Except for the times they did.
Horizons Elite Needs Game Designers
- Thread starter Blackcompany
- Start date
Except for the times they did.
You're quite correct on those big three reasons for some "creative/gameplay/content" facets being a significant dev challenge.
For me, the big "problem" areas seem to have come about when that challenging game "construct" collides with things like...
Seriously limited resources
The big push in 2014 saw the game officially released as a viable product... but some areas were noticeably minimum viable product (and that's something several FD people openly commented on).
This has left a number of legacy items that will be a hard sell internally to rework; any reworking will take resources off new features that can drive sales. While it's not impossible to make a case for resourcing such things, it's going to be tough to justify from a business standpoint.
Example:
The in-space supercruise dropout transition. There simply isn't one; a pregnant pause. The nearby planet can jump from one distance to a closer distance. Space station will "zoom in" from directly ahead, even if you technically flew pastthem in the last second of SC approach.
Contrast that to the Horizons transition, which runs a beautiful "start-to-finish" animated interpolation between the "drop" trigger point and the "glide" start point. You can tell FD threw extra planning, tech and resources at it, in an effort to avoid repeating the in-space transition experience.
But how hard is it going to be to revisit the in-space transition, instead of coding up, say, a cool fighter launch sequence for up-coming Horizons point-release? Hard.
Risk Minimisation
Some ED functionality seems to have been deliberately "firewalled" from existing mechanics, presumably to avoid multiplying the damage that bugs and unforeseen game mechanic "gaps" can cause.
Example:
PowerPlay and... well... practically everything else in the game. My guess is that the BGS' complexity-induced migraine was so painful that PowerPlay was built almost entirely in isolation. That isolation could be pitched as a positive (optional content - "you don't have to play it"), but it ended up feeling like a different board game concept slapped on top of Elite. Interestingly, despite the almost total disconnect of that extra game layer, PowerPlay and the BGS have still been caught fighting each other, and have had to be separated - see the recent mini-update patch! Some things are crying out for integration, but FD will have to tread carefully to avoid breaking other stuff. Again, new features could continue to be resourced instead of risky reworks that could make things worse before they deliver net improvements. Troubling, but true, I feel.
Momentary Lack of Focus on Consistency
Some of my personal trip-ups in Elite seem to have come about via a design process that perhaps hasn't valued consistency as highly as expediency. And I'm not really talking here about Big Gameplay Vision stuff, like flight model (how FD want ship movement to be), the need to dock to check commodity prices, etc. No, there are plenty of little things that just smack me right in the chops whenever I come across them.
Example:
Outside of special salvage missions, a cargo canister found floating in space is always "illegal salvage", but a cargo canister on a planet's surface always seems to be "legal salvage". Why is it legal? How about if I find one in space, drop it on the surface, and then pick it up again? Is it legal then? Why or why not? What's the rationale here?
Little stuff like this just makes me confused about the design process that spawned it.
I'd love to see FD continue to have enough development resources to do top-class work on Elite. I do wonder, though, whether some work to date has been
(a) rather too thinly resourced to properly deliver coherent gameplay mechanics in the challenging game world
(b) suffered from slightly too much risk-averse thinking, and
(c) not had a laser-like focus on overall consistency.
If each of those three points is address for any given future feature, and that feature is designed first and foremost from a creative perspective, it could turn the ED galaxy from a set of individual whirring mechanical cogs into something that feels like a marvellous ecosystem in action.
Which would be something to behold.
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It's funny, because i don't want player owned and controlled bases in the game.
Correct - the things you suggest would be 'awesome' are indeed not the game Frontier are not making. Deliberately. Just because you and some others think those things would make a good game (ie the 'right direction' as you put it) doesn't mean that's in fact the right direction for THIS game at all. Frontier said all along they were making the game THEY themselves wanted to play, and you know something? The game, to date at least and for the season 2 roadmap we've been provided, deliberately, by design, has excluded those very things you propose would be 'the right direction'.......so maybe that direction is actually not so right after all, at least in the eyes of Frontier? Maybe that should be more than enough indication as to what Frontier themselves think is the 'right direction', and it excludes your idea of what that 'right direction' is? Noting of course the as yet unknown surprise at 2.4 - but most people seem to think that will be the Thargoids, not the sort of content you propose. So that'll be what, two years of the game post-release, plus the development time before that, all excluding this so-called 'right direction'. I think some people need to simply accept that their opinion about what's 'right' for the game is just their own opinion, not authoritative, and that so far Frontier disagrees with them. And so do a large proportion of the playerbase, who don't want to see this version of this 'right direction' come to fruition. But that's all just my opinion of course......
