Pve is Garbage here

The pve in this game is horrible. The leveling progression after tier 1 is ridiculous. The free roam pve outside of your factions base is dull, lifeless, and boring. And the balance is completely broken. 

 

So lets begin with the missions.

 

Tier 1 missions are easy and a nice way for new players to begin to understand and get the basics of this game down. The enemy mobs seem to be balanced and the objectives are simple. Nice job on this. 

 

Tier 2 everything changes. The mobs are designed for high end tier 2 ships (6-9). If you are not flying one of these ships you will be shot down in a few seconds if you end up drawing majority of the aggro. And if your flying your brand new tier 2 ship (lvl 4) you are most likely going to be shot down in a couple hits since its synergy is not very high. This is ridiculous. You cannot restrict ships to specific tiered missions if the missions are not going to be balanced around ALL of the ships for that tier.  Furthermore the missions still remain completely basic and have nothing interesting about them. Its understandable to have them this way in tier 1 since its where new players start to understand the game but to not change it for the next set of missions is ridiculous. There is nothing interesting or fun about the tier 2 missions.

 

Tier 3 i have not yet reached but i’m guessing its just as bad if not worse.

 

 

 

Free Roaming outside of factions base.

 

It sucks. The only reason to even do it at this point is to collect resources which is feeling like nothing more than a chore. The amount of enemies is scarce. It seems rare to come across any unless traveling way the f out from your base but when you do that the enemies difficulty and power spike extremely high making them unkillable unless your in a high end tier 2 or tier 3 ship. The “fuel” is pointless since it is literally everywhere in all the maps and its decrease is extremely slow; there is no need for it in a game like this.

 

 

 

The balance.

Pretty much to easily describe this is that there is no steady increase in difficulty from the start of tier 1 to the end of tier 3. The difficulty and power of enemies spikes up extremely high from the end of tier 1 to the start of tier 2 and i’m guessing its the same for the end of tier 2 to the start of tier 3. It’s the most annoying issue with pve for this game since its keeping all these pve game modes from being fun until get your end tier ship that can power through content with no trouble. Also the aggro in pve mission is completely broken. The enemy ships will at times all target 1 person regardless if they are being shot at by another player and regardless of how far away they are from a person. There has multiple times i have been targetted by all the enemy ships, died, then watched how my team mates would only then get targetted by a couple after while the rest of the enemy ships went straight to npc turrets or bounced between teammates. I have also multiple times watched it happen to other players on the same team and even while attacking the ships chasing my teammate; they would not target me at all. 

 

 

 

tl;dr

 

To sum up this giant mess of text;

  1. Your pve balance in this game sucks 

  2.  Your progression through pve is horrible and annoying 

  3. Your enemy npc A.I. is broken 

  4. There is nothing interesting in your missions

5.There is nothing interesting about free roaming outside of faction bases

 

 

I don’t really agree with the OP as I think pve in this game is better than most pvp games (which isn’t saying much) but I do agree on the transition from tier 1 to tier 2 pve. My impression, as a reasonably new player, is that a ton of player quit after trying tier 2 pve in low tier ships. Tier 4-5 ships are tricky to progress and that is a big ask for a new player.

 

I think the best answer is to do pvp with tier 4-6 ships rather than pve as the synergy rewards are way better and you are not so outclassed. That said I don’t like taking tier 4 level 1 ships into pvp as they are outclassed.

Because 4-9 pve is balanced around T3 ships. Same thing if you want to play 10-15 Pve, kind unpleasant for R10 ships. In my opinion each tier should have own level of pve difficulty.

 

 

 

inb4 “play pvp you scrub”.

Correction:

 

  1. Your pve balance in this game sucks if you have the wrong ships/teammates/tactical play, i.e. it is not so easy that it works for all ships and all skills

  2.  Your progression through pve is horrible and annoying but yields vast amounts of credits, guaranteed purple, and you can also play PvP for progression

  3. Your enemy npc A.I. is broken if we consider an AI which doesn’t focus on cloaked ships “broken”, and not the guys that cloak and shift aggro on the non-cloakers

  4. There is nothing interesting in your missions except the challenge (to overcome the missions and the teammates) and the vistas

5.There is nothing interesting about free roaming outside of faction bases and NPC bots and Alien Hordes and farming and lots of players to kill and be killed - and the vistas

 

 

The issue is always the teammates, their ship selection and tactical play. If they’re good - and you know what you’re doing yourself - PvE is rather easy, no matter which rank/tier.

