When FD dropped the ball (with the background sim in v1.3)
- Thread starter SentineI
- Start date
Deleted member 94277
D
By all means, don't worry. No bashing intended. I love ED, if I hated it I wouldn't bother even being on the forums. It's because I like it that I complain so much. And you may be right, maybe in the future we'll be glad we waited and be doing incredible things in our galaxy. But after PP and CQC, you can't blame me for becoming a bit skeptical.
I could hug you for this comment, but that would then be awkward - so best not to say anything... ... ... [Damn!
]
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I don't see anyone blindly defending anything!
Suggestion dude, not dictation. Just my opinion, take it or leave it, FWIW, YMMV etc.
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Yeah, let's put them in the stockade and throw rotten fruit at them instead. After the public horse whipping of course.
Whaddaya mean, not constructive?
I'm guessing that if that goal is reached (the background sim not needing intervention anymore), offline mode would become a viable option once more.
Nice try.
Yeah, I know.
But to be fair, David Braben always said that the offline mode was not completely canceled.
It was just not doable at the current stage of development.
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<splutters> Do me a favour! I nearly lost a cup of tea reading that!
Why?
He actually said it in a video interview and again in an interview with a gaming magazine.
And I think it is very reasonable too.
During the development stage, when the background sim can not yet run without intervention, an offline mode is not feasible.
It makes perfect sense to me.
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Good points (all of them, including those I'm not quoting here). However, to understand these "white knight" reaction many of us are percieved to have, try to turn it on its head: Here is a remake of a 30 year old game, originally a game turner in the industry, and a game the concepts of which have been copied over and over in the gaming industry since, with varying success. The game itself was followed by sequels that were both great successes somewhat disappointments at the same time; one had to forgive a lot of bugs and learn to live with Newtonian space flight to truly like Frontier and First Encounters.
Now imagine a new game comes out, almost 20 years after the last one, having the feel of the original, with the addition of a full-scale galaxy simulation as well as a market simulation. These are declared work in progress by the developers, in fact the game is sold as an evolving entity which is a huge step forward from the bug-fests of its predecessors. Some of us live with that from the start as a series of scenarios to test through various sometimes odd-looking beta, premium beta and gamma versions. The process of encountering oddities and bugs, and posting these or sending them to the developer, becomes a habit.
Then people start to come round to the game that declares the game a "shallow space fps" apparently seeing only one aspect of it, or saying it is not enough like EVE, or WoW, or X, or whatever. They appear to want to bend the background simulation to suit their own purposes and complain when it doesn't consistently do so. They complain about this with snarky posts on the forum, and they arrive like pearls on a string, posting the same things without apparently ever checking to see if others have posted something similar. Or maybe they think their opinions are automatically unique, or somehow deserves special attention because they are loud or smartly formulated? Some of these newcomers seem to be used to get what they want by being argumentative, one can almost imagine them grinding their parents patience into the ground by constantly arguing why they should have that ice cream or shiny toy that is apparently missing to make the difference between a complete disaster and a grand old time.
Well, after a while it gets a bit tiresome. I wonder if a script can be made, server-side, to automatically respond to these posts so we don't have to bother.
It's a game that is trying to do something different. For that I'm pleased, because if it implemented many of the changes that are here suggested, I would personally drop it like a hot potato and move on. I like that we have to use a bit of imagination to carve our own path, that everything is not just there to entertain us but to be a background for our own storytelling, internalised or not. It demands a bit of thinking and a step away from instant gratification on the side of the player. It's not a movie without the pictures. Rather it is like a show for grown-ups, with things to read between the lines, subtle plot elements and complex story telling. As opposed to a childrens show with lots of sparkles, bright colours and not much to actually stimulate the imagination.
So have a bit of patience. A big part of the game is the background simulation. Even if FD optimises it, it will hopefully never respond large and fast to the actions of a few players, so if you want to put a solid fingerprint on the galaxy, be prepared to be patiently working towards that. And remember it is not only about you and your friends, but also about the thousands if not hundreds of thousands trying to do the same.
SThanks Sandro. I thought that was already understood. Good luck with your efforts, I look forward to see where this game is heading.
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Dog! I found Cody!
