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Thread: AI Changes
gohan6420
Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:06 pm
#40
My GOD!!!!!
Come on!!! What were you thinking?!!!!!
With the stupid things running away and coming back every so often is stupid!!!
Before you could easily take out a group of 4-5 tier 4's in a matter of minutes. Now you wait till they come back and more spawn to kill you great just ****in great. You are a slow brick. They even the slow @$$ fighters are way too fast. So 4-5 tier 4's turn to around 10 and then the 10 fly in huge circles and hit your ship every which way. You go after one and its gone then the next shoots you in the behind and repeat. Very fun. 
Tycho4511
Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:10 pm
#41
My view is at least they are trying something. Flying in circles was boring. This is clearly not correct yet, but its a bit better. I would be even more worried if they had ignored the AI.
Morwen
Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:55 pm
#42
Turn. Aim. Drop throttle. Fire until jousting enemy is disabled. It's not at all hard, just terribly boring. I didn't even bother killing them because it just wasn't fun anymore. It's not about flying, it's about how good your shields are and how many weapons with how much punch you can load.
[SoE Management Log] Detected fun being had. Removed it.
UKMars
Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:08 am
#43
Timesink. Will be hotfixed as an unintentional side effect of something else but I can assure you it is another attempt at timesinking.
Amuro0079
Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:10 am
#44
Slarus wrote:
Turn. Aim. Drop throttle. Fire until jousting enemy is disabled. It's not at all hard, just terribly boring. I didn't even bother killing them because it just wasn't fun anymore. It's not about flying, it's about how good your shields are and how many weapons with how much punch you can load.
Yep, the thing is many people were actually chalenged by the circle dogfighting, people will get bored with this BEFORE they are or are not challenged. It no longer requires any skill to beat the AI only gear now, might as well be turn based.
Your right it's not hard, just tedious (I like that word better then boring, boring implies traversing from exciting to boring, tedious always sounds bad from the start).
It takes longer to kill now than before, and that means bad if your'e in ahigh level mission.
Morwen
Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:11 am
#45
The only problem I saw with the higher tier npc circlers is they didn't vary their speed near enough when a player got on their six, nor did they attempt to break off and re-engage in a more favorable aspect when they started taking significant damage. Nevertheless, I still feel it's an adequate challenge for the majority of players especiallybecause the spawns are fast, the players are usually outnumbered,and the npc ships tend to significantly outperform pc ships. Add to that the fact that the targeting indicator is more a suggestion of where to aim rather than an outright indication -- which I think is as it should be, however some players will be much better at leading their fire than others.
Slarus wrote:
Yep, the thing is many people were actually chalenged by the circle dogfighting...
Slarus
Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:13 am
#46
It takes longer to kill now than before, and that means bad if your'e in ahigh level mission.
You bet it does. I am glad I got to 3343 before this, now it will merely take about a week per box, Assuming I dont get killed and decay eats away at my componets forcing me to spend what little cash I have and cant recover now on replacements. I just wish I could have mastered before this, then I wouldnt have to worry about it, but I am glad I got as far as I did.
EvilHQ
Wed Nov 17, 2004 1:43 am
#47
The speed increase to enemy ships has had a huge effect on the space mechanics of combat in JTL, unfortunately.. for the worse!
Space combat is now boring...
It's not about your flight path or ability to aim, it's about how fast your ship is and how quick you can switch from top speed to "best manouvering(sp?) speed" and back again.
Hot-key in a "Top" , "Half" and "Bottom" speed adjustment macro, and it's a simple case of flying straight, dumping all you've go in to the ship, dropping to half speed, turn 180 degrees, throttle up, aim dead ahead, fire... rinse repeat.
There's almost a 10-15 second gap between fights, so if you'ge to a capacitor good enough, you can fully recharge between "passes"... and like a previous post on these forums.. it's been turned in to a simple "joust-fest"
NOT fun, boring as hell, and slow as anything on the long path up the Tier IV boxes.. I'm no grinder, I love just pondering along, but it's just sooo painfully slow to do anything in combat now..
SOE did a bad judgement call on this change, with no prior testing.. even the slightest change in a twitch based system will have HUGE ramifications in game without proper testing.
SOE...? why make it like this.. apart from to slow down the path from Novice to Master Pilot, which is all it will do, and drive people away from what was already a great combat engine 
I actually logged off because of this change, which is something I've never done before in SWG 
Ducimus
Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:28 am
#48
All i can say is that this change is by no means any improvement whatsoever. Infact, if circling was boring to some, this new change in mobs is downright tantamount to watching paint dry. No longer do i have to really do any real maneuvering at all.
Just cruise at 50 % throttle, and wait for them to come back, line up, lay into them. Rinse and repeat. Just annoying, time consuming, ungratifying, and not really fun.
I shall be wishing for a hotfix with all due haste
Just cruise at 50 % throttle, and wait for them to come back, line up, lay into them. Rinse and repeat. Just annoying, time consuming, ungratifying, and not really fun.
I shall be wishing for a hotfix with all due haste
Message Edited by Ducimus on 11-17-2004 01:28 AM
Chussss
Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:38 am
#49
Very bad AI change, boring and slower...harder to make missions now...just frustrating.
And i dont see it as a bug, it`s a new AI.
It was really funny before the patch, ¿why you changed it?.
