Discuss the AI here!

[Ashal_ee]

Oh look, another thread. I've posted once somewhere already but i guess i'll post here. Long time player, sense beta 1. the combat's changed a lot quite a few times, all my friends have stopped playing sense before horizons was released. i've stuck with the game and been playing quite a while. I don't mind harder AI. it's fine, but what i don't like is the fact that all aspects of the game has changed drastically now, all because no matter where you go, if you have a bounty. you will be trolled for the duration of the week until said bounty is gone. I can't travel to anywhere in the game at this point. and i have a small bounty. ships just automatically know i'm wanted no matter where i'm at, despite not using a kill warrent scanner on me. they just interdict and attack. Harder AI is fine, but this is NOT harder AI. it's cheating AI. Or you meant to tell me big fat and slow anaconda's are gonna outmaneuver my Fer-de-lance that's heavy on the engions and fit to dance around eagles in flight assist off. That's right, even in flight assist off i'm being danced around by heavy ships that have no business doing this. You can't evade Interdictions, and running is pointless. seriously try it if you havn't. they immediately interdict you again and it's boost boost watch your shields die once again. whatever damage you do to them seems to reset, and if you jump to another system. oh look at that. Another elite anaconda there to do the same thing. welcome to hell. This is not the elite i've played for a year and a half, not the game i've fell in love with. My Cutter and anaconda are useless to me now, can't trade or explore very well. and even my federal corvette has issue getting around, tho i can manage in that.

Point is, if you're gonna make the NPC's harder to kill, that's fine. just make them avoidable at the very least. If you'r gonna give them godlike status and make them impossible to avoid, then by god make them at least easier to kill. You're seriously killing the gaming experience not just for me, but for a LOT of players. Why do that, to appease a few hardcore gamers who could go fight each other in the arena for that experience? or online play for that matter where i've always managed to find challenges. Kill the experiance for the many to appease the few i guess. If you can't fix this, i'll see you all in No man's sky. oh wait, i likely won't.

 

[Codger]

So if we all get engineer upgrades we'll be happy with the new AI? Is that the thinking? Untrue, because the same people who are having trouble with the new harder combat are the ones who will never get any engineer upgrades because they are themselves too hard to get. For example, the McQuinn guy who upgrades weapons..what does he want as the very first thing? Bounties. How do you get them? Combat! See the problem? And even once you fulfill whatever the initial requirement is, you still have to get the various materials. Where do those come from? Well...some from planet surfaces (get out your SRV and shoot rocks until you randomly get what you need). Some from scanning wakes (get a wake scanner and mess around scanning wakes somewhere until you randomly get what you need). Some ONLY from mining! So..yeah..learn to mine...ugh...except you can get attacked at mining sites, and you'll be in a mining equipped vessel so...not gonna happen. Some are from salvage you find in Unidentified Signal Sources. But going into a USS means you'll probably be attacked! It's a catch 22. The same people that need the upgrades the most, are the ones who will never get them.

 

[Queex]

I must admit, I don't quite understand how you reached this reasoning? because of engineers? thread theme the ai is too hard? new mission board? how is any of that further away? engineers are an expansion of it in my book?

There was no situation in classic Elite where you could lose progress (apart from forgetting to save).
Losing progress now and again, as a means of making the persistent game matter, is a trade-off for the persistent universe.
Players losing progress frequently, and often going backwards instead of making progress towards whatever goal they had set for themselves, that's not a game I want to play.

It's not the game that any previous incarnation of Elite has been, in fact.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Just wanted to add a little story:

Got interdicted in my Diamondback Explorer by a Novice NPC Federal Assault Ship which wanted my cargo I didn't had.
FAS keept circle strafing around me.
After a lot of chaff I managed to hit the FAS a few times while my hull reached quickly very low %-numbers.
Luckily the security forces arrived and distracted the FAS and finally killed it.

Reached the spaceport with 7% hull. I guess I will run away from every NPC from now on if I'm in my DBX. Might stop using the DBX if the engineer mods don't dramatically increase the maneuverability of that ship.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

There was no situation in classic Elite where you could lose progress (apart from forgetting to save).
Losing progress now and again, as a means of making the persistent game matter, is a trade-off for the persistent universe.
Players losing progress frequently, and often going backwards instead of making progress towards whatever goal they had set for themselves, that's not a game I want to play.

this!

