Are the CG Conflict Zones easier than normal?

[Stealthie]

@Vetinari I love the idea of bringing NPC's upto near "PvP" standards, and we once upon a time nearly had that, however it was botched and backshelved, and begot lots of salt from carebears, so is sadly unlikely to return. In case you aren't familiar with the story, in around May of 3301, a big update came, 2.1 - the engineers, and it brought with it a new supersharp NPC combat flight AI. And it was good, like skynet good, like so good that PvEing this NPC AI made PvP look like easy mode. Unfortunately it got a little too skynet, and when it was spawning the minions, it started mixing and matching weapons attributes, for example, some of my favourite frankenstein weapons it made were a multicannon that fired plasma accelerator projectiles instead of normal bullets, or the beam laser that fired a railgun shot every single frame. Can you imagine the horror if you got caught in the corsshiars of an NPC, and playing at say 60hz with vsync, this sucker suddenly starts landing 60 railgun shots on you a second from their beam laser?

So until 2.1, the AI had been superlame, like so bad they had a glitch where sometimes the NPC would stop and to a stationary barrell roll, almost like a chicken on a rotisserie, and a lot of "forum dads" / "Carebears" had ranked up way beyond their actual skill level by farming these spit roasting NPC's.

The AI is the real problem, for sure.

Said it before but, on my alt-account, I set about unlocking whichever engineer requires Combat Bonds by confidently dropping into a HICZ in my G1/G2 engineered Krait, only to find that it's lasers and MCs appeared to have been replaced by super-soakers.
The result was, literally, farcical.
I was flying around, taking no damage, easily sitting right on the tails of Vultures and CM3s but I just couldn't make them explode.
I ended-up targeting an Eagle, emptied about half my supply of ammo into it, made that explode and then I ran out of ammo'.

This is not how to make a game "challenging" - just by making dumb-as-a-brick NPCs into epic bullet-sponges.

Sometimes I've seen NPCs act in a smart way, but it's just accidental.
If, for example, I happen to be away from my allies and a wing of enemy SpecOps ships arrive close to me, they'll all target me and things get interesting.
Why can't NPCs sometimes make decisions like that dynamically?
If I take out Eagle after Eagle, why not allow several remaining Eagles (and similar ships) to form up and attack me?

A lot of builds which allow players to cut NPCs down like wheat should easily be defeatable by NPCs with a bit of brainpower.
Most of 'em seem to rely on Frag's/PA's, both of which should be easy to counter by an NPC using ranged weapons.
So, why not have NPCs that (again) sometimes look at your weapon load-out and then adopt more suitable tactics?

Also, how about a bit of "fuzzy logic"?
Let's have some NPCs choosing to 1 vs 1 while others choose to attack in pairs and others attack in wings of 4.
When I'm cherry-picking Annie after Annie in a CZ, let's have NPCs who recognise this and come to the defence of more powerful ships.
How about NPCs with different levels of "bravery", who'll break off an attack either once they sustain a certain amount of damage?

If it was me, I'd set up some kind of beta-server where the NPCs are their current bullet-sponge builds and then use it to test new AI routines.
This would, hopefully, make things much, much more difficult - to the point where players would start to wail about it.
At that point, I'd then dial-back the strength of the builds to more reasonable levels so that NPCs were surviving on their wits rather than 'cos their ships are super-tanky.

 

[Scoob]

I think CZ'd are a bit too much of a free for all. Even in a HazRes you have wings of ships, so attack one and they'll all come after you. Even something as simple as this in s CZ would be great. For example, those Anaconda's might have escorts whose only duty is to protect the lead ship. There are certainly plenty of ways to make a CZ much more involved. Sure, it'd essentially be harder, but then why not improve the Combat Bonds payout a bit. Isn't it time Combat got some attention...or perhaps Mining needs a few more passes before the Devs are happy lol.

Scoob.

 

[Northpin]

I think CZ'd are a bit too much of a free for all. Even in a HazRes you have wings of ships, so attack one and they'll all come after you. Even something as simple as this in s CZ would be great. For example, those Anaconda's might have escorts whose only duty is to protect the lead ship. There are certainly plenty of ways to make a CZ much more involved. Sure, it'd essentially be harder, but then why not improve the Combat Bonds payout a bit. Isn't it time Combat got some attention...or perhaps Mining needs a few more passes before the Devs are happy lol.

Scoob.

They usually do that.
And dont make the mistake to go after the SpecOps Alpha Wing... you'll have the other 3 on you as well
Start with Delta and work your way up - less chances to have all the wing on you or wait until the wing is spread up a lot

 

[Scoob]

They usually do that.
And dont make the mistake to go after the SpecOps Alpha Wing... you'll have the other 3 on you as well
Start with Delta and work your way up - less chances to have all the wing on you or wait until the wing is spread up a lot

Really? So they protect their leader? That's good to know....I'll make Alpha my primary target from now on then!

I always thought they looked so scattered, not appearing to behave as a cohesive group. Will subordinates of Alpha actually break off from their current targets to defend their leader then?

Scoob.

 

[BurntJello]

I love the idea of bringing NPC's upto near "PvP" standards, and we once upon a time nearly had that, however it was botched and backshelved, and begot lots of salt from carebears, so is sadly unlikely to return. In case you aren't familiar with the story, in around May of 3301, a big update came, 2.1 - the engineers, and it brought with it a new supersharp NPC combat flight AI. And it was good, like skynet good, like so good that PvEing this NPC AI made PvP look like easy mode. Unfortunately it got a little too skynet, and when it was spawning the minions, it started mixing and matching weapons attributes, for example, some of my favourite frankenstein weapons it made were a multicannon that fired plasma accelerator projectiles instead of normal bullets, or the beam laser that fired a railgun shot every single frame. Can you imagine the horror if you got caught in the corsshiars of an NPC, and playing at say 60hz with vsync, this sucker suddenly starts landing 60 railgun shots on you a second from their beam laser?

I never saw mix-matched weapons, but that enhanced AI was one of the best things that ever happened to the game. That one weekend I had so much fun in high-res sites watching those pirate conda's smashing police vipers.

FDev needs to bring back that AI to the higher ranked NPC ships. Elite NPCs NEED that AI.

 

[Old Duck]

Everything feels just as bullet-spongey to me as always.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Bullet spongey is not a good substitute for NPC aptitude and:

FDev needs to bring back that AI to the higher ranked NPC ships. Elite NPCs NEED that AI.

 

[Old Duck]

Bullet spongey is not a good substitute for NPC aptitude and:

Believe me, I HATE bullet sponges and "perfect circles" AI. This is why if there isn't another player in the CZ with me, either to wing up with or to shoot at, I leave.

 

[Mercury7]

I've been hitting HazRes in a Cobra Mk.III without too many problems. Yes, it's engineered, but about 18 months ago I found it so hard to do due to my combat rank and the then-newish engineered NPCs.

It is definitely easier today than in the past.