the way the content has been set up for only the most hardcore previously
To be fair, that seems to be a misconception. The current state of Thargoid combat is how it's been for at least a good... year? Sol certainly didn't change any of the mechanics involved in the combat itself. Fighting them around a surface port, which has been present since the beginning of the war, is also significantly easier with the complete absence of those pesky Thargons. Add in improvements to the entry-level modules, the AX multicannon namely... and you've got more or less what we have now. The most meaningful change to conflict zone combat I can see in the last year and a half is the addition of the Glaive, which is really not that difficult of an opponent aside from the anti-Guardian field. On that note, I would also add it seems like Frontier ensured there were opportunities to participate in each type of station conflict this week, though I suspect that the ones around large orbitals weren't as popular...
Cyclops is also really not that difficult of an enemy, and don't require extremely specific setup or Guardian weaponry to kill easily. After some learning an average player can handle those fine even if they may still pose a challenge to them. But Thargoids have always been something on the higher end of the difficulty scale so there is only so much "adaptation" which can be made to the common factor (and I don't see why everybody should be capable of soloing a Medusa or Hydra which are the closest thing to a 'raid boss' that Elite has if you ignore the Titans, which themselves are very different to the approach and mechanics involved to taking one down in the assault phase).
... and as far as I'm concerned, the idea we will move to Thargoid home turf remains ridiculous in itself and also bears pointing out that this would de facto exclude station conflict zones from existing unless through some handwaving human outposts in the region were not instantly obliterated.
And all I'm asking for is for taking out the last Titan to involve more than just a week of killing Thargoids in systems around it which now happen to have
some important names attached to them (although Alpha Centauri, Sirius and Duamta are the only ones I can think of having meaning within the Elite universe itself, while Epsilon Eridani and Wolf 359 carry connotations to other sci-fi works) and then it's back to bombing it like it never really even posed a threat. Of course it's more than the
usual par for the course clearing out Col Sector numbers and letters #50 to render the Titan vulnerable (as Ian has pointed out a couple times), but so far this doesn't feel much like a last stand for it. More like it just covered the bare minimum to set itself up in its new location, however temporary it may be.
And I dare say that maybe such events equally have a right to give something more for the players who've been around longer than just to draw in new players (whether that is entirely or just into the AX gameplay) for a big explosion. Of course it's different for them too but unlike Shinrarta which came a little out of nowhere we knew Sol was for much longer, and then... it just gets hammered in a
week anyway despite
months of setup and hinting. I don't think it's too outrageous to feel that it's just a bit underwhelming. There was supposedly also a story plan to this, which has not had any in-game mentions or hints yet, and I doubt it could just be revealed in a week that it apparently (only) takes to whack the Thargoids.
It can of course always just throw out another harder set of attacks to follow up now that it's placed firmly in orbit and keep players occupied with it during the holidays. And what about the other superpower capitals?
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
