PVE kinda sucks atm

[DemiserofD]

I've been doing more PVE lately, and honestly, it's not very good. I've come to the inescapable conclusion that if you want to get bounties efficiently, the best way is to just get an AFK t10 and leave it in a res overnight.

The thing is, pirates just aren't difficult at all. Even the toughest pirates in a res die in like 20 seconds to a well-engineered ship, and since they spawn at a slow but consistent rate, there's very little advantage to actually being at your controls. Just sit there and wait for them to come to you; it's only slightly slower and takes zero effort.

Could we please have some new pve signal sources, perhaps, to make bounty hunting more fun? Here's a few ideas:

Pirate Refueling Pylon

A beacon that will fire refueling limpets at you if you scan it and pay a small fee. Pirates will jump in faster and faster the longer you stay there, until you get overwhelmed by a massive swarm of them.

Pirate Installation

A small installation surrounded by pirates, it's full of stolen loot you can steal back and sell legitimately.

Pirate Base

A full on asteroid base spawned in a ring, with minimal facilities and surrounded by pirates.

Anything, really, to make pve more interesting than at present. This is the time for pirates to resurge.

 

[g0oglyeyes]

More PVE variety would be welcome. Meanwhile, if you're looking for something to do...

The toughest pirates spawn as part of the BGS but they do not really have a commensurate reward of payout aside from the challenge, or if you are interested in influencing said system for whatever reason.

1. Search via galmap or Inara for systems under Lockdown or Pirate Attack
2. Points of Interest spawn as Pirate Activity Detected (usually threat 6 or 7)
These areas have groups of pirates in wings. Each ship is extremely beefy, comparable to the bloated HP you see in conflict zones.

Some other ways to turn up the heat:
1. Go to a Compromised Nav Beacon with valuable cargo and let them scan you
2. Distress Call threat 5 signal sources require you to not only kill pirates, but to take the heat off a squishy target and prevent them from being blown up. Expect to face waves that culminate in a pirate Conda
3. Stack massacre missions
4. Fly a ship that relies on more than just firepower
5. Defend a megaship
6. Attack an opposing Stronghold Carrier group (this one puts hair on your chest)
7. Participate in High Intensity Conflict Zones and route some capital ships

And of course, you can go to the Pleiades and fight what remains of the 'Goids.

I might be missing some but anyone else with suggestions please mention your favorite PVE activity.

 

[SteveWW57]

Having a handicap by not using the best, fully engineered ship would imo make PvE more challenging and interesting. If you just want to rack up kills use one ship build, for fun use another. I have heard that some CMDRs are masters in fighting using Sideys.

 

[Elyssaen]

I don’t understand how these suggestions really make PvE more interesting if you’re flying an AFK build.

That's not what he's saying – he's saying that because of a lack of high skill, high reward PVE (against pirates) that he perceives, he might as well abandon all interactivity and AFK it.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Pirate Swarm, where have I heard of that before?

Pirate Swarm is fun over in Star Citizen, would be here too. Not dissimilar to how AXCZs work.

They are in ED. As already mentioned, look for a system with the pirate attack state and go to the pirate activity signals. Instead of squishy everyday haz-res pirates, they have engineered ships.
The "defend the megaship" scenarios are pretty similar too, you have to fight off several waves of pirates to complete it. Or you can join the other side and try looting it while fighting off the system defences if you want stronger opponents.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Maybe the OP could try them out.

Probably. Or since OP is claiming "Even the toughest pirates in a res die in like 20 seconds to a well-engineered ship" they could just try using a smaller/less engineered ship. It's a bit silly to claim the game is too easy when you're using a monster ship against pirates with no engineering.

 

[Elyssaen]

If you’d bothered engaging with the rest of my post,

You sound upset – sorry to see that. I didn't have anything I wanted to say about the rest of your post.

Your suggestion is the OP wishes for PVE to be more interesting while he flies an AFK build. That would be absurd, and the OP didn't say this.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Lootable pirate installations just sounds like piracy but without wanting to be a criminal. The gameplay already exists, its just that players don't want to get their hands dirty (whether piracy is a worthwhile thing to do from a credit earnings point of view is another subject and purely down to FDev repeatedly nerfing it, presumably to kill players' interest).

A Haz RES is basic stuff for a reason. It's there so anyone can do it. Plus anyone who has built a pirate ship will tell you its a lot more squishy than a pure combat build. Wing assassination missions and yes, pirate USSs would be a better go to. Then there's political assassination missions if you go to the signal source and hopefully find a target that's a deadly Anaconda. Not saying any of those are perfect, but it does mean there are alternatives that are better than something which is there to cater to mid game players.

Although given that FDev removed powerplay hunter killer NPCs, rather than tweaking them, I'm not convinced that they believe optional challenging combat should be a thing.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The issue is that you could have all the good stuff right now if FD joined up several systems, reverted others and tweak a bit. For me 'engaging' pirates means unpredicatbilty, ferocity and consistency rather than simply having more places where they pop up for efficent harvesting.