<runs>
<hides>
See, the thing is we were working with the full understanding that the game wasn't done in the hopes that our feedback would help to fix the background sim. It seemed like it was working because we would see a result of a war or an election that didn't make sense and ask about it and be told that yes, something was broken somewhere and they had to fix it. This happened over and over, which is fine, we knew things weren't finished but that's all part of making a game and testing to find bugs.
Then we get a big shiny update that is supposed to address a lot of the issues we had. I know some of us got our hopes up a little too high but no one was prepared for what Powerplay turned out to be. We thought for sure a major BGS overhaul would be needed to support such a thing. Nope, it's just an unrelated overlay on the galaxy map.
Then we get a big shiny update that is supposed to address a lot of the issues we had. I know some of us got our hopes up a little too high but no one was prepared for what Powerplay turned out to be. We thought for sure a major BGS overhaul would be needed to support such a thing. Nope, it's just an unrelated overlay on the galaxy map.
For me PP & CQC are worthless - IMHO - yes, that is my take on the current position - yes PP & CQC could be options or missions or even a gladiator style life choice - bounty, trader, pirate, station owner [pipe dream] or gladiator - but the way it has been implemented is still as it was in alpha [b4 me] or Beta - each update crippled some aspects to test others - 1.2 was good, but 1.3 & PP wrecked trading, bounty and missions - it is now destroying, smuggle or PP - nothing else is valued [IMHO] - as a brief interlude fine but as a final destination - not what Elite was, is or should be.
Too much of the basics are broken and not working - missions are still rubbish - interactions and mission choices still ridiculous [a 250,000 Cr clear pirates mission - defect for 2,000 Cr] - no the fundamentals should be fixed before the DLC part of CQC or PP be added. However, we now have it - so please fix what does not work - economy and supply/demand - fix decay of status if not involved in PP - my status should remain constant to major powers dependant on my choices not on a PP system I am not involved with [without true purpose].
I have previously mentioned in other post - Beta I played 20+ hours a week, just got back from 14day holiday - I went to see what updates and found nothing of note - I'll play a bit - it looks great - plays rubbish - saved my ships - bought Cobra Mk3 - just flying around seeing the sites - costs little in Cr - so I don't care what is going on - as I see no benefit from anything from 1.2 onwards - it was broken in 1.3Beta - and is still broken in 1.3 - I will wait, but I cannot recommend anyone to buy it now - I was telling everyone who was a gamer during beta onwards - but not now
It was not perfect - but it was sadly broken by the recent updates - looks are good - but looks aren't everything.
Too much of the basics are broken and not working - missions are still rubbish - interactions and mission choices still ridiculous [a 250,000 Cr clear pirates mission - defect for 2,000 Cr] - no the fundamentals should be fixed before the DLC part of CQC or PP be added. However, we now have it - so please fix what does not work - economy and supply/demand - fix decay of status if not involved in PP - my status should remain constant to major powers dependant on my choices not on a PP system I am not involved with [without true purpose].
I have previously mentioned in other post - Beta I played 20+ hours a week, just got back from 14day holiday - I went to see what updates and found nothing of note - I'll play a bit - it looks great - plays rubbish - saved my ships - bought Cobra Mk3 - just flying around seeing the sites - costs little in Cr - so I don't care what is going on - as I see no benefit from anything from 1.2 onwards - it was broken in 1.3Beta - and is still broken in 1.3 - I will wait, but I cannot recommend anyone to buy it now - I was telling everyone who was a gamer during beta onwards - but not now
It was not perfect - but it was sadly broken by the recent updates - looks are good - but looks aren't everything.
Good points (all of them, including those I'm not quoting here). However, to understand these "white knight" reaction many of us are percieved to have, try to turn it on its head: Here is a remake of a 30 year old game, originally a game turner in the industry, and a game the concepts of which have been copied over and over in the gaming industry since, with varying success. The game itself was followed by sequels that were both great successes somewhat disappointments at the same time; one had to forgive a lot of bugs and learn to live with Newtonian space flight to truly like Frontier and First Encounters.
