I can't do missions anymore. I was in a light fighter last week on my LPI, i tried to do a $1500 LPI mission in Colorado and it was impossible, so i got a VHF and it was still impossible and i got taken out in no time. I went to Pennsylvania and found some $400 to $500 missions for LPI. They were easier but still impossible i didnt get destroyed but i had to abort mission and retreat. These missions need to be easier, especially when you're only getting $500. Reduce the NPC toughness back to prepatch.
Whenever I try to do a mission it spawns 3-4 Cruisers/Battlecruisers with Full Storm loadouts and infinite power core. Even if it spawns 4-6 Gunboats, they will obliterate you with forward guns within seconds.
Moreover since there are no armor upgrades, every NPCs have same health as you flying the same ship.
I find killing a player easier than killing NPCs. Does it need to be this difficult?
(10-27-2023, 01:31 AM)Hawksmoor Wrote: I can't do missions anymore. I was in a light fighter last week on my LPI, i tried to do a $1500 LPI mission in Colorado and it was impossible, so i got a VHF and it was still impossible and i got taken out in no time. I went to Pennsylvania and found some $400 to $500 missions for LPI. They were easier but still impossible i didnt get destroyed but i had to abort mission and retreat. These missions need to be easier, especially when you're only getting $500. Reduce the NPC toughness back to prepatch.
Honestly, they're not that hard. You're struggling, just you, so you're demanding they get changed to be easier for you? Really? Edit: Choco my dude, what're you trying to do these missions in?
Besides, Missions are largely set up to be group endeavours and are a poor path to profit anyway. Good source of Military Salvage though.
Edit2: To be constructive, I guess it could be argued that there should at least be some form of mission running for loners who just want to get out there and blast NPCs. Especially at higher server load. Not everyone is an ace and some people just want to blow up AI to pass the time and get a little something for it.
When contending with a monster, you'd be wise to give the devil his due.
(10-27-2023, 01:31 AM)Hawksmoor Wrote: I can't do missions anymore. I was in a light fighter last week on my LPI, i tried to do a $1500 LPI mission in Colorado and it was impossible, so i got a VHF and it was still impossible and i got taken out in no time. I went to Pennsylvania and found some $400 to $500 missions for LPI. They were easier but still impossible i didnt get destroyed but i had to abort mission and retreat. These missions need to be easier, especially when you're only getting $500. Reduce the NPC toughness back to prepatch.
Honestly, they're not that hard. You're struggling, just you, so you're demanding they get changed to be easier for you? Really? Edit: Choco my dude, what're you trying to do these missions in?
Besides, Missions are largely set up to be group endeavours and are a poor path to profit anyway. Good source of Military Salvage though.
Edit2: To be constructive, I guess it could be argued that there should at least be some form of mission running for loners who just want to get out there and blast NPCs. Especially at higher server load. Not everyone is an ace and some people just want to blow up AI to pass the time and get a little something for it.
I am a gamer that used to have a KSP Ku Des in Tau-29 for the sole purpose of blasting OC GBs from Shinkaku station. I made about 4 billion in a month doing this, pre-patch. It was a very relaxing side activity, something I could do with my brain off. Now, it's essentially impossible to do any hard missions alone, let alone missions against any kind of capital vessel.
I've been talking with @pillow about this a lot. Frankly, I miss my pre-patch braindead missions. It was idle shooting and free activity I could do for factions when activity was on the slower side. Now, I struggle shooting the simplest NPCs without a group. I'm sad, but allegedly, there is a grand plan down the line to make shooting said NPCs in a group worth it.
I suggested making the hard-to-kill NPCs battlefield specific, and to leave Mission NPCs as they were pre-patch, but supposedly it's not all that simple.
(10-27-2023, 01:43 AM)Jayenbee Wrote: Choco my dude, what're you trying to do these missions in
Basically i am a Cap main.. I play with Battleships, Dreads, BCs, Cruisers. So i only do cap missions
NPCs spawn at 5k from waypoint. If i charge head on, i die to the 12-16 storm cannons being fired at me with infinite fire core. If flying a dread, may be not in first wave, but second wave is death.
If i try to kite, I'm gonna die, especially if i have BC and they gonna shoot down my engines in no time.
