the "nothing to do in this game" club members please consider this point of view

[Apos]

People should also remember that "emergent" means that an event occurs out of your actions.

If people expect events to occur out of farming RES over and over again, I don't comprehend how they can expect anything to emerge out of that.

As someone who has invested into joining an actual group with a certain goal, I've had a lot of events "emerge" thanks to other players.

You are asking to get water by only providing hydrogen pretty much.

 

[Ruskodisco]

People should also remember that "emergent" means that an event occurs out of your actions.

If people expect events to occur out of farming RES over and over again, I don't comprehend how they can expect anything to emerge out of that.

As someone who has invested into joining an actual group with a certain goal, I've had a lot of events "emerge" thanks to other players.

You are asking to get water by only providing hydrogen pretty much.

i thought thats called "Reactive gameplay"
because by your definition of that if you attack a station it will "emerge" by attacking you.

if im correct you simply want more dynamic complex and "personal" missions and events

 

[Apos]

i thought thats called "Reactive gameplay"
because by your definition of that if you attack a station it will "emerge" by attacking you.

if im correct you simply want more dynamic complex and "personal" missions and events

If my definition included action and reaction, you would be right. "dynamic" and "complex" is still an event based on previous actions.

But I digress, I don't want to delve deeper to a pointless fight over semantics.

More complex missions, sure, more personal, well, depends on how personal someone expects a whole universe or even a system to get. Do they want a personal "thank you" note by a faction everytime they complete a mission? I can understand some sentiments like "system needs a commodity badly->i get a mission for that commodity->bring it back and I get a boon contract which allows me to sell that commodity x% higher for the next week in that system", etc, etc, but if someone wants to be a hero, I don't see how we can reach that satisfaction without breaking the multiplayer part, aka, real changes happen from groups, not individuals.

 

[Soulstain]

Evochron is a good little game but it's not exactly big, about 30 systems (maybe less) if I remember right. Felt very small very quickly for me and it was far too easy to get rich quick. It was nice to be able to plot precision micro jump locations inside stations though.

Have they fixed X-rebirth, I thought it was universally panned as broken rubbish ? (33/100 metacritic)

XRebirth is night and day different from release. I didn't realize myself until recently. Much like ED you have to watch some how-to videos to catch on to many things in the beginning. Many people disliked the game because they wanted X4. The game evolved into something else. Seems there are a lot of similarities to why people are upset with ED. What I will say about rebirth and Evochron is that the house may be smaller than ED's but the furniture isn't on back order.

 

[Stigbob]

XRebirth is night and day different from release. I didn't realize myself until recently. Much like ED you have to watch some how-to videos to catch on to many things in the beginning. Many people disliked the game because they wanted X4. The game evolved into something else. Seems there are a lot of similarities to why people are upset with ED. What I will say about rebirth and Evochron is that the house may be smaller than ED's but the furniture isn't on back order.

I've always preferred the garden to the house myself. I just had a look at x-rebirth £34.99 is too much to risk on 33/100. I'll buy it when its lots cheaper, thanks for the recommendation.

 

[Riedquat]

I don't think anyone wants a "rigid storyline". Quite the opposite! People want less rigidit, more options and more emergent gameplay. This was all stuff promised/suggested from Kickstarter days, and yet we don't even have the dynamic economy promised. Hell, if myself and a friend are flying the same trade route, we're lucky if we even get the same commodity prices, yet alone anything approaching realistic dynamic prices!

To use your analogy, this is indeed a sandbox open world, but we've only been given a spade, no bucket yet! And if you use that spade, you'll hit the bottom of the sandpit just a couple of mm down.


Ask youself, do any of the following things appeal to you. If the answer is yes, then ask yourself, why can't I do (any of) them?:-

• When flying around you receive a distress signal. When you answer it, an NPC ship is under attack by pirates and you fight them off. The NPC thanks you. Later on this same NPC - now trusting you - asks you to protect him on another journey. If he doesn't die, he later asks you to do even more important missions for him. etc.
• You receive a mission to protect a convoy. You can take on this mission alone or wing up. The more convoy ships that survive the more you are paid. Note: Other CMDRs (if you are in OPEN) are being given the mission to attack/destroy the ships in the convoy for payment.
• You find a gas giant in a remote system. As you're flying around it you notice a huge aurora borealis around one of the poles.
• While flying around a system on the edge of human populated space, you encounter a USS. You explore it and find a huge odd ship. It's a Generation Ship (as per original Elite).
• While flying around a system on the edge of human populated space, you see a set of asteroids on the system map. When you go there you can see strange lights on one of them. If you get too close, military vessels warn you you are entering restricted space. What do you do?
• When exploring 10,000ly away, near a famous nebula you hyperspace into a system, and find a scientific platform there no one else has found before. There's only a dozen or so of these (around major spots in the galaxy). Each has a number of exploration missions to carry out.
• On a the bulletin board, you find a mission to go to a nearby system and scan a comet.
• You're given a mission to go to a derelict/dead station to find/recover a data capsule from within it. It's used by pirates now, so do you go to this station and fly into its pitch black inards alone? Or do you take a wing? Do you sneak in using silent running or go in all guns blazing?
• You're given a mission to find a secret platform in an asteroid field and scan it. You must get in without being detected else enemy ships will be called in.
• I'd like to employ and outfit an NPC wingman. Therefore while I'm trading I still have some protection. I can command them to attack this, or defend that. If I take on one of the convey defense or assault missions, this NPC wingman will prove very useful! Do I pay more or less for a better NPC pilot?

