Most of us would have more fun if they were more of a challenge, but not if they were unbeatable. If they’re not programmed to be beatable people would get bored pretty quickly.
I mean, how do I answer that? You’re simply wrong. NPCs are programmed to be beatable by players, therefore a good player is always going to be a harder opponent.
Not once have I suggested they be made unbeatable. There is a massive gulf between where they are now and unbeatable. An NPC that is ten times as good as I am wouldn't be unbeatable, even by me; I'd just be forced to retreat far more often than I was able to take that NPC down in a direct confrontation and losing a ship to one would at least be possible.
NPCs are programmed to
completely suck, but this doesn't need to be so. There are few technical limitations at play in that decision. We've had better (still not particularly good) NPCs in the past, as far as general combat piloting goes, and the parameters related to their inter-instance persistence and hostility are design choices.
You seem to be implying that what's been chosen must be because it's what's been chosen, which is tautological nonsense.
I'm saying they've made the wrong choices. I don't particularly think they'll ever have any compelling incentive to implement better choices, but they absolutely
could.
Which ship is locked behind the Elite rank? It’s been a long time since I got mine so maybe I’ve just forgotten.
None. There are, however, half a dozen ships locked behind Naval ranks that are barriers to gameplay, missions that are uncommon at lower PF ranks that make PF rank a barrier to gameplay, and local and superpower reputation that are barriers to getting missions and such that can make progress through those ranks faster.
My CMDR has more options available to him being an multiple-Elite Admiral-King who is on good terms with hundreds of factions than a fresh CMDR has. I don't think there is anything wrong with this in principle (though the implementation is crap), but it's definitely a thing, and quite deliberately so. This is a motivating factor for trying to bypass all sorts of potentially very repetitive gameplay to get to the gameplay one thinks one wants. An 'AFK build', or any number of other ways to cheese around certain elements can reduce the time one needs to actively participate in what some consider to be little more than tedious grind.
While technically true, no dev would program NPCs to be better than the humans who are fighting them.
I don't agree with that either. That's like saying no one would include any monsters with more than 7HD in the Monster Manual because the average PC party was level four.
Even
Elite: Dangerous has some NPCs that are beyond the capabilities of the 'average' CMDR, they're just reserved for purely optional encounters when they could be used better, and the nature of their difficulty is a lazy, almost purely inflationary, implementation.
In fact it’s usual to set the difficulty to be challenging for the average player.
Games where the difficulty
ceiling of NPCs is higher than what the average player or player character can reliably handle are not uncommon, and nothing prevents such NPCs from existing in the same setting as much lesser challenges.
I think this game would be able to cater to a much broader segment of players if the NPC capability ceiling was high enough to give the CMDRs of the most skilled players, serious trouble. NPCs of this caliber would never need to oppose most CMDRs, but could be used as soft content gates, or credible opposition to those who've earned the ire of powerful groups, where lesser threats have proven impotent.
