It is so incredibly obvious that this is how it should be done. Whomever thought "Thargoids? Let's wall them off, make them irrelevant AND a huge pita to deal with!" should maybe not design games.
New AX weapons feedback
- Thread starter Manawydn
- Start date
It is so incredibly obvious that this is how it should be done. Whomever thought "Thargoids? Let's wall them off, make them irrelevant AND a huge pita to deal with!" should maybe not design games.
It's just such a huge shame because the introduction of Thargoids into ED was really really well done (I thought). I know people complained it was too slow, but really, it gave enough time for most people who were interested to engage with the story. Not everybody can play 24/7.
But the consequent escalation has left me very disengaged. As well as the fact that the only interaction seems to be pew-pew.
Sorry, getting OT here.
yep but you missed out that it was a Empire rival faction in a game, where Empire players are greatly out numbered by fed players every day in play time...
If it had been Indi vs indi or indi vs fed the out come would have been way different from day one... The capital ship of the Fed faction would still be attacked but the cg would have been more even...
But as soon as Segnen were announced as Empire those who played CGs before knew the out come...
The number of times I suggested that there should be a 50ly sphere of diminishing dangerousness around a Thargoid system, within which the closer you are to the center the more likely you are to be hyperdicted OR interdicted, and the number of times I was shouted down by cmdr’s saying “yeah but some cmdr’s don’t want to engage with the goids and shouldn’t be forced to” is crazy. IT’S MEANT TO BE AN INVASION BY MANKIND’S SCARIEST ENEMY, not an optional add-on to a waste hauling game.
what was CG for then?
Exploration, Trading, Engineers, Powerplay, Ram Tah, Guardians, BGS, major faction ranks, synthesis and some other stuff have led me to believe that grinding actually IS the content that FD is willing to give to us.
Why so? My guess is on money, time, skills, fear, stubbornness and spaghetti code.
It would be nice if Zende Partners continued its research into Guardian tech resulting in upgrades to the Advanced Multicannon. The obvious upgrade being gimballed or turreted versions, though Frontier Devs (FD) seems unkeen to allow anything but fixed AX weapons.
As a suggestion to appease (in some small part) both AX Cmdrs and FD, it seems to me that an "Advanced Multicannon Plus" be developed in the near future that has a selectable mode of operation (in the way turrets do). The modes would be:
I recognise that an 'Advanced Multicannon Plus' would never replace Guardian weaponry against the Thargoid Interceptors, but for ships with spare hard points, they may open the door for ship builds that allow for AX combat AND general combat without need for major re-outfitting.
Novices benefit, part-time AX Cmdrs benefit, hard-core AX Cmdrs benefit (all be it only by a little, more-so if Swarm damage is possible in 'Standard Mode'), and FD still retains their requirement for fixed weapons only against Interceptors.
A dream? Probably. Still I live in hope that someone at FD sees this and gets inspired.
Fly safely Commanders
As a suggestion to appease (in some small part) both AX Cmdrs and FD, it seems to me that an "Advanced Multicannon Plus" be developed in the near future that has a selectable mode of operation (in the way turrets do). The modes would be:
- Standard Mode: in which the multicannon is gimballed/turretted and can exert damage to 'human ships,' to Thargoid Scouts, and to the Swarm released by a Thargoid Interceptor (premium ammo may be req'd to do Swarm damage).
- AX Mode: in which the gimbals/turrets lock in a fixed position and 'through advanced Guardian Tech' can now do Interceptor damage without need for AX ammo synthesis (though I conceed that premium only ammo may be needed if AX synthesis is removed).
I recognise that an 'Advanced Multicannon Plus' would never replace Guardian weaponry against the Thargoid Interceptors, but for ships with spare hard points, they may open the door for ship builds that allow for AX combat AND general combat without need for major re-outfitting.
Novices benefit, part-time AX Cmdrs benefit, hard-core AX Cmdrs benefit (all be it only by a little, more-so if Swarm damage is possible in 'Standard Mode'), and FD still retains their requirement for fixed weapons only against Interceptors.
A dream? Probably. Still I live in hope that someone at FD sees this and gets inspired.
