If base building = surface FC , then no thank you.
What's the Brand New Feature for ED in 2024?
- Thread starter Cosmo
- Start date
Please don't presume to tell me what I want - or other people for that matter as per your other responses. I didn't say I wanted base building, I just gave a couple of scenarios which involve base building. Just because you don't like it or can't imagine why people would want to arrange several buildings with connections and different purposes on the surface of a planet, does not mean other people might not want or enjoy that. Even just for the aesthetic enjoyment of arranging buildings or challenge of getting as many mining machines on a resource patch, or placing solar panels to generate sufficient power to drive it all. None of those would be applicable to stations or fleet carriers. They involve having a variety of buildings and being able to choose where to place them and how to connect them. To me those are all what I think of as "base building", not just expanded mining or decoratable space or base management.
And if you ask why someone might want to arrange buildings, might as well ask why people want cosmetics or bobbleheads or anything else that doesn't directly affect the performance of their spaceships. Because its fun.
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What if Bases are not about a player economy, but about being an automated cog in the NPC economy.
As if it was part of a CMS.
You'd let your base produce a number of things the nearby NPC economy needs (either AX, PP, BGS, or just plain further economy related).
The base then needs baseline inputs to produce the outputs. And while you pick the from and to as Ops/Mngt, NPC pilots would do the sourcing and delivering.
Take the Pulse Wave Xeno Scanner (GalNet 25-MAY-3309) as example which mentions "establish manufacturing centres" in the news article...
Inputs = Ceramic Composites, Polymers, Gallium, Indium
Output = Pulse Wave Xeno Scanner
Other players can then interfere with that process by doing the Odyssey ground game known today - with data infils, sabotage, industrial espionage, etc.
In the PWXS example; sabotaged production means output won't be delivered optimally to the target, target loses efficacy versus Thargoids.
As if it was part of a CMS.
You'd let your base produce a number of things the nearby NPC economy needs (either AX, PP, BGS, or just plain further economy related).
The base then needs baseline inputs to produce the outputs. And while you pick the from and to as Ops/Mngt, NPC pilots would do the sourcing and delivering.
Take the Pulse Wave Xeno Scanner (GalNet 25-MAY-3309) as example which mentions "establish manufacturing centres" in the news article...
Inputs = Ceramic Composites, Polymers, Gallium, Indium
Output = Pulse Wave Xeno Scanner
Other players can then interfere with that process by doing the Odyssey ground game known today - with data infils, sabotage, industrial espionage, etc.
In the PWXS example; sabotaged production means output won't be delivered optimally to the target, target loses efficacy versus Thargoids.
To a degree, but not really. I'm not familiar with Eve but AFAIK and correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't have a supercruise equivalent, which in Elite is useful to evade those who would be stalking the area around the destination, which to be fair, isn't that difficult to navigate around due to the speed of supercruise and dependent on the size of the star, but also isn't a set place either, as are the places outside of mass lock that people can use to initiate an interstellar or interplanetary sequence. And of course the Nav beacon is an entirely optional destination.ED has that with Nav beacons and primary stars
Though I would be a supporter of being given the option of exiting out of an interstellar jump into normal space. I love seeing mass jumps mimic the epic jump sequences of Return of the Jedi but the arrival sequences are just as cool.
On the contrary, I'm not presuming anything.
In your case, I'm not telling you what you want; I presume your example was entirely fictional, since you threw "What if I..." on the front. So if you wanted X, then you want X, not base building. If it's not open for me to respond to your fictional scenario to you, why say anything at all? That's not how these sorts of discussions work...
As for the case writ-large, I'm still not telling anyone what they want. I'm simply parroting what they said, and for some reason that's getting people's noses out of joint... and these conversations are, tbh, quite insane.
"I want a Tesla!"
"Why do you want a Tesla?"
"Because I want an electric vehicle!"
"Right, so you want an electric vehicle."
"No, I want a Tesla!"
This is exactly what happened with Odyssey...
"I want space legs!"
"Why do you want space legs?"
"So I can EVA out of the ship and have fun salvage wrecks!"
"Ah, so you want better salvage activities?"
"No I want space legs!"
And we sure as heck got space legs, with no sign of EVA'ing on the horizon (Unless ofc, that's the feature update). I for one would love better salvage gameplay... whether or not that requires getting out of the ship or doing it from the ship I don't particularly care... but we sure as heck wasted a whole bunch of time getting legs only to not get either of those functions. Which leads neatly to...
