Wait until you are a PvP player.... You'll be saying exactly the same to all of the new players...
Buffed combat rewards have gone from underpaid to massively overpaid for very little effort/risk.
- Thread starter Cmdr Snuffler
- Start date
No, you probably misunderstood, I wasn't trying to roast you or anything like that.
PvE combat isn't particularly hard with unengineered (but "A-rated") equipment* (with the exception of higher level opponents like Thargoid interceptors and engineered NPC's maybe).
Once you've unlocked the first few engineers and have laid your hands on some lightly engineered modules (G3 dirty drives, G3 shields, G1 shield boosters, G5 distributor and a few weapons like MC's and rails), virtually no NPC's will pose a real threat any longer.
The fully G5-engineered murderboats are only really needed in PvP.
(* if you already have the experience, that is)
The problem with removing massacre mission stacking is not that combat is hard.
It's that killing hundreds of NPC's in order to get some decent payment is tedious and time consuming.
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Maring, just to the right of where the last CG was, 100ly down from Sol:Ah okay. So where is that 200M/hr place again?
Maring / EDSM - Elite Dangerous Star Map
Pretty much every faction had massacre missions.
Not true. Engineering can help and it certainly speeds up the time it takes to blow a ship up...but it's not required as such. When I reset my account I stayed in my A rated, un-engineered viper for a few months.
If you're getting involved in combat in a trade specced ship with a low class shield, no HRPs and an Auto SC and Docking computer then yes, combat will be tough. If however you have a-rated modules and are in a combat specced ship then combat will be much easier and forgiving.
Using your lateral thrusters to give you more advantage is a must as face tanking NPCs is not the way to go.
Virtually no single NPC will pose a threat...however, during last weeks CG and when stacking massacre and assassination missions I dropped into a Threat Lvl 3 POI. There was a lone conda and as soon as I opened fire 4-5 eagles, all with rails, 2 cobras, a FDL, FAS and another conda dropped in. The FDL, FAS and 2nd conda were all assassination targets, the 1st conda, eagles and cobras were the massacre targets. Threat Lvl 3. Ha!
I'm in a full maxed out Vulture murderboat, which is tough as old boots, but after 60 seconds of trying to take the eagles out they had me down to 80% hull and I had to leg it.
Once I'd killed the assassination targets I dropped into another lvl 3, same single conda and again as soon as it was tagged, 4-5 eagles and 2 cobras jumped in...got them this time, but did lose my shields.
I can see this being very tough, if not impossible, if I was in an un-engineered Vulture (yes, a corvette would handle it...but the funs in flying small ships)
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Thanks, I'll check it out.
The fact that you cannot kill them all in 1v10 (especially using a small ship) does not make PvE hard or NPC's a real threat.
The Vulture is the best small ship (or the smallest medium, depending on your POV), but it's not a murderboat, it's still only a small ship actually. Yes it's pretty tough, but with only two c3 hardpoints it cannot really put out the dps to kill quickly enough while being heavily outgunned.
With G5 DD the Vulture is fast enough, so no NPC will catch up with you if you decide to Brave Sir Robin out, which proves that not even 10 NPC's can pose a real threat.
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- There needs to be an Anarchy faction (the pirates) present in the system.
- If the Anarchy faction actually controls the system, sometimes other factions in the system give massacres.
- Otherwise, any system within 10ly will have factions that give the missions.
- Anarchy factions will not give massacre missions against other Anarchy factions
- From what I can tell, any system state that gives the faction bigger problems to deal with (War/Civil War, Election, Outbreak, Famine) will cause a drastic decrease in pirate massacre missions to the point of almost being nonexistent.
- 'None' and 'Boom' states observably spawn more missions.
As I've mentioned previously in the thread, overworking a system on massacres will eventually cause the INF levels of factions to start leveling out, causing many or even all states to start warring against each other, drastically decreasing missions. At that point, start going heavily into BGS manipulation or find another hunting ground as you see fit.
Maring, just to the right of where the last CG was, 100ly down from Sol:
Maring / EDSM - Elite Dangerous Star Map
Pretty much every faction had massacre missions.
Not true. Engineering can help and it certainly speeds up the time it takes to blow a ship up...but it's not required as such. When I reset my account I stayed in my A rated, un-engineered viper for a few months.
