Could you add some new game loops?

[Vanquish383]

PP2.0 (basically the same activities as PP1.0) and Colonization (a bunch of hauling missions) are not adding anything new to the game. At least nothing to be so excited about as Fdev seems to be.

Would be possible at some point some new game loops like:

1. Some real ground exploration like caves or abandoned cities?
2. Ground mining with cool ground vehicles
3. Water exploration and water vehicles
4. Ship savaging via hand and ship tools
5. Base building and factories where players can refine and create manufactured materials
6. ...Did someone say ship interiors?

 

[aRJay]

Maybe once various other things are added such as landable planets with substantial atmosphere and liquid.

An interesting list up to number 5 where it went downhill very fast.

 

[varonica]

...Did someone say ship interiors?

Request new game loop....ship interiors, umm what game loop exactly?

1) is good but hampered by the planetary tech for caves, cities would be nice but no doubt would become generic after a while unless prodedurally generated because of so many planets, with targets to scan and stuff to find, how complex to make them though?

2) always wanted some decent mining SRV instead of shooting stuff on the surface mining stuff would be nice.

3) yeah we need more planets opened up for this, current planets don't support open bodies of water so while that may come eventually it could be a long while.

4) should have been what Odyssey was all about really, exploring and salvaging stuff from abandoned megaships, finding useful tech to either use or sell, I mean we do get some ground based salvaging of Odyssey mats if you really want to fly down to the planetary crash sites so part of that is already there, but it's only Odyssey mats.

5) why? 2 and 4 already gives us extra ways to gather mats and stuff, base building to make factories to produce the same stuff seems redundant, and base building is a highly player specific niche activity. A very small part of the player base may enjoy it, I and many other would never touch it. Putting in full base building and factory construction would be a HUGE undertaking to cater to only a small number of players, whereas base building is well catered for in games that already specialise in that area of gaming, and new scifi based other world factory building games are coming out in 2025 and would probably beat FDEV into the ground if they went that way. It would be a catastrophically poor use of dev time and effort, but then I feel that about the current Odyssey FPS game loop but that at least has a slightly larger appeal across the player base. Doing that would only delay the other stuff you are asking for, perhaps forever.

6) and ship interiors as mentioned, that's not a game loop...you haven't mentioned a game loop at all just a desire, put some thought into a decent in ship game loop that appeals to the player base at large and maybe I would agree, but I have yet to see any suggested in ship activity that would appeal to more than a fraction of the player base.

 

[metatheurgist]

but I have yet to see any suggested in ship activity that would appeal to more than a fraction of the player base.

Didn't stop them from doing PP twice.

 

[varonica]

Didn't stop them from doing PP twice.

That's a fair point, not sure what fraction of the player base does PP but this fraction doesn't.

 

[metatheurgist]

The initial statement was 20% for PP1. Now that they've increased the bribes rewards I expect it's a bit higher, but I doubt it's high enough to warrant the resources spent.

 

[varonica]

The initial statement was 20% for PP1. Now that they've increased the bribes rewards I expect it's a bit higher, but I doubt it's high enough to warrant the resources spent.

You see to me 20% is a significant fraction, I doubt base building would attract that fraction, but to be clear, when I say attract I don't mean do it to test, or return every few weeks to look at and collect rewards that have stockpiled after the base is built. If that 20% of players doing PP are doing it a good part of their play time then it's probably worth it, they stay because of PP, they spend money and pay for DLC's when they come out and long term it will pay for itself.

Could I see base building doing the same? Not sure on that but there are plenty of games that already do base building far better than FDEV ever would, the difference between PP and Base Building is that PP leverages the core strength of ED, which is of course flying spaceships in a simulated galaxy, which I really don't think is done as well by any other game. Base building doesn't leverage that already existing strength of ED but tries to introduce an entire new game, there are a lot of dedicated base building games coming out in 2025 set in off world environments. If I really wanted to play a scifi space setting base building game would I continue to play ED long term so that FDEV could get a return on investment for that development or go to one of the almost guaranteed better scifi base building games coming out?

