'Attack of the AI' III

[Nicky the Hutt]

(...) It's Frontier's job to attempt to satisfy as many of these players as possible.

False.

If that was the case, why are there so many time sinks. What they attempt to do is keep the space and time scales of their game world large enough to engage as many players for as many hours as possible. I'm nitpicking the semantics and I know what you mean, but it's important not to dumb down the approach of Frontier. Because it wouldn't be desirable to be forced upon a game designed for the majority or lowest common denominator.

 

[HBK]

What I take from this poll is that while still a decent number (~ 45%), less than half the voters are satisfied with the current AI difficulty, indicating a way to control AI difficulty (be it with extra-diegetic means such as sliders, or by diegetic means such as gating AI difficulty by in-game activity) might be the way to go.

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False.

If that was the case, why are there so many time sinks.

Err, many players are happy with time sinks. They may whine about it, but look at the numbers, they LOVE it.

 

[Ziljan]

It would allow them to determine how many players are only losing, for example - and "going backwards" in a game where credits are seen by some as a measure of progress is not fun.

I understand that there are those who still comment that they are unchallenged by the AI - just as there are those who comment that they are finding the new AI too hard. It's Frontier's job to attempt to satisfy as many of these players as possible.

Idk. That's a bit of a shallow metric. First off, the one thread where someone tried to gather this information, 19 out of every 20 posting reported a positive income rate, and this was before the 2.1.02 AI nerf. But mostly, I think for many players, CR are incidental and meaningless, either because they prefer small ships (like me), or because they can already afford several dozen rebuys before having to sell a ship.

Or they're like me and ignore money altogether. I have about 500 million in the bank, most of it earned despite the fact that I most of what I do in game COSTS me money in maintenance fees while generating ZERO revenue and 100% fun. Again, most of the activities I engage in (like analyzing the astrophysical accuracy of the stellar forge, or cop killing to undermine a BGS system) make absolutely ZERO CR. So how would your metric apply to me?

Several of the people that I know regularly take out all their ships and blow them up (rather than resetting their save) just so they can start the game over without losing their ranks and permits! Where do they fit in to this metric?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

FD doesn't act on polls. They have certain gameplay design in mind and you can offer them to tweak it (trough evolutionary suggestions) or fix a bug if there's one.

Anything else they don't care much

 

[Robert Maynard]

False.

If that was the case, why are there so many time sinks. What they attempt to do is keep the space and time scales of their game world large enough to engage as many players for as many hours as possible. I'm nitpicking the semantics and I know what you mean, but it's important not to dumb down the approach of Frontier. Because it wouldn't be desirable to be forced upon a game designed for the majority or lowest common denominator.

Fair enough - let me rephrase slightly - It's Frontier's job to attempt to satisfy as many players (who were quite happy playing the game previously) as possible after changes of this kind.

 

[4gui4]

I'm still cautious, I went to visit my trade routes in my gunship, did all paths with little load to test.
I was confident enough to take out Anaconda from the garage for upgrades.

If I can ensure my survival , will do some trade, If still too complicated I'm going to do exploration until things settle down.
the engineers are so important in my game I sold my FAS by mistake in shipyard, lost everything and it makes no difference.

 

[Ziljan]

Err, many players are happy with time sinks. They may whine about it, but look at the numbers, they LOVE it.

According Robert Maynard, the current AI is slowing down income rates, which means that the grind should therefore be higher in 2.1.

So by your logic, the 280 people above that are "complaining" about the AI are really just professing their undying love for ED?

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

After last night I am more than happy with the new AI... Took out a Elite ranked FDS with my stock Viper MkIII. Lost a shield ring, not a whole one or I'd be ranting about it. Granted the systems security ships turned up promptly and helped a lot but I still had to survive for a good 5 minutes beforehand.

The only bit that left me scratching my head was, why would an Elite ranked FDS attack a Mostly Harmless Viper MkIII? Was it to put me in my place after getting promoted from Harmless? Or was he 'greifing'?

 

[Robert Maynard]

According Robert Maynard, the current AI is slowing down income rates, which means that the grind should therefore be higher in 2.1.

Can you please quote where I said that?

