This is how enjoyable and successful MMOs do it, with regions that have difficulty levels or security ratings.
Elite just pummels you with generic and homogeneous crud based on your own combat rank.
OK the time has come to retire this
- Thread starter Kingston@#
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This is how enjoyable and successful MMOs do it, with regions that have difficulty levels or security ratings.
Elite just pummels you with generic and homogeneous crud based on your own combat rank.
That is how 90% of the games do it, FYI
OP I agree, the NPCs need a face lift. I don't care if they make it so they can tell that I'm using engineered mods and then up the difficulty and aggressiveness and defensive dynamically. Right now I don't even need SCBs or to dodge when taking on a 4 wing. I barely even need to aim!! Just hit chaff button a few times, and the competition just flies in front of my guns long enough to die. There is no skill involved at all.
So you want it to be like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where every time you upgrade (level up) all NPCs do so, too? Well at least that is a honest skinner box, it doesn't even pretend to be anything but you running in circles just to maintain the status quo.
Also, does that mean you are in favour of the current situation where random pirates spawn automatically of similar combat rank and ship size than you? Because I find that a very boring and bluntly gamey approach.
Edit: Also, I am sure you will get you enemies that are balanced for completely grade 5 modded ships when the Thargoids/whoever attack.
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Here's the thing, FDev are right in trying to please the masses. It's just good business. Whereas making their game ever more niche for the 'hardcore' (whatever that really means) and driving away the more casual, and new, players is clearly bad for business. And frontier are in the business of making money, so it's harsh to blame them.
A suggestion that I and others have made before is a difficulty slider to accommodate all types of player. This however usually falls foul of the same 'hardcore' people who get upset when everyone else isn't forced to play in the exact same manner as they choose.
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How do you balance NPC combat in a game. I'm not going to answer this but I think I understand some of the problems FD face.
Please remember that nothing here is fact, only my personal opinion and ramblings.
One way is of course what Frontier are already doing, using a skill indicator (combat rank), but arguably the number of variables are huge.
One way of taking this further behind the scenes is by giving every attribute that influences combat a value and then adding that up to a combat value that is used to select a suitable opponent. This could take your ship and configuration into account, but I imagine that it would get messy an complicated real quick in ED given the number of possible ship variations and modifications.
The problem FD has as I see it is:
A player who is Elite in combat can fly different ships, take on different roles and do different things in game.
One minute he is a bounty hunter, the next he is a trader in a trading ship and next he is exploring without weapons or even shields. After that he is doing missions in a multi role build. Should the game take all this into account and dynamically adjust the NPC combat AI to all the possible situations. Is that even possible?
In game design you create game loops and ideally an in game action must have a counter action so that an outcome is not given.
Putting a player in a situation where death is certain is bad game design.
The level of complexity this brings will ultimately mean that there will be situations where a very skilled player with the best equipment will find the game less challenging, and this is especially true for a sandbox game where all players, regardless of skill, share the same playing field.
There are elements in game to cater for this, LOWREZ, HIGHREZ, HAZREZ is one, low and high intensity CZ's is another. This might not be ideal, but I personally can't see how they can cater for every situation and every variation.
Personally my current issue is that there are still situations where the outcome is given. This is mainly related to missions and NPC wings, mass lock and aggregation of heat weapons from multiple ships where I have found escape impossible and death certain even in a well fitted multi role ship (I have mentioned this earlier in this thread). These are mostly edge cases, but none the less frustrating. How to solve this to everyone's satisfaction, I don't know.
Please remember that nothing here is fact, only my personal opinion and ramblings.
One way is of course what Frontier are already doing, using a skill indicator (combat rank), but arguably the number of variables are huge.
One way of taking this further behind the scenes is by giving every attribute that influences combat a value and then adding that up to a combat value that is used to select a suitable opponent. This could take your ship and configuration into account, but I imagine that it would get messy an complicated real quick in ED given the number of possible ship variations and modifications.
The problem FD has as I see it is:
A player who is Elite in combat can fly different ships, take on different roles and do different things in game.
One minute he is a bounty hunter, the next he is a trader in a trading ship and next he is exploring without weapons or even shields. After that he is doing missions in a multi role build. Should the game take all this into account and dynamically adjust the NPC combat AI to all the possible situations. Is that even possible?
In game design you create game loops and ideally an in game action must have a counter action so that an outcome is not given.
Putting a player in a situation where death is certain is bad game design.
The level of complexity this brings will ultimately mean that there will be situations where a very skilled player with the best equipment will find the game less challenging, and this is especially true for a sandbox game where all players, regardless of skill, share the same playing field.
There are elements in game to cater for this, LOWREZ, HIGHREZ, HAZREZ is one, low and high intensity CZ's is another. This might not be ideal, but I personally can't see how they can cater for every situation and every variation.
Personally my current issue is that there are still situations where the outcome is given. This is mainly related to missions and NPC wings, mass lock and aggregation of heat weapons from multiple ships where I have found escape impossible and death certain even in a well fitted multi role ship (I have mentioned this earlier in this thread). These are mostly edge cases, but none the less frustrating. How to solve this to everyone's satisfaction, I don't know.
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Sorry don't get the call for the need to change the difficulty, if you like the slow pace stick to the high Sercurity systems, the law show up really quickly and as long as you have decent shields you can usually hold out long enough. I think the calls for difficulties are from traders wanting to max out their cargo capacity and save that big slot for cargo instead of shields and decent combat tactics. Im all for relaxing after work... But shouldn't you head to the exploration and mining side of the game, or be sociable and fly in a wing. The Hutton Truckers are a good bunch for trading.
