Design failure, cheat or just awesome?

Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

at the point when a normal ED player faces a Horizon player in combat (which is very likely when you transport specific commodities with high value) then the guy that has no Horizon will have a disadvantage.

yes, Horizons player CAN have advantage over guy owning only core game.

Is it fair? ... putting aside what I think about "fair word meaning" it imo fair is (yes, "fair" is very personal evaluation imo). FD never promised that ED core game owners will have the same "chances" how to play ED and that they will not get disadvantages when confronted with "next" season owner. Plus they need to have some way how to "financing" running game, its maintenance & further development ... and did decision how it will be done. It is for them to evaluate if that was good or bad decision. But when return back to compare Horizons vs Core game player, game offer different play mods which can be used (and it works) to avoid above mentioned direct confrontation.

Should be 2.1 part of core game? ... absolutely, imo ED should be released as it is now, 2.1 should be the core game (or maybe season 2 should be?). This is what I think about it (but this pov can be heavily influenced with my own experience), BUT such things obviously in RL are not so easy to solve/have planned/get running/get financed. ED have its own evolution with success and failures, some see it fair and have fun, some do not have fun and/or see it as unfair.

oki is good to know that ED servers should be able running long time.

But seriously, planets looks great, much nicer in 2.1. Last time I spent few hours flying in canyons and then used SRV to get some nice views from engineer base. It adds to 'dark' space rly alot if you only want relax. And in groups its even better.

Players are turning away by the truckload and with good reason. I'll paint you a picture, the casual player only has a few hours a week to play. They have been playing for over a year now, have managed to get a Python and are happily trading away or mining or doing whatever the hell they like doing in game. 2.1 lands.

Now, nearly every time they go to a new system, they interdicted by overpowered npc's, and get blown out of the sky by uber cobras and the like. Losing more money than they can make, the casual player parks up and leaves the game until some sense returns to it. Factor in the buggy missions, no storage area apart from your ship to get engineer parts for upgrades, and the developers are scratching their heads wondering where it all went wrong.

And my personal favourite, being attacked by npc ships even when i'm empty with such regularity that i've now parked up and stopped playing. Jesus this used to happen in Freelancer but at least the npc's went away if you were empty. How difficult can it be to implement the same thing in ED? The game royally sucks for a number of players right now but will suck even more unless Frontier get a grip on things and sort this damn mess out before the game dies completely

For those that still need an Elite fix, try Oolite, a proper rendition of Elite with tonnes of mods, true to the original and loads of fun, something Elite Dangerous has ceased to be, at least for me. Works on all versions of Windows, 32 and 64bit

hmm, damn, I must play another game then ... I'm casual player as well, can play 2, max 3 times in week. So far I was only once close to death and it was situation when I decided (it was my situation evaluation fail) with my scavenger Python to kill deadly Anaconda. In the end I successfully fled with 20% hull while conda had still around 70%. Yes, I now use ship builds with little more defence, usually adding one shield bank (instead cargo module) but whole play with NPCs makes much more sense as these weak mindless npc ships from previous versions.

Before it was like: engage wing of 3 ships? .. this question was not even asked and I directly moved into fight to kill them all. Now is to check first in 1 vs 1 npc lvl and do a quick decision if can or can't fight it. If I go fight, then fight usually is not easy, but fun. I use on my python or conda turrets (partly), use allot FA off (in very basic form) and reverse thrusting ... but still I'm in the best only average combat pilot, not have hotas (they are far superior to control ship as combo joy+keyboard) and do not use scripts or VA (voice attack).

OK, I can get that players see now ED difficult ... , but imo big role play that they were not used to play in open before and/or played in areas where were not other cmdrs (potentially hostile). Imo NPCs were before too much easy, was not needed take them serious and danger coming from PvP was avoided using play solo or in groups. It reminds me (sounds similar) with players complains about Crossfire NPCs difficulty ... ... but on ED this thing may be globally real problem, bcs its 50:50 between ppl liking new AI and these who do not. Do NPCs stupid again, and other players half will complain.

About bugs in missions: I'm waiting too for next patch, but so far I had only issues with missions where was changed delivery destination.

CZs .. need to evaluate (should be today, will see). Was advised to me ship with better shield (will go for FDL and discard FAS which shield is very poor and now you rly need to keep shield up.

High-RES: combat was very smoothly going thanks to local FEDs. Actually easy way how to make money from combat.

OK, CZs (high) are nicely doable solo if you will do not play a "hero" and do not rush alone on few red ones. Jump into CZ, make little distance, pick side. Then start kill these red on borders or which are attacked. First round was warm-up .. 300k and all SB used. Second round was 1M plus 2 missions (1M and 500k). Fight was going nicely, sometimes attacked npc turned against you, sometimes fight with previous target. They do ramming, try over-turn you, use missiles etc .. but its (at least for me) rly fun . .... using engineer unmodded FDL. During fight got message with mission offer to find some specific salvage in nearest system ... will go for it now.

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Jumped to mission system, entered nav-beacon location. Targeted there physical nav-beacon object, scanned and found location where should be cargo. ... cargo delivered, all worked. Got new mission in CZ for 700k

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Third round almost died, left 30% hull ... but bcs own stubbornness and not leaving once used all SBs.