NPC Interdictions, Who else thinks they don't present enough of a challenge to evade?

[squiggsy]

So I've returned after a fair amount of time off exploring, and decided to finally try out doing some trading, at first I thought that interdictions would add some variation and entertainment to trading but after just a few hours I found the opposite was the case.

The reason for my dislike is twofold:
1. They offer no real challenge. Out of around 20+ interdictions today 1 succeeded, and that was because of that annoying glitch (I'll get to that) other than that I evaded every single one of them easily. All they served to do was waste some time and be an irritation. The fact that the majority of the times I was interdicted were as I was approaching a station added to that, since they just caused me to overshoot and have to come back round.

2. They are glitchy and impersonal. I added these two together since they amount to the same thing, broken gameplay. when the escape vector suddenly veers off at 90 degrees to where it was moments before multiple times, causing you to be interdicted, it is frustrating as hell. And then, once you have been interdicted, the NPC fails to even offer any valid reasoning for interdicting you. On the rare occasion their little bit of "flavor" text mentions something about dropping your cargo it is obvious that even doing this will not stop them from their pre-programmed attack. To me this is equivalent to a glitch/bug in the game, since it makes no logical sense.

Over my time jumping around the bubble today the only one thing that has made my time any less enjoyable has been these interdictions, I just feel like something needs to be done to improve the experience. When I've been attacked by players in Open before its all gone alright and I feel there is no real problem with it, so the problem lies with the programming of the NPCs. I actually quite like the little interdiction mini game in theory, it makes some logical sense and is a challenge when someone who is competent is trying to interdict you, but I feel something has to be done to the AI for the NPCs make them rise above the tedium that they represent at the moment.

I used the words interdiction and interdict far too many times over the space of this post, sorry about that.

 

[Crusina Luachra]

I have never once had a problem with interdiction. 99% of my time is spent in my Corvette and even when I didn't have it, no NPC could ever provide a challenge for me.

 

[Arry]

You both must be flying big and powerful ships. I just submit and run or fight, every time.

 

[squiggsy]

You both must be flying big and powerful ships. I just submit and run or fight, every time.

A larger ship is often technically a disadvantage here, since evading interdictions rely on your ships maneuverability, and larger ships are generally less maneuverable.

I have never once had a problem with interdiction. 99% of my time is spent in my Corvette and even when I didn't have it, no NPC could ever provide a challenge for me.

This is basically my issue, if the interdiction doesn't present a challenge it may as well not happen.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

Never had much issue with them. They're fairly rare unless you're doing powerplay or smuggling missions and usually I just submit and blow them away - easy money.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I always lose interdictions...

 

[squiggsy]

Never had much issue with them. They're fairly rare unless you're doing powerplay or smuggling missions and usually I just submit and blow them away - easy money.

Yes my problem is that they are too easy, too easy to evade, or if you do submit, too easy to either blow them up or get away from, it makes it so it feels like they may as well have not happened. The point I'm making is that they need to up the difficulty to make them feel exciting.
I have changed the title of the thread to reflect this.

I always lose interdictions...

Thanks for the input! Part of the reason I started this thread was to see if my opinions on this were shared or if people had other experiences.
Could I ask what control input you use? I use mouse and keyboard and I have heard a lot that while they are definitely less authentic (I'd love a HOTAS they look great) they offer much greater precision and control. So maybe that is worth consideration.

 

[smiths121]

I win a reasonable (say 50% - 66%) number of interdictions I tend to win the ones around gravity wells, pretty much a sitting duck in open super cruise space. Regardless of ship, I am no where near as good at evading player interdictions. Not sure I would like interdictions to get any harder. Surviving in the Type-6 is quite easy, but I have just restarted the character so I am not getting too many high ranking NPCs that might be harder to evade and run from.

I would like to see the AI in normal space improve, and the loadouts the mi-range combat NPCs and pirates improve before their ability in interdiction. I suspect I am biased because of my lousy stats!

