CQC is unfair.

[MUSKETEER]

My first 2 CQC elite ranks I flew excusively in rank 11 Condor.

Just saying.



You don't need Rank 50 loadouts. Low rank Condor is pretty capable.

If you think you can compete against decent veteran in the same ship, you can't. Don't delude yourself. Experience, knowledge of the map mean way more than the ship.
Basic Condor suffers from poor boost up to rank 8, then it's just a very capable killing machine.

Here a few from rank 1 (3 consecutive matches) - with ranked #2 cqc player as my opponent as a bonus lol:

Sorry. Noobs will get farmed initially no matter what until they learn how to play like everybody else before. We all were noobs once.

Bonus quote for the giggles...

Right

 

[SergMx]

My first 2 CQC elite ranks I flew excusively in rank 11 Condor.

Just saying.



You don't need Rank 50 loadouts. Low rank Condor is pretty capable.

If you think you can compete against decent veteran in the same ship, you can't. Don't delude yourself. Experience, knowledge of the map mean way more than the ship.
Basic Condor suffers from poor boost up to rank 8, then it's just a very capable killing machine.

Here a few from rank 1 (3 consecutive matches) - with ranked #2 cqc player as my opponent as a bonus lol:

Sorry. Noobs will get farmed initially no matter what until they learn how to play like everybody else before. We all were noobs once.

Bonus quote for the giggles...

Right

A person who has everything out in the open can endlessly say that it doesn't matter, it has no weight.
After all, is this a competition or not? Why are the players not on a level playing field?
In general, logically, the best fighters who have everything open just have to say the most to make everyone a level playing field.
When they say the opposite is suggestive.
I think that on the cards prizes are always randomly generated and in different places?

 

[SergMx]

No objection to everyone having all equipment unlocked immediately.

(Given how many bad items and combinations there are compared with the stock Condor, I think it might actually make beginners easier targets. But sure, why not)


It'd be good for setting up actual tournaments as well.

As far as I remember (I could be wrong) as soon as they made this mode, the developers themselves did tournaments with real rewards ...
That was a long time ago and I could already forget the details.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

There's a big difference between "Oh my god! I just got blown to smithereens and I've no idea why or what I can do to stop that happening" and "Oh my god! I just got blown to smithereens. That was a real bad choice of equipment. I'm sure I can pick a better combination for my next go"

Certainly true - though it takes a fair bit of knowledge and introspection to be able to tell the difference, and having new things made available one at a time does encourage more controlled experimentation. On my first run through the ranks, I switched to the Rapid Cannons once they became available at around rank 10.

It took me until about rank 20 to figure out that the reason I thought they were better than the stock lasers was that I was a better pilot in general by then.

If combined with an initial set of 12 sensible builds it could work out okay.

As far as I remember (I could be wrong) as soon as they made this mode, the developers themselves did tournaments with real rewards ...

When the mode was announced there was apparently going to be a tournament with a cash prize.

This was "delayed for additional development work" and then never heard from again, presumably because even back in 1.4 it was clear that there weren't going to be enough good players to get an exciting 16-person tournament together. They've never formally said it's definitely cancelled, but it's been six years and they've never mentioned it so it's definitely cancelled.

(Now there are, which is why all the beginners die)

 

[Frank]

Certainly true - though it takes a fair bit of knowledge and introspection to be able to tell the difference, and having new things made available one at a time does encourage more controlled experimentation. On my first run through the ranks, I switched to the Rapid Cannons once they became available at around rank 10.

It took me until about rank 20 to figure out that the reason I thought they were better than the stock lasers was that I was a better pilot in general by then.

If combined with an initial set of 12 sensible builds it could work out okay.


When the mode was announced there was apparently going to be a tournament with a cash prize.

This was "delayed for additional development work" and then never heard from again, presumably because even back in 1.4 it was clear that there weren't going to be enough good players to get an exciting 16-person tournament together. They've never formally said it's definitely cancelled, but it's been six years and they've never mentioned it so it's definitely cancelled.

(Now there are, which is why all the beginners die)

At least giving you more equipment to fiddle about with would give you the feeling that you could do something rather than the way it is at the moment "Here's the ship we let you fly. There's Musketeer. See what you can do"

 

[Morbad]

There's a big difference between "Oh my god! I just got blown to smithereens and I've no idea why or what I can do to stop that happening" and "Oh my god! I just got blown to smithereens. That was a real bad choice of equipment. I'm sure I can pick a better combination for my next go"

The new player is going to try a lot of combinations of stuff before realizing it probably had nothing to do with the equipment. Maybe that will delay their frustration a bit, but it might also delay the learning process by sending them down false paths.

