Impressions after first 100 hours of play. Praises, Concerns, Suggestions to not have the game die out in a few months. Impressions after first 100 hours of play. Praises, Concerns, Suggestions to not have the game die out in a few months.
After my first 100 hours I've realized game is pretty much what many of us who love space sims have been waiting for for literally decades. A giant open world where you can interact with other people and trade / pirate / bounty hunt / etc etc...
The potential is so mind blowingly awesome and big it makes it so much more painful the way several things currently are...
I know there are many threads on here about many of these things, and some of these issues are hopefully going to be addressed in the upcoming patch so I'll only touch on them, but based on my experience, and on all the forum / youtube / reddit chatter, I seriously worry about the future of this super amazing / rad world that has been created.
I've discovered a lot of sentiment on the internet along the following 2 lines of thought:
A - "I would never take my trader into the open world, I only kit up a gunship when going into open"
B - "What is the point of the game then - there is no meaningful pvp, careers other than trading make no money, everyone just rakes in cash solo space trucking for hours on end? Screw it I'll stick to eve'
Combine solo with the fact that you can't make any money doing anything but trading, and there is no meaningful pvp mechanic to the game - and everyone ends up doing brain-dead space trucking runs over and over with no consequence, only visiting open to harass other players in gunboats. (Not everyone I exaggerate but wow does open space seem sparse even around rares systems.)
People who don't want player interaction go solo, get bored of repetitive space trucking, leave the game. People who want player interaction find little meaningful way for it to happen because A - the career mechanics are unbalanced and B - so many players just go solo. So they get bored, leave the game.
*****How to fix this and stop people from leaving the game******:
#1 - rebalance careers - hopefully 1.3 covers this
#2 - introduce more meaningful player interaction - I know faction wars are going to be a thing but there are some other parts that need help here.
For example - that guy wanting to escort traders in his vulture. Give the people with vultures a way to interact with the world other than griefing people. Let traders hire an armed guard. For credits or a much higher percentage cut that can be agreed on / vary depending on job. I would love to fly escort for traders and fend off pirates - that sounds amazing.
Let traders hire npc mercs to protect them when players don't want to or aren't available. Sending a lone slow big trading vessel out into space is surely SUPPOSED to be dangerous. Give people an option to help protect themselves against pirates / jerks who just want to kill them. Stop them from wanting to go solo / trade solo. Let them make the call - risk it for more profit or be safe(r) and hire an armed guard. And create a whole new player interaction mechanic at the same time.
#3 - a safe zone for new players so people who get blown away like me in their sidewinders don't run off to solo immediately. A group of a dozen or so core systems. Work it into the story. A ceasefire / peacekeeping / cooperative zone between the 3 major factions. Heavy on security - hell it even has security drones that jump in any time an attack happens in those systems immediately. Make trade gains marginal but steady. Limit ships you can buy and parts. Training wheels area where people can still interact and not be scared off - but forced to venture out to make more money / get better parts / ships. Come up with a way to make it so players can't abuse it (jumping here to avoid bounty hunters in pursuit etc), like if you are wanted the drones find you right away etc.
#4 - Separate or severely restrict solo to open world assets transfers. If people want to affect community goals / interact with the universe at large that everyone else is playing in - they should need to have to play in THAT universe. Some dude watching a GoT marathon while high as crap and jumping back and forth to diso with no focus on the game shouldn't be able to make millions... and then come back into open world with a huge ship. With armed trade escorts and a beginner safe zone open should hopefully be a lot more appealing to people who are afraid of it. If they only want to solo - fine, but don't let their actions affect the open world. Totally absurd. You can limit asset transfer to solo to private groups.
*****Seriously though, safe zones that don't allow for too much progression ship / money-wise - and trader escorts (both player and npc). These 2 things could help this game so much as long as 1.3 adds enough player interaction with faction wars, and rebalances the careers.******
I don't want to see this amazing galaxy of 400 billion stars turn into a ghost town. Zombie space-trucking solo isn't for me and even in open trading is a pretty lonely affair as is (add better profit-sharing / escorts / npc escorts...). I dream of blockades (and punching through them), giant space battles, making a living with my wing running escorts and fending off pirates / rival factions, etc., flying a transport loaded with cargo through a dicey area and being able to pay my wing to cover me properly..., bounty hunting players being a reasonable career... etc.
