The AX nerf problem is that there is no obvious reason why, please explain...

[Mal604]

Were people this salty when the original dumbfires got nerfbatted to death back in 2015? I remember PvP Eagles butchering the strongest ships with just a couple of volleys. Then the nerf came.

Personally, I think Ax missiles were fine, and all that was needed possibly would have been AI improvement against reverski (done), and some buff to resistances on the hearts. To solve difficulty problem, having more Interceptors in an instance coordinating fire would have been a better way to go.

But given original dumbfire experience, and people posting how easy it is to kill our flower friends in Belugas and Adders (nevermind that those Belugas and Adders had more hull than some Cutters), the response was rather predictable. FDev doesn't like dumbfire meta for some reason, Multi-Cannons seem to be preferred.

 

[tagos]

When they were nerfed no one was pretending it was because verything had ‘adapted’ to them. Neither had thousands of players spent a week grinding for them.

 

[Razorback]

if you're going to make a giant community time sink to unlock weapons, then nerf said weapons within a couple days, what makes you think they'll want to chase that ball a second time? Or a third? Frankly, I'd be surprised if any further weapon research programs ever move past phase 3 after this.

 

[Tengarnos]

I made a video about this today.

https://youtu.be/6EVWuqz1MBI

oh you maybe I really should drive by your channel sometimes. YT already said you might be interesting for me.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

I made a video about this today.

Agreed. Galnet is a total failure as a gameplay and plot-critical delivery method. There have been countless other criticisms of this and suggestions for how to provide players with updates to Elite's story progression but they always fall on deaf ears.

At the very least, Galnet would work better if it wasn't full of irrelevant garbage.

 

[Mal604]

I think this has to do more with CG design than missile nerf. CG's shouldn't be a grind, and if trading commodity CG is a must have, then it should have three independent sub-goals.

1 - Trade (commodity)
2 - Pew pew
3 - Specialized stuff (rare goods/explo data/alien exotic difficult to get stuff).

If those are independent, everybody gets to do what they like rather than being stuck trucking explosives.

 

[Alec Turner]

I respect you greatly Alec, you are a forum legend, but with respect, I hope you aren't serious in any kind of assertion that this was 'well done'. It just wasn't. To let such glaringly poor decision making go unchallenged is to invite it in future.

I'm clearly missing something ... I'll get my coat and leave you fella's to it.

 

[metascrawl]

The problem is willing suspension of disbelief. We all know it's a game and not a real universe, but in order to have some investment in what's going on, we put that aside to some extent. In all fiction, the author, or filmmaker, or game developer is supposed to help us do that as much as they can, while we meet them halfway. In this case, FDev have not held up their end of the bargain.

By all means, make the Thargoids resistant to the weapons if that is what the story requires. But at least allow us to believe, on some level, that that is what has happened. Willing suspension of disbelief is almost impossible under these circumstances, because the mechanics of what has been done have been laid so bare. It's simply too much to ask that we all pretend the weapons haven't just had their values changed while the enemy remains the same. It means we have to do all the work in terms of making the universe real in our own minds, while they are doing none. With the best will in the world, it just doesn't fly.

 

[Jukelo]

The problem is willing suspension of disbelief. We all know it's a game and not a real universe, but in order to have some investment in what's going on, we put that aside to some extent. In all fiction, the author, or filmmaker, or game developer is supposed to help us do that as much as they can, while we meet them halfway. In this case, FDev have not held up their end of the bargain.

By all means, make the Thargoids resistant to the weapons if that is what the story requires. But at least allow us to believe, on some level, that that is what has happened. Willing suspension of disbelief is almost impossible under these circumstances, because the mechanics of what has been done have been laid so bare. It's simply too much to ask that we all pretend the weapons haven't just had their values changed while the enemy remains the same. It means we have to do all the work in terms of making the universe real in our own minds, while they are doing none. With the best will in the world, it just doesn't fly.

I'm not big into aliens in science fiction, so the whole Thargoids thing doesn't affect me much, but that is a very good post that sadly applies to more than just this aspect of the game.

 

[Rakkii01]

The question I would like to have an answer, but probably won't get, is:
If we wouldn't have killed that many thargoids ships, or none at all, would the missiles be still just as effective as before?

I fought some yesterday without knowing about the nerf and got the impression they adapted. So, that worked out I'd say.

