Frontier, Please Don't Kill Our Crew! Part Deux

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I've commented on this subject before and I'll say it again: I would prefer alternatives to SLF crew permadeath, for a number of reasons, but won't get really angry/rage at the Devs if they leave it the same.

Now that I've made that statement, here are reasons why I would like to see it change:

1. Active NPC SLF pilots are the only ones who face certain death (not even a chance of survival) in the game. Player pilots don't. NPC pilots apparently don't (I've had the same NPC come back in three separate ships in on Haz Res instance). Passengers don't (all cabins have escape pods built-in). Why are active NPC SLF pilots denied an escape pod? Other players can telepresence across the galaxy onto my bridge and then pilot my SLFs, but the NPC pilot is supposedly down in the hangar bay with no means of survival? Huh? How does that make any sense? This is beyond immersion breaking. It sticks out like a sore thumb!
   
   My personal narrative explanation for this is that the active pilot doesn't die and safely ejects as well. Pilot Federation regulations prevent the rehire of crew from a destroyed ship due to safety and insurance reasons.
2. SLF pilots take such a long time to get to Deadly/Elite status, that their potential loss acts as a deterrent for:
   • Engaging in PvP
   • Playing in Open
3. The potential loss of an SLF pilot incentivizes one to combat log/menu log to prevent the loss.

I understand why some people are against changing this as it is the only perma-loss one can suffer in the game and they want the game to be harder. I get that. Please see my statement at the beginning of the post. Honestly, I wish the Devs would also give us more than one commander slot AND different difficulty modes into which those slots could be locked. Then you could have some playing in Open Only Ironmode, what we have now, etc. Sadly, I don't see any of that happening.

In summation, I'd like to see this changed because it would make more sense in relation to the other mechanics and it would remove the incentives for behavior that causes numerous threads to be posted (e.g. combat logging) already.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

I don't feel penalized and I regularly use my Elite NPC crew members in dangerous situations.

By and large, I feel that the rest of the game is a consequence free cakewalk, but I try to play my CMDR as someone who isn't always certain that the ejection seat will work, or that he'll always make it back even when it does.

Well you could OFC buy a new FD account each time you die or even better, never play ED again.

Yes.

That's why I pay my insurance but don't worry, you are not obligated to pay it.

Completely agree, but the problem lies with every other loss mechanism.

I'd rather those be fixed than break the least broken aspect of consequence we have.

The ones who tell what is and isn't broken are FD, if you disagree you'll have to swallow down the bitter pill or leave.

 

[zebcarter]

Ok I stopped after page 4 but will nevertheless add my experience:

a) ranking up your co-pilot is easy. Go scout hunting and they go from Novice to Elite in a breeze. During that they take a huge bite from your own experience though...

b) once you've done that, just deploy them when you really need them. After all you want to be Elite yourself.

c) Inactive NPC pilots or even active but none deployed ones do not take any experience from you.

d) the 10-12% for them are well invested IMHO. Essentially you get strong help on missions. At a minimum that saves time when you are shipping back your 35 million supply load.

 

[V'larr]

Ok I stopped after page 4 but will nevertheless add my experience:

a) ranking up your co-pilot is easy. Go scout hunting and they go from Novice to Elite in a breeze. During that they take a huge bite from your own experience though...

b) once you've done that, just deploy them when you really need them. After all you want to be Elite yourself.

c) Inactive NPC pilots or even active but none deployed ones do not take any experience from you.

d) the 10-12% for them are well invested IMHO. Essentially you get strong help on missions. At a minimum that saves time when you are shipping back your 35 million supply load.

Codswallop.

 

[Aristides]

I feel like its pretty lame the way it is right now. I'd be fine with permadeath if I wasn't dropping up to 10% of my income on the pilot no matter what I do regardless of whether they are active or not. In my mind FD should either:

A) remove permadeath and keep pay the same. Then, at least, you feel like your time/credit investment is meaningful.
B) Keep premadeath and reduce pay significantly. Specially, cut the income percentage in half and only pay the pilot a percentage of bounties and combat bonds.

I've lost three elite pilots. Consequently, my relationship with any pilot that I've trained from harmless to elite feels sort of meaningless like so many other aspects of the game. If FD actually wants to create a feeling of depth, purpose, and personal attachment in ED, they need to start with small stuff like this.

