The scenario you describe in the op is exactly what makes this game fun for me. I know its frustrating some times, but that's the nature of the game. I don't want a game to hold my hand make it easy, those frustrating times (and I've had many)are what Make the real wins sooooo much more satisfying. I've spent literally days simply trying to find a good trade route worth my time, work it for 5 hours to make a good profit only to get interdicted by some pirate cmdr and lose more than I made in those 5 hours, and have that happen 4 days in a row (although one of those days I simply boosted into the side of a station losing >2mil in cargo) but that is exactly what makes this game stand out from all others. Jumping into a system in my lakon 7, fully loaded with superconductors, and seeing a Cmdr in system makes my heart pound, really. No other game can do that for me, but for that to happen you need to have the boring times to make the good times really great.this game isn't for everyone though, and I get it, if your just looking to turn on a game for an hour to have a laugh, don't choose ED, it's more of an investment.
Is it as boring for everyone but Elite Veterans?
- Thread starter gudlbua
- Start date
The thing is I played Fallout 3 two and a bit times. That's it I couldn't do it anymore. It's a brilliant game with far more content but there's the rub... no room for your imagination.
This game has enough content to hook you but not too much limit the amount of times you can play.
There is no endpoint.
This I like.
This game has enough content to hook you but not too much limit the amount of times you can play.
There is no endpoint.
This I like.
No room for imagination? In Fallout 3? Man if you are that kind of player you should begin to write a book about some stories you imagine! Fallout 3 is a great support for imagination! You don't know where you come from, You don't know who you are, you will know what you will be with each choices you make and all that wrapped in great tools, mechanics and backgrounds. Why no imagination?
Ok we can imagine what we want to in Elite but it lacks of support tools for that.
Welcome to Opposite World, where all the promised features mentioned back in alpha and the idea that the game was a vertical slice cross section of the game to come was really just a statement of things not to come!
Don't worry, your not alone in finding it hard to feel like the universe is incomplete and empty.
Elite dangerous: BBS and Supercruise simulator 2014-2015.
OP - Elite is not a game where the action jumps out at you, slaps you in the face and yells "Yoohoo! Here I am!". You have to find it, and the learning curve is relatively steep.
Your best bet is to browse the guides sub-forum for player-created guides on how to do stuff (well). There's some amount of skill and planning required to find a good trade route (unless you use 3rd party tools). There are many places to bounty hunt, and many ways to bounty hunt (with and without frameshift drive interdictors, kill warrant scanners, wake scanners) etc. etc.
If you're willing to put in a bit of time and effort chances are pretty good that you'll find it rewarding. But you have to be willing to learn the multitude of nuances in the game. If you're unwilling to learn/cope with the learning curve, the game will be a hugely frustrating experience. I think I had the most fun early on, and am still learning stuff a year+ in.
Your best bet is to browse the guides sub-forum for player-created guides on how to do stuff (well). There's some amount of skill and planning required to find a good trade route (unless you use 3rd party tools). There are many places to bounty hunt, and many ways to bounty hunt (with and without frameshift drive interdictors, kill warrant scanners, wake scanners) etc. etc.
If you're willing to put in a bit of time and effort chances are pretty good that you'll find it rewarding. But you have to be willing to learn the multitude of nuances in the game. If you're unwilling to learn/cope with the learning curve, the game will be a hugely frustrating experience. I think I had the most fun early on, and am still learning stuff a year+ in.
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I'm not sure I'd consider myself an "Elite Veteran", but I am Master Combat / Entrepreneur Trader (almost Tycoon) with an Anaconda and enough credits to be "dangerous."
That said, your description is my typical experience of the game. Yes, the steps involved can be optimized, but even at the top tier the experience is similar. There is not much to do and a lot of what there is to do will waste your time. When it is not wasting your time, you'll realize the game is just moving you around in different colored instances -- the planets might have a different texture or the stations might have a different model, but the gameplay is connected via a spreadsheet browser. Additionally, your actions will have no virtually no consequence upon the universe beyond moving a credit counter up or down.
