The difficulty level of this game

[FX2K]

<snipped for space>
It really needs to offer a challenge to Commanders of all abilities, experience and equipment levels.

I agree.

More specifically, I think the NPC's are currently too harmless and too stupid, but its not just that where a problem exists, IMO.

When you are in a sidewinder / hauler, it feels like this:
* Reasonable amount of action, interdictions and danger.
* Interdicting NPC's can be accessible.
* Challenging NPC's (especially the big boys) with the need to run, sometimes.
* Fair rewards versus potential losses / costs
* Simple missions but profitable compared to costs.
* Steady progression.

When you are in a python it feels like this:
* Low Action.. 2 interdictions since owning it
* Interdicting NPC's costs more than you can make
* Easy NPC's...far too easy, regardless of rank / ships.
* Low rewards compared with the potential losses / costs involved.
* Simple missions not worth taking due to costs.
* Very slow progression... or hitting a brick wall.

A python versus NPC's feels like you are indestructible.
A python versus another player Python is going to be very expensive, so will result in it not happening, being avoided or me at least.

I don't expect others to agree, it just feels like this to me. So much so that I will be going back down to a small ship and enjoying my "life savings" which instead of having a safety blanket for 2 insurance payouts, I will have 1000+ insurance payouts.. and will be able to cover a loss with a few missions, instead of a lot.

 

[parazaine]

1. Would work quite well, but that might bring some uproar when a really good player finds it gets too easy, or when a bad players starts to get kicked in the head, thus forcing both to find that optimal ship and loadout instead of progressing in the ships.
2. Would work only in Solo play. If you could decide the difficulty or the enemies, what prevents you from grefing bad players by leading these extra hard pirates to their mining operation?

This was the way the original game worked....difficulty ramped as your combat rating increased

 

[Ghostile]

You can't please everybody all of the time. Pick your market, and give them the best product you can. But trying to be all things to everybody is a sure way to mediocrity, failure and bankruptcy.

you can please everyone, specially in game industry, SPEACIALLY in MMO industry.

The space can be easily shared into newbie friendly area and the rest of the space.
The game rules could be what they are now in the starting systems, but get harder when you're outside of them.
And a bonus, you can make some suicide nebula for those who want to challenge their wits and skill.

See World of Warcraft for example.
It has content for:
Those who can't hold a spoon but must be fed with tubes.
Those who just don't have enough time and want to drop in every now and then but still see challenge.
Those who can distribute some of their time solely to challenge them selves.
Those who can be considered professional players.

All this works nicely in the same world and I myself don't have a problem with it.
I fall to one of those categories and am waiting eagerly to be able to bring myself to an upper tier.

 

[nexxo]

this statement shows a complete lack of knowledge about how a brain works and learns. being a teacher is interacting with learning brains. the last thing this guy should do is to teach. sadly neurology isnt a must for most todays teachers.

Or perhaps he just had a lifetime experience in not crashing into the ground. As a neuropsychologist I have to tell you that people can differ in the visuospatial and executive abilities required to land a plane (or reverse-park). Some just have the knack; some just don't. Not everybody gets to be a surgeon or pilot, like not everybody gets to be a writer or multilingual translator or gifted musician.

 

[Ghostile]

This was the way the original game worked....difficulty ramped as your combat rating increased

As it should, but it could be brought to E: D in a different, more player friendly manner.
If the difficulty ramped when your combat rating grew, some people would quit due to the game becoming too easy. Some qould quit because they game isn't hard enough from the beginning.
The best way to implement it, is to move the combat ratings to system statuses. For example:

System Combat Rating:
Rating 1: No danger, what the game is now. (lower bounties naturally)
.
.
.
.
.
.
Rating 10: Lots of interdictions, enemies can move in bigger wings, enemies are a real threat even alone. (really high bounties)

And everything in between.
This would give changing surroundings to everyone, challenge to those who want it and easier play to those who are learning the ropes.
And what best, progression. Nothing like deciding to face that system with few levels higher combat ranking that you're comfortable with and then learning you can hold your own there.

This would also make trading a bit more interesting. Will you take the safety of a route going 2 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 5 - 3 or go with speed of 2 - 6 - 9 - 9 - 4 - 2?