 

As happens more often than not, if they’re … not so good, select the wrong ships and make the wrong tactical decisions, you’re almost always doomed from the start regardless of rank/tier.

 

If I see one unskilled guy selecting Tackler and another one Recon, I know it’s almost over from there. Most often, mate #4 dies early, then comes the point Tacklerboy and Reconguy are pressed and cloak, and my Engineer get’s all the love/aggro from all the bots. That stays even when they decloak, and then being swarmed it’s over after a few seconds. I’ve stopped wasting Duplicators in such situations when I see that all other surviving teammates are cloakers and/or there’s no serious attempt in completing mission objectives.

 

Without such … Experts … on the team, it’s generally very easy with flying an Engineer if at least one of the other guys takes a well-built Guard (and survives). Most missions/ranks are easy if you have 1-2 suitably build Combat Engineers and 1-2 Guards on the team, supported by a non-cloaking Inty (for capture speed) and maybe one Gunship or Command.

 

I’m sure there are other combinations that also work well, but according to my experience Recon + Tackler (and maybe CO) is not. You can usually cover for one of those, but not two or more.

 

Unfortunately, pretty often people think they can use PvE to level up even the most unsuitable ships. And then whine in chat/on the forums that PvE is to hard…

Today I went to get my daily dose of PVE - 1 guaranteed purple loot spot.

 

I always take the T5 PVE missions, most common one is Captured Dreadnought T5 PVE.

I failed 2 times, because none of the randoms were considering to use duplicators and I knew that even, if I would use my own on them, I would probably just waste them, because they do count, even if they don’t respawn.

Well, I farmed, until I got 2x10000 points with my guard - Inquisitor S, until I have decided, that there is no point on pursuing this any further, so I just let my defenses down to get this over with.

Still, I could have finished stage 1 alone, but the fact that I got infinite spawns on me, which constanly fire at me with no pause, actually prevented me to get a single capture point at beacon C.

It’s also silly, when you’re near the beacon, but you don’t get a capture, since you get constantly hit by an enemy AI ships.

When I asked myself, how can this mess gets improved, I got a reply that it’s not meant to be improved, but you’re meant to be doomed, if your allies have died, since this is meant to be a group effort. So, if you stay alone, you can try to survive, farm for 10 or 15 minutes to get your rank 15 contract done or just suicide or let yourself killed. There is no other way.

That is, if they would at least change the rule only In PVE, that vicinity with minimal existing shields is good enough to at least get capture points, but they won’t do that.

Well, I learned long ago that any suggestion, whether good or bad won’t matter, since developers have their own vision. When it comes to bugs, there is also no guarantees.

The pve in this game is horrible. The leveling progression after tier 1 is ridiculous. The free roam pve outside of your factions base is dull, lifeless, and boring. And the balance is completely broken. 

 

So lets begin with the missions.

 

Tier 1 missions are easy and a nice way for new players to begin to understand and get the basics of this game down. The enemy mobs seem to be balanced and the objectives are simple. Nice job on this. 

 

Tier 2 everything changes. The mobs are designed for high end tier 2 ships (6-9). If you are not flying one of these ships you will be shot down in a few seconds if you end up drawing majority of the aggro. And if your flying your brand new tier 2 ship (lvl 4) you are most likely going to be shot down in a couple hits since its synergy is not very high. This is ridiculous. You cannot restrict ships to specific tiered missions if the missions are not going to be balanced around ALL of the ships for that tier.  Furthermore the missions still remain completely basic and have nothing interesting about them. Its understandable to have them this way in tier 1 since its where new players start to understand the game but to not change it for the next set of missions is ridiculous. There is nothing interesting or fun about the tier 2 missions.

 

Tier 3 i have not yet reached but i’m guessing its just as bad if not worse.

Okay, I want to correct one thing here; there is no “T2” PvE.

 

There is Tier 1 PvE, Tier 2 + 3 PvE, and Tier 4 + 5 PvE. You are complaining about balance in PvE using your T2 ships, but the other night my friend and I brought Rank 9 ships that were really not suitable for the mission and we were able to curb stomp the objectives and bosses without much trouble.

