The core gameplay is boring

[Talarin]

And it shows that player driven events are not only possible in Elite, but also can be epic fun.

Erimus and Dr Kaii didn't depend on Frontier to organise it but took matters into their own hands.

True - but, whilst I generally disagree with strength of feeling of the naysayers of this thread, the OP does have a point. The core mechanics of ED, in every aspect, could do with a substantial polish and having additional layers added. There is a point where the game stops having potential and starts being unfulfilled potential, if you see what I mean.

Mining, combat roles, trade, military work, exploration -> Not one of these gameplay elements are to the standard that I'd expect or hope and there's absolutely no sign that FD are going to invest in making them better. And then let's consider how those elements are integrated into the BGS...

The mechanics of the game genuinely don't contribute to the feeling that the player is a part of the Elite universe, even on a small scale. In fact, the majority of implementations actually jar when you combine them with the underlying abstraction of the in-game universe (the BGS). They feel bitty, disconnected and not part of a single coherent design.

It's not the doom that some are making out, and you do have to make allowances for it being just a game... But still, a revamp really wouldn't go amiss.

 

[dxm55]

So let me get this right. You want more things to do and more (hostile or not, not the point) interaction between players to make the game more interesting, but when Frontier offers exactly that, it's still bad, because it's not the way YOU want it?

Perhaps apply for a designer role at Frontier and fix this for yourself? But then bear in mind, there are 1 399 999 other players that have their own vision of the game and you'll need to cater to their needs, dreams and desires too...

The current game mechanics are sufficient for many players. I'm just suggesting maybe something more can be added; I'm not even saying that whatever is in place now should be removed.

Border wars will be interesting. They only affect a number of systems, and any interested party can flock there. Everyone else uninterested will continue to play their own game elsewhere in or out of the bubble.

 

[Jex =TE=]

In your opinion the above may well be true. I'm sure that some very good points have been raised but I didn't ave the time to read them, sorry but I will say this to the OP...

I, like many others here, work long hard hours and when we get home it's nice to have at least one game that is not an action packed FX spectacular game that lasts for 20 hours before becoming another dust collector or space hog.

You want simple mechanics? Call of Duty & GTA V role of the tongue without thinking... Two of the biggest franchises in the industry but when you break them down to game mechanics they are both the most shallow games ever created - Maybe the industry understand peoples desire for simple things in life...

You want a complex game? Come and be my accountant!

So you missed the point once again. How do you keep do this?

If the core gameplay was improved, it wouldn't suddenly mean everything would get more action packed. No wonder you have nonsensical arguments because you can't understand what's being said here.

 

[shadragon]

don't quote a tiny part of the phrase please.

And answer the whole paragraph. thaks.

Discussion forums (thankfully) are not a legal deposition. Ziggy probably answered the part he wanted to answer so you'll just have to accept that and move on. No mandatory cross-examination exists.

Ziggy, as your lawyer, I'll have to ask you to refrain from answering any further on this question. Your Honour, the defence rests.

 

[CTCParadox]

Good for you, glad you enjoy it.

I didn't find it engaging at all, tried 3 times...

It does require an ability to set your own goals and challenges which I understand is not for everyone.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[Boomer Kay]

The game is and was advertised as a sandbox.

I've linked the interview with Mr. Braben where it was called "open world" at least twice, if not three times now.
No idea where the "sandbox" label comes from. Probably from Steam? Where basically everything is a sandbox and the goat simulator recieves highly favorable reviews.

Here's another one talking about some stuff "discussed" here: http://www.blastr.com/2015-8-6/elit...braben-space-sim-makes-galaxy-your-playground

 

[Ignition]

Two words: Distant Worlds

Journey time to the far side, at least 3 months from start date. The space madness is setting in, but its ok, i've got my giant invisible space hamster to keep me company, and we get to have meet ups at each waypoint and do crazy stuff like build giant towers of spaceships or play bumper cars with SRVs.

And its the ONLY thing you do, No CQC, nothing. Just presing a button to go to the next system. And Im sure there are thousands of people doing just that, pressing a button to go to the next system and no additional accounts to do another activity nor CQC.

1 hour pressing a button is a lot of time doing nothing you know?