I know, there is a game with a system like this, but the system is brilliant.

 

[Dr Roly]

While you have a point, I am reminded of the recent Rocky Balboa-inspired Xbox commercial: "Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. it will beat you to your knees if you let it. Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!". Obviously games try to appeal by offering a challenge. So why should Elite Dangerous (the clue is in the name) be any different?
-
You can't please everybody all of the time. Pick your market, and give them the best product you can. But trying to be all things to everybody is a sure way to mediocrity, failure and bankruptcy.

That is a very valid argument. However, I think ED could be adjusted to satisfy a wider range of players without loosing its fundamental character.

 

[nexxo]

you can please everyone, specially in game industry, SPEACIALLY in MMO industry.

The space can be easily shared into newbie friendly area and the rest of the space.
The game rules could be what they are now in the starting systems, but get harder when you're outside of them.
And a bonus, you can make some suicide nebula for those who want to challenge their wits and skill.

See World of Warcraft for example.
It has content for:
Those who can't hold a spoon but must be fed with tubes.
Those who just don't have enough time and want to drop in every now and then but still see challenge.
Those who can distribute some of their time solely to challenge them selves.
Those who can be considered professional players.

All this works nicely in the same world and I myself don't have a problem with it.
I fall to one of those categories and am waiting eagerly to be able to bring myself to an upper tier.

That would create difficulties for the flight model that is fundamental to the game. You'd have to offer ships that fly like the ones in Eve Online: auto-docking, auto-targetting vehicles that simply move from map position A to map position B at a click, to ships that fly like the ones we have now. Somewhere a line has to be drawn around what this game is about, lest it ends up having no identity at all but just being another generic MMO of which there are so many already.

 

[starjump]

Its interesting cause when a lot of us were kids and played Elite at the time there was no complaining about it being too hard. You played, practiced and got better and better, and i know I and everyone i knew playing Elite at the time loved it. I find it weird that people have changed so much and require everything to be as easy as possible. Maybe people have gone soft. I remembered Elite 1 even before ED was announced because it was so awesome since it required me to actually learn something, but i cant remember most AAA games i played the recent years. I think those wanting it to be easy would love it if they just started practice flying more than ask FD to make it easier.
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These days we have tutorials, just expand some more tuts and everyone should be good. Right? You dont have to simplify that actual game and thus destroy the fun for those loving to learn some skills. I wish newcomers will like the game too, of course. Im not some elitist jerk. I just want people to put in a little more effort because i know they will feel good when they get better and better, and they will enjoy ED more and more thanks to it. Making the main game too easy will just have you leave after a little while as there is nothing to learn. Just zoom through to the end and thats that.
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I dont like the new adapting skill mechanics. They are again a system where learning is not part of it. No need to aquire some simple skills of flying and taking care when around objects in your spaceships. Dont know how that is hard to grasp. Just learn to fly in the tutorials, then play in solo or PvE groups at first to develop more skills in flying and combat. Then when you feel good enough come join open. I do NOT want to meet ships that are adapted to my skill. I want to be SCARED when highly skilled pilots show up around me. I want to have to stealth through a dangerous area or run away because i know i cant take them on. Why does some people dont want this element of excitment in a game and istead have the game adapt to your skill? So you will have the same experience right through. Never get chased or feeling excitement. I dont get it. Really dont.

 

[Bigcheese]

The real problem is there is no content yet, just random ships farting about space.

 

[Witzo]

I think that Frontier should ignore all the "It's too hard" whining and stick to its vision. And it should print a disclaimer on the box:
-
"This ride is not for the weak".
-
There. Everybody knows where they stand.

It should have "Don't panic" in big, friendly letters, in the same way that an airline pilot can say on the public address that "there is no reason for concern".

 

[Antigonos]

Can we make difficulty progressive and adaptive?

There are a few ways:

- adapt to the ship and load-out - better ship, better equipped adversaries.
- adapt to the player's abilities - based on performance in previous encounters, ramp the skill level for next encounter up or down incrementally
...versus a baseline which comes from the environment (rich democracy <----> poor anarchy).

- same goes for other aspects... trading, mining...