If you're getting involved in combat in a trade specced ship with a low class shield, no HRPs and an Auto SC and Docking computer then yes, combat will be tough. If however you have a-rated modules and are in a combat specced ship then combat will be much easier and forgiving.
Using your lateral thrusters to give you more advantage is a must as face tanking NPCs is not the way to go.
Virtually no single NPC will pose a threat...however, during last weeks CG and when stacking massacre and assassination missions I dropped into a Threat Lvl 3 POI. There was a lone conda and as soon as I opened fire 4-5 eagles, all with rails, 2 cobras, a FDL, FAS and another conda dropped in. The FDL, FAS and 2nd conda were all assassination targets, the 1st conda, eagles and cobras were the massacre targets. Threat Lvl 3. Ha!
I'm in a full maxed out Vulture murderboat, which is tough as old boots, but after 60 seconds of trying to take the eagles out they had me down to 80% hull and I had to leg it.
Once I'd killed the assassination targets I dropped into another lvl 3, same single conda and again as soon as it was tagged, 4-5 eagles and 2 cobras jumped in...got them this time, but did lose my shields.
I can see this being very tough, if not impossible, if I was in an un-engineered Vulture (yes, a corvette would handle it...but the funs in flying small ships)
this is what I made a post about not long ago. before this, threat 3 and even threat 4 was manageable for pretty low level players like myself but now they are impossible, even the threat 3, that should be kind of the competent/expert level. It looks like they increased bounty but also difficulty, so now, while at high level you can earn billions in no time, on low levels like mine even the last opportunities of fight based earnings are being removed. the only thing i can do now is shooting npc-s in res sites. before this i was doing massacre missions too as the assassinations need the stupid minigame with the hub terminal. hell, even the interdictions cause anacondas to hotdrop on me... single npc. yeah, they are managable. 10 of them? hell no
i could of course earn good money with trade missions but they are boring as hell
I used to make like a million credits an hour doing combat. Now I make like four million, lol. Now someone wants to nerf that back already after six years. I don't use any exploits or funky stuff. I just play. Most times without even a mission board mission. Just go out bounty hunting or join a CZ.
I mean, largely this whole thing does seem rather ridiculous âitâs too easy because I try and make it too easyâ but ...
What if the missions required kills of targets ranked as per the mission or, say, 3 ranks lower? That way your Elite multi-million credit paying missions would require 30 Dangerous, Deadly or Elite NPC kills. Which means following the USSs that spawn for the missions or hitting up a HazRES rather than farming Novice/Competent targets in a LowRES.
I suspect for those of us who play the game ânormallyâ (rather than obsessively min/maxing) this would make little difference. Canât remember the last time I hit anything other than a HazRES with my engineered ships as the challenge for taking on Elite Condas or wings of 3 Deadly ships is far more interesting - and rewarding - than mindlessly clubbing Novice Eagles in a single volley.
I donât reckon itâd slow me down particularly? Sure, you get some lower level Master/Expert NPC ships (often in wings with higher ranked ships) but those would still count towards lower ranked missions.
What if the missions required kills of targets ranked as per the mission or, say, 3 ranks lower? That way your Elite multi-million credit paying missions would require 30 Dangerous, Deadly or Elite NPC kills. Which means following the USSs that spawn for the missions or hitting up a HazRES rather than farming Novice/Competent targets in a LowRES.
I suspect for those of us who play the game ânormallyâ (rather than obsessively min/maxing) this would make little difference. Canât remember the last time I hit anything other than a HazRES with my engineered ships as the challenge for taking on Elite Condas or wings of 3 Deadly ships is far more interesting - and rewarding - than mindlessly clubbing Novice Eagles in a single volley.
I donât reckon itâd slow me down particularly? Sure, you get some lower level Master/Expert NPC ships (often in wings with higher ranked ships) but those would still count towards lower ranked missions.
you don't seem to realise that not everybody has engineered ships, hell mine isnt even A-d, im running on b,c,d,e modules. I can take down an solo anaconda, even if master or dangerous but not if it has a supportfleet of other 10. thanks to this i have only 2 options. either ridiculously low payout and easy enemies, that is not just not worth but also boring, OR the impossible missions and blitzing them with ridiculously easy and lowly enemies, then its still boring but at least it pays. there are VERY VERY few fights that actually offer a real fight but still manageable. Theoretically the threat levels were meant to offer this. have easier and harder missions and the player can pick the one aiding his advance the most. except, currently this does not work. if it would work as you say, beginners would be stuck in the dirt for like forever. there should be an increasing difficulty for an increasing reward...
