Well set out points. +Rep.
The problem of sterility, an open letter.
- Thread starter Tanith Low
- Start date
The Avatar feature is pretty much the only thing I actually want from this season and done correctly it could add some much needed life to this universe, such as giving faces to npc's on the bulletin boards (hopefully linked to the kind of mission questions that the op suggests in their post, something that was included in FE2 and FFE). The powerplay characters and galnet articles could also use the avatar system to spice them up a bit too.
There are some great ideas here, some of which I'd love to see. Variation (or the lack thereof) is my biggest bugbear with the game.
The thing I see as a developer is that these things may be on hold for a reason. Let me clarify;
I can see a number of things in Elite are clearly place-holders for something that will come later.
That being said, there is still a vast galaxy and an awful lot that can be done with it.
NPC traffic should be generated based on the situation of the system (disease outbreaks, war, prosperity etc.) but also scale to the capability of the PC running. If your rig can handle more NPC traffic, make it so!
This meshes with my request that stations vary according to economy and war-footing, both internally and externally. Just flying to a station, from the junk outside and the dirt and poor lighting, you know the economy is in the toilet, while another system has better security ships, more radio chatter, bright shiny station interiors, lots of adverts & neon.
I recommend a compulsory day of watching Firefly, The Expanse, Blade Runner and Alien for the whole development team.
Players want to feel they've arrived somewhere new.
The thing I see as a developer is that these things may be on hold for a reason. Let me clarify;
- You have a Avatar designer, that with random seeds can produce images of unique individuals. You know you're going to write them into the game in X months time to pop up when players converse with NPCs, so the last thing you want to do is devote developer time and resource to writing a stop-gap interface, that you'll just throw away in a few months.
- You have a team working on walking around ships for next season, so that a player can leave their cockpit seat, walk down to the vehicle bay and board the SRV. Why would you assign ANOTHER team to put something (other than a fade-to-black) in it's place? That would make no financial sense.
I can see a number of things in Elite are clearly place-holders for something that will come later.
That being said, there is still a vast galaxy and an awful lot that can be done with it.
NPC traffic should be generated based on the situation of the system (disease outbreaks, war, prosperity etc.) but also scale to the capability of the PC running. If your rig can handle more NPC traffic, make it so!
This meshes with my request that stations vary according to economy and war-footing, both internally and externally. Just flying to a station, from the junk outside and the dirt and poor lighting, you know the economy is in the toilet, while another system has better security ships, more radio chatter, bright shiny station interiors, lots of adverts & neon.
I recommend a compulsory day of watching Firefly, The Expanse, Blade Runner and Alien for the whole development team.
Players want to feel they've arrived somewhere new.
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Hell, even battles around the stations of the factions involved would be great. Having to negotiate the battle to dock in sounds awesome!
I mean, if you don't choose a side no one shoots at you anyway, but still.
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I just see this as my sensors calibrating to normal space after the rigours of the hyper jump.
It ADDS to my immersion.
^ I think this summarises a lot of the comments in this thread.
ED has a wonderful and beautiful space mechanics but it lacks that feel of adventure. Less politics, mini-games and new shiny features and more immersion, adventure and depth please FD
I'm starting to get a nervous <fzzt> twitch whenever I read the phrase, "open letter" <fzzt> in a forum thread <fzzt> heading.
I know that feeling, it is almost like posters think that developers will immediately read threads with "an open letter" in above other threads that say the same or similar thing without that tag.
Or it's written in the form of a letter, that is openly published.
Truth be told I wrote it as an email, but a friend suggested I put it on the forums and I didn't want to have to re write it.
Feel free to discuss the topic by the way. Do you have any suggestions about what ED could do? Do you disagree with me? Because if the worst you can say about the post is that you don't like the title or format I'll consider my point well made.
It's the new "Isn't it time we..." thread title.
That has already been added.
To a certain degree. I don't think they are combat zones where you can choose a side, or am i wrong about that?
NPCs are replicated, so the limiting factor (in the general, non-Solo case) is not the local PC's performance, but the bandwidth available between members of a session with which to replicate things.
It would be good to know who is actually the minority and the majority of the players (or game/season buyers).
There was discussion on another thread about the suggestion to add surveys to the launcher to get a more representative sample of opinions rather than just forum users (which are assumed by both sides to be biased from what I gather).
Although I strongly support most of the add 'depth', 'life', 'sense', 'meat', 'meaning', 'variation', 'adventure' set of opinions of where the games priorities ought to be.
There is a possibility (although I suspect a remote one given forum activity and player reviews elsewhere on the internet) that there is a 'silent majority' out there that actually wants more shiny-and-shallow content and meaningless treadmill-type gameplay to be the priority.
I personally think that as concepts both Powerplay and CQC could have been good and interesting.
However, they were implemented in shallow and disconnected ways.
In CQC for example they could have...
-Added more and bigger ships for variations such as 5 fighters vs a python matches.
