Am I getting too old but is the new content too difficult to access?

[Disemboweled Ego]

I don't know what that means. If you want to say something, say it. Do you disagree with how the Titan content was put out? Do you think it would have been better if it was dumped all at once on the players? If you followed along with the stages in the Titan content, it's not too difficult to do whatever shenanigans you aim to do there.

Yeah, the pacing and constantly hitting artificial walls due to content not being implemented really hurt the overall experience, but they seem to be working with limited resources.

It's not great as a tutorial because of the same progress walls with gear unlocks, once you learn how to deal with the thing a new piece of gear gets involved that makes the old knowledge less useful. Elite also ends up telling you the solutions instead of letting you figure it out for yourself - except for ECM, but that could just be an oversight. It's more fun to figure out the solution yourself instead of being handed a new piece of single-purpose gear by Aegis and told where to use it.

Normally in games this would feel different and better - when the game introduces a new tool that solves a problem for you and lets do do more things. Elite was so close to doing that here, but since things are very gated to specific gear the gear becomes a hard requirement not a tool to make the game easier. The alternative path would have been to let purpose built fast ships with a lot of armor brute force themselves through the pulse and do research/rescues without having the pulse wave to highlight deposits.

It's a tricky balance and getting it wrong can make the game feel like it's just adding arbitrary problems to increase difficulty before nerfing it with gear-based power creep, but the problems/solutions for titan exploration are actually conceptually really cool. The way it ends up percieved in Elite is more grind to unlock access to the titan, which isn't entirely fair but is increasingly true with every piece of gear required.

An example of this done right is the Experimental Module Stabilizer that's entirely optional, has downsides and unlocks many new builds for AX.

It could also be that the mechanics exploration aspect of this got toned down because most people would run into exactly the type of problem the OP describes - trying and failing is extremely frustrating due to how punishing it can be - it takes so long to get to the maelstrom and it can be over in just seconds unless you have a tanky ship and/or great situational awareness and flying skills to evade interceptor/hunter fire if you do get spotted in the maelstrom.

I remember when the last few titans dropped we were briefly able to put carriers around the planets they were at and do quick trips to poke around and respawn/repair quickly instead of being delayed by multiple hyper/interdictions on the way in, which is the real pain point imo since they're forced into an almost-inescapeable fight with a rng-heavy troll enemy where the outcome depends more on their attack/shield patterns than anything you can do as a pilot to outfly it.

 

[William J Smith]

I'm mostly with the OP here...
Partly due to being an old codger, but mostly due to having another go at getting to a titan yesterday.... hyper-iterdited by 2 hunters aint fun.... managed to jump out thanks to the ECM defeating the missiles. but then got jumped by a hunter on the cruise to the titan.
Given I've got the enhanced AX multis..... they did diddley squat against the hunter... and especially when he called for backup. , yet my guardian weapons will take down scouts in 1 shot, and cyclops in about 6(advanced chargers)
So I gave up and returned to the bubble where I'm propping up the bar at Chris and Sylvia's paradise hideout wondering what I can smuggle today

Bill

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

I ran two visits to the titan tonight.

The first in an unengineered DBX (simply to prove it can be done).
The second in a heavily engineered anaconda.
Both armed and armoured.
The DBX made it to the titan with 17% hull and with a few repair limpets limped back up to 50% of a 1185 hull. I got a few pods out but was quickly spotted by Scythes and finished off.
The anaconda faired much better arriving with 95% of a 5000 hull but again I messed up my stealth with pod collection and died to Scythes.
Both ships are slow though and can't hide quickly out of line of sight. I think my next strategy is to build something much quicker.

 

[Mrc_NorthEast]

I think my next strategy is to build something much quicker.

Quicker and colder. If you can get your ship heat under 20% you won't be spotted very easily. Lo Emissions power plants, Thermal spread on experimentals, no shields, etc. All good ways to lower your heat signature. And silent running. Good Luck. My Krait Mk2 boots to 548 and is 18% heat sig when just idling. It seems to work ok. I still die once in awhile, and I never return with 100% hull, but I usually make it back

 

[Pville_Piper]

Worked on the Glaive combat again tonight... But was difficult to find them, and when I did, they came in threes. I brough my Mamba over, the extra speed seems to make a small difference, still doesn't outrun the Glaives at 600. It's not well engineered, and I didn't think the speed made enough of a difference, so after a couple of rebuys I gave up, got in my FAS for the rest of the evening. This was much better and more fun. Plus, no more rebuys.