 

[Aashenfox]

I'm clearly missing something ... I'll get my coat and leave you fella's to it.

I'd rather see if I can get you on board, to be honest, but if not, I'm cool with that...

Here's my issue in a nutshell...

I don't think the thargoids were 'too easy' to solo. I think that perhaps they weren't quite difficult enough for a coordinated group of 5 to 6 players, and I don't think the fact that 20 players could instagib one was such a a serious problem either (and if deemed so, there could have been a much more simple way to deal with it, such as setting a variable that the hearts had to be individually killed to render the Thargoid mortal, something that should probably have been in the encounter to begin with). In any case, if we accept that the encounter needed making more difficult, there would have been many, many options to accomplish that, that didn't involve making the missiles completely useless (they are completely useless, a coordinated group of 6 pilots cannot carry enough missiles to destroy a thargoid now). Add that to the fact that it's supposed that the Thargoids adapted. Wouldn't that require a change to the thargoids rather than a change to the missiles? This is just a bad decision compounded by a poor excuse. Let;s put all that aside and say 'the thargoids weren't meant to be getting killed at all at this point', because if FD really believe that the AX missiles are working as intended, then this is the case, because right now they are unkillable. In that case, how was it not discovered during QA of the AX missiles that they enabled a small coordinated group to down one easily and a godlike player to solo one, and if that was the case, why wasn't something said when it first happened, so at least those of us (me and many others) who were looking forward to the encounter could expect a nerf and understand why they didn't want us having that kind of fun.

Add to the fact that the great combat pilots were having the most fun ever in the game, and that fun has just been crapped on, and we don't know the actual WHY. That's why I made this thread.

Can you see some of my point at least? It's a total debacle. I don't disagree with the fundamental, make thargoids harder, I disagree witht he awful implementation and awful community handling in that respect. I came back from a holiday anticipating logging in and having a REAL fight for the first time in ages. I was BITTERLY disappointed to find I'd missed the boat, without so much as a reasonable reason.

Now I just want to know the reason why this happened. What exactly it was that made FD say that this is SO far from their plans that they have to temporarily destroy the encounter and everyone's fun, while they decide what else to do.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Now I just want to know the reason why this happened. What exactly it was that made FD say that this is SO far from their plans that they have to temporarily destroy the encounter and everyone's fun, while they decide what else to do.

This is filled with assumption.

FD have stated that the changes are working as intended and there is in game info confirming this.

Whilst I'm sure that FD appreciate you giving them the chance to explain themselves, don't be upset if you don't get an answer.

 

[NecoMachina]

Thargoid ships are organic, therefore it isn't incongruous to suggest that they would adapt to weapons used in the same way a virus adapts to drugs or how bacteria develops increased resistance to antibiotics.

Probably the best analogy is the way cockroaches have become immune to many types of insecticides, therefore it is not unreasonable to give Frontier the benefit of the doubt here because we don't have a comprehensive breakdown of the constituent reasons that these new weapons are effective. They may well have a biochemical component.

Disclaimer: I'm playing Devil's Advocate...as my previous post alluded, this is not my own horrific opinion!

I think maybe you missed the point there. The adjustment was made to the weapon itself. So not only is the weapon less effective against Thargoids, it's also less effective against human ships.

If they had made the adjustment to the thargoid ships directly, and not adjusted the weapons, then it would have had the effect they wanted. The Thargoids would have "adapted", and the missles effect on human ships would have remained unchanged.

The way they did this, they basically made the AX missles completely useless against EVERYTHING. Do you see now why some people have an issue with the exact way they implemented this nerf? We're not saying the Thargoids couldn't/shouldn't have adapted to be tougher. We're saying that the change should have been to the Thargoid ships themselves, not to the values on the missle.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Agreed. Galnet is a total failure as a gameplay and plot-critical delivery method. There have been countless other criticisms of this and suggestions for how to provide players with updates to Elite's story progression but they always fall on deaf ears.

At the very least, Galnet would work better if it wasn't full of irrelevant garbage.

Interestingly enough, what you suggest GalNet to be? It is a news source, I like interface, music. Other than that it is just news delivery service. What else do you expect from it?

Fact people ignore it is a problem not really GalNet can solve. It can be improved, sure but calling it a 'total failure' is a bit rich in my opinion.

 

[Aashenfox]

This is filled with assumption.