Now imagine a new game comes out, almost 20 years after the last one, having the feel of the original, with the addition of a full-scale galaxy simulation as well as a market simulation. These are declared work in progress by the developers, in fact the game is sold as an evolving entity which is a huge step forward from the bug-fests of its predecessors. Some of us live with that from the start as a series of scenarios to test through various sometimes odd-looking beta, premium beta and gamma versions. The process of encountering oddities and bugs, and posting these or sending them to the developer, becomes a habit.
Then people start to come round to the game that declares the game a "shallow space fps" apparently seeing only one aspect of it, or saying it is not enough like EVE, or WoW, or X, or whatever. They appear to want to bend the background simulation to suit their own purposes and complain when it doesn't consistently do so. They complain about this with snarky posts on the forum, and they arrive like pearls on a string, posting the same things without apparently ever checking to see if others have posted something similar. Or maybe they think their opinions are automatically unique, or somehow deserves special attention because they are loud or smartly formulated? Some of these newcomers seem to be used to get what they want by being argumentative, one can almost imagine them grinding their parents patience into the ground by constantly arguing why they should have that ice cream or shiny toy that is apparently missing to make the difference between a complete disaster and a grand old time.
Well, after a while it gets a bit tiresome. I wonder if a script can be made, server-side, to automatically respond to these posts so we don't have to bother.
It's a game that is trying to do something different. For that I'm pleased, because if it implemented many of the changes that are here suggested, I would personally drop it like a hot potato and move on. I like that we have to use a bit of imagination to carve our own path, that everything is not just there to entertain us but to be a background for our own storytelling, internalised or not. It demands a bit of thinking and a step away from instant gratification on the side of the player. It's not a movie without the pictures. Rather it is like a show for grown-ups, with things to read between the lines, subtle plot elements and complex story telling. As opposed to a childrens show with lots of sparkles, bright colours and not much to actually stimulate the imagination.
So have a bit of patience. A big part of the game is the background simulation. Even if FD optimises it, it will hopefully never respond large and fast to the actions of a few players, so if you want to put a solid fingerprint on the galaxy, be prepared to be patiently working towards that. And remember it is not only about you and your friends, but also about the thousands if not hundreds of thousands trying to do the same.
A well versed response, thanks for taking the time to write one. I agree on most parts, I appreciate the frustration. I also appreciate the legacy of the franchise; unfortunately I am not old enough to have appreciated its original incarnations. I think a lot of posts are intimate desires of players with a passion for the game who want to see it realise its potential. I think we all have varying degrees of patience, personally I am hanging out in one particular system slowly affecting the influence of one minor faction and am enjoying my little story; however I do want my actions to have consequences, observable consequences that my roleplay needn't dictate. I empathise with other players whose interactions need illicit a dutiful response from the game for them to be satisfied.
I am just disheartened that we cannot all communicate our passions coherently and enjoy them rather than engaging in circular debates about direction that seems to inevitably boil down to name calling; ultimately while this is a successor it is also it's own game and has to survive in a new world of gaming. I am confident FD are aware of this and am interested in how they respond to the rising tide of players hungry for more; more which can be realised without negatively impacting the core tenets of the series.
I guess you have to have as much patience with the newer members of the community as you do the development of the game. Instant gratification is certainly the most common form of gaming nowadays so much so that it has become stricture, which is a shame, because it has its uses.
Again, thanks for your response, it is much easier to understand your frustrations when you paint them with more detail.
Having read through this thread (dev response, yay!), then it seems that the tipping point for many was that the tactics for and effects of testing began to fail with the introduction of Powerplay. I must admit I mucked about with it for a while during its beta, then wandered off when it went live on another exploration trip. It looked like something new to figure out and I couldn't see how merits would be a currency that would help upgrade my Asp... Well, I can imagine it being a bit of a showstopper too if you have been fumbling your way through the influence labyrinth prior to 1.3, only to find the labyrinth suddenly shift with PP launch.
But that's the thing: If you see your role as a tester of one particular aspect of the game which FD has stated is under development and will continue to be tweaked until it need no more tweaking, then this is bound to happen. For many it seemed that while PP brought a not always welcome layer of complexity to the background simulation, it at least added faces to the powers and allowed player actions to influence the political scene.