 

[SGTHACK]

What we all need is for Frontier to respond to this, so we can put it to bed.

 

[Privata]

Messed around with resorce site AIs and even the dangerous ones fall very easy.

It seems that the harder AIs are found in CZs and via interdictions

 

[FX2K]

What we all need is for Frontier to respond to this, so we can put it to bed.

They did.

Nope, it's going to get better. Well, needs another balancing pass perhaps, more variety in tactics (to make mid ranks a little easier), and new skills for higher ranks to make them a little less predictable.

Emphasis mine.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…
It seems that the harder AIs are found in CZs and via interdictions

I had the same impression in 2.0 - easy NPCs in RES (didn't notice any difference between the different RES types) and "harder" NPCs in CZs and SC (interdictions) - mostly because of better/different load-outs.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Looks like I need to go to combat school.

I'll withhold judgement until I've tried a few different ships and loadouts but I'm having trouble keeping any targets in my sights at the moment which means I end up having to run.

 

[Privata]

No, because they effectively removed a lot of features for many players, and brought it closer to a 'run in place' game than a 'make progress' game.

So like the original elite? because in elite 1 your one and only goal was to reach elite rank. unless you wanted to role play.

ED has more features than any of the elite , some features indeed were removed but they were minor even if they will be missed (like paying for landing pads)

 

[Monsoon]

My Other reason from the poll is:
AI being hard is NOT the problem. 4A Shields being gone in 10 seconds is the problem
I don t mind doing long fights in my cobra but there is nothing I despise more in a game is ridiculous hard design.
I haven t killed a single pirate today...not one. I m prob a noob but I used to kills some...not for a lot of credit mind you but I could held my own.
Now I have zero interest in playing the game in ridiculous mode when the biggest shields I can buy for my cobra are gone before I can even boost out

Its not hyperbole. Difficulty is nice when you can work with it. When you get interdicted and blown without being able to do any damage to a target then I say screw it
At first I was unable to land on planets because I play on a mac, now I can t even get out of the hangar without knowing that my shields are as resistant as the paint job I bought.

Its a great feeling playing a game that penalizes you with credits until you are broke and can t play anymore and have to start over
All you people dismissing the complaints...remember that not every player have 1 billion credits and can afford multiple deaths per day.
I m down to my last ship and credits. I can t afford another death as ALL the money I made from going to the other side of the galaxy and discovering thousands of planets are now gone.
I wish I had never come back to check on this patch...what a mistake this was

Fix the damn shields being useless and then it will be fine...I don t care about the AI and it being hard of easy, I want my shields to mean something when they are the top for my ship
Otherwise then what is the point of playing for just the pain of playing?

 

[Queex]

They did.


Emphasis mine.

A balancing pass is exactly the kind of fix us complainers have been talking about.

 

[CMDR Sir Edison Trent]

That too hard total is creaping up more and more.

This morning people were saying "Look 67% think it's ok so leave it alone", now we're down to 40% - 45% and i have a feeling by the end of the weekend it will be reversed.

I still havent managed to get on and play yet due to work and family stuff, so i save my personal thoughts until then, but all the people saying "get good" quite clearly have no understanding, or pehaps just no care, of other peoples opinions, there are people out there who just cannot get better at combat, not everyone has the reactions of a cat of can run through a combat thought process, so people really believe they should just leave the game they have paid for?

I look forward to testing it out as i like a good challange and shooting rolling AI just was not thrilling, although i will likely use my eagle as my 1.8m credits i've built up in my 2 week play time will not go a long way in replacing multiple vipers, whereas i could lose my eagle a few times and still be ok.

Remember, be good to each other

--CMDR Sir Edison Trent--

 

[Damaha]

My tuppence worth.

The changes are fine if you're in a combat ship. You just have to be a little more careful about taking on a wing on your own.
However, the game is now completely impossible in a cargo vessel. In a few days you'll see practically no-one flying one.
I'm selling the T-9 and staying in my Vulture until I can afford an Anaconda.

This is going to reduce the diversity of ships and of playing-style.

 

[askavir]

Looks like I need to go to combat school.