 

[Ian Phillips]

F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5

 

[shadragon]

To be entirely fair though, I think it greatly depends on your play-style. At this moment Elite is more suited for multiplayer fun with self-engineered events and goals, while the single player aspect MAY get boring after a while. I think we've all had our moments of burn out. For me the game changed completely when I founded a minor faction and started pursuing our own agenda and story in game.

I can definitely see, how the game can get a bit dull if someone plays it alone all the time, unless they're willing to engage imagination and create their own story for themselves.

Saying all that, I repeat: for me, self-created story was always the essence of Elite games.

While this has lots of merit, the personality of the player plays a role as well. Some people are passive and want to be lead by the hand while others prefer actively striking out on their own. I'm the latter. I won't sit in a station waiting for the perfect mission. If I see nothing I want to do, I'll pick a random system / station and go there. More often than not I'll get distracted on the way by something and voom, off I go in a different (and often unexpected) direction.

 

[dxm55]

But it doesn't make any sense that way. Do you have any idea how many people actually live inside the stations? even if you went there with enough players to occupy all docking pads, it would be a bit funny that the station should change hands.

What now happens is much more logical lore wise. Factions push each other primarily by economic influence and wars is a way to apply economic pressure instead of actual occupation. What you describe would be viable on a totally different game design which need to support such mechanics from ground up. Also, the end result would be too chaotic because every two days stations would be changing hands. Even depending on the time zones players are living in. Another problem is the people who use the station at that time who has no intention of any fight but only is there to trade. How will it affect their game? How about people in other instances or even playing in Solo? Will they suddenly see the station defenses go offline and voice packs change without any fighting whatsoever? Or should the game spawn an NPC fight outside the station for everyone who isn't in a fighting instance for that same station at that moment so they'll know there is an assault going on?

Not a permanent state, but perhaps a time-limited event over 2 weeks. Otherwise, perhaps player factions can trigger off a shooting war.

I was suggesting that in those systems, even the NPCs are going berserk. It won't just be a player thing. Think of the entire system as a CZ. The stations, the planetary settlements or bases, any RES sites, nav beacons, etc. Everybody you encounter there will be in a Lawless status, are aligned to either side, and in a fight.

So even if you were in a different instance, or Solo, you might get Interdicted and attack by an enemy NPC.

There could be lots of combat missions in the stations that would revolve around the system conflict, but not just limited to destroying ships at some CZ. You could be tasked to attack a planetary settlement and destroy its defenses. Or destroy all the security forces around an orbital. Missions can require you to rendezvous with a wing of NPC dropships at a station and defend them as they make a run for the station.

No new game assets needed. Though it will probably need some new scripted mission and perhaps some new AI behavior. And a new station/system state like "blockade" or some tweaks to the war state which disrupts the local economy.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Wednesday. I went to work. Meh.
Thursday. I went to work. Meh.
Friday. I went to work then watched a movie. Meh.

......

Wednesday. I woke up in the morning and the sun was already up. What a beautiful day! - was my first thought. I had toast with a strawberry marmelade my other half made the other day. The sweetness was pouring out of my mind, as I was making my way to the bus stop. The bus was late, as usual, but I managed to make it to the office on time. I logged in to Frontier forums and started reading my subscribed threads. I then followed up on a project that kept me busy for the last 4 months and managed to close it down. FINALLY! What a relief. I left for home with a feeling of personal accomplishment. What a day!



Excuse my poor attempt, I'm not a native speaker.

If you want a log, check this out.....

Warfle – The Battle for Ciney and St Hubert

December 2nd saw us playing a mission created by Milkduster, in which our platoon was tasked with taking two towns that were defended by at least two platoons of enemy infantry supported by anti-air and armored threats.



The Objectives



This was our first session with the new ShackTac/GoonTac ranks established. It also marked usage of a new type of Teamspeak radio discipline, in which all command units identified themselves when coming on the air to avoid confusion as to what was being said over command chat versus what was intra-squad talk. Both of these, along with solid leadership at all levels, contributed towards one of the smoothest large-scale missions we’ve had to date.

There were a few rough spots – two FF incidents occurred that could have been prevented. One was a result of the fog-of-war, the other was something that could have been prevented with a bit more training on anti-tank weapons and clearer procedures in regards to the amount of distance friendly units should put between themselves and a friendly AT gunner.

