I decided to rant for the first time

[Cynaqq]

+Rep to you Cynaqq for a well constructed post that I agree with entirely.

I even mentioned myself yesterday in a thread how so much more information could be given to the player in the tutorials. As a new player I had no idea about silent running, why would I do this? I could fly the ship through just general knowledge, watching movies and stuff...

That is what is missing in the tutorial - Logic. The logic of a human being who is living in the 34th century. An organisation decides to give a ship to someone they think has what it takes to be 'someone'. Why then would they pick someone who has no clue about traveling in space, smuggling, combat and all the tricks a Han Solo CMDR would need to survive.

Instead I feel like a person who really didn't give a stuff about space travel but I've been forced into this little ship and told never to get out of the chair. Personally given my real life interests I would be well prepared for the adventure of owning my own ship. I'd of been watching anything with space ship since being a child. I'd be a huge nerd knowing all the ships stats down to how many rivets are used in each ship to hold the toilet in place. Instead it seem I watched soap operas all day where the Blue haired princess gets screwed out of being Emperor and the plot line is always predictable...

I also however agree with you that the game is fantastic when you do feel at home with your place in the galaxy, behind the controls of your ship. The rush of approaching a planet only to be interdicted just light seconds from your destination - so many decisions to make in mere seconds in stark contrast to the quiet journey you'd just had... Unbeatable!

Yes there are some dodgy screen layouts I personally don't like but I'm a fussy, cantankerous Victor at times who just needs to learn to ignore utter nonsense when he see's it but over all Frontier have done a reasonable job of making a game that makes you think and learn - thanks... Might be nice to at least teach us whats on the exam paper though.

Perfectly illustrates what I'm trying to say in the OP in other words. Thanks!

 

[sp0q]

- AI should not spawn based on player rank. AI spawn rate and spawn type should be based on the type and state of the system you are in. Player status (rank, ship type, relationship and so on) should then determine if the AI decides to attack or not. The AI needs to do a believable risk/reward assessment before attacking.

Definitely this, easy way of creating danger zones, making space less even.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Let's just be frank - some people are lazy to figure stuff out. "I have work" etc. excuses.

 

[myrr mac]

Side note:

I dont like pirates spawning for the player period. That mechanic ought to be exclusive to missions.

Pirates should be spawned in the system, dependent on the nature of the system (anarchy, pirate faction in control, under control of police PP faction like ALD etc etc). They should then patrol, mostly around the shipping lanes, and points of interest like stations and nav beacon. If they spot an interesting target they should try interdicting it. That includes npc targets. They should get nervous around large wings of police.

At no point should the game even look at the players stats, when spawning pirates. It should look before deciding whether or not to try to pick a fight though*.

*and by that I dont mean "is it fair to attack this guy", but more a case of "can I take this guy, and is it worth it".

 

[xyphic]

You have to go on the internet to learn about the 75% and 7 seconds rule.

I think this is an indictment of how impatient we've become as gamers. Putting my rose-tinted goggles on for a second, I remember when I was a teenager playing mostly FE2 or adventure games. There weren't any tutorials on how to beat FE2. There wasn't even an internet to speak of. If you got stuck playing an adventure game, you either had to wait until someone published a walkthrough in a gaming magazine, or phone a hint line! Succeeding in a game back then was just so much more satisfying than it is today.

I think that ED harks back to the old days. It doesn't try to hold your hand, it *hints* but doesn't *tell*. It gives you tools and information about what they're for, but doesn't teach you how to use them to best effect. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this approach, but if you want to mass-market your game you have to accept that many people will give up, and give up quickly. It's not like in the past where games were relatively few and far between; if you don't get hooked by ED, there are plenty of alternatives to go with.

As to the specific 75% / 7 second rules, I didn't go on the internet to figure that one out. After a few failed attempts at supercruise approach, it was fairly intuitive to use the ETA and throttle to start optimising. I can understand that for some people the journey isn't the fun bit, so having to slow down on your approach is frustrating. I've always thought that ED would benefit greatly from adding an alternative method for arriving quickly at your destination, but that is somewhat dangerous and requires skill to pull off (e.g. using gravity wells, slingshotting, etc.). I'm sure there *are* techniques to further optimise but as long as they aren't intuitive, most people will never find them.

 

[Cynaqq]

Even though I haven't really had any problems with the new AI (not been interdicted since Beta ), I have to agree with this.

- AI should play according to the same rules as we do. Even when it comes to ammo.

