The Thargoid War: Thoughts and Feelings

[Leo Sagan]

Totally ininterested.

I'm out exploring and I play Elite less and less. Everything is focused on the war and all the other aspects of the game are pretty much dead.

Regarding the narrative, it seems to be on an endless loop (I hear AEGIS is coming back again.... what else is new ?)

Meh, time for a -long- break I guess. Again.

 

[CMDR_Halceon]

Enjoying it. If you could have a word with my boss about free time to play, that works also be good!

 

[CMDR Meek]

I appreciate what has been done to mature the narrative with Thargoids. Encouraging players to work together on a central goal is a fun thing to see. However, as many others have shared, despite the great addition the war has been to the narrative, it has largely ignored the significant portion of the player base that plays Elite for reasons other than Combat.

I don't want to be negative as I think the war has been a great way to engage players and it has encouraged new players to join the action. However, many players enjoy finding the unknown, gathering mats, finding that next beautiful vista, and more. FDev have shared that there will be no changes to the planetary tech, which is disappointing, but even if some of the glitches aren't ironed out, a few minor changes could positively impact the game. A more robust height map for one. Beyond that, please give Explores more to do. Ruins to explore. Places to find way outside the bubble. Plant/biologicals to discover that can be synthesized into weapons or medicines. You will find some of Elite's most devoted players spend a good amount of their time exploring. I'll post a video on my channel soon with all of my ideas for Explorers.

Keep up the good work FDev, but could we focus one Explorers too? I love this Game, but I don't really love the war.

 

[Darth Ender]

the war was and is still just a mechanism to shuffle the game board so we can have a more interesting one not hamstrung by outdated established lore.

so none of what has happened has been interesting to me really. nor is the inevitable power creep.

I'm interested in the new game board that should be produced from losing the war. this is where interesting new game play can exist and leverage the players activity.

though, given how long this is all taking, it's likely a concern for the next generation of players who come across elite.

 

[Kissamies]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

• For the most part, yes.
• Yes, our squadron's active members are so eager that I feel we burn it out without regular updates.
• I think it would tend towards a stalemate or very gradual loss if left as it is, but narrative factors, such as AEGIS or engineer breakthroughs, will turn it around before that.
• I like what I've seen so far.

 

[Ander_Wand]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

1) Yes, very much. In the first place it brought me back to the game after 1,5 years of absence. Finally something 'big' happening!
2) Have been doing a lot of AX, refining my skills, building new ships, trying the different gameplay loops etc. so definitely yes
3) a. Realistically seen humanity will win, because this is what a game has to do to please the masses.
b. What I would like to see would involve the Thargoids overrunning the entire bubble, forcing humanity to retreat to the far reaches of the galaxy. Battlestar Galactica vibes! So in effect losing the war for the bubble, but who knows, maybe one day we can strike back!
4) I like it. Mixing up this old grey stalemate of a game is definitely a refreshing change.

 

[CMDRBuxton]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?

It's interesting, but not really.

• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?

A bit.

• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?

Really pessimistic right now. It seems as though every week the thargoids take over hundreds of systems but only a handful of systems are taken out of thargoid control. At the moment it all seems completely hopeless. Without some new weapons/shields/whatever it seems like it'll be impossible to win. As such it feels pointless even bothering to try winning.

• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

It all depends. At the moment it all seems to be a waste of time, just some way to watch the bubble burn because there appears to be no way to beat the thargoids. So we might as well all move to colonia.

 

[Shery Vouk]

I belong to those commanders for whom the combat part of the game is not a priority.
Yes, I fought a little with the Thargoids, and although I have a high combat rank, I cannot defeat the Basilisk, unfortunately. Therefore, the war quickly bored me.
What I love most about my favorite game is trading and exploration. We have a great model of our galaxy and I would like to see small enclaves in different parts of it that trade among themselves and carry passengers for a good reward. We have a Colony, but there is no trade with it and no passenger traffic. It would be interesting.
I would also really like to see new research, passenger and cargo ships with increased jump in the game. But if not ships, then the sale of new FSD for Anaconda and Cutter from a techbroker.
I also have a suggestion to improve the functionality of the fleet carrier. The extraction of tritium is very hard and long work. I would love to travel the galaxy with my FC. But I won't have the time or energy for research, because I'll have to spend all my time mining tritium. I have a suggestion: we equip our fleet carrier with a modified hydrogen FSD (for money), we equip a cargo ship with a fuel scraper and a new cryogenic module for hydrogen and deliver it to the fleet carrier. This innovation will greatly facilitate the work of researchers and they will be very grateful.
I am grateful to the team for an interesting game and I really hope that the development team will listen to at least some of my suggestions.

