Make it hard
- Thread starter Galafrey
- Start date
yes please.... original game way tuff also
when you start ED it is difficult, buy as you get higher and betting through the ranks they do not stay with you. the skill levels as you get higher dont stay in line with your skills.
i was expecting once i hit Elite combat rank to be interdicted by multiple ships 2 x corvettes etc... but no.. you still get attacked by 1 if you a lucky.
in a hostile system nothing attacks you... other power NPCs just ignore you, surely this is wrong..
im all for leaving early rank NPC skills as they are, but make them ramp with you make the night high rank be much harder
when you start ED it is difficult, buy as you get higher and betting through the ranks they do not stay with you. the skill levels as you get higher dont stay in line with your skills.
i was expecting once i hit Elite combat rank to be interdicted by multiple ships 2 x corvettes etc... but no.. you still get attacked by 1 if you a lucky.
in a hostile system nothing attacks you... other power NPCs just ignore you, surely this is wrong..
im all for leaving early rank NPC skills as they are, but make them ramp with you make the night high rank be much harder
I agree with this sentiment, but I think you are taking an easy way out. The game shouldn't have to be dumbed down to cater to lower 'skill level' players and remove all significant challenge. There should be a diverse environment with many different levels on the risk/reward balance. There shouldn't be a single 'skill level' that the entire game is balanced for, there is always going to be less and more capable players, and unless you completely maximize or minimize the challenge, people are always going to be left out.
Right now, I think we have the worst of both worlds: no real challenge (at least not in the typical day-to-day activity) but also some combat content that is aimed towards 'high-end' players, but previously was viable for less equipped players. Now beginners can't participate in combat zones, because there they will get murdered by 4 engineered unnerfed NPC federal assault ships...
Also, engineering is broken, but if engineering effects were nerfed to a sane level, materials would feel even more like a tedious grind for lottery tickets than it is right now. Broken game mechanic is broken, what can we do...
Why in the world should a NPC suit all tastes? If I took a risky contract and my employer's opponents set a killsquad after me, they sure shouldn't be tasty!
![[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/234/234580.jpg?1612617334){kind=avatar}
I totally agree. 100% but mine is a short term fix for the individual player until such a time FD do fix it.
I recently became ranked dangerous in Combat, I only ever fight NPC's, I noticed a step up. For a start, they had never used heat sinks effectively before. They use SCBs now. I don't know if this is a new thing across the board (all ranks) or just because I got promoted. I have noticed a difference in them however.
The other thing I noticed was, I used to take the odd combat mission, go wipe out 15 of this mob, when I used to start these, if I took a shot at one, they all started firing at me, now they don't. They just watch their chums get picked off one by one.
Another thing I have noticed is, we know that if you are trying to rank up in combat, you'll do this better by slaying NPC's of the same rank as you or higher. So I'm Dangerous, I take a Dangerous mission and more often than not face Master opponents. What is the point in that? Send me Dangerous opponents, that is what I selected. Even when I've chosen Elite missions, I rarely see an Elite opponent. The only time I seem to see them is in the named target assassination missions or, weirdly, Elite trade missions. But then I've stacked my ship up with cargo and not defensive modules.
"It's not hard enough"
"No, I don't want to fight the hard fights"
There is a difference in wanting to fight Thargoids and human ships, since most of the game (about 95% of it) revolves around human spaces.
I think the biggest problem is how regimented everything is- its far too predictable. I used to BGS murder in a throwaway Clipper, minimal if none engineering and would regularly be running from ATR and cops. I could do this because I knew the timings, how NPCs respond etc. FD need to make the mix of ships, timings more unpredictable to catch people out.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
There's no difficulty slider in the game - the perceived difficulty is a result of many things - ship build and engineering being significant contributors.
While combat is part of the game, the game does not, in my opinion, revolve around combat - not when two of the three Elite ranks can be achieved without firing a shot in combat.
Are CZs really impossible for players in un-engineered ships?
I expect that we won't see a significant change to engineering modifications this late in the day.
Indeed - and it was the player's choice to take the contract / mission - in that case there'd be little sympathy for any player complaining that the consequence of their choice was too hard.Why in the world should a NPC suit all tastes? If I took a risky contract and my employer's opponents set a killsquad after me, they sure shouldn't be tasty!
You want a harder Elite? Try some of these actions:
PvP inside an icy-ring.
Go to a HazRes or High CZ and fight the NPC's with Flight Assist Off.
PvP with Flight Assist Off.
Go to an Orbital Scientific Facility and speed through the tunnels without wrecking yourself (to make it even harder: with FAOff).
Just some suggestions, though.
PvP inside an icy-ring.
Go to a HazRes or High CZ and fight the NPC's with Flight Assist Off.
PvP with Flight Assist Off.
Go to an Orbital Scientific Facility and speed through the tunnels without wrecking yourself (to make it even harder: with FAOff).
Just some suggestions, though.
Again, I agree. The danger you face and the tactics used by NPC's should increase with the rank that you are. No doubts. But I come back to the idea that FD are not going to be fixing this any time soon. They are working on a ton of stuff and this would seem to be a low priority for them.
I first hit on this idea (though didn't post it) when I read the "We gank because we're bored thread", I thought then, why don't you carry on ganking then but in stock ships? Stop giving yourself engineered advantages and raise the challenge.
I know it's good to make suggestions but the reality is, FD are not going to stop everything to work on each one. So right now, to get more balance that suits the individual and doesn't create problems for others, adapt your (general you, not personal) ship. It's not a perfect fix but it is one that can be done now by the player until such a time FD do fix it.
Honestly the issue for me isn't difficulty, it's similarity.
