Is it time for NPC/AI Difficulty settings in the game options?

[PiLhEaD]

I'm wondering if it's time to have an NPC/AI Difficulty setting in the game options.

For example, three settings: hard, normal and easy.

Then whichever bit of coding generates an NPC's rank could take into account your preference, and adjust the NPC accordingly.

Whilst the game may already 'tend' the AI/NPC towards a player's current rank, I'm suggesting more of a hard limiter - with two options, absolute and relative.

In absolute: if you choose hard the rank of NPCs is usually deadly/elite, whereas if you choose easy the NPCs are usually (mostly) harmless.

For relative: the effect would be relative to your current rank, whereby selecting hard means that the NPC will be of equal or higher combat rank to you, and easy means they will be equal or lower in rank.

Given that rank progression is oriented around beating higher-ranked NPCs, a player selecting easy will find their progression up the combat ranks is slow, and a player selecting hard can whizz up the 'table' in no time.

In this manner, we reduce concern about AI being too good or dumbed down, and everyone gets to play the game how they enjoy.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

There have already been several threads about this exact thing if you did a search. You cannot do this as the BGS is affected equally by everyone in every mode played and therefore your actions can affect every other player in the game. Therefore you cannot have adjustable difficulty unless each setting gets its own bgs and galaxy to influence

 

[Stigbob]

Lets say someone with "don't hurt me" is playing in a res site.

I drop into the instance with "burn my face off" selected. I look at the low rank/payout ships there sigh and hyper out without deploying weapons.

Does the "don't hurt me" player get eaten alive by my selected enemies spawning from then on ?.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Sure, but only if the rewards are scaled based on difficulty too.
Plus your ship gets a big red L on it.
Also these players have to stay in their own area with a little fence.
Short bus is here, all aboard!

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Does the "don't hurt me" player get eaten alive by my selected enemies spawning from then on ?.

We can only hope.

YAY for Space: 1999 and Martin n Babs! +rep

 

[Abomination]

No, not in my opinion.
As I said and repped others on a few times before, it should be location/situation based. High sec vs low sec, the missions you're taking, the cargo you're hauling, the type of ship.
Not the player.
I also think we should give it a rest for a little while.
Surely enough Frontier is aware of our complaints and will tune things here and there in an upcoming patch, together with who knows they're doing right now.

 

[Jukelo]

No. Players need to have options regarding difficulty, but it should be purely tied in with the BGS/context and have trade offs.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

No, not in my opinion.
As I said and repped others on a few times before, it should be location/situation based. High sec vs low sec, the missions you're taking, the cargo you're hauling, the type of ship.
Not the player.
I also think we should give it a rest for a little while.
Surely enough Frontier is aware of our complaints and will tune things here and there in an upcoming patch, together with who knows they're doing right now.

^^^This.
The difficulty should be dependent on where you are and what you are doing.

 

[cmdr_Havalok]

No. Players already have these options by understanding where/when/what they are doing. Now, some fine tuning is still required on Fdevs part but things are starting to shape up already.

 

[Samoth]

If there is to be a difficulty option, then the payouts should reflect that as such. Burn My Face Off difficulty should have massive bounties and Don't Hurt Me should have very low payouts, otherwise everyone would just select Don't Hurt Me and farm kills.

 

[Vandaahl]

Think about it, individual game play settings in an online world. You might as well ask for a pause functionality.

I'd go for an area dependant difficulty level as well

 

[Robert Maynard]

A difficulty slider? No - just no.

Difficulty directly linked to where a player chooses to go - absolutely, yes.

Difficulty directly linked to a player's Combat Rank - tricky - everyone who can defeat Expert AI will eventually reach Elite....

 

[DefiledDragon]

I think they need to do something. Maybe a difficulty setting in solo mode only. The current system of using your own combat rank to determine the AI difficulty is flawed in that, even if you're not a good combat pilot you're eventually going to have to kill enough ships to rank up to the point where the AI essentially becomes unbeatable.

Perhaps they should adopt the EVE approach where the level of challenge from the AI ships is based on the security level of the system you're in. So when you're in hi security systems, the AI is a pushover, but in low security systems they're much more difficult. This would give non combat oriented players the option of avoiding tough fights.

 

[DefiledDragon]

If there is to be a difficulty option, then the payouts should reflect that as such. Burn My Face Off difficulty should have massive bounties and Don't Hurt Me should have very low payouts, otherwise everyone would just select Don't Hurt Me and farm kills.

Bounties are already scaled with AI difficulty. Elite enemies are worth considerably more than Harmless.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

If there is to be a difficulty option, then the payouts should reflect that as such. Burn My Face Off difficulty should have massive bounties and Don't Hurt Me should have very low payouts, otherwise everyone would just select Don't Hurt Me and farm kills.

Even with the money difference this would not work due to the BGS as stated above. Every player affects every other player with every action they do that influences the BGS

 

[PhanttoM]

No, there are already difficulty indicators in the game...I mean how much more can these things be spelled out?;
- Low RES
- RES (Normal)
- High RES
- Hazardous RES

- Low intensity combat zone
- High intensity comba zone

- Level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 threat signal sources

They simply need to fix it so harder AI only show up in appropriate places.

 

[Lobstris]

A difficulty slider? No - just no.

Difficulty directly linked to where a player chooses to go - absolutely, yes.

Difficulty directly linked to a player's Combat Rank - tricky - everyone who can defeat Expert AI will eventually reach Elite....

This. BGS state, system state, security level and location should be the determinants of the AI you face. Not player rank, difficulty level or anything else. And high end NPCs (Deadly/Elite) should always be pretty rare.

Location. Location. Location.

 

[Varrag]

Theoretical and conditional yes. But rewards for dealing with such NPCs should then be taken into account too, which would probably overcomplicate things and cause them devs more troubles than they can realistically handle.

In persistent online, open world, and somewhat sandbox'ish games such as ED, solution to this issue has and can be found by other means.

 

[Hexcaliber]

If you want a single player game, go play a single player game with difficulty levels, this is not it, difficulty levels are an asinine idea. They do not work in online multilpayer games with mechanics such as Power play and community goals where players compete with one another and affect the games play space.

Folks have been playing in solo so long they have forgotten this is an mmo. While I am happy to defend a persons choice to play solo it comes with caveats, and one of those is deference to the online multi player aspect whenever balance is concerned. When you chose to play solo or group you are are simply choosing who you play with, you are still part of a single galaxy that is affected by player actions, including your own and that requires a level playing field for all.

 

[mojododo]

To the OP, ask yourself this. If system security and in turn the safety of the system was done correctly would you even need a difficulty slider? IE a high security system should by definition mean that players can roam about pretty much in the knowledge that pirates and the like are going to be extremely sparce, and if you did happen to get fired upon security would greet them with severe pain. Then it would all be up to the player where they decide to be in the galaxy.

I am very much against difficulty settings.

 

[Maxmilian Czhilli]

No.

Not because I don't want others to have fun. But because there is no way of implementing such a system without an individuals's choice of difficulty impacting on other's.

Player Alice interdicts player Bob in a high security system in order to pirate them. System security drops in to attack Alice and help out Bob. Is AI difficulty based on Alice or Bob's preferences? You might think the AI should scale to the person being attacked. If that was the case then pirate Alice would gain an advantage by having AI difficulty set to lowest and Bob would be disadvantaged.

That's just one really simple example of the problems with difficulty settings. Players can be in conflict or competition even if they never meet or play in the same mode. There are so many ways that having differing difficulty settings could be used by players to gain advantage over others.

So. No.