Many lessons were learned in this mission, and all in all it went quite well. It stands as a fine example of what can be accomplished with a good group of players and a game as robust as Operation Flashpoint.

This AAR will follow the mission from start to finish, which all-told was about an hour and forty minutes. I’ll be marking the time of certain events to help readers get a feel for the intervals involved. The last minutes were partially captured on video, too, so that will cap off the writeup. LandrosRadick will be providing a good amount of further footage in the near future that I’ll add to this once it’s up.

Update, Dec 7: I’ve linked to the large clip by LandrosRadick at the end of this video.


http://dslyecxi.com/articles_wp/warfle-the-battle-for-ciney-and-st-hubert/

Do you know what's wrong with the above? It's just the summary of the report.

Want to know the other thing - almost everything he writes actually happens in the game. From how they executed their attacks to what casualties they took to what they can learn from what they did and how to adjust their training plus a whole lot more and this was from Operation Flashpoint which was 20 years ago?

everything in Elite logs is mostly made up and didn't happen. Good logs you don't need to make up a story because there's enough things already to talk about in the game you already played. You don't need to add things.

 

[Cynaqq]

...and there's absolutely no sign that FD are going to invest in making them better. ...

This is at best a misunderstanding and at worst a blatant lie.

There is every sign that the team is working on those mechanics in order to enhance them. It's all they are talking about in the dev updates and QA streams. They said they are planning military careers, we know they are constantly working on the BGS by little tweaks or larger tweaks, even the 2.1 mission system overhaul will be an update on how the players will interact with the BGS by giving minor factions new personalities which will be a lot more persistent than now. MB said they were working on the way minor factions were to create and convey missions depending on their influence and your rep with them. These are all enhancements to the base game.

Putting in interesting stuff for explorers is only time dependent. Combat roles will be changing with ship launched fighters and multicrew will hopefully open up new ways to make a difference in a fight.

Mining has had an overhaul and they probably are working on that too. The promise of better asteroid fields is an indication of that if nothing else.

I don't know why you think there is no sign of FD working on core game mechanics. It's quite a ridiculous statement.

PS: Don't give me PP and CQC please. They were features added while the bulk of the team was trying to nail planetary generation and landing mechanics plus the driving model for the SRV, all of which are a lot more complex coding wise than most of the community seems to give FD credit for.

 

[Ignition]

To be entirely fair though, I think it greatly depends on your play-style. At this moment Elite is more suited for multiplayer fun with self-engineered events and goals, while the single player aspect MAY get boring after a while. I think we've all had our moments of burn out. For me the game changed completely when I founded a minor faction and started pursuing our own agenda and story in game.

I can definitely see, how the game can get a bit dull if someone plays it alone all the time, unless they're willing to engage imagination and create their own story for themselves.

Saying all that, I repeat: for me, self-created story was always the essence of Elite games.

I tried to play with friends, close friends and you know, it was really boring. In fact it was almost the same as playing solo because this game is a single player game with a multiplayer plugin. you don't hace coop gameplay as any other coop game. There are no synergies. Also there are no missions and the free play is as dull as the simgle player experience.

My friends and I look for coop games complex enough with challenges. Sorry but we don't play space engine "games".

 

[Snowdog]

Agree with OP, the bones of the game are great but they(dev) don't seem to know how to make compelling game play. Sad, because I really enjoy flying my ship.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Now you are entirely incorrect. Doing all these things changes the galaxy. Factions expand, states change, lockdowns are issued, economic booms occur, wars happen... Like I said before - making your own story was always the ESSENCE of Elite, as a series. If you don't understand that, maybe it really <drumroll> isn't the game for you? I'm sorry it's not what you want, but that's the way it is. I am not going to convince you, it seems, so I'll stop trying now. I expressed my opinion and tried my best to explain what Elite is all about FOR ME. It's obviously something entirely different for you and personally, I don't really care that much. Just tried to show you my point of view.

Nope they barely change the galaxy and what exactly do they change when that happens. We get a slight price increase on goods for a while - and?

We get more copy and paste stations in explored regions - and?

Wars happen - so more boring CZ's and?

States change - and?

Lockdowns happen and do what exactly?

What you write sounds exciting because our imaginations fill in the blanks. The issue is once you break down each of those things you see just how little imagination was used to implement them.