 

[Krieger]

I really like the new sights and sounds the Thargoid invasion brought to the game. Walking around in a settlement when an interceptor arrived on the edge of town in a big black cloud of smoke immediately firing its shutdown field and making me me run for cover to dodge an Anaconda that fell helplessly from the sky was awesome. I also like that now there are really dangerous areas in the galaxy that can only be traversed if one comes prepared in a suitably fast (or sturdy) ship.

I engaged in Thargoid combat before (Witch Head Nebula) and did so again when the Thargoid war started but to be honest I'm not a big fan of interceptor combat. I think a fight with an interceptor takes much too long and feels very gamey, very "designed" [1]. The combat is essentially a long winded process of chipping away at the interceptor while pressing the right buttons at the right time to counter the various special actions the interceptor can launch (the swarm suicide, panic shield, caustic missiles, lightning weapon, shutdown field). There's not much tactical manoeuvring involved and it boils down to tracking a target disk that moves sideways in an unpredictable fashion (scouts even more so).

So by now fighting Thargoids has become very repetitive and tiring for me (I'm not so young anymore) and I'm done with it. Rescue missions are fun but also quite repetitive. For now I returned to my pre-war mix of activities. Nevertheless, I'll certainly visit the Thargoid invaded systems for some action from time to time.

This complaint of repetitive gameplay is not new and something that really dogs Elite Dangerous from the beginning. Personally I think you should give players much more agency in the game instead of running these largely scripted campaigns where players can only fill in some blanks. Players can bring unexpected twists and turns to a game provided the game offers mechanisms for them to do so (e.g. in-game facility to organise events (expeditions, wars, whatever), player-driven economy (to get rid of the materials gathering grind), etc, etc). It is easy for me to talk about such mechanisms but hard for you to develop them, I understand that. I also understand it can feel a bit scary for a company to let players run (part of) the game but it's really needed to keep Elite alive I think.

Thanks for starting this feedback thread.


[1] The shield that interceptors suddenly produce after losing a heart is especially immersion breaking for me. I like that Thargoids look, act and sound really alien and that they have evolved a way of dealing with damage by quickly regenerating their structure (body?). But then suddenly they have a shield. Why? And if they can generata a shield why don't they have one all the time? That would be more logical. /rant

 

[Overk1ll]

I am loving the new different ways to help the war effort, my biggest bugbear is that
AX ships have very limited jump distance and really bad fuel economy and the only
2 options for plotting a route are fastest (max 3 - 4 jumps 70-80ly) or doing 20 short jumps.
A huge quality of life improvement (not just for AX combat) would be a slider where you can
set a max jump range % (100% uses heaps or fuel but 70-80% uses a lot less),
I don't think this would be super hard to implement and a huge quality of life improvement
for everyone playing the game.

 

[RadStandard]

Greetings Commanders,

We're checking in again to see whether you're enjoying the Thargoid War at large. We recently posted this thread to ask for feedback on the specific mechanics, let us know about any bugs or issues and technical things of that nature. We'd like thank you all for the feedback you provided. It has been immensely helpful in working with the developers to plan the direction of future changes. We have already started to roll out these plans the form of recent balancing adjustments and changes to the weekly reset system. If you have further feedback of this kind, please make sure to leave it in that thread!

This time, we're checking in to better understand how you feel about the War. Here are some questions to give an idea of what we're trying to understand:

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

Once again, please keep any feedback on specific gameplay related issues or suggestion, to this thread. Thanks in advance!
O7

Greetings Commanders,

We're checking in again to see whether you're enjoying the Thargoid War at large. We recently posted this thread to ask for feedback on the specific mechanics, let us know about any bugs or issues and technical things of that nature. We'd like thank you all for the feedback you provided. It has been immensely helpful in working with the developers to plan the direction of future changes. We have already started to roll out these plans the form of recent balancing adjustments and changes to the weekly reset system. If you have further feedback of this kind, please make sure to leave it in that thread!

This time, we're checking in to better understand how you feel about the War. Here are some questions to give an idea of what we're trying to understand:

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

Once again, please keep any feedback on specific gameplay related issues or suggestion, to this thread. Thanks in advance.

Both update 14 and Goid invasion are fantastic turns of events to the narrative, E.D needed a good shake-up as it was getting pretty repetitive.
Also AX Combat defending outposts is a great idea to allow players to take advantage of quick repairs, I was able to get Elite Combat thanks to update 14 (Now triple Elite FINALLY .. lol) .
I am more than motivated to login and defend humanity and although things aren't going our way at the moment, I am very optimistic about our chances to win, I am sure one of our legendary engineers would come up with something that would allow us to turn the tide.
That said, I applaud the effort and the risk taken by the devs and everyone working at Frontier, this drastic change to the narrative was a risky manoeuver but very well done in my books, please keep this going
A+ ALL THE WAY

 

[eblingus]

Are you enjoying the Thargoid War? Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
No, I have tried several times, but the interdictions are punishing and discouraging - no escape, no way to avoid, usually end in destruction and rebuy. What is the point of having scaled AX combat zones if noobs like me can't even reach them? All the other gameplay elements, like passenger rescue, gets boring after a few times.

