibly better builds? Could actually work like difficulty slider.

Seriously, if we had mods, it would be a job for a few hours setting this stuff up.

 

[Threeofseven]

Not everyone has the same skill level. Some people find the current difficulty level hard enough.

the Galaxy is dangerous. They should have to learn to play the game, and only take low ranked missions until they do, rather than nerfing it to oblivion for 90%+ of the player base.

NPCs are zero threat and you cannot lose an interdiction unless you’re afk.