An idea: Difficulty Settings At Start

[S3B4ST13N]

I'm not keen to change the rebuy, though. It's steep enough already. I doubt players would want their jump-range or max speed reduced, so I'd recommend leaving those sorts of settings untouched.

As an example: 49mil (24m if you're an Alpha backer) on a 983m cr Cutter. That is disastrously low. Insurance should be 10% of the ship price, at a minimum. If a player can afford 983m, then 49m rebuy should be nothing to her.
There needs to be a sense of real loss, IMHO. CMDR's really do need to feel the pinch of losing their ships (regardless of difficulty).

It might be a good idea to display this info in-game: CMDR John Doe [Ironman] or CMDR John Doe [Hard Mode], etc. On the other hand, that info might encourage griefer attacks, so maybe it should be optionally displayed (like Report crimes against me).

It would definitely encourage griefing if the game advertised that a CMDR was running in Ironman.

 

[mossfoot]

I don't particularly like the idea of a difficulty setting that the player decides upon, it's too "gamey" (yes, I know it's a game but I hope you know what I mean when I say that).

I can understand how some might like it, but my personal preference would be varying difficulty in systems based on current events.
For example, you could have a low-threat Anarchy system where the average NPC is on or below your rank because it's adjacent to a high-sec system that has taken an interest in that system, or
you could have a high-threat Anarchy system in which NPC ships are always within the top 3 or 4 ranks, regardless of your level, and they spawn in wings. The reason for this being that, for example, a pirate lord controls that system. Basically, it would be suicide to go into these high-threat systems without a wing.
This could then create new mission content for players to invade the system in groups searching for this pirate lord to "liberate" the system. The danger would be high, but the payout would be worth it (not just credits and materials, but perhaps modified rare modules?)
If you enter a high-threat anarchy system alone and die, you've nobody to blame but yourself. Your HUD fully warned you that it was dangerous, you ignored it.

I'd also prefer it if the game spawned the occasional Elite NPC (or thereabouts) just to keep things interesting. I dislike the idea of a galaxy whose difficulty is centered around the players rank. If the Elite is far above your rank, then you need to get out, or take it on if you're feeling ballsy.

I'd much prefer an "adapt or die" system to one that just makes it easy.

I suppose I wouldn't mind this either, but it would require a revamp of how we view travel. Risk needs to be more plainly evident, not hidden in the info panel of your star map.

I say that because not only would new players not know where to find that info (and stumble regularly into death traps) but seasoned players are too used to it as it is. Elite doesnt really have people sticking to one system all the time, but bouncing around like a pinball. There is a step in the right direction when a jump will show on your display whether a system is going to be high or low security or anarchy, but that info is too late once you've taken a mission.

There's ideas to build on there for sure, but in my defence it was that very gaminess you're trying to avoid that prompted my initial idea. Artificially buffing or nerfing damage or armour is a game thing I hate. But the game already scales NPC encounters based on your rank in my aforementioned circumstances - increasing or decreasing the nature of that scale would still be within the rules of "reality"

 

[S3B4ST13N]

I suppose I wouldn't mind this either, but it would require a revamp of how we view travel. Risk needs to be more plainly evident, not hidden in the info panel of your star map. I say that because not only would new players not know where to find that info (and stumble regularly into death traps) but seasoned players are too used to it as it is.

Yes, that had occurred to me. Which is why I created this highly professional looking sample image as to how it could be addressed.
Each "star" represents the over-all threat level of the system at an easy glance. Low(*), Medium(**) and High(***).

Spoiler

Elite doesnt really have people sticking to one system all the time, but bouncing around like a pinball. There is a step in the right direction when a jump will show on your display whether a system is going to be high or low security or anarchy, but that info is too late once you've taken a mission.

When plotting routes, the route planner can already be setup to avoid anarchy, low, medium or high systems. So avoiding these dangerous anarchy systems can be addressed with additional options in the route planner.
On missions though, the threat level needs to be displayed on the mission board. This way, players will know the difficulty of the mission beforehand. In addition, high threat missions could have an additional warning displayed on them "WARNING: HIGH THREAT MISSION. MINIMUM OF 2 COMMANDERS RECOMMENDED"

Spoiler

There's ideas to build on there for sure, but in my defence it was that very gaminess you're trying to avoid that prompted my initial idea. Artificially buffing or nerfing damage or armour is a game thing I hate. But the game already scales NPC encounters based on your rank in my aforementioned circumstances - increasing or decreasing the nature of that scale would still be within the rules of "reality"

I can't disagree, though I'd prefer it if the difficulty is based on location rather than on your chosen setting.

More over, I'm concerned about the amount of work potentially required to implement a difficulty feature that doesn't negatively affect other CMDR's.
In solo it's fine, but when you're playing with a friend? How do we reconcile two or more CMDR's playing together?
If they enter an instance, who will the NPC rank favour?
In WoW this type of scenario has the game scale shared NPC(s). For example, an NPC might have 1m HP for a max level character, but only 1000hp for a level 20.
The amount of damage done to that NPC is comparatively the same regardless of the players level - giving lowbies an opportunity to contribute to community events, or to run with higher level friends.

So would the same approach be necessary here?

 

[mossfoot]

In solo it's fine, but when you're playing with a friend? How do we reconcile two or more CMDR's playing together.

As mentioned, this increase could only happen under player specific circumstances, so if you were interdicted and you're playing hard, then the NPC would be spawned based on that. If your wing mate is on easy, it's still going to be a tougher foe because it was spawned based on your account. The reverse would be true if your easy wing mate was interdicted.

Honestly, the suggested idea would only affect a fraction of your game experience, since CZs and RESs and the like would be unaffected as far as I know. But it's a start. And combined with other things like harsh (or lenient) insurance penalties, or even adding ejection protocol could at least give a range of experience that doesn't actually impact gameplay mechanics for other players in open.

To me this is a thought experiment along those lines - how to customize the experience in a way that provides no gameplay change or advantage/disadvantage (in terms of mechanics) in Open.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

I would like to see an increase in the range of difficulty that can be encountered.
I see this can be implemented by widening the difficulty differences between types of systems. Not just in the security level, but also in the state they are in,as an example war zones are not healthy places for non-combatants, so going into a system in a state of war or civil war should make it more dangerous. The pilots status with the controlling faction should also have an effect, on who interdicts and why. There is a whole lot of potential in the game to implement much greater difficulties based on the system status. And with greater risk would come the spoils.
There is also the potential to have some type of local (say within 30ly) reputation system that affects the type and level of interdictors.
Some improvements in highlighting system safety have already been put in place, but further improvements into the accessibility and ease of use would be required.
All this would be the 'Elite' way of dealing with difficulty.

 

[Jukelo]

I appreciate the sentiment, but the issue is that it would have to rely on relying even more on tailored NPCs, when IMO those NPCs make very little sense and should be removed from the game altogether, with more teeth give to regular supercruise NPCs.
I still think security rating, government type and your reputation with the local controlling faction should play a much bigger role in providing that sense of control over the level of challenge you want. Atm, even with the changes of 2.1~2.2 to the economy and NPC spawns, security rating is still rather meaningless to most players, who can either survive even in anarchies just fine or on the opposite end get killed even when in high sec and allied with a strong faction.
There's a lot of room for improvement there before we even need to start tailoring the experience on a player-per-player basis with difficulty settings. I'd rather Frontier focused on improving the game world and how you interact with it (or it with you).