Horizons Higher Rank Harder Fights

[ridinroun]

As your combat rank increases does that mean the fighting gets harder like in an arcade game? With my increase in rank I am now only attacked by ships that are harder to combat against. I had one that brought my shields down in a 1 second burst. The combat was interesting and I got into some real good hard fights where I won some and lost some but now as my rank gets higher the fights are suddenly more one sided. That's like an arcade game where you level up.

 

[Iskariot]

As your combat rank increases does that mean the fighting gets harder like in an arcade game? With my increase in rank I am now only attacked by ships that are harder to combat against. I had one that brought my shields down in a 1 second burst. The combat was interesting and I got into some real good hard fights where I won some and lost some but now as my rank gets higher the fights are suddenly more one sided. That's like an arcade game where you level up.

Yes, some of your opponents will be of a higher rank when you yourself rank up.
Not all of them though. Many mission related attackers are linked to mission difficulty.
But npc Bounty hunters (in case you have been a bad boy) will in general be of an appropriate rank (and use appropriate ships) and so will be random intercepting pirates.
I don't think it is arcady per se. Why would a noob npc in a sidewinder even try to attack an Elite Python or Anaconda.
In the past this happened more often and it was somewhat disconcerting because of it's implausibility.

 

[bitstorm]

As your combat rank increases does that mean the fighting gets harder like in an arcade game? With my increase in rank I am now only attacked by ships that are harder to combat against. I had one that brought my shields down in a 1 second burst. The combat was interesting and I got into some real good hard fights where I won some and lost some but now as my rank gets higher the fights are suddenly more one sided. That's like an arcade game where you level up.

In the end it's a game.

Some players suck at combat, some players find the toughest NPCs a cake walk.

How do you deal with that? Because clearly it's an issue that needs to be addressed if the game is going to work for all types of players.

Based on rank makes at least partial sense given your rank is public, meaning factions aren't likely to send harmless pilots against an elite pilot. Nor is a harmless NPC likely to try to take down an elite player.

My feeling is the game at some level needs to somehow match the player's ability, what the best way to do that is I'm not sure.

 

[PhanttoM]

In the end it's a game.

Some players suck at combat, some players find the toughest NPCs a cake walk.

How do you deal with that? Because clearly it's an issue that needs to be addressed if the game is going to work for all types of players.

Based on rank makes at least partial sense given your rank is public, meaning factions aren't likely to send harmless pilots against an elite pilot. Nor is a harmless NPC likely to try to take down an elite player.

My feeling is the game at some level needs to somehow match the player's ability, what the best way to do that is I'm not sure.

Aye this always hard to balance, especially in flight games where the gap between good & bad pilots can be much bigger than your average first person shooter.

 

[GJ51]

I wouldn't think it too difficult to program it so that a pilot needs X number of kills against each level of opponent before kicking it up a notch.

If you had to kill 50 - 100 before moving up, the pilot's skill level should be good enough to take on the next level.

Maybe too much, too little?

Something like this should make sense.