I've finally had a chance to get into a few fights after long-distance footling about to open up engineers.
It's harder. Not too hard, at least for the ship I'm flying, but the frequency of NPCs you just plain run from seems a little heavy (aside from the probable issues with NPc generation that we're probably not going to hear any more details about until FD find what's going awry and fix it).
Unfortunately, the fights are more boring, for all the reasons other people have outlined. 'Better' in this context, seems to mean that they are very predictable. Effective, but predictable. Give me NPCs that do something a little different, even if they're technically 'too easy', any day. For pilots who were bored pre-2.1, the underlying problem was never difficulty per se - it was a lack of player engagement due to limited AI behaviour and the rote quality that fighting took on. Now, alas, fighting is even more by rote.
It's harder. Not too hard, at least for the ship I'm flying, but the frequency of NPCs you just plain run from seems a little heavy (aside from the probable issues with NPc generation that we're probably not going to hear any more details about until FD find what's going awry and fix it).
Unfortunately, the fights are more boring, for all the reasons other people have outlined. 'Better' in this context, seems to mean that they are very predictable. Effective, but predictable. Give me NPCs that do something a little different, even if they're technically 'too easy', any day. For pilots who were bored pre-2.1, the underlying problem was never difficulty per se - it was a lack of player engagement due to limited AI behaviour and the rote quality that fighting took on. Now, alas, fighting is even more by rote.