- AI should not spawn based on player rank. AI spawn rate and spawn type should be based on the type and state of the system you are in. Player status (rank, ship type, relationship and so on) should then determine if the AI decides to attack or not. The AI needs to do a believable risk/reward assessment before attacking.

- If you have active missions, AIs could of course 'be sent after you'. These AI should also play by the rules, meaning that if you escape an AI with poor jump range, the same AI should not show up in the destination system before a reasonable amount of time.

In other words, the AI need to be believable, play by the rules and act as much as possible as real person living in the game universe (not as a player). They should spawn out of the system/universe, not out of the player.


This is easy FD. Just do it.

I can get behind this any day. Thanks for the good contribution and +1

 

[Gaxel]

Lots of blatant misrepresentation going on here. No surprise *cough* kofeyh *cough*


Personally, i d like the AI to operate under the same restrictions as players. If that is accomplished, I dont care how hard they make them. They could literally make elite npcs literally perfect and I wouldnt complain.

The one condition is: I want to have real control over when I meet them, and have to deal with them, and it has to be immersive. Currently it is not.

I think a lot of the git-gud crowd are mischaracterising the complaints of the rest of us. We dont want no-risk high-reward gameplay. Most of us dont mind elite opponents being extremely difficult. We just want some control over when and where we get that kind of challenge, and that control has to seem believable.

Having the toughest opponents in the game show up to rob me of 5k credits worth of engineering mats, 200 ly outside the bubble while being on no quests, not being in PP, and having no bounties on my head, while also being rated harmless, is just plain bad design no matter how you slice it.

I have NEVER seen a pirate under master since I came back a week ago. I v been dangerous, harmless, and mostly harmless during that period (I had support reset my combat rank on friday).

The constant illogical interdictions need to stop.
The bad "matchmaking" needs to stop.

a distant third is "make them use the same rules as us".

a nonexistant fourth is "make the AI a pushover to spite the git-gudders"

We dont need smartarse chestthumpers telling us how to dodge interdictions, how to high-wake, how to set 4 pips in shields etc. Thats not really what this is about. It doesnt help the matter that certain people refuse to read the AI thread, have no clue that we all moved past "the AI is too hard" and over to "the Interdiction matchmaking* is the real problem", about 2 days ago at this point, and just keep misrepresenting us as some useless crybabies.

edit: in interest of honesty: While I dont mind godlike AI if it doenst cheat, like I stated above, I do think the current AI cheats in a variety of ways. Its annoying, and it bothers me, and I might complain a bit about it, but like I said, its nowhere near as pressing an issue as the other stuff, nor would I try to get it nerfed into the ground if FD cant make noncheating AI challenging. It would just be preferable if it didnt cheat.

*matchmaking AND frequency

I agree with you and OP and the sad thing about all of this is that Elite will have less new players because it doesn't explain itself, and old ones could leave it and wait FD fix all of these problems, now the other similar games are coming out.

I'm still learning new stuffs after hundred of hours, but if I haven't seen those 2-3 videos on youtube, and tried the tutorials instead, I'd never start playing Elite.

 

[matemaster]

The part about researching reminded me my first big disappointment with ED

I think it was second exploration CG. The description in CG stated that "sirius co is looking for water worlds an candidate for teraforming planets" then you deliver exploration data to lembava system...
At that time I was playing the game for 1-2 months and thought this is great I can start my own research in the game (not googling online...) So while exploring I started collecting data about star type, size and orbital period of planets (the old fashioned way pen and paper). After some time I created a list that allowed me to tell with high probability which planet is CT just after using discovery scanner.

But after some time I learned that the water worlds and CT mentioned in CG was just a flavor text and the CG was only about "honk and jump" no need to detail scan anything, no need to research anything just the opposite i would gain more credits from that CG by not loosing time making notes and detail scanning planets.
It was nice experience but the purpose was gone for me.
Then I realized one very important thing. This beautiful, huge proceduraly generated galaxy has very harsh limitations in terms of deeper content.
So when you are selling exploration data there is only name of system, name of planet and how much cr its worth. There is no longer information whether it was ELW or rocky planet
I think this is the reason why exploration is in the same state as upon release.
There is just no perspective, proceduraly generated galaxy will be allways huge but allways shallow.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

...

In other words, the AI need to be believable, play by the rules and act as much as possible as real person living in the game universe (not as a player). They should spawn out of the system/universe, not out of the player.


This is easy FD. Just do it.

Quoted for truth.