Please don't presume to tell me what I want... because I sure haven't said I don't like or can't imagine why people would like to build things. I love a host of games with base building at their core; I currently have a large project in Valheim where I'm building a fortified tower with an entrance hall, dining and throne room, war room and personal quarters. It's taken weeks so far.
I think there's a lot of good suggestions in there... none of them necessitate base building. So, if you think I'm simply opposed to base building because I don't like it, you're dead wrong.
Meanwhile, to someone playing the BGS, bases are something to spread across the galaxy to exert influence over the BGS.
Meanwhile to someone playing the trading game, they want to spread a network of bases across the galaxy providing immaterial services to the local populations for profit.
Meanwhile to someone playing the exploration game, they might want to have an expedient base with a scanner to detect locations of all bio sites on a given planet and within a certain range.
For a variety of buildings to exist, a reason needs to exist for them. Introducing my favourite poster today:
This is exactly what base building will be, without the addition of other things which are the "why" of people wanting base building. Emphasis on those things not existing, nor any reason for them to exist because that's not how a base building system is designed. Rather, a base building system is either:
- At the core of the game design and loops, to begin with; or
- Unifies the extant mechanics into a system that allows players to stamp-out the things they want and need, to fulfil extant needs
The sheer variety of things players want bases to do actually needs to exist in the broader game before even thinking about base building... and that is way outside the scope of what could be reasonably achieved between now and whenever the update comes.
The only realistic outcome right now is "surface FCs". I don't think many people really want that.... but "base building" doesn't just magically bring the other stuff.
And just to be clear:
- Personal, decoratable spaces: Sounds great
- Expanded mining activities and surface mining: Awesome
- Building an industrial complex to take inputs and produce outputs: Excellent
- Facilities to augment exploration on planets: Yay
- Deep Space Resupply Outposts: Cool
Base building won't deliver any of that. Those are whole new feature sets which need to come before we even think about base building. Again... this was the same as Odyssey... people actually wanted a swath of new activities. Instead, we got the current feature set, but "on foot". No surprises to me there... but surprised a whole bunch of people who thought "
Incidentally, Shurimal's suggestion of base building being useful for expanding the DSSA network is the most realistic outcome of all this... but it still begs the question of "Why not FCs instead? How would they be different?"... and further, if that really was an outcome FD wanted, they'd let people simply have multiple FCs... but they don't. Base building to circumvent that would be clunky and strange... but i digress...
I can think of plenty of games which shoehorned it in, or just have awful game loops backing base building. They are definitely not fun... and I see the same being the case for ED in it's current state too.
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11. ship customizer
PD: In fact, I just learned that there are rumors that a ship customizer is coming to NMS. Starfield type
It doesn't matter what Frontier do, people are going to complain.
Take the most common "complaint" about Odyssey - that it is disconnected from the rest of the game. I can remember after Horizons was released that people complained that those who upgraded to Horizons got access to new functions for their ships - synthesis to start, engineering later. That gave players who upgraded to Horizons advantages over those who did not. Cue many loud complaints.
It's obvious to me that the separation of Odyssey gameplay from prior gameplay was a deliberate decision by Frontier, in my opinion driven by those complaints about Horizons. It must be very frustrating for Frontier to listen to and act on complaints, only to get more complaints. It's no wonder they mostly don't bother listening to player feedback and are simply making the game they want to make. We, the collective players, have only ourselves to blame for that.
For me, Elite Dangerous is my most favourite game ever. I play it most days, with occasional diversions to other games. If those games are space related (X, Starfield, No Man's Sky), then most of the time I spend thinking how much better Elite Dangerous is.
That means I don't care what new features Frontier add to the game. So long as they are developing and supporting it, I will be happy.
Take the most common "complaint" about Odyssey - that it is disconnected from the rest of the game. I can remember after Horizons was released that people complained that those who upgraded to Horizons got access to new functions for their ships - synthesis to start, engineering later. That gave players who upgraded to Horizons advantages over those who did not. Cue many loud complaints.
It's obvious to me that the separation of Odyssey gameplay from prior gameplay was a deliberate decision by Frontier, in my opinion driven by those complaints about Horizons. It must be very frustrating for Frontier to listen to and act on complaints, only to get more complaints. It's no wonder they mostly don't bother listening to player feedback and are simply making the game they want to make. We, the collective players, have only ourselves to blame for that.