 

You say that the mission must be balanced, but you don’t provide a clear definition of what you think balanced is. For example, should it be possible for four Rank 4 ships with white gear to complete the mid-tier PvE mission? If so, then people who bring Rank 9 blue / purple ships are going to get bored very quickly, because in order to give those weak ships a fighting chance you have to make it easier on everyone. And that has happened by the way; I can bring a purple Styx or Blood Tormentor and there is very little actual threat to me. I’d have to do something monumentally stupid, like park in front of a missile turret and not fight back, to actually die in those missions.

 

The problem is that there is a disparity between how some people use PvE, and how the developers intended it to be used. The Developers want you to use PvE as a source of income, but there are a lot of players who use it to level ships they don’t want to bring to PvP, either because they feel the ship is too weak, or not fun, or just because the matchmaking for that tier is terrible. The latter category in particular are the problem, because they’re bringing weak ships to a game mode that was designed for players to bring strong ships.

 

As to their content, I find PvE missions are fine in short bursts. There are also groups of pilots who really enjoy trying to set records on them, beating them as quickly as possible, or beating them with unusual team configurations. Ultimately, they’re never going to have the same organic variance as PvP, but you can’t expect them to.

And yes, you are going to have the same problem with the high tier mission if you bring Tier 4 ships.

I do not understand, why I no longer get T5 purples in T5 PVE matches, but I do get only 1 T5 daily purple, which always mandatory gives one.

 

So, the rest of T5 PVE missions now only give you T4 purple loot most of the time, if you get more than 1 match.

Also, credit loot also got 1 tier lower in terms of credits income.

Btw. anyone knows what’s up with all the guys flying tacklers in T5 PvE? There seems to be no match to be had anymore without 1 - 2 guys flying tacklers? I’d have thought that to be about the most useless class, with all that aggro shifted to the non-cloakers and the limited mission completion capabilities, and seeing them mostly end up at the end of the Eff rating?

Btw. anyone knows what’s up with all the guys flying tacklers in T5 PvE? There seems to be no match to be had anymore without 1 - 2 guys flying tacklers? I’d have thought that to be about the most useless class, with all that aggro shifted to the non-cloakers and the limited mission completion capabilities, and seeing them mostly end up at the end of the Eff rating?

They’re okay for the phases with infinite enemies. Captured dreadnought phase 2, processing rig phase 2, blackwood phase 2, probably one or two more.

 

But yes, they’re still rather useless even in those phases, because it usually results in three dead teammates and 15 minutes tacked on to what should have taken less than 10.

Btw. anyone knows what’s up with all the guys flying tacklers in T5 PvE? There seems to be no match to be had anymore without 1 - 2 guys flying tacklers? I’d have thought that to be about the most useless class, with all that aggro shifted to the non-cloakers and the limited mission completion capabilities, and seeing them mostly end up at the end of the Eff rating?

People just grind the tackler line because they think it is great with double drone pooping and cruise engine. And they try to level up ships in PvE.

 

Someday people will realize levelling ships in PvE is almost useless.

People just grind the tackler line because they think it is great with double drone pooping and cruise engine. And they try to level up ships in PvE.

 

Someday people will realize levelling ships in PvE is almost useless.

It’s not a bad way of leveling frigates, or even some lower end fighters / inties, but the problem is that if you’re not flying the ship in PvP, you’re not getting a feel for how it handles in PvP. 

I do not understand, why I no longer get T5 purples in T5 PVE matches, but I do get only 1 T5 daily purple, which always mandatory gives one.

 

So, the rest of T5 PVE missions now only give you T4 purple loot most of the time, if you get more than 1 match.

Also, credit loot also got 1 tier lower in terms of credits income.

 

I’ve noticed this as well. I think it has something to do with the fact that it is R10-15 PVE, so it gives both T5 and T4 loot (although I rarely see T5 loot anymore).

I think the best fix for PvE right now is to have only one tier per mission. Each tier’s mission will rotate as per usual, but each mission will only be 7-9, 13-15, etc. And it will only give loot for that tier. Sure it might increase wait times by a minute at most, but that isn’t bad considering the average wait time for PvE is about 30 seconds.

