Patch Notes Update CQC Update 1.4

[Six6VI]

So the lesson is...

Know when an update is coming... Just do trading for a week afterwards!

Um, no. Changes to NPC interdictions have now made it very difficult to complete trade runs without being destroyed in previously "safe" systems close to the Powerplay HQ. Note: This is in SOLO mode, to avoid the griefers that waste your time and cargo for the hell of it just to be annoying or prove how big their pew-pew is.

SOLO mode was a brilliant idea, have played over 600 hours so far with only a vague interest in maybe, eventually having a go in the open world, since I cannot stand griefers wasting my time. With NPC interdictions now wasting my time and credits as well I haven't bothered logging back in since or I'd be playing, not wasting my time on the forums complaining about a game franchise I've spent two decades playing since the original back in 84...

I have NO INTEREST whatsoever in the CQC so why is it now rammed in my face that I don't want to try it, even in Beta? Having played multiple MMO games with similar pvp arena modules tacked on the side I'm scratching my head why it was added at all since it would appear players lose interest in these things very quickly and never return. It gets very boring as a volunteer in-game channel admin repeating the same mantra over and over - "No recruiting for pvp arena permitted in this channel to avoid flame wars and spam".

If you enjoy mindless, no risk deathmatch free for all killing sprees that's great but when the novelty wears off, which can be very quickly for some players, those who do enjoy them are quickly left with nobody to play with except those trying it for the first time, who die really fast, cos they're new and rubbish at it, so they quit and don't come back. Then the griefers spill back over into the normal game, and go back to being annoying.

Frontier: Loved the galaxy map but you messed up the dogfight combat, so I played the original instead, for years, (and never even noticed the 2.1 version) making this one of my most anticipated updates ever. It looks awesome, sounds fantastic (who remembers 'waltz of the blue danube' on tinny PC speakers?) and WAS a lot of fun...

Until yesterday's patch...

 

[Count]

Just watched a bit of your vid. What the help is that about? Mice trapped in the engines?

It's the new R2 unit that was installed to every ship with 1.4!

 

[Count]

Never play on patch day, in case of Elite expand this to the two days after a patch.
To all the new players- Elite is basically very stable! It's patched every two months with a BIG update and new content- free of charge. Right after such an update it's a bit... bumpy, evidently. But Frontier works really hard to deliver new content and to fix those bugs and they do so usually within 48hrs and after that you have ~2 months of stable and reliable gameplay, so on their behalf, may I ask to be a bit patient and help them fix those bugs by using the support system?

That's some good info, thanks

 

[efelstead]

Does this seem like it failed or even backfired to anybody else? Pre-patch I was interdicting NPC's with about a 90% success rate. Post-patch I'm down to about a 5% success rate. On NPC's. Am I the only one?

No you are not the only one.
This patch has ruined the balance between the interdictor and the interdicted!!
THe balance is now so far in favour of the interdictor taht you might as well just submit and take what comes.
How to ruin a very good game in one fell swoop!!

 

[KRZH0RS3]

I also noticed Lots bugs right after the Patch.

For instance, when you in supercruise and getting closer to an planet. The planet surface starts to flicker,image becomes blur-washed.
Being Interdicted is one problem, but after I would Evade interdiction, that Sound of you being interdicted still plays. Never had such problems. My Hardware specs same as it was in previous patch.
Also Orbital Lines keeps disappearing. Happens a lot.
Hope that will get brought up to Devs.

 

[Nuvey]

Firstly, great update. Love CQC, however it's a lower priority for me currently. Loving the new ships as well, and it seems the NPC pilots are much harder, and it's amazing fun. It's nice to have a great AI that drives for higher skill requirements. Everything thus far is amazing. But I have one complaint. Maybe minor to some, but it's god awful irritating. When viewing the Galactic Power and Powerplay menu there is a static. It isn't too bad, but it's so very loud. Could we have the option to turn that off, or turn it down? The static adds a little to the game play, but the volume takes everything away. I hesitate to even check the Power play menu without muting my speakers due to the volume of it in relation to the volume of everything else in the game. I've spoken to others, and I am not the only one who feels that it's volume is excessive.

Other than that, great up date, and a great game.

