Without a doubt, but you'll pardon me if I don't respect your particular judgement when it comes to which opinion is flawed, and which is not. So, with Frontier as the sole arbiter, then everyone should be voicing their opinions, which is my original post was about. The fellow I initially replied to implied that some people just weren't good enough to put their voices out there and the game was suffering for it. To that all I can say is: Poppycock.
'Attack of the AI' III
- Thread starter Ian Phillips
- Start date
Indeed; however "middle ground" is quite the subjective topic. For some, middle ground is indestructible AI so they can 'git gud'. For others, any risk, of any type, at all, ever, is a bridge too far.
In actuality, the developer has established where they believe middle ground is, and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to ensure that's as applicable as possible, to as many commanders as possible.
Correct, however if a commander is ranked as 'dangerous', why would AI intrinsically not be of some equivalency at potential similar ranks? This is a) an oxymoron and b) illogical. Your comment reads as if to say, the title means there should be no risk in playing conditions?
This makes very little sense. "I only want to see challenge if I elect it". This isn't how virtually any game works. In minecraft, if you elect to do nothing, the night mobs (spoiler) may end your life. In Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, you can be slayed by dragons (spoiler) let alone a bunch of other mobs; simply for having the temerity of walking from point a to point b. In the original elite, there was risk.
This isn't a logical expectation to have; it's a challenge to get to Sag A*. It's a challenge to figure out what ship you want and how to outfit. It's a challenge to rank up. It's a challenge to learn and master and skill or profession in Elite. To remove all challenge, would be to shut down the universe servers and thank everyone for their patronage.
There's no kind of atmosphere. I'm all alone, more or less. Let me fly, far away from here..
AI exist to present a challenge (amongst other things) the above are merely examples of core tenants of virtually all games. We are in space, in spaceships, that's automatically a challenge.
There is, however choices have consequences. It's illogical to say "i only want to be in trouble if I decide to be in trouble" because this effectively means the developer has to remove all risk vectors from the game, for everyone. How is that "middle ground". It's an extreme end point view.
If you bothered to read my post, you'd see I placed a caveat, and it's simply an example to help qualify a statement. We can do pretty much anything we want; there are, however, consequences for certain choices. This isn't illogical. It's certainly not "middle ground" to say "I should be able to be perfectly safe for as long as I want, regardless of what I do; consequences are for other people" because this game was never sold under that rather presumptuous expectation.
I neither resent, or actual care, to be fair. Logically speaking, a game devoid of risk isn't what is being sold, it's not described as such and in fact the developer goes to great pains to try and encompass as many commander choices as possible. Which is the actual middle ground you speak of.
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Got some playtime in over the weekend. I'm still finding the AI is just about right, but my concerns for less skilled players (and i'm not so awesome myself) and new players remains high, and worry they are totally going to be turned off.
If you imagine a bell curve of people who will quit due to global AI difficulty, i can imagine that more will quit because of too hard AI rather than too easy. Those who find it too easy can find challenges other ways, but those who find it too hard will run into a brick wall.
However, FD don't need to nerf the AI in particular, just make the spawns more appropriate on a per player basis and more relevant to where they are and what they are doing. Was just reading this morning about one guy who was getting serial interdicted for 1t of Cargo... tis a bit silly.
There are some really nasty moments as well. Those higher ranked ships are deadly accurate with fixed weapons. An Elite cobra Mk3 with PAs is now one of my most feared NPCs. If you run, you need to jink about like crazy while your FSD charges, otherwise those PAs will hit, and the CM3 has the speed to keep up with anything.
Anyway, pretty damn good, but FD really need to try and make encounters more appropriate to individual pilots, otherwise i can see them losing lots of players over this. Of course, if someone is not to skilled and takes an Elite ranked assassination mission, then they have no right to complain. If they are trading in a Hauler and get attacked by an Elite Cobra in a high sec system, then i think they have a right to be miffed when that CM3 wastes them before they can do anything.
