Not a drama thread, no a complaint thread, but an observation and one I don't actually have an answer to.
I am of course aware of the way the big event of the weekend went (unfortunately, predictable), but would like to add something that I experienced myself elsewhere.
We had some known bandits in one of our areas of operation, and I wanted to see if I could submit-boost-jump such CMDRs as easily and routinely as NPCs. Was in a lightly armed mission Python, got interdicted (rather went looking for it), and was instantly masslocked by 2 bandits, one in a conda, both easily keeping pace with me, then finishing me off with the FSD failing even before shields down (if I remember correctly; it was all pretty quick). All over in a few secs, even with 4 pips to shields, and after disabled a few secs more to explode.
No big deal, I wanted to test the mechanic out anyway, and frankly, I do the same to NPCs.
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However. The complete failure in even running (lowake, didn't even have time for hiwake switch) when this works routinely for me with NPCs of any rank in any ship, suggests we have a balance problem.
I don't use engineer mods at all. Neither on my combat ships - or I won't have a challenge against NPCs at all - or my other ships, which for BGS work doesn't really add anything.
But clearly, for any kind of PvP, even defense, you'll need engineer mods.
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If I understand correctly, PvP'ers are not happy with Engineers either, because it's basically about who got the baddest mod, not skills. Which leaves..... the bandits.
We can talk about crime & punishment, but I don't think we could figure out how this should work right before 2.0, let alone in 2.1 where the balance is completely gone. But it is clear to me, now, that we're in a situation where _either_ we have to make AI substantially harder so it's worthwhile to engineer for PvE, _or_ we're left with the vast majority of players having absolutely no defense against bandits, even those that are reasonably skilled in NPC combat.
As I said, I don't have the answer to any of this, but do feel that the gulf between PvE and PvP combat builds is now such that essentially we have two games in one. Does that have a future?
I am of course aware of the way the big event of the weekend went (unfortunately, predictable), but would like to add something that I experienced myself elsewhere.
We had some known bandits in one of our areas of operation, and I wanted to see if I could submit-boost-jump such CMDRs as easily and routinely as NPCs. Was in a lightly armed mission Python, got interdicted (rather went looking for it), and was instantly masslocked by 2 bandits, one in a conda, both easily keeping pace with me, then finishing me off with the FSD failing even before shields down (if I remember correctly; it was all pretty quick). All over in a few secs, even with 4 pips to shields, and after disabled a few secs more to explode.
No big deal, I wanted to test the mechanic out anyway, and frankly, I do the same to NPCs.
----
However. The complete failure in even running (lowake, didn't even have time for hiwake switch) when this works routinely for me with NPCs of any rank in any ship, suggests we have a balance problem.
I don't use engineer mods at all. Neither on my combat ships - or I won't have a challenge against NPCs at all - or my other ships, which for BGS work doesn't really add anything.
But clearly, for any kind of PvP, even defense, you'll need engineer mods.
----
If I understand correctly, PvP'ers are not happy with Engineers either, because it's basically about who got the baddest mod, not skills. Which leaves..... the bandits.
We can talk about crime & punishment, but I don't think we could figure out how this should work right before 2.0, let alone in 2.1 where the balance is completely gone. But it is clear to me, now, that we're in a situation where _either_ we have to make AI substantially harder so it's worthwhile to engineer for PvE, _or_ we're left with the vast majority of players having absolutely no defense against bandits, even those that are reasonably skilled in NPC combat.
As I said, I don't have the answer to any of this, but do feel that the gulf between PvE and PvP combat builds is now such that essentially we have two games in one. Does that have a future?