It`s better to use your time adding content, for people who finished their missions, than make a lot harder, to accomplishmissions for the people who aren`t still masters, or are newbie, and for casual players who just want to fight solo, just forget about JTLS anymore.
¿Maybe devs think there are to many masters and they must do something?, yes maybe you can see people telling they are master pilots in 1 week, but for a lot of player isn`t that easy, its just a group of "intensive gamers" and guild members, who master the game very fast, but this happen just in the begining of every game
Let the AI as it was and add minning, comerce, piracy...all of us wants that, not those AI changes.
¿why resing to have a lot of casual players making it a lot harder for them?
Sorry for my english.
spincrus
Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:46 am
#50
I have an engine that's 62.7, and with engine overload 2, I can see a max speed of 850 something... When I boost (I have an awesome booster), I reach 1000, but I STILL CAN'T CATCH A-WINGS. Anyone have the same (well, similar) problem?
And speed was supposed to be nerfed... Rrrrright...
On the issue of other MOBs though, yes, it is sort of irritating to have them that slow.
Message Edited by spincrus on 11-17-2004 01:47 AM
Jomina
Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:21 am
#51
Another poster in this thread spoke about missions being much tougher to complete now, and I saw evidence of that tonight for sure..
Example : Tier 4, box 3 mission for Imperial Black Epsilon
One of the sections, you have to escort a ship through waves of rebels until it gts to its destination.
When I helped a guildmate with this mission Monday night, there were 3 of us working it, and it came out without much trouble. Tongiht however, when i attempted this mission, with the same 3 people working it, we failed it 3 times before finally making it through.
Why?
Because since the NPC ships are moving faster now, its taking much longer to kill, AND the escort ships are moving faster, as well! Proof of this was seen by me by matching speed tonight, compared to every other time ive matched speed with an escort.
They were going at least 20 faster.
Sounds like a small amount, right? It is. However, add to that the longer fights with the waves that come at you, and the speed of the escorts moving faster, as well, it leads to missions that fail because you are out of range when the next wave or section of mission occurs.
3 times tonight this happened. How did we solve it?
I stayed at the escort while my friends took out the waves.
Boy that was an adventure, i can tell ya! Watch as I sit next to the freighter, and literally do nothing else for that mission... my friends are the ones havin fun gaining experience and items, while i sit next to this thing in fear of getting involved in a fight and not noticing that the escort is getting a little far....
Bad change, Devs.. Seriously could have been better implimented, and much better thought out for the ramifications that would come from changing SPEED, of all things, in a twitch based game.
Either change it back, or play it smaarter. But as it stands right now, its leading to more frustration than good. And that, my friends, is no gouda.
Example : Tier 4, box 3 mission for Imperial Black Epsilon
One of the sections, you have to escort a ship through waves of rebels until it gts to its destination.
When I helped a guildmate with this mission Monday night, there were 3 of us working it, and it came out without much trouble. Tongiht however, when i attempted this mission, with the same 3 people working it, we failed it 3 times before finally making it through.
Why?
Because since the NPC ships are moving faster now, its taking much longer to kill, AND the escort ships are moving faster, as well! Proof of this was seen by me by matching speed tonight, compared to every other time ive matched speed with an escort.
They were going at least 20 faster.
Sounds like a small amount, right? It is. However, add to that the longer fights with the waves that come at you, and the speed of the escorts moving faster, as well, it leads to missions that fail because you are out of range when the next wave or section of mission occurs.
3 times tonight this happened. How did we solve it?
I stayed at the escort while my friends took out the waves.
Boy that was an adventure, i can tell ya! Watch as I sit next to the freighter, and literally do nothing else for that mission... my friends are the ones havin fun gaining experience and items, while i sit next to this thing in fear of getting involved in a fight and not noticing that the escort is getting a little far....
Bad change, Devs.. Seriously could have been better implimented, and much better thought out for the ramifications that would come from changing SPEED, of all things, in a twitch based game.
Either change it back, or play it smaarter. But as it stands right now, its leading to more frustration than good. And that, my friends, is no gouda.
Message Edited by Jomina on 11-17-2004 03:21 AM
Selenim
Wed Nov 17, 2004 6:18 am
#52
Depending on the difference between your max speed and the nPC ship speed there's 2 cases :
1: the NPC ship max speed is far higher than your top speed : then it is awefully longer and more boring than with the previous system, no matter how well you anticipate your turn, you don't get more than a few clear shots per joust and the ship runout ofyour firing range in the blink of an eye and you got to wait sometimes more than 30 sec to get a second chance to hit it again...after such a long and boring as hell fight you got only one idea : logout and call it a night.
2: You're not that slower than the enemy ship : In that case the fight is as easy and long as before, even easier cause the enemy keeps flying straight forward while you nail him, but it is a way more boring. You don't have to think about aiming or adjusting speed to get higher maneuvrability, just stay at max speed, if you can keep up with it, it becomes ridiculous, you're right behind the enemy, hiting it at every shot and it doesn't even turn to avoid fire, it keeps flying straightforward and then explode after just one pass!
No really, i don't see the point of this change. The only time i've noticed this tactic being interesting was when i was fighting a wing of tier4 TIEs and while i was shooting at the one trying to run away from me, the others had an easyshot at me since i was also flying straight forward... But other that in this particular case, this tactic is really ridiculous.