Is it me? (TOTAL RANT)

[vizvayu]

Maybe it is. Maybe it's because I'm having a bad week at work. Maybe it's because I've had one or two alcoholic beverages tonight. Whatever the reason, tonight I've decided to let loose in a thread. After all, that seems to be one of the major purposes of this forum these days.

Where to begin? I know, those damn NPCs. The ones who can shield cell spam, boost, and fire all manner of heat-intensive weapons whilst never ONCE using a heat sink (unless they have access to magic invisible heat sinks, or are completely cooking their ships unbeknownst to me). The ones who fly FdL's with a magic jump range, that can track a Python capable of 20+ Ly jumps unerringly from system to system. The ones who will materialise directly in front of me upon dropping into an instance, garnering me a fine (or worse) through no fault of my own (collisions in a no-fire zone, in case you were mystified). The ones who never seem to miss with railguns, and never run out of ammo. The ones who seem to have no cooldown on the FSD, and can chain-interdict all night long, whilst us plebian players have to make do with a minute's worth of cooldown, even upon successful interdiction.

Or maybe it's the missions. The courier missions I'm unable to hand in unless I complete any active missions in the same system first. The ones that give me a completely pointless "bonus" if I can make it into the station - from drop-in point - in less than a minute (Anyone managed one of these yet?). The missions that require a dozen skimmer kills from a settlement that spawns two at a time. The mining missions that reward me with materials/commodities gained from mining.

Or maybe it's the RNGineers. On second thought, that's a subject worthy of a thread all of it's own, and has been done to death by now. Not to mention there's band-aid "fixes" in the works, so let's wait and see how those work out.

Or maybe it's the seemingly pointless new "State" filter on the GalMap, that seems to accurately portray the state of a system maybe one time in four. Or the trade routes that lead me to systems where I can sell my cargo at a loss. Or the high-sec systems that despatch System Authority ships thirty seconds after I've won the fight. Or the System Authority ships that turn up, and then scan me, despite the fact that presumably I'm the ship reporting the crime.

Or maybe it's the continuing PvP "meta" (How I loathe that word), basically forcing me to adopt the tactics of everyone else, or be left behind in the "meta race" (Heat mechanics, anyone?)

Or maybe it's all of these piled on the camel's back, with the added straw of NPC pirates demanding my "tasty cargo" of biowaste midway through a Sothis run.

Today I feel like the only thing keeping me going with this game is the player group I fly with (IPC repreSENT!). The only thing I can engage with is pushing our player faction to expand and consolidate.

As the title states, this is a rant. I'm not quitting (inb4 "Can I haz ur stuff?"), nor am I demanding changes NOW DAMMIT!! I'm simply venting, and if not here, then where?

TL;DR: Unless you have untreatable ADHD, read the damn post. If you do have untreatable ADHD, I imagine you've moved on by now.

RANTED LIKE A BOSS [cool]

/me approves [up]

 

[StevieG]

The only thing I can engage with is pushing our player faction to expand and consolidate.

Which to be fair is a pretty cool part of the game which I wait in anticipation for when we can sign up in game to our faction and gain 50% off repair, restock and refuel costs.

Maybe just maybe we might get a little tag on our name showing our faction.

Cough* clan/guild mechanics please *Cough

 

[Lobstris]

Think about it, at what point was PvP at its best in the core game? I'd be tempted to say during 1.0, or even beta. When there were less options. A more level playing ground (not to mention people hadn't had time to grind out massively powerful ships).

Indeed - the most fun I had against other players was back in the betas and alphas, with limited weapons and Sidewinders/Cobras - but that wasn't Elite really was it? The main game has always been about amassing credits and better equipment, which ultimately means there will always be some very one-sided combats going on. I don't see how you avoid that? And of course engineers has exacerbated the problem.

Regarding the AI 'cheating' - could someone name an action-oriented game where the AI doesn't 'cheat' to some extent? You only have limited CPU cycles, so simulating all ship-management aspects that the player has to deal with may be somewhat 'problematic' (ahem), likewise I doubt that the AI is modelling putting the same inputs into the flight controls. There is going to be some necessary simplification (OK the trick is not to make it blatantly obvious. )

Likewise when people say the AI 'cheats', things like the tactical 'combat' AI (i.e. local, in instance, manoeuvring and weapons use) seem to get mixed in with the spawn system (i.e. AI seemingly following the player over multiple jumps, re-interdicting all the time and constantly spawning Elite Anacondas).

I suggest the latter is actually a source of more irritation than the former? Low ranked ships are still definitely a pushover, and could complain a human cheats compared to their capabilities.

*Edit* I'd also point out that people seem to be a lot more demanding of 'realistic' AI these days - I don't recall anyone moaning that their Panther Clipper was constantly interdicted by Kestrel Airfighters that couldn't possibly carry all of the cargo in their hold in the last game?