Right, so I've watched this game grow since Alpha. Every now and again I come back to check things out, and I write one of these little skits, so here goes this round. As per usual, theres no TL;DR version because if you dont have the courtesy to read the whole post then you shouldnt reply. Yes it's a wall of text, and nobody would hold it against you for not wanting to read it, if you dont just have the courtesy to not start an argument.
It should also be noted that these are my views tailored from my particular tastes as a gamer. I fully acknowledge that theres plenty of people currently satisfied with the game, and my overall goal is just to start discussions on how it could be better.
In closing, I'll say that yes I've ignored the potential content provided by the expansions, and I've done so for one singular, frankly non arguable reason: previous major patches have offered little to nothing in the way of anything that has dramatically improved ED as a whole. Elite so far remains a game with extreme amounts of untapped potential. I've mentioned before, but ED still feels like a beta, and this is compounded by the fact Frontier is still adding core elements to the game rather than adding the actual content that would bring this game to life. That said, I'm still very interested in seeing what Season 2 brings, but I'm not going to hold my breath seeing how much good getting hyped about previous expansions has done.
It should also be noted that these are my views tailored from my particular tastes as a gamer. I fully acknowledge that theres plenty of people currently satisfied with the game, and my overall goal is just to start discussions on how it could be better.
My overall impression? Underwhelmed. Still, a year later, the game feels under cooked and wildly lacking in content and what should be core features (storage space anybody? Were only just now seeing the ability to book mark systems rather than having to remember which of the 4 billion stars we liked). I havnt tried CQC so I wont comment, and Horizons is interesting but as with everything else ED, washed aside by untapped potential. Powerplay IMHO is a joke and an utter waste of time. Theres 2 major gameplay mechanics involved when interacting with Powerplay, grinding and time sinks... Let's take a look:
The monetary reward, the only quantifiable reward in game is outright non existent. The faction specific gear you get is mostly worthless too IMHO. It's limited, and really just an alternate (usually an inferior one imo) version of an existing weapon or module. A few look interesting, like the prismatic shield but I havnt tried it.
Then, to get these weapons you must first be pledged for an entire month!... Before you can pick it up. Grinding on and off for a full month for an alternate piece of possible mediocre gear is absolutely not worth my time...
Beyond that, to achieve these merits the player is expected to front the cost of this endeavor themselves, march out somewhere and start up the grinding wheel by either hunting down "enemies" and incurring a huge bounty in a couple systems, endlessly playing a reskined version of a conflict zone with out the cash reward, haul frankly far too much of a limited quantity cargo... The common theme is that your performing a repetitive task over and over just to raise a bar that is completely arbitrary in the mean time, except for a once per week "ping" where things happen.
So yeah... That's one thing that was really hyped up that ended nowhere. Interesting concept overall, but it also suffers from the fact that it's completely dislocated from the rest of the game... It feels tacked on, not an implemented mechanic.
Looking at Horizons now is a bit more interesting. Again it suffers from Frontiers trademark of having a really cool idea, and doing nothing interesting with it...
Okay I'll admit, landing and exploring a planet is cool. The vehicle mechanics are fun too, I do so love bouncing about and launching the poor ride several thousand feet into the air and have oft wondered if one could reach orbit. But I digress... Theres little to do that I feel is worth my time right now. Sure, synthesis is new and different, but none of it is alluring enough to make me want to actively go out and farm up the materials. Maybe I will solely for when 2.1 drops (which discussion of is not in the scope of this post) but really what else is there?
Ground combat is interesting, if under cooked. I've actively acknowledged 3 different enemies (thats it? really?) but it's not interesting enough. Perhaps if there were underground caves and complexes to explore for fun and profit I'd be more interested but I doubt we'll see that.
I havnt messed with CQC, but it sounds interesting, but so far the trend of interesting sounding things hasnt been great... Perhaps I'll edit this post when I do try it for a few days.
