Introduce Elite I-II-III npcs with proper fighting skills
- Thread starter MDHansen
- Start date
It has been voiced many times... NPCs are not that scaling up in terms of "challenge" for experienced players, it would be a welcomed addition.
I'm gonna assume that you've dealt with Wing Assassinations (noting the agro mechanics are busted) and NPCs at Pirate Activity 5/6 sites?
Part of the problem imo is there's no incentive to seek out the aforementioned NPCs except for the challenge.
Like, assuming Op's all over them... what good really is an Elite III NPC flying a ship with handcrafted PvP engineering and tactics, if the payout is 50k cr like what currently happens for things?
I do get the want for more challenge, but it's somewhat pointless if there's no incentive for others not necessarily there for the challenge to get off massacre stacking novice NPC kills?
Its a tricky one development wise.
The usual tricks to make enemies "better" than players in computer games is to effectively cheat with them.
eg:
More hitpoints (stupidly overengineered ships like you get with special forces in high combat zones) - problem, they just become bullet sponges and tiring to take out.
Capable of doing things than the player can't - in ED this would mean the ships can go faster, more agile, allowing gimball style aiming to fixed weapons on NPCs (not affected by chaff) - problem, it basically leads to players complaining of cheating NPCs, and we do see this on occasion from players as it is
Locking on with precision - i think this might be what most people imagine from improved NPCs, making their aim superhumanly accurate, like aimbots in some games. Problem, most players will hate it, probably only satisfying a small percentage of top tier combat pilots.
The usual tricks to make enemies "better" than players in computer games is to effectively cheat with them.
eg:
More hitpoints (stupidly overengineered ships like you get with special forces in high combat zones) - problem, they just become bullet sponges and tiring to take out.
Capable of doing things than the player can't - in ED this would mean the ships can go faster, more agile, allowing gimball style aiming to fixed weapons on NPCs (not affected by chaff) - problem, it basically leads to players complaining of cheating NPCs, and we do see this on occasion from players as it is
Locking on with precision - i think this might be what most people imagine from improved NPCs, making their aim superhumanly accurate, like aimbots in some games. Problem, most players will hate it, probably only satisfying a small percentage of top tier combat pilots.
Ultimately, isn't this what PvP is for anyway?
Not exactly balanced for the average player, it should be scaled appropriate for a range of players. Catering to the top N% or the bottom N% is going to lose you players, but if there are appropriately challenging enemies based on location, mission, etc, then that works, up to a max/min point.
My point is just making them challenging enough, without some sort of cheating, is technically tricky, especially working with 3 dimensional combat. Not saying FD couldn't pull it off, but not easy. Probably why FD's idea of challenging ships is massively engineered bullet sponges.
Funnily enough, the most challenging encounter i've ever faced was when FD allowed NPC wings to be very large. A wing of 9 enemy Sidewinders is no laughing matter.
You have it the wrong way round and is one of EDs glaring flaws.
FD should have made these NPCs come after you given certain thresholds and activities- and given high rewards for fighting them off.
PP2 was an ideal vector for this with places like strongholds, or (again) making certain situations (such as POI ambushes).
We already have this with ATR, PP2 should be no different given other powers should be actually wanting to win.
So, isn't this the actual pathway right here? Not cheating, just asymmetric?
Personally, I don't do Wing Assassinations or Threat 5/6 Pirate Activity sites because the pay is trash. I would love these to be options in that sense. But when I do massacre stacks, I aggro the whole room for efficiency, which still makes it a comparable challenge (albeit a well-rehearsed one now), but it hemorrhages credits like nobodies business by contrast. Risk/reward.
I allude to it here, but when it comes to combat alone, there's zero reason to sacrifice any of that combat fit in order to get the best outcome possible... that is, there's no extra reward for optionally introducing risk.... unlike say trading, where it's a tradeoff between ability to defend your ship vs ability to turn a profit[1].
This is one of the things EVE Online hawk tuah gets right. If you fit a pure DPS and tank beast, you're unlikely to kill a thing. Good combat ships (where I focus on PvE here) are a tradeoff of introduced vulnerabilities against performance in particular areas. Where Elite is a pretty 1-dimensional scale of "Bad combat ship"->"Good combat ship", EVE is multi-faceted in that you can have a "Good combat ship" but it's a poor looting ship, leaving behind most of the very valuable battlefield salvage. Maybe you've got both of them, but it's got poor ECCM, so you have a very high risk of being destroyed if you ECCM. Without labouring the point more, it's a piece ED's completely missed.... in a PvE context:
- What reason should a combat ship fit a Wake Scanner? Manifest scanner?
- When would a combat ship need a refinery? Or a mining laser? I hear plasma cutters are all the rage when on foot...
- When would a combat ship need recon limpets? Passenger Cabins?
Answer is none for all of these... There's just no need to compromise your fitout in order to undertake proper post-battle exploitation. That's what introduces the risk.
Thargoid war has set a really good standard for how things could be when thinking about combat. Imagine a mission where you needed to take out security ships near an outpost, dock up, take on a group of prisoners who just busted out... but as you land, a QRF of Eagles jumps in to respond, so you're under fire as you leave. No new godships there, just a need to actually fit things that aren't purely combat, while still doing combat.
The old FE2/FFE recon missions were great like this. You needed a combat ship, but the whole point wasn't to fight, it was to get close enough for a good photo, and short of using an energy bomb, you really couldn't hang around beyond a wave or two of ships.. There's just nothing like it today.
[1] the classic CIA security problem, where if you invest in the best Confidentiality and Integrity of your information (or the best ways to defend your hauler) at the expense of Availability (or your ability to haul cargo), then you fail.
No, we're actually on the same page. Unsure what bit I wrote wasn't clear, but I 100% agree this is the biggest flaw in the game. My point was rather that this needs to be addressed before we even think about these types of new NPCs. Simply adding new NPCs without addressing that issue would be pointless.
What you're talking about really leans into the C&P overhaul you and me both want
Could be the solution.
And yes, one issue is you can build a one-size-fits-all combat ship rather than ships that strong in one area but weak in another. This is also why griefing is so easy in ED. If combat ships had to sacrifce on defences to power the weapons, but trade ships could go all in on defence, well beyond the combat ship, then it would enable more balanced scenarios. One thing they could have done is given the extra military slots to the non-combat ships instead of the combat ships. Encourage traders to up defenses without giving up cargo space while combat ships are less of bullet sponges.
Ah yeah, good point indeed... the "advanced" NPCs should come with way higher payouts than the approx 1m cr. paid from elite FDLs/Condas.
Its probably me misreading because this issue triggers me something fierce.No, we're actually on the same page. Unsure what bit I wrote wasn't clear, but I 100% agree this is the biggest flaw in the game. My point was rather that this needs to be addressed before we even think about these types of new NPCs. Simply adding new NPCs without addressing that issue would be pointless.
What you're talking about really leans into the C&P overhaul you and me both want
A PP play redo and now a C+P redo? That's just greedy.What you're talking about really leans into the C&P overhaul you and me both want