This was "delayed for additional development work" and then never heard from again, presumably because even back in 1.4 it was clear that there weren't going to be enough good players to get an exciting 16-person tournament together. They've never formally said it's definitely cancelled, but it's been six years and they've never mentioned it so it's definitely cancelled.

(Now there are, which is why all the beginners die)

I don't think that was the reason. CQC was positively crowded when it first launched (I remember the late 1.4 beta and being able to play ten matches in a row without seeing any of the same names, I even got into CTF matches) and there were plenty of passable CQC players early on (even if they were a smaller fraction of total active players) because there was a huge pool of competent PvPers who were able to pick up the basics quickly and who initially dominated those less experienced in the main game. There were players for a tournament, but I'm not sure matchmaking, networking, and rule enforcement was up to task.

Skill wise it is much more stratified now. The main game PvP pool is smaller, with equipment and tactics more divorced from their CQC counterparts than were originally (even SLFs don't perform like CQC ships...being twice as fast with three times the range and hitting five times as hard), and there are CQCers who have been mastering the mode the whole time.

A person who has everything out in the open can endlessly say that it doesn't matter, it has no weight.

I get completely massacred by the top CQC players in CQC currently, but as a starting CQCer, I was still able to regularly obliterate actual novice pilots, using the same gear they had, because I had considerable PvP experience outside of CQC and some beta CQC experience.

These are from the 1.5-2.0 era, before I started finding it hard to get into matches:

My more recent games are few and far between, and I generally don't do nearly as well, partially because I find it difficult to maintain any degree of practice when even getting a match is questionable, and partially because many of those remaining are the upper crust of CQCers, who can stomp me as hard as I can stomp a new player.

What absolutely isn't the issue is the unlocks.

 

[SergMx]

What absolutely isn't the issue is the unlocks.

Nevertheless, it is and creates a great psychological barrier for me personally.
There is a concept of dying quickly and dying for a long time, and I assure you it is not the same.

 

[MUSKETEER]

At least giving you more equipment to fiddle about with would give you the feeling that you could do something rather than the way it is at the moment "Here's the ship we let you fly. There's Musketeer. See what you can do"

I'm not against all the loadouts being available from rank 1. All I'm saying is people imagine they die a lot because other people have better ships, which in fact isn't the reason why they die so much.

 

[Frank]

I'm not against all the loadouts being available from rank 1. All I'm saying is people imagine they die a lot because other people have better ships, which in fact isn't the reason why they die so much.

...and also a reply to Morbad

I understand that skill is more important than equipment. I've had my bottom handed back to me by folks in weaker ships. But having a larger selection of equipment does give people more of a chance to pick a set up which they feel more comfortable with. If you happened to favour a set up which was available to beginners then good for you. If your skillz are so excellent you don't need to worry about your equipment then good for you as well

But this thread isn't about who are good or bad CQC pilots. It's about how Frontier can get more folks playing CQC, and the perception that the better players have an advantage isn't doing them any favours

I just don't understand why Frontier set up the game like this in the first place

 

[DemiserofD]

At the very least, I do think you should start out with a few options to choose between. It's been a while, but don't you start out with just one fighter? Most games start you out with a few options, even as you unlock more down the line. If players could start with, say, the Sidey, the Imperial Fighter, and the Federation Fighter, that would give them a nice set of choices without being overwhelming.

 

[SergMx]

At the very least, I do think you should start out with a few options to choose between. It's been a while, but don't you start out with just one fighter? Most games start you out with a few options, even as you unlock more down the line. If players could start with, say, the Sidey, the Imperial Fighter, and the Federation Fighter, that would give them a nice set of choices without being overwhelming.

I made a suggestion for the CQC a long time ago, and it was about Arena mode. Players with their feats from the main game could compete in the simulation.
As well as all sorts of competitions as in Sun-Too, but without the actual killing.

 

[DemiserofD]

People still play CQC? I thought that mode died years ago.

Pro tip: If you want to actually get into some fun PvP, build yourself a Prismo FDL or a Medium of your choice and go hit up Shinrarta or the CG.

Plenty of fights to be had and you will learn how to PvP in the actual game.

I think that's WHY a lot of people try CQC; so they can have fair pvp without needing to engineer a specific ship for it.

 

[MUSKETEER]

you will learn how to PvP in the actual game.

But why would you want that? PvP in Elite Dangerous is crap. It's really a PvE game lol

 

[SergMx]

Some of it can be crap, the entire system is unbalanced and usually favors shield tanks. However, when it does work, it is some of the best fun that can be had in this genre of game.

This also applied to the CQC.

