Odyssey infiltration missions are not fun and need revision

[Larhape]

Hello there,

I am an Elite Dangerous player for years, even before in the 80's with its ancestor which I played on a 80-286. Another time. Great game.

Recently, I have bought Odyssey and I have really mixed feelings. The feeling is good, I mean walking, going around, etc. I tried different sort of missions, but got very frustrated with all the infiltration-type of missions. I think I will stop playing them, it is not fun, although the concept was great. I like the authorization level (1, 2, 3), the scanning system and the cutter. All are great. But infiltration missions are too difficult compared to the other, especially when you do not want to murder anyone (which should be best practice in this kind of mission).

Here are a few suggestions to improve the gameplay.

• First, infiltration means you should be able to disable / stun / incapacitate enemies instead of killing them. I could not find any non-lethal weapon. It seems the overcharged energizer was but is not anymore. I read it was for some obscure PEGI reasons, but you can probably find a way.
• Second, when you kill (or better "disable") someone in a stealthy manner (without being noticed whatsoever), it does not make sense you receive a bounty. Nobody knows you did it, so how come than, all of a sudden, I have a bounty on my head and the next scan I receive, I am shot at sight. This is not realistic and this is frustrating because you have bounty even if you do everything stealthy. If you get caught, it is fine if you receive a bounty, but as long as you are stealthy, you should not.
• Third, introduce a clear mechanism to know how far each guard can see in terms of angle and/or distance (to see a body or you doing something wrong...). Maybe you need a special suit for this or binoculars. But for the moment, this is not clear and you cannot really ensure if a body can be found or not. Giving this possibility would make the mission more tactic and fun. You could have a difference between day and night also.
• Fourth, when you kill (or better "disable") someone, you should be able to move the body. The idea would be to put it out of sight. Of course, if someone sees you when moving a body, this would be suspect. Maybe you could place a few containers on the map to really hide the bodies for good.
• Fifth, you should be able to lure a guard in a certain area (out of sight preferably) to kill him (or better "disable" him). It could be throwing stones, whistle...

All these suggestions are quite classic for infiltration game, but they would definitely make this kind of mission more fun. It would not turn Elite Dangerous into an infiltartion game (like Hitman for example, which have far more mechanisms than this), but it would be sufficient to have pleasure doing these missions (because you do not do them for credits, eh, this is really pocket money for now!).

I hope it's helpful.

 

[Kissamies]

I don't find them that hard, but then again, I have gear engineered for it. I do agree that the infiltration type missions have the most potential and should be elaborated on, though. I like the idea that you would get no bounty for killing if they never found out you were there, but implementing mechanics for that would complicate the system considerably.

Another thing that would be nice would be coming out with more team work opportunities for these missions. It can be already be done in crude sort of way, like one guy standing close to the guard to distract him while the other scans the guard behind his back, but I'd like to see something more refined.

 

[Larhape]

Thanks for the feedback!
I would be curious to know which kind of gear you have that facilitate this type of mission. Could be useful. Maybe I consider these missions "difficult" because I try to play them like infiltration while they are not supposed to be played like this. I don't know, but I saw quite a few guys also complaining about this type of mission.

This is true that some suggestions would be complicated to implement. However, there are a few that I think are (very) easy to implement. I mean, "not seen, no bounty" is not difficult. "moving bodies" or "line of sight" may be more complicated. The "stun" feature is more role-play than real feature. I mean, the simplest way to do it is that the guy is just marked "stun" but behaves like he was dead (and you would not receive bounty as well). You could see he is stun when hovering the mouse over. Clean and easy.

Your suggestion with multiplayer is great. Sure. It is similar to the "lure" feature, but in multiplayer.

 

[Guyperson]

I mean, the simplest way to do it is that the guy is just marked "stun" but behaves like he was dead (and you would not receive bounty as well). You could see he is stun when hovering the mouse over. Clean and easy.

That's how it worked in the early testing stages, before the PEGI technicalities forced the poor compromise we have now. You zapped someone with the energy link and they'd get a little icon of a circle of stars over their head when you looked at them. AFAIK you couldn't even interact with them any further after that, same as a dead npc.

 

[Frankymole]

The PEGI problem isn't with them being "stunned" or "dead", it's that electrocuting someone in real life is liable to kill them, so showing that behaviour in a game needs to be at the higher PEGI rating. It's repeatable behaviour. They don't want little Johnny sticking an electric heater in his brother's bath water, and claiming it's okay as it just "stuns" people in a game.

Infiltration missions are easy when you know how, even for a slow-reactions oldster like me. The secret is in the approach route and turning off the alarms as shown on the OMG guide. https://www.quizengine.co.uk/omg/live/omg_1.0.html

 

[St0rmFury]

Here's a tip to avoid getting bounty on stealth kills, use the scanner on default mode to scan your target (from out of sight of course). If he's wanted then you can kill him without incurring a bounty. Of course, killing him without alerting others is another issue. Best if you have a high burst damage weapon like P-15, tormentor or intimidator with audio masking or noise suppressor mod, but the energy tool on overcharge mode works just fine.

