Patch Notes Update Update 2.1.03 Incoming

[Viking84]

That's a great goal for a later patch, but the game needed a shorter term solution, which we got with this patch. It's a viable path, we can just hope that we also progress on it.

Hmm, I see what you mean, but the problem is the current tuning will just make it better for some, and worse for others. You can never find a level of difficulty that will please everyone, hence they need to be able to choose it themselves through in game choices that make sense - i.e. where you choose to fly around and what you choose to do.

 

[Cmdr Irenicus]

"If an interdiction takes you into orbital cruise, then cancel the interdiction as otherwise you will end up inside the planet"


thanks guys! You responded really fast to that one. Thanks also to Cmdr Luna the swift response and refund when I contacted you about this!

 

[stripealipe]

I can't say it enough places - this is a really bad idea in my opinion. You end up with all of this huge beautiful galaxy being essentially the same, because all the opposition is tailored to us, instead of unique to our location. The result is that there is no reason to move around, no reason to avoid some areas, or even seek them out because the danger and corresponding reward is higher. Please reconsider this and make opponents spawn based solely on:

- Where you are
- What security level the system is in
- What state the system is in (war/famine makes NPC's more aggressive)
- What missions you are carrying
- What cargo you are carrying
- What bounty you have on you
- What powerplay faction you are pledged to

I'm sure other additions can be thought of, making certain areas of the galaxy more dangerous for whatever reason fits with the ongoing story line.

The following should only affect how the spawned NPC's react to you, not determine what NPC's spawn:
- Player combat rank (Elite combat ranked players should see that lower ranked NPC's are scared of them and refuse to attack)
- Player ship (Corvette/Cutter pilots should not be interdicted and attacked by suicidal Eagles, they should steer clear and run if you deploy hardpoints)

Yep, again, please FD look into implementing this in some way and get us thinking about where we fly in the galaxy. This would make it way way more dynamic and allow NPC difficulty to be scaled from easy and on and up to damn damn hard Beta 2.1 and more hard for the more experienced among us.
Don't want to get hassled and interdicted by the nastier NPCs? Plot a suitable course through higher security systems. Want to take a chance and get to your destination a little quicker, then go through some lower security or anarchaic systems.

This not only makes the galaxy more fun and dynamic but it also allows you to properly scale the NPC difficulty to suit all players and stop the constant posts about them being too easy/difficult.

Add in a very very little bit of random encounters outside of this being possible and it'd be pretty much perfect.

 

[OlliM]

WooHoo. Upgraded and in. Escape from the forums with the endless moans!!!!!
Seriously, play the game and enjoy or go do something else if that doesn't work for you.
It's a game.

Ducks

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Beta is never over with this game.

Welcome to the 10 year, iterative development plan....as you'd have known if you'd read all the newsletters & dev updates leading up to the December 2014 launch. I know I did.

 

[SkyDiver]

no translate in Italian???!?!??!?!? why?? WHY?

 

[Robert Maynard]

I can't say it enough places - this is a really bad idea in my opinion. You end up with all of this huge beautiful galaxy being essentially the same, because all the opposition is tailored to us, instead of unique to our location. The result is that there is no reason to move around, no reason to avoid some areas, or even seek them out because the danger and corresponding reward is higher. Please reconsider this and make opponents spawn based solely on:

- Where you are
- What security level the system is in
- What state the system is in (war/famine makes NPC's more aggressive)
- What missions you are carrying
- What cargo you are carrying
- What bounty you have on you
- What powerplay faction you are pledged to

I'm sure other additions can be thought of, making certain areas of the galaxy more dangerous for whatever reason fits with the ongoing story line.

The following should only affect how the spawned NPC's react to you, not determine what NPC's spawn:
- Player combat rank (Elite combat ranked players should see that lower ranked NPC's are scared of them and refuse to attack)
- Player ship (Corvette/Cutter pilots should not be interdicted and attacked by suicidal Eagles, they should steer clear and run if you deploy hardpoints)

Well put.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

.
Basically you are right. My thoughts are the same, it would be much better if security levels would influence the world and the players rating doesn't matter in the creation of NPCs at all. But that's how the system apparently worked since launch, it only now with the stronger AI became really visible. Thus what we have here in this patch is a viable solution for the problem at hand.
.
In contrast, the concept of basing all on security levels would first of all require a rework of several parts of the UI, to make sure that security levels of the present system, as well as destinations you jump to, are not hidden inside a map which quite often takes an annoyingly long time to open, but also is accessible quickly. Only then, and seemingly with the modification of some underlying systems, the concept of aggressive NPCs being based on the security level would work.
.
That's a great goal for a later patch, but the game needed a shorter term solution, which we got with this patch. It's a viable path, we can just hope that we also progress on it.