 

[MUSKETEER]

I liked main game PvP before the Horizons. After that.. meh.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

It's been about six years since Horizons dropped. About four since 3.0 revamped the engineering system, establishing a clear baseline. Guaranteed stats for mods, no more random nonsense and guesswork, as it's all pretty much been tested by now. There are tried-and-true builds for people to go off of.

There is definitely a clear meta that heavily favors shields, and the gap between engineered and stock ships is incredible, so having the best, or almost best gear is essential if you want to hang with the top guys. But once you get to that point-- doesn't take long these days-- it comes back down to individual ability, much like CQC.

Basically, what I'm saying is, I think you might be missing out, and it's definitely worth looking into. You never know, you may accidentally like it.

 

[SergMx]

It's been about six years since Horizons dropped. About four since 3.0 revamped the engineering system, establishing a clear baseline. Guaranteed stats for mods, no more random nonsense and guesswork, as it's all pretty much been tested by now. There are tried-and-true builds for people to go off of.

There is definitely a clear meta that heavily favors shields, and the gap between engineered and stock ships is incredible, so having the best, or almost best gear is essential if you want to hang with the top guys. But once you get to that point-- doesn't take long these days-- it comes back down to individual ability, much like CQC.

Basically, what I'm saying is, I think you might be missing out, and it's definitely worth looking into. You never know, you may accidentally like it.

When they study something, they take a partner and one of them sits passively, while the other shoots and writes down the numbers on paper.
When you die quickly in the CQC, you can not learn it.
Give us a choice and we will decide whether to use ready assemblies from the forum or try everything ourselves.
Why do people with different levels get into the same fight? What is difficult to supplement the unfortunate fighters from among the NPC?
And I myself will decide to put me an option in the settings CQC to play only with people or not.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

A small pool of players to begin with doesn’t help the situation, and lack of team balancing is definitely a concern. I wouldn’t be opposed to bot or private matches, just for the sake of making it easier to balance teams or play with friends.

As for learning CQC, the best thing you can do is jump in, and accept you’re probably going to die a lot at first. That’s normal when picking up just about anything new.

You may indeed die quickly, but you should have plenty of time to look at your surroundings in the time you are alive. Powerups can be viewed on senors, and in your left panel throughout the match— they are essential to have a chance against anyone seasoned.

If it was impossible to learn, nobody would be good at it. But they are, and you can be, too. You just have to take the plunge and tough it out for a bit until you get your bearings.

As much as I would like them to, I don’t expect Fdev to put forth much effort into CQC. Historically they haven’t, and they certainly have much bigger problems on their plate right now. Unfortunately, we’re probably gonna have to deal with what we have well into the future.

 

[SergMx]

A small pool of players to begin with doesn’t help the situation, and lack of team balancing is definitely a concern. I wouldn’t be opposed to bot or private matches, just for the sake of making it easier to balance teams or play with friends.

As for learning CQC, the best thing you can do is jump in, and accept you’re probably going to die a lot at first. That’s normal when picking up just about anything new.

You may indeed die quickly, but you should have plenty of time to look at your surroundings in the time you are alive. Powerups can be viewed on senors, and in your left panel throughout the match— they are essential to have a chance against anyone seasoned.

If it was impossible to learn, nobody would be good at it. But they are, and you can be, too. You just have to take the plunge and tough it out for a bit until you get your bearings.

As much as I would like them to, I don’t expect Fdev to put forth much effort into CQC. Historically they haven’t, and they certainly have much bigger problems on their plate right now. Unfortunately, we’re probably gonna have to deal with what we have well into the future.

Actually, it's not normal.
Even in the main game they made a zone for noisemakers.
What is difficult to count the number of murders and so balance the players?
Horlsho do not want to balance so here's an option, when killing a player below your level at 2 you personally it goes in the offset?
I can think of 100 variants but you're right, the CQC in the game is dead.

 

[Morbad]

Nevertheless, it is and creates a great psychological barrier for me personally.

Fair enough.

But this thread isn't about who are good or bad CQC pilots. It's about how Frontier can get more folks playing CQC, and the perception that the better players have an advantage isn't doing them any favours

I don't think they can. I don't think that they think they can. And, at this point, I don't think they care.

I just don't understand why Frontier set up the game like this in the first place

I don't understand why they bothered with it at all. It never fit in with the rest of the game, and even where it integrated ideally from the beginning, I highly doubt it would have held on to enough players to give it a healthy population more than six years down the line.

What is difficult to count the number of murders and so balance the players?

Population. If you start segregating players, most players won't be getting into matches because not enough people will play.

Bots could mitigate this issue, but it wouldn't solve it, because the bots would be limited and wouldn't be able to test the same skills that are required to fight other players. No matter what method is used, any form of match segregation is diluting the playerbase in a game that already has too few players.