Horizons IDEA: Dynamic Combat Ranking in Elite Dangerous

[kastr]

Has there ever been a thought on dynamic ranking system for Combat? I've had this happen on my main character, got my combat ranking up after a few months. Then I went off exploring for a couple of months. Then when I got back and I had forgotten some of the combat, my rank should be 2 - 3 ranks below where I was at. But because it doesn't go down after time I was still getting the harder ranked NPC's even though my abilities was not the same. I'm sure I'm probably not explaining this 100% correctly here.


Lets say you get to dangerous rank. Then you go exploring for 3-4 months. Your ability to fight would go down as you're not practicing anymore. When you get back your rank should go down to a more correct ranking so your not overwhelmed when you return. Similar to how the super power ranking work, you get to 100% with lets say the federation and if you're not working on missions for that superpower your ranking with them starts to go down. To be honest, only one that I think could benefit from this is Combat. For every month that you're in combat you lose one rank. What do others think of this? Do you think this type of thing would be useful?

Discuss!

 

[lenna]

Not sure I entirely agree with the overall premise nor the underlying justification for it.

Combat ability is not necessarily lost by any given individual because they have been exploring - they are still piloting a ship and can still do an elite pilot version of Kata/Shadow-Boxing. Now if they have been away from the game for a while, maybe but even then it is far from a certainty.

If an individual feels their in game combat rank does not reflect their personal ability then I believe you can ask FD support to reduce it.

 

[Jaiotu]

I do like the idea of having "dynamic" ranking in which the Pilots Federation ranks aren't static. I'd use a different metric then what you propose though. I don't think that the majority of the player base would appreciate it though which is why I'd like Frontier to implement an "Immersive Mode" that you could opt into in order to increase the challenge.

Combat rank should be degraded by the number times you get killed in the game.

Exploration rank should degrade over time if you aren't clocking light years on your odometer or turning in exploration data.

Trade rank should degrade when you aren't actively making trade profits.

In order to maintain some degree of bragging rights though you should keep a "legacy" rank associated with the highest rank you've ever achieved. Thus if you made it to Elite in combat but you've been killed a few times and now your rank is Master your rank should be "Elite: Master" or if you made Pioneer but haven't been out exploring for a while you might have the rank of "Pioneer: Trailblazer".

 

[rxay579]

I came into this thread thinking something similar. My combat rank is outgrowing my actual prowess and bigger fish are coming after me; I'm assuming the other ranks don't affect the size/quality of the NPC. I'm hoping it doesn't get unbalanced for me and I suspect OP's reason for posting is that it it has for them.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I wouldn't mind a system that if you got destroyed by a ship with the same or lower rank and maybe have the ships power apart of it as well, so it is difficult to abuse, then your combat rating may drop. All it does is go up when you destroy a ship. That doesn't mean your any good though. So everyone will eventually get to elite combat status, but you could be crap at it.

There needs to be some kind of regulation to it.

 

[lenna]

I wouldn't mind a system that if you got destroyed by a ship with the same or lower rank and maybe have the ships power apart of it as well, so it is difficult to abuse, then your combat rating may drop. All it does is go up when you destroy a ship. That doesn't mean your any good though. So everyone will eventually get to elite combat status, but you could be crap at it.

There needs to be some kind of regulation to it.

There is, the aggressive NPCs that spawn against you in the wild typically are limited to your rank and upto 2 ranks above yours in the main. Depending on the area you can get pip-squeeks several ranks below you attack you but you do not get anywhere near as much combat rank progression from them as you do the others. In addition, as I understand it the Elite Combat rank is a measure of your PvE combat rank only - you do not gain rank points for killing other players regardless of their level as I understand it. There is no measure of your combat ability in that area other than the CQC rank.

The ranking system in ED is just a levelling system really and while it can accelerate difficulty faster than your skills it is up to us as individuals to manage our advancement better. If you got up to say Expert rank or above before Engineers then the AI may have had a leap in difficulty level thanks to them getting engineers upgrades and if you have not engineered your ship then you will be at a distinct disadvantage.

I think there is no need to go messing with how the ranking system works really but a compromise could be to (optionally?) manage targets via which ship decals you have pasted on your ship - Paste triple Elite and expect mega bad guys and top end missions... paste Harmless/Penniless/Aimless on your hull and the missions and bad guy spawns will be held back.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

There is, the aggressive NPCs that spawn against you in the wild typically are limited to your rank and upto 2 ranks above yours in the main. Depending on the area you can get pip-squeeks several ranks below you attack you but you do not get anywhere near as much combat rank progression from them as you do the others. In addition, as I understand it the Elite Combat rank is a measure of your PvE combat rank only - you do not gain rank points for killing other players regardless of their level as I understand it. There is no measure of your combat ability in that area other than the CQC rank.

The ranking system in ED is just a levelling system really and while it can accelerate difficulty faster than your skills it is up to us as individuals to manage our advancement better. If you got up to say Expert rank or above before Engineers then the AI may have had a leap in difficulty level thanks to them getting engineers upgrades and if you have not engineered your ship then you will be at a distinct disadvantage.

I think there is no need to go messing with how the ranking system works really but a compromise could be to (optionally?) manage targets via which ship decals you have pasted on your ship - Paste triple Elite and expect mega bad guys and top end missions... paste Harmless/Penniless/Aimless on your hull and the missions and bad guy spawns will be held back.

That is my issue at the moment. I am expert level, and I am now getting the odd NPC with modded weapons, when I have none (I am working on it though). The fights are certainly getting tougher.