The strength of the game (and it is a major strength, I fully admit) is the flight model / combat. It is unparallelled. That is what keeps me coming back, hoping for bigger changes / more content -- but as satisfying as flying / fighting is, it will not support a dead "universe" forever. There are other games that scratch the same "twitchy" itch like Team Fortress, Dark Souls, DotA, etc. and often do it better and for less time-investment -- sometimes even with more permanence and long-term returns.
400 billion stars or whatever is just not impressive when you realize they're all the same and will offer you the same experience unless you "headcanon" a different one.
You'll get a lot of responses around here that will tell you to "roleplay" the abundant choices in Elite Dangerous -- like there is this unprecedented amount of freedom in what you can do if you just believe hard enough. Unfortunately, the gameplay / game design does not support these "choices" -- it is akin to taking up an arbitrary challenge to play the game in a unique way and tell yourself you are accomplishing something.
For instance, in the game 'Dark Souls' you can challenge yourself to complete the game without leveling up, even though there are no underlying game mechanics for this style of play. The game does not recognize that you are intentionally making the game harder for yourself -- the only feedback you will receive is the feedback you generate for yourself in your success or failure.
Just about every game ever created can have player/self-set goals, but these usually come about only after the content the game offers has been thoroughly exhausted, but you still find yourself addicted to the gameplay and need to excuse to play again. There is nothing wrong with this and I have done it myself -- it can add life to a game you love, but has a limited shelf-life and should not really be considered content or a victory for the game's design.
Check this out -- it is a list of self-imposed challenges for Skyrim -- I just found this and it reminds me of some of the responses around the forums in regards of how to play ED:
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Skyrim:Roleplaying_Challenges
Don't get me wrong -- I am a firm believer in setting your own goals and deriving satisfaction from completing them, but a game should have some kind of structured system for recognizing this and evolving /changing the universe or rewarding you in response to it -- and it does not.
People throw around the term 'emergent gameplay' without a lot of understanding of what it means. Minecraft is 'emergent gameplay' as it provides the tools with which you can create your own gameplay -- whether it be building a castle or an elaborate monster-trap with the game's redstone-programming. It is gameplay which is not intended or envisioned, but nonetheless has ingame systems that support it -- it is not forming imaginary goals outside of the game's systems and pretending the game is providing this content.
You can trade from system to system, but this illusion is shattered when you realize you're leaving & entering the same texture-swapped instances with a menu-browser that pulls data from a database with slight variations. The universe effectively has infinite resources and when one system runs out of a commodity you simply move to another without consequence for you or the system. These commodities have no impact on the systems that produce them or receive them -- it does not allow or disallow production of certain ships or materials or any other gameplay mechanics. You are simply moving number counters -- commodity supply and your credits -- up or down, basically within 10-20 minute intervals with minimal interaction from you. Netflix or Twitch is your only savior here. I know -- I have almost half a billion credits, most of which was earned via trading.
You can explore -- but this must be the most masochistic of choices, because you'll see most of the visuals the game has to offer doing just about anything else. Exploration is no deeper than looking at different textures / models and pressing a button to say you looked at them. There is nothing to "find" that is unique or that triggers universal changes -- no lost or unique technology, no abandoned civilizations, nadda. You might imagine you could locate planets for colonization (new stations or other man-made objects) or asteroids for exploitation (new resource zones, affect local governments / economies, etc.) or maybe even scout the position of enemy forces and their numbers -- but no. I'd suggest Google image search if you want to look at pretty space pictures or something like Minecraft or Terraria if you want a better idea of what can be done with procedurally generated exploration. If you really want some eye-candy, install some of the custom shaders for Minecraft -- it produces some really stunning visuals, with screenshots around every corner.
The game has tremendous potential (which is why I've stuck around and tried to keep current) but that is all it has right now -- potential. There has been no significant changes to the game since release (in my opinion.) This is a really bad sign. I have been a gamer a long time and this usually means what we've got is what we've got -- it is not going to change much now. PowerPlay is a "clever" overlay for the existing mechanics that feeds right into the roleplaying mentality, because it affects nothing other than moving around colored blobs on the Galaxy Map. You might get discounts on ships or bonus credits for activity X, Y, Z, but these are irrelevant without more dynamic content to support them (like giving systems limited resources / abundance / scarcity, or introducing mechanics to make credits more important beyond buying better ships and modules).