If i try to do donuts, wiggle do any damn dances, they gonna shoot me down with hyperlethal perfect aim and infinite core Storms while i can't kill them fast enough since all NPCs have integrated 4x armor upgrades lel.
Even if i fight against gunboats, they obliterate me with forward guns. If not in first wave then second wave.
If i get another guy to do missions with me, we die one by one, if not in first then second wave. We only won one mission and that too becoz friendly NPCs spawned and did the mission for us so we barely made any money lmao.
The only viable strategy is, go 5k from way point, make NPcs spawn, then cruise away to 6k from npcs. Then slowly approach and lure NPCs 1 by 1 towards you and get kills slowly. And that's boring.
I cannot always have 4 people doing missions with me. I think missions should atleast be fun to do if not profitable.
I think missions should be doable by 2 people with average skills.
I'm telling ya, i find killing other players easier than killing NPCs
Pre-patch, I used to have a few ships set up to do missions or battlezones solo. Favorites being the Outcast Destroyer for GB missions and the Outcast battlecruiser in the gallia battlezone. I likes being able to blast away some NPCs without thinking too much. It was a nice break from trading, mining and PVP. Fun times.
Now, any mission is virtually impossible solo. NPC GBs can shread trough not only my destroyer but also my battlecruiser.
I get that the devs have a focus group based encounters. However fact of the matter is sometimes it's 2AM and there is nobody to play with and I just wanna shoot some red shapes.
Oh, we aren't necessarily focusing on encounters. Missions and Titan's encounters are entirely separate things, and a primarily me thing. I'm still tweaking them, but the main thing I did was change their AI and aiming for them to be more interesting to fight. On 5.0 release, they were at a point where I personally enjoyed them. I could do the missions (snub ones, admittedly, I overlooked gunboat ones entirely, though I would assume that the mines are the primary reason why they're so difficult.) and enjoy them. I forgot that people aren't as masochistic as me, though.
The other thing I wanted to do with them (and fighter NPCs in general) be essentially pvp training wheels. NPCs that turn, shoot you with all their guns, all that, so people can do missions against NPCs that are more fun to fight and also NPCs that are teaching them how to fight against players through aiming and dodging practice.
TL;DR I overshot the hell out of them and I'm still tweaking them and messing with their loadouts. I want people to enjoy missions, not bash their heads against unbeatable odds. I've been considering things such as giving NPCs powercores, among toning down their aiming. There are a lot of things I could do to tone them down, I just need to sit down and do it, which is the difficult part.
(10-27-2023, 02:17 AM)pillow Wrote: The other thing I wanted to do with them (and fighter NPCs in general) be essentially pvp training wheels. NPCs that turn, shoot you with all their guns, all that, so people can do missions against NPCs that are more fun to fight and also NPCs that are teaching them how to fight against players through aiming and dodging practice.
EVE online had something similar called burner missions, where you had to face what was basically a near-player intelligent, highly kitted out frigate in a 1v1 fight.
killing that one (1) ship back when i played would net you 30-50 million ISK in payout+loyalty point gains.
probably something to consider for the time/effort/skill investment.
pictured, the frigate i used and lost to one of said burner NPCs after my repair module burned out. had like 10% hull left on the enemy. maybe something to do for assassination missions?
I've always wanted something like that for assassination missions, but I don't know how I would be able to make only those missions in particular put you up against only one man. Nevermind the fact that per wave, only one type of loadout is allowed to spawn, so you can't even have the target + two of his friends covering him assuming you wanted to have the target be a fully equipped ship with nanobots and everything because then you'd be fighting 3 ships like that.
Regardless, I'll continue tweaking missions until they're fun and try to learn more about how they work. Feedback is more than welcome, either in threads like these or in my DMs on Discord.
Encounters as main PvE activity seem deeplyflawed as they require multiple people to complete, but when people actually play on the server in peak time, they do not spawn due to server load, at as little as 40 players. When there aren't players, you don't have people to do it with. I have never finished one and there is no way how I can.
Bring back missions people can solo that make reasonable money - 60% of trading in $/hr isn't too much to ask for I hope, encounters can be more profitable, but them being main PvE source is deeply flawed and just crumbles under the mechanics of the server
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