Ok, new forums, let's try out if the Developers will read this section more and better.
In this thread I consider the game by a PvE only perspective, so I will only speak about NPCs, mission and/or special event/scenarios spawn ratios etc.
Premise
Elite Dangerous is a very vast, high peak learning curve game. We've already read that the first patch will bring some "welcome features" for the new players, but what about more expert players? After some time and when the player becomes accostumed to engineering, the only actual threats in the game are basically Thargoids and Wing Assassination Missions (when you decide to put yourself in a challenge) or ATR (which are basically cheating with their shield generator-killing lasers) and the random player encounter of course, any of these are threats you must specifically put yourself into, by looking for thargoids, accepting wing assasination missions, playing open only, doing criminal acts.
The result is that Elite becomes soon a not-so-dangerous game to play, and I think this is something that most people do not want, because from a game you usually look for a challenge at some point, and too much security makes it boring and repetitive very fast.
What to do then? The answer might be really easy: let's make regular NPCs an actual threat and not those roaming shooting targets they are right now, and let's do that using the System Security.
System Security as an in-game difficulty level
Right now we've got basically 4 Security levels: High, Medium, Low and Anarchy (well it's 5 if you want to consider uninhabited systems but we'll ignore those now) and they actually feel absolutely the same, the only difference between them is the time for Security and ATR response.
What I propose in here is to tweak the NPCs accordingly to the Security Level and possibly the rewards too, so to be justified for players to take risks with a Security level more dangerous to their playstyle, being this lawful or criminal. And: at this point of the game we can consider engineering as a galaxy-wide thing, something that the minor factions/local governments can easily afford, even if expensive, so engineered NPCs should be common.
Here is a proposal about the NPCs that should be spawned, with some variants considering the Controlling Faction economical and security states. Oh and to be clear: players should do "different things" from the NPCs, consider this when (and if) you're gonna contribute to this thread, this is something about the environment. Again: players are the exception.
High Security Systems
These systems are strictly controled by the law, they're decently frequent especially in the core systems, and we've got Powers that improve Security Levels too (Hudson, Aryssa Lavigny-Duval, Grom, Antal). These systems should be a easy difficulty - low/medium income for lawful players, high difficulty - high income for criminal players.
In these systems the law is not as present as they are in High Security ones: criminal cartels are bold but the controlling factions fight them hard and try to keep the order, even if they're not enough; here is where bounty hunters come in and basically act as some sort of vigilantes. Consider this as a medium difficulty for both lawful and criminal players.
Low Security Systems
In these systems the law is present only by name, imagine those as some kind of metropolitan suburb, where criminals are a terrible menace to your life, if you're not prepared you will soon find out that you've done a terrible mistake jumping in those systems. These systems should be high difficulty/high income for lawful players and low difficulty/low income for criminal players.
Anarchy Systems
Basically the same as Low Security, without any security or ATR at all and some more Bounty Hunters.
Rewards
Some of them are intuitive: for bounty hunters low security and anarchy systems would be the perfect hunting ground for high level criminals but far more hard to kill, and if you've got a Kill Warrant Scanner you could make even more money out of those targets, criminal players will find in High Security systems the fattiest cargo to be stolen etc, but it's clear that's not enough.
To really feel a difference we need a balance to missions and prices considering the different Security: lower security systems should be targets for the best cargo missions, have the best prices, because the factions have no other way to attract workers of any kind. Security must become a factor in both difficulty and profitability, but you will need a decent hauling ship, well defended and maybe ask for help from your friends to do the most difficult missions. Modules like countermeasures against missles, armour, bigger shield generators, mines or turreted weapons to cover your flight would be mandatory to survive, helping the balancement of the game and somehow "training" players for the occasional PvP encounter too, the game would gain in longevity and we'd have a far more complex environment to deal with.
Criminal missions should be far more remunerative when given towards High Security systems, because the job is difficult and there's a higher chance to fail, smuggling goods would be more difficult and you'd be interdicted most likely.
Variables
We've got some new cool states, like Boom, Investment, Outbreak, Pirate Attack, Famine etc. Factions already seem to spawn missions accordingly, but we need more variability in NPCs too, likewise:
Thanks and please contribute (and remember: PvE only!!!).
In this thread I consider the game by a PvE only perspective, so I will only speak about NPCs, mission and/or special event/scenarios spawn ratios etc.
Premise
Elite Dangerous is a very vast, high peak learning curve game. We've already read that the first patch will bring some "welcome features" for the new players, but what about more expert players? After some time and when the player becomes accostumed to engineering, the only actual threats in the game are basically Thargoids and Wing Assassination Missions (when you decide to put yourself in a challenge) or ATR (which are basically cheating with their shield generator-killing lasers) and the random player encounter of course, any of these are threats you must specifically put yourself into, by looking for thargoids, accepting wing assasination missions, playing open only, doing criminal acts.
The result is that Elite becomes soon a not-so-dangerous game to play, and I think this is something that most people do not want, because from a game you usually look for a challenge at some point, and too much security makes it boring and repetitive very fast.
What to do then? The answer might be really easy: let's make regular NPCs an actual threat and not those roaming shooting targets they are right now, and let's do that using the System Security.
System Security as an in-game difficulty level
Right now we've got basically 4 Security levels: High, Medium, Low and Anarchy (well it's 5 if you want to consider uninhabited systems but we'll ignore those now) and they actually feel absolutely the same, the only difference between them is the time for Security and ATR response.