This would normalize a lot of gameplay (de-facto nerf, but towards mean instead of biased to one or other end) but may help both ends of the difficulty spectrum to coexist in the game.

this is bad game mechanik. its artificial. its also made for progression based games. elite isnt that. you can kill a superior suited vessel if you good enough. no need to normalize oponents stats.

as others said: the best is to tune difficulty according to the system status. democracy and settled system: no or only very low number of interdictions. more interdictions of authority vessels less of pirates. if pirate interdiction immediate authority respons. feudal anarachy system: lots of pirates, good pirates, no authority intervention.

 

[Stressfest]

Interdictions are fine where they are.. well, the daft mini game that comes with the interdictions. There's got to be a world of better ways to ramp up the difficulty. Personally speaking I'd much rather just be yanked from space without warning, guns blazing. Would be much better in terms of wear and tear on the joystick too. It's as bad as playing daley thompsons decathalon 'back in the day'.

 

[Antigonos]

Interdictions are fine where they are.. well, the daft mini game that comes with the interdictions. There's got to be a world of better ways to ramp up the difficulty. Personally speaking I'd much rather just be yanked from space without warning, guns blazing. Would be much better in terms of wear and tear on the joystick too. It's as bad as playing daley thompsons decathalon 'back in the day'.

that ruined a lot of my sticks ^^ always used those that came with the atari console (without the rubber thing), best stick for decathlon EVAR.

 

[Ghostile]

That would create difficulties for the flight model that is fundamental to the game. You'd have to offer ships that fly like the ones in Eve Online: auto-docking, auto-targetting vehicles that simply move from map position A to map position B at a click, to ships that fly like the ones we have now. Somewhere a line has to be drawn around what this game is about, lest it ends up having no identity at all but just being another generic MMO of which there are so many already.

No need to go that far, I used World of Warcrafts model just as an example how multiple difficulties can work in the same world, when they are moved to separate areas.

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The real problem is there is no content yet, just random ships farting about space.

That's sandbox for you.
When the game becomes older and the world kicks a gear in, I'm sure there is much to do.

 

[Serrin]

Why easy or hard? Why not both? Why not make the difficulty adjustable by the user? Maybe even with a slider from 1 to 10. The difficulty levels adjust:
- Insurance system
- Interdiction probability / capability
- NPC skill level: If possible NPCs behave different towards players with different difficulty setting (no idea if that could be implemented)

Level 1 (Space trucking sim):
- No insurance cost, you always get your ship back
- You can't be interdicted, not even by players and you can't interdict
- Very low NPC skill level
- As soon as you kill a CMDR you are instanly put to Level 2 and can not go back!!!

Level 2-4:
- Game as it is now but AI is lower level

Level 5:
- difficulty as it is now

Level 6 - 8:
- Harder AI (they start teaming up and are generally better fighers)
- More interdictions

Level 9:
- there is no insurance whatsoever

Level 10:
- you have only one life. When you are dead you are done

With such a system more type of players could enjoy the game.

 

[Rodder]

Its interesting cause when a lot of us were kids and played Elite at the time there was no complaining about it being too hard. You played, practiced and got better and better, and i know I and everyone i knew playing Elite at the time loved it. I find it weird that people have changed so much and require everything to be as easy as possible. Maybe people have gone soft. I remembered Elite 1 even before ED was announced because it was so awesome since it required me to actually learn something, but i cant remember most AAA games i played the recent years. I think those wanting it to be easy would love it if they just started practice flying more than ask FD to make it easier.
|
These days we have tutorials, just expand some more tuts and everyone should be good. Right? You dont have to simplify that actual game and thus destroy the fun for those loving to learn some skills. I wish newcomers will like the game too, of course. Im not some elitist jerk. I just want people to put in a little more effort because i know they will feel good when they get better and better, and they will enjoy ED more and more thanks to it. Making the main game too easy will just have you leave after a little while as there is nothing to learn. Just zoom through to the end and thats that.
|
I dont like the new adapting skill mechanics. They are again a system where learning is not part of it. No need to aquire some simple skills of flying and taking care when around objects in your spaceships. Dont know how that is hard to grasp. Just learn to fly in the tutorials, then play in solo or PvE groups at first to develop more skills in flying and combat. Then when you feel good enough come join open. I do NOT want to meet ships that are adapted to my skill. I want to be SCARED when highly skilled pilots show up around me. I want to have to stealth through a dangerous area or run away because i know i cant take them on. Why does some people dont want this element of excitment in a game and istead have the game adapt to your skill? So you will have the same experience right through. Never get chased or feeling excitement. I dont get it. Really dont.

