I think FD needs to take another look at the fundamental "rule set" and reengineer it.

[Sanderson]

I think FD needs to take another look at the fundamental "rule set" and reengineer it. By "rule set" I mean the way the parameters the game is set in and how everything adheres to it.

FD may have had great ideas, on paper, before release but, as they add more to ED to flesh it out it seems to me that more and more isn't fitting so well inside the "rule set".

As David said, when you get the bare minimum in a game just to have a slice of everything, it requires reengineering the game at a latter point. I think ED is at or closely approaching that point as they add more and more.

There's bits and pieces that work and work well. There's bits and pieces that don't work or don't work well at all and then there's just things missing that leaves gaps between the various bits.

At some point, IMO (you're welcome Ian) all the bits and pieces need to coherently fit together and work as a "whole". Right now ED, again IMO, isn't close to meshing together in a smooth coherent way. IMO, it'll require a look outside the box of the current "rule set" with fresh eyes to get it all working together well.

 

[Tar Stone]

Agree. I don't think they've the stones to be as brutal as what I think is required though.

The background stuff, reputation, factions, modifiers for prices, discounts is a mess and needs stripped down and tightened up.

They ought to carve away all the fluff and crap and expose the heart of it, which is in there somewhere.

I don't think Frontier are getting valuable feedback right now, where is their community manager organising formal testing and feedback?

Man I'd pay money for an hour of DB's time right now, feels like a new Elite is slipping away.

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IMO community goals is more fluff and crap. But that's just IMO, IMO.

IMO.

 

[robbyp]

Please explain in detail what needs reengineering

 

[Sanderson]

Please explain in detail what needs reengineering

Everything with regards to how it all works together. Prices, missions, trading, ship specs, factions, missions, exploring, player influence.....you name it. The "whole enchilada" as the saying goes, the big picture.

I really don't have the expertise or knowledge to sit down and rewrite in detail all the things that don't work well or are missing, if I could I'm sure I'd be working at FD or on my own game. I don't need to be a chef to tell one the food taste bad and they need to rethink the recipe if you know what I mean.

 

[Tar Stone]

Please explain in detail what needs reengineering

This article explains it like you're five:
https://anttiilomaki.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/elite-dangerous-or-endangered/

IMO the background simulation is amateur hour. As a huge fan of tabletop games I've seen slicker, smarter, and more dynamic rulesets in boardgames.

Frontier are stumbling around in the dark with the dynamic galaxy stuff, meanwhile the clientside stuff is superb.

 

[Sanderson]

Before I get jumped on by the usual suspects and this is filled with hate posts, if I didn't care about the game I'd just move along and be done with it.

 

[Dbrn47]

I'm confused by all the extra IMOs... Can we not assume that we all understand what an opinion looks like? I obviously missed something. Anyhow, can you explain to me what you are looking to be re-engineered? I'm looking for finished ideas and polish myself. Maybe even proper explanations. I'm not sure about sweeping changes.

EDIT: Sorry, I'll check out the info given to the other guy that asked the same question basically

EDIT#2: Yea, I can't be bothered to read the giant critique just understand what you are talking about. I'll take your word for it. I think I get the idea. I agree on some things, but as I said, I'm currently really craving the finishing of current ideas and polish. The more we require them to change, the longer it is going to take, at which point, they shouldn't have released the game. I wouldn't ask them to completely redesign it. It's out, I paid for it, just finish it up.

 

[robbyp]

Read that before. I see your politeness system is turned off. (Note I clarified this below)

As I said, if you want to make a generalised statement like this, I don't think its a valid way of making a point. Please spell out exactly what's wrong and how you would like it fixed.

 

[ries]

This article explains it like you're five:
https://anttiilomaki.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/elite-dangerous-or-endangered/

IMO the background simulation is amateur hour. As a huge fan of tabletop games I've seen slicker, smarter, and more dynamic rulesets in boardgames.

Frontier are stumbling around in the dark with the dynamic galaxy stuff, meanwhile the clientside stuff is superb.

you realise this isnt a tabletop game?

 

[_Flin_]

This article explains it like you're five:
https://anttiilomaki.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/elite-dangerous-or-endangered/

IMO the background simulation is amateur hour. As a huge fan of tabletop games I've seen slicker, smarter, and more dynamic rulesets in boardgames.

Frontier are stumbling around in the dark with the dynamic galaxy stuff, meanwhile the clientside stuff is superb.

If you like to read about a nice background simulation, you should read "Reamde" from Neal Stephenson. There they have an MMO that starts with plate tectonics and how metals are created and that defines the amount of metals one can mine over time.

Currently I feel hardly any background sim at work.

I thought we'd get:
- Standard of Living and Wealth influencing development levels and population change
- population and production values affecting demand and supply
- transactions affecting demand and supply
- certain items affecting supply (e.g. auto-fabricators)
- production (= supply) affecting demand for raw materials
etc.

And my main gripe with all that is that it is a black box.

We don't know anything. It might be that this is a wonderful system (which I doubt after what I have experienced so far) and we just cant see it, because we don't see half of it.

We don't get infos about
- Wealth (well, we do, but only on a very rough scale; and I really don't know whether this one ever changes)
- Production
- Standard of Living
- Development level (only by looking at shipyards and outfitting shops)
- detailed influence changes
- detailed state info
- detailed reputation info
- detailed mission info

We cannot "play" the background simulation, because we really know almost nothing about it. We cannot spot bugs, because we don't know whether things work as intended or not. Or spot whether things make sense.

We don't know whether it is good to do missions, which missions, bountyhunt, how to end certain states, how to trigger certain states, etc.

We are forced to stumble around in the dark, and hope for Michael Brookes to throw us some breadcrumbs every now and then.