-Added more equipment choices/combinations
-Added NPCs partially to help reduce the "waiting for players" problem
-Added co-op vs NPC and PvP military training scenarios in CQC (transport protection, blockade running , base assaults, capital ship assaults, law vs pirates....)
-Added a "real-world" arena mode system where players can travel the galaxy following the stations staging tournaments to risk their eagle or sidewinder in organised dogfights.
-Added carriers (basically outposts that jump to new locations) and the option of military fighter pilot career/mission mechanics to the main game (once you prove yourself in CQC, get recruited to run missions launched from a Fed carrier and follow it on a short campaign across a number of systems).
-Added versions of the CQC structures/maps into the main game (asteroid bases, special RES sites).
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For me personally i think powerplay came too early.... i think the weeks/months of dev time put into that should have been purely put into the core mechanics and missions structures...
Right now the whole bulletin board system feels woefully unbalanced and far too hit and miss...
I can think of 3 way in which the whole mission structure could have been enhanced massively with current mechanics...
1. Faction Mission - Persistent NPC. A 'faction' rep who is assigned to you when you first start making contact with your major faction.
This NPC can pop-up from time to time and offer a set of missions (which could be weighted based on players pilots fed ranks - Expl/comb/trad so it provides more interesting missions for each player) ...
They can be complex, multi-step, high risk, high reward missions. Maybe even requiring us to wing-up and hit 3 things at once in a coordinated strike (like interdicting 3 ships in 3 systems at once)
Provide meaningful ranking boost (maybe 10-15% burst and a large reward growing with reletive faction rank and pilots fed rank). Pop up every few days or even weeks. But just something persistent
2. Local Faction counter-missions. Right now, when we're on a mission we get counter-offers from someone offering a 'better offer' which normally is woefully worse offer.... we could get a message in-station (like a pop-up) or in Contacts. With a member of a faction which we might have been working against .... trying to persuade us to come over to their side.... offering something better and more rewarding .... trying to put some ethical choices into the game
3. Remove the endless walls of text.... right now, everything in-game is done via text ... Missions, GalNet, NPC interaction ... its all just text.... its easy to ignore, people won't read and even if you do ... you don't feel engaged with it ... we need some multimedia... Galnet needs to be a news bulletin ... read out .. like a channel we watch. Or at least like a radio station we can tune into .... yes it requires work.... but we need 'life' in the universe and right now we don't have it.
Same with powerplay .... we need voices and personality behind the major powers.... occasional videos / speeches .. reactions to their weekly changes.. something
4. Faction opposition .... i know this will be a contravertial one.... but i think the faction system in its current guise is broken .... we can rank without hinderance into both aux navies .... we should have choice and consequence.... the opposite faction should alert me that they're aware of my gaining rank in the opposite faction .... something should change .... my standing ... my friendliness ... feels like we should be taking sides.... but it all has to be supported with enough good gameplay and balance .....right now .... only thing Ranking is doing is locking ships away ....
5. Security Levels / Police Presence - help for new players and a graduated opening up of risk. The security status of a system should have a much stronger weighting into the state of police / piracy in a system ...
A high security, rich, core, critical world should be swarming with police ... they can afford, its in their interest to make it a safe haven ... whereas some further out, anarchy system, poor with agriculture or something .... zero police and higher grade pirate NPC's .... This should bare-out with the RES system.... so in a high sec system a RES should be somewhere a new player can feel safe and protected.... whereas in a ultra-low sec / anarchy system .... we should have almost every ship be higher rank (deadly/elite) in wings of 4 or 5 .... in other words .... even a skilled pilot in solo would struggle or require to wing-up with friends and still find it tough going....
Right now even a HazRes with a wing of 4 human friends is pretty much no challenge and just a grind. We need to have systems where caution is needed .... the economy / security levels can provide that guidance / weighting
All these ideas i think are available using pre-existing in-game mechanics with just the background work needed to knot it all together....
I dearly hope that Season 2 (horizons), FDev will spend a lot of time knitting the various elements of the game together to make it all feel more cohesive
Right now the whole bulletin board system feels woefully unbalanced and far too hit and miss...
I can think of 3 way in which the whole mission structure could have been enhanced massively with current mechanics...
1. Faction Mission - Persistent NPC. A 'faction' rep who is assigned to you when you first start making contact with your major faction.
This NPC can pop-up from time to time and offer a set of missions (which could be weighted based on players pilots fed ranks - Expl/comb/trad so it provides more interesting missions for each player) ...
