Original Reddit Post -
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/cxbnev/one_pve_dog_fight
Intro
Been playing a bit again, and thought I'd see if anybody else might find these appealing, or if I'm just a lazy-crazy-man.
I do have some small idea of what I'm doing, before someone tells me to learn to play (thanks!). I've played since release and have about 900 active hours, primarily blowing stuff up (and I suppose grinding engineers and modules).
I obviously love the game (in case that wasn't apparent by the hours played). I'm not trying to crucify it or FDev, but I genuinely think addressing the couple points below would really improve the combat aspect for players such as myself.
I do realize the likelihood of getting any of the below implemented are slim-to-none but my brain won't turn off without splurging it's current annoyances list. I've had these gripes for ages, I figure I'll share them around. Catharsis.
Summary
I hadn't realized how much I was being punished for playing the shooty game until I wrote this down. I'm sure there are a lot more things I can think of but this post is already longer than I anticipated, so I think I'll just leave it alone for now...
Improve Combat Experience
o7
Intro
Been playing a bit again, and thought I'd see if anybody else might find these appealing, or if I'm just a lazy-crazy-man.
I do have some small idea of what I'm doing, before someone tells me to learn to play (thanks!). I've played since release and have about 900 active hours, primarily blowing stuff up (and I suppose grinding engineers and modules).
I obviously love the game (in case that wasn't apparent by the hours played). I'm not trying to crucify it or FDev, but I genuinely think addressing the couple points below would really improve the combat aspect for players such as myself.
I do realize the likelihood of getting any of the below implemented are slim-to-none but my brain won't turn off without splurging it's current annoyances list. I've had these gripes for ages, I figure I'll share them around. Catharsis.
Summary
I hadn't realized how much I was being punished for playing the shooty game until I wrote this down. I'm sure there are a lot more things I can think of but this post is already longer than I anticipated, so I think I'll just leave it alone for now...
Improve Combat Experience
- Add a third trigger button so I can cut down on unnecessary firing groups. (Improve Combat Experience)
- I'd like to be able to map something like two small cascade railguns to trigger 3, for example. They're situational and I'd like to be able to seamlessly fire them when appropriate without having to cycle weapon groups.
- Add an option to, or by default, significantly reduce the repetition of the "Incorrect Mode" warning. (Improve Combat Experience)
- I purposefully map things like discovery scanner and fsd interdict to group 1->trigger 1. I know which mode I'm in. The incorrect mode spam is distracting, annoying and unnecessary.
- Integrate the Kill Warrant scan with automatic target scan if the module is present. (Improve Combat Experience)
- It's clunky to pre-scan, and it interrupts the flow of consecutive engagements.
- It's zero skill and nothing more than busy work. It adds nothing to the experience.
- It adds another entry to the trigger groups, predicating more groups and hence more needless busy work.
- It's current reward structure does not justify the multiple annoyances of using it. At all. I might be more willing to put up with the usage-resistance if it was rewarded adequately, but I still think the combat experience would be improved if this was integrated into the default scan... even if the reward was increased to an appropriate level.
- Add a helm toggle to have your SLF equipped ship auto-launch the next available fighter if the active fighter is destroyed (Improve Combat Experience)
- Fighter destroyed. Ah that's annoying! Stop shooting/evading/managing pips/everything so that you can glance down and relaunch that second fighter. It's more unnecessary busy-work that interrupts the flow of combat.
- Increase mission payouts.
- You can (and should be able to) mine 100 million credits (plus) an hour.
- I ran 21 assorted assassination missions last night (most elite ranked, about 7 wing missions), sourced from the Sol factions all at allied status, over two excursions. It took approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes. Mission payment equated to about 34 million (35.5 million when taking my single hired pilot fee into account). Bounty payment is about 3 million, but I have to turn that into an inter-stellar factors contact, which means it's more like 2.25 million, which calculates to around 1 million per hour in bounties.
- That's about 18 million credits per hour for a seasoned player in a near max engineered Federal Corvette accepting missions from a system with many factions and all factions at allied status. Not taking into account repair costs and skill investment, that's 18% of the (low) projected mining payout.
- I need to gather some numbers on HazRes / CZ payouts, but from my last foray a couple days ago I would guess it's nowhere near 18 million per hour.
- I'd be content if this was tripled (to around 50 million per hour). It's still half the rate of mining, but it's way more fun and I would pay a premium for that (whether you should pay to have your brand of fun is another question, but I could live with this happily).
- Increase bounty / kws payouts.
- I don't have numbers for these. I've been for a few dives recently though, and I don't think the pay per hour is anywhere near 18 million. never mind one hundred million (lol).
- I personally think an adjusted exponential increase in bounty linked to target rank would work just fine. Adjust it for the lower ranks so that their bounties are more or less at current levels. When you're blowing up elite anacondas / fed corvettes / etc. a bounty of 190K is relatively stupid.
- In an age when a new player can just hop into a small cheap ship and go core mining, I'm not convinced it's even necessary to try maintain the current bounty levels for low-ranked enemies. Mining the credits for a 'conda from absolute scratch is a matter of hours now. Who cares if low level bounties are going to give new pilots a bucket load of credits? For that matter, why shouldn't they?
- Reduce the ISF Bounty convenience charge from 25% to 10%.
- Seriously, 25% convenience charge so I don't have to fly all over the galaxy turning in my miserably small bounties? If bounties were 20x their current value, it may be worth the time and effort to manually hand them into stations for full value. There would then be a real choice between handing in 40 million creds worth of bounties, or saving the time and effort by paying over 10 million instead to ISF. As it stands taking 25% of the small bounties I have accrued doesn't phase me from a financial perspective, but it sure as hell grates me on principle.
- Halve or quarter NPC Crew cut when inactive.
- They're still getting money for nothing. Miners/Traders/Explorers/everybody else get absolutely no value out of NPC crew, thus they don't need to have one (or more for backup) to enjoy the added dynamics of Fighter Bays. Just another way combat focused pilots are punished.
- Grant NPC crew the same death immunity as players.
- Leveling an NPC pilot is a time intensive and costly exercise. It costs credits, and more importantly combat rank experience. One mistake or lapse in judgement and all the work is gone. It's unnecessarily harsh, especially since you can only level one up at a time (as far as I know) and having more than one is prohibitively expensive.
- Having more than one high level permanent NPC pilot is insanely heavy on your wallet. Two Elite NPC pilots = minimum 20% of all profits, 30% if leveled from expert.
- You never need more than one on an excursion. Make them immortal, as per the player, and have one slot for an NPC pilot on the player's roster. Nobody with sense is likely to keep more than one, ever, anyway.
- When an NPC crew member "dies", decrement their rank instead of jettisoning their corpse.
- I think a penalty is appropriate and does improve the experience. It increases risk and heightens game-play tension. Decrementing their rank by some number (maybe 1 at low levels, 2 at high levels) would still punish careless play without turning the time investment into NPC pilots into a total waste of time, and hence something to be avoided.
- NPC pilots should absolutely not decrease your gained combat experience.
- Why why why? Why are you trying everything in your power to dissuade players from hiring and leveling NPC pilots? Just why?
- They cost a massive amount of credits to maintain unless you hire and fire before claiming payments.
- They take a long time to level from scratch, especially if you're a high level combat pilot.
- They die permanently rendering all the time and effort spent a complete waste of time (and they will absolutely die at some point).
- They cost you HALF of your gained combat experience. I'm working through dangerous to elite. It takes long enough already as I don't do the wing-up-farm-corrupted-nav-beacon shenanigans. Thanks for doubling the time so I can have a fighter bay, that's absolutely g wonderful. Wait wut?
o7