Fly safely Commanders
This weapon is so pathetic you can only laugh. Seriously Fdev, did you simply want to give people a reason to grind guardians mats?
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I could of put money on it I swear, before these weapons were released I said somewhere 'I bet it will just be another copy and paste of what we already have' sure enough it was, even the statistics are a copy and paste, the ONLY advanced feature is the AX munition robbery option...that's it.
Needless to say I will NEVER synth ammo for it, and likely never use it as I already have cannons engineered by the dozens.
Needless to say I will NEVER synth ammo for it, and likely never use it as I already have cannons engineered by the dozens.
I mean, I've fought them. Scouts more than the big ones, and only a Cyclops, but I've done it and unlocked the weapons. I'm not interested in a boss fight, I want something that impacts my day to day gameplay in Elite. It's so disconnected and isolated, that even ignoring how annoying the Thargoids-only weapons thing is, the whole experience doesn't feel like it's part of the larger game. You have to force it to happen.
The challenge is good, even though I've never tried one above a Cyclops I've seen plenty of video, but it has nothing to do with regular gameplay. It may as well be a challenge scenario from the main menu. The overall experience itself didn't feel special (aside from how cool the Thargoids themselves are, I wanna stress that), it felt like a walled off experience that you gotta go through a lotta hassle to take part in.
That's one thing I feel like Frontier often trips over-- the difference between challenge and hassle. The Thargoids themselves are a challenge, getting to a point to deal with them isn't. It's just a hassle. And since it's not a part of the rest of the game, I feel little-to-no motivation to go change my loadout JUST for Thargoids, cutting off any natural flow from the rest of the game, for a boss fight.
It's just my opinion, but that's why I don't get a "wow this is so unique" from the hassle of getting the weapons (and I won't feel that if I synth ammo for the new MC, I'll only be annoyed... collecting Guardian materials is again a hassle and not a challenge). When I see a Thargoid, I do go "whoa that's unique", because they're really cool creations. They did an awesome job with them on every level, visually and aurally alike. And they're appropriately deadly, and would remain so even if our normal weapons could be used on them. More importantly though, they shouldn't be walled off, they should be giving me a problem I am forced to deal with, but I can pretend they don't exist and it doesn't change anything.
I like to wander around, do different missions, fight a bit, smuggle, etc etc. There are things that can happen while I'm out doing this and the gameplay can flow together. If I am fighting Thargoids, I am ONLY fighting Thargoids due to the Thargoid-only loadout required, with the one extra thing that could happen is a CMDR defending the Thargoids attacks me and then I can't defend myself because of the Thargoid-only loadout, which is also annoying. Them being walled off and requiring weapons that only work on them simply makes me not bother.
If I am amblin' and ramblin' around and a Thargoid shows up to mess my ish up, GREAT! It'd still be annoying that my weapons can't hurt them, but it's at least creating a problem for me that I gotta solve somehow. It's throwing a wrench in whatever plans I had that day, and I'd LOVE it. Scouts intercept me when I'm trying to go refuel? Awesome! Interceptor shows up? Oh no, gotta run! But it doesn't work like that, and that is really disappointing to me. Boss fights that I gotta go out of my way to experience just don't interest me, I guess, but I am happy if someone else enjoys them.
This "synth AX ammo" business just underlined for me how annoying the Thargoid experience is, but hopefully the Thargoids can join the rest of the game and not be off in its own corner away from everything else.
Hahaha are you kidding me? Look, I'm glad you like it, I ain't telling you not to enjoy it. You're making some weird assumptions aside from that, but it's no big deal.
All fdev needs to do it to make goids intercept people in super cruise
They could even make a galnet article detailing it, put a hud element that warns when you gonna jump to a sistem with goid activity
XENO TREATH ALERT!
To even the odds in the playing field of this newfound thargoid hostility they could make nornal weapons start damaging goids, albeit at a reduced rate than Anti-Xeno.
Elite has a lot of good stuff and some great potential, but heck, they need to put someone that play mmos and know a fair more about gameplay loops in charge of these decisions.
Sometimes this feels like the Anthen disaster. A game ruined by lack of management.