For example: anarchies- why are they punching bags? They should properly scare players with actually tough vessels and very agressive wings.

Engineering: because PvE is kept at such a base level it can never really scale to levels that cause sweaty palms for those who seek it. Uncap NPCs and give them random engineering at high levels (or scale to each Elite level).

Increase station drop areas and link certain BGS states to create pirate hotspots. PvE wise this would replicate 1984 Elites zoning and provide a logical place for pirates to come out.

USS: long ago one of the first iterations was a giant wing of pirates led by a whizzy FdL. You had all sorts of ships and it felt like a proper gang- the problem was the weaker ships were really weak. New pirate USS' have pirates that can be picked off and not anger everyone at once.

 

[g0oglyeyes]

Although given that FDev removed powerplay hunter killer NPCs, rather than tweaking them, I'm not convinced that they believe optional challenging combat should be a thing.

I swear I saw an Adjuster in supercruise the other day, even though they serve no purpose anymore. I assume they will come after you if you defect, but why would anyone do that now? The funny part is I don't think they even had an interdiction module equipped. They only ever proved to be a tricky inconvenience by way of putting a bounty on you if Han Solo them (Adjusters are clean until they shoot you 1st, but I tend to get impatient).

In any case, there are plenty of Power Play related signals in relevant systems with a decent population, so those are good choices for some hunting as well. I think they get overlooked because they tend to be less efficient when it comes to merit farming, but I still jump into one every now and then for kicks.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Although given that FDev removed powerplay hunter killer NPCs, rather than tweaking them, I'm not convinced that they believe optional challenging combat should be a thing.

Correct. After some people previewing PP2 wet themselves being shot at, FD did the usual and pulled everything back to very low levels, rather than looking at the problem (silly spawn locations).

The other problem is there are very few, if not any human NPCs that really push our ships. Everything is super, super panda car and not (again) scaled.

I want to march into FD towers with two Wilko era jumbo flip-charts and a pack of thick markers to join up the dots. ED is so close to having it all.

 

[BDelacroix]

I think you are supposed to move up to combat zones after a certain amount of time if that is the path you wish to take. Leveling to 35 but only fighting in level 25 zones is, of course, going to be no challenge at all.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

I think you are supposed to move up to combat zones after a certain amount of time if that is the path you wish to take. Leveling to 35 but only fighting in level 25 zones is, of course, going to be no challenge at all.

Combat zone pay is pitiful though, you're lucky to get 200k for clearing the entire zone yet you can get 1m for popping a single pirate.

 

[BackToTheMud]

While more PvE content definitely should be added, I'm going to point out something I've pointed out many times before:

You set your own difficulty level in ED. If you fly around in a maxed out corvette, you're playing on Hello Kitty difficulty. I'm not judging that; it can be rather relaxing. But there are reasons why I spend most of my time in a Keelback, and prefere to bounty hunt in an Eagle MkII.

 

[Rubbernuke]

While more PvE content definitely should be added, I'm going to point out something I've pointed out many times before:

You set your own difficulty level in ED. If you fly around in a maxed out corvette, you're playing on Hello Kitty difficulty. I'm not judging that; it can be rather relaxing. But there are reasons why I spend most of my time in a Keelback, and prefere to bounty hunt in an Eagle MkII.

The thing is if you scale it right, even G5 MrShinyBallsCorvette will sweat. I once stacked several missions in an unknown system and when I visited the NAV (to download data) I had a pirate corvette, pirate anaconda, FAS, police, pirate Adder (trying to jimmy my cargo hatch) all drop in at the same time.

It was absolutely epic and what I'd expect for scaled gameplay- the problem is as it stands in ED this never happens. You have to deliveratley stack the deck and be stupidly lucky.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

The thing is if you scale it right, even G5 MrShinyBallsCorvette will sweat. I once stacked several missions in an unkown system and when I visited the NAV (to download data) I had a pirate corvette, pirate anaconda, FAS, police, pirate Adder (trying to jimmy my cargo hatch) all drop in at the same time.

It was absolutely epic and what I'd expect for scaled gameplay- the problem is as it stands in ED this never happens. You have to deliveratley stack the deck and be stupidly lucky.

Anyone who has had spec ops spawn on top of them in a medium or high CZ will tell you there absolutely are NPCs in the game that can make you concerned about how much damage you're taking. It's just a question of setting them at the right threat level.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Anyone who has had spec ops spawn on top of them in a medium or high CZ will tell you there absolutely are NPCs in the game that can make you concerned about how much damage you're taking. It's just a question of setting them at the right threat level.

True, depending on what ship you fly. In a beta I took out a specially modded Anaconda and lasted ages against ATR, and in my example the complication was that the Adder was going to make me fail a cargo mission I was running at the same time as the two pirate lords on top of the police and BHs (as I was wanted at the time).

So perhaps its about mixing what NPCs are trying to do just as much as high end NPCs.