FD have stated that the changes are working as intended and there is in game info confirming this.

Whilst I'm sure that FD appreciate you giving them the chance to explain themselves, don't be upset if you don't get an answer.

Come on man, I'm not being salty for the sake of it, there's no need to treat me like that. I said I didn't expect an answer in the very first line of the OP. I have for the first time had my corn flakes well and truly peed on (I'm usually very understanding and patient with developers, I know what a hard job it is), and I just want to know what it was about the encounter that was so unacceptable, cos I can't fathom it from the actual corrective action, don't be obtuse, anyone who plays the game can see what I'm saying here. Let me ask you...

Do you think it's appropriate that the Tahrgoids are unkillable until a weapon is developed, then suddenly they are a properly hard encounter, rewarding to kill, then FD makes them unkillable again? If that makes sense to you, please help me make sense of it. I just want to know what problem that solves, it's not hard to understand. Thanks.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Do you think it's appropriate that the Tahrgoids are unkillable until a weapon is developed, then suddenly they are a properly hard encounter, rewarding to kill, then FD makes them unkillable again? If that makes sense to you, please help me make sense of it. I just want to know what problem that solves, it's not hard to understand. Thanks.

If you can accept face value what FD says, in-game explanation is Thargoids adapts to this kind of damage. Changelog entry aside, this is par with their pitch for Thargoids story line, even trailer hints at that (regeneration and adaptation to attacks).

I think major point here is that I am 100% sure rockets will be usable again - but most likely not alone. You will need another tools to attack Thargoids. But rockets will still play considerable role for damaging them.

Maybe timing was off (needed to give 2 weeks for commanders to play around), or Changelog entry was too much on nose, but overall intention checks out.

 

[Aashenfox]

If you can accept face value what FD says, in-game explanation is Thargoids adapts to this kind of damage. Changelog entry aside, this is par with their pitch for Thargoids story line, even trailer hints at that (regeneration and adaptation to attacks).

I think major point here is that I am 100% sure rockets will be usable again - but most likely not alone. You will need another tools to attack Thargoids. But rockets will still play considerable role for damaging them.

Maybe timing was off (needed to give 2 weeks for commanders to play around), or Changelog entry was too much on nose, but overall intention checks out.

You and I both know this adaptation thing is just an excuse for the nerf. I don't accept that explanation. If a dev comes and says "we always planned for the CG weapons to be 'adapted to' within a few days" I still won't believe it, because that would be such an incredibly stupid piece of game design that no dev team worth it's salt would even consider, at least not without making it delivered in an exciting way, rather than confusing everyone by saying one stat would be altered to fix an issue and another stat ended up getting changed and suddenly nobody is having any fun anymore (oh, I can SCAN them, why didn't you say!? That's so EXCITING!)

 

[Alec Turner]

I'd rather see if I can get you on board, to be honest, but if not, I'm cool with that...

Here's my issue in a nutshell...

I don't think the thargoids were 'too easy' to solo. I think that perhaps they weren't quite difficult enough for a coordinated group of 5 to 6 players, and I don't think the fact that 20 players could instagib one was such a a serious problem either (and if deemed so, there could have been a much more simple way to deal with it, such as setting a variable that the hearts had to be individually killed to render the Thargoid mortal, something that should probably have been in the encounter to begin with). In any case, if we accept that the encounter needed making more difficult, there would have been many, many options to accomplish that, that didn't involve making the missiles completely useless (they are completely useless, a coordinated group of 6 pilots cannot carry enough missiles to destroy a thargoid now). Add that to the fact that it's supposed that the Thargoids adapted. Wouldn't that require a change to the thargoids rather than a change to the missiles? This is just a bad decision compounded by a poor excuse. Let;s put all that aside and say 'the thargoids weren't meant to be getting killed at all at this point', because if FD really believe that the AX missiles are working as intended, then this is the case, because right now they are unkillable. In that case, how was it not discovered during QA of the AX missiles that they enabled a small coordinated group to down one easily and a godlike player to solo one, and if that was the case, why wasn't something said, so at least those of us (me and many others) who were looking forward to the encounter could know and understand why they didn't want me having that kind of fun.

Add to the fact that the great combat pilots were having the most fun ever in the game, and that fun has just been crapped on, and we don't know the actual WHY. That's why I made this thread.