Bottom line is the game is ok at its current difficulty, I fly an eagle after resetting and I should hesitate to engage an Elite Anaconda, and if I am caught out I dump the cargo and run. FD can't afford to lower it anymore, their core audience is moving to the younger player group and their the paying public after all.
If you require wing protection at a CG though let me know and I'll wing up. Could use the credits and would be fun
Fly Dangerous, Fly open Cmdr o7
Cmdr Valleys
But you have no issues switching Combat Zones until you land in one that is easy, because your allies outnumber the opponents?
Or waiting to pick sides until things have cleared?
Or specifically selling any cargo before going into a Res/NavBeacon? (not that I particularly agree with that approach, but with Engineers and Commodities, flying around with some cargo is not just "a useless thing to attract pirates" - it's the faster way to get anything Engineer related done - of course balanced with some inconvenience).
In all other scenarios (fighting against worse odds), that UberTank is just enough to keep you alive (a FAS hulltank doesn't really cut it nowadays - I'll wait for ship transfer and then get some mods on the thing to see if I can restore some of it's former glory) and you'll have to admit defeat as soon as you run out of SCBs.
Plus the OP is flying a Python. That's one of the most boring ships in the game in my opinion - the red headed love child of an ASP with a T-9 (your mileage will vary).
It has the lacklustre manouverability of the large ships without their superior firepower and lacks the speed and agility that make many of the smaller combat vessels attractive for combat.
It's a bit like driving an armored ice cream truck trough suburbia.
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I totally disagree with this statement. turning ability depends on your skill at manoeuvres.
I can turn quite quickly, in my opinion. though its hard to judge. I would need to see myself from another perspective.
carry cargo everywhere except combat zones. AFM.s instead of cargo racks. top speed of 400ms.
I agree its a slower turn than small fighters have. but they don't have the punch to get through my shields. before I'm on them. ships between fighters and python turn about half a second quicker than me. they also haven't got the punch to get through my shields. in a CZ, NB target only. all other battles I come across fire at will,. I might just use forward fire only. learn a new skill!
my ship impresses me with what it can dish out and take. my thinking the better my ship the better my opponent should be. I have come close to biting the bullet. but that's the problem its out there, but I very rarely come across a AI that's got what I call a challenge!
example of tough opponents. I dropped into normal space 1 ann 3 eag 2 py. a couple of pol as well. I targeted one of the eag , wanted, took him out the other ships each targeted a different module and destroyed them, just about managed to escape. no power apart from charge, dis was out afm units dead, so I couldn't repair. this is what I call AI with smarts. I want that kind of stuff coming from them!
I have already said. I have more cr than sence. I don't care if my ship is lost
though I'm no going to die if I can help it.
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Here's the actual values:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...aw-for-Every-Ship-in-Game-Official-FDev-Stats
You can manouver faster by combining pitch, yaw, roll, thrusters, but a more manouverable ship is usually a more manouverable ship.
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thnx will check it out
Well at least until 2.2 is released. making weaker, brainless, NPC's has killed the game for me. I don't attack other Cmdr's. so no fun there. maybe they will fix the broken AI. maybe not. I don't need to grind no more seeing I have more cr than sense.
how to kill a great game. take on board what the winging masses want and ignore those who like it hard!
until next time
I guess that's a joke, and just meant to wind up a fight. I hope it is anyway because anybody that makes a serious post like that must be pretty dumb. Firstly, it's a whinging post, so OP has joined the whinging masses, unless he actually means "winging" as per his post, in which case everyone is part of the winging masses because we all fly ships.
Secondly, AI difficulty/easiness is relative. How hard you find it depends on what ship you fly and how good you are at flying it. If a commander was so good that he considers all AI too easy, he should jump in a Sidewinder, buy two tons of gold and then fly to the nearest HazRES. We look forward to seeing the video evidence of how he uses his supreme skills to stay there for more than 5 minutes.
When OP has recorded said videos, please come back and provide links to them so that we can have a laugh, I mean see your supreme skills in action.
op complains about "whingers" in a thread he created......heads up, that's called whinging.
Bottom line is this, you can do things to make the game harder if you find it easy, there is NOTHING people can do to make the game easier if they find it hard.
I play a lot of racing games and because I want a challenge I don't use TC or ABS (even if the real cars). What I don't do is demand the games are made harder for everyone just because "I" play a certain way.
Bottom line is this, you can do things to make the game harder if you find it easy, there is NOTHING people can do to make the game easier if they find it hard.
I play a lot of racing games and because I want a challenge I don't use TC or ABS (even if the real cars). What I don't do is demand the games are made harder for everyone just because "I" play a certain way.
If I'm not mistaken this is how it was handled for a while (right before I went on a break). Since they couldn't very well offer an elite-tier reward and then send shield-less sidewinders to stop you, It meant that most missions were gated behind a status requirement. Deliver 100 units of X... Oh, wait. Nope. You need to be elite to accept this single jump mission to deliver wine coolers to an outpost.
It was lousy.
So now it's decoupled from the commander and the status requirement is a suggestion. It means you can accept easy missions or hard missions based on your own judgement of what you can handle, and the rewards will be in line with the risk.
Now that isn't to say that missions aren't often too easy, even elite missions, but this system works far far better than what they had before. And the proof? I've been flying missions every evening for almost 2 weeks now and I'm actually enjoying myself! That from a guy that burned out twice already since Beta 2 when I came onboard.
At some point 100% of humanity believed that earth is flat.