If you imagine a bell curve of people who will quit due to global AI difficulty, i can imagine that more will quit because of too hard AI rather than too easy. Those who find it too easy can find challenges other ways, but those who find it too hard will run into a brick wall.
However, FD don't need to nerf the AI in particular, just make the spawns more appropriate on a per player basis and more relevant to where they are and what they are doing. Was just reading this morning about one guy who was getting serial interdicted for 1t of Cargo... tis a bit silly.
There are some really nasty moments as well. Those higher ranked ships are deadly accurate with fixed weapons. An Elite cobra Mk3 with PAs is now one of my most feared NPCs. If you run, you need to jink about like crazy while your FSD charges, otherwise those PAs will hit, and the CM3 has the speed to keep up with anything.
Anyway, pretty damn good, but FD really need to try and make encounters more appropriate to individual pilots, otherwise i can see them losing lots of players over this. Of course, if someone is not to skilled and takes an Elite ranked assassination mission, then they have no right to complain. If they are trading in a Hauler and get attacked by an Elite Cobra in a high sec system, then i think they have a right to be miffed when that CM3 wastes them before they can do anything.
So that we're on the same page, what's the opinion I think is flawed that you don't respect my judgment on again?
But anyway, I do think the game is at risk of suffering the opinions of the masses, if Frontier give them too much weight. Great and creative things often come from going a bit against the grain, even at the expense of discomfort to some. For example → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtaQbC1eUME
You echo my though pretty well. And, trying to put the appropriate threat with the individual Commander, fairly tightly, is something I can get behind. Let the learning curve do it's job.
Neutering AI isn't a solution; if more commanders leave than start, it will impact frontiers ongoing ability to sell future updates and (frankly) keep the lights on. It means a shrinking player base. And shrinkage isn't really very good for longevity. Frontier are listening and are attempting to strike a balance. The intention is that AI should be more of a challenge and I tend to agree.
Can AI rank be better aligned to commanders and perhaps a bit more contextual? almost certainly - but if they are nerfed back to pre 2.0, there is no opportunity to do so.
Given AI have (or are in the process of having) all mods removed, difficulty changed (by virtue of reducing high level AI, which also impacts material availability) I think frontier have gone a long way to address concerns.
My genuine take at this point? posts are reading very much as "put the AI back". Might not be the intention? (perhaps it is?) But this is pretty much where we are at.
Yes, however that elite cobra won't be visiting unless a) the mission was a high level and people looked at the payout and ignored the risk or b) they're at a higher combat level than the "newbie" you are complaining would have issues. Also don't 'dis' the hauler. It's a great ship.
If we strip out the bugged weapons, and consider that quite a large percentage of elite AI have been stripped, including security forces, so now they are weaker, which in turn means beginners aren't able to use them as the highly competent protection. It swings both ways; rip virtually all the elite and deadly ships from instances, and the security is weakened as a consequence.
I'm sure many commanders never even considered this outcome.
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@Agony,
I think you're assuming new players are turned off by a challenge. Many are turned off by a lack of it.
When I joined, even before the spin of death bug, the biggest complaint I heard was that the game was too simple. That there wasn't much challenge. Inch deep mile wide, blah blah.
Now we finally have a game with some small challenge and a little bit of build depth. Maybe that will attract more players back who left to go play more challenging and deeper games?
It would have have worked on me! In fact, I might not have left the bubble to go exploring if the game had been this interesting when I started playing.
I think you're assuming new players are turned off by a challenge. Many are turned off by a lack of it.
When I joined, even before the spin of death bug, the biggest complaint I heard was that the game was too simple. That there wasn't much challenge. Inch deep mile wide, blah blah.
Now we finally have a game with some small challenge and a little bit of build depth. Maybe that will attract more players back who left to go play more challenging and deeper games?
It would have have worked on me! In fact, I might not have left the bubble to go exploring if the game had been this interesting when I started playing.