I have almost 100 hours playtime on my XBox One Elite: Dangerous Account and I've only scratched the surface of this amazing sandbox. I don't need any "direction", this is what makes this game so amazing.
Only having seen a fraction of the game yet, I bet there are things that could be improved. But overall? I'd instantly pledge 50-200 bucks more on a second iteration funding campaign to power more of what Frontier have already accomplished.
Saying that Elite: Dangerous is just a Flight Sim is unfair und completely wrong. Maybe you are right in that other game design techniques could add to the game, but the effects on the current state of the game - apart from the mere possibility of realization (thanks to ChrisH for pointing that out) - are really hard to predict. And I'd rather have an amazing "sandbox" (I know it's not really the right word for Elite) with some RNG-caused strangeness, than a game with more "classic content" which could eventually hurt the current system.
edit: guess I misread and misjudged your original post, you make some good and valid points. But imho Elite shows way more creativity than lots of other games coming out these days. And it definitely has heart and soul. You can always improve a game further and further, but one really has to remember that there are technical and pure pragmatic limitations (like human resources) that are simply there.
Only having seen a fraction of the game yet, I bet there are things that could be improved. But overall? I'd instantly pledge 50-200 bucks more on a second iteration funding campaign to power more of what Frontier have already accomplished.
Saying that Elite: Dangerous is just a Flight Sim is unfair und completely wrong. Maybe you are right in that other game design techniques could add to the game, but the effects on the current state of the game - apart from the mere possibility of realization (thanks to ChrisH for pointing that out) - are really hard to predict. And I'd rather have an amazing "sandbox" (I know it's not really the right word for Elite) with some RNG-caused strangeness, than a game with more "classic content" which could eventually hurt the current system.
edit: guess I misread and misjudged your original post, you make some good and valid points. But imho Elite shows way more creativity than lots of other games coming out these days. And it definitely has heart and soul. You can always improve a game further and further, but one really has to remember that there are technical and pure pragmatic limitations (like human resources) that are simply there.
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Blackcompany
Banned
I would agree with that. ED is a space sim first, and a game second. Mainly because they needed to develop the space sim part, before they could build a game on top of it. The game part is coming... just agonisingly slowly (for reasons I outlined in my previous post).
P.S. While I applaud your enthusiasm for improving ED (you've recently started a ton of threads on how ED can be improved), you need to realise that any changes to ED will come glacially slowly, because game development takes a LONG time. When we see some new feature appear NOW, work actually started on it up to 12 months ago! So even IF the developers agreed 100% with you & started work on all your ideas (which is unlikely), you wouldn't see any obvious signs for up to 12 months (especially if they don't trash all the work they've already put in for up-coming new features).
And you are hardly the first person to realise ED's problems. Hundreds (if not thousands) of players before you have started threads offering suggestions. e.g. Me & many others have been suggesting that the "place holder" missions need improving since ED was released 14 months ago, and we're still waiting (although it seems like our prayers may finally be answered during the Horizons season, starting with big changes for 2.1).
I rather suspect that within a month or two you will quickly become disillusions that the developers "aren't listening to you", and join the ranks of Grumpy Customers not happy with the game. I worry that you will go far beyond that, and start posting 1 star reviews, and slagging ED off every chance you get, out of frustration. If you dramatically reduce your expectations now, and go find some different game to occupy you until FDev fix ED, then maybe that won't happen...
I say this, not from a white ivory tower looking down on you, but as someone (like you) who has been enthused at ED's potential & frustrated at it's slow & erratic development... for the last 14 months. I've also watched other people become quickly frustrated at ED not living up to it's potential. Some of the harshest critics here were some of it's greatest fans 12-24 months ago
Good advice, actually. And I mean that sincerely. You make good points about some things that could have come across as condescending, in a mature, intelligent and reasoned way. I appreciate that. Thanks.
In fact I am looking into other Sandbox/free form play games right now. Other stuff to do as Elite is developed. I am only now beginning to realize that the game was released as an Early Beta version, and still needs to refine and further develop all of its core mechanics. Which is fine, when that sort of thing is disclosed; but it really was not properly and fully disclosed here. Sort of like Horizons; we were lead to believe that planet landing mechanics were a finished product, at least on the eligible planets, and they simply are not anywhere near complete yet.