This say it all...

[video=youtube;n-_KlKiMp38]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-_KlKiMp38[/video]

 

[Gaxel]

Missiles are apparently still a great way to take out ground-based enemies. The other two ideas are, TBH, terrible.....and I hope you're just being sarcastic.

Actually I'm not sarcastic.
Credits are used only to buy new ships, and if someone already have the ship he wants A-rated, he will only accumulate credits.
Why not use them to buy something else? Materials and engineers upgrades are two example that wil avoid some of the major complaints about 2.1.

Forcing me to install a missile launcher only to do base assault, it's a very bad thing. Because there is no way that in 3300 I won't able to target skimmers from ship, no way.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Yep, again, please FD look into implementing this in some way and get us thinking about where we fly in the galaxy. This would make it way way more dynamic and allow NPC difficulty to be scaled from easy and on and up to damn damn hard Beta 2.1 and more hard for the more experienced among us.
Don't want to get hassled and interdicted by the nastier NPCs? Plot a suitable course through higher security systems. Want to take a chance and get to your destination a little quicker, then go through some lower security or anarchaic systems.

This not only makes the galaxy more fun and dynamic but it also allows you to properly scale the NPC difficulty to suit all players and stop the constant posts about them being too easy/difficult.

I say "give it time", & play with it under the new settings. If you don't like how it works, then offer constructive feedback in the forums. This was clearly a short-term fix to appease those who were getting....."salty" about the "too hard AI". Like much of what FDev does, I suspect we shall see little tweaks & improvements to how this works between now & 2.2, based on player feedback.

 

[andrak]

Totally disagree. The player that goes to the most dangerous place, or does the most dangerous activity, should meet the most dangerous opposition and gain the highest reward. Newbies would then be told where to go to remain safe, what settings to enter in to their navigation computers (avoid low security / anarchy / war / famine whatever), and would be able to learn the skills needed in relative safety. They could then choose when they want to up the level of danger by heading out to more dangerous areas of the galaxy, where they will find higher rewards for trade, bounty hunting and missions, but also meet significantly tougher opposition.

Ideally this should scale from almost completely safe to places where even the seasoned PvP players will find it hard to survive. This would give MUCH more character to our lovely galaxy that for the time being is pretty much identical wherever you decide to go.

This ^ 100 times over.

The galaxy should be fixed, not tailor itself to us. Doing it this way creates the exact same problem as in the Elder Scrolls Oblivion game when, after levelling to the highest possible level, you walk into one of the rural village bars and everybody and their dog is kitted out in Glass and Daedric armour. Really not a good way to go about it...

 

[tomalus]

.
Moment. Aren't you the same Tomalus who just a few days ago told everybody that the current system is great and fine and whoever is not getting all the materials he needs is basically a moron? Interesting.
.
That being said, please check the patch notes. After this patch, all you have to do is to be able to build the rank 5 mod. If the stats turn out allright, you demand that a special effect is applied. It will reduce your reputation with the engineer, but you will get what you asked for. So you complain about something, which the very thread you complain about just fixed.

Im not complaining, Im pleased the devs implemented favour system so quick after 2.1. I was responding to the guy who stated we should not be able to pick specials...
And yes the current material grind is fine,mats are easy to find if you know where to get them.

 

[andrak]

Welcome to the 10 year, iterative development plan....as you'd have known if you'd read all the newsletters & dev updates leading up to the December 2014 launch. I know I did.

Thank you for proving my point.

 

[stripealipe]

@mark hicks - Yeah man, i know... i just wish it had been like this from the start. It makes perfect sense and is how it should be. I also don't see how hard this can be to implement either...

 

[Quineloe]

Pretty much. It's one level if you've naturally received an experimental effect to choose one, if you haven't then it's two - one to force the experimental effect, and the second to choose what it is. It's free to remove an effect.

Michael

So you drop back to rank 3 and then have to grind back up to 5? That sounds grindy. Maybe make it cost more materials to force an effect in advance?