 

[Kissamies]

Thanks for the feedback!
I would be curious to know which kind of gear you have that facilitate this type of mission. Could be useful. Maybe I consider these missions "difficult" because I try to play them like infiltration while they are not supposed to be played like this. I don't know, but I saw quite a few guys also complaining about this type of mission.

This is true that some suggestions would be complicated to implement. However, there are a few that I think are (very) easy to implement. I mean, "not seen, no bounty" is not difficult. "moving bodies" or "line of sight" may be more complicated. The "stun" feature is more role-play than real feature. I mean, the simplest way to do it is that the guy is just marked "stun" but behaves like he was dead (and you would not receive bounty as well). You could see he is stun when hovering the mouse over. Clean and easy.

Your suggestion with multiplayer is great. Sure. It is similar to the "lure" feature, but in multiplayer.

For gear, I think the deciding factor is mainly quiet footsteps and both indoor and outdoor silenced high grade weapons. Makes it easier to sneak behind someone and steal their access, as well as quickly dispatch someone who discovers me, or just can't be snuck around. My stealth marauder suit, has the footsteps, night vision and jump assist. When I eventually get it to G5, I'll add enhanced tracking.

The "not seen, no bounty" thing gets more complicated if you later get seen and get the bounties you earlier missed, but perhaps I was overthinking it. Moving bodies would take some implementation, but it'd be important feature for this type of gameplay, I agree. As for PEGI restriction for stunning, I believe the problem was that you can interact with the helpless stunned bodies and even shoot at them. Even if that does nothing, that is a problem for PEGI rating. Also probably why all the civilians are armed and come after you just like the guards do. You can already discharge weapons or throw grenades to lure guards, but it's very crude and makes them put their shields up. A more sophisticated method would be welcome.

As for multiplayer, I mean more like heist missions that almost require a team to complete. For example, there could be high security settlement whose alarms automatically reactivate after a while, so someone has to wait by the alarm and flick it off just as his crew starts to open the synthesis unit.

 

[FrogsFriend]

Third, introduce a clear mechanism to know how far each guard can see in terms of angle and/or distance (to see a body or you doing something wrong...). Maybe you need a special suit for this or binoculars. But for the moment, this is not clear and you cannot really ensure if a body can be found or not. Giving this possibility would make the mission more tactic and fun. You could have a difference between day and night also.

I'm not a fan of this sort of 100% gamey feature and definitely lean towards more 'realistic'[1] game-play. By that I mean not being able to know exactly what the NPCs can or can't see/hear. I much prefer having to make a judgement on what I think they'll notice based on what I'd expect to be their behaviour.

[1] - I know it is a game and things need to be abstracted to make it entertaining but I prefer it when things operate more towards the real-world end of the spectrum as far as possible.

Other than that, and allowing for the PEGI restrictions, more options to interact with NPCs and the environment would be welcome.

 

[Jmanis]

The PEGI stuff aside, the EM discharge is your non lethal option. When you use it, enemies get a special icon applied to even represent this, and other NPCs can resurrect enemies taken down in this way.

That it's a murder charge I'm fairly sure of a side effect of the pegi stuff.

However, conceptually i disagree with "acceptable" use of non lethal methods for what i think the Op is referring to as "infiltration" missions, but are referred to as "nonviolent/clean" in the game. This is because of a language mismatch in the game... the mission descriptor states that you shouldn't cause "lethal" damage... the objective when in-settlement says to not "critically injure" settlement personnel. This is a big difference, as a "critical injury" includes rendering someone unconscious, so failing a clean/nonviolent mission for using a stun-gun makes sense.

Throwing away pedantry about terminology though.... making nonviolent/clean missions achievable with "nonlethal" takedowns defeats the purpose of these missions entirely. At the moment, there's three categories of mission:

Normal - Neutralise[1] whoever you want, set off as many alarms as you like.
Covert - Neutralise whoever you want, don't set off any alarms.
Nonviolent - Neutralise nobody, set off as many alarms as you like.

If you can suddenly neutralise targets in a way that doesn't breach non-violent mission rules, then they're just normal missions. Given nonviolent missions offer additional rewards compared to their normal counterparts, this makes no sense in a risk/reward profile.

The challenge of nonviolent/clean missions is to not disable any targets, lethally or not. Any change to this simply removes this category of mission, which is bad.

 

[Larhape]

Thank you all for feedbacks and sharing ideas.

Well, this PEGI stuff is a bit stupid, I think. If I am not mistaken, this is PEGI 16. If you are 16 and cannot make any difference between a video game and real life, then this is bad, because two years after, you are 18 and you can buy a gun legally in some countries. I understand now why many video-games are PEGI 18... But OK, Frontier chose PEGI 16 and now they need to comply with the rules even though they are stupid. I can live with that as long as it does not affect the gameplay. But here, it does.

I come back to this "not seen, no bounty". This could be sufficient to preserve the gameplay. I mean, OK, the overcharge kills the guard. Frontier cannot change this. But getting a bounty means that next time you are scanned, there is a chance that the guard detects your bounty and starts shooting. This is where the gameplay is affected. You cannot eliminate guards one by one in a stealth manner and progress in the mission undetected. Just because you received a bounty by killing someone unseen (although you did not want to kill him...).