I'll withhold judgement until I've tried a few different ships and loadouts but I'm having trouble keeping any targets in my sights at the moment which means I end up having to run.

Keep in the thrusters blue zone, and use vertical thrusters in the opposite direction of where you're pitching to to help keep the nose pointing the target.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

So like the original elite? because in elite 1 your one and only goal was to reach elite rank. unless you wanted to role play.

ED has more features than any of the elite , some features indeed were removed but they were minor even if they will be missed (like paying for landing pads)

perhaps he means removed as in 'made inaccessible by over difficulty'

 

[Privata]

perhaps he means removed as in 'made inaccessible by over difficulty'

No because elite dangerous's 2.1 AI is not that hard. you just need to adapt to the fact that they actualy shoot back.

Elite 1 ,2 ,3 was 500% harder than elite 1. in fact if you so much as bumped into the station during landing you exploaded

 

[Para Handy]

They did.


Emphasis mine.

I welcome the recognition that there needs to be a balancing pass for the lower rated ones, I just wish they would do something about the preponderance of modded weapons and systems on the NPCs, (mods were originally supposed to be rare but they seem to be everywhere)- there has never been anything about that from F D as far as I can recall.

 

[Titan Left]

Like everything in life when a bar is moved those above agree with it those below it are p**sed.

In this case AI difficulty has been increased. I get that Haz-RES and CZ's should not be too easy and perhaps they were.

My input is as follows.

Me and my son have both been playing Elite for about a month on seperate PC'c. I have clocked up 150 hours. We found it hard going at first in general and reached out to places like this to understand how to find our way. We found our way to RES's and CZ's and also found 'homes' based around this area of play and was enjoying our life as bounty hunters, me in imperial space and him in federal. We are both experienced gamer's and choose to play in solo or Mobius to avoid the kind of stuff that made us avoid other MMOG's. We have done OK and loved every minute of our play. We have dabbled with other ways of making a living and its not about progression or grind WE ENJOYED IT!!!!!!!!!!!! I have an A rated ASP and Vulture, my son still only has a B rated ASP. We have joined in with CG's and PP's its been a blast.

We are also casual gamer's in so much as the time we have to play. There are way more of us out there than you serious guys and girls. Save the sarcastic come backs and asking me for proof of numbers it's a fact and you know it.

Last night I updated and I also bought Horizons to really kick things up. I am really disappointed. We have both been unable to play the game we love without dying repeatably. Not sometimes. Repeatably. Its not fun, its not challenging, its too much. I guess our combat ranks have gone up too much. I wonder if enough thought has been given to those of us that have been playing this way and have 'inflated' combat ranks as a result. Now that rank is taken into consideration on missions we are screwed and that's hardly fair IMHO.

I thought this was a game I could play the way I wanted, when I wanted. Some people like punishingly hard games. I do not and rarely turn up the difficulty above standard on most games. That's my choice. I know you can't have a difficulty setting in a game like elite. It's why I don't play in open as I accept I am average vs others but still want to fly a space ship god damn it. AI difficulty needs to scale and there is way too much modded equipment on NPC's. CMDR's should not be playing catch up with all NPC's surely!!!!!!!

Frontier are going to loose a lot of players both existing and future. Not us yet but we are on the fence and will see. Maybe like some say it's a learning curve but my instinct is that's not the case. High level players will no doubt love this and those that like to take a beating. I have a several friends that love really hard games. I don't. If you step outside of this forum various sites are already reporting that a game infamous for being difficult to get into just got a lot harder. Clap clap.

Either way what needs addressing is the fact that since yesterday the way WE played the game is impossible. Yeah we can go off an try other stuff, we did anyway but do you really think new players will want to play for 200 hours plus of trading and exploring just to get to the point they can go fighting.

And finally to all of you high level players trolling the get good comment here. Just consider the fact that without continued new CASUAL players joining you, the game you love WILL end.

Just though someone should represent the 'been playing for bit' players.

^^ This. I agree entirely. I don't enjoy difficult games either. I play for fun.

I remember Command and Conquer: Red Alert, for example. Fantastic game that I hardly played cos it was too darned hard!

To me, it's like...I dunno...an updated annual version of a game I loved came out. I bought it, but still preferred the old one. But now I have no way to play that old game I loved.