By all means continue to test and communicate your experiences here and in bug reports when necessary. It's the hyperbole and second guessing of FDs intentions that gets us old-timers down and result in snarky replies to snarky posts. The whole ordeal with Sarahs move away from NPC combat AI is a great example of that. If you want to support her, don't post here but buy and read her books! They are well reviewed.
SHave you guys ever realized that there was a release of a complete/working game almost 9 months ago? Could you please stop telling us in every 2nd post that "things are not returning things as expected"? I think its time to take it more serious and take the responsibility for the fail.
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The BGS was actually working pretty well just before 1.2 hit.
As someone who has done almost nothing else than playing it, you can believe me on that one.
1.2. Brought the addition of 2 long cooldown states, War and Election. The CW cooldown had been tuned down to 3 days, and all was working well in 1.1. Then 1.2. brought War and Election with 25 day cooldowns. These, together with the improved number of expanded systems and the cooldown mechanics lead to cooldown mania. Example: In Bielonti, the Anarchy faction expanded twice. To Lenore and Sikarici. They had a War in Lenore and went into 25 day conflict cooldown. Therefore no conflicts in Bielonti, Lenore and Sikarici were triggering, whether involving The Silver Gang or not. And you could never know why, because there is no information that The silver Gang is in Cooldown, the system is in cooldown or that the Silver Gang was actually in 3 systems, not two.
Th3 result was many ppl thought the BGS was bugged. We certainly thought so when we couldnt trigger a civil war in Tionisla, because we didnt know that Social Tionisla Labor was in 3 systems, not 2.
1.3. Then reduced the cooldown. Seeing whether a faction is in a cooldown is important. Seeing in which systems a faction is is important. Furthermore I'd really like charts to see the influence ovdr time, sith state markers. And ideally on the community page, not only in game.
We created a tool like that for ourselves, but entering data is tedious and trained monkey business. I am sure I spent at least 30 hours entering data manually, instead of playing the game.
The different missions are great. The only thing thats needed:
- rework of the cooldown mechanic (announced)
- balance balance balance
- more info, like influence over time reporting with a charting module
- some additional content, like triggering of events (small CGs) for station building, station shrinking, targeted expansion (and colonization), increase of production
- better economic model to have visible possibilities to manipulate what the station is producing and in which amounts (e.g. being able to manipulate a High Tech / Refinery to export Resonating Separators instead of importing)
- population changes
The announced changes sound very very well. I hope that the execution will live up to it.
As someone who has done almost nothing else than playing it, you can believe me on that one.
1.2. Brought the addition of 2 long cooldown states, War and Election. The CW cooldown had been tuned down to 3 days, and all was working well in 1.1. Then 1.2. brought War and Election with 25 day cooldowns. These, together with the improved number of expanded systems and the cooldown mechanics lead to cooldown mania. Example: In Bielonti, the Anarchy faction expanded twice. To Lenore and Sikarici. They had a War in Lenore and went into 25 day conflict cooldown. Therefore no conflicts in Bielonti, Lenore and Sikarici were triggering, whether involving The Silver Gang or not. And you could never know why, because there is no information that The silver Gang is in Cooldown, the system is in cooldown or that the Silver Gang was actually in 3 systems, not two.
Th3 result was many ppl thought the BGS was bugged. We certainly thought so when we couldnt trigger a civil war in Tionisla, because we didnt know that Social Tionisla Labor was in 3 systems, not 2.
1.3. Then reduced the cooldown. Seeing whether a faction is in a cooldown is important. Seeing in which systems a faction is is important. Furthermore I'd really like charts to see the influence ovdr time, sith state markers. And ideally on the community page, not only in game.
We created a tool like that for ourselves, but entering data is tedious and trained monkey business. I am sure I spent at least 30 hours entering data manually, instead of playing the game.
The different missions are great. The only thing thats needed:
- rework of the cooldown mechanic (announced)
- balance balance balance
- more info, like influence over time reporting with a charting module
- some additional content, like triggering of events (small CGs) for station building, station shrinking, targeted expansion (and colonization), increase of production
- better economic model to have visible possibilities to manipulate what the station is producing and in which amounts (e.g. being able to manipulate a High Tech / Refinery to export Resonating Separators instead of importing)
- population changes
The announced changes sound very very well. I hope that the execution will live up to it.