Again, there will be a lot of players who will disagree with me and that is fine -- there are certainly aspects to ED to love and I wouldn't be flying an Anaconda if I didn't think so. But I play infrequently and in increasingly smaller time segments. If the next couple of big patches don't add something significant, I doubt I'll be sticking around. Planetary landings and ship- / station-walking will be very cool, but is not at all what the game needs for longevity.
That said, your description is my typical experience of the game. Yes, the steps involved can be optimized, but even at the top tier the experience is similar. There is not much to do and a lot of what there is to do will waste your time. When it is not wasting your time, you'll realize the game is just moving you around in different colored instances -- the planets might have a different texture or the stations might have a different model, but the gameplay is connected via a spreadsheet browser. Additionally, your actions will have no virtually no consequence upon the universe beyond moving a credit counter up or down.
The strength of the game (and it is a major strength, I fully admit) is the flight model / combat. It is unparallelled. That is what keeps me coming back, hoping for bigger changes / more content -- but as satisfying as flying / fighting is, it will not support a dead "universe" forever. There are other games that scratch the same "twitchy" itch like Team Fortress, Dark Souls, DotA, etc. and often do it better and for less time-investment -- sometimes even with more permanence and long-term returns.
400 billion stars or whatever is just not impressive when you realize they're all the same and will offer you the same experience unless you "headcanon" a different one.
You'll get a lot of responses around here that will tell you to "roleplay" the abundant choices in Elite Dangerous -- like there is this unprecedented amount of freedom in what you can do if you just believe hard enough. Unfortunately, the gameplay / game design does not support these "choices" -- it is akin to taking up an arbitrary challenge to play the game in a unique way and tell yourself you are accomplishing something.
For instance, in the game 'Dark Souls' you can challenge yourself to complete the game without leveling up, even though there are no underlying game mechanics for this style of play. The game does not recognize that you are intentionally making the game harder for yourself -- the only feedback you will receive is the feedback you generate for yourself in your success or failure.
Just about every game ever created can have player/self-set goals, but these usually come about only after the content the game offers has been thoroughly exhausted, but you still find yourself addicted to the gameplay and need to excuse to play again. There is nothing wrong with this and I have done it myself -- it can add life to a game you love, but has a limited shelf-life and should not really be considered content or a victory for the game's design.
Check this out -- it is a list of self-imposed challenges for Skyrim -- I just found this and it reminds me of some of the responses around the forums in regards of how to play ED:
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Skyrim:Roleplaying_Challenges
Don't get me wrong -- I am a firm believer in setting your own goals and deriving satisfaction from completing them, but a game should have some kind of structured system for recognizing this and evolving /changing the universe or rewarding you in response to it -- and it does not.
People throw around the term 'emergent gameplay' without a lot of understanding of what it means. Minecraft is 'emergent gameplay' as it provides the tools with which you can create your own gameplay -- whether it be building a castle or an elaborate monster-trap with the game's redstone-programming. It is gameplay which is not intended or envisioned, but nonetheless has ingame systems that support it -- it is not forming imaginary goals outside of the game's systems and pretending the game is providing this content.
You can trade from system to system, but this illusion is shattered when you realize you're leaving & entering the same texture-swapped instances with a menu-browser that pulls data from a database with slight variations. The universe effectively has infinite resources and when one system runs out of a commodity you simply move to another without consequence for you or the system. These commodities have no impact on the systems that produce them or receive them -- it does not allow or disallow production of certain ships or materials or any other gameplay mechanics. You are simply moving number counters -- commodity supply and your credits -- up or down, basically within 10-20 minute intervals with minimal interaction from you. Netflix or Twitch is your only savior here. I know -- I have almost half a billion credits, most of which was earned via trading.