Can you see why many people think ED is paper thin? If you consider space games from 10+ years ago, many had more depth and certainly more interesting mission than ED does now.


And this isn't even scratching the surface of the lack of emergent gameplay that was proposed in the early days of ED... We basically have next to none I'd argue.

Great post, ideas like these would be a game changer.

 

[Soulstain]

I've always preferred the garden to the house myself. I just had a look at x-rebirth £34.99 is too much to risk on 33/100. I'll buy it when its lots cheaper, thanks for the recommendation.

By by the way Evochron is huge. Most of the systems are undiscovered. I love your UFO tag. I was just watching some episodes on YouTube recently. Wow, I really loved that show when I was young. Scary! I would suggest some YouTube videos by Mylo-s Gaming for XRebirth. They are very helpful and the tutorials are up to date.

 

[Stigbob]

By by the way Evochron is huge. Most of the systems are undiscovered. I love your UFO tag. I was just watching some episodes on YouTube recently. Wow, I really loved that show when I was young. Scary!

I might crank evochron up and give it another go, sounds like it's been expanded. UFO was a great show, I have the theme tunes from UFO, Joe 90, space 1999, captain Scarlett, Stingray and Thunderbirds in my sci-fi music flying playlist (yep a geek an proud).

 

[Derath]

XRebirth is night and day different from release. I didn't realize myself until recently. Much like ED you have to watch some how-to videos to catch on to many things in the beginning. Many people disliked the game because they wanted X4. The game evolved into something else. Seems there are a lot of similarities to why people are upset with ED. What I will say about rebirth and Evochron is that the house may be smaller than ED's but the furniture isn't on back order.

I wanted X4 so bad! I'm glad to hear rebirth got upgraded though, i may well check it out based on your information

 

[raok]

The game has lot of content when you are new, then you figure out that there is not that much, and all is very grindy. Then you understand that with small changes they could make it better.


The game before Vulture is actually rather fun. Everything is new and you test all kind of things. I have to admit that I really liked the early game. This is probably the best part of the solo Elite. There was no Vulture when I started, but Type-6 was more or less the same moment for me. Except that I had to start trading already with Type-6.


Right now everyone is mostly trading, and that is as boring as gameplay can be. Most of us dont do anything else, because the rest of the stuff is not rewarding. It is basically waste of time to grind something that gives you 1m/h, when you can do something that gives you 5m/h.
If you were doing the other activity, just for fun -> Well the game is extremely grindy, so you ask do you want to get there this year, or two years later? So you end up to trade a lot.

Community Goals, this was ok idea. Only thing for which I stopped trading, more or less. The rewards were simply rewarding.


This is the main reason why I am crying multiple rivers and couple lakes here at the forum. Balance the professions and then people will mine, smuggle, pirate, trade, missions, hunt, etc. -> Now it is just trade. But for some reason this madness continues.


When you end up having your Vulture, you will see that there is no combat content for you anymore. Nothing that is going to challenge you a bit. The bigger ships you are going to buy after this will make your life even easier, but Vulture is enough to make everything easy -> No combat content.
And when you get your Anaconda, you will be indestructible fortress, that is annihilating everything in seconds. So double yes -> No combat content at all.


Then you make a wing and do trade. You will see that you get dividents if you are on the station at the same time. This is the only benefit you will get from a wing atm. (If not calculating the early game before Vulture) But timing yourself to be on the same station at the same time, is actually not worth it to be honest. So your wing is pretty much useless.


Wing in combat, this will actually slow you down, just organizing you to shoot the same targets will eat you profits. Especially if you all do not have the same ship. If you are the only person with Anaconda, you are just basically boosting the rest. That is not bad in itself, but -> The reason to have a wing?


I was actually hoping that mining income would be now equal to trading income. I would be mining probably right now, while waiting for new content. But of course it could not be competitive with trading on any level, so I just skipped the PP update.


And PP, new GUI for the same grindy content. No thx.


So I admit, I have moved to this "Nothing to do in this game" club. But the club has just rather good points.

I actually like Elite, and I really do hope that with time they can make it a really nice game. In the 1.4?