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I think this is a good point, the AI should be more intelligent. A lot of time the AI say silly things like "all the tasty cargo" "big haul" "the rumours were right". How do they even know we're carrying any cargo when they haven't used their cargo scanner on us? I once was on my way to a mining site so I just had limpits and the NPC was going on about my tasty cargo. If he'd just done a scan first he would realise I just had limpets.
Playing iron man mode, so probably a little risk adverse compared to most other commanders. I think its about right at the low end for me. A few deaths should teach a newer player what threat level they can cope with and to watch out for traps! FD got low spot on. High end seems to be a problem, lots of good commanders and not so good commanders with high ranks, I think this is the area that is going to be hardest to balance, I see both sides of the debate here - and have no great words of wisdom to help.
My only comment is (mostly) PvE only players such as myself got lazy in 1.4+.
It has taken me a long time (up until yesterday) to get my head around the new AI. Its not that I do not know what to do, rather crap execution by me. I always (well nearly always) have a route plotted to allow quick high wake escape, I know to spiral when running, high wake if enemy speed is higher or they're packing a serious punch, get some chaff in the air, silent running if heat allows after shields gone etc. I really struggled putting it all together. In 1.4 doing one of the above was enough to escape, in 2.1 I have to remember to think about all of them to get away.
Last thing I did yesterday was unbind my toggle FSD button. Did a high waking when I wanted to low wake and after careful use of boost and cell banks ended up pointing away from the destination at 93% heat no heat syncs! alas the FA off turn and match trajectory did for me! I really do not like the behaviour of automatically selecting the next jump on route when entering a USS ..... except when I'm exploring. Done for me twice now. By unbinding the key, its forced me to think about where I want to escape to.
Simon
My only comment is (mostly) PvE only players such as myself got lazy in 1.4+.
It has taken me a long time (up until yesterday) to get my head around the new AI. Its not that I do not know what to do, rather crap execution by me. I always (well nearly always) have a route plotted to allow quick high wake escape, I know to spiral when running, high wake if enemy speed is higher or they're packing a serious punch, get some chaff in the air, silent running if heat allows after shields gone etc. I really struggled putting it all together. In 1.4 doing one of the above was enough to escape, in 2.1 I have to remember to think about all of them to get away.
Last thing I did yesterday was unbind my toggle FSD button. Did a high waking when I wanted to low wake and after careful use of boost and cell banks ended up pointing away from the destination at 93% heat no heat syncs! alas the FA off turn and match trajectory did for me! I really do not like the behaviour of automatically selecting the next jump on route when entering a USS ..... except when I'm exploring. Done for me twice now. By unbinding the key, its forced me to think about where I want to escape to.
Simon
I'll be honest I hate how the 2.1 AI behaves in combat. I haven't lost a single ship to them, or even lost my shields to them, but I'm also just not having fun fighting them. I've found various ways to adapt and fight them and it's just lead to combat not being fun. What I have to do to deal with 2.1's AI is outright not fun for me.
That said, 2.0's AI was also genuinely awful but in different ways. I don't want spin of death, completely incapable AI, but I also don't want AI who maneuver around in ways that most humans can not get those kinds of ships to maneuver without going full FA off (I've been told the AI aren't suppose to use FA off, don't know if it's true).
The AI right now is just as stupid as it was in 2.0, using loadouts that very few players would (or could) use. They still largely do not obey the same rules as us. They still have extremely repetitive behavior, but instead of always doing the spin of death, now they always fly behind you and get turned into confetti by beam turrets and mines and never attempt to move out of the way of that.
You know, I remember the AI being more dangerous pre 1.4. I think that patch is the one that implemented the spinning potato nonsense which obviously wasn't intentional and anyone who thought it was supposed to be that easy was fooling themselves. Believe me, I'm happier now that the AI poses a threat compared to before.