 

[Soopyyy]

Firstly, great update. Love CQC, however it's a lower priority for me currently. Loving the new ships as well, and it seems the NPC pilots are much harder, and it's amazing fun. It's nice to have a great AI that drives for higher skill requirements. Everything thus far is amazing. But I have one complaint. Maybe minor to some, but it's god awful irritating. When viewing the Galactic Power and Powerplay menu there is a static. It isn't too bad, but it's so very loud. Could we have the option to turn that off, or turn it down? The static adds a little to the game play, but the volume takes everything away. I hesitate to even check the Power play menu without muting my speakers due to the volume of it in relation to the volume of everything else in the game. I've spoken to others, and I am not the only one who feels that it's volume is excessive.

Other than that, great up date, and a great game.

^^^ This. Please. It's like being blasted by feedback.

 

[Xsannz]

Anybody know if the cobra mkiv was in this patch??

 

[EAGLE 5]

Well done forgot it was time already.

 

[Count]

No you are not the only one.
This patch has ruined the balance between the interdictor and the interdicted!!
THe balance is now so far in favour of the interdictor taht you might as well just submit and take what comes.
How to ruin a very good game in one fell swoop!!

Hmmmm...

Re the interdictions; I'm in the blue +90% of the time, and then suddenly the red bar just grows from nowhere, while I was fully zoned in on the blue vector, and I'm interdicted.

Like you say, if you're given something to do to avoid interdiction, but then it randomly fails anyway, whats the point?

And I have seen the vector jump quite alarmingly and skip across the screen a few times.

Every time it was only one interdictor.

 

[Valethar]

Anybody know if the cobra mkiv was in this patch??

Not unless they released Horizons early.

 

[Joe-one]

I see it as opening up in game possibilities.

First off if the power plant gets destroyed, consider yourself as running on emergency batteries (which is why you have half power).

Right now once shields are down many people flee from PvP, largely because they know the enemy will target their Power Plant next and depending on their weapon setup and your ship, they might take it out very quickly. Better to run. This should encourage people to stay in the fight even if their shields go down.

Second, if your power plant goes and you're in this position in PvP, your opponent might give you a chance to yield (if, say you were fighting a pirate and all he wants is your cargo). Alternatively you could try and escape, which you can still do at half power (depending on how your using your power).

The new power plant stuff just negates the reasons for anybody other than a pirate to target anything other then the hull. Targeting the power plant now just wastes damage that could be spent on the hull (I think I read somewhere that system target dmg success yields 50% hull dmg?) and makes the kill take longer. Combat bonds leading to 36 Mil (guessing around 500 ships??{36Mil / 36000 per ship / 2 Hudson PP) without it saving me any time on a single kill is enough evidence for me. The best you can hope for is the power plant blows when there's 5% hull left so you would have killed him long before by just targeting the hull.

I was taking out Anaconda power plants when they still had 65-75% hull before so I can understand making a change but I think they just went too far. I just don't see the point in system targeting anymore. I'll give it a bit more time but I'll probably end up unbinding those keys to use them for something else cus' I won't need to do any system targeting anymore.

 

[Joe-one]

I should also add that there seems to be a change with weapons causing the ship to heat up. I wasn't having any heat problems before unless I was unleashing all weapons while using a shield cell but now I'm getting a heat warning as soon as I start to run out of charge on my lasers if I've been firing them from full charge. I'm not sure if they just changed one of the weapons I happen to have on my ship or if they changed how it works overall. I'm using a 3D/T Beam, 3E/G Pulse, 2 x 2F/G Pulse lasers, and a 3C/G cannon with 7A power plant and 7A distributor on a Python using 27/30 Mw during combat. If they just changed the stats on the beam it would probably be enough to cause the changes I'm seeing.

There's nothing in the patch notes on heat so I could be wrong, maybe I'd boosted before I started shooting or something I wouldn't have normally done before that caused it but I don't think so because it's happened to me a bunch of times now.

 

[GG7]

You forgot to add long-range missions are now available!

Ironically, over on the Xbox One, all of our NEW long range/ Multi-jump missions have vanished with our latest update. Nothing but low paying original type missions, or a list full of only Charity missions, IF the Bulletin Board server even gives you a mission list before the Time Out error pops up.

 

[Six6VI]

So, did they rollback the NPC interdiction changes yet?

Not sure I can be bothered to play any more unless / until they fix that...