You can explore -- but this must be the most masochistic of choices, because you'll see most of the visuals the game has to offer doing just about anything else. Exploration is no deeper than looking at different textures / models and pressing a button to say you looked at them. There is nothing to "find" that is unique or that triggers universal changes -- no lost or unique technology, no abandoned civilizations, nadda. You might imagine you could locate planets for colonization (new stations or other man-made objects) or asteroids for exploitation (new resource zones, affect local governments / economies, etc.) or maybe even scout the position of enemy forces and their numbers -- but no. I'd suggest Google image search if you want to look at pretty space pictures or something like Minecraft or Terraria if you want a better idea of what can be done with procedurally generated exploration. If you really want some eye-candy, install some of the custom shaders for Minecraft -- it produces some really stunning visuals, with screenshots around every corner.
The game has tremendous potential (which is why I've stuck around and tried to keep current) but that is all it has right now -- potential. There has been no significant changes to the game since release (in my opinion.) This is a really bad sign. I have been a gamer a long time and this usually means what we've got is what we've got -- it is not going to change much now. PowerPlay is a "clever" overlay for the existing mechanics that feeds right into the roleplaying mentality, because it affects nothing other than moving around colored blobs on the Galaxy Map. You might get discounts on ships or bonus credits for activity X, Y, Z, but these are irrelevant without more dynamic content to support them (like giving systems limited resources / abundance / scarcity, or introducing mechanics to make credits more important beyond buying better ships and modules).
Again, there will be a lot of players who will disagree with me and that is fine -- there are certainly aspects to ED to love and I wouldn't be flying an Anaconda if I didn't think so. But I play infrequently and in increasingly smaller time segments. If the next couple of big patches don't add something significant, I doubt I'll be sticking around. Planetary landings and ship- / station-walking will be very cool, but is not at all what the game needs for longevity.
A few weeks ago I read about this game, knowing not much and only heard about it being dogfighting and that's all. When I read a bit more info, this game blew my mind, I got as excited as only Halo CE and Halo Reach ever got me, and it was just with reading a couple of things.
When I first played the game knowing nothing a couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed every single thing. Especially the fact you have to learn everything because the tutorials are only there to teach you what most buttons of the pad do when you pulse 'em.
But then I came to the forums. Why? I was bored with 5 mins supercruise and wanted some info to know what you can and what you can't do.
And I was surprised, I was only scratching the surface of the game, or that I thought.
I decided to do some smuggling, but got bored after 10 hours because ot was the same every single time:
Dock, get cargo that you don't even see/notice, launch, engage hyperdrive, couple of minutes in SC, dock get rid of the unseen cargo for credits and repeat everything again.
Then I thought, might try exploration, seems amazing I thought.
This is amazing I thought. The first 500 systems it was cool. Then I started getting bored. "Oh, it's nothing, I'll trade to get a few millions and buy adn fit a Diamonback Explorer". Trade for 10 hours in the exact same route:
Dock at "X", buy palladium-->Travel to nearest system---->dock, sell palladium, buy Prog Cells--->Back to X--->Restart
FOR 10 DAMN HOURS
Then I had enough to buy and fit a DBE the way I could go to a neutron stars field, try to enjoy exploration, get insane amounts of money when I sell the data and then buy a Type 9 to do the same trade route again and buy every sinlge ship in the game, outfitting them after that.
And then, what? combat? how long untill I get tired of combat too? A couple of days? A week?
I finally figured out what is going to happen. It's going to happen the same that happened to me with GTAV (except this one lasted much more and was pure fun with no grind 95% of the time):
Play game a lot (not a lot in this case, still a lot for some standars though)-->Leave the game--->Update with new stuff comes out, I play the game a couple of days/weeks---->Abandon again---->Repeat untill great expansion (in GTA was free, but I understand why it won'0t be this way with E
)--->Play the game a lot more
The problem is that E: D won't do with new content a la GTA, it needs to expand what is already in the game, it needs to make exploration more than the same boring proccess again and again, it needs to do exactly the same with trading, and definitely, it MUST do something about the missions, that is broken, missions system does not work, make missions interact with the player, not just doing the same thing you usually do but with a reward by coming back to the station.
