I believe the Thargoids will provide this.
I believe the Thargoids will provide this.
but what do the thargoids believe?
people are often confused when they say they want better AI. some of us are happy with it as is. others in top ships want much tougher opponents, and most rationally think about others so they would be happy to go to specially hard CZ and res and USS to find those fights. others complains simply the AI is too easy. predictability is unfortunately going to be par for the course unless the AI code bloats to occupy many times the size it has to now. some say they want more realistic AI - but forget this might not be fun. i can even give an example.
i was on my way to mine a belt, and got interdicted. the pirate npc was leaving after he scanned me and fouind nothing worth demanding. i shot him because he was wanted. we fought for a bit and he started to disengage saying something like he hadnt expected this. he finally waked just before the security who had arrived got into range. that peed me off - i wanted that bounty.
now if AI was more realistic you will see that 99.9999% of times unless you destroy the npc too quick (apparently this is boring to those who want more realistic AI and those who want togher fights) as well as me if every attacker gets away. but no pilot is going to stick around if their easy victim turns out to have engineered armour, engineered shield, and a whole lot of engineered weapons more than a normal asp. realistic behaviour is 'dammit what the hell is he packing in that thing. im outa here.' and wake while they can. kills will become very rare unless you go to a CZ. take it a step further the logical step is reduce frequency of piracy interdictions by npcs - because they almost never make money and wind up waking a lot. i doubt that FD would do it because npc victims would keep pirates ticking over (in theory - they wouldnt have npcs interdict other npcs out of sight of players to simulate it). but it might be realistic. almost every system not actively in civil unrest or civil war/war including anarchy would bevcome high security. how dull is that?
be careful what you ask for - you might get it.
It AI is actually pretty challenging - until you reach a certain level of skill, something that isn't measured by any in-game gauge or meter. Once you reach that particular peak, recognize patterns and learn to deal with the AI, well, it's something that affects pretty much every game out there. AI's are only SO capable, because there's not a whole lot of "I" involved.
Organic Brain Advantage for the win.
Organic Brain Advantage for the win.
The pilots on the 3 sigmas up on the skill and equipment curve will never be satisfied.
For them, combat is enjoyable, because they are superior to their adversaries. As the become better skilled and equipped, the AI becomes less of a challenge.
The remaining 99% simply suffer more, as the AI is ramped up, to meet skilled player demands. Elite does not hand-hold.
It just loses customers.
For them, combat is enjoyable, because they are superior to their adversaries. As the become better skilled and equipped, the AI becomes less of a challenge.
The remaining 99% simply suffer more, as the AI is ramped up, to meet skilled player demands. Elite does not hand-hold.
It just loses customers.
ED is Elitists Dilemma.
you can have a game be challenging to experienced players while being challenging for beginning or crappy players. There's no need to treat all npcs ai difficulty the same or make them all the same per ranking.
You can have easier elite ships and harder elite ships. You can even make it fairly obvious where these harder npcs would be found vs the easier ones.
The way the game currently is though, beginners / crappy combat pilots can experience challenge and excitement and opt to be safe. Players who are more experienced though, have no such scale to their gameplay. NPCs are fish in a barrel and do not represent a threat unless the player is semi-asleep from boredom.
You can have easier elite ships and harder elite ships. You can even make it fairly obvious where these harder npcs would be found vs the easier ones.
The way the game currently is though, beginners / crappy combat pilots can experience challenge and excitement and opt to be safe. Players who are more experienced though, have no such scale to their gameplay. NPCs are fish in a barrel and do not represent a threat unless the player is semi-asleep from boredom.
Basically, I'm an introvert and don't like to play games with anyone, real-life or computer. It is just not interesting for me. So, I do mostly everything legal activity in the game but in Solo. I haven't yet done any mining but I expect that I will some time if nothing else but to find out what it is like. The thing I have done most so far is trading, which I really like, but passenger missions, normal missions, exploring are all things that I have done and enjoy doing.
I'm quite happy for there to be more multiplayer content be it PvE, PvP or PwP in the game but it is not something that I would undertake myself.
Playing with others is what I find off-putting but I'm quite happy for others to do it, just not me.
As for the Thargoids? Well, I'm just going to watch the video clips of others playing that game and continue doing what I enjoy, which will not include Thargoids unless they are peaceful.
For me there is no endgame. Elite is open ended and I am content to do the things I have been doing since the first beta and will continue doing so until the game is no longer supported, hopefully not until the far, far future.
I also love that Elite is open ended and will never finish, it's just a place for existing in another universe and trundling around doing whatever, that will also never get old for me, I could easily play Elite for the rest of my life in solo and be happy. 
But the missed potential for players like me to have epic multiplayer pve combat encounters, actually eats into my soul, I want it so bad. I really believe it could so easily be added to the game as well.
But the missed potential for players like me to have epic multiplayer pve combat encounters, actually eats into my soul, I want it so bad. I really believe it could so easily be added to the game as well.