 

[EternalHaze]

I really liked this update especially the CQC but I've had some minor issues like my cursor being stuck at the middle when I open an interface or go to the pause menu. I have to ALT-TAB to get it working again. I run it on borderless mode. Also, the cursor is bigger than before. I don't know if this is a design or a bug but it worries me a lot to see a big cursor in from of me.

 

[Six6VI]

So, did they rollback the NPC interdiction changes yet?

Not sure I can be bothered to play any more unless / until they fix that...

There is a very simple mathematical logic to this question as it was taking 10-15 round trip runs in an unshielded, weaponless Type 7 to make the 3 million CR it costs to be interdicted and destroyed once with a full load of Gold.

If you're now getting interdicted and killed "every other run" (See above posts on the massively increased interdiction frequency) you are making staggering losses and going out of business so fast it's not worth the effort.

I am so NOT impressed that in around 600 hours of game play I'd only had to make 3 insurance claims totaling around 300,000 CR by being careful in SOLO mode with the chosen route between systems right near the faction HQ which was previously less profitable but relatively "safe" and yet just ONE post patch NPC interdiction and resulting grossly unfair 3 on 1 death in a previously unmolested Type 7 I've now quadrupled my overall insurance bill.

That's not fun, and leaves an extremely bitter taste of several wasted days of invested time.

Edit: Please fix this quick so I can quit whinging on the forums and get back to playing.

Edit, edit: No seriously guys, hurry up! I'm sitting here refreshing the forum page and getting even more bored re-reading the complaints while looking for new posts but I'm UBER reluctant to log back in and risk any of my ships trying to get the last 50 points I need to re-qualify for my merit level before Galnet resets for the week...

This isn't a real edit, edit, edit I just tacked it on: OMG already, I WANNA PLAY! xD

*Sob... They've killed the best "space awesomeness" sequel ever, my life is over!

 

[Twinn]

TLDR; Post 1.4 patch the game is no longer fun for newbies/casuals. Difficulty & Leveling curve is too steep.

Bought this game about a week or two ago. Was amazed at how in-depth and fun a space sim could be. Spent hours watching videos and reading forums to learn more about the game and it's mechanics. Found all the awesome websites for ship building, trading, etc. I really started enjoying collecting bounties/bonds in RES and conflict zones and was looking forward to leveling up, getting mucho money, and outfitting bigger ships... until BAM! "Server Updating"...

1.4 Update made everything extremely difficult for new players. I get that you created a higher bar for the advanced player looking for a new challenge... but it has trickled down too far into the low ranks and makes the core means of leveling / upgrading too out of reach. With my moderately outfitted Cobra and previous flight knowledge I could last about 30 minutes inside both High Intensity Conflict Zones & RES. Now I'm lucky to leave Low Intensity combat zones with my life after only one engagement. Other times I will have my shields blasted away instantly by every ship at once after toggling my faction. I decided to come voice my opinion here instead of punching a hole through my monitor from frustration. Thought about doing some trading (I find it quite boring) but with all the Interdiction talk I'm pretty keen on just letting this title go for the time being.

The saddest part of all is that I was having way too much fun with the previous version!!! Fun is what we're after right?

Suggestion: AI target priority and interdiction chance/difficulty based on player rank. (Why would an Elite Python prioritize a Novice light fighter in battle when he's being blasted by two NPC Master Vipers and one Deadly Vulture. Pre patch this wasn't the case at all and I could pick my battles accordingly. The changes to powerplant really sealed the coffin.

 

[Soopyyy]

The AI has gotten not brain dead. Trust me, it was a LOT harder in the early days. At least now you can earn some credits to fit out something better than a D grade eagle in your first few hours.

 

[Grenian]

I've been playing a week or two myself and I'm currently flying a Federation Dropship. I read all about trading and ship building etc myself. I started out with the sidewinder doing a few missions to get up enough to grab a cobra and then I struck out for rare trading. Once I got into a type 6 I continued to rare trade with wider loops. Got a type 7 and just smashed regular commodities in a loop until I could afford to go to Tun and get my Federation rank up. 1.4 allowed me to get the Dropship at only CPO rank so now here I am off bounty hunting in a mostly B grade Dropship in Hazardous RES and spinning up about 1m worth of bounties before I have to go back to a station to repair my hull... I'm not entirely sure how you figure this isn't newbie friendly but if you really did watch vids and read up on ED it's pretty easy. Just carry chaff and don't be afraid to bug out if you bite off more than you can chew.