Elite Dangerous' Game Design is stuck behind a rock and a hard place

hobblygobbly

hobblygobbly
Making space travel less tedious or interesting is a really difficult design challenge, space is big, between a lot of things it's boring and empty. It's difficult to make those parts interesting, people seem to forget what the material itself is and only so much you can do with it. It's an issue to plagues many space games.

I think the travel system is amongst the lowest issues/drawbacks honestly, major improvement I can think of is adding a micro jump for those stations that take an hour or more to get to in SC which is ridiculous. How does on propose to make the travel such as SC more interesting without adding gimmicky mini games like "space highways" where you "dodge traffic" and the like? It's a difficult design issue to tackle, it's something that is fundamentally uninteresting and boring in great distances.
 
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StarTux

S
Zaptruder said:
With all that been said, I have just thought of a reasonable design compromise between needing supercruise and jumping to points of interest. Essentially, allow players to 'save points of interests' into their travel computer/log/whatever. So the first time they visit a system, they'll jump to the star, but once they find various points of interest, they can in future just hyper jump to those points directly. Super cruise mechanics retained. But much of the tedium of commute travel is jumped away.

This isn't a perfect solution of course; it would raise the ire of the pseudo-realistic brigade; they'll cry that you jump to gravity wells! and points of interest keep moving! And it'd exacerbate the trade homogenization I was talking about.

But then if you can't compromise on any of the fluff, what you get is a game that is fundamentally... boring. Wait to super cruise. Wait for super cruise to load. Wait for super cruise to get you there. Wait to exit super cruise. Just keep waiting.
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I think right now we have a mash between Elite and Frontier with a great foundation to build upon....

Need to have opportunities to explore, to get intedicted, to interdict etc, but some of the worst cases of travel could also be taken care of with a mini-jump if the target is at another star, that's a better compromise imho than jumping straight to POI's. Lets say, press "j" and you hop to the other gravity well, so you're still going to have those opportunities to get interdicted, to interdict etc, but without necessarily having to transverse through SC for more than a minute or so.

Now I still think the option to do so should still exist, indeed maybe have a chance to find more in USS's or have more encounters, but I would hate it Elite to change to a simple point, click and go and have SC too degraded, yet a balance could be found.
 

saeoiuhrvboiszubö

saeoiuhrvboiszubö
Zaptruder said:
I really want to love this game. It ticks so many of the right boxes for me. I love how the ships look. I love the concept of a simulated universe. I loved Frontier and First Encounters to death.

But this game... is a chore. A real bore.

And the biggest problem?

The travel mechanics. On paper, great. Great solution. In practice; Tedious. Wait to get out of mass lock. Wait to go into hyper jump. Wait for hyper jump. Wait to go out of hyper jump. Point ship at target in super cruise. Wait a while for super cruise to get you where you want to go.

You want to investigate something? Wait to slow down to target speed. Wait to drop out of super cruise. Investigate, find nothing probably. Wait to get back into super cruise, wait for super cruise animation, wait to drop in to super cruise.

God forbid you want to actually explore all those blips around you; I hope that's all you want to do. Those missions that give you a system and no point of interest is basically a massive luck based time sink that can never justify their returns.

The worst thing about super cruise is the meat of the travel. It's a bloody screen saver. Requires just enough mental activity to annoy, but not to challenge - keeping the ship pointed in the right direction for course corrections... keeping the throttle in the right range (max, then half way once speed > distance to target x 0.1). So they added interdiction; and the first couple times were fun, but realized that just made the whole process even more annoying, so lowered the rate significantly (I assume... I didn't play during the interdiction heavy period, and only picked it up again a couple days ago - haven't been interdicted once).

It's actually travelling the longest distances that feel the most snappy. Multiple hyper jumps? Just keep pointing and jumping. Small down time.

It didn't have to be this way. But 2 factors have conspired to make it this way.

1. The pseudo-realism; realistic star systems, realistic distances. Huzzah everyone cheered. Now we get to feel how awesome it is to travel the great expanses of space! (hint; there's a lot of blackness and pointing in one direction with small corrections).

2. The multiplayer focus; a living breathing universe. Fantastic idea. Everyone's efforts will effect everyone else's and make it feel like everyone is in this living breathing universe! One moment will never be the same to another!


Frontier and FFE both had 1. But they got around the problem of slow travel by been single player. There was no transitioning between supercruise and normal space - you just had a time dilator button. It's a huge change - in the order of 45-60 seconds (time it tacks to get out of mass lock, wait for SC count down, load into SC) per transition in and out of super cruise/time dilation. Add on top the whole acceleration/deceleration mechanic for SC (where as in Frontier and FFE; you didn't actually slow down in time dilation; you continued heading in the vector you were heading at the speed you were heading - small changes you made to your vector while in real time doing whatever you were doing in real time). Moreover, those SP games had an autopilot system that removed the tedium of handling minor course corrections and minor acceleration and deceleration changes. Essentially you had an encounter, then hit the fast forward button again to admire space travel. Travelling large distances still took time, but it was easier. Handling multiple encounters too was easy; 0 down time between going in and out of encounters.