 

[Ziljan]

Fair enough - let me rephrase slightly - It's Frontier's job to attempt to satisfy as many players (who were quite happy playing the game previously) as possible after changes of this kind.

Frontier provided a solution: high security systems.


They are abundant.

 

[Ziljan]

Can you please quote where I said that?

These quotes below? If you assume that income could actually go negative (unlikely, but lets go with it) then you must also allow that there must be an intermediate population where income would merely be slowed down.

Frontier have access to in-game analytics which show them how many players are playing the game day-to-day and should be able to spot trends (even taking into account the post release spike) in that regard. They can also pull out player earnings and player losses statistics - if players are losing, on average, more than they used to then that is also something for them to think about.

It would allow them to determine how many players are only losing, for example - and "going backwards" in a game where credits are seen by some as a measure of progress is not fun.

I am assuming the much less grim outlook than your postulation: that income are merely reduced (from Robigo and ALD +240% levels) to something more "realistic" and "balanced". And if this is true then by cmdr HBK's corollary, the increased "grind" from AI must lead to greater happiness among the same people complaining about it, despite their protestations.

I do not believe this of course. I think that happiness comes from other sources entirely, such as agency, free will, an environment of positive/negative reinforcement, and opportunities for self improvement. Grinding is just the positive reinforcement of obsessive compulsive behavior. There is no agency or free will, and the environment of a treadmill is static and therefore dead and meaningless. Grinding is also done in a skill vacuum, which means there is little to no opportunity for self improvement.

 

[Ian Skippy]

You know, the only conclusion I can come to is that we are looking for a pattern where none exists.

Let me explain what I mean. In my own tests, I did the same trading run between 2 High Security systems, using 3 different ships, FAS, Python, and iEagle, filling each one with as many Imp Slaves as it could hold. My interdiction rate was 66%, out of 12 runs I was interdicted 8 times. Every one was higher than my combat level (Expert). I had one master, a couple Dangerous, and the rest Deadly. Ship size did not appear to matter. High Security did not appear to matter. Combat rank did not appear to matter.

Yet others who have posted here have had completely different experiences, getting interdicted by low-levels only, or not being interdicted at all.

So I think that it's ALL just another RNG fest. There is no pattern. It's just random.

I'd LOVE to think there was a pattern so we could figure it out and act accordingly to increase/decrease risk, but it really looks to me like there isn't one.

RNG all the way, that must be FD's motto.

Seriously? One player getting only low-ranked NPCs and you getting eight consecutive high-ranking npcs sounds random to you?

Oh boy...

 

[Ziljan]

Seriously? One player getting only low-ranked NPCs and you getting eight consecutive high-ranking npcs sounds random to you?

Oh boy...

I think it was already decided a while back. The reason for getting a stream of Elite interdictions is simply hauling cargo, in particular Elite pirates seem to be attracted by Engineer ingredients that require cargo space.

I am not a fan of this mechanic, but wearing a "flag" like this is preferable to relegating the risk to walled off instances. Would prefer it if the danger was determined by something less annoying than forcing you to have cargo racks.

Pledging to Power Play would be a better compromise for adding a desired difficulty level. I guess that's already an option though

 

[bladebss]

Since i have upgraded my drives to dirty garde 3 on my fdl, i am having so much fun!

Before i had any mods it was tough but, if i picked my fights and kept my wits about me i was getting buy ok.

So i would say the ai is spot on. I think elite npcs should have acces to decent mods. But the rest ahould no have much.

I say this as if alot of them have good mods and you dont, it doesnt feel like an upgrade but a catch up that you are getting. I want an edge not just a leveler. Some of the lower grade mods feel like that but then they are easy to earn.

 

[Ziljan]

A bit off topic here (would better fit into one of the "interdiction insanity" threads) but you've had an interesting thought here. Does anyone ever investigated a possible coherence between system population and traffic density? I have Captain Kremmen's idea about system security flags in Gal map in mind. If there actually is a coherence and your statement above is true, then we could use the Gal Map population slider as a filter to plot our routes through low traffic systems if we want avoid high interdiction frequencies. If I get no answer it's surely something worth to investigate tonight. [yesnod]

p.s. So much I love the current fine sunny weather it's clearly interfering with my love for the game...

You mean CMDR Ziljans idea for security filters on the gal map? .