So yeah...taking a break, even if I have to make myself...might be a good idea for now.
Once again, you sum things up marvelously. I share your worries and concerns; justifying time spent fixing or fleshing out existing stuff will be really hard to do. But it NEEDS done. And to their credit, a lot of players both know this, and would rather see this than new features, at present. That might help some. After all, Multi-crew is rather worthless when none of your missions work (never minding that multi crew is rather worthless to begin with; I think the reasoning there was, "Oh, look, Star Citizen is going to have it, we should too" as opposed to any qualitative reason why it might add to Elite in any real way).
Regardless of motivations and reasons it is high time indeed that Frontier spend time looking into existing mechanics and fleshing them out/fixing/tying them together. We need a coherent, lived in Universe, not these disparate cogs turning in separate and sometimes opposing machines.
Great post, you make some great points and I couldn't agree more. FD seem good at making systems but not so good at making gameplay. Let's hope they take note and make some changes.
I love the game.
But I also agree with the OP.
For now, all I really wish is a revamp / tweak of some aspect of the game such as PvP bounty hunting and piracy career.
I would then actually be fine to play in this sandbox, even though there is definitely not much sand in it...
Pirates need tools to extract cargo and collect in a timely manner. All we would need for that are hatch breaker controllers releasing respectively 5 / 10 / 20 / 40 canisters for class 1 / 3 / 5 / 7. And the canister must be released in a tight cluster, not an endless line. Because using a class 1 hatch breaker on a Cobra is fun, but a class 7 on a Clipper makes no sense at the moment. When you own a big expensive ship, who cares to spend 20-30 minutes collecting a dozen of canisters?
We would then see way more pirates, less griefers while traders may even stop combat log since the deal would be for them to escape ASAP (but not fearing to lose it all against another griefer) and for the pirate to connect as many limpets as possible while keeping the prey alive.
For bounty hunters, it makes currently almost no sense to use KWS and collect multiple bounties between 5000 and 150000 credits, then visit several distant systems to cash-in the bounties. It is by far the worst profit per hour.
Now if bounties would remain active for 3 weeks, and if we could cash-in the bounty vouchers at any station (with why not a 30% penalty of the faction is not represented at the station), that would be a different story.
But I also agree with the OP.
For now, all I really wish is a revamp / tweak of some aspect of the game such as PvP bounty hunting and piracy career.
I would then actually be fine to play in this sandbox, even though there is definitely not much sand in it...
Pirates need tools to extract cargo and collect in a timely manner. All we would need for that are hatch breaker controllers releasing respectively 5 / 10 / 20 / 40 canisters for class 1 / 3 / 5 / 7. And the canister must be released in a tight cluster, not an endless line. Because using a class 1 hatch breaker on a Cobra is fun, but a class 7 on a Clipper makes no sense at the moment. When you own a big expensive ship, who cares to spend 20-30 minutes collecting a dozen of canisters?
We would then see way more pirates, less griefers while traders may even stop combat log since the deal would be for them to escape ASAP (but not fearing to lose it all against another griefer) and for the pirate to connect as many limpets as possible while keeping the prey alive.
For bounty hunters, it makes currently almost no sense to use KWS and collect multiple bounties between 5000 and 150000 credits, then visit several distant systems to cash-in the bounties. It is by far the worst profit per hour.
Now if bounties would remain active for 3 weeks, and if we could cash-in the bounty vouchers at any station (with why not a 30% penalty of the faction is not represented at the station), that would be a different story.
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I'm still *hoping* that the Multi-Crew implementation will pleasantly surprise me, but based on what (little) has been revealed (and the gameplay currently available in ED) I strongly suspect that multiple players in a ship will be left twiddling their thumbs for long periods of time. If you thought that Super Cruise could get boring, just wait until you're not even the person flying the ship, but just (say) the weapons guy, who will have literally nothing to do when there's (say) no combat going on. And unlike Star Citizen, I don't think they'll even be able to get out of their seat - as far as I am aware (I could be wrong) you will switch seats with a button press (somewhat like you switch from ship to SRV at the moment, aka "fade to black" teleportation).
Multi-Ship may alleviate that a little (hence why it's coming before Multi-Crew), since it will allow someone to leave the ship if they get bored, but that doesn't make Multi-Crew itself any more enjoyable.