 

[Stigbob]

When you end up having your Vulture, you will see that there is no combat content for you anymore. Nothing that is going to challenge you a bit. The bigger ships you are going to buy after this will make your life even easier, but Vulture is enough to make everything easy -> No combat content.
And when you get your Anaconda, you will be indestructible fortress, that is annihilating everything in seconds. So double yes -> No combat content at all.

That's how I felt after I got my FDL, I reset my save and now I'm sticking with the diamondback scout. The games definitely more fun, but my reset coincided with 1.3 so I got a smaller ship and better NPC's. If you can stand the thought of a reset give it a try, but I accept no responsibility if you instantly regret it (I haven't regretted it at all).

 

[Lustan]

I figured out something to do after not playing for two months

I decided to sell all my ships and buy a T9.

I logged in for the first time this last weekend and did exactly that. I noticed that my rep inexplicably dropped from Allied to Friendly and I didn't understand why that was. I looked at the powers and didn't understand the point of choosing a power and became discouraged.

Then I was bored and logged out to play another game.

There is NOTHING TO DO IN THIS GAME for me!

 

[NeilF]

Great post, ideas like these would be a game changer.

Fingers crossed Frontier start spending time on adding more game depth, variety and content then. Because over the past six months, I'd argue they haven't really... The biggest +ve IMHO was Wings, but alas there's not enough to do in a Wing or out of one.

 

[Soon(TM)]

If you condiser this lack of depth/content... We haven't even got multiple CMDR slots and ship transportation yet, which are long overdue... Yet, we have a huge development in the shape of Powerplay which in reality adds nothing new, and simply offers the same content again under a different guise (basically community goal rewards).

I'm beginning to wonder if FD are on the same page as us regarding thinking the game needs more content with more variety and depth.

What we all need to do is step back and take a look at the game, the cobra engine and how ED has been made.
It's all procedural generation with a few bits of manual input by the devs. Maybe that's the problem, maybe it's the games design that limits the possibilities rather than the skills of the dev team.

Maybe the procedural design of the game means any additons to the game need to comply with that format.

New models are easy enough for ships because they are operated by the player but anything controlled by the game needs to comply with the procedural coding technique, which is why the missions system is taking so long. Because that's procedurally generated too.

How do you get a procedurally generated mission system to detect that you have friends and can form a wing to do a mission and that those friends are a the required rank and have the required jump range and ship type?

I think the game limits itself.

 

[kilvenny]

Its really interesting observing this thread. I am an accountant, I have done zero trading since release and neither have I done a revenue analysis on the game. Once you break down any game into its component elements its going to be a grind and you might as well stop playing. I tried trading in beta and it was so easy to make money. What I am trying to do is enjoy the game for what it is. It's not perfect and there is a lot that FD could do to improve it. The problem is that because its incomplete its very easy to calculate the payback on an activity and that adds to the grind. FD need to add elements that cloud the issue.

One simple addition would be if you take mission A and succeed, before you return to collect the reward you might sometimes get offered mission B in game rather than at the mission board. Of course succeed in mission B and you might get offered mission c etc. Now if each "chain" mission offered more return suddenly it would be much more difficult to evaluate player choices. Do I take the sure thing from the trade or do I do the mission? It's the same with PP at the moment its perceived a grind because the risk/reward equation doesn't add up. Therefore lets give players reasons to play, I am risking my ship for the Power, the Power should reward me, in cash or with discounted insurance. Let me tag my commander against a system that is in preparation or fortification. Which other commanders are also tagged to that task. Are they in game currently, let me comms to them or leave messages (solo). Suddenly I have a potential wing or I can work with a group.

 

[Genxav]

What we all need to do is step back and take a look at the game, the cobra engine and how ED has been made.
It's all procedural generation with a few bits of manual input by the devs. Maybe that's the problem, maybe it's the games design that limits the possibilities rather than the skills of the dev team.

Maybe the procedural design of the game means any additons to the game need to comply with that format.

New models are easy enough for ships because they are operated by the player but anything controlled by the game needs to comply with the procedural coding technique, which is why the missions system is taking so long. Because that's procedurally generated too.

How do you get a procedurally generated mission system to detect that you have friends and can form a wing to do a mission and that those friends are a the required rank and have the required jump range and ship type?

I think the game limits itself.

You might be right, but i don't think anybody here is saying Fdev has not skill to implement changes and more like shifted priorities.
2c

 

[Triple88a]

Comparing need for speed to ED is a joke.

Instead lets compare apples to apples. Elite dangerous to Freelancer (Discovery mod - since its multiplayer).

Elite dangerous

- The sun looks cool.. ok

The negatives

- Every system looks the same. 400 billion systems and they are ALL the same. Theres like 5-6 different planets in the entire game just copied and pasted on different orbits in every system. Theres like 3 different station models and thats it.. again all the same.. copy and paste.

