I think the biggest problem with NPCS is the way the are placed in sectors.
Eg.
Theres a war betweeen Rhienland and Liberty but the battle groups like to hang around the home planets. They should be moved to outlaying systems and have very rare encounters with them near military bases in home systems.
More Police need to be put into patroling the trade lanes, and not just little patrol ships, throw in some gun boats to actually scare of the pirates than hang there.
In my view NPCs don't really need a nerf in power(except das wilde). I think they MUST lose their CDs. And also jump gate docking, trade lane pirating npcs are the most annoying things in whole Disco. And did i mention Train CDs spamming Red Hessians or Corsairs in Omegas?
NPC's is one thing that makes Freelancer's atmosphere. Getting rid of it would make it bland and empty. Knowing that only about 40% of pilots RP and attempt to interact with you, it'd be a very empty and boring space. Having pirates come in support of a criminal your chasing is fun and challenging:)Not to mention having fun going in a system and shooting down the NPC's of your enemy. You can say goodbye to nomad NPC battles with such an idea.
Yes you can get annoyed from people farming npc's whilst in PvP, or have NPC's totally destroy you, but it makes the universe more vibrant. It makes sense for, say a Corsair NPC helping a Corsair player in combat. Moreover, I would be questioning the value of NPC's if all they did was fly from A to B and not get involved. It also makes RP sense if a NPC pirates you, or a police officer tells you to drop your contraband. Its what makes the universe functioning, and its something I really enjoyed on vanilla. Even if this means a LPI NPC stops an LPI officer (me) and tells me to drop some contraband I confiscated from a smuggler, I'm more than happy to do so. I can RP it as that officer transferring the goods to precint and disposing of it. Imo, find a positive way for NPC interaction within RP, instead of complaining about how they ruin combat, etc. Just deal with it: find a way to solve those problems creatively, and go on from there - innovation makes your game fun. If a NPC CD's you, destroy it. If you get swarmed by 25 Heavy fighters, deal with it - take it as an opportunity to test your weapons. Complaining<Creativity.
Hence NPC's are needed, and I enjoy having them around as a matter of principle:)I've been playing Freelancer for quite a while before Discovery, and I still enjoy targeting a NPC and hailing them:D"Heading to Colorado system"
Spinikar Wrote:Eg.
Theres a war betweeen Rhienland and Liberty but the battle groups like to hang around the home planets. They should be moved to outlaying systems and have very rare encounters with them near military bases in home systems.
More Police need to be put into patroling the trade lanes, and not just little patrol ships, throw in some gun boats to actually scare of the pirates than hang there.
Indeed these suggestions and more would make sense according to the storyline:)The placing of NPC's in different areas would not only make it more fun, but increase that feeling of the non-player environment. And definitely, there needs to be a combination of NPC's than just majority light fighters. Making it more interesting would be great to have battles when the server is scarcely populated.
' Wrote:NPCs will NOT be removed at all regardless how hard you cry for it. The only thing that'll be done to them is removing their CD's outside of guard systems and making them generally less annoying.
And you state that as a fact, how? It's usually good that when you're forumlancing and decide to bold and capitalize something and state it as a fact, you add a [url] tag to it as well, so you'd have an official statement to back your point up. If we want to play the game your way, I can just go ahead and say "4.86 will NEVER come out, cause the whole project is canceled." Go figure.
' Wrote:True, but I think that the NPC's are pretty important just cause of their feel. It makes the server... Less empty at times...
' Wrote:One thing people always forget in these threads. Some factions need NPC's to rep. No bribes for any military's.
And shooting hostile NPCs without taking missions won't effect your guard rep, so your point is..?
' Wrote:Personally i think NPC's should all be like Gallia,or guard NPC's. And i mean every where.
Why don't you just go play SP then instead? I'm pretty sure both you and the majority of this community would be happier if you actually do that.
***
Now, I'm gonna say what I've said just too many times in similar threads:
My personal opinion about NPCs, is that they're unneeded, no matter how you try to justify it. If I come to play an online multiplayer game, means I want to interact with Players, not the same stupid bots I can find on SP. You say "oh NPCs give feeling to RP"? Then take this scenario: 3 players faction A run into a single player from faction B, one of the players from faction A is the leader of the faction, and he orders everyone to stand down, and sends in a single ship to duel the player from faction B. Now what we usually get is, 5 player ships sitting around the fight without interfering, while 12 NPCs keep chainfiring the faction B player, which just makes the ones sitting and watching look silly.
The only thing about random NPCs spawning is ability to do quick rep fixes, which can be easily solved with adding more depots for each faction. Other than that, I don't see how a bunch of bots that only know how to ram your larger ships around, and block the docking port of bases and gates add any "feeling" to the game. There are only 40 players on server? Then face it, you're not gonna get as much player interaction as when server is full, either don't log on and go play SP, or accept the fact that you might have to fly through empty systems for a couple of minutes. This is a multiplayer server, and the point is to fill it with players, not bots.
Lately, my main issue with NPCs have been the lag they cause. I don't have a perfect net, and I don't live right next to the server, so my average ping is something around 170ms and I usually get a slight lag or loss. Now, the only thing I need to completely ruin my fight and make it lag up so bad that it's simply unhittable, is the regular 9 - 12 NPC spawns that we've been seeing too much lately. From Class 2 daggers who can't even move my shield, and won't do any damage even when the shield is done, to Class 16 NPCs in different systems that even 3 of them is enough to kill you if you sit still for a second... All they do is to kick my ping from a steady 170/4/0/0 to a lagged up 250/40/20/15 when they spawn. And not to mention if I want to get ganked by NPCs, I'll go play SP, and if I log on a multiplayer server, it's to pvp with players, not NPCs.