You donât seem to realise how arrogant that post sounds ...
Not everyone has the same skill level so some people need to engineer ships to give themselves the âedgeâ against Elite âCondas or wings of Deadly ships. You can take them out in a Sidewinder armed with feather dusters? Good for you! Imagine what you could do if you engaged with the endgame content fully and engineered your ships!
And beginners wouldnât be impacted by my proposed changes at all. Missions up to Expert level would still allow Novice targets and even Master missions would only require Competent or above. With access to Dangerous missions youâd need to be hitting Expert targets at least but thatâs hardly a challenge as you yourself have admitted. If youâre taking Elite missions then your combat rank should be pretty high and you either need to be very good or engineer your ships. Seems entirely reasonable to me.
That would be a good start imo. I personally don't actually go to low/hi res, ever, because A) worse opponents and B) my pet (completely untested) theory is that an instance can only hold so many active AI, and having some of those spots taken up by police lowers the amount of actual pirates to shoot at any given time. (They're annoying to have around anyway if you're at the point of not needing them).
I think the bigger issue(s) is that the AI is basically kinda dumb, and also hasn't generally responded to the power creep of engineers and some powerplay modules. The ships you find at Haz Res are basically the same ships that have been there since Elite first came out. I can 'farm' elite Anacondas just as easily as I can harmless Eagles. If you properly G5 a vette you can solo-tank all the 3-4 AI in a wing assassination. It just takes longer and the reward isn't substantially better anyway. It's like when you see a 'wing trade' mission for 400 tons of cargo and your cutter can haul over 700t by itself, but the reward sucks so why bother?
I doubt the AI is gonna improve at all. As for ship loadouts, it would be ... interesting if FDev had higher-tier NPCs (or maybe just elite) randomly use builds that actual players have used before. They could just look at their own data, or have a community-wide 'submit your builds' event.
When I see an Elite NPC, I want to actually consider it a threat, not think 'oh hey I wonder if this has pharmaceutical isolators on it.'
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You absolutely don't need a Vette for that.
arrogant? or you just cant comprehend. i was exactly talking about how much weaker I am than any of you. yes, i can hit SINGLE dangerous targets with my anaconda, except i cant find any other than the very few random hotdrops. if you would make elite missions requiring dangerous or higher ranked enemies, i could just fkin uninstall as it would take ages to find a single one, let alone 40-50 of them. at the moment the only chance for a low ranked low skilled poorly equipped pilot is blitzing elite missions with novice missions targets because I can find them and i can deal with them. the problem is exactly that there are NO balanced enemies, there are no levels to find places with just experts, places with just masters, places with just dangerous etc etc etc , if there would be, i would love to fight dangerous enemies, but where they are, they all attack at once so from the single novice sidewinder the next step is the 10 fkin dangerous enemies. I tried one of these in a fdl, i lasted exactly 4 seconds. not fun. if you have engineered ships, loads of experience you might be able to deal with rank locked missions, beginners like me stand no chance
Take massacre mission, scan beacon in target system, go for mission signal, encounter group of enemies from target faction, kill every one of them one at a time while marveling at the fact that none of their "friends" bother with you. Pick next target. Lather, rinse, repeat. Made 15 million without stacking in 30 minutes that way, could have done it in an A rated Python. Oh, and that was a "Threat 4" USS, by the way. Fail to see the problem.
The end.
The end.
then consider yourself lucky
same wig mission threat 3 solo anaconda, on aggro 10 others jumped in and attacked instantly
They're actually very predictable that way. If you jump into the USS and all you see is a token Anaconda or whatnot, they're setting up a trap - as soon as you open fire you get swarmed with a bunch of little dudes. If you jump in and already see 10 targets floating around then like Misha said you can pick them apart one by one, or at most they will be in small wings, but not all 10 at once.
If you're not ready for the Anaconda trap, well, don't set off the trap.
If you're not ready for the Anaconda trap, well, don't set off the trap.
yeah i get this, except since like a week ago i have only ever got the anaconda. this shouldnt even be in threat 3. btw, in threat 4 massacre i did not even fire my guns, as soon as i jumped in, all ships there attacked me and melted me before i could say cheese, i couldnt even check what were they flying, only seen a fdl... so this is not universal. there seem to be many kind of missions and defying their threat levels they are many times on simply idiotic level