 

[Jmanis]

<snip>

Unsure if you mean exclusively for Powerplay or not... coz personally I don't see any reason to do that, but not here to debate what PP should/should not be... but:

1. Some real ground exploration like caves or abandoned cities?

Something something cobra engine can't do caves? I suspect FD might make these fixed POI, but would be better as procgen random spawns... which might cause some people consternation... but tl;dr yeah sure. Note: The current "caves" that are things like Thargoid Structures, are actually faked as they're actually entities sitting on otherwise flat terrain.

1. Ground mining with cool ground vehicles

New ground vehicles are sorely needed, esp something with less weapons, more cargo capacity. Ground mining i'm a bit meh about but don't have any real valid objections

1. Water exploration and water vehicles

But we need water worlds first... the implied tasks here are well beyond just adding this.

1. Ship savaging via hand and ship tools

Yeah, some reasonable salvage options are also lacking significantly... but I suspect some of this is because Odyssey is an embarrasingly standalone DLC, so it's unlikely to happen

1. Base building and factories where players can refine and create manufactured materials

I would despise base building purely as a means for getting engineering widgets.... though I'd just despise base building outright. There's no

1. ...Did someone say ship interiors?

Ship interiors would add nothing. Unless you mean to include other things that ship interiors could enable, but I'd argue there is so much more that can be eked out from the currently under-exploited game mechanics before we even think about adding a whole new system.

Just to summarise... the game does not need new systems of play i.e base building, ship interiors, water exploration. What it does need is better exploitation of the existing systems and mechanics. I've written too many times about how many of the games mechanics and systems of interaction are grossly under-exploited... scenarios... megaship/outpost interactions... horizons bases, even most Odyssey mechanics, they're all just busy boards with no real significant outcomes or purpose attached to them, and that's a huge waste of dev time to under-exploit mechanics like that, only to be replicated entirely with no to minor mechanical differences (e.g all those bespoke AX utilities we got in the war that literally existed already, but for some reason the non-AX versions couldn't be used...)

Further, FD need to lean into the procedural to enable players to embark on long, dynamic adventures, rather than static things such as base-building... things that let us do the activities we enjoy while going out into the galaxy... not staying in/returning to one spot constantly. The more FD can do to keep people mobile and have reason to step outside their "regular system", the better.

 

[CMDR_LS]

PP2.0 (basically the same activities as PP1.0) and Colonization (a bunch of hauling missions) are not adding anything new to the game. At least nothing to be so excited about as Fdev seems to be.

Would be possible at some point some new game loops like:

1. Some real ground exploration like caves or abandoned cities?
2. Ground mining with cool ground vehicles
3. Water exploration and water vehicles
4. Ship savaging via hand and ship tools
5. Base building and factories where players can refine and create manufactured materials
6. ...Did someone say ship interiors?

one can only dream lol. Probably not any time soon. Odyssey feels like it was abandoned in favor of more grindy content.

PP2.0 (basically the same activities as PP1.0) and Colonization (a bunch of hauling missions) are not adding anything new to the game

they did actually. They added more new grind.

 

[Hanerib]

Some kind of space installation and abandoned outpost interiors and related missions would be a reasonable thing to expect.

How about new SRV accessible ports to Horizons stations with mission givers, mission boards or interiors, give players a reason to explore already existing assets.

 

[Vingtetun]

Gameplay loops around existing assets would be the easiest low hanging fruit.

Old style planetary bases
Engineer bases (they look stunning)
Space installations and megashipa
NPC encounters

These are all well formed assets which are ripe for extension. In the case of engineer bases they're stunningly hand designed and totally sterile locations. No interactivity.

 

[Jmanis]

Some kind of space installation and abandoned outpost interiors and related missions would be a reasonable thing to expect.

How about new SRV accessible ports to Horizons stations with mission givers, mission boards or interiors, give players a reason to explore already existing assets.

Gameplay loops around existing assets would be the easiest low hanging fruit.