I started with all AX Azimuth multies and then dropped down to 3 with a long-range beam with thermal vent. This made the heat more manageable and combat as well, took on one Glaive and killed it with 75% hull left. This meant I was still combat viable, and I ended up doing an extended combat patrol but other than the big boys and the scouts (pay isn't worth it), I didn't run into any hunters. My experience seems to show that the long range, thermal vent beam makes a noticeable difference in fighting the Glaives.

I really enjoy combat in the FAS, the Krait II is good, but the FAS just seems to be more fun and better able to take hits and dish it out. Could just be me, I have a soft spot for the FAS, we go way back. She was the first ship that really allowed me to play the way I liked without limiting me.

I plan to return to the Krait II and try 4 Azimuth multies with the beam and see how that feels. I was running 2 large and 2 mediums with a medium thermal vent beam, this is what I was running when I went against the Scythe, Glaive and 4 scouts, we'll see.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Quicker and colder. If you can get your ship heat under 20%

Quicker yes, colder no.
The DBX idles at 19%, the anaconda with low emissions PP is down to 14%.

Both also have shields. A very light biweave that can be switched on/off quite quickly. It does increase your survivability on the way in. What you have to watch is the power draw while they are charging as they will increase your heat while doing so. But if you've already been spotted then you need to heat sink that heat away in any case.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Yeah, the pacing and constantly hitting artificial walls due to content not being implemented really hurt the overall experience, but they seem to be working with limited resources.

It's not great as a tutorial because of the same progress walls with gear unlocks, once you learn how to deal with the thing a new piece of gear gets involved that makes the old knowledge less useful. Elite also ends up telling you the solutions instead of letting you figure it out for yourself - except for ECM, but that could just be an oversight. It's more fun to figure out the solution yourself instead of being handed a new piece of single-purpose gear by Aegis and told where to use it.

Normally in games this would feel different and better - when the game introduces a new tool that solves a problem for you and lets do do more things. Elite was so close to doing that here, but since things are very gated to specific gear the gear becomes a hard requirement not a tool to make the game easier. The alternative path would have been to let purpose built fast ships with a lot of armor brute force themselves through the pulse and do research/rescues without having the pulse wave to highlight deposits.

It's a tricky balance and getting it wrong can make the game feel like it's just adding arbitrary problems to increase difficulty before nerfing it with gear-based power creep, but the problems/solutions for titan exploration are actually conceptually really cool. The way it ends up percieved in Elite is more grind to unlock access to the titan, which isn't entirely fair but is increasingly true with every piece of gear required.

An example of this done right is the Experimental Module Stabilizer that's entirely optional, has downsides and unlocks many new builds for AX.

It could also be that the mechanics exploration aspect of this got toned down because most people would run into exactly the type of problem the OP describes - trying and failing is extremely frustrating due to how punishing it can be - it takes so long to get to the maelstrom and it can be over in just seconds unless you have a tanky ship and/or great situational awareness and flying skills to evade interceptor/hunter fire if you do get spotted in the maelstrom.

I remember when the last few titans dropped we were briefly able to put carriers around the planets they were at and do quick trips to poke around and respawn/repair quickly instead of being delayed by multiple hyper/interdictions on the way in, which is the real pain point imo since they're forced into an almost-inescapeable fight with a rng-heavy troll enemy where the outcome depends more on their attack/shield patterns than anything you can do as a pilot to outfly it.

Can't chalk this up to "limited resources" - it's systemic and repeatedly done the exact same way that always leads to players getting roadblocked. It is design philosophy to do it that way. Intentional grind, roadblocks and frustration. The motive? Probably increasing player hours online for some stupid metric is my guess. Fun is not the metric they chase, that much is clear.
They design like that time and time again. Then some two years later the "limited resources" remedy the stuff by striking several zeroes of the loot requirements until they make up their next update that targets specifically obsessive behaviour.
There is simply no point in buying any new ED expansion when players have to pay with excessive amounts of hours on top of the money they spent to have even a look at the content.