For me, Elite Dangerous is my most favourite game ever. I play it most days, with occasional diversions to other games. If those games are space related (X, Starfield, No Man's Sky), then most of the time I spend thinking how much better Elite Dangerous is.
That means I don't care what new features Frontier add to the game. So long as they are developing and supporting it, I will be happy.
Players don't build bases, powers do.
Just throwing that out there.
That could be one way to solve the "ownership" issue.
That is "if" there is any merit to any of this...
Just throwing that out there.
That could be one way to solve the "ownership" issue.
That is "if" there is any merit to any of this...
Unsurprising, it is after all the most popular feature of Starfield. I'm currently building an M-class engame capital ship. It'll be basically the Anaconda.
Wow. That's some pretty bad reasoning right there tbh. The same statements could be said for almost any game, which to me shows a lack of nuance.
Give players a purpose? There's a huge amount of ways FD could do that without base building, and even with the extant mechanisms. This is not the exclusive domain of Base Building in any way. Personally, I'd much rather see investment in uplifting Engineers, On-foot Contacts and the Factional Reps into proper T2/3 NPCs, alongside the personification of the powers and superpowers (hopefully PP2.0 realises the need here). Combined with leaning harder into the procedural, so that things aren't just a one-step process and actually have some dynamism about them which generates real opportunities, not the flavour-text changing the BGS currently does.
EDIT: Also, it's worth noting people conflate "purpose" with "chores"... needing to play because "my outpost will run out of (some goods)" is not purpose.
Populate the galaxy? How? We're not factions. We're individual commanders. People seem to forget this.
Player run economy? I'll never understand why people constantly trundle that one out as a universal "good thing"... EVE made it cool, and a whole bunch of people thought it was an amazing thing... when the reality is EVE's a very specific case, and for the most part, player markets aren't necessary... and the ones that try and guardrailed way more than people realise. The other aspect to this is that the current game economy is a busted waffle. Base Building will not fix that. So either the player-run component of the market is enitrely segregated from the current market balances (at which point, people whinge that they can't make as much money from a player-run economy as they could from plain old massacre stacking), or FD need to embark on reworking something that touches literally every part of the game.
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I would hope that Frontier would distinguish between the two. However, if you can have multiple ships and multiple vehicles, I don’t really see why you can’t have multiple base entities.
Frontier might even consider both FCs and bases giving you, as the owner, some form of acknowledgement when you dock
I would hope that Frontier would distinguish between the two. However, if you can have multiple ships and multiple vehicles, I don’t really see why you can’t have multiple base entities.
Frontier might even consider both FCs and bases giving you, as the owner, some form of acknowledgement when you dock
You may not like the video, but that's your personal opinion.
They could improve on-foot contacts by adding them to certain bases. I'd also like to see the personification of the powers in-game and 3D models of the leaders.
A great way is also with base building.
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Go on then. Elaborate. Without sweeping statements like "Because player run market!". I want the nuts and bolts.
EDIT: Oh btw... that it's bad is definitely my opinion. That it could apply to almost any game is pretty objective, tbh. Forgotten how many times I've heard the trifecta of "Player purpose, making the game world come alive and player run markets" as the reason to do something analogous to base building.
Elaborate on a feature that might not be coming and on which we have no idea of the parameters? I think it’s a bit futile anyway as if a feature is supposed to be happening before the end of 2024, I would suggest that Frontier have already locked it in.
It might be that Frontier could already tell us what’s coming, but nothing stirs up a bit of interest like a mysterious new feature.
And yet people are so confident it would be great for the game, and can throw all sorts of parameters at criticism of the concept.
Funny how apparently someone can be so assured that a sight- unseen feature would be "so great for the game" yet to criticise such a concept is unreasonable.
That's called double-standards.
Yep... and I'm incredibly doubtful that timeframe allows for it to be a meaningful implementation of anything like base building in a feature update. It would require a complete rework of virtually the entire game's activity loops to come even remotely close to meeting expectation.
Maybe for the next major DLC which completely reworks everything much like Odyssey did. But not a feature update.
Subsequent feature updates could gradually work towards the necessary baseline to warrant a system like base building to be added. But base building alone won't get there.
It would be great If the new feature helps to integrate Odyssey to the base game better.
EVA to derelict ships to laser off parts with the cutter that you can use to upgrade your ship would be cool. Ship interiors with workstations to modify suits and weapons, these could be ship manufacturer specific rooms rather than (38) different ones for each ship.
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