 

[SushiCW]

Yes please. Again.

I find this to be one of the most infuriating things about the game.

 

[Hacker#451563]

Signed

I love the fighter mechanic but have lost too many competent or higher (up to Deadly; RIP Warren Chambers) for it to be fun any more.

Sad that a cool feature is so ham-strung with such low effort implementation.

 

[Six6VI]

And another vote of no confidence...

Hashtag yetanotherborkedplaceholder

Encouraging exactly the kind of response (combat logging) from players who don't like having their play time arbitrarily wasted by other people (including FDev), imposing their hard core, toughest monkey (but no I won't delete my save), git gud or die play style on them.

Back in 84 if you were too impatient to wait a few minutes for the game to save your CMDR file to audio cassette tape, GAME OVER! Jameson was back at Lave in a stock Cobra MkIII. Patience is typically a virtue, helping one mitigate the 'one step back' nature of progression.

But not with NPC crew? Consistency much, FDev?

There's clearly two conflicting mindsets in play, roughly along the lines of single vs online games. One values a meaningful journey (grind) and shiny rewards to show for it, which isn't always compatible with those who prefer to start with the end-game and fight, die, repeat.

"Just hire one and fire it before you hand in!" Really?

Wanna get paid for helping me earn? SHOW UP FOR WORK!
Wanna warm chairs and pick your nose in the crew lounge?
Don't expect more than the weekly level based hiring wage!

What multimillionaire freeloader would ever risk active duty?

 

[Kaybe]

I watched the live stream yesterday. They mentioned that there will be a beta 4 with a bunch of quality of life improvements.

Maybe just maybe this one will be one of them. Mind you, they've had a year and a half to change things, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But hey, who knows, right?

 

[Darth Ender]

What millionaire freeloader would ever come back to an employer that allowed them to be essentially killed?

Trying to justify the changes via in-game logic/lore is stupid. Nothing about npc crews makes any logical sense.

All it comes down to is what benefit is there to gameplay to keep the same crew members? There's none. They cost more the longer you have them and they dont do any better after an initial bump once they leave the bottom combat ranks. They become similar to most other things in the game that are infinite and cheap, you value everything about them less. You dont care if you destroy your ship because you can just have them all back.

What do you get by them quitting/dying ? You feel bad. Feeling bad means you'll either want to do better next time or you'll stop wasting the effort in something you're obviously not good at. It means you care about your risks.

So whether you care about NPC crew members or you dont. You still benefit more from them leaving you when you die than you do by keeping them.

 

[Ozram]

What millionaire freeloader would ever come back to an employer that allowed them to be essentially killed?

Trying to justify the changes via in-game logic/lore is stupid. Nothing about npc crews makes any logical sense.

All it comes down to is what benefit is there to gameplay to keep the same crew members? There's none. They cost more the longer you have them and they dont do any better after an initial bump once they leave the bottom combat ranks. They become similar to most other things in the game that are infinite and cheap, you value everything about them less. You dont care if you destroy your ship because you can just have them all back.

What do you get by them quitting/dying ? You feel bad. Feeling bad means you'll either want to do better next time or you'll stop wasting the effort in something you're obviously not good at. It means you care about your risks.

So whether you care about NPC crew members or you dont. You still benefit more from them leaving you when you die than you do by keeping them.

Drivel.

 

[Camisade]

What millionaire freeloader would ever come back to an employer that allowed them to be essentially killed?

I've always thought they made a design decision by not factoring any kind of persistence/reputation into the mechanism that allows pilots to hire and fire before paying a share of the proceeds (at least to an NPC that'd been put on active duty). Repeated bad-faith actions should impact the SLF pilots willing to hire on with a pilot -- after all, we have FTL galaxy-wide communications!

All it comes down to is what benefit is there to gameplay to keep the same crew members? There's none. They cost more the longer you have them and they dont do any better after an initial bump once they leave the bottom combat ranks.

Okay, this is just crazy talk! There's a significant difference, ESPECIALLY in the upper tiers of skill. Maybe it's a function of the way you use them or the SLF versions you have them fly. But if you're not noticing the difference, you're either not paying attention, or you're using them wrong, my friend!

