Well... today I had YET ANOTHER encounter that has me worried about the game. If you'll give me a moment, I'll try to explain.
I am flying a Federal Dropship. She's decently equipped, pretty tough and so on. I've set her up mainly for exploring, but she is combat capable for most things.
I've encountered a great many nonhuman signals, usually they're rated threat 5. I go in, there's a thargoid scooping up cargo. It scans me, then leaves me be to go about its business.
Today, I came upon a threat 6 signal, so I thought I'd look in on it, see what was there.
I approached and disengaged the frame shift. The warping down animation started, with the blue effect at the sides of the view... and I was already under attack. I heard something about shield breaching attack or some such, and my shields were immediately gone. I was still warping in, unable to move, engage any systems... there were no contacts on my radar... yet I was already being attacked.
Now, this is the first thing. It's not acceptable to attack players while they're transitioning. It would be like trying to play a hockey game where the opposition gets to start playing 15 minutes before you are allowed on the ice.
So, when I finally finished warping in at around 80% hull, I found myself careening at full speed toward a field of debris (even though I throttled down while transitioning), surrounded on all side by maybe 20 somethings. I didn't have a chance to look at them or count them, but they were all attacking. Outnumbered 20-1 by foes that were attacking be before I'd finished loading into the area... I had no option but to immediately warp out again.
This is the second thing, and the thing that most worries me.
The thargoids, up til now, have not been accessible to most players. Players like me, who are not kitted out with the specific special gear in the specific most powerful ships, simply cannot defend themselves against the thargoids. Now, I read that there is now another kind of thargoid ship, the scouts, which are described as being smaller and less resistant to damage. As such, I thought that they might represent thargoid content that everyone can participate in. However, if they're going to be assaulting players in vast numbers like this, then they're just as inaccessible to the average player.
This is especially bad because the thargoid story and related content comprises the main story of the game. As it stands, unless you have the exact particular ship with the exact particular gear, you simply cannot do anything with the thargoid story. Many players are going to come into the game and try to participate in this content, encounter enemies they can't compete with at all, locked behind an impenetrable grind, and just abandon the effort entirely. I feel the urge to do so myself. I mean, I've stopped bothering with nonhuman signals completely because there's nothing for me to DO in them. I see a Basilisk or Medusa, I can't possibly fight it, so being there is a waste of time. I go up against these new smaller ships, I'm outnumbered 20-1, so I can't possibly fight them, so being there is a waste of time. There's NO GAME.
Now, I know there will be those who tell me to "wing up," to get other players. Unfortunately, because I play solo, there ARE no other players, and I'm not going to play in open. I doubt I'm the only one.
As a result, I find myself worrying about the future of the game. Players are going to encounter this kind of thing and just give up. I hope the devs will consider this going forward.
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