The point raised by Jmanis with the 3 types of missions is valid. For me, the overcharge is killing guards, because when the bounty appears, it says (explicitly) I am a "murdered". This is clear. But even though it would not be the case, I can agree that, in the "nonviolent" missions you would not be allowed to kill/stun anybody. It makes sense. But for the moment, in the "covert" missions, if you kill/stun someone, even unseen, then you get a bounty and will get shot at the next scan, eventually. This is where the problem lies.

 

[Larhape]

The PEGI problem isn't with them being "stunned" or "dead", it's that electrocuting someone in real life is liable to kill them, so showing that behaviour in a game needs to be at the higher PEGI rating. It's repeatable behaviour. They don't want little Johnny sticking an electric heater in his brother's bath water, and claiming it's okay as it just "stuns" people in a game.

Well, if this is the "good" explanation for the PEGI stuff, so maybe a solution would be that when overcharging, you need to stay below 80% of maximum charge (when the overcharge bar fills up) to stun someone. Going above 80% would kill. And below 20% or 50%, it will not work at all, making the guard dizzy for a few seconds and then attacking you. Maybe the bar should fill up a little bit slower though...

 

[St0rmFury]

Another tip, if you brandish your weapon before a guard scans you, he will aim his gun at you and warn you to put away your gun instead, thus cancelling the scan.

But you only get to use this "get out of jail" card once, the next time you bring out your gun they won't warn you again and start blasting.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I really enjoy those missions and they require actual skill to complete, especially the non-lethal ones.

I do wish there was an option for non-lethal takedowns, but i just pretend using the zapper of overload is non-lethal.

Getting a bounty when not spotted annoys me and i presume its a bug as it doesn't always trigger.

Regarding being spotted, there is the red circle on your scanner. If they are within range they can see you (if facing you) and can hear you (if not being stealthy) and can scan you.

 

[Larhape]

Regarding being spotted, there is the red circle on your scanner. If they are within range they can see you (if facing you) and can hear you (if not being stealthy) and can scan you.

Good to know. Does it work also for spotting deda/stunned body. I mean : does a body needs to be in the same range than the red circle from a guard for him to see it ?

 

[Jmanis]

I come back to this "not seen, no bounty". This could be sufficient to preserve the gameplay. I mean, OK, the overcharge kills the guard. Frontier cannot change this. But getting a bounty means that next time you are scanned, there is a chance that the guard detects your bounty and starts shooting. This is where the gameplay is affected. You cannot eliminate guards one by one in a stealth manner and progress in the mission undetected. Just because you received a bounty by killing someone unseen (although you did not want to kill him...).

The point raised by Jmanis with the 3 types of missions is valid. For me, the overcharge is killing guards, because when the bounty appears, it says (explicitly) I am a "murdered". This is clear. But even though it would not be the case, I can agree that, in the "nonviolent" missions you would not be allowed to kill/stun anybody. It makes sense. But for the moment, in the "covert" missions, if you kill/stun someone, even unseen, then you get a bounty and will get shot at the next scan, eventually. This is where the problem lies.

WRT bounties, i can acknowledge the problem, but I'm somewhat indifferent to it.

I spend so much time in settlements now where I'm either wanted, carrying ebreaches, other illicit material or a security code (which i could dump, but it's usually one problem of many) that my default behaviour is to avoid scans, which isn't a huge imposition.

Cue my usual spiel about the impact of bounties and being wanted really bring a non- issue for those experienced with crime, and a significant imposition for those who aren't.

To simply remove bounties on crimes because they went unseen feels like it opens a lot of loopholes, despite the nonsensical nature of it. Maybe if you need to disable security systems in order to not receive a bounty... but this issue is not unique to Odyssey, with bounties being issued for crimes against ships in the middle of deep space.

Like i said though, i acknowledge the cognitive dissonance caused, but i don't think it's a huge impact on these missions.

 

[Jmanis]

Regarding being spotted, there is the red circle on your scanner. If they are within range they can see you (if facing you) and can hear you (if not being stealthy) and can scan you.

Also worth noting that when you sight a person directly for long enough, they become a permanent dot on scanners, though when out of sight direction can't be determined. Makes scoping out all pers in a compound through the glass cielings very useful.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Good to know. Does it work also for spotting deda/stunned body. I mean : does a body needs to be in the same range than the red circle from a guard for him to see it ?

Yes, i think bodies obey the same rules.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Also worth noting that when you sight a person directly for long enough, they become a permanent dot on scanners, though when out of sight direction can't be determined. Makes scoping out all pers in a compound through the glass cielings very useful.

I think you get the same effect from terminals by tagging everyone on the staff list.

 

[St0rmFury]

I think you get the same effect from terminals by tagging everyone on the staff list.

Wuuuttt, no way. That's a serious security flaw lol!

 

[Jmanis]

I think you get the same effect from terminals by tagging everyone on the staff list.

huh.... I guess that would do it too!