Horizons Elite Dangerous is needlessly difficult

It seems to me that the majority of players want the game to be much less difficult than it has recently become. There was a time when I fired up Elite Dangerous and enjoyed being the baddest badass in the galaxy (in my own head) for a few hours. It was great fun to fly to some Has Res site and kill a bunch of pirates like some kind of interstellar Lone Ranger.

But those days have gone now, and some poxy little NPC FDL or Vulture can now fly rings around my Federal Corvette and make it perfectly clear that I'm just a very average piece of cannon fodder with an expensive ship and little talent. Oh well, there goes the wonderful fantasy. It's like sending an SAS squad with live machine guns and hand grenades into a paint-balling competition. Challenging, yes. But I suspect that most people would be somewhat put off.

I know there are some fanbois out there with plenty of time on their hands who can eat a pizza at the same time as flying a Hauler backwards with FA off while strafing a wing of Elite Anacondas to death and filling in their jobseeker's allowance forms with their other hand, but then there are the rest of us - with a few hours of play per week during which we have paid to feel like Luke Skywalker. Personally, I play Elite on a three year old laptop, I steer using my mouse, I'm tired of dying every couple of hours, and I'm annoyed that interdiction has been rendered practically impossible to use. On top of all that, every time I get close to becoming Elite, something new is introduced that makes everything much, much harder to achieve. I had been gradually increasing my Deadly ranking for months, increasing by half a percent per day on average. Nowadays, I would think myself lucky if I could get 1% per month. I wish I had had the time to get ranked Elite when the going was so much easier.

If the number of people who fly solo or in limited groups is anything to go by, the majority of people don't enjoy being ganked, griefed or generally slaughtered in open play, but now the NPCs are doing the same. My guess is that the number of (normal) players who risk using an expensive ship in a combat zone nowadays is almost zero. If normal space is anything to go by, I expect that life expectancy in a CZ would be just a few seconds.

I would have thought that when playing in Solo mode (like most people do), it would be reasonable to expect the game to judge the competence of a player and to set the skill levels of NPCs accordingly? After all, it is a game. It should be challenging, rewarding, interesting and fun. I paid good money to be entertained, so that a very average piece of cannon fodder can go back to thinking that he's the baddest badass in the galaxy again.
 
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There was a time when I fired up Elite Dangerous and enjoyed being the baddest badass in the galaxy (in my own head) for a few hours. I paid good money to be entertained, so that a very average piece of cannon fodder can go back to thinking that he's the baddest badass in the galaxy again.

At least you can recognize that the feeling you had was an illusion. Many others on here still retain the delusion they were good combat pilots before Elite 2.01.02.
 
Elite Dangerous, the clue really is in the name to be honest.

It's not supposed to be easy.

Also, if NPC's are killing large things in small ships, surely that should mean something...

Something like, maybe your loadout on the 'vette needs to be adjusted, maybe turrets are now essential to counter the manoeuvrability of smaller ships. Or maybe, just maybe, you will have to buy a little ship & join in the fun!

It seems that large ships have suffered quite a bit in this update, mainly because people haven't adjusted their tactics and realised that they actually can be outmanoeuvred now, just as they should.

Adapt & overcome, the only way to play Elite.
 
For a lot of us playing ELITE was both challenging and dangerous in equal measure but Elite Dangerous was mainly harmless so something really did need to change and it did with the AI update, i say that if you really do want to be top dog then you have to earn that right and not have it given to you.
 
Elite Dangerous, the clue really is in the name to be honest.

... maybe your loadout on the 'vette needs to be adjusted, maybe turrets are now essential to counter the manoeuvrability of smaller ships. Or maybe, just maybe, you will have to buy a little ship & join in the fun!

It seems that large ships have suffered quite a bit in this update, mainly because people haven't adjusted their tactics and realised that they actually can be outmanoeuvred now, just as they should.

You are quite right, of course. The day of the dinosaur/pocket battleship/mainframe computer/[similar large, formerly impressive but now obsolete thing] is coming to an end. I do have a fondness for the Imperial Courier, so maybe I'll take it out of mothballs, add a couple of engineer mods and see how it shines up. I only just bought the damn Corvette too. I suppose it will make a pretty good trader though :eek:
 
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Ship launched fighters this year though !
Hopefully these will be NPC ships. I think the Corvette can hold two. This should balance the slow old duffer a bit.
Flimley
 
For a lot of us playing ELITE was both challenging and dangerous in equal measure but Elite Dangerous was mainly harmless so something really did need to change and it did with the AI update, i say that if you really do want to be top dog then you have to earn that right and not have it given to you.