Needs more variety, interaction with NPC and actual different ways to take on the mission.
When I first played the game knowing nothing a couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed every single thing. Especially the fact you have to learn everything because the tutorials are only there to teach you what most buttons of the pad do when you pulse 'em.
But then I came to the forums. Why? I was bored with 5 mins supercruise and wanted some info to know what you can and what you can't do.
And I was surprised, I was only scratching the surface of the game, or that I thought.
I decided to do some smuggling, but got bored after 10 hours because ot was the same every single time:
Dock, get cargo that you don't even see/notice, launch, engage hyperdrive, couple of minutes in SC, dock get rid of the unseen cargo for credits and repeat everything again.
Then I thought, might try exploration, seems amazing I thought.
This is amazing I thought. The first 500 systems it was cool. Then I started getting bored. "Oh, it's nothing, I'll trade to get a few millions and buy adn fit a Diamonback Explorer". Trade for 10 hours in the exact same route:
Dock at "X", buy palladium-->Travel to nearest system---->dock, sell palladium, buy Prog Cells--->Back to X--->Restart
FOR 10 DAMN HOURS
Then I had enough to buy and fit a DBE the way I could go to a neutron stars field, try to enjoy exploration, get insane amounts of money when I sell the data and then buy a Type 9 to do the same trade route again and buy every sinlge ship in the game, outfitting them after that.
And then, what? combat? how long untill I get tired of combat too? A couple of days? A week?
I finally figured out what is going to happen. It's going to happen the same that happened to me with GTAV (except this one lasted much more and was pure fun with no grind 95% of the time):
Play game a lot (not a lot in this case, still a lot for some standars though)-->Leave the game--->Update with new stuff comes out, I play the game a couple of days/weeks---->Abandon again---->Repeat untill great expansion (in GTA was free, but I understand why it won'0t be this way with E
)--->Play the game a lot moreThe problem is that E: D won't do with new content a la GTA, it needs to expand what is already in the game, it needs to make exploration more than the same boring proccess again and again, it needs to do exactly the same with trading, and definitely, it MUST do something about the missions, that is broken, missions system does not work, make missions interact with the player, not just doing the same thing you usually do but with a reward by coming back to the station.
Needs more variety, interaction with NPC and actual different ways to take on the mission.
An honest assessment. I'm in the same mindset. Unplugged my HOTAS and sat it on the shelf, peek in here from time to time to see what has actually changed. Seeing devs leaning towards consoles....like most devs seem to do eventually. I'll wait till the consumer version of the Oculus comes out, and maybe i'll boot it up once again. Who knows.
I'm afraid if you wake up so early in your ED career to realize how seriously empty (contentwise) this galaxy is, you can not be helped. At least you could have had a longer "wow-factor" by the immersive graphincs and sounds but now you are between a rock and a hard place.
Bottom line is this, Elite is a great game for a lot of people, Elite has potential to be awesome. But it NEEDS the missions to be overhauled, I was hoping that PP was doing this but from reading the forum it's not the case.
We need more freelance missions not connected to PP or rank or whatever, graded to give a better indication of the difficulty and with a strong narrative story to each mission (although I admit this could be hard to randomize to avoid repetition).
As many others have said the game NEEDs to fill space with "things tm" like derelicts to find and explore (would be PERFECT for introducing an Alien species!) These would need to be found with the system scanner to not use the contrived USS system (not a fan of that at all, but realise it's probably for tech reasons).
Exploring needs to be shaken up too, I love/hate it at the mo. The scanning takes TOO long and starts TOO far away and the Accel and deccel in SC is SOOOO slow in a gravity well that I now almost always end up pointing at some dot of light then when the scanning starts I throttle back and pop on the forums until I hear the scan has finished.
I think that if we had to get right up to the planet to scan and had a more interactive/interesting scan mechanic, maybe give us exploring drones/probes to send down to a planetary body? Slow the process down but in a good way and increase the rewards to make it financially viable. Make Icy Rocky planets/moons more financially viable to scan and give us a bit of cash for those damn asteroid fields (or put "interesting things tm" in there!).