All and all, I can't get the point behind having at least 12 NPCs around me most of the time, and I don't see how they might give any "feeling" to server, and that's why I've supported every single thread of this type so far.
***
' Wrote:I would like to see some suggestions about how to implement tha changes proposed. Such that you could then possibly go and make the changes yourself if allowed to do so.
Time estimates included.
Simplest, but maybe not the best solution which would at least buy us time to consider an alternative to solve this problem? What we had before - Turning NPCs off when there are more than 160 players on server.
Back during the day, I only played when server load was higher so there were no NPCs around. Right now, I only play when server load is low, so having 12 NPCs around me doesn't lag me up -That- bad, cause if I have to deal with 12 NPCs all the time, I'd rather do it when server is less laggy.
' Wrote:And you state that as a fact, how? It's usually good that when you're forumlancing and decide to bold and capitalize something and state it as a fact, you add a [url] tag to it as well, so you'd have an official statement to back your point up. If we want to play the game your way, I can just go ahead and say "4.86 will NEVER come out, cause the whole project is canceled." Go figure.
And shooting hostile NPCs without taking missions won't effect your guard rep, so your point is..?
Why don't you just go play SP then instead? I'm pretty sure both you and the majority of this community would be happier if you actually do that.
***
Now, I'm gonna say what I've said just too many times in similar threads:
My personal opinion about NPCs, is that they're unneeded, no matter how you try to justify it. If I come to play an online multiplayer game, means I want to interact with Players, not the same stupid bots I can find on SP. You say "oh NPCs give feeling to RP"? Then take this scenario: 3 players faction A run into a single player from faction B, one of the players from faction A is the leader of the faction, and he orders everyone to stand down, and sends in a single ship to duel the player from faction B. Now what we usually get is, 5 player ships sitting around the fight without interfering, while 12 NPCs keep chainfiring the faction B player, which just makes the ones sitting and watching look silly.
The only thing about random NPCs spawning is ability to do quick rep fixes, which can be easily solved with adding more depots for each faction. Other than that, I don't see how a bunch of bots that only know how to ram your larger ships around, and block the docking port of bases and gates add any "feeling" to the game. There are only 40 players on server? Then face it, you're not gonna get as much player interaction as when server is full, either don't log on and go play SP, or accept the fact that you might have to fly through empty systems for a couple of minutes. This is a multiplayer server, and the point is to fill it with players, not bots.
Lately, my main issue with NPCs have been the lag they cause. I don't have a perfect net, and I don't live right next to the server, so my average ping is something around 170ms and I usually get a slight lag or loss. Now, the only thing I need to completely ruin my fight and make it lag up so bad that it's simply unhittable, is the regular 9 - 12 NPC spawns that we've been seeing too much lately. From Class 2 daggers who can't even move my shield, and won't do any damage even when the shield is done, to Class 16 NPCs in different systems that even 3 of them is enough to kill you if you sit still for a second... All they do is to kick my ping from a steady 170/4/0/0 to a lagged up 250/40/20/15 when they spawn. And not to mention if I want to get ganked by NPCs, I'll go play SP, and if I log on a multiplayer server, it's to pvp with players, not NPCs.
All and all, I can't get the point behind having at least 12 NPCs around me most of the time, and I don't see how they might give any "feeling" to server, and that's why I've supported every single thread of this type so far.
***
Simplest, but maybe not the best solution which would at least buy us time to consider an alternative to solve this problem? What we had before - Turning NPCs off when there are more than 160 players on server.
Back during the day, I only played when server load was higher so there were no NPCs around. Right now, I only play when server load is low, so having 12 NPCs around me doesn't lag me up -That- bad, cause if I have to deal with 12 NPCs all the time, I'd rather do it when server is less laggy.
signed. i want to play freelancer, not npclancer
if all the npcs were gone, would it mean that we could have more players on the server?
Fix auto target so it chases what you are actually targeting over whatever else is in the way.. Buff low lvl npc's to New Berlin or the non-capital kusari system levels, boost npc transports (update weapons, shields) and reduce npc spawn rates so you don't get a swarm of flies buzzing around you when there are a few spectators to a duel (x players in scanner range = less npc's)
A pretty heavy workload when there's more important things to do ie: getting .86 up and running, but might do as a happy medium.
' Wrote:Yeh, this game is about player to player interactions. Impossible to have them with 87328732 NPC spamming CDs and SNACs. NPCs ought to dissapear when players are trying to play.
I beg to differ, before Discovery, we all lived for PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW. RP meant nothing. Although I do agree that NPCs can be extremely annoying, especially in packs of mkII ones ( HF-VHF NPCs )
in my opinions the npc's really add something , but those damn cruise disruptors , i can live without !
note that not every ship is able to mount a countermeasure dropper , and in contrast with human players , npcs regulairy spawn within 2.5 k of your ship
giving sometimes not a single chance to escape them
a lot of people hate trading , i say , instead of giving traders more cash , or boosting their ships , simply make trading more fun , and get rid of the cruise disrupting npc's
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