Can you see some of my point at least? It's a total debacle. I don't disagree with the fundamental, make thargoids harder, I disagree witht he awful implementation and awful community handling in that respect. I came back from a holiday anticipating logging in and having a REAL fight for the first time in ages. I was BITTERLY disappointed to find I'd missed the boat, without so much as a reasonable reason.

Now I just want to know the reason why this happened. What exactly it was that made FD say that this is SO far from their plans that they have to temporarily destroy the encounter and everyone's fun, while they decide what else to do.

Yeah OK (I've also been doing some more background reading on this so I'm a bit better informed now). Personally I really don't have too much of an issue with the fact that the nerf was actually to the missiles while the Galnet/spin was that it was the Thargoids who were adapting. For whatever reason (more on that in a mo), FD decided that missiles vs. Thargoids needed re-balancing. I'm willing to believe that there were technical problems (code is complicated in big projects like this) with nerfing the Thargoids themselves (perhaps their stat's are carefully balanced against against a whole load of other things that can't be changed without huge ramifications, our ships for example) so the obvious thing was to nerf the missiles.

"But hey, you can't easily spin a weapons nerf, let's go with the idea that the Thargoids are adapting - cool! Many people will see through it of course but we're cheeky chappies who dunk biscuits and drink beer with our community and everyone will know it's all a bit tongue in cheek and laugh about it ... right?".

OK - perhaps they misjudged that a tad (some of us still liked it tho). As to the reason for the nerf (and more importantly the magnitude ... 1/50th of what they used to be!?! is that true or hyperbole/speculation?), yeah that's kind of a mystery. My hope (and this is where that word "communication" crops again - sheesh, just post in here FD and calm these people down) is that it was meant to be a slight re-balance (maybe 1/2 rather than 1/50th ... are you SURE it's 1/50th?!?). They've made a teensy balls up with a hurried patch and it will be corrected soon. I do get your disappointment tho - although I haven't been fighting the 'goids myself the joy from the PVE crowd after the initial release of the AX weapons was palpable and crushing that joy so quickly and effectively does seem like a real shame.

Phew ... it's warm in here with my coat on, maybe I'll take it off again.

o7

 

[Aashenfox]

Yeah OK (I've also been doing some more background reading on this so I'm a bit better informed now). Personally I really don't have too much of an issue with the fact that the nerf was actually to the missiles while the Galnet/spin was that it was the Thargoids who were adapting. For whatever reason (more on that in a mo), FD decided that missiles vs. Thargoids needed re-balancing. I'm willing to believe that there were technical problems (code is complicated in big projects like this) with nerfing the Thargoids themselves (perhaps their stat's are carefully balanced against against a whole load of other things that can't be changed without huge ramifications, our ships for example) so the obvious thing was to nerf the missiles. "But hey, you can't easily spin a weapons nerf, let's go with the idea that the Thargoids are adapting - cool! Many people will see through it of course but we're cheeky chappies who dunk biscuits and drink beer with our community and everyone will know it's all a bit tongue in cheek and laugh about it ... right?". OK - perhaps they misjudged that a tad (some of us still liked it tho). As to the reason for the nerf (and more importantly the magnitude ... 1/50th of what they used to be!?! is that true or hyperbole/speculation?), yeah that's kind of a mystery. My hope (and this is where that word "communication" crops again - sheesh, just post in here FD and calm these people down) is that it was meant to be a slight re-balance (maybe 1/2 rather than 1/50th ... are you SURE it's 1/50th?!?). They've made a teensy balls up with a hurried patch and it will be corrected soon. I do get your disappointment tho - although I haven't been fighting the 'goids myself the joy from the PVE crowd after the initial release of the AX weapons was palpable and crushing that joy so quickly and effectively does seem like a real shame.

Phew ... it's warm in here with my coat on, maybe I'll take it off again.

o7

I really appreciate you looking into it before replying, thanks for your thoughts Alec. P.S. Yes, the multiplicative effect of the nerf is about 50 to 1. I too am hoping this was a balls up, however, despite this being public knowledge FD still seems to think 'WAI'

 

[gooddoc]

You're playing a game from a series which was always about pewpew-ing your way to your destination. I belive your scorn for combat focused players in a combat-focused series of game is mis-placed.

No, the reason that I bought ED was that it was packaged with the 'Do your own thing' tag, the current game isn't just a 'if it moves blast the smeg out of it' game!