Suggestion: Nerf non-mission NPC's drastically

[Mímir]

The problem right now is that even if people DO want to fight you, the NPC's complicate things.

To elaborate, here's a selection of fights I had the last few days:

1. I get into a fight with 1 guy, his buddy shows and so does an ally of mine, and we have a double duel. I finish first and start killing off hostile NPC's to get my regens back, but then I notice there's a wing of unlawful NPC's swarming the last lawful guy duelling my ally, and I start to shoot my own faction NPC's to give the guy a fair chance.

2. I go to Malta on a Corsair to pick a fight, someone responds and I decide to take the fight in Theta instead to avoid the Malta NPC patrols. Sadly for my opponent, there's like 8 NPC Titans waiting just inside Theta. I win the fight, but afterwards I'm not really sure how much of it was me and how much of it was the NPC's, and I feel bad for taking the fight there.

3. I pick a fight with a lawful near West Point and decide to take the fight to the Badlands to create some roleplay atmosphere and maybe have a fun fight with obstacles. After a while he breaks off and goes back to WP citing the NPC swarm. I do some trash-talk RP, but as a player I totally understand where he's coming from.

4. There's practically no-one on the server, but I pick a fight with a dude in N.Y. I have a long time to pick the engagement point as I knew he would come to me, so I decide to go 10K above plane in the hopes that we'll avoid NPC's. Nope. TBF I'm not sure if they followed his ship or something or if they spawned in right there, but at any rate I end up with 4-5 NPC's on me as well as the other player even though I went out of my way to avoid them.

All of these interactions would have been a lot more fun for all involved parties had there been 0 NPC's in the game at all. At least nerf the things to the ground if you want to keep them. High-level NPC's are readily available in missions, and are totally counter-productive in open play.

As you say players can run for cover anyway, all capital planets are littered with POB weapon platforms, so the ridiculous NPC's serve no real purpose.

---