I sincerely hope that Star Citizen was not the main motivation, because the gameplay planned (and available) in Star Citizen is quite heavily focused on multi-crew. Where-as ED works fine as a single-player experience, and even the multi-player aspect can be quite limited in what it offers. FDev would have to suddenly add a ton of multi-crew content, for which I'm skeptical they're capable of (Wings content is still pretty risible), particularly if you cannot even leave your seat.
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At present, admittedly knowing little about the multi-crew mechanics, I can't see me using it at all. With my playstyle, ED is a single player game, with the occasional bump into a real cmdr every now and then, if you're lucky.
For me, Multi-Crew will go the same way as CQC and Powerplay... meh.
For me, Multi-Crew will go the same way as CQC and Powerplay... meh.
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I feel the same way. Without NPC multicrew, I can't see me getting the chance to experience it at all.
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The members of the Elite community paid to actively participate in the design of the game.
People who pledged £300 or more in the Elite Dangerous Kickstarter were invited to take part in the Design Decision Forum (DDF),
a private section of the Frontier forums, which was supposed to give them an unusually high level of access to and input in the development
of the game.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36
People who pledged £300 or more in the Elite Dangerous Kickstarter were invited to take part in the Design Decision Forum (DDF),
a private section of the Frontier forums, which was supposed to give them an unusually high level of access to and input in the development
of the game.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36
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The consolittis effect. Way too many once great PC game devs have fallen victim to that dreaded disease. DICE, Crytek, and on and on and on and on. Then we had Braben and Roberts sharing an interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvPU8e2ezgo&list=PLBguNQKw3MpESdD8Pp9pCxWMEu47d-XmH&index=1 in which they seemed inspired to bring back to PC gaming what the consoles took away. Why Braben choose to use a console game engine blew my mind after this interview. But Roberts was more on the bring back the PC game bandwagon than Braben was during the interview. I think that SC being PC only shows the difference. The clock is ticking and they are still working on both games. We can only wait and see what happens.
The design document for the next update;
“You're gonna come out rich. We're gonna come out dead.” Ship Crews - Elite Dangerous
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8258
“You're gonna come out rich. We're gonna come out dead.” Ship Crews - Elite Dangerous
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8258
This dicussion has been done to death plenty of times. Everybody (including FD) knows that the game is lacking in certain areas.
Putting a post on the forums with a subject 'Elite needs Game Designers' is insulting to Frontier.
Putting a post on the forums with a subject 'Elite needs Game Designers' is insulting to Frontier.
Oh we have a console hater in our mist I see ... Sorry but I have to respond to this as you come across as a PC Elitist (pardon the pun).
Firstly the Cobra engine is not a 'console engine'. Its been around for a long time and (1988 to be precise), yes its scalable and maybe its not as 'pretty' as something like CryEngine, however it this allows it to be scalable.
SC may well end up being technically impressive I wont deny that, but its also perfectly possible that only the top 1% of PC players will be able to play it properly. If they are not careful it could easily be the next Crysis or Arma II, a game that regardless of the hardware will run like a dog for several years to come. Thats not a great outcome for people who actually want to play the game.
In the end the console sector is massive so why would any self respecting dev ignore it? Yes games need to be pushed forward technically of course games also need to be playable to people other than the top 1% as well. As a gamer you should respect that people want to play games regardless of the platform.
Sorry, but your position on Elite is that it's a flight sim that needs more depth, but you offer nothing to that save non-specific rhetoric. Same thing has been said many times and in many forms before.
The devs can't really speak up for themselves on his subject. What is planned (or not) will remain under wraps until it is ready, or at least ready for Beta. Any improvements won't be shouted from the rooftop because most will reflexively shout back. This forum is already a sad quagmire of drama queen levels of opinion, outrage and disappointment. The game has issues, yes. It has bugs too. I'd love them to fix the problems quicker, but they thankfully work to a much higher standard than our expectations. Elite is a massive game with millions of lines of code, all in. There are currently three pages on the Frontier web site for employment opportunities. That bodes well for the future and Elite.
I can say "I want to feed the world" easily. However, the practicality of actually doing so is staggering. I do know servers, networking, databases, etc. and I was a game designer with my own computer gaming company at one point. I look at what we have today and, while not perfect by any means, it's pretty damned good so far. Take a look at the Gamma videos out there and what we have today. It is night and day. Frontier is actively working to improve Elite daily and that drives me to cut them some slack in the short term.
Blackcompany Well said that man.