 

[Crimson Echo]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Yes, but primarily indirectly at the moment.
  
  
  • Poking at the Maelstroms was fun using an alt right after they were added. (It does not seem that we can do much with them at the moment.)
  • Slowly brushing up on combat skills currently in preparation to take on interceptors.
  • Looking forward to creating and poking at Unclassified Relics now that I have the needed items. (Tempting to go for a carrier to safely store this stuff first.)
    
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• To a point. The war is getting me to log in more after a few months away from the game, but I am in more of a planning and preparing phase rather than direct engagement.
  
  
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• The Goids seem to be an ancient galaxy spanning force of nature unlikely to be beaten in a conventional war one interceptor at at time. Without intervention by a Guardian/AI faction, or a major tech break through that lets the Human Capitol ships get in the fight we are at best stalling the inevitable. Mycoid worked against a small Thargoid scouting force that would otherwise have been able to annihilate humanity and it needed Jameson to deliver it. Now we face Eight Maelstroms we can not seem to penetrate, and mycoid no longer seems to work.
  
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?
• I like that stuff is actually happening. I am fine with the bubble burning as was apparently expected by the powers that be in game (the Club etc).
• The emphasis should be on buying time to science out way out of this again. It should be harder to completely ignore the war.

 

[TomCatT]

Greetings Commanders,

We're checking in again to see whether you're enjoying the Thargoid War at large. We recently posted this thread to ask for feedback on the specific mechanics, let us know about any bugs or issues and technical things of that nature. We'd like thank you all for the feedback you provided. It has been immensely helpful in working with the developers to plan the direction of future changes. We have already started to roll out these plans the form of recent balancing adjustments and changes to the weekly reset system. If you have further feedback of this kind, please make sure to leave it in that thread!

This time, we're checking in to better understand how you feel about the War. Here are some questions to give an idea of what we're trying to understand:

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

Once again, please keep any feedback on specific gameplay related issues or suggestion, to this thread. Thanks in advance!
O7

* Yes, I've been able to enjoy the war.

* Gameplay, not so much because I still have to run an older driver. I am playing in VR on the 6900xt or 7900xtx. Radeon VII works but slower. I have to find other ways to fight on planets. But an excellent job in addressing most of the issues.

* With the new "toys" and updates, I'm optimistic that humanity can win this war. We have to focus our effort on slowing down the aliens.

* The direction of the narrative looks good, and I can't wait to see what else turns up over time.

 

[Weps]

I think it was a well rounded update and I enjoy it. I like the Thargoid combat mechanics overall, which I didn't have a chance / reason to try out before. I like the UI changes and how they reflect the system state mechanics behind. And I like that the devs stayed involved and adjusted the narrative with new equipment, mechanics changes and balancing for the required effort. It wasn't the "maybe we'll improve it if you guys play it enough" approach, which I appreciate.

 

[BramleyHouse]

Hello, Can I say thank you for taking the time to engage with the player base and to ask for our feedback, positive and negative aside I feel that these type of engagements are greatly appreciated and having read some of the replies I am tired of reading and hearing the anti-elite comments from people, just don't play it then, but stop ranting on about it.

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War? - Yes very much, solo AX Combat was an area I just kept getting sent to the re-buy screen , but I am finally able to get some revenge on my nemesis.
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war? Yes and thanks to enthusiastic content streamers like 'psykit' and others they have encouraged players to join them in active AX combat and it is brilliant, great fun and rewarding.
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win? Optimistic, you have to be because the alternative is unacceptable.
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative? Looking forward to future narrative addition as it comes. Intriguing side narrative with the attack in Witch Head and our missing engineer.
• Request - Please can we have the 'old burning stations scenarios' again in the systems in post recovery. I have heard a lot of people on content streams and in chat who like the rescue style play and miss the atmospheric sound and visuals involved in these scenarios including me and we even have dedicated ship builds for this purpose.

Keep up the great work.

 

[bunker]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?

I just look at it from a distance as my friend's lost interest in it the day u14 dropped having NO CLEAR guidance on what could be done gameplay wise, we just got interdicted by interceptors that we could at best run from. I was still interested in the beginning but the ensuing [computer] bug fest kept me away from exploring the combat much for the first month(!) and now it's just something abstract in the Galnet news as we play other parts of the game.