- When determining the rank of NPC ships for interdiction, use the player's combat rank, rather than their highest PF rank, although add 1 rank if their trade or exploration rank is higher than their combat rank

As an Elite combat player, I'm really not a fan of your Quantum Ogre spawn system now. When trying to run Engineers in my low weight, high range Asp explorer, I am getting attacked every 2-3 systems by a deadly or elite FAS, FdL or Vulture. I can therefore no longer use this Asp, the ship pretty much doesn't exist anymore for me because in a fight it doesn't stand a chance against your super high accuracy plasma lobbing Elite pirates.

The galaxy shouldn't get more dangerous just because my ranking went up.

 

[MarkAusten]

I can't say it enough places - this is a really bad idea in my opinion. You end up with all of this huge beautiful galaxy being essentially the same, because all the opposition is tailored to us, instead of unique to our location. The result is that there is no reason to move around, no reason to avoid some areas, or even seek them out because the danger and corresponding reward is higher. Please reconsider this and make opponents spawn based solely on:

- Where you are
- What security level the system is in
- What state the system is in (war/famine makes NPC's more aggressive)
- What missions you are carrying
- What cargo you are carrying
- What bounty you have on you
- What powerplay faction you are pledged to

I'm sure other additions can be thought of, making certain areas of the galaxy more dangerous for whatever reason fits with the ongoing story line.

The following should only affect how the spawned NPC's react to you, not determine what NPC's spawn:
- Player combat rank (Elite combat ranked players should see that lower ranked NPC's are scared of them and refuse to attack)
- Player ship (Corvette/Cutter pilots should not be interdicted and attacked by suicidal Eagles, they should steer clear and run if you deploy hardpoints)

I'm not sure that it needs to be even that detailed. If I go sailing in the Far East I am likely to be attacked by pirates just because I'm there and they are pirates. They didn't make that decision based on any thing else. I'm a target and fair game as far as they are concerned. Now I also know this so I would go prepared and respond accordingly. That's probably all that is required. Location. It could be complicated by the armaments I have or cargo, but not my rank. Whether or not they fight or run should be based on my response.

Trouble is, this is a major change and complicated.

 

[Gaxel]

I can't say it enough places - this is a really bad idea in my opinion. You end up with all of this huge beautiful galaxy being essentially the same, because all the opposition is tailored to us, instead of unique to our location. The result is that there is no reason to move around, no reason to avoid some areas, or even seek them out because the danger and corresponding reward is higher. Please reconsider this and make opponents spawn based solely on:

- Where you are
- What security level the system is in
- What state the system is in (war/famine makes NPC's more aggressive)
- What missions you are carrying
- What cargo you are carrying
- What bounty you have on you
- What powerplay faction you are pledged to

I'm sure other additions can be thought of, making certain areas of the galaxy more dangerous for whatever reason fits with the ongoing story line.

The following should only affect how the spawned NPC's react to you, not determine what NPC's spawn:
- Player combat rank (Elite combat ranked players should see that lower ranked NPC's are scared of them and refuse to attack)
- Player ship (Corvette/Cutter pilots should not be interdicted and attacked by suicidal Eagles, they should steer clear and run if you deploy hardpoints)

I agree, but what they've changed is the rank of the npc that is coming specifically for you, not all the NPCs in a particular system.

 

[stripealipe]

I'm not sure that it needs to be even that detailed. If I go sailing in the Far East I am likely to be attacked by pirates just because I'm there and they are pirates. They didn't make that decision based on any thing else. I'm a target and fair game as far as they are concerned. Now I also know this so I would go prepared and respond accordingly. That's probably all that is required. Location. It could be complicated by the armaments I have or cargo, but not my rank. Whether or not they fight or run should be based on my response.

Trouble is, this is a major change and complicated.

But i reckon it'd be more simple if they simply graded the rank of NPC and possibility of interdiction in that system based on the system state and security, along with a little randomness for good measure. This would make for a much much more interesting galaxy in my books...

Doing it by your rank alone, no matter where you are is plain silly... you should be wary of where you're going in the galaxy and be able to plan whether you want possible hassle or a hassle free experience. This would make everyone happy and allow them to play how they wish.

 

[Manticore]

- Fixed softlock when quickly selecting refuel/repair/restock after opening station services

Thank you FD!

 

[2plex]

Oops, Merope 2A now looks like an ice planet.
Maybe overdoing it a bit with the new lighting?

Spoiler

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4c8xndwawd8cd6l/EliteDangerous64%202016-06-22%2013-14-10.png?dl=0