Simon

 

[squiggsy]

I win a reasonable (say 50% - 66%) number of interdictions I tend to win the ones around gravity wells, pretty much a sitting duck in open super cruise space. Regardless of ship, I am no where near as good at evading player interdictions. Not sure I would like interdictions to get any harder. Surviving in the Type-6 is quite easy, but I have just restarted the character so I am not getting too many high ranking NPCs that might be harder to evade and run from.

I would like to see the AI in normal space improve, and the loadouts the mi-range combat NPCs and pirates improve before their ability in interdiction. I suspect I am biased because of my lousy stats!

Simon

Yes thankfully the AI for NPCs in combat will be improving with 2.1 so no more enemies spinning on the spot!
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe evading interdictions is just some strange skill I have. I'm not particularly great at many other things in the game, but perhaps that is my hidden talent haha.
Also yes I don't think I have ever evaded a player who has tried to interdict me (then again it has only happened a handful of times)

 

[Trafalgar Law]

Yes my problem is that they are too easy, too easy to evade, or if you do submit, too easy to either blow them up or get away from, it makes it so it feels like they may as well have not happened. The point I'm making is that they need to up the difficulty to make them feel exciting.
I have changed the title of the thread to reflect this.

I agree that they're a bit easy and that they need a lot of work. However I'd much rather have easy interdictions than no interdictions.

I would like the difficulty increased, however with the way ships are designed in this game once you're in a high level ship a single AI is no longer a serious threat (OK a high ranked Anaconda or Corvette would be a bit of a challenge, but at the moment every other ship is just easy money for my Clipper). Having more pirates in wings would be a much better proposition especially if there are improvements to the AI. Having the AI behave more realistically would be a good thing too i.e. not interdicting my Clipper in a shieldless Sidewinder and then being surprised that I just killed you!

Thanks for the input! Part of the reason I started this thread was to see if my opinions on this were shared or if people had other experiences.
Could I ask what control input you use? I use mouse and keyboard and I have heard a lot that while they are definitely less authentic (I'd love a HOTAS they look great) they offer much greater precision and control. So maybe that is worth consideration.

I use mouse keyboard and the only times I have lost an interdiction (whether instigated by me or those rare occasions when I don't submit) were down to lag or weird server behavior, both of which are rare for me.

 

[Cmdr Mackara]

The difficulty (at least for me) seems to be pretty tied to combat rating of the NPC, about how forgiving the mini-game is. Anything up to and including novice pilots I'm pretty comfortable winning (ie evading). Anything higher and I submit and either fight or run (depending on what ship I'm in at the time and what missions, if any, I am on).

However I play keyboard and mouse and am not great at the mini-game so others mileage will vary.

I'm actually relatively happy with the difficulty for evading. If anything the consequence of submitting should be slightly greater, but I, personally, think it is balanced pretty well at the moment.

 

[squiggsy]

I agree that they're a bit easy and that they need a lot of work. However I'd much rather have easy interdictions than no interdictions.

I would like the difficulty increased, however with the way ships are designed in this game once you're in a high level ship a single AI is no longer a serious threat (OK a high ranked Anaconda or Corvette would be a bit of a challenge, but at the moment every other ship is just easy money for my Clipper). Having more pirates in wings would be a much better proposition especially if there are improvements to the AI. Having the AI behave more realistically would be a good thing too i.e. not interdicting my Clipper in a shieldless Sidewinder and then being surprised that I just killed you!



I use mouse keyboard and the only times I have lost an interdiction (whether instigated by me or those rare occasions when I don't submit) were down to lag or weird server behavior, both of which are rare for me.

