I am loving the new NPC behavioral enhancements

[Ziljan]

I've been hanging out in CZs testing out weapons, and I noticed that the NPC behavior has been made more nuanced. Eagles do banking turns and knife edge jukes, Vultures fly in evasive spirals, ships that are barely hanging on to hull make a last minute panic dash to flee. Some clever NPCs now put 4 pips to SYS while shield cell banking. The combat behaviors are far less predicable, and it all adds up to make NPCs more believable as living breathing creatures with a will to live. Of course they still die by the droves, it's just that now they are making things a little more interesting

Well done Sarah Jane Avory! Another brilliant and balanced rung in the ladder for incremental AI enhancements has been achieved.

 

[Bryan K]

There was a change in AI behavior? I did an 81 kill CZ mission the other day and didn’t notice the difference.

 

[Riverside]

I've been hanging out in CZs testing out weapons, and I noticed that the NPC behavior has been made more nuanced. Eagles do banking turns and knife edge jukes, Vultures fly in evasive spirals, ships that are barely hanging on to hull make a last minute panic dash to flee. Some clever NPCs now put 4 pips to SYS while shield cell banking. The combat behaviors are far less predicable, and it all adds up to make NPCs more believable as living breathing creatures with a will to live. Of course they still die by the droves, it's just that now they are making things a little more interesting

Well done Sarah Jane Avory! Another brilliant and balanced rung in the ladder for incremental AI enhancements has been achieved.

Nothing in the patch notes, you sure something changed?

 

[Ziljan]

It's subtle but it's definitely there. And they never announce AI enhancements for fear of inciting panic. Luckily the changes are incremental enough that most people won't notice it seems. Fine by me, as I am enjoying them immensely.

It could also be that the enhancements are gated by CMDR rank/ability. The game does spawn more challenging/adept NPCs for higher combined PF ranks, the grade/size of ship you are flying, and also depending on how well you've actually done recently. If you have high rank and regularly get your butt kicked by NPCs, then the game downgrades the spawns until you do well again.

 

[Riverside]

It's subtle but it's definitely there. And they never announce AI enhancements for fear of inciting panic. Luckily the changes are incremental enough that most people won't notice it seems. Fine by me, as I am enjoying them immensely.

It could also be that the enhancements are gated by CMDR rank/ability. The game does spawn more challenging/adept NPCs for higher combined PF ranks, the grade/size of ship you are flying, and also depending on how well you've actually done recently. If you have high rank and regularly get your butt kicked by NPCs, then the game downgrades the spawns until you do well again.

I haven't had an NPC encounter in 3.0 yet, so if it's changed I'll want to know, and the place I'd want to find that out from is the patch notes. No patch notes, any change is a bug & needs to be fixed.

If you could put some video evidence up highlighting what you think has changed I'd appreciate it, if you raise a bug report hopefully FDev will confirm whether it's intended or not.

Frankly I wouldn't trust the AI dept at FDev to make a good cup of tea after the mess 2.1 made of the game.

 

[biot]

There was a change in AI behavior? I did an 81 kill CZ mission the other day and didn’t notice the difference.

Same here. Been doing CZs solidly before and after the update. Only difference I noticed is that Chieftains seem to spawn a lot and like to make a beeline for me.

 

[Xious]

Haven't really noticed much myself.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Noticed slight changes to behaviour in a hazres.
Still fodder, but makes a nice change.

 

[nosleepdemon]

What game are you lot playing? The NPCs are terrible! They do this weird slow down thing where they reverse thrust in front of me, so I fly up virtually into their thrusters. Easy PAC shot to the behind, followed by a sad attempt to bank sharply which gives me another free shot. The last Anaconda I fought I spent about a minute stuck to his underside *ploughing* him forward with the nose of my Chieftain. Heck, half of the NPCs don't even open fire on me for some reason. Ugh, something's reeeally messed up!

 

[Ziljan]

I haven't had an NPC encounter in 3.0 yet, so if it's changed I'll want to know, and the place I'd want to find that out from is the patch notes. No patch notes, any change is a bug & needs to be fixed.

If you could put some video evidence up highlighting what you think has changed I'd appreciate it, if you raise a bug report hopefully FDev will confirm whether it's intended or not.