The problem is that a sizable part of the community hates this idea. To many, ED should be a game where you can silently space-truck, all the time, everywhere, with zero skill required while never being in danger. I've always advocated 'regionality': have some ultra-safe regions in the bubble, some medium systems, some very dangerous anarchy fringe regions, alien infested zones etc. That way you can chose your style and have fun your way.
But that is still a controversial topic. Unfortunately.
FDev could organize an event where Goids start to really attack players indisciminately and after that another one in which the major powers agree to make new dual purpose anti-human, anti-goid ammo a new standard in all space stations to truly fight the increasingly dangerous menace. After that all guns could damage the goids, but with a penalty.
I like the idea of the aliens, maybe I would even want to fight them, but I refuse to engage in that for as long as its gated off and requires me going completely out of my way to fight them. I'm not going to grind that guardian crap.
And if some people really dont want to meet thargoids, as Ian, suggests, they could be restricted to some areas of space, but they should move, making some lanes dangerous at one time, and safe at another, something that could be reported in Galnet.
I like the idea of the aliens, maybe I would even want to fight them, but I refuse to engage in that for as long as its gated off and requires me going completely out of my way to fight them. I'm not going to grind that guardian crap.
And if some people really dont want to meet thargoids, as Ian, suggests, they could be restricted to some areas of space, but they should move, making some lanes dangerous at one time, and safe at another, something that could be reported in Galnet.
It's had the exact same effect on me. The Thargoids are, incredibly, boring instead of exciting. Gearing up to fight them is a pain, and once you do gear up your ship is useless for other tasks. You get nothing from fighting them, either, other than maybe some rank and some bragging rights...the 'war' goes on as if you weren't there. You can just ignore the war, and it will all work out the same. The whole Thargoid game-loop gets a big thumbs down from me, and this new stuff is just as bad, maybe worse.
Heck i will even go one step further
Here how i would make the article.
Ram Ta and Aegis Release new framework for Pilots federation Weaponry in response to Thargoids Second push inside the Bubble
"As reports come in around the bubble that Thargoid vessels have bem increasing hostility, Aegis reported a breakthrough in guardian tecnology:
Aegis Commanding Liason declared:
"Working with ram ta has proving to be a great endeavor, and this is the results of this effort, we have hoped to develop this tecnology for a bit more time, but this new thargoid agressivity has urged us to release this sonner. As it stands a new firmware update to the pilots federation system should allow commanders to change their weaponry energy signature to simulate guardian energy waves and thus damage thargoid ships bio-matter. But as this is a higly experimental effort, the change in weaponry nodes seens to causes a temporaly sistem reboot and a higher heat generation of said weaponry.
Thus we urge commanders engaged in ax combat to make this change while not engaged."
The firmeare update is scheduled to be releases xx-xx-3305.
You are too late to suggest improvements regarding how those weapons work.
How are turreted or gimbaled weapons are improvements? Those MCs already deal crappy damage why would anyone want them to deal even less?
Haven't tried the new MCs yet. But I did watch some of this video (was this already posted here?) with someone using them after engineering, they seemed impressed except for the synthesis. Looks like taking out each heart was about the same time as using gauss cannons?
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAKUO1qZK0
In most people's hands, gimbals and turrets may do less damage per shot, but they can still have better DPS. You have to be pretty good at aiming fixed weapons to out-DPS gimbals. The exception is when the target uses chaff, which Thargoids never do.
This is especially true against scouts. If you doubt me, try going against scouts twice, once with fixed AX multicannons and again with turreted ones (set turret mode to "selected target").
Gimbal or turret Gauss cannons would open up Thargoid combat to many more people.
I hate to admit this but yeah that's just explained my thoughts on it too. Would love to jump into the whole Thargoid thing but I feel like 1) Humanity doesn't need me to and 2) I can't be bothered
Frontier should allow a few major well-known stations to get completely ripped apart and destroyed to get CMDRs to realise 'hey this is real now' and also allow real easy access to anti Thargoid weapons so we can all do our bit. Oh and bring in some aggressive hyperspace interdiction that just mess people up and leave them barely able to get back in one piece.
I'm sure this has been suggested already, I like to bring nothing new to the table
