That was the metaphorical ‘you’ not the guy I was replying to.
Personally, ground CZs remind me of the old school Unreal 2 XMP. Same frantic action of capturing points.the faux CoD match mini game
small ships are not even worth flying
Agreed. I'm not into AX, but there's definitely a role for small ships. They're fun to fly for a start. Lumbering around in an Anaconda is plain boring.Well that's just not true at all. The speed and agility of small ships can make them a delight to fly just for the sake of it. As for doing things with said small ships, it's just a matter of scaling your ambitions and purposes appropriately. I've got a Cobra Mk3 that I use as an AX fighter at ground port AXCZs, an Adder that I use as a mini-dropship for on-foot missions involving combat or when I don't fancy taking a ride to a ground CZ with Frontline Solutions, and a DBX I use as a lightweight explorer or bubble shuttle for when I don't want to take an Apex.
Still think the best way to solve this is adding more human players by allowing a match list and match making to be available. Sure it might break immersion a bit but this is a dead game mode for me and a lot of players. Reminds me of playing counter strike before broadband with easy bots.
In fact, you don't need any equipment to destroy all the NPCs in a base. There is a very easy way to kill them all, without stealth and no one will find out just by punching them. Just let them scan you, move a little so they follow you, and punch them in the face 2 times before they're done. Don't complicate your life, this is not Valorant.Yeah. Just leave it as it now. Because, with all due respect, FDEV doesn't have neither experience or competence to balance FPS part in the game.
Of course that part needs balance tweaks and, more importantly, new content, but now i don't see the way devs could do any of that without making it more grindy or boring in the long run.
In fact, you don't need any equipment to destroy all the NPCs in a base. There is a very easy way to kill them all, without stealth and no one will find out just by punching them. Just let them scan you, move a little so they follow you, and punch them in the face 2 times before they're done. Don't complicate your life, this is not Valorant.
This is a subject and part of the game I feel really strongly about. The difficulty and AI in on foot ground zones isn't what I would consider much of a challenge and something that I just cannot play too much of. I do understand Odyssey is undergoing a lot of fixes and this is relativity new content in the grand scheme of things. Space combat and AI under went a lot of updates so hoping the same happens with this gamemode. I have played a good 20-30 hours of these on foot battles but the enjoyment is minimal. I have tried different star systems hoping security level made a difference it does not.
AX restoration missions got renamed as Hostile Reactivation. Then something got booked and they stopped appearing.CZs are easy for a variety of reasons but I disagree that ship CZs are somehow "harder". I don't think I've ever failed to win a single CZ ever (except when I lost my ship) but the main difference is if you lose your ship then you're out, done. This isn't the case in ground CZs, which I think fits the playstyle fine and I like it that way.
But, once in a fully engineered ship, I've never failed to complete any ship CZ. They're just not that tough to win. Being the "marginally better" tipping point is all that's required, so long as "marginally better" achieves the bar of being able to kill NPCs, which is only "hard" these days because ship combat has been bullet sponge since engineers. It takes ages to kill ships unless you're in a heavily engineered ship yourself.
On foot is FPS game play and not bullet sponge (not to the same degree as ships are). Is it harder/easier to win a conflict zone? Nah. I'd say neither. Both are simple to win the battle. It's just FPS is a simpler process (and, again, I don't think it is worse for it).
All that said, EDO CZs are marred by a number of issues that have been in the game since forever. On some locations, AI simply stands still. There's a military complex where they can't even path up to two of the capture points. And if those two are the only two up and the player leaves them alone, every single AI on the map just stands about, not knowing what to do. The other major issue is poor frames rates, which doesn't make it much harder but absolutely makes it less fun. And, finally, there's just no variation to what's going on but this is just a general lack of additional EDO content that has plagued the expansion since it launched (it has had new content but it's so sparse and so difficult to actually find in the game, due to the way the BGS eliminates the scenarios... like, actually try to find an AX restore mission now...)
CZs are still one of the better scenarios in EDO, though. AX restorations were amazing, just can't reliably find them anymore (never will understand why FD continue to expend huge resources on adding game play that is self eliminating by their ongoing story design; I can't stress enough how much I loved the AX restorations, but they're eliminated by natural process of the game's story progressing and that's just a shame). The protect missions are fun enough but again... how do you find them? I've not seen one since I came back. And CZs easily pay the best credits in the game, for on foot (that is easy enough to find anyway).
I'm pleased FD have focused so much on the game recently and it has lured me back to play for a bit (I'm particularly looking forward to the T8 release, so the grind is reduced). I'm just a bit saddened to see that the vast majority of EDO missions still only pay around 200k credits, when allied. It's not even as though I need credits, it's just the principal of it.
I've given up on ever actually getting on foot Thargoid content and, to be honest, I think it would be a mistake anyway as I'm sure they'd just end up making it impossible to find as they continue to shift the story towards the end of the conflict, so it would be wasted dev effort. So I'd really like it if they could spend a bit more time on on foot game play, fixing issues, actually addressing the worst performance issues (still get sub 20 fps at some stations the moment you disembark) and adding new, fun scenarios for us to complete. And, in the context of this topic, it would be nice if they enhanced and fixed the CZ content. It's basically had two iterations since launch. It deserves more love.
I think that's all way more important than CZs somehow being enough challenge for elite FPS players. But, if they were able to fix, optimise and enhance the AI? It might make it more fun and more challenging at the same time. I'm more worried about the fun bit though.
I remember that too. And after one hour the graphics started glitching out.Ha! I remember when it was impossible to "win" a ship CZ. Just one endless furball. Glorious!