EDIT: and @OP: If you don't tell us what exactly you mean, noone will understand you. One can read your post as "all is bad, all has to change"

 

[Sanderson]

I'm confused by all the extra IMOs... Can we not assume that we all understand what an opinion looks like? I obviously missed something. Anyhow, can you explain to me what you are looking to be re-engineered? I'm looking for finished ideas and polish myself. Maybe even proper explanations. I'm not sure about sweeping changes.

EDIT: Sorry, I'll check out the info given to the other guy that asked the same question basically

No, sorry, I tried the "assuming everyone knew it was an opinion" and it didn't work so well. If you say something, without specifically stating it's an opinion, you get jumped on as if what you are saying is indeed a fact. So, I try to clarify IMO when I think it's called for. Still doesn't always work.

 

[Dbrn47]

No, sorry, I tried the "assuming everyone knew it was an opinion" and it didn't work so well. If you say something, without specifically stating it's an opinion, you get jumped on as if what you are saying is indeed a fact. So, I try to clarify IMO when I think it's called for. Still doesn't always work.

That's a damn shame really... I rarely make that compromise, I assume that everyone is intelligent enough to know the difference first. I guess that's what gets me in trouble sometimes. Never assume.

Anyhow, I edited my post again to further respond to your initial thought.

 

[Sanderson]

Read that before. I see your politeness system is turned off.

As I said, if you want to make a generalised statement like this, I don't think its a valid way of making a point. Please spell out exactly what's wrong and how you would like it fixed.

How was I not "polite"? I was as "polite" as I could be, if you took it as me not being polite then I really can't help that.

Again, there's just too much for me too list and to be honest, I don't know how to fix it, that's why IMO FD needs to do it. A simple way of putting it, I suppose, would be to say that nothing (IMO) works well together, when it works well at all. There's some things that work well on their own but, doesn't "fit" with the game as a whole.

That's why I think the entire game needs a fresh set of eyes without being restrained by the current "rule set" to look at it and reengineer the game so it all works well and works well together. At this point too much may still be missing to really do that but, maybe not.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Man I'd pay money for an hour of DB's time right now, feels like a new Elite is slipping away.
.

dont get me wrong, i would love to shoot the breeze with him as well, I have loads of ideas which I think would be great, but ultimately Do you not think if you essentially told DB his/their ideas are rubbish, yours are better, "listen to me or fail", he would consider you overly arrogant / self important?

There are dozens of cool ideas already in the DDF, the fact that they have not been implemented yet are not because they have not occurred to anyone at FD, but because either they take a long time to implement, OR the guys over at FD do not consider them a priority over what they DO have planned.
As one of the devs said once before (sorry i forget which one) they are making the game they want to play, and if that is what you / we want that is great, but if not then go make your own game.

 

[Talarin]

Assuming that the background sim is actually there (which I believe it is) could the problem actually lie with the feedback we get as players?
.
Don't get me wrong - I am sure plenty of improvement to the system could be made - but I think such a sweeping statement about the underlying simulation is perhaps poorly thought out.
.
Also, there is a point to made (and perhaps your advocating it being easier to affect the game) - having an overly sensitive background sim is not in our interests. It could lead to massive uncontrolled changes in the game which won't be desirable.

 

[Vandaahl]

I think FD needs to take another look at the fundamental "rule set" and reengineer it. By "rule set" I mean the way the parameters the game is set in and how everything adheres to it.

FD may have had great ideas, on paper, before release but, as they add more to ED to flesh it out it seems to me that more and more isn't fitting so well inside the "rule set".

As David said, when you get the bare minimum in a game just to have a slice of everything, it requires reengineering the game at a latter point. I think ED is at or closely approaching that point as they add more and more.

There's bits and pieces that work and work well. There's bits and pieces that don't work or don't work well at all and then there's just things missing that leaves gaps between the various bits.

At some point, IMO (you're welcome Ian) all the bits and pieces need to coherently fit together and work as a "whole". Right now ED, again IMO, isn't close to meshing together in a smooth coherent way. IMO, it'll require a look outside the box of the current "rule set" with fresh eyes to get it all working together well.

I'm sry to say, I read it thrice, but it still seems a bit vague what you're on to... fundamentals, rule sets, bigger pictures and a lot of "". I'm a bit puzzled.

 

[Yokai]

Before I get jumped on by the usual suspects and this is filled with hate posts, if I didn't care about the game I'd just move along and be done with it.

If I could rep you from my mobile, I would. So accept this virtual hug instead.

 

[robbyp]

How was I not "polite"? I was as "polite" as I could be, if you took it as me not being polite then I really can't help that. .

Sorry, that was not aimed at you.. It was 'like you were five' from the post below which did not read well. My fault.

 

[Sanderson]

..... It could lead to massive uncontrolled changes in the game which won't be desirable.

That's the danger (as David said) of releasing a game too early with a vertical slice. Once a basic "rule set" is in place and then you add things stuff starts not to fit and things fall apart or just don't make sense.

Here's one very very small example: Fuel prices. Why does fuel per/ton differ from ship type to ship type? I assume it's because there's some magical "fuel type" that's missing from the game right now but, as it's missing it doesn't make sense. That's a small example but, when you add all the small examples together it's a very incoherent big picture, hence this thread.

I'm not suggesting the entire game is rubbish, what I am suggesting is it needs fresh eyes (and hands) to look at it in an attempt to get it all working well together as a single unit as opposed to bits and pieces doing their own thing, often not well.

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If I could rep you from my mobile, I would. So accept this virtual hug instead.

Thanks! repped. (virtual hug back at ya)

 

[Dissentient]

This review accurately points out the core problem.

The way that mechanics are tied together in this game is just too simple and "cheap", and those mechanics simply don't in any way affect each other most of the time.