HOWEVER:
I've got my fair share of bones to pick with the way the difficulty has been implemented. Taken on their own merits the AI changes while imperfect are definite step up but the changes feel like they were wrought in a complete vacuum, ignorant of the bigger picture. Missing the forest for the trees as it were.
Let's start with Interdictions. Oh my god, they are totally out of control. The frequency, combined with the sheer difficulty of winning the interdiction itself (especially in a trade-fit Cutter or T-9) has made travel with cargo exceptionally irritating. The worst are the cargo hauling missions that generate a never-ending conga line of Elite Anacondas and FDL's that the quest-giver somehow expects you to kill in a trading ship, because they never EVER stop harassing you until the quest is completed. Even if they get ripped to shreds by the security detail outside the station they will STILL follow you. You can't win the interdiction, you can't win the fight, and since they spawn directly behind you in SC nine times out of ten you can't avoid the interdictions in the first place either. Your only choice is to submit, boost, and jump. High-waking doesn't do jack because these guys will follow you EVERYWHERE, so it basically just makes SC'ing to the station even more of a slog than it needs to be. If you could actually win the interdictions most of the time, or if every hitman wasn't flying fully A-rated combat builds such that you stood a chance of winning in a fight, and if the frequency of these events was turned down, it might be an interesting mechanic. As it is it adds nothing but tedium. The new AI and their new loadouts makes this mechanic more trouble than it's worth. Even when flying my combat ship I can't get away from this because I'm now required to collect rare commodities for mods, and I don't particularly want to fight an infinite stream of Elite Anacondas and FDLs while I'm just trying to go about my business.
And now risk/reward. Yes, the AI was too easy before. No, that doesn't make it acceptable for the highest-risk profession in the game to have such an abysmal reward structure. Remember that conga-line of Elite Anacondas I mentioned? They're worth between 90k and 300k, and if I engage them too frequently, or screw up badly while engaging them, I stand to lose 30 million credits AND all my rare quest rewards. That's potentially hours of work down the drain, and the reward is so petty it's simply not worth the risk anymore to engage these clowns. If it were just the cash lost that would be pretty bad, but losing all my RNG quest rewards? I could just do biowaste shipping missions and make more money for less risk, and have a chance of possibly getting rare mats on the side. 2.1 Elite is one of the most punishing experiences I have ever had as a gamer. Even notoriously difficult games like Silver Surfer or Battletoads aren't this cruel, because while those games may be unfair they also don't set you back hours or even days of progress on death.
Third, the AI difficulty follows the tradition of RTS and FPS games by compensating for the AI's inability to innovate by simply making them inhumanly good at micromanagement and accuracy. Their perfect thruster control makes it exceptionally difficult to consistently out-maneuver them, and I have never seen the AI miss an attack that I didn't have to go out of my way to dodge. This results in very mechanical, 'gamey' fights, where repeated application of the same technique over and over is the key to victory, and the AI never slips up giving you a chance to hit them without them being in an equal or superior position.
And finally, I am seven different kinds of sick of always having to fight Elite opponents. I thought the understanding was these jokers were supposed to be rare and challenging 'boss' type enemies, not the bread-and-butter opponents? Just because I'm Elite rank doesn't mean I want to be fighting Elite enemies all day every day. I'm not playing the game to impress myself with my ability to consistently beat the 'hardest' AI in the game. And can somebody tell me why the NPC pirates use FDLs? It's like the worst possible ship for legit piracy thanks to the tiny cargo hold.
I never made that suggestion.
Indeed, and the question is, will more leave because of too hard AI or too easy? I know on which side i'd place my money.
I'm not so sure based on reports. Hearing a lot about high ranked NPCs still attacking players over and over. This is my worry. If its overblown reports, then perhaps safe to ignore. I haven't experiences this since 2.1.02, but there again, i've mainly been flying my Vulture, which of course is no slouch in combat and perhaps the NPCs have been avoiding me.