They can be complex, multi-step, high risk, high reward missions. Maybe even requiring us to wing-up and hit 3 things at once in a coordinated strike (like interdicting 3 ships in 3 systems at once)
Provide meaningful ranking boost (maybe 10-15% burst and a large reward growing with reletive faction rank and pilots fed rank). Pop up every few days or even weeks. But just something persistent
2. Local Faction counter-missions. Right now, when we're on a mission we get counter-offers from someone offering a 'better offer' which normally is woefully worse offer.... we could get a message in-station (like a pop-up) or in Contacts. With a member of a faction which we might have been working against .... trying to persuade us to come over to their side.... offering something better and more rewarding .... trying to put some ethical choices into the game
3. Remove the endless walls of text.... right now, everything in-game is done via text ... Missions, GalNet, NPC interaction ... its all just text.... its easy to ignore, people won't read and even if you do ... you don't feel engaged with it ... we need some multimedia... Galnet needs to be a news bulletin ... read out .. like a channel we watch. Or at least like a radio station we can tune into .... yes it requires work.... but we need 'life' in the universe and right now we don't have it.
Same with powerplay .... we need voices and personality behind the major powers.... occasional videos / speeches .. reactions to their weekly changes.. something
4. Faction opposition .... i know this will be a contravertial one.... but i think the faction system in its current guise is broken .... we can rank without hinderance into both aux navies .... we should have choice and consequence.... the opposite faction should alert me that they're aware of my gaining rank in the opposite faction .... something should change .... my standing ... my friendliness ... feels like we should be taking sides.... but it all has to be supported with enough good gameplay and balance .....right now .... only thing Ranking is doing is locking ships away ....
5. Security Levels / Police Presence - help for new players and a graduated opening up of risk. The security status of a system should have a much stronger weighting into the state of police / piracy in a system ...
A high security, rich, core, critical world should be swarming with police ... they can afford, its in their interest to make it a safe haven ... whereas some further out, anarchy system, poor with agriculture or something .... zero police and higher grade pirate NPC's .... This should bare-out with the RES system.... so in a high sec system a RES should be somewhere a new player can feel safe and protected.... whereas in a ultra-low sec / anarchy system .... we should have almost every ship be higher rank (deadly/elite) in wings of 4 or 5 .... in other words .... even a skilled pilot in solo would struggle or require to wing-up with friends and still find it tough going....
Right now even a HazRes with a wing of 4 human friends is pretty much no challenge and just a grind. We need to have systems where caution is needed .... the economy / security levels can provide that guidance / weighting
All these ideas i think are available using pre-existing in-game mechanics with just the background work needed to knot it all together....
I dearly hope that Season 2 (horizons), FDev will spend a lot of time knitting the various elements of the game together to make it all feel more cohesive
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Things that would improve my ED experience:
- anarchy systems should be much more dangerous to visit
- those NPC's that promise "interesting informations" should tell me what they want and stop stalking me through the next 8 systems
- the buggy new BB mission types should be fixed soon. Additional, many of them seem not to be finally thought-out.
- simplify playing the pirate role and make it more profitable. for example: if you blow up a vessel, at least some of the cargo should be released. plus every starport should have a black market to sell those illegal goods.
I would trade-in planetary landing and buggy driving for every point I mentioned above.
- anarchy systems should be much more dangerous to visit
- those NPC's that promise "interesting informations" should tell me what they want and stop stalking me through the next 8 systems
- the buggy new BB mission types should be fixed soon. Additional, many of them seem not to be finally thought-out.
- simplify playing the pirate role and make it more profitable. for example: if you blow up a vessel, at least some of the cargo should be released. plus every starport should have a black market to sell those illegal goods.
I would trade-in planetary landing and buggy driving for every point I mentioned above.
Their propositions should make some sense to begin with. Offering 20k credits to abandon a mission that pays 4 mill is just stupid.
The problem is that this kind of choice would work if the game had any kind of statistic / gaming on 'Morality'
So taking something arbirary ... Star Wars.... say in an MMO like this each mission/choice leads to light side or dark side.... each choice seals off another element of game associated with the opposite 'side'....Ultimately you become either a 'goodie' or a 'baddie' simplistically...
In other MMO's you have skill trees too which would open up gameplay or lead choices....
In E: D today all we have are Faction ranks which do nothing to change the game other than opening up a few ships, we have Pilots Fed ranks which again just open up missions that paymore and are a little more difficult but not commensorate with their rank really.
What do we have that fundamentally changes the game for you? Nothing.... character classes, character builds, concept of 'levelling up' (pilots fed), all do nothing or don't exist
Credits unlock the most ships but still that just means you can make more Credits quicker ....doesn't really 'enable' gameplay
That's the thing we're missing .... purpose!
I agree. But my main problem is(and I'm not the only one for sure), that I have to follow their wake first before they could tell me that their offer is just...meaningless? They could call you in SC to tell they have interesting informations. So why they can't tell you the details, so everyone can choose for him/herself if it's interesting enough to follow their wake?
That's how I could imagine a NPC-proposal look like:
"Do you want to earn 1 Million in ten minutes by delivering some illicit cargo? Just follow my wake!"
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Another thread, same basic idea.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=221498
Same thing. Small changes which would have a big impact.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=221498
Same thing. Small changes which would have a big impact.