Frankly I wouldn't trust the AI dept at FDev to make a good cup of tea after the mess 2.1 made of the game.

You'll never catch me calling a gameplay enhancement a "bug". As for video evidence, I think I'll leave that up to people to find for themselves. As I said above, the game dynamically auto-levels the difficulty based on your rank and player skill, so if you never encounter the behavioral enhancements, then you're probably the kind of player that would find such things to be frustrating rather than enjoyable, so the game is shielding you from having to worry about it.

 

[Riverside]

You'll never catch me calling a gameplay enhancement a "bug". As for video evidence, I think I'll leave that up to people to find for themselves. As I said above, the game dynamically auto-levels the difficulty based on your rank and player skill, so if you never encounter the behavioral enhancements, then you're probably the kind of player that would find such things to be frustrating rather than enjoyable, so the game is shielding you from having to worry about it.

No evidence eh? How convenient Glad to hear you're enjoying being Combat Elite btw, I got sick of the constant Elite Anacondas after a month or so, the rank based bespoke NPCs are the worst thing in the game imo.

 

[jasonbarron]

I've been hanging out in CZs testing out weapons, and I noticed that the NPC behavior has been made more nuanced. Eagles do banking turns and knife edge jukes, Vultures fly in evasive spirals, ships that are barely hanging on to hull make a last minute panic dash to flee. Some clever NPCs now put 4 pips to SYS while shield cell banking. The combat behaviors are far less predicable, and it all adds up to make NPCs more believable as living breathing creatures with a will to live. Of course they still die by the droves, it's just that now they are making things a little more interesting

Well done Sarah Jane Avory! Another brilliant and balanced rung in the ladder for incremental AI enhancements has been achieved.

I haven't done anything but grind mats since 3.0 dropped, and this is welcome news.

 

[Chorda]

I like the way Gunships and FAS try to facetank my cutter now. It gives my collection limpets a shorter trip when collecting the mats.

 

[ilo]

NPC behavior has changed in RES as well. Now you dont just get a bounty for accidentally hit a police ship, and even if you get a bounty, the police ships keep shooting whatever they were killing instead of turning all towards you. I could leave a RES two times (wanted to confirm) without needing to boost.

However, there is this one thing that gets me crazy, if an anaconda releases a fighter, they start spining around each other trying to dock lol

 

[nosleepdemon]

It's subtle but it's definitely there. And they never announce AI enhancements for fear of inciting panic. Luckily the changes are incremental enough that most people won't notice it seems. Fine by me, as I am enjoying them immensely.

It could also be that the enhancements are gated by CMDR rank/ability. The game does spawn more challenging/adept NPCs for higher combined PF ranks, the grade/size of ship you are flying, and also depending on how well you've actually done recently. If you have high rank and regularly get your butt kicked by NPCs, then the game downgrades the spawns until you do well again.

Yeeah no. They're pants lol. Maybe the Chieftan is just too good? But I doubt it. There was that brief period where they dialed the AI up and I had to, shock-horror, pop some seeker racks onto mt FDL to shoot their guns off, but that was about the extent of it. I've noticed recently that the AI has been getting slowly derpier with respect to evasion. They like to do this weird backward boosting thing where they suddenly lose speed and then bank to make me fly passed them. The trouble is I just plough into them instead? I'm a hull tank hybrid so that's no skin off my back, but it basically ends the fight as I nuke their shields. Then once Im attached to them, I boost again and take them on a wee ride whilst blasting them with all my guns. I suppose someone might consider that an improvement?

 

[ilo]

Yeeah no. They're pants lol. Maybe the Chieftan is just too good? But I doubt it. There was that brief period where they dialed the AI up and I had to, shock-horror, pop some seeker racks onto mt FDL to shoot their guns off, but that was about the extent of it. I've noticed recently that the AI has been getting slowly derpier with respect to evasion. They like to do this weird backward boosting thing where they suddenly lose speed and then bank to make me fly passed them. The trouble is I just plough into them instead? I'm a hull tank hybrid so that's no skin off my back, but it basically ends the fight as I nuke their shields. Then once Im attached to them, I boost again and take them on a wee ride whilst blasting them with all my guns. I suppose someone might consider that an improvement?

Let me guess.. you fully engineered to the teeth?