You could still design around a lot of the problems with a jump to point of interest function with supercruise - but as many players rightfully point out, that kinda makes super cruise pointless.

The multiplayer focus very simply destroy's travel by making time dilation an impossible mechanic; forcing the use of super cruise. Moreover, players trading in the universe affect others trading in the universe; so having very low barrier between each instance of trade exacerbates the problem of homogenizing supply and demand and thus removing the ability to profit on arbitrage (the whole point of trading).


With all that been said, I have just thought of a reasonable design compromise between needing supercruise and jumping to points of interest. Essentially, allow players to 'save points of interests' into their travel computer/log/whatever. So the first time they visit a system, they'll jump to the star, but once they find various points of interest, they can in future just hyper jump to those points directly. Super cruise mechanics retained. But much of the tedium of commute travel is jumped away.

This isn't a perfect solution of course; it would raise the ire of the pseudo-realistic brigade; they'll cry that you jump to gravity wells! and points of interest keep moving! And it'd exacerbate the trade homogenization I was talking about.

But then if you can't compromise on any of the fluff, what you get is a game that is fundamentally... boring. Wait to super cruise. Wait for super cruise to load. Wait for super cruise to get you there. Wait to exit super cruise. Just keep waiting.
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Yes, I think the Story and are in the game :p .

(Help me... I WIll super SUPER mega starwar : this Need time ?
And One Klick to win not to pay)


Rizlag said:
Netflix ftw :D
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and 12 minitvtft´s with andorit ^^ on my (ship´s) side.... yes you not alone, and i Have that :p
 

Quietman

Q
There are valid points and opinions on both sides of this discussion, I'll just leave you with mine:

Supercruise is the one point in the game where I can take the time to relax and take in the beauty of the cockpit and the current solar system as I travel from one point to another; sometimes I even deliberately slow my speed down so that the journey will take longer.

You see, I am using a DK2 and it's when you finally relax and start paying attention to detail that the serious immersion kicks in; it never gets old, even after hundreds of hours in the cockpit traveling through similar looking scenes with repetitive mechanics.

All it takes is the glimpse of a ship's manufacturer's badge glinting in the star light or gazing through my ship's canopy at just the right angle so that the filth and muck embedded in the glass partially obstruct the scene or the stunning cockpit detail that fills my view as I crane my neck towards the back of the cockpit half expecting to see my crew busily attending to the ship's functions.

What I see, (apart from the chance to relax and become immersed in my surroundings), is the potential for Supercruise to become the point in the game whereby you become a true commander of a space-faring vessel. What I want, is for it to become the Normandy of Mass Effect, whereby you can get out of your seat, attend to the complex functions of your ship or plan your route in detail or deal with emerging emergencies, all in a multiplayer fashion with your crew who are real players.

I personally see this as even more important than planetary landings and if ED ever gets to this stage, Supercruise will probably become one of, if not, the best part of the game as you and your crew fight over who gets to pilot the ship next or re-enacting scenes from the Millennium Falcon or even who gets to shower with Miranda in the unisex facilities, etc.
 

DeepFried

D
I hate to say it but I agree with the OP, he's even right about people defending the game's flaws, which is sad.

There's no excuse for the poor mechanics, certainly not realism as ED has placed itself very far from the sim genre, FE2 was way more sim than ED is. Ultimately unless a game is a hardcore sim it _must_ focus on gameplay or suffer for it.

The most damning testament in my mind is that although I have had the game since beta I haven't played since the start of beta 2 and frankly have no interest in playing now or at launch. I am the core demographic for this game, this is a huge fail and frankly i'm more likely to go and play FE2 again as at least that was fun in its own way.

If I had to sum up ED in a word, currently that word would be "tedious".
 

Calebe

C
Enter game. Buy commodities. Launch. Jump to system. Jump to space station. Land. Rinse repeat. So exciting. I could get a macro, and have it play the game for me. I could check it every hour and see how it is doing. Ahh no thanks.
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Super cruise is boring, but to jump directly to a station takes out any game play at all. You arrive, and arrive again. Nothing at all to do. In super cruise you can enjoy the sights, if a scanner you can activate it to see if any unknown and undiscovered planets or anomalies are in the area. The game shows off the size of space and so many cry out for immersion, but why does it take so long. Want immersion space is big get use to it.
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The one that gets to me, the few seconds to jump to hyperspace is an issue? It takes time to charge the capacitor to make the jump, and if those few seconds seem long, then instant gratification has got to be the end result. See above you can do it all with one key press and the game runs itself.
.
No thanks,
.
Calebe
 

Rearden

Rearden
Zaptruder said:
I've played through premium beta's version of Supercruise which is much more akin to what you describe. It's better now, but only marginally so - and only because you can flip around and see points of interest as you're moving around. The main problem to me is still the length of transition times in and out of super cruise, which don't just include load screens, but acceleration and deceleration. Which in turn makes the motivation to visit points of interest significantly reduced - they rarely yield anything worth the pain of dropping out of SC, decelerating, accelerating, etc worth the trouble of it.
Click to expand...