Beyond that, the general state of affairs:
I'm really digging the much larger selection of ships, though I'm perpetually irritated that many of these are locked behind faction ranks... Meaning I have to grind it out to experience these ships. Faction grinding is just as dreadful as it ever was... Boring, repetitive, very time consuming.
I've also noticed a new shield type, the Bi-Weave shield which is cool. FD needs to seriously expand (I'm talking triple+) the selection of equipment in the game. Give us sidegrades so that we have to sit down and think about how we want a particular ship to handle and behave. In Alpha we had 3 choices for each damage type, which made more interesting to fit your ship. Also, I'm not sure if fuel tanks have always been in, but I fit them on all my smuggling ships. EZ mode when you never need to stop to scoop fuel, lets you cut things much closer. I discovered a tactic to massively extend your effective range with out having to stop to refuel that I'll share later in a different post.
Speaking of smuggling, how broken... While I'm a fan of the high paying, long range concept of these missions, I've failed as many as I've tried. I've done probably around 15 of them so far, and 4 times I've been instantly interdicted the second I arrived in system (shunting me straight into the sun lol...) and twice I was actually killed after landing at a station when another ship, pirate or police exited hypercruise literally right in my face, going full bore straight at me (by which is also straight from the direction of the station) and collided with my ASP with enough effective velocity to kill it. Zero chance to evade. Just a bright flash, a loud bang and suddenly a camera floating in space... Still, nice to stack and turn in for huge profits, and can get rather tense when time is running short (by far a greater threat than any ship poses... normally...)
The donation missions are new to me too, and frankly they scream "spam me" when grinding ranks... It's no wonder people used the relog exploit to stack them lol...
USS based missions are still ridiculously stupid to complete, but I've noticed some targets actively appear in hyperspace now. That's nice, less of a hassle for the player... They're better but it's a mechanic that was declared a place holder in pre-release, and a year later is still here so I doubt they're going anywhere... We'll see what his season has to offer on that though.
Lets see, what else. Combat still feels smooth, but limited in the number of tactics you can effectively use, but that's to be expected when your flying ships twice the size of commercial jets in space. Still, more mechanics would be nice, especially with multi crew in the cooker, which if it released now would never see use beyond short lived curiosity.
I'm also still not seeing a reason to invite my friends to join Elite... Theres nothing for us to do! This has always been a huge problem in my eyes and with no mention of any sort of group based content I doubt I'll ever have the gull to incite one of my friends to play ED. I dont know if Braben just hates the idea of positive player interaction or what, but one of the most driving forces behind many MMO's is players working together to accomplish a goal. ATM, you only see people creating artificial scenarios to accomplish this. Why are we STILL doing their work for them? The game should provide an environment conducive to group play and incite cooperation.
Overall, Elite Dangerous really is still too slow... People do mission stacking because it's the only way to get appreciable returns for your effort for the non traders. ED still feels rather loathing of combat pilots, though it's also improved on the financial front at least... But still, I need to spend what, 75-200 mill to have a ship better than a vulture? Then at the same time I'm actively engaging in combat which is... Well I was going to say risky but it's frankly not, it just has a ridiculously huge buy in to make ships ready. Which is another issue I'm looking forward to seeing implemented in 2.1, the AI improvment... Then again let's be honest here, they've declared having "improved" the AI numerous times over the past year, yet I personally see no appreciable difference save that most pirates arnt stupid enough to not fit a shield. Still, I want to see ultra dangerous bounties, with AI that knows how to fight and not just get obliterated w/o taking a single shot back. Have a million credit Elite Conda/Corvette/Cutter flanked by 3+ hardened combat ships... I'd love to fight that for the reward!
But to get anywhere takes far too long for some one who doesnt have the time or patience to dump weeks into singular tasks with out using loop holes that are so boring it makes me want to tear my hair out. ED is leaning far too hard on the "To eat an elephant" approach to gameplay, making blatant unabashed use of time intensive mechanics, sacrificing fun to artificially inflate the length of the overall game where the games actual content cannot support itself. I was genuinely hoping this would have been ironed out by now, but it hasnt. This is a tactic used by either small or lazy dev groups, and I know FD can do better. Time sinks and grinding are mechanics which are solely negative. The sad thing is, I know ED can be much better than it currently is because it has it all there, it's just not doing anything with the mechanics it currently has.