What I propose in here is to tweak the NPCs accordingly to the Security Level and possibly the rewards too, so to be justified for players to take risks with a Security level more dangerous to their playstyle, being this lawful or criminal. And: at this point of the game we can consider engineering as a galaxy-wide thing, something that the minor factions/local governments can easily afford, even if expensive, so engineered NPCs should be common.
Here is a proposal about the NPCs that should be spawned, with some variants considering the Controlling Faction economical and security states. Oh and to be clear: players should do "different things" from the NPCs, consider this when (and if) you're gonna contribute to this thread, this is something about the environment. Again: players are the exception.
High Security Systems
These systems are strictly controled by the law, they're decently frequent especially in the core systems, and we've got Powers that improve Security Levels too (Hudson, Aryssa Lavigny-Duval, Grom, Antal). These systems should be a easy difficulty - low/medium income for lawful players, high difficulty - high income for criminal players.
- System Security: Medium and Large ships, decently engineered (somehow like the Spec-Ops in Medium/High Conflict Zones), highly aggressive towards wanted CMDRs, frequent controls for unlawful activities (like smuggling commodities to anarchy factions for missions, I'll talk about this later)
- ATR: Highly engineered, winged and with reverberating cascade torpedoes, please no more cheating ATR, there's already plenty of solutions in game to kill shields
- Bounty Hunters: very limited activity, the reason is that High Security systems shouldn't be the best hunting ground for them, because criminals are already dealt by the local Security, low engineered, basically absent
- Criminals: only Medium and Small ships, in general low level criminals, this is mostly to avoid criminal farming by players but it makes sense if you think about it, because crime factions have really an hard time in High Security Systems, their ships should be lowly engineered, some rare High Leveled - Highly Engineered ship.
- Civilians: great hauling ships moving high quantities of valuable commodities, no escort usually because of Security response of course and it's not worth it considering the cost, lowly engineered ships for them always because these systems are technically very safe
In these systems the law is not as present as they are in High Security ones: criminal cartels are bold but the controlling factions fight them hard and try to keep the order, even if they're not enough; here is where bounty hunters come in and basically act as some sort of vigilantes. Consider this as a medium difficulty for both lawful and criminal players.
- System Security: Small, Medium and some Large ships, mildly engineered, not so aggressive towards wanted CMDRs, especially if high-combat-ranked, unlawful activities are more frequent
- ATR: basically the same ships in High Security systems, but much more late to come for the rescue
- Bounty Hunters: medium/high level bounty hunters, with decently engineered ships, looking mostly for wanted CMDRs but randomly checking for other CMDRs too, using Kill Warrant Scanners, as said before they're basically acting as vigilantes
- Criminals: Small, Medium and some Large ships, mildly engineered, they attack haulers for cargo, mostly in wings, using hatch breaker limpets occasionally to steal some
- Civilians: lower but decent trading traffic, hauling ships are more engineered and usually escorted by some Medium and Small lowly engineered ships, the result is that these ships haul fewer commodities but usually more valuable items, they're far more difficult to take down, but it's usually worth it
Low Security Systems
In these systems the law is present only by name, imagine those as some kind of metropolitan suburb, where criminals are a terrible menace to your life, if you're not prepared you will soon find out that you've done a terrible mistake jumping in those systems. These systems should be high difficulty/high income for lawful players and low difficulty/low income for criminal players.
- System Security: basically a joke, Small/Medium lowly engineered ships, they barely try to do their jobs and are very late to come to CMDRs' help.
- ATR: no ATR, or at least very late to come
- Bounty Hunters: rare but High-Leveled and Highly-engineered ships, even in wings, the reason why is these systems being perfect to hunt and do a lot of money, even if really difficult
- Criminals: frequent, Medium/Large highly engineered ships, maybe even in wings
- Civilians: mostly Small/Medium haulers, decently engineered, with some rare High Leveled/Highly engineered hauling ship with a decent escort
Anarchy Systems
Basically the same as Low Security, without any security or ATR at all and some more Bounty Hunters.
Rewards
Some of them are intuitive: for bounty hunters low security and anarchy systems would be the perfect hunting ground for high level criminals but far more hard to kill, and if you've got a Kill Warrant Scanner you could make even more money out of those targets, criminal players will find in High Security systems the fattiest cargo to be stolen etc, but it's clear that's not enough.
To really feel a difference we need a balance to missions and prices considering the different Security: lower security systems should be targets for the best cargo missions, have the best prices, because the factions have no other way to attract workers of any kind. Security must become a factor in both difficulty and profitability, but you will need a decent hauling ship, well defended and maybe ask for help from your friends to do the most difficult missions. Modules like countermeasures against missles, armour, bigger shield generators, mines or turreted weapons to cover your flight would be mandatory to survive, helping the balancement of the game and somehow "training" players for the occasional PvP encounter too, the game would gain in longevity and we'd have a far more complex environment to deal with.
Criminal missions should be far more remunerative when given towards High Security systems, because the job is difficult and there's a higher chance to fail, smuggling goods would be more difficult and you'd be interdicted most likely.
Variables
We've got some new cool states, like Boom, Investment, Outbreak, Pirate Attack, Famine etc. Factions already seem to spawn missions accordingly, but we need more variability in NPCs too, likewise:
- Boom/Investment: more valuable haul but better engineered ships too, even to Security, better prices and missions
- Civil Unrest: fewer Security Ships, more Bounty Hunters
- Lockdown: a hell of a lot of Security Ships, fewer Civilians
- Outbreak: more haulers with medicines
- Pirate Attack: high grade Pirates hunting haulers
Thanks and please contribute (and remember: PvE only!!!).