Yep pretty much all around agreement from me, I think pirates in wings would be good fun, and would make sense too, I mean the pirates you find in their sidewinder on their own just make no sense whatsoever, who is mad enough to think they are going to do any piracy in that? even if the person they interdict drops their cargo they could only pick up like 2-4 tons of it.
That is my other issue, when you get interdicted and you aren't wanted and you have no cargo, what are they interdicting you for? they can't be pirates because there's nothing for them to gain, are we supposed to assume they are just psychopaths? I'd like to see better explanation from them of why you're being interdicted rather than their robotic "now you die, victim". I think things like that are rather small changes that would make a big difference to my immersion and enjoyment in those situations.

The difficulty (at least for me) seems to be pretty tied to combat rating of the NPC, about how forgiving the mini-game is. Anything up to and including novice pilots I'm pretty comfortable winning (ie evading). Anything higher and I submit and either fight or run (depending on what ship I'm in at the time and what missions, if any, I am on).

However I play keyboard and mouse and am not great at the mini-game so others mileage will vary.

I'm actually relatively happy with the difficulty for evading. If anything the consequence of submitting should be slightly greater, but I, personally, think it is balanced pretty well at the moment.

hmm yes maybe a better alternative would be increasing the mini-game difficulty with the players combat rank or something, only making it really difficult when you are at something like dangerous and above. I also agree the consequences for submitting should be greater, since you can almost always either fight them off or evade unless you are in a sidewinder/eagle and get interdicted by something with big guns. but again I'd like to see an option for you to ditch your cargo and then the NPC will let you go. since they are normally meant to be pirates that should be what they are after, aside from mission specific NPCs interdicting you just to kill you.

 

[Zieman]

The interdiction minigame is so much RNG (= I almost always lose, no matter what ship I fly & what ship is interdicting) that I always submit.

 

[We Are Groot]

I don't mind if they increase the difficulty as long as they remove the impossible to avoid ramming that is done after you are interdicted. The ship appears in front of you and there is a bright flash and loud bang with zero time for you to evade which leaves you severely damaged or looking at a rebuy screen. If you have to run with military grade armor and hrp's on all ships to survive encounters then the use of some ships will become even more limited? There are only so many modules and if you have to be armed to the teeth in everything you fly it might be exciting or annoying depending on your point of view then some ships might be less viable.

 

[squiggsy]

I don't mind if they increase the difficulty as long as they remove the impossible to avoid ramming that is done after you are interdicted. The ship appears in front of you and there is a bright flash and loud bang with zero time for you to evade which leaves you severely damaged or looking at a rebuy screen. If you have to run with military grade armor and hrp's on all ships to survive encounters then the use of some ships will become even more limited? There are only so many modules and if you have to be armed to the teeth in everything you fly it might be exciting or annoying depending on your point of view then some ships might be less viable.

apparently NPCs ramming you will be fixed in 2.1, it's only happened to me once when I've been interdicted by it happens loads in rez sites and drives me mad!

 

[Privata]

In my opinion there is currently no challenge in elite in terms of combat.
however 2.1 does plan on fixing this issue , but I dont know how big this fix is going to be

 

[mistohise]

I'm fairly happy with the levels at the moment, especially considering that combat buffing is coming anyway. I don't want every NPC encounter to be like a boss battle.

 

[kpmop]

Yeah, like others I don't even bother (OK, occasionally I try just to see) and just submit and either run or attack (depending on what I'm flying / who's interdicted me). It seems completely random anyway - winning or losing seems to have little to do with holding the escape vector ...

 

[squiggsy]

Yeah, like others I don't even bother (OK, occasionally I try just to see) and just submit and either run or attack (depending on what I'm flying / who's interdicted me). It seems completely random anyway - winning or losing seems to have little to do with holding the escape vector ...

It does make a difference, as long as 2/3 of the concentric circles are blue you will gain pips on your bar, otherwise your opponent will. Sometimes it does glitch for a tiny bit and continue to take away from yours even after you have this though which is annoying.

 

[askavir]

Honestly for a long while now I just submit and go back to supercruise after the 10 second FSD recharge...

Don't even bother to turn and shoot the interdicting ship anymore.