Old style planetary bases
Engineer bases (they look stunning)
Space installations and megashipa
NPC encounters

These are all well formed assets which are ripe for extension. In the case of engineer bases they're stunningly hand designed and totally sterile locations. No interactivity.

Yeah i was going to say, the level of detail around existing dockable horizons bases is incredible, and yet, there's nothing to do around them, whatsoever.

Even stations have great details, and the most interaction we do around they besides dock, is maybe hack billboards... woo -.-

I did this video back when the Oracle got attacked by Thargoids... the effects around the place eye great, including this bit when you get too close to a damaged part of the station. Would be great trying to fight through that to achieve an interaction requiring precision... but nothing. That's what needs fleshing out.

 

[GroG79]

How about new SRV accessible ports to Horizons stations...

That you can do already. Just drive into the srv parking at a landing pad and ask permission to dock

 

[Hanerib]

That you can do already. Just drive into the srv parking at a landing pad and ask permission to dock

Yet there is no particular reason to use this function or go explore the base.

 

[Reggit]

Some kind of space installation and abandoned outpost interiors and related missions would be a reasonable thing to expect.

I've heard alot of people talk about something along these lines...
It would be cool, to find a big spooky abandoned ship floating in space...to sneak onboard looking for 'stuff'...But oh no! Here come the giant alien spiders! (or something along those lines)
I'd love to see new areas available from the station concourse lifts too - something like "go to the habitation deck and save the hostages being held in cabin #41" or "go into the farming greenhouse area and take down the terrorists who have taken over".

 

[Vanquish383]

Wonderful, I've seen the new 2025 roadmap.

What the sense of creating new ship when

1. We still cannot walk inside ships
2. All the ships have the same HUD, so basically all fell quite the same.

Still no sign of new game mechanics.

 

[Greasetrap42]

The initial statement was 20% for PP1. Now that they've increased the bribes rewards I expect it's a bit higher, but I doubt it's high enough to warrant the resources spent.

Now that I have reached rank +100, it seems very pointless. I already had the PP modules I wanted, but kinda like Imperial and Federal rank I figured I would rank up. And similar to Imperial and federal rank, there is nothing attractive about sticking around and being committed to the power.

• Weekly assignments are now of 0% value.
• I haven't bothered trying to open the care packages beyond rank 20.
• The perks are generally only good in your power's region. I generally don't explode my ship, so that main perk is useless. And I am a mega billionare so who cares.
• Attempting to undermine another power is a waste of time. It is just a game of stockpiling stuff and suddenly dumping it. And the defenders have a huge advantage. And get all their Powerplay bonuses in their efforts where I get none. And why? What can I possibly gain if I happen to succeed? Why do I care about expanding my power into other systems? Now that I am sufficiently demoralized with even trying... it is just a waste of time & effort. But I probably won't succeed but impossible to tell because at any moment all efforts can be wiped by a huge dump. So it is just a waste of time.

 

[Reggit]

...What the sense of creating new ship when

1. We still cannot walk inside ships
2. All the ships have the same HUD, so basically all fell quite the same.

So you don't want new ships, because we don't have on-foot ship interiors?

(PS - check out EDHM UI - it's a pretty neat little program. It even remembers different custom HUD's when changing ships!)

 

[galahad2069]

the game does not need new systems of play i.e base building, ship interiors, water exploration. What it does need is better exploitation of the existing systems and mechanics.

True.

Before they start to think about new systems, maybe they should fix what we already have, because nearly every single new feature they added has been broken and bug ridden since day #1.

Like PP2.0, one of the recent updates, which they never bothered to try and make it actually work as intended. They just disabled the most broken parts and called it a day.

 

[rootsrat]

Wonderful, I've seen the new 2025 roadmap.

What the sense of creating new ship when

1. We still cannot walk inside ships
2. All the ships have the same HUD, so basically all fell quite the same.

Still no sign of new game mechanics.

They literally implemented point 5 from your list and yet you're still here complaining.