This describes how I see supercruise as well, especially getting out of it takes huge amount of time where you don't even see the seconds progressing. Now I understand that deceleration is important because that is mostly where you are going to get interdicted but something needs to be done to maybe cut the time required to entered a USS or something else to half.
 

NoCarrier

NoCarrier
FD just needs to increase the acceleration when you've reached deep space and cleared most gravity wells. Suprecruising for a minute isn't that bad—it's the frequent four to five minute trip over to a companion star that's making me zone out. It seems such an easy fix to me. I wonder why they haven't tried it already.
 

Maruun

Maruun
Supercruise is the only thing that gives us a sense of scale in Elite.
Without it you would only have a pseudo solarsystem with its POI to jump to and you would get a feeling of "boxed in" not a open world/space where you travel in the loneliness of space.

Traveltimes gives you a sense of scale in a world.
Everybody who played Skryim knows how different the experience is, if you deactivate fasttravel and start "traveling" to your destination. Everything takes longer, but can be much more satisfying.

Timeaccelration is used in most singleplayer games to give a sense of scale and a traveltime without making it a burden.
Kerbal Space Program
X-Series
Frontier
ect.

Even Battlefield/Arma uses traveltimes to give a sense of scale to the player.

Instant travel is just bad for any game that tries to sell a believeable world.

People asked for a Autopilot...but a honest question with a autopilot what would be left for a trader (as a example) to do in Elite?
Browsing Markets

EVE Online comes to mind. It gives you a believeable world with traveltimes, but thanks to the autopilot you dont have much to do in the game outside of combats.

Autopilot sound always awesome but the drawback is it makes the game feel passive. Awesome when you try to manage factorys/station/fleets bad if you want to enjoy a feel of "piloting your ship".
 

DYSEQTA

DYSEQTA
InfiniteGremlins said:
That's one reason why, by the way, the ability to look around in supercruise would be helpful, because it would create an engagement activity that the player could do while waiting for another process (supercruise travel) to get to a point that requires intervention.
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Um... you can look around in Super Cruise...
 

Jay_ombie

Jay_ombie
This is a GOOD Topic. Understanding the times it takes to get to places (watching play throughs) yes I agree that unless you can do other things during the journey, the long periods of A to B travelling could end up being mundane for many a player. (specially if your a dad and time is limited)

I only have one screen to play on, so what I have in front of me needs to entertain and keep me engaged. As traveling is a key component of this game it must allow me to do other stuff or give me some options to avoid long sits at the screen looking at stars. (if I wanted that I put on Starry Night - haha) We now in the place where there are no limitations to what we can or can not do with Elite so we can keep what makes Elite the game we love but also add in elements to expand options for use by certain player characteristics.

Maybe we can have an option for Hyper Sleep ?,.... make certain trips instant with the cost of say energy cells or something.
 
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Rock-Hermit

Rock-Hermit
There's nothing wrong with the travel mechanics, they make the gameworld feel big and not just look big. The problem is there is nothing to do while travelling.

Once we can get out of the cockpit and walk around the ship and do other stuff while travelling it won't seem boring. Of course that would mean adding some kind of auto pilot or giving pilot control over to an npc co-pilot while you're off doing other stuff, but while we're tied to the cockpit and have precious little other opportunity to do other stuff - like planning the next route, checking news bulletin feed, conversing with crew, popping down to the cargo hold to fix a leaky pipe etc, then yes its boring as hell.
 

Dweezil_Moon

Dweezil_Moon
Jay_ombie said:
I only have one screen to play on, so what I have in front of me needs to entertain and keep me engaged. As traveling is a key component of this game it must allow me to do other stuff or give me some options to avoid long sits at the screen looking at stars. (if I wanted that I put on Starry Night - haha) We now in the place where there are no limitations to what we can or can not do with Elite so we can keep what makes Elite the game we love but also add in elements to expand options for use by certain player characteristics.

Maybe we can have an option for Hyper Sleep ?,.... make certain trips instant with the cost of say energy cells or something.
Click to expand...

Shameless self promotion : I published a tool to reformat the galnet news page to something Text2Speech readable (galnewsreader, https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52248, found under Miscellaneous ). If Frontier starts updating it again one of your options will be to listen to the news. Or keep a captain's log (there are tools in the link too :) ... you know, roleplay :)

Hypersleep sounds nice until you realize that you are sharing the galaxy with other players, so instant-travel (which is what "hypersleep" would be) doesn't work.
 

archeolog108

archeolog108
If you approach this game as an arcade game it is boring.

If you approach this game as a space flight simulator in simulated galaxy this is part of the experience.

There are many non-simulators you can try. Good luck and bye bye!
 
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