 

[Ceres_O7]

I haven't done titan rescues yet, still theorycrafting an Orca build for that.

But for glaives, I get hyperdicted by at least 1, maybe 2, maybe 1 and a scythe, every time I do a rescue run from an alert station. Not once have they ever gotten me below 80% hull, and only then because I accidentally deployed landing gear with a misinput and couldn't boost immediately. This is in a Python. But I have a dolphin that has similar experience.

But as long as you have military grade composite, heavy duty G5 with deep plate, a couple various HRPs (with or without engineering), 2 ECMs and no shields you can reliably escape any Glaive hyperdiction imo.

For what it's worth I don't think the silent running trick has ever worked for me, they fire missiles immediately even when I go silent so, I just don't bother and start firing ECMs soon as I get missile locked.

I think the new content definitely requires some preparation and if you want to make it easy or reliable you're going to need to do some engineering first - I'm not doing any rescues at a titan until I can build a fast, tanky stealth Orca for it.

But a lot of it seems to be time and planning investment rather than moment to moment skill - with all things in Elite it pays to do research, ask others and be knowledgeable about an activity before you do it and Titan gameplay is no different.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

But for glaives, I get hyperdicted by at least 1, maybe 2, maybe 1 and a scythe, every time I do a rescue run from an alert station. Not once have they ever gotten me below 80% hull, and only then because I accidentally deployed landing gear with a misinput and couldn't boost immediately. This is in a Python. But I have a dolphin that has similar experience.

But as long as you have military grade composite, heavy duty G5 with deep plate, a couple various HRPs (with or without engineering), 2 ECMs and no shields you can reliably escape any Glaive hyperdiction imo.

Hyperdictions are very different from interdictions (which happen on the way to the titan), it's easy to escape when you're not getting mass-locked by an enemy you can't outrun.

 

[Ceres_O7]

Hyperdictions are very different from interdictions (which happen on the way to the titan), it's easy to escape when you're not getting mass-locked by an enemy you can't outrun.

Oh fair, well yeah in that case if the issue is mass locking and you can't get far enough away your best bet is a high wake from the nav panel. But yes that'll set you back time.

Having done a bunch of titan diving over the last few weeks to unlock the modules, I didn't get interdicted by anything other than scouts ever, so I wasn't aware glaives could even do that.

 

[Kira Goto]

so I wasn't aware glaives could even do that.

Their mass lock factor is 20, so anything short of a large ship is hard out of luck of trying to low wake*, unless you somehow manage to create enough distance between yourself and the Glaive.

*Unless you kill it, in which case you’re probably not looking to get away from it anyway(or have decided to fight).

 

[Ceres_O7]

Their mass lock factor is 20, so anything short of a large ship is hard out of luck of trying to low wake*, unless you somehow manage to create enough distance between yourself and the Glaive.

*Unless you kill it, in which case you’re probably not looking to get away from it anyway(or have decided to fight).

Then a high wake should see you safely out and you can try again - I've had many titan trips without a single Glaive encounter so it isn't much different to avoiding a ganker really, high wake out, high wake back in and try again until you get through.

 

[Kira Goto]

Then a high wake should see you safely out and you can try again - I've had many titan trips without a single Glaive encounter so it isn't much different to avoiding a ganker really, high wake out, high wake back in and try again until you get through.

Not really an issue I’m looking at for Titan trips, I just drop a heatsink, hit silent running as soon as the drop happens when submitting, and boost away. Messes with initial target lock for the Glaive and, for whatever reason, that makes it so it refuses to boost(or commit any offensive actions) until it has caught up to about 1km or less.

I’m more seeing it as a problem if you fly a shielded evac transport such as a Python in an invasion(not that those have been common lately, and I only do so for outposts). I guess I could ditch the prismatic shield for a bi-weave instead so dropping it doesn’t result in obscenely long recharge duration.

But with Scythes about - they don’t launch breach drones unless you are unshielded - I’m not tempted in going shieldless for those. Never have been.