I'm old enough to have had the original game and I even got the black sweatshirt with "Right-on Commander" when I ranked up to Elite. With Elite Dangerous, I was happy enough to be top dog in my private little world (AKA solo mode) and you lot all existed in some theoretical parallel universe, to which I had no intention of visiting. But now there is a rift, and the griefers are coming into my universe masquerading as NPCs.

I suppose I need to get a smaller and more maneuverable ship then head out to the engineers and join the arms race.
 
I agree to the OP,
feeling a little bit the same. Right now its just too dangerous (a little pun here...) to fly around in my decently equipped Type 7 to trade. Last week I played for like 3 hours and got killed 2 or 3 times losing over 5 million credits. (for me thats quite alot) I know that the difficulty discussion in an open game is always a little tricky. Some people are willing to put more time into the game than others. I, for example did not touch ED for some month because of the more or less bad mission system. So I can understand that I got shot because I was a little out of practice. However, when I was killed by a random NPC in basically a matter of like half a minute (more or less) I just went to the forums to read a little more tried to improve myself. While I did better I still was killed easily by a NPC (in a Vulture) even before my FSD Cooldown was down. Well now I know that I could just throttle down to accept the interdiction to have much less FSD cooldown, but it still feels a little difficult "just for doing some trading". I could understand that the combat zones are harder, but I think combat in open space should be a little toned down. At least give me some option to train combat with my current ship in a training mission without the risk of losing money when getting killed. Maybe I would be more confident after a little more training to return to the real game. Right now I fear that I will put down ED for another few weeks / month and seeing if difficulty has been toned down a little.
 
I'm old enough to have had the original game and I even got the black sweatshirt with "Right-on Commander" when I ranked up to Elite. With Elite Dangerous, I was happy enough to be top dog in my private little world (AKA solo mode) and you lot all existed in some theoretical parallel universe, to which I had no intention of visiting. But now there is a rift, and the griefers are coming into my universe masquerading as NPCs.

I suppose I need to get a smaller and more maneuverable ship then head out to the engineers and join the arms race.

I know what you´re going through. To be honest, E : D is not fun anymore for me and I think about quiting my duty. The NPC-ships behave as if they use aimbots. Not to mention their new maneuverability! I fight with an A-rated Corvette and cannot even stay at the back of an Dagerous Anaconda with 4 pips on my engines anymore. And since 2.1 my vessel seems to be some kind of sticky or magnatic to hostile NPC. When heading face-to-face in a fight they ram my ship permanently now!!! I can see that they try to dodge, but then heading back into my direction by an invisible "force". Maybe the force is with them!? But I don´t think so.

So I tried to play vanilla E : D (1.6) without all this "Pimp-my-spacecraft" nonsense. And what should I say. In an RES I have to fight against NPCs with modifications of 2.1!!! I had several thermal and impulse attacks and encounter NPC-ships with modified shields and engines! Where is the logic in that? So the players who don´t have the chance to beef up their ships - because of not having bought the expansion for e.g. - nevertheless have to fight against modified NPC-ships? This has nothing to do with fairplay or challange anymore. These players are an easy prey for NPCs now because they are highly inferior without the ability of compensating this disadvantage!

Sorry FD, you might have made E : D more challanging for the power players but ruined the game for casual players, who are - I think - the mayority.
 
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I know there are some fanbois out there with plenty of time on their hands who can eat a pizza at the same time as flying a Hauler backwards with FA off while strafing a wing of Elite Anacondas to death and filling in their jobseeker's allowance forms with their other hand, but then there are the rest of us .


agree with it all but this made me laugh! deffo true!

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I'm old enough to have had the original game and I even got the black sweatshirt with "Right-on Commander" when I ranked up to Elite. With Elite Dangerous, I was happy enough to be top dog in my private little world (AKA solo mode) and you lot all existed in some theoretical parallel universe, to which I had no intention of visiting. But now there is a rift, and the griefers are coming into my universe masquerading as NPCs.

I suppose I need to get a smaller and more maneuverable ship then head out to the engineers and join the arms race.

i dabbled with engineers and that is just a grind fest, like PP Equip grinding x 10, and smaller ships... 3 shots to kill my DBx by anything Elite
 
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It used to be I could get distracted and kick a little butt on the side when I got bored with running trade missions with little change in load out. Things have gotten harder. Not complaining, just saying the level of difficulty has increased to the point where I'd have to take choice of ship and load out much more seriously in order to achieve the same amount of 'kick a little butt'.