The way it works is like this:

 

T1 PvE  (Ranks 1-3) is brutally easy. You can come naked. You don’t have to be able to even hit most of the time. You will probably win unless you and your entire team really have no idea what you are doing… if even one of you has a slight idea, then you will probably win.

 

T2 PvE (Ranks 4-9) is supposed to actually provide you with a challenge and VERY nice credit rewards for the Tier, which ends once you get upgraded MK4 modules on just about any T3 ships, especially Guards and Engineers, at which point they become brutally easy. I can sleep through the missions when flying a Phoenix, Reaper, Valor, Blood Tormentor, etc. etc… I just put all my purples on them and you get an instant win. I have done these same missions with everything ranging from Scouts (granted with lower efficiency typically) to LRFs. I can bring a purple-fitted Gunship, Tackler, or anything else Rank 7-9 and typically finish the mission all but solo as long as I have at least one other player for basic support.

 

T3 PvE (Ranks 10-15) is supposed to be HARD. It requires coordination between a minimum of 2 players and the support of at least one other decent player to be successful. It also requires at least MKII-fitted ships that are using effective builds and know exactly what they are doing. It is possible to complete some of these missions flying nothing but Interceptors, however that takes a LOT of skill and concentration, on top of tactics, specific builds, and upgraded gears. When all else fails, bring your strongest Engineer or Guard and hope you have enough support to take-out the objectives.

 

PvE missions are VERY team-driven… that is why everybody shares in 90% of the reward, while only about the last 10% is based on how you personally performed in a match (not counting individual Fleet Strength which acts as a Synergy multiplier).

 

As far as the open world (“Invasion”), it’s not really meant for “leveling” so much as getting materials and credits. Yes, if you simply love the open-world type of game, then you will probably prefer to just roam anyway. My wife did just fine flying around in open space, and she was able to craft her first craftable ship having played the game a good several days less than me (actual “in battle” days, not just sitting around) while I’m still trying to gain enough materials. In fact, the open world is by far the fastest way for new players to get into the Rank 15 craftable ships, as the loot you get to be able to get the materials by just doing PvP/PvE only starts from Rank 10… so unless you are just constantly getting through all 3 stages of T3 PvE missions to get stuff to ‘Salvage’ because all of your ships are already fitted to the gills and you have no other purpose for those upgrade kits, you are probably better off learning the Invasion maps to find good farming spots… and trust me, there are plenty.

 

Personally, I much rather get all the ships maxed (T1-T5) than to get the craftable ships (even though I should have enough for a full Hull Octopus build some time this month), so I play mostly PvP, although I do still fly PvE for the quick credits and upgrade kits.

 

Yes, you will always suffer in Tier 2-5 PvP or PvE if you don’t already have the MKII upgrade kits or credits for certain key modules (like weapons), but it balances-out once you finally do get the upgrades on your ships and unlock the highest-rank ship. You can’t expect it to be easy with entirely no effort from the start, as that quickly gets boring. Once you get to the point that something that felt difficult becomes easy, you get personal satisfaction… and that’s the thing that keeps people coming back to play, and also my entire point. 

The way it works is like this:

T1 PvE (Ranks 1-3) is brutally easy. You can come naked. You don’t have to be able to even hit most of the time. You will probably win unless you and your entire team really have no idea what you are doing… if even one of you has a slight idea, then you will probably win.

T2 PvE (Ranks 4-9) is supposed to actually provide you with a challenge and VERY nice credit rewards for the Tier, which ends once you get upgraded MK4 modules on just about any T3 ships, especially Guards and Engineers, at which point they become brutally easy. I can sleep through the missions when flying a Phoenix, Reaper, Valor, Blood Tormentor, etc. etc… I just put all my purples on them and you get an instant win. I have done these same missions with everything ranging from Scouts (granted with lower efficiency typically) to LRFs. I can bring a purple-fitted Gunship, Tackler, or anything else Rank 7-9 and typically finish the mission all but solo as long as I have at least one other player for basic support.