Yes the above is true. The background (non mission) rate of interdictions is based on:

1 security rating (high sec means more police interdiction, low sec means more pirate interdiction)
2 wanted status / negative faction reputation
3 hauling cargo
4 system traffic (human CMDR traffic that generates mirror NPCS)
5 System population

All of the above is true from 2.0 and before.

The only thing that is controversial is what determines the rank/ship strength of the interdictor. Clearly in high sec, we are not likely to find elite Anaconda police, so by that logic it would make sense that low sec would generate high rank powerful pirates when hauling valuable cargo .

 

[HBK]

And if this is true then by cmdr HBK's corollary, the increased "grind" from AI must lead to greater happiness among the same people complaining about it, despite their protestations.

The increased grind is there for combat oriented players. I'm not so sure it's there for other kind of players. And on top of that, I don't think the increased grind is the reason people are complaining about the new AI.

Most of the complaints seem to revolve around the concept of unfairness. Either because of abusive interdictions for traders, or because of seemingly out-of-spec ship usage for combatants.

 

[Ziljan]

The increased grind is there for combat oriented players. I'm not so sure it's there for other kind of players. And on top of that, I don't think the increased grind is the reason people are complaining about the new AI.

Most of the complaints seem to revolve around the concept of unfairness. Either because of abusive interdictions for traders, or because of seemingly out-of-spec ship usage for combatants.

Did you read the paragraph below the one you quoted?

And yes, I agree, most the remaining issues are not to do with the AI itself, but more to do with reasons that certain NPCs spawn. It feels broken on both ends. Seems like merchants are getting the spawns that combatants want, and vis versa.

 

[Ziljan]

Not sure who came up first with this idea. I only know that CaptainKremmen started advertising this idea a very long time ago and he did it in a very noticeable and dedicated way - and never stopped!


Wow, just wow. Here I thought it was originally my idea but never even dreamed about that some day it would actually go life!
Are you sure? Was it ever mentioned in a change log perhaps?

Its incredibly obvious if you go to a low pop system with high traffic like a CG or a control system that is currently being heavily fortified in PP. Wall to wall NPCs. But iirc, Sandro confirmed that they were trying to adjust the interdiction rate by altering the way that traffic generated NPCs, but decided to tweak it via other means. Eg increasing the importance of security rating. Lots of balancing factors going on though as noted above.

I havent seen Kremmens post (just his comedy stylings ), but returning explorers have been asking for this info for over a year, and with 2.1 it seems especially mandatory and obvious to be able to filter by security rating. Especially now that high sec is really safe!

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Today:
- One interdiction by a mission NPC. Got interdicted the moment the NPC spawned behind me. Master ranked Python. Boring turrets load-out just to make it "difficult".
Not adding fun or challenge. Just a reminder that combat in ED turned into better ship wins.

- One random interdiction, 4 jumps after I bought 2t of engineer related cargo. Elite Vulture NPC while flying a DBS. Vulture was basically constantly within 100m range or closer, always facing me while I had trouble getting that thing in front of my weapons. Run away at 60% hull (military grade).


Not fun. Just forcing me to use ships I don't want to use or ignore any combat from interdictions. Guess I will go exploring or doing other things and simply ignore combat (and engineers) until FD manages to make the game fun again.

 

[Zeta Legion]

I think it was already decided a while back. The reason for getting a stream of Elite interdictions is simply hauling cargo, in particular Elite pirates seem to be attracted by Engineer ingredients that require cargo space.

I am not a fan of this mechanic, but wearing a "flag" like this is preferable to relegating the risk to walled off instances. Would prefer it if the danger was determined by something less annoying than forcing you to have cargo racks.

Pledging to Power Play would be a better compromise for adding a desired difficulty level. I guess that's already an option though

You know it's funny you mention PP NPCs, because I do believe I have only been jumped by one such NPC this patch. A woefully unprepared Cobra with no shields.

I've been hassled by some PP NPCs near stations and in instances (usually eagles, cobras, etc.) but nothing too frequent to be annoying or really threatening.

The moment I carry one piece of cargo (doesn't matter what) or accrue any sort of bounty, all the boss monsters come out of the woodwork. Funny, that.