There's a load of talented writers involved in the Elite Universe so the game should utilize them to beef up the narrative in the game missions.
We need more freelance missions not connected to PP or rank or whatever, graded to give a better indication of the difficulty and with a strong narrative story to each mission (although I admit this could be hard to randomize to avoid repetition).
As many others have said the game NEEDs to fill space with "things tm" like derelicts to find and explore (would be PERFECT for introducing an Alien species!) These would need to be found with the system scanner to not use the contrived USS system (not a fan of that at all, but realise it's probably for tech reasons).
Exploring needs to be shaken up too, I love/hate it at the mo. The scanning takes TOO long and starts TOO far away and the Accel and deccel in SC is SOOOO slow in a gravity well that I now almost always end up pointing at some dot of light then when the scanning starts I throttle back and pop on the forums until I hear the scan has finished.
I think that if we had to get right up to the planet to scan and had a more interactive/interesting scan mechanic, maybe give us exploring drones/probes to send down to a planetary body? Slow the process down but in a good way and increase the rewards to make it financially viable. Make Icy Rocky planets/moons more financially viable to scan and give us a bit of cash for those damn asteroid fields (or put "interesting things tm" in there!).
There's a load of talented writers involved in the Elite Universe so the game should utilize them to beef up the narrative in the game missions.
dayrth
Volunteer Moderator
I am an Elite veteran, but I have one piece of advice if you would like it.
Get together with a small group of other players and set yourselves a mission or goal. I am in a group that is pledged to support the Alliance. A pretty broad goal, but we get together and decide how best to do that at the time. It caters for all types. We can set missions for trading/supplying/exploring/defending/undermining or whatever is needed. It's great fun working with (and sometimes against) other players and keeps me so busy I don't have time for everything I would like to do, let alone time to get board.
Get together with a small group of other players and set yourselves a mission or goal. I am in a group that is pledged to support the Alliance. A pretty broad goal, but we get together and decide how best to do that at the time. It caters for all types. We can set missions for trading/supplying/exploring/defending/undermining or whatever is needed. It's great fun working with (and sometimes against) other players and keeps me so busy I don't have time for everything I would like to do, let alone time to get board.
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1) Yes, combat. The Eagle is a combat ship. Go to RES or Nav beacons. Only take on weak targets though, don't try taking on something stronger or better than you.
2) Yes. Combat is fun. Unless you don't like space flight combat, in which case, why did you buy this game? It can be more fun if you make friends and wing up.
3) Absoloutely. If you get lucky you can even get a few compatible missions (like deliveries to the same station). But if you have a combat mission like take down 10 pirates.
4) Powerplay isn't to everyone's taste, just like trading isn't to my taste. Not sure what you know about, so hard to advise. Also depends on what you like. Smuggling, exploring, piracy, bounty hunting, mission running, etc.
Programmers are not likely to answer your questions, but here goes my answers:
1) Not sure, i fould lots of things to do that are fun. For me anything apart from trading gives me fun, and that was from day 1. It was a big enjoyable and fun experience for me from the first moment i set off. Maybe this game just isn't for you?
2) Exploration. Many of us are explorers and go on long trips, looking for earthlikes or interesting stars, or whatanot. And just in case you haven't noticed, its a damn good simulation of our galaxy. Space nuts love it.
3) Hehe, a controversial one. QA on FD's side seems to be a bit on the light side (understatement of the week). But long cruise times, that's not really a QA thing, more of a game design issue. Not sure what you are talking about though... Hutton Orbital? Most destinations take no more than a minute or two to reach. It provides time for pirates to interdict you or for you to check out signal sources. Game would be a bit crap if you just teleported from one place to another.
4) Yes! A thousand times yes. 500 hours of fun already.
The original ones were boring too if that makes any difference to you. I used to trade in Elite 2, then did missions for the military and then a week or two later it just got boring, so I shelved it to pick it up 6 months later and do another week of elite. To be completely honest, newtonian flying was why this game shone at me.