I watched the live stream yesterday. They mentioned that there will be a beta 4 with a bunch of quality of life improvements.
Maybe just maybe this one will be one of them. Mind you, they've had a year and a half to change things, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But hey, who knows, right?

Where there's life, there's hope!

 

[60mm]

Signed.

Besides easily being the most punishing aspect of the game, by a long shot, it encourages gamey play as others have pointed out and discourages players from flying Dangerously or taking their NPCs into Open.

While I agree that having to rescue the NPC would be awesome gameplay, this could also be settled with an NPC rebuy. NPC demands a settlement to continue working with you. Could be something like (X*(NPC Salary Cut))*Rebuy Cost. An intern could toss the code in for this on a lunch break and problem solved.

 

[valbarr]

What millionaire freeloader would ever come back to an employer that allowed them to be essentially killed?

Trying to justify the changes via in-game logic/lore is stupid. Nothing about npc crews makes any logical sense.

All it comes down to is what benefit is there to gameplay to keep the same crew members? There's none. They cost more the longer you have them and they dont do any better after an initial bump once they leave the bottom combat ranks. They become similar to most other things in the game that are infinite and cheap, you value everything about them less. You dont care if you destroy your ship because you can just have them all back.

What do you get by them quitting/dying ? You feel bad. Feeling bad means you'll either want to do better next time or you'll stop wasting the effort in something you're obviously not good at. It means you care about your risks.

So whether you care about NPC crew members or you dont. You still benefit more from them leaving you when you die than you do by keeping them.

to me, money isnt an problem, i just want an elite pilot, what is important to me is my time, so every time i do stuff, that either gets my pilot killed, or some game mechanic makes it happen, i have to spend weeks getting a new elite pilot, thats what bothers me about the current system. it takes a long time to get a new pilot to elite, there basically not worth it, if they die all the time, thats why people want them changed, even if it costs real or ingame money to do it.

 

[Darth Ender]

to me, money isnt an problem, i just want an elite pilot, what is important to me is my time, so every time i do stuff, that either gets my pilot killed, or some game mechanic makes it happen, i have to spend weeks getting a new elite pilot, thats what bothers me about the current system. it takes a long time to get a new pilot to elite, there basically not worth it, if they die all the time, thats why people want them changed, even if it costs real or ingame money to do it.

Even though I've seen no evidence of elite pilots (which all of mine are) being any better than dangerous, if what you want is an elite pilot, then fdev would be better off allowed elite pilots to be hired for a substantial premium. Not allow players to keep them after death. That way there is value in leveling up low rank NPC's vs paying for top tier.

 

[Ozram]

Even though I've seen no evidence of elite pilots (which all of mine are) being any better than dangerous, if what you want is an elite pilot, then fdev would be better off allowed elite pilots to be hired for a substantial premium. Not allow players to keep them after death. That way there is value in leveling up low rank NPC's vs paying for top tier.

Why? There’s far more value in letting us get attached to our crew. What you say makes no sense. Where’s the pleasure in it?

 

[60mm]

Why? There’s far more value in letting us get attached to our crew. What you say makes no sense. Where’s the pleasure in it?

There will always be men who derive their esteem from playing games and not in the real world. They always want the digital stakes higher so their digital throne is more splendid. Ignore them and have pity on them, for that is sad.

NPC Permadeath is simply bad game mechanics because it encourages gamey play and discourages role playing and risk taking. Flying with NPCs you have trained up from noobs is 'Elite Don't-Fly-Too-Dangerous'. If you like flying Dangerous, not hiring skilled NPCs and firing them right after the landing is simply stupid. Likewise, training up NPCs and getting attached whilst choosing to fly Dangerous is stupid.

 

[valbarr]

agreed, and frontier remains silent so the pointless posts continue, very tiring.

 

[Ozram]

agreed, and frontier remains silent so the pointless posts continue, very tiring.

It’s rare to find something requested so often with out ever even a mention. There’s been one or two of these threads since NPC Pilot hires came out.

 

[Six6VI]

It’s rare to find something requested so often with out ever even a mention. There’s been one or two of these threads since NPC Pilot hires came out.

Hmm, something smells, fishy!

Rebuy: Active NPC = Pod Rescue + Medical Bills

[Heck no, let em die!] ... [OMG, they're alive!?]

Maybe someone can add rescue missions later