Yes. Back in our days everybody had a joystick and everybody has played Elite or Wing Commander.

Fast forward, year 2k14: No good space sims since decades, console games with railroad storys and tuned down difficulty, no joystick games since ages besides some far to militaristic niche products.

How in the world did they have a chance to learn it? And have you all forgotten how hard it was? It took me countless ours in several games to become a good sim pilot, and we need to give them a chance to learn it too, without getting vaporized in seconds without even knowing what they did wrong. Yes dogfighting is easy for me and i can kill an elite cobra in stock sidewinder, it just takes 20 minutes or more. But i havent forgotten how much practice it needed.

My suggestion: Put a noob bubble of something between 20-50 LY around starter systems, where friendly fire is off, no elite enemies, maybe even more reduced insurance and a towing service where they can practice and get the hang on it. And a big warning when they leave it.

edit: Overall difficulty should be depending on the system security, not on some option sliders. Right now "unsafe" systems like anarchies are much to safe, but you can run into elites in high security, faction owned systems. This just feels wrong.

 

[Antigonos]

Why easy or hard? Why not both? Why not make the difficulty adjustable by the user? Maybe even with a slider from 1 to 10. The difficulty levels adjust:
- Insurance system
- Interdiction probability / capability
- NPC skill level: If possible NPCs behave different towards players with different difficulty setting (no idea if that could be implemented)

Level 1 (Space trucking sim):
- No insurance cost, you always get your ship back
- You can't be interdicted, not even by players and you can't interdict
- Very low NPC skill level
- As soon as you kill a CMDR you are instanly put to Level 2 and can not go back!!!

Level 2-4:
- Game as it is now but AI is lower level

Level 5:
- difficulty as it is now

Level 6 - 8:
- Harder AI (they start teaming up and are generally better fighers)
- More interdictions

Level 9:
- there is no insurance whatsoever

Level 10:
- you have only one life. When you are dead you are done

With such a system more type of players could enjoy the game.

they should just offer a kind of "iron man"-mode.

... oh wait ...

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My suggestion: Put a noob bubble of something between 20-50 LY around starter systems, where friendly fire is off, no elite enemies, maybe even more reduced insurance and a towing service where they can practice and get the hang on it. And a big warning when they leave it.

this is... actually a good suggestion.

 

[Ghostile]

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this is... actually a good suggestion.

A more indepth look at a noobpuddle.

The best way to implement it, is to move the combat ratings to system statuses. For example:

System Combat Rating:
Rating 1: No danger, what the game is now. (lower bounties naturally)
.
.
.
.
.
.
Rating 10: Lots of interdictions, enemies can move in bigger wings, enemies are a real threat even alone. (really high bounties) (occasional pirate caps if anarchy?)

And everything in between.
This would give changing surroundings to everyone, challenge to those who want it and easier play to those who are learning the ropes.
And what best, progression. Nothing like deciding to face that system with few levels higher combat ranking that you're comfortable with and then learning you can hold your own there.

This would also make trading a bit more interesting. Will you take the safety of a route going 2 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 5 - 3 or go with speed of 2 - 6 - 9 - 9 - 4 - 2?



I know, there is a game with a system like this, but the system is brilliant.

 

[nexxo]

No need to go that far, I used World of Warcrafts model just as an example how multiple difficulties can work in the same world, when they are moved to separate areas.

I agree that a clearer distinction needs to be made between high security, affluent systems and low security poor systems. Of course trading from the former to the latter gets you the most profit --for more risk. However not much can be done about the flight model. Players can buy a docking computer, uprated shields and gimballed guns, which I think already gives plenty of concession to limited skill. The game also already allows for frantic dogfighting or easy space trucking --some people just moan that it doesn't make enough money because they don't have the patience to work at progression. A manual would be useful, but after that players need to be prepared to learn and put in some effort.

 

[Bigcheese]

That's sandbox for you.
When the game becomes older and the world kicks a gear in, I'm sure there is much to do.

You can build things in a sandbox game. It's not even sandbox.