Nope, i'm assuming that there is a fair spread of new players. But i do think there are less players on average to prefer games to be like Dark Souls or I Wanna be the Guy: Gaiden than those who like Minecraft or similar.
But my point isn't specifically about trying to exclude one type of player or the other (as many posts here seem to be, with the FD please nerf or FD please don't nerf - those posts are ultimately selfish), i'm suggesting FD need to make the AI more context aware and adaptive to all players.
Then you can get your gankfest where you are being attacked by 10 Elite ranked cobras with engineer modded weapons by flying to the right location, while the new player in their sidewinder will be presented only appropriate challenges as long as they stick to high sec systems and don't go taking missions above what they are capable of handling.... if they want the risk, it should be available.
kofeyh, as someone who has put thousands of hours into both of those games, you are using a profoundly bad example here if you want to make a point. In Minecraft, you can literally turn off mobs from spawning or change their behavior however you please just from the base game functions alone, let alone what mods do to the game. In both Skyrim and Minecraft, you can turn down the difficulty to suit whatever pace you want to play the game at. Hell, in any MMO, the challenge comes only if you seek it out.
Is the explorer who has spent literal months out surveying seeking out challenge in coming back to the bubble only to be blown up by some meth head? What about the trader just seeking to make some cash, or the person who needs some money to buy a new ship or a new piece of kit to specialize the ship they're using further? Are they seeking challenge?
No. Challenge is being forced on them. Particularly explorers, who have to tool their ships correctly to maximize jump distance. They literally have no choice on what modules to fit on their ships, because that's what they need to visit certain locations in the galaxy. It is not up for debate. It is not up for discussion. They have to fit their ships a certain way, or they are not getting to their destinations.
You might well say "well then combat pilots and traders need to fit their ships accordingly" to which I respond that combat pilots have. They are largely unaffected by the change, other than a few unlucky souls. Traders and miners have no recourse. It's almost not worth doing either anymore. Even bounty hunters like myself have lost profit, all for the cravings of those who want a brutally hard game they can brag about playing.
I've posted a solution to the problem that would literally solve everything without costing the game its progress. It's really quite simple. If people who want a challenge want it, then they can designate places for it. Everyone else who doesn't can play their game in peace. Miners can mine, traders can trade, and bounty hunters can bounty hunt. The hardcore players have their area. It's a win-win for everyone.
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32t ain't too shabby for a pirate ship : http://coriolis.io/outfit/fer_de_lance/06A5A4A4D6A4D3C-----------4a03036qC5.Iw18aQ==.Aw18aQ==
Especially if you focus on targerts with high value goods.
I used to use a FdL for piracy, but was a bit too easy. And i kind of felt, any CMDR that can afford a FdL doesn't really need to be a pirate. That's why a i use a CM4 for piracy. Its actually fairly challenging but has plenty of cargo space.
I'm with you. I have suggested that CZ/RES/USS's can be used to give Commanders ready access to challenges, while leaving regular space more sedate, that doesn't have to mean flying potatoes either. This is greeted without approval from certain sources, but I think it can mesh well with your point of view.
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32t of almost every commodity is still quite poor return for the investment, and the FDL sacrifices more for that cargo than most ships in its' price range do. The Clipper makes a much better pirate ship imo.
Hmmm. CMkIV for combat... *shudders*. That thing is a complete pig in combat. Lol. I salute your audacity to point that thing at anything that didn't force you to. Lol.
If you want to be safe why not just fly in circles around any station then?
That is essentially what you are suggesting combat pilots do by relegating them to CZ/RES/USS.
Once again and over and over again. It has nothing to do with ME being safe. I'm fine out there but, I can understand those that aren't. Let's not keep making this mistake again. There's no reason to make outlandish statements. I never said anything like you;re suggesting. You're just attempting to negate an idea with insults.
What?
That's...a really, really asinine comparison. And besides, isn't that exactly how it is now? Missions and CZ/RES/USS? What's wrong with keeping the hardcore action there?
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