Is FD balancing the game for multi player?
- Thread starter kiario
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True.
It also needs a greater spectrum of NPCs .
Idealy extending way outside the capability of players.
That way the game would be in controll of the environment in populated space, while giving players of all skill levels a suitable challenge.
It is, but not in the context many players mean when they talk about balancing AI. This forum alone has examples of people who dismiss this very idea when it's raised, because they feel that no location should be off-limits for any player. Then there are the rare but vocal threads from people calling for a difficulty slider for heaven's sake.
Right now AI are spawned, in part, according to the ratings of the players within their instance. But that doesn't really work with such an open world as ED has. Why do high power AIs only target high rated PCs in a given system, when lower rated players only see weaker NPCs when they visit the same location? It makes no sense.
It would be far better IMO if the difficulty curves were anchored to the extremes of system state such that high security superpower hubs spawned very few and relatively weak pirates while anarchic systems, unclaimed but rich in exploitable resources, spawned a non-stop stream of high rated badasses. Obviously this would work the other way around for security ships. Then all that would be needed would be to tweak the difficulty curve until the systems in the middle spawned sensible numbers and types of ship. And even if they got this "wrong", and an "average" player in an "average" ship could only survive in 20% of the bubble, that's still an insane number of visitable systems.
The playable space in ED is ridiculously huge, but sometimes it feels as though FD don't want anywhere to be off limits.
What's really irritating is that the 32KB version of Elite actually did a much simplified version of this 33 years ago. Even in a galaxy with only 2048 visitable systems there were some where only the best players could hope to survive for very long in the stock ship, especially if they had cargo on board, simply due to the number and aggression of the NPCs. Most players learned quickly and ignored those systems until they'd maxed out the defensive capability of the Cobra and gained some combat experience. Many never went back at all.
Well put. This is something FDev never seems to "get". Either that or it's just something that their game's framework doesn't allow them to implement. The fundamental question is not "how hard" or "how easy" to make THE ENTIRE GAME. It's the wrong problem to try to solve, and every answer you come up with will necessarily be wrong no matter what you choose. The difficulty should be all over the place with extreme highs, lows, and everything in between; the "balancing" (such as it is), should be with an eye towards making that variation logical, legible, and expected. A player should know what types of locations, behaviors, and (yes) *contexts* are likely to escalate or de-escalate the challenges and risks they are likely to encounter. With that in place, players can choose to avoid danger, *prepare* for danger, or take calculated risks.
Which is mental and silly...
Because the whole point about ranking is that it get harder the better you get... I'm elite, but I am not very good and I got it because the game is easy... Just stupid.
Which makes the game dull and boring for everyone that is more capable than a cabbage. More over, the game should be balance for both wings and solo players, with missions developed for both styles of play, possibly incorporating two or more career paths, for example, a trader hauling a station engine component also requiring an escort wing to protect him from hostile corporations factions until his arrival, which maybe 200 light years to his destination.
Whilst solo missions could include stealth missions with proper stealth mechanics to really make your ship invisible in order to spy on and data scan enemy instillations etc.
Nope... what we get is a 12 year old arcade shooter for multi-crew.
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What I was thinking when I wrote the post, is that surely FD is noticing that when you have a engineered ship and are perhaps in a wing with a crew or two, nothing is challenging.
So, my thought was that when they see this with data mining are they then not going to adjust the game so that it get more balanced towards the end of the spectrum which is engineered and multi crew ships?
When at the end of the spectrum , they game does not live up to its title "dangerous" or does it?
Or is the prupose by then to be Dangerous in PVP only?
What do I know, I only have a Cobra with no engineering
So far for Solo, it looks quite good balanced. I mean, the titles, deady etc.. are not to be joked with when in non-engineered ships.
It's not simply 'an engineered ship' or 'a wing' or even 'a really good pilot'; any one of these can make the game a *lot* easier. Any two of them and the game rather runs out of challenge factor. There is a lack of real high-end challenge in the game at the moment.
Part of this shortage of higher scale challenges might be that the AI had to have its neck wound back in after 2.2 due to volume of complaint. I think if the AI was beefed up again now we have adjusted and got some Engineered toys ourselves there would be a lot less negative feedback.
The resolution might well be on the horizon, though; We have wars hotting up, megaships potentially becoming the basis for gameplay aspects, and of course the potential of war with aliens. All of these can introduce tougher challenges.
That is just plain wrong and if you have not noticed the number of times people have been corrected over this then there is something wrong with your browser.
NPCs below master will never have engineered mods, above that can have some and Deadly and Elite will ALWAYS have engineered mods and the mods are not limited to non-combat.
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That is not where the title Elite Dangerous comes from. Read up about it...
I wouldn't say solo players are shafted, but combat is definitely designed with multiple ships involved.
No. This assumes that Solo is a less effective experience; that's laughable, I am afraid. In fact, Solo players can interact with all elements of the game with absolutely no restrictions, and no multi-player related consequences. It's intentional in that respect. AI only. If this relies on AI having any appreciable effectiveness, as a counter-point, then clearly the developer has failed in that respect.
They did try though, SJA did try very hard. Ultimately, it appears the is too much reliance on stupid AI. And that's across all modes, sadly.
Edit: on reflection, this covers it.
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It's amazing a SLF can do more hull damage faster than this. But I guess it's by design which I like, since fighters are designed to just be acrobatic flying guns with a flimsy shield, no hyperdrive or other role capabilities, yet packing a decent punch.