 

[Alec Turner]

Just wanted to back up the OP (Lave Radio forum dad's unite!).

I too have been trying to rescue pods from the Titan (with limited success). But I'm finding it seriously difficult to do (doesn't even feel like a skill gap, I know what I'm supposed to do, I'm capable of doing it, it's just that more than 75% of the time it goes wrong for reasons I see no way of avoiding).

I can get to the Titan OK (the trick of avoiding hyperdictions/interdictions by instantly engaging silent running and staying silent until the very last second before jumping out works pretty reliably for me *1 more on this below). Where it goes wrong for me is that I no longer (this has definitely changed) seem able to avoid detection by Thargoid interceptors and hunters at the Titan, despite my Chieftain idling at around 18% heat and typically running between 1% and 5% heat thanks to constant use of a thermal vent beam.

The way it typically goes down is that I get to the Titan on pretty much 100% health, fire the pulse analyser, find the human extraction points, deploy my cargo scoop and collector limpets, fire the extraction missile, successfully release a batch of pods ... and then get detected and fired upon. At that point I have to abandon the pods AND my collector limpets, retract the cargo scoop and start boosting off around the back side of the Titan ... all the while cooling with the beam to stay under 10%. I sometimes have to do about three laps of the Titan in my efforts to shake off my pursuer. When things quieten down I then start the process again (now on about 60% hull). Typically the same will happen next time (getting discovered just as I'm about to start collecting pods) and once again I'm running for my life round and around the Titan. If I'm lucky I may eventually end up with a few pods on board after several attempts but with about 25% hull remaining, at which point (because I'm being pursued again) my only real option is to menu log! I really HATE that the game pretty much forces me to do this (it's either that or just die after all that effort and accept that my game session has been a complete waste of time and contemplate whether to try again tomorrow with seemingly little I can do to improve my chances). I would gladly accept that I need to "git gud" if only I knew what exactly it was that I was supposed to get good at! And yes, I've watched Cmdr Mechan's video but his quietly sitting at the Titan doing his pod mining is not the behaviour I observe.

What would improve this vastly for me is if the behaviour of the Thargoids went back to their pre update 16 state where staying cold at the Titan did generally prevent detection and where scuttling off around the back while still staying cold reliably shook them off (it's not like this whole damn scenario isn't hard enough as it stands with all the module and ship build requirements, you really don't need to make it any harder). And since I'm having a moan can I just say ... I absolutely detest the hunter variants! They're just not fun imho. They're npc griefers plain and simple. It's like SJA has reincarnated Harry Potter in Thargoid form ... the damn things even screech REEEEEEEE at you with their grotesquely irritating lightning attacks.

Sorry Frontier but in my honest opinion this is just not fun!

*1 one thing I've observed when running from Thargoids in silent running is the game seems rigged in that, although being silent prevents the Thargoid attack response from triggering, it doesn't stop them from knowing exactly where I am and stricking with me like glue while I boost away (I can see this because I have them targeted and the gap between them and me invariably closes). I'm gonna cry NPC cheating on this - they ought to be stuck back at the interdiction point, flying around in circles wondering where I am.

 

[Ceres_O7]

I’m more seeing it as a problem if you fly a shielded evac transport such as a Python in an invasion(not that those have been common lately, and I only do so for outposts). I guess I could ditch the prismatic shield for a bi-weave instead so dropping it doesn’t result in obscenely long recharge duration.

Probably shouldn't be flying shielded for evacs with glaives around, I have been hyperdicted by glaives more than scythes carrying passengers. Silent running kills your shields immediately anyway so they don't protect you at all, and if you don't do that the Glaive will kill your thrusters with its lightning.

 

[Ceres_O7]

What would improve this vastly for me is if the behaviour of the Thargoids went back to their pre update 16 state where staying cold at the Titan did generally prevent detection and where scuttling off around the back while still staying cold reliably shook them off

I do think there's something to be said about how dodgy ship stealth seems to be with thargoids - humans have clear rules for heat and line of sight, and thargoids used to as well. But those rules get ignored a lot by things like planetary thargoids/revenants (spotting my 10% heat ship immediately) and now the hunters, particularly glaives. Scythes I can understand if they could see you through stealth if you have pods (since they scan for them). But the glaives have no excuse for ignoring stealth rules and it makes that type of gameplay really inconsistent.

