Is Elite Dangerous a Dad's Game Played mainly by "non-gamers"?

Good answer

OP, sorry but I can't really identify with much of what you said, but I can answer what seems to be the main bit:



I currently play ED and Skyrim.
I have played and enjoyed EVE Online, Civilisation, Tropico, Sim City, The Sims, DragonAge and Sid Meir's Pirates!
I'm a thirty-something y.o. woman. I'm not a Dad, that would just be weird.

I hope that helps?

Way to go Commander!
 
Well, I am not really liked a lot in here, lol.
So it was an assumption based on that.
No offense taken, btw.

No problem.

We can't have a discussion if we agree on everything!

Also, if we all agreed on everything, what a boring place this would be!
 
Except being a full combat oriented player (I do not mean PvP/Piracy).
These in the current version are nerfed into oblivion.
I need my missions to get into better reps, but i simply cannot.
One of the things addressed by me, btw, and supported by some.

Hm.
You don't need reputation with anyone to be a combat oriented player.
Just ignore the rest.

Makes the game more difficult? Uhm .. maybe? But why care?
Why plot a "A class" Anaconda for 600 mio and then grind there with the most profitable (and boring) way, clocking 500 hrs of pure trading?
Noone -but one's own habit and the ringing of bells- is forcing you to somesuch.

Oh, and in case you mean you cannot join an official navy and work your rank up .. can't be a lawyer, either. Or a Turkeybreeder on Planet Lave (that was Starwars:Galaxies :D ).
 
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No problem.

We can't have a discussion if we agree on everything!

Also, if we all agreed on everything, what a boring place this would be!
AMEN!
I like you already, good Sir. :)

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Hm.
You don't need reputation with anyone to be a combat oriented player.
Just ignore the rest.

Makes the game more difficult? Uhm .. maybe? But why care?
Why plot a "A class" Anaconda for 600 mio and then grind there with the most profitable (and boring) way, clocking 500 hrs of pure trading?
Noone -but one's own habit and the ringing of bells- is forcing you to somesuch.
To get into the Capital Planet, I need to be rank (forgotten), but I can't get there, since... no missions....
Slightly more indepth: I cannot do criminal missions (being a nice fella, and I keep my RP clean), I don't do non-combat oriented missions, all I had was Kill X Pirates/Assassinate Criminal.
But these vanished with 1.4...

Addendum: Vulture, my only boat. :)
And yes, I love to take on big daddies, even winged...
This is one of the things I do like, really.
 
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Well.. I'm 43 years young, have 1 kid (and one who died) and 2 step kids. I've been a gamer since 1979, I loath football entirely and I am a self confessed Nerd. I work in IT, do Cosplay (Jedi Knight) when the situation deserves it. Have a back catalog of more than 500 games on steam alone (was an early adopter of steam and digital distribution 12 years ago). Have been a Sysop of BBS in the past, played the original Elite in 84, as well as Frontier Elite 2. I'm SQL fluent and getting there with Java. In essence, I am a Dad and a Gamer Geek.

Oh, and Elite: Dangerous is my numero uno game of the moment (steam review: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Oziman/recommended/359320/ )

"Elite: Dangerous, simply put, is one of THE best games ever made, it is every Star Wars boyhood dream come true."
 
Erm...
I must be speaking some unknown language...
I said: Space is a living, vibrant 'entity'.
If you are in the slightest way familiar with astronomy, you would understand what I precisely said.
Now, in here, we have, being humans, spread out over a sector of the universe, we have stations with billions of people upon it... and which are DEAD in the purest form of the word.
Planets: dead.
NPC's: DEAD as dead can be. (I'm do not mean the pirates I've blown away).
There is no interaction, missions are either virtually non-existent (Kill X Pirates as example), Or they are like: Go kill. Kill dude. Get payed.
Dafu... dge?
Something is not quite right, IMHO....

you understand the concept of development? you have heard what is coming in Horizons? Even just taking player avatars and multi crew, as an example, shows a movement towards getting out of our ships and interacting with the BGS directly via npc's. also, if you think the BGS is dead.. you are either unsure what you are looking at, or haven't tried to interact with it, in an organised and focused manner.
 
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To get into the Capital Planet, I need to be rank (forgotten), but I can't get there, since... no missions....
Slightly more indepth: I cannot do criminal missions (being a nice fella, and I keep my RP clean), I don't do non-combat oriented missions, all I had was Kill X Pirates/Assassinate Criminal.
But these vanished with 1.4...

Hmhm. You do have a point there. The mission on offer balancing as such does sucketh mightiely at times and is pretty counterproductive.
There's still seems to be the odd pirate mission every now and then (like 1/100 .. totally random from kill 3 to kill 25?), but it's far and between (and then never for the right faction and so on).