- Theres 19? 20? ships total? You're telling me theres 400 billion systems and those people can only create 3 different types of stations and 20 models of ships? Many of the 1 man made flash games have more vesatile things.

- Multiplayer is non existent. Theres +8000 players online average per day. I've only seen a handful of people since i started playing this game.

- Wings are way too complicated for no reason.

- Flight models.. meh Every ship feels the same, just with a different turn circle.

Freelancer multiplayer

- Even in the stock game there were about 50 ships. With Discovery mod there were few hundred.. yes few hundred and they were all unique in their own way based on faction. They all had a good story line where each ship came from.

- Systems - there were about 60 systems stock and 100+ with the discovery mod. Sure its nothing in front of the 400 bill systems in ED however each system in FL was hand made. Every single system was unique. When you jumped to a new system it always looked different than the last. Not just that but the systems were beautiful and unique. There were systems with nebulas and other gas clouds in them, there were systems with unique bases and planets, etc.

- In FL the distances were definitely not realistic but thats not a bad thing.

- Multiplayer - Wings were simple. You could simply join a wing and get in formation with a simple press of a button. You dont have to search for it from hidden menus on top of other hidden menus. This isnt difficult to implement in ED.. The game is suppose to be 1000 years into the future for gods sake, i'm sure they have touch screen screens so you can click on the screen with your mouse.

- Trading overall was repetitive however because the systems were beautiful and exciting it didnt get old as quickly as it does here. Also because wings were simpler there was some multiplayer to be had with piracy.

- Multiplayer overall was better because players could more easily find eachother.

- Next the quests.. they were much better implemented and straight forward. Here in ED the quests are badly written and confusing. "We need this, figure it out."

- Every ship felt unique. Light ships required a different set of skills vs heavy ships, heavy ships required a different set of skills vs gun boats, gun boats flew different than battle ships.. etc. Not just that but each type of ship had its own unique loadout.

- At last the story line. Freelancer had a well written story line for each faction, each ship, each system and of course had a single player story mode.. here in ED on the other hand theres 0 story line, theres 0 information about stuff in general. Factions are pointless because why would you join X faction over Y faction when it just doesn't matter? So much for having pride in your faction.

 

[SeregDuin]

How wonderful for you. Let's hope you're in the minority, lest ED vanish quietly into the night when everyone has had enough. People aren't just posting for the love of complaining. They're posting because they enjoy aspects of the game and they see its potential. Our hope, however naive some people think it to be, is that some of these ideas might help guide FD's thinking.

I think you have misunderstood me completely. I don't post on forums of games that I do not like or I am bored with. I just don't play them. I don't post on forums of games that I enjoy that I am bored.
THIS game on the other hand is one that I have NEVER been bored with and do not EVER foresee being bored with and I continue to make posts on these forums BECAUSE I enjoy it so much and want to see it continue and grow.
I make complaints, I give newbs suggestions and advice, I make bug reports and even get into the occasional flame war that has seen me banned from the forums. I do this because of my passion for the game.
This is the only game I have played where if I begin to get an inkling of boredom for what I am doing, I can move on to any of the many other parts of the game and it is all new again. And then more updates, more content , new again.
I certainly hope I am NOT in the minority.

 

[Triple88a]

I think you have misunderstood me completely. I don't post on forums of games that I do not like or I am bored with. I just don't play them. I don't post on forums of games that I enjoy that I am bored.
THIS game on the other hand is one that I have NEVER been bored with and do not EVER foresee being bored with and I continue to make posts on these forums BECAUSE I enjoy it so much and want to see it continue and grow.
I make complaints, I give newbs suggestions and advice, I make bug reports and even get into the occasional flame war that has seen me banned from the forums. I do this because of my passion for the game.
This is the only game I have played where if I begin to get an inkling of boredom for what I am doing, I can move on to any of the many other parts of the game and it is all new again. And then more updates, more content , new again.
I certainly hope I am NOT in the minority.

You see, I and many others post on the forums for games that arent doing so well to try help improve the games instead of just let it die. Elite Dangerous shows a lot of promise and i'd hate to see the game die when it could be much better.

 

[SeregDuin]

You see, I and many others post on the forums for games that arent doing so well to try help improve the games instead of just let it die. Elite Dangerous shows a lot of promise and i'd hate to see the game die when it could be much better.

I posted for 11 years on the forum of a game that I enjoy to try to keep it going when it was fading (Neveron if you are wondering). All fell on deaf ears (or should that be "blind eyes" "numb brains"?) and the game was lost although I still badger the developer on facebook to revive it.
I have never posted on the forum of games that I don't enjoy to tell people how bored I am and much I don't enjoy their game. That just annoys the people who DO enjoy it.
Why the hell would I bother to post on the forum of a game I don't enjoy. Do you post on forums of games you don't like?