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Any possibly intended sarcasm aside (i'm not quite sure here), i think you are correct.
I also think that's a good thing, and the only viable approach to ensure healthy player numbers in the long run.
Totally agree! Feels like we have a game built in difficulty balanced for simple solo play but options for wings and multi crew and no feeling of actual challenge when we play them.
Chasing the lowest common denominator is fine; ignoring that that isn't the entire player base, is not fine. A great game accommodates a broad spectrum of players; based on recent forum posts, it's clear frontier is being pushed to neuter as much risk as is possible. We've seen this with the engineering changes. We've seen this with shield and weapon change rollback. CG's now succeed as a de-facto outcome at tier one. The list is endless.
It's going to result in Thargoids and whatever else race(s) might exist, to end up being little more than an existential threat; not actual. There is no palate for risk, based on the current game mechanics. Anything that is an appreciable risk, won't make it into beta, let alone live. Frontier saw the response to 2.1 AI. I think it's pretty clear we will never see any sort of AI risk (beyond the escalated simplicity of winged AI) going forward. I've got half a dozen paint jobs ridding on the outcome. Nothing would make me happier, than to be called on them. And before people plough into this thread and complain; my comment above stands?
I would love to have a threat that escalates based on what I am flying, where I am and what I am doing (be it nefarious, or not). We don't have that. I'm not sure we ever will.
A good game accommodates for a wide skill set; it doesn't ignore one end of the spectrum to make the other happy, nor should one end of the spectrum expect the other to acquiesce; and yet that happens constantly. Frontier probably are a bit bemused with how to proceed, imho.
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...?
I don't understand, the entire game doesn't have to be balanced around group only gameplay. Some REZ and CZs need to be classed as for wings/MC, nothing else needs to change.
Powderpanic
Banned
I would hate to believe that FDEV is balancing a multiplayer gamer for multiplayer.... That would be madness!
The game scales pretty well at the low end. Keep out fo trouble and pick you fights in the starter Siddy, maybe all the way up to Master or Dangerous. I think it was 2.1 when they introduced the encounters based on your combat rank (or best of the other 2 with some limits). For a lot of people the original 2.1 release was too hard (I liked it but there you go), so the egineer mods were dialled back (and the bugs that gave mega weapons removed).
All great but there is a lack of high end challenge and multi-player challenge outside of PvP. I would like to see that addressed, but keep the scaling they have now for the "journey" part - it is easier after the first journey but this more about knowing when to press your luck and when to press the J key.
Simon
All great but there is a lack of high end challenge and multi-player challenge outside of PvP. I would like to see that addressed, but keep the scaling they have now for the "journey" part - it is easier after the first journey but this more about knowing when to press your luck and when to press the J key.
Simon
more the other way round. it would be great to have combat content for wings outside of convoy attacks in medium/small ships, or high security settlement attacks.
a HAZ res or a HIGH CZ can't stand the onslaught of 2+ players... when we are going there in a full wing and not actively "downgrading" to small ships, the average survival time of a spawning conda is < 1 minute.
i'm curently running tests on bountyhunting (with my FDL mainly), and still have not met a spawn which could drop my shields, so i change to my DBS or viper, if i have the time, as it at least needs some awareness. that would look different with an unengineered ship, as i can tell from my secondary non-horizons account. so basically FDEV is balancing the game for solo players with unengineered ships to some extend.
generally, from doing triple elite i can say that combat is the aspect, where the learning curve was most steep for me, especially as it isn't mainly an intellectual thing, but forced me to make my clumsy fingers work as well as getting a lot more experience with the flight model. today i can do things in unengineered small ships, which wouldn't be possible at, let's say, master or expert level. and if i see the magic some pvp'ler are pulling off, or isinona with his FAOFF, i do know that i still have a lot to learn (and will always have).
As usual FDEV managed to get the worst out of their merge of a SP and MMORPG game.
I'm pretty sure they already collect metrics from players. If not, it would not be hard to log what a player does and how he performs. So depending on the ship, it's outfitting and the kill/death ratio vs NPC it would be pretty easy to calculate a rating for a player. Now if the player enters an instance like a combat zone, the game could depending on the rating adjust the toughness of the AI enemies and the ship types. Jumping in with a lower scored friend? Well, easy pick: Spawn some low end NPCs besides higher value targets and let the AI attack the player with the higher rating more often than the lower rated player. So everybody gets his share of fun depending on their rating. The hard part is just to figure out how to balance it the best, but this can be adjusted as needed.
Oh and did I mention that a game like QuiVR, that is done by a single developer, got a pretty nice working scaling difficulty system done? But from my observations I doubt FDEV is going this path and instead just leave things as they are or goes for the most simple solution.
I'm pretty sure they already collect metrics from players. If not, it would not be hard to log what a player does and how he performs. So depending on the ship, it's outfitting and the kill/death ratio vs NPC it would be pretty easy to calculate a rating for a player. Now if the player enters an instance like a combat zone, the game could depending on the rating adjust the toughness of the AI enemies and the ship types. Jumping in with a lower scored friend? Well, easy pick: Spawn some low end NPCs besides higher value targets and let the AI attack the player with the higher rating more often than the lower rated player. So everybody gets his share of fun depending on their rating. The hard part is just to figure out how to balance it the best, but this can be adjusted as needed.
Oh and did I mention that a game like QuiVR, that is done by a single developer, got a pretty nice working scaling difficulty system done? But from my observations I doubt FDEV is going this path and instead just leave things as they are or goes for the most simple solution.
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