And yea, referencing that other thread, I would (like "common sense") expect Combat Zone participation / War Bonds for a certain faction to give a major boost to (auxiliary) military rank, where it seems to do absolutely nothing?
 
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you understand the concept of development? you have heard what is coming in Horizons? Even just taking player avatars and multi crew, as an example, shows a movement towards getting out of our ships and interacting with the BGS directly via npc's. also, if you think the BGS is dead.. you are either unsure what you are looking at, or haven't tried to interact with it, in an organised and focused manner.
Aye, and this was the first time I spoke of it, and i am anxiously awaiting the new updates in that regard, too.
My comment was at someone saying that "space is a dead place" or something in that way.
It was not meant as a complaint, really.
 
This is an interesting..."observation"...that runs totally contrary to what I've seen the industry doing over the last 20 years. As developers cater more to the "gamer" generation, games become simpler and easier with more forgiving mechanics and choice structures. Anymore games from developers like From Software are the exception to the rule, niche really. While games with checkpoints every 15 seconds, heavily scripted and static AI and extremely reliable "cheese" strats dominate the market.
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I think you may also find that we "dad gamers" are some of the strongest advocates for less forgiving mechanics in ED, tougher AI and more punishing consequences. It's the "gamery gamers" that need things without investment, consequence or penalty.

Casual games are not necessarily dadgames, though dadgames can be casual and vice versa. Certainly compared to the days of Jet Set Willy things are far more casual these days, though as someone who used to spend their time doing narcotics runs for fun on the original Elite, other than that there wasn't a great deal of difficulty in it. But that wasn't the point of elite, then or now and doesn't have to be.

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I'm a dad/granddad/gamer, that's says it all no!
Hmmm ... we may have a contender for someone who is older than me!
 
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Casual games are not necessarily dadgames, though dadgames can be casual and vice versa. Certainly compared to the days of Jet Set Willy things are far more casual these days, though as someone who used to spend their time doing narcotics runs for fun on the original Elite, other than that there wasn't a great deal of difficulty in it. But that wasn't the point of elite, then or now.
I think you may also find that we "dad gamers" are some of the strongest advocates for less forgiving mechanics in ED, tougher AI and more punishing consequences. It's the "gamery gamers" that need things without investment, consequence or penalty.
I'm all for that, really.
But then you get a few that say: "This mission became too hard..."
Hard is good, it pushes us to become better, I think.
I can be wrong, of course!
I just like some challenge...
Or a lot, actually.
 
Regardless of what the OP said, I bet you there are now a bunch of real gamers pointing at this thread on Reddit and laughing, due to the amount of dadgamer indignation it has caused to be expressed.

To indiebob: why does it matter? Yes, I've read your original post, but I failed to grasp your meaning.
 
Except being a full combat oriented player (I do not mean PvP/Piracy).
These in the current version are nerfed into oblivion.
I need my missions to get into better reps, but i simply cannot.
One of the things addressed by me, btw, and supported by some.
I can't agree here. I am a fully combat oriented pilot, and while I do enjoy PvP I don't go looking for it (I just always submit to player interdictions then come about with guns blazing), and I have no problems.

I suspect part of your problem is focusing too much on ranking up to get the bigger ships. A lot of people who treat this game as a grind to the big ships have major issues with the game, and I believe that is because the game wasn't intended to be played that way (an oversight from the design team, who should have anticipated that behaviour from people used to that being the norm in many modern games, especially MMO's).

I believe that the game was intended to be more about enjoying the journey, not rushing to the destination, and that the bigger ships were meant to be something you naturally progress into slowly over a very long time playing.

As I said, FD should perhaps have anticipated this problem, but they didn't apparently.

Still I'd suggest slowing down and taking the time to hone your skills in ships like the Viper, DBS and Vulture, and by the time you get access to the bigger ships, you'll be a better pilot for it.
So enjoying discussing something you wish was otherwise is now verboten? Hmmm ...

No, but if someone basically just doesn't like a game, going to that game's community and complaining that the game should be something else is rude and disrespectful, and deserves all the scorn and derision it gets.

If you went onto a forum for the FIFA soccer games and complained that the game was dead and boring, and it needed assault rifles and an iron-sights mode, you'd get the same reaction (well, maybe with more laughter).
 
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I'm all for that, really.
But then you get a few that say: "This mission became too hard..."
Hard is good, it pushes us to become better, I think.
I can be wrong, of course!
I just like some challenge...
Or a lot, actually.

Another thing they could do, possibly as an alternative to hard missions, is score boards. Let players see how well other players on their friends list did on a specific mission, as well as global scoreaboards. Players might be rated on "least ammo used", "least damage incurred" or "fastest completion time" and you could compete with others on different bases. That way human opposition, rather than the game, becomes your opponent.
 
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