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I think the AI is challenging if you are not prepared for what the game might throw at you. I also think the challenge and behaviors are good enough for the bulk of the player base. There is indeed a balance between challenge and tedium, and I think Frontier is in a good place with that right now. All Frontier would really need to do is turn up the juice on the top two tiers of NPC ranks, and perhaps put them in Wings of 3 as well, to provide enough challenge for the top-end (and top-geared) players. Additionally, most players could opt out (most of the time) of that challenge if they have no desire to reach Elite in Combat.
One thing that is present in the bottom end, but is for sure missing from the top end - that encounter that makes a geared, skilled veteran Combat pilot sit back in their chair, and wonder what the hell just happened. Not because of bugs or cheapness, but because they just lost a solid, straight-up fight to the AI. Or, they had to tuck tail and run.
Riôt
One thing that is present in the bottom end, but is for sure missing from the top end - that encounter that makes a geared, skilled veteran Combat pilot sit back in their chair, and wonder what the hell just happened. Not because of bugs or cheapness, but because they just lost a solid, straight-up fight to the AI. Or, they had to tuck tail and run.
Riôt
Elite FdLs do that against my Cutter. When their shields fail they turn and run. I lost a few bounties that way and had ammo costs instead. Then I adapted, started anticipating when they'd run. Switching from letting them chase me while being shot to hell into chasing them as they run. I go for the drives, the FSD, the powerplant. I rarely lose one of these bounties anymore these days.
Also there was this AI in 2.1, they'd run and stay out of firing range until their shield were back up, then came back. And yep, that was not fun at all. The choice with you in the slower ship was either let them go and leave once they flee beyond range or have the fight drag on for an eternity.
i still dont understand this challnge rubbish. games arent meant to be challenging but fun. challenge is for military exercises and exams and when you get caught doing something illegal, not for video games. you want challenge, join the army or take up mountain climbing while naked and without ropes. it will be a challenge to survive and then you will be challenged for indecency in public if you make it down alive.
I'm going to boil you up!
I realize I'm a huge minority here, but that sounds amazing. All you'd need to do to make it viable is tweak the bounty system a little so that the local authority pays you a bounty for "driving off" a pirate, forcing a high-wake so they become someone else's problem. You also create more of a niche for the real bounty hunters, tracking targets from system to system.
That's "charged" not "challenged".
All games are based on challenges, some are just easier than others, and some people prefer a higher level of challenge in their games than others. Nothing wrong with that. Multiple levels of signal sources/combatzones/RESs and multiple ranked opponents allow for challenges of all levels to exist in the game.
what was annoying was i was targetting this viper mkiv pirate powerplant like usual but he was spamming chaff and that meant my gimbals were wild and it took too long to get his shields down. maybe i should try destroying the chaff launcher first.
Unlock the target and go fixed. Use the force..
So you de-target them and shoot them while your gimbals are in forward only mode ...which happens when you aren't targetting anything.
There's no give or take needed for Fdev to fix the NPC difficulty issue. They can satisfy everyone without even breaking game immersion with stupid cheaty tactics like spawning ships tailored to a given player.
This is a problem with a solution. Just a matter of if they will implement it.
There's no give or take needed for Fdev to fix the NPC difficulty issue. They can satisfy everyone without even breaking game immersion with stupid cheaty tactics like spawning ships tailored to a given player.
This is a problem with a solution. Just a matter of if they will implement it.
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Some people find challenges fun. Some people find the army distinctly unfun, and exams not very challenging.
Thats challenging.
I don't find them challenging... certanly not if I fly a true combat build... it was a very long time since I actually got killed by an NPC.
There have been some close calls when flying a Passenger Anaconda, because pretty much all Transport missions (politicians in particular), usually have an NPC chasing after them. If you then have managed to stack 4-9 of them, you can end up in an interdiction where up 4 of those NPCs ends up firing at you at the same time.
Flying my Trading Anaconda, which is built for PvE (usually flying in Mobius with that one), there havn't been any close calls at all... 4D shields, 8 D-rated shieldboosters (the only engineered thing in that build is the FSD). I usually commit to the interdiction, and high or low wake out of it, worst case scenario, I still had 1 ring left on the shields.
But, I also try to keep my combat rank in check, so that might be why I can keep builds like that for PvE.
There have been some close calls when flying a Passenger Anaconda, because pretty much all Transport missions (politicians in particular), usually have an NPC chasing after them. If you then have managed to stack 4-9 of them, you can end up in an interdiction where up 4 of those NPCs ends up firing at you at the same time.
Flying my Trading Anaconda, which is built for PvE (usually flying in Mobius with that one), there havn't been any close calls at all... 4D shields, 8 D-rated shieldboosters (the only engineered thing in that build is the FSD). I usually commit to the interdiction, and high or low wake out of it, worst case scenario, I still had 1 ring left on the shields.
But, I also try to keep my combat rank in check, so that might be why I can keep builds like that for PvE.
I appreciate what you're saying, but I feel a more balanced AI should give you a fighting chance without the use of RNG, SLF, or multi crew. In the good old days (i.e. 1984), a Cobra MkIII could handle a wave of five FdLs.
I'm no noob when it comes to combat, but I feel I spend more time running than I do fighting. I will admit, though, it was fun up to a point.Have fun commander! O7
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