Can't possibly fill the Milky Way with content, it just isn't possible. There are two ways --
1. Hand-crafted sector of star systems, basically, Skyrim in space, where developers deliberately plant many differing events and landmarks, storylines, they furnish the house with love and devotion - a player can sink 200 hours into a game and still find new and interesting stuff. Then, at some point, it gets repetitive, so, unless you are a true core fan you leave with good memories, and, perhaps, a little bitterness that the journey was too short.
2. Procedurally-generated galaxy of 400 gazillion star systems, where variety may be in form, colour, but not in substance. Which is a dangerous trail to begin with, because after 10 hours you begin to realise that there are 4 types of missions, 20 standard planetary objects and 3-5 things you can do in the game, so it becomes an unnecessary grind to keep "playing" the game as nothing new can arise from the aforementioned flawed foundation. Yes, the game world can be beautiful, but you can't play it.. it holds some spectating/scientific value, but none of the substance can be had in that kind of game, simply because it is procedurally generated.
While I think the latter point is more or less accurate there is a point where art can meet science. I am talking about the possibility of a sandbox, where economy exists and is dynamic, quantified and can become a tool in players hands, which is used to forge emergent gameplay. We, the payers, can add flavour to the galaxy. Obviously, there were attempts to do just that with power play and background simulator but in a theme-park fashion - look, but don't touch, touch, but don't take it home.. etc. Apparently, at some point, the developers lost interest and ran out of steam & ideas and so did lots of players.
It is hardly surprising, as there are tons bugs to deal with, the need to port to as many consoles as possible, planetary landings, FPS possibly, walking around ships, stations and surfaces, thargoid civilisation, new ships/station designs. Each of these is gigantic amount of work and they simply do not wish to keep throwing significant resources towards the core cog of player interaction, the economy, they have to deliver stuff to make the game 1.0, finally.
That is going to take years. Bottomline is - E is exactly like it's predecessors, but with fancy graphics. I am happy for original fans that they were delivered exactly what they wanted, bar this and that.
Can't possibly fill the Milky Way with content, it just isn't possible. There are two ways --
1. Hand-crafted sector of star systems, basically, Skyrim in space, where developers deliberately plant many differing events and landmarks, storylines, they furnish the house with love and devotion - a player can sink 200 hours into a game and still find new and interesting stuff. Then, at some point, it gets repetitive, so, unless you are a true core fan you leave with good memories, and, perhaps, a little bitterness that the journey was too short.
2. Procedurally-generated galaxy of 400 gazillion star systems, where variety may be in form, colour, but not in substance. Which is a dangerous trail to begin with, because after 10 hours you begin to realise that there are 4 types of missions, 20 standard planetary objects and 3-5 things you can do in the game, so it becomes an unnecessary grind to keep "playing" the game as nothing new can arise from the aforementioned flawed foundation. Yes, the game world can be beautiful, but you can't play it.. it holds some spectating/scientific value, but none of the substance can be had in that kind of game, simply because it is procedurally generated.
While I think the latter point is more or less accurate there is a point where art can meet science. I am talking about the possibility of a sandbox, where economy exists and is dynamic, quantified and can become a tool in players hands, which is used to forge emergent gameplay. We, the payers, can add flavour to the galaxy. Obviously, there were attempts to do just that with power play and background simulator but in a theme-park fashion - look, but don't touch, touch, but don't take it home.. etc. Apparently, at some point, the developers lost interest and ran out of steam & ideas and so did lots of players.
It is hardly surprising, as there are tons bugs to deal with, the need to port to as many consoles as possible, planetary landings, FPS possibly, walking around ships, stations and surfaces, thargoid civilisation, new ships/station designs. Each of these is gigantic amount of work and they simply do not wish to keep throwing significant resources towards the core cog of player interaction, the economy, they have to deliver stuff to make the game 1.0, finally.
That is going to take years. Bottomline is - E
is exactly like it's predecessors, but with fancy graphics. I am happy for original fans that they were delivered exactly what they wanted, bar this and that. 
I suggest something like ...... Minecraft. ... Candy Crush. .. or just something simpler. ...