That, FDevs is something you guys should be taking note of. This obviously speaks something to the state of the game. People wouldnt bother doing these tactics if the alternatives were just as rewarding and actually fun to do.
Once again, ED has a great backbone with no substance on it, even a year later. If they keep up this pace then theres no way ED will make to Brabens idealistic 10 year goal.
The monetary reward, the only quantifiable reward in game is outright non existent. The faction specific gear you get is mostly worthless too IMHO. It's limited, and really just an alternate (usually an inferior one imo) version of an existing weapon or module. A few look interesting, like the prismatic shield but I havnt tried it.
Then, to get these weapons you must first be pledged for an entire month!... Before you can pick it up. Grinding on and off for a full month for an alternate piece of possible mediocre gear is absolutely not worth my time...
Beyond that, to achieve these merits the player is expected to front the cost of this endeavor themselves, march out somewhere and start up the grinding wheel by either hunting down "enemies" and incurring a huge bounty in a couple systems, endlessly playing a reskined version of a conflict zone with out the cash reward, haul frankly far too much of a limited quantity cargo... The common theme is that your performing a repetitive task over and over just to raise a bar that is completely arbitrary in the mean time, except for a once per week "ping" where things happen.
So yeah... That's one thing that was really hyped up that ended nowhere. Interesting concept overall, but it also suffers from the fact that it's completely dislocated from the rest of the game... It feels tacked on, not an implemented mechanic.
Looking at Horizons now is a bit more interesting. Again it suffers from Frontiers trademark of having a really cool idea, and doing nothing interesting with it...
Okay I'll admit, landing and exploring a planet is cool. The vehicle mechanics are fun too, I do so love bouncing about and launching the poor ride several thousand feet into the air and have oft wondered if one could reach orbit. But I digress... Theres little to do that I feel is worth my time right now. Sure, synthesis is new and different, but none of it is alluring enough to make me want to actively go out and farm up the materials. Maybe I will solely for when 2.1 drops (which discussion of is not in the scope of this post) but really what else is there?
Ground combat is interesting, if under cooked. I've actively acknowledged 3 different enemies (thats it? really?) but it's not interesting enough. Perhaps if there were underground caves and complexes to explore for fun and profit I'd be more interested but I doubt we'll see that.
I havnt messed with CQC, but it sounds interesting, but so far the trend of interesting sounding things hasnt been great... Perhaps I'll edit this post when I do try it for a few days.
Beyond that, the general state of affairs:
I'm really digging the much larger selection of ships, though I'm perpetually irritated that many of these are locked behind faction ranks... Meaning I have to grind it out to experience these ships. Faction grinding is just as dreadful as it ever was... Boring, repetitive, very time consuming.
I've also noticed a new shield type, the Bi-Weave shield which is cool. FD needs to seriously expand (I'm talking triple+) the selection of equipment in the game. Give us sidegrades so that we have to sit down and think about how we want a particular ship to handle and behave. In Alpha we had 3 choices for each damage type, which made more interesting to fit your ship. Also, I'm not sure if fuel tanks have always been in, but I fit them on all my smuggling ships. EZ mode when you never need to stop to scoop fuel, lets you cut things much closer. I discovered a tactic to massively extend your effective range with out having to stop to refuel that I'll share later in a different post.
Speaking of smuggling, how broken... While I'm a fan of the high paying, long range concept of these missions, I've failed as many as I've tried. I've done probably around 15 of them so far, and 4 times I've been instantly interdicted the second I arrived in system (shunting me straight into the sun lol...) and twice I was actually killed after landing at a station when another ship, pirate or police exited hypercruise literally right in my face, going full bore straight at me (by which is also straight from the direction of the station) and collided with my ASP with enough effective velocity to kill it. Zero chance to evade. Just a bright flash, a loud bang and suddenly a camera floating in space... Still, nice to stack and turn in for huge profits, and can get rather tense when time is running short (by far a greater threat than any ship poses... normally...)
