So this might be more of a rant but I'm just so frustrated at this point but I'm sure others also have this opinion.
Before update 15 I loved going to planetary outposts and and killing thargoids for hours on end just my gibber conda (I play solo). It was a lot of fun and it helped me fund my FC since it was a way better alternative than mindlessly mining asteroids for 40 hours. I tried fighting them with the Chieftain and MK II at AX Combat Zones but I'm just not good at it so planetary combat was my only option and it kinda felt like I was doing my part in the war against the thargoid.
Queue last week with update 15 and they changed the scouts behavior, added the thargoid hunter and messed up the scouts damage. After struggling to kill a few cyclopses, hunters and half a basilisk I gave up. It was a constant loop of launching, deploying hardpoint and requesting docking at the same time, killing a few scouts, maybe a cyclops and docking back with less than 50% hp. All in 30-50 seconds. My ship has 7786hp with 18.5% caustic resistance. Before the update I could go and kill a basilisk and be left with 50% hp, not 2-3 scouts. Hunters weren't such an issue, yes it was annoying having all your guarding modules lose all their durability in 30 seconds for some godforsaken reason but its fine.
Queue this weeks update 15.01 and I was happy to see that they fixed the issue. "Scouts are no longer acting with excessively increased firepower." Yay, I can finally play Elite again, I thought to myself thinking everything was fine now. Oh boy, was I wrong, on my way to the station all scouts got aggroed on me the instant I went near the outpost and by the time I landed I lost 10-20% of my hull. What. Were the scouts before update 15 really simple to deal with? Yeah you can say they were, I mean they were just flying in one spot "attacking the outpost" and you could kill them in 1-2 shots with 6 shard cannons. They would only start attacking you if you missed them or if they were flying around and no other CMDR was around. Now the entire swarm will aggro on you or all the scouts would fly upwards like some balloons together with the interceptors (I really hate that they do that, just fly up for 10-30km vertically when you shoot them) and now you aren't sure if you can follow them. Why? Well, if you do decide to follow them, you will see 2-3 NPC ships fighting the interceptor (usually 1, sometimes 2) and 6-10 scouts all around them. So you try to approach the scouts from the outside to pick them off one by one so you can focus on the interceptors peacefully, but as soon as you get maybe between 2-3km from 2 scouts they start aggroing you one by one and then the interceptors also join in on the fun. You are now probably 15-30km away from the outpost getting dunked on by so many shots (and every shot shakes your camera so aiming gets much harder), lots of caustic missiles you would've thought I was playing Ace Combat with the amount of missile warnings I was getting and your survival chances are pretty much low. So all that was left was to go back to the loop of launching killing a few thargoids and docking back.
How is this supposed to be fun? I know I'm not the best AX pilot, but for god's sake is it necessary to make it so unbearable? I started playing in 2020 and played for most of the year, grinding the Empire and Federation reputation, mining LTDs, Painite when it was really expensive, deep core mining, engineering, bounty hunting and exploring, everything but AX stuff. I stayed away from that stuff. I logged in once in 2021 and only in the past month I've fell in love with the game again because I had a steady source of income and fun. Now both are pretty much taken away from me. Am I feeling way too entitled to the older system of scouts? Maybe. Do I want it back because it was more enjoyable? YES. That's all I'm asking the how the scouts have behaved before. Either that or make a compromise, make it that 50% of the scouts will stay in one place and shoot at the outpost and the other 50% will aggro on other ships (not just you).
Before update 15 I loved going to planetary outposts and and killing thargoids for hours on end just my gibber conda (I play solo). It was a lot of fun and it helped me fund my FC since it was a way better alternative than mindlessly mining asteroids for 40 hours. I tried fighting them with the Chieftain and MK II at AX Combat Zones but I'm just not good at it so planetary combat was my only option and it kinda felt like I was doing my part in the war against the thargoid.
Queue last week with update 15 and they changed the scouts behavior, added the thargoid hunter and messed up the scouts damage. After struggling to kill a few cyclopses, hunters and half a basilisk I gave up. It was a constant loop of launching, deploying hardpoint and requesting docking at the same time, killing a few scouts, maybe a cyclops and docking back with less than 50% hp. All in 30-50 seconds. My ship has 7786hp with 18.5% caustic resistance. Before the update I could go and kill a basilisk and be left with 50% hp, not 2-3 scouts. Hunters weren't such an issue, yes it was annoying having all your guarding modules lose all their durability in 30 seconds for some godforsaken reason but its fine.
Queue this weeks update 15.01 and I was happy to see that they fixed the issue. "Scouts are no longer acting with excessively increased firepower." Yay, I can finally play Elite again, I thought to myself thinking everything was fine now. Oh boy, was I wrong, on my way to the station all scouts got aggroed on me the instant I went near the outpost and by the time I landed I lost 10-20% of my hull. What. Were the scouts before update 15 really simple to deal with? Yeah you can say they were, I mean they were just flying in one spot "attacking the outpost" and you could kill them in 1-2 shots with 6 shard cannons. They would only start attacking you if you missed them or if they were flying around and no other CMDR was around. Now the entire swarm will aggro on you or all the scouts would fly upwards like some balloons together with the interceptors (I really hate that they do that, just fly up for 10-30km vertically when you shoot them) and now you aren't sure if you can follow them. Why? Well, if you do decide to follow them, you will see 2-3 NPC ships fighting the interceptor (usually 1, sometimes 2) and 6-10 scouts all around them. So you try to approach the scouts from the outside to pick them off one by one so you can focus on the interceptors peacefully, but as soon as you get maybe between 2-3km from 2 scouts they start aggroing you one by one and then the interceptors also join in on the fun. You are now probably 15-30km away from the outpost getting dunked on by so many shots (and every shot shakes your camera so aiming gets much harder), lots of caustic missiles you would've thought I was playing Ace Combat with the amount of missile warnings I was getting and your survival chances are pretty much low. So all that was left was to go back to the loop of launching killing a few thargoids and docking back.
How is this supposed to be fun? I know I'm not the best AX pilot, but for god's sake is it necessary to make it so unbearable? I started playing in 2020 and played for most of the year, grinding the Empire and Federation reputation, mining LTDs, Painite when it was really expensive, deep core mining, engineering, bounty hunting and exploring, everything but AX stuff. I stayed away from that stuff. I logged in once in 2021 and only in the past month I've fell in love with the game again because I had a steady source of income and fun. Now both are pretty much taken away from me. Am I feeling way too entitled to the older system of scouts? Maybe. Do I want it back because it was more enjoyable? YES. That's all I'm asking the how the scouts have behaved before. Either that or make a compromise, make it that 50% of the scouts will stay in one place and shoot at the outpost and the other 50% will aggro on other ships (not just you).
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