The people who dedicate enough time and energy to it to be successful will say things like: "I guess you discovered you weren't as good of a pilot as you thought." and "The game is called Elite: Dangerous ... duh!". Not arguing with either of those points. But it's also true that combat on the side used to be more fun, but it isn't worth it anymore for those of us who aren't all-in. Literally not worth it, in terms of credits. There are a good amount of us out here that feel that way. Call of lack of skill or effort or whatever you want - but I don't think that anyone is arguing the fact that the group of people that combat appeals to has narrowed recently due to changes.. for better or worse.
 
I am by no means a good combat pilot. I have lost every PVP battle I have encountered. However with the recent buff to the AI, I don't agree that combat has become needlessly difficult. It's harder, but I haven't died at the hands of any NPCs yet. A week or so before 2.1 landed I purchased a Corvette for bounty hunting. Prior to that I was bounty hunting in Haz Res in an Annie and enjoying the carnage. However post 2.1, the pirouetting pythons seem to have become a thing of the past and NPC ships won't stay still, goddammit.

To counter the increase in manoeuvrability of the NPC ships, I now get into position behind the target, as before, and blast them with everything I have at once. No longer do I try and strip their shields with thermal weapons before shredding the hull with kinetic ones. I currently have two gimballed class 4 multi-cannons, and pulses on every other hard point. My tactic is to try and rain as much death on my intended target and strip their shield before they inevitably start to outmanoeuvre me. Assuming you've managed to strip their shield, you can then put 4 pips into engines and finish them off with just the multi-cannons. I am generally looking at taking on large vessels and try and avoid Vultures. Use FA off and boosts to turn too. It's worked for me up till now.
 

raeat

Banned
I am not a combat pilot in real life. Really! It's true. I'm not.

I'm really not sure if it should be required of me that *I* be one in a game. Let the L337bois fight the L33tbois if they want their L337boi thrills. PvE should be geared to the PvE audience, which means doable for the average PvE player. Of course, we know it is all to cause players to buy Horizons, but looking at the posts, I don't think I will be - at least not yet. Seriously. The reviews by PvE players are not happiness. If I am destined to lose every fight, I guess the deal is to never fight anymore. I wonder how long my latest tryst with ED will be.

As with role playing games, so it is with computer games: different players enter into the game for different reasons. There are power gamers, problem solvers, role players, storytellers, and there are buttkickers. The buttkicker is the one who, after a long day of getting their butt kicked by an obnoxious employer or life in general, just wants to come home and blow off some steam. The OP and a few others here sound like buttkickers, and that is not wrong. No type of player is wrong.

However, the most successful games are the ones that cater to each player type in some way. Role players are already SOL. Storytelling is limited, but still doable if you take a few liberties. ED seems to have thrown the buttkickers under the bus in favour of the power gamers and the sickness that infects seemingly all online games - the grind. Game companies need to realize that the grind is not a good thing. It may seem to be on the ledger sheet, and whatever adviser company it is that goes around spreading the grind gospel, but it eventually kills games. Power gamers will always be looking for bigger and badder mouse mazes to crash the walls down in to get to the cheese. That is not intrinsically bad either, but in a computer game it is devastating to the rest of the community. It is their way of winning a game that, in this case, was designed to not be won, and everyone else loses. That seems to be what is happening here.
 
I'm happy with the current difficulty, makes me think before acting. I mostly only play an hour or so at night and a bit more at weekends when not busy. Thinking, though, I've been able to avoid death in pretty much all situations I got myself into.

Also had no problems having serious fun in conflict zones on my simple poor cobra. Slammed 4 hull reinforcement kits in it and all was well! For a while...
 
makes me think of this quote;
There used to be a time....
(before men wore man-handbags and moisturizer)
when people bragged about their accomplishments instead of their weaknesses.
[video=youtube;ZJIdSX2Kr7w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIdSX2Kr7w&list=PL_5T5pChnNbtO9K5B3QhAhlpaQWpZe1JU&index=1[/video]
this is too hard!?!??!
 
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Sorry FD, you might have made E : D more challanging for the power players but ruined the game for casual players, who are - I think - the mayority.


i've been sayign this despite not being that casual myself.

But i'm no combat master either. I haven't died in 2.1 yet and i've done my fair amount of fighting, but i'm also in a fully kitted clipper and i was always quick to run anyway so i learned a long time ago that when my shields are getting low, its time to high tail, no try to stand my ground .

But like i see little chance of getting to play with my brother again with the difficulty of the game now. He was more a casual and he already was a bit afraid of combat. When i told him how 2.1 was i could feel he wasn't gonna come back.
 
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