T3 PvE (Ranks 10-15) is supposed to be HARD. It requires coordination between a minimum of 2 players and the support of at least one other decent player to be successful. It also requires at least MKII-fitted ships that are using effective builds and know exactly what they are doing. It is possible to complete some of these missions flying nothing but Interceptors, however that takes a LOT of skill and concentration, on top of tactics, specific builds, and upgraded gears. When all else fails, bring your strongest Engineer or Guard and hope you have enough support to take-out the objectives.

PvE missions are VERY team-driven… that is why everybody shares in 90% of the reward, while only about the last 10% is based on how you personally performed in a match (not counting individual Fleet Strength which acts as a Synergy multiplier).

As far as the open world (“Invasion”), it’s not really meant for “leveling” so much as getting materials and credits. Yes, if you simply love the open-world type of game, then you will probably prefer to just roam anyway. My wife did just fine flying around in open space, and she was able to craft her first craftable ship having played the game a good several days less than me (actual “in battle” days, not just sitting around) while I’m still trying to gain enough materials. In fact, the open world is by far the fastest way for new players to get into the Rank 15 craftable ships, as the loot you get to be able to get the materials by just doing PvP/PvE only starts from Rank 10… so unless you are just constantly getting through all 3 stages of T3 PvE missions to get stuff to ‘Salvage’ because all of your ships are already fitted to the gills and you have no other purpose for those upgrade kits, you are probably better off learning the Invasion maps to find good farming spots… and trust me, there are plenty.

Personally, I much rather get all the ships maxed (T1-T5) than to get the craftable ships (even though I should have enough for a full Hull Octopus build some time this month), so I play mostly PvP, although I do still fly PvE for the quick credits and upgrade kits.

Yes, you will always suffer in Tier 2-5 PvP or PvE if you don’t already have the MKII upgrade kits or credits for certain key modules (like weapons), but it balances-out once you finally do get the upgrades on your ships and unlock the highest-rank ship. You can’t expect it to be easy with entirely no effort from the start, as that quickly gets boring. Once you get to the point that something that felt difficult becomes easy, you get personal satisfaction… and that’s the thing that keeps people coming back to play, and also my entire point.

Its not T1,T2,T3 pve.

rank 1-3=T1

rank 4-6=T2

rank 7-9=T3

rank 10-12=T4

rank 13-15=T5

T3 PvE (Ranks 10-15) is supposed to be HARD. It requires coordination between a minimum of 2 players and the support of at least one other decent player to be successful. It also requires at least MKII-fitted ships that are using effective builds and know exactly what they are doing. It is possible to complete some of these missions flying nothing but Interceptors, however that takes a LOT of skill and concentration, on top of tactics, specific builds, and upgraded gears. When all else fails, bring your strongest Engineer or Guard and hope you have enough support to take-out the objectives.

 

 

The way PvE works is more along these lines: T1 (1-3), T3 (4-9), T5 (10-15)

The missions are far more difficult for ships of the bottom ranks than ships at the top.

 

Also, R10-15 PvE is, for all intensive purposes, impossible to complete unless all 4 teammates know what they are doing. I can’t tell you how many times I get stuck with 3 randoms who have no clue what they are doing, running r10/11 ships. 99% of those battles will be failures. PvE needs to be separated by tier, not groups of 2 tiers. We all get that 10-15 PvE is supposed to be hard, but it isn’t supposed to be impossible. If PvE is to stay clumped, the difficulty needs to be rounded down to the middle ground. (So scaled to R6/7 ships for 4-9, and scaled to R12/13 for 10-15). This way it is harder in R4/10 ships, but easier in R9/15 ships.

Atm i am flying PvE after some long time only PvP, and its xxxx difficult. I am flying the right ships, mostly engie, even with crew exactly matched for PvE and stuff, and still i am losing time after time.

I find t5 pve way easy if I use t5 ships (can’t say for t4 ships, I imagine without r13 implant it can be a lot harder). Only seem to fail pve missions if all 3 other pilots die within the first 2 minutes of the mission which doesn’t happen very often (sucks when it does tho)

Which ships do you use? I found it got easier, and even soloable if using command in some missions like Fort Muerto.

Depends on the mission but in general, using a guard or an engineer (if no one else takes an engineer) is a safe bet. But with practise, pretty much every ship can be used except for ECM’s which seems pretty useless in PvE. Some stages in different missions can be solo’d in a recon for example

LRF with HB or lazors are also a good bet, if you have a friendly engineer close.