 

[Kira Goto]

But the glaives have no excuse for ignoring stealth rules and it makes that type of gameplay really inconsistent.

Frontier seem to have flipped a switch for them around the Titan where Thargoid AI appears to operate on stricter line of sight detection, but it feels a little ridiculous. My last two runs were horrid messes of constantly getting spotted by Thargoids from 4-6 kilometers away while in silent running, and with no limpets active. The lower figure for interceptors, the other for Glaives. And I did practically nothing differently to my previous pod recovery runs.

It just feels like dumb luck(or lack thereof) ruining what fun could have been had. Could have sworn it’d gotten even harder to lose Glaive aggro after Thursday and Friday, where I managed to go reasonably long stretches of time without having to evade the locals. Plus some really s…crewy luck with interceptors constantly happening to be within 2-4 km around the Titan to ‘spot’ me trying to find storage chambers.

I don’t think I need to say that I’m also beginning to find Glaives really annoying when they cannot be avoided. What am I supposed to do with four of them? I was so over the game’s B at one point, while getting bullied by the aforementioned four Glaives that I just force quit the game. Something that felt super cheap to do, but like the only agency that I actually had in that situation.

 

[MVBanks]

it's systemic and repeatedly done the exact same way that always leads to players getting roadblocked. It is design philosophy to do it that way. Intentional grind, roadblocks and frustration. The motive? Probably increasing player hours online for some stupid metric is my guess. Fun is not the metric they chase, that much is clear.
They design like that time and time again

You described it well, and the question "why" is one of the most interesting questions about ED, at least for me.

Because - slowing down the player in a thousand different ways, resulting in either boredom, or frustration, or both - most certainly does not have a good effect on game sales.
Why is that in-game time important to Frontier, even more so than game sales?

Wouldn't it make sense if their goal was to sell as many copies of Elite Dangerous as possible? And it probably achieves this by providing players with more fun, reducing boredom and frustration, and then the players themselves advertise the game and this leads to an increase in the number of players.

And Frontier does the opposite. Is there any explanation? Do they behave like that in their other games?

 

[Spaceman-FXL5]

What would improve this vastly for me is if the behaviour of the Thargoids went back to their pre update 16 state where staying cold at the Titan did generally prevent detection and where scuttling off around the back while still staying cold reliably shook them off (it's not like this whole damn scenario isn't hard enough as it stands with all the module and ship build requirements, you really don't need to make it any harder).

Agree 100%.
I watched your very own adventures to the Titan videos and I didn't have low emissions PP and TV Beam (I do now).
I tried a Titan to get necessary samples etc. a few times, but then suddenly it became (almost) impossible to escape intact, so I stopped as I had enuff samples.

I will try again sometime to do some pod rescues, to see how this goes, but am not confident of surviving.
(shieldless K II with 17% heat and a G3 TV Beam)

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You described it well, and the question "why" is one of the most interesting questions about ED, at least for me.

Because - slowing down the player in a thousand different ways, resulting in either boredom, or frustration, or both - most certainly does not have a good effect on game sales.
Why is that in-game time important to Frontier, even more so than game sales?

Wouldn't it make sense if their goal was to sell as many copies of Elite Dangerous as possible? And it probably achieves this by providing players with more fun, reducing boredom and frustration, and then the players themselves advertise the game and this leads to an increase in the number of players.

And Frontier does the opposite. Is there any explanation? Do they behave like that in their other games?

A live service game generates its main revenue with recurring mtx in general. More game time might lead to larger projections of such recurring revenue.
I could just be that they aren't sure how to handle it. Isn't ED their first MP game? There are so many devs making good SP games who think they can tackle MP now and then it turns out they don't know anything how MP works, how audiences react and how community is handled.
Reb Ford is maybe the best example how to manage community. She was so good at the job she got promoted to executive position at Warframe. But CMs like that are exceedingly rare. You need entertainer quality and go to the stage. That is a difficult job.