If I do a mission and get an incoming enemy, it's always gonna be a bunch of elite anacondas, unless I'm in a brand new system and I'm taking a neutral or cordial rep mission to get started, and I've done the supercruise dance with so many anacondas that I've pretty thoroughly learned how to evade them. And I don't mean "break the interdiction", I mean "steer them onto an angle so they get locked in a permanent loop of approaching me from the side where they can't interdict me and just keep zipping past me back and forth all the way to the station".
Doing that to more agile ships is a lot trickier, but no, it's always a conda. Sure, a conda might be a threat to my T9 if it gets into normalspace with it, but it never happens.
If there was more variety in the things that spawned then I'd be kept on my toes rather than being able to just go "as long as I can survive against or evade an elite anaconda, nothing will threaten me". When I was lower ranked I had a much wider variety of stuff come after me. I wasn't able to just cycle targets in supercruise and go "right, that one's the bad guy" without scanning them or them sending a message, purely on the basis of them being the only anaconda around. Hell, assassinations are easier when you hit combat elite on that regard, as soon as a corvette pops up in the contacts panel you've found them - or for wing assassinations, a fer-de-lance.
If I do a mission and get an incoming enemy, it's always gonna be a bunch of elite anacondas, unless I'm in a brand new system and I'm taking a neutral or cordial rep mission to get started, and I've done the supercruise dance with so many anacondas that I've pretty thoroughly learned how to evade them. And I don't mean "break the interdiction", I mean "steer them onto an angle so they get locked in a permanent loop of approaching me from the side where they can't interdict me and just keep zipping past me back and forth all the way to the station".
Doing that to more agile ships is a lot trickier, but no, it's always a conda. Sure, a conda might be a threat to my T9 if it gets into normalspace with it, but it never happens.
If there was more variety in the things that spawned then I'd be kept on my toes rather than being able to just go "as long as I can survive against or evade an elite anaconda, nothing will threaten me". When I was lower ranked I had a much wider variety of stuff come after me. I wasn't able to just cycle targets in supercruise and go "right, that one's the bad guy" without scanning them or them sending a message, purely on the basis of them being the only anaconda around. Hell, assassinations are easier when you hit combat elite on that regard, as soon as a corvette pops up in the contacts panel you've found them - or for wing assassinations, a fer-de-lance.
I've noticed this 'advance' in behaviour / ability too - improved aggression as well as defensive ability, no comparison to a human opponent for sure, but good enough to present a better challenge than previously.
Likewise, why do elite missions spawn lower ranked NPC's? I need deadly / elite to gain progress, not lower ranks! (bleat over)
My opinion is that there is sufficient 'challenge' for a player with my abilities, so I'm happy enough - others feel differently, obviously
Deleted member 182079
D
To be fair, AX is maybe not the best example - while the Interceptors are difficult to beat (especially solo), they do behave like a shoot'em-up level boss - if you get the approach nailed down you'll beat them reliably, and they too become boring eventually. I've hit a motivation ceiling at dealing with Basilisks already - and after having seen a video of soloing a Hydra - well, after having seen how long that video is (2 hours..."It's not hard enough"
"No, I don't want to fight the hard fights"
) I realised I won't have the patience for it.The closest I got in the game to sweaty palms in combat more recently was a wing assassination mission - 1 FdL, 4 Vultures, and I was flying a Corvette with twin huge PAs (can be fun, but poor choice in this scenario). Not only did I not hit any of these nimble ships reliably, even when I did, the bullet-sponginess of particularly the Vultures plus them perma-SCB'ing meant I had to focus fire on the main target and then limp back to the station with a shot-out canopy and 20% hull (in a Vette lol). I managed to misjudge my oxygen levels and died 500m outside the station
.Thing is, that encounter wasn't really fun, it was tedious, like punching jelly (guessing whether the oxygen will last without synching was the most exciting aspect really). And if I fly smaller ships (I managed to beat a Pirate Lord Vette in a Cobra 3 before, but I had to keep synthing ammo because I didn't do enough damage vs its SCBs) it's tedious but in a slightly different way.
I think I would welcome a reduction in hit point pools (and get rid of SCBs altogether), and change engineering to be side-grades rather than upgrades. So losing your ship (or winning a fight) comes quicker but the risk is also higher - engagements become more intense but shorter in duration. Survivor Mode in Fallout 4 does something like that - play on Hard difficulty and enemies become awful bullet sponges, Survivor difficulty drops that dramatically but increases damage potential of the enemy - so they can technically 1-shot you if you're not more careful.
That this won't ever be happening goes without saying but imagining what if? is still nice from time to time.
I remember some time back when the NPCs ran away a lot.
I remember that some of them had multicannon firing rate plasma accelerators.
Every time someone says about this fabled time of NPCs getting "harder" they can never describe what it was, except if they end up describing the time when they all ran away a lot.
Perhaps for you - but this was also the time when the interdiction system had a bug that tied it to frame rate - for some, during this same time it became very very easy, for some, it was unaffected.
It all depended on your frame rate.
Interdiction was always exactly as it was from release, except when it was bugged.
I don't agree that difficulty should be increased acrsso the board, but scaled more intlligently according to a combination of the cmdr's combat rating (as it is now), but also taking into account the engineers the cmdr has unlocked.
In your opinion you may be correct. In my opinion it's fine as it is. I get to survive most of the time. That's good enough for me.
The trouble with that is that as it stands you rank up just by playing. I'm elite in two of the three sections and as a result the game gives me harder NPCs on the assumption that with all this playing experience I must be better. The truth of the matter is that I'm getting old and my reflexes and starting to slow so that opposite is true.