What would happen if the empire took over every system in the galaxy - nothing - the game would play exactly the same as it does now. So changing states are meaningless. Wars are meaningless - they just go on and on and how do you explain being able to fight for two sides but not only that, the only affect the war has on anyone is in a special part of space - a CZ. There's no attacks on space stations - you might think that would happen.

Shallow, repetitive RNG gameplay is ED right now.

 

[PhanttoM]

The core of the game: ....very basic, very easy, simplistic and short.
.....
And thats why people say there are very little things to do because its true, its always the same recycled basic tasks.
The basic activities are really short and simple, you can learn all from the begining and the only thing that will change is the ship you use, then is a matter of repeat those simple tasks until bored.
.....
The mechanics are so simple that anyone can play it, from a kid to an older guy. Thats not bad but the game has no depth so when you learn how to play thats it, you're done. The gameplay doesn't go further.

I say the exact same thing about multiplayer first person shooters!

 

[Colonel Kenney]

The longer you play any game the more you understand it and the clearer the underlying mechanics become. As you level up or in Elite terms upgrade to the best ships, you remove progressively more risk and uncertainty.

I also think the way one approaches a game changes the way in which we view mechanics.

Take exploring my personal view is there should be more complex stuff around the scanning. I think the galaxy map should only show systems you can jump to, have visited or have intelligence for. However if your exploring outlook is the visuals then you would be happier with the current implementation.

Trading I think is a nightmare for FD. The whole premise of finding routes has been removed by the third party tools. Even if FD introduced some sort of manufacturing/conversion mechanism it would quickly be min/maxed by the third party tools.

Players need to be given reasons to go back to the smaller ships. I would be looking at stations with smaller openings and creating things to do that are profitable but need the small ships.

^^^^ this.. If I recall there are some mail slots at some outposts. But hidden bases for pirates that only allow small ships would be cool too.

 

[Ignition]

I have disagree and agree with you OP.
The game is and was advertised as a sandbox. So by difinition the sandbox means that the design provide you enough "sand" to create your own " sandcastle ".
So adding " lead by hand features " is no go for me and a lot of ppl here.

But!!!!!..... The FD lacked the feature of add enough "wet sand" to build the "castle" so we basically ended up so far with " dry sand " which limit us to create enough own content to play with.

So basically you have the point.... But differently how it supposed to be.

If its a sandbox or not I dont care.

I do care about the gameplay the game offers.

 

[rootsrat]

The current game mechanics are sufficient for many players. I'm just suggesting maybe something more can be added; I'm not even saying that whatever is in place now should be removed.

Border wars will be interesting. They only affect a number of systems, and any interested party can flock there. Everyone else uninterested will continue to play their own game elsewhere in or out of the bubble.

Sorry, I misunderstood you then. Well, war between Fed and Imp would be a massive story arc that probably had to be incorporated in the game slowly and progressively. It may be coming, you never know...

It does require an ability to set your own goals and challenges which I understand is not for everyone.

CMDR CTCParadox

Just like Elite then.

I tried to play with friends, close friends and you know, it was really boring. In fact it was almost the same as playing solo because this game is a single player game with a multiplayer plugin. you don't hace coop gameplay as any other coop game. There are no synergies. Also there are no missions and the free play is as dull as the simgle player experience.

My friends and I look for coop games complex enough with challenges. Sorry but we don't play space engine "games".

Clearly then this game isn't for you <shrug>, what else do you want me to say? Why don't you just accept that and come back in a years time to see if something has changed that will drag you back in? It's not like it's going anywhere.

And what do you want Frontier to do about it? They are not able to complete a 10 year project in 1 year, no one is... If you don't understand that, I'm sorry, but you'll only find disappointment in the game for now. Hundreds of thousands of players are clearly having a blast with the game, so I dare to say it;s your problem with how you perceive the game and what you want it to be (which it isn't, perhaps YET).

Constant complaining won't change this so why waste your time on it? There are so many other things you could do instead...

 

[Abomination]

They said they are planning military careers

Just to highlight this one single thing. Isn't it too late already?
How would this be any improvement for players having reached the higher ranks already (and there are a lot of them)?
Only thing I can think of is performing a restart.
Not a bad thing necessarely though. Did it once when 1.3 hit and still not regretting it. Although I can't imagine doing that ever again after having invested so many hours in my current cmdr.