The donation missions are new to me too, and frankly they scream "spam me" when grinding ranks... It's no wonder people used the relog exploit to stack them lol...
USS based missions are still ridiculously stupid to complete, but I've noticed some targets actively appear in hyperspace now. That's nice, less of a hassle for the player... They're better but it's a mechanic that was declared a place holder in pre-release, and a year later is still here so I doubt they're going anywhere... We'll see what his season has to offer on that though.
Lets see, what else. Combat still feels smooth, but limited in the number of tactics you can effectively use, but that's to be expected when your flying ships twice the size of commercial jets in space. Still, more mechanics would be nice, especially with multi crew in the cooker, which if it released now would never see use beyond short lived curiosity.
I'm also still not seeing a reason to invite my friends to join Elite... Theres nothing for us to do! This has always been a huge problem in my eyes and with no mention of any sort of group based content I doubt I'll ever have the gull to incite one of my friends to play ED. I dont know if Braben just hates the idea of positive player interaction or what, but one of the most driving forces behind many MMO's is players working together to accomplish a goal. ATM, you only see people creating artificial scenarios to accomplish this. Why are we STILL doing their work for them? The game should provide an environment conducive to group play and incite cooperation.
Overall, Elite Dangerous really is still too slow... People do mission stacking because it's the only way to get appreciable returns for your effort for the non traders. ED still feels rather loathing of combat pilots, though it's also improved on the financial front at least... But still, I need to spend what, 75-200 mill to have a ship better than a vulture? Then at the same time I'm actively engaging in combat which is... Well I was going to say risky but it's frankly not, it just has a ridiculously huge buy in to make ships ready. Which is another issue I'm looking forward to seeing implemented in 2.1, the AI improvment... Then again let's be honest here, they've declared having "improved" the AI numerous times over the past year, yet I personally see no appreciable difference save that most pirates arnt stupid enough to not fit a shield. Still, I want to see ultra dangerous bounties, with AI that knows how to fight and not just get obliterated w/o taking a single shot back. Have a million credit Elite Conda/Corvette/Cutter flanked by 3+ hardened combat ships... I'd love to fight that for the reward!
But to get anywhere takes far too long for some one who doesnt have the time or patience to dump weeks into singular tasks with out using loop holes that are so boring it makes me want to tear my hair out. ED is leaning far too hard on the "To eat an elephant" approach to gameplay, making blatant unabashed use of time intensive mechanics, sacrificing fun to artificially inflate the length of the overall game where the games actual content cannot support itself. I was genuinely hoping this would have been ironed out by now, but it hasnt. This is a tactic used by either small or lazy dev groups, and I know FD can do better. Time sinks and grinding are mechanics which are solely negative. The sad thing is, I know ED can be much better than it currently is because it has it all there, it's just not doing anything with the mechanics it currently has.
That, FDevs is something you guys should be taking note of. This obviously speaks something to the state of the game. People wouldnt bother doing these tactics if the alternatives were just as rewarding and actually fun to do.
Once again, ED has a great backbone with no substance on it, even a year later. If they keep up this pace then theres no way ED will make to Brabens idealistic 10 year goal.
In closing, I'll say that yes I've ignored the potential content provided by the expansions, and I've done so for one singular, frankly non arguable reason: previous major patches have offered little to nothing in the way of anything that has dramatically improved ED as a whole. Elite so far remains a game with extreme amounts of untapped potential. I've mentioned before, but ED still feels like a beta, and this is compounded by the fact Frontier is still adding core elements to the game rather than adding the actual content that would bring this game to life. That said, I'm still very interested in seeing what Season 2 brings, but I'm not going to hold my breath seeing how much good getting hyped about previous expansions has done.
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