A few serious suggestions to stop "power escalation"

Hey folks...I've been having a great time on CF and have been spending way too much time playing

I've been playing & testing games for for over 20 years and I see something happening on CF that has been the death of other games. It may not happen to CF, but it's killed many games before. It's called "power escalation".

Basically, each successive change to the game raises the power level. any of you that play board/war games or collectible card games, you know what I mean.

In CF here's how I see it happened...

The initial goal was to make NPCs tougher

1) NPCs were all given bats and bots + shield regen...suddenly they were so tough to kill that only someone in a VHF with class 10 guns could kill them in less than 45 minutes. Now players could kill each other too easily

2) SO, Shield boosters, armor boosters, power boosters were added to give players a chance to survive against each other...This made PVP last longer. Actually PVP lasted too long because everyone was using Bats and Bots...

3) SO, an agreement was made that in PVP players wouldn't use Bats and Bots.

4) Player ships are now so much better than NPC ships, that players either ignore NPCs or swat them like flies.

5) So, now Marshal has suggested creating MK2 House fighters to give the NPCs a fighting chance.

This is Power Escalation...we've increased everything, but in the long run we didn't solve the initial problem which was to make NPCs tougher.

Let's face it, anyone with enough cash to outfit a top of the line fighter or freighter can completely ignore NPCs. Since acquiring cash is only a matter of time, eventually every player will have enough to buy the best of everything.

I'm going to make a few suggestions in separate threads to invite discussion about each. CF is the best mod out there overall and I know there's a certain resistance to taking anything out, but I ask you to consider what I've said above and ask yourself if maybe the old adage "Less is More" would actually make sense.

yeah, they're a pain...

but DK are supposed to be REALLY dangerous Bad-A$$ creatures...maybe even something you that wouldn't try to take on alone.

the point is, you shouldn't have to fly all the way to the edge of the universe to find an NPC that is actually a challenge.

That's exactly the issue...The only place where there's a challenge is in the extreme cases. If you eliminate the extremes, then the mid-level stuff becomes more challenging and more fun.

When's the last time you got stopped by NPC pirates in the core systems and got a little nervous, wondering if you were going to survive the fight? If you're all kitted out then all you do is complain that they slowed you down by shutting down the trade lanes and ignore the fighters.

I keep hearing the quote from Disney's The Incredibles...the quote goes something like "When everyone has super powers, then nobody is super"

I totally agree OP...MK2 fighters shouldn't be introduced. The reason for needing them in MP could be fixed if Player equipment wasn't so incredibly powerful relative to NPC universe.

PPCs use way more energy - but not so much that I can't shoot all day and never run out of power as long as I have a power booster.

Equipment is more expensive - show me a dedicated player without a train and a couple hundred million in cash reserves sitting around? Since the NPC pirates are no longer a threat to PC trains, they can run around all day making money with no risk.

It's great the DK are all over the server, but there's all these other NPC factions that don't stand a chance...what about Rogues? Mollys? Corsairs? Blood Dragons...all of the traditional NPC factions are simply fodder now. If the Players weren't flying nearly indestructable (from an NPC standpoint) ships, then you wouldn't need to keep inventing stronger and stronger NPCs to keep up...this is exactly the Power Escalation that I was referring to.

@Azadur...

Great idea, so to fix the problem that all the players are flying uber fighters, we give the NPCs uber fighers too...

But we can't because that would make SP even more difficult than it already is.

besides, that would just start another round of power escalation. That's exactly the opposite direction that I'm suggesting we look towards.

LOL...not quite...

CA and the rest of the Design team have been working their tails off to create the ASF vs CSF overlay campaign. it's really cool and one of the things it's going to do is actually make it dangerous to fly around again. Transports are going to have to plan for escorts. There's going to be this great sense of nervous energy as ships make runs across enemy territory for the best trade route or to raid a neighboring system. We're all going to be watching and planning our moves based on where our opponents are. we're going to get to plan team incursions because one of us alone won't be tough enough to make it through.

I guess when it gets down to it, all I'm asking, is...if we weren't all flying around in kitted out ships, wouldn't some of this excitement already be present, already built into the core game? I remember playing SP and actually being fearful about running through systems that I wasn't friendly with for fear of being jumped by the local defenders...This is exactly what CSF vs ASF roleplay is going to do.

hey Blaster, you are totally right on!

This is the best !@#$ FL mod I've ever played. I love it, I play almost every day and I plan on continuing to do so.

- It has an amazing universe to explore
- pretty darn close to flawless coding (great job OP...hope you got my donation I sent via paypal)

Most of all though, it's the community that makes this mod great. I've met a lot of really great people...even the ones I fight are friendly after we shoot each other to bits.

If I didn't love it so much, I wouldn't have bothered to even start this dialog. It's because I love it, and because I was laying awake in bed last night thinking about it, when I should have been sleeping, that I started this conversation in the first place.

(OP no more "ubers" I promise )