Best I can tell my friends still think interceptors are impossible to beat at our level (bubble engineering and Guardian FSD) because the Thargoid battle mechanic is a lot to take in. Also building ships that last s long enough in Thargoid combat is difficult for us.

Having to look up ship builds out of game also breaks the immersion and the current 3rd party tools aren't clear on Thargoid effectiveness anyway. Maybe introduce shipbuilders in game that sells or at least recommends viable ship configurations that are useful in the war. You'll figure out if engineering is part of that build or not if you have the engineers unlocked (and maybe blueprint pinned). Bubble Engineering could also be recommended with an in game checklist. I believe its more about understanding what works against Thargoids than the actual buying ship and modules and doing the Bubble engineering. Realistically we won't do much Guardian unlocks because of the very repetitive game loop (we tried) for that even compared to bubble engineering.

I think some Thargoid interceptor tutorials in-game would make sense at this point if you want to get new players into the war as well as more seasoned players that have found the step into interceptor combat too big.

• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?

Not a lot, no. We have taken a swipe at some scouts which was difficult enough and as such a deterrent from going for interceptors. The fear of the aggressive interdictions is still there.

• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?

From an RP perspective humanity is getting destroyed. Don't know how many systems are in the Bubble but if I guess 5-6000 I estimate the Bubble is lost in 18 months. Thargoids are winning ~10x more systems than us.

From a gamer perspective I know Fdev will make it easier further on but that just means right now it's a lot of effort for very little result. And by then many off the more active players may be fatigued from already having fought in the war for an IRL year.

I'm indifferent/pessimistic about the war and mostly waiting for mechanics where it doesn't feel hopeless in the bigger perspective.

• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

I think it's forcing nearly everything happening in game to the Thargoid storyline even though only half of the players were interested in that before u14. Playing with friends that still aren't compelled to get into the Thargoid parts, there isn't much new stuff happening. Too one-sided.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

yes over all am enjoying it.

the way it is going I think humanity and the bubble is ultimately in trouble. engagement will drop off and unless something changes the thargoids will win as they seemingly have infinite number of ships. that said am sure that won't happen and the numbers will be constantly changed to keep the invasion roughly where FD want it to be .

 

[electro]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?
  No.. no intrest in war. Stopped playing when I found out the bugreports was closed and not handled(We take time reporting bugs and you just ignores it).
• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?
  No... still want the random procedural quest system which I thought Odyessy to be. And a lot of bug fixes with walk you ship and increased speed performance (and more players on the same instance)
• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?
  Low... as been told earlier ... what we CMDRs does in the game seems to have no impact on anything in the game(which is bad)
• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?
  Not good.. Iam more mystery and exploration cmdr... I hade so many ideas that could be used in the game but I wonder if the game is build in a dead end, becuase of code base.Time people have to play is always limited. For a standard FPS player waiting time of 1-2minutes into gameplay is a hugh deal so Odessy will never attract those players(maybe a subset of already existing players). The time searching for pirates and clues in the milkyway demands a large hugh playerbase working togheter. I spent a HUGH amount of time searching for the non exist Raxxla(I would have been nice to cleared up the loose stories that have been retracted regarding Raxxla). But it was all the bugs, missing parts of story and the bugreports that broke the camelsback totaly. Thats just abusing your fanbase/players (thoose how actually care and want to be in your created space and pay you for the skins and stuff)

 

[Greybeard Seawolf]

• Are you enjoying the Thargoid War?

Yes, the combat over outposts and settlements is exhilarating, the improved range of the xeno scanner and the addition of the weapons stabiliser has really made a big difference particularly when fighting Interceptors

• Are you motivated to engage in the gameplay associated with the war?

Yes and the changes made to the Galaxy map Thargoid War tab has really helped. I have tended to avoid the Maelstroms so far due to my fully engineered AX research Dolphin disintegrating around me but I'm hoping that when the new Aegis becomes available this will change. I'm hoping that update 15 will add more variety to the mix (on foot Thargoid combat, please, please, please). I have played Odyssey exclusively since the Alpha but would really like to see a greater tie in between the on foot and ship based gameplay ( combined multi stage missions that require both on foot and ship activities. While I enjoy both they still feel disconnected from each other so I love to have the option to choose ship based material rewards for on foot missions and vice versa

• Are you optimistic or pessimistic about humanity's chances to win?

I don't expect you guys to allow the Bubble to burn, (happy to be proved wrong though, if it could be achieved having a rag tag fleet of survivors heading to Colonia under constant threat, burning the bridge behind them would be cool) so I think we will win in the end.

• What do you think of this direction for the narrative?

I've really enjoyed what we've had so far. I understand the complexities of simulating a galactic war over a prolonged period, in particular managing player engagement, so I'm hoping that we get new mission types and content in the near future to keep things fresh.