I'm rich- plz nerf everything!

[SkipRat]

I half agree... and half not..
For me (and i think for others) I want a semi believable game of what life could be like IF we had spaceships and FTL travel was a thing...... With this in mind, is it remotely believable that you could go from owning a battered old sidewinder (the equivalent of a battered old fishing boat) to a super tanker or an air craft carrier in a matter of 25 hrs gameplay?

I am doing everything in my power to slow my progress down without deleting my game or deliberately wasting money (both of which go against me trying to RP my character) but, I gotta admit, I was fully expecting it to take 600 hrs+ to get the most expensive** ships in the game.

**note i didnt say endgame

but some people want to play it like an arcade shooter where ship destruction is a daily occurrence, and to do this, they need an unlimited river of credits to support this gameplay....... but imo this goes against everything that elite has been in a game and actually kills playing it in the "traditional" elite play style. Forgetting savescumming (cheating) the other elite games were brutal when you got blown up, and you had to be very careful using your escape pod.

its not that i think other people are wrong how they play the game.... its just incompatible with how I play it, and how every other elite game was played.... imo.

That is problem, it's not becoming elite, it's becoming Eve with player factions at coming to forefront than the individual. Elite was never meant to be this way. Now we have space clerics, crafting... It's rapidly becoming bland and generic...

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I forgot about exploring... its my other pet rant in the game aside from money being too easy.

i remember the chat from the devs in the "old days" where planning the journey to sag a would take a real concerted effort plotting routes, and slowly eeking out into the deep black unknown.

I was gutted when i learned people made it there within what... 48hrs?? of going into gamma?
Elite does not have exploration, it has tourism, and that is ok, dare i say it stunning even in VR, esp now we can land.... but there is no exploration in ED, the fact that we can see the entire galaxy map right from the get go confirms that imo.

I know, people were expecting jump engines to were down limiting how far the could go out, you got to a certain point and you knew you couldn't get back, thus making explorer's the ship of choice, more reliable and can go deeper. Getting to Sag A should have required a team effort over years, developing supply chains, planning and routing... But no, as you say, we have point and click tourism... Exploring is a joke, and utter joke and I am so gutted... What is even worse, but I think they should do it, is implement these mechanics anyway, then have a Thargoid virus run through the cartographers deleting information and setting it back to zero and make exploring what exploring should be.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Profits slowly increasing is a good thing, grinding from cobra to anaconda in vanilla ED was a pain, long range smuggling missions were fun,even thou badly implemented.

I watched people drive a viper iii for months, because without trading it took them months to get a python. Leveling in an mmo is diffirent because your character gains new abilites and gear every couple of levels,you feel your avatar grows in power and your own skill increases.

ok on 1 hand..... grinding from a cobra to anything should NOT be a pain.. if it was it means either the game was lacking in enough content to make it interesting, OR you do not enjoy what content there was...

BUT

saving up the cash from a cobra to a conda absolutely SHOULD be a mammoth task imo, and given ED is meant to be a game played for years not weeks, I think that is fine....

If you want to argue ED needs more content to keep the "grind" from becoming a grind, I totally agree however, ED neds more content for the long term, and that is why we need to keep buying into the new seasons to fund this new content.

Its funny, I used to be worried about star citizen making getting the top tier ships too much of a grind due to the cash shop, and for me it may be a problem.... because star citizen is not the game i want to invest 1000s of hrs in....

But now i actually think for genuine star citizen fans this could be a blessing....... If i was as invested in star citizen as i am in elite i would actually be hoping for a long term commitment to getting the bigger ships (so long as it is do-able on your own and not in a guild). Sure this means me personally will probably never get to own them myself, but that is because SC is not "my" game (i do not mean mine literally). I would never dream of demanding that all ships should be instantly gettable however in 20 hrs play.

 

[SkipRat]

Im rich in game, I have a fleet of ships, both corvette and cutter for example...

However the 8A powerplant still costs 150mil credits etc...

Profits slowly increasing is a good thing, grinding from cobra to anaconda in vanilla ED was a pain, long range smuggling missions were fun,even thou badly implemented.

I watched people drive a viper iii for months, because without trading it took them months to get a python. Leveling in an mmo is diffirent because your character gains new abilites and gear every couple of levels,you feel your avatar grows in power and your own skill increases.

And that is what makes this game so wrong... Like you would ever be able to be fully ranked in both the Federation and Empire at the same time, two factions who hate each more than anything else in the galaxy. And what did you actually do to earn those ships? So your a rear admiral, what was your career in the military like? Have you ever headed fleet of battle ships to defend against or attack hostile enemies in a number of systems?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

What is even worse, but I think they should do it, is implement these mechanics anyway, then have a Thargoid virus run through the cartographers deleting information and setting it back to zero and make exploring what exploring should be.

this is almost a carbon copy of what i have suggested in the past too....

It may not surprise you to know that, whilst there were a few nods of agreement, generally the idea went down as well as a fart in an elevator

when you initial a HS jump it opens up a wormhole to the system, if there is a nave beacon there your computer connects and gets exact jump co-ordinates and you jump as normal.

if not, but if you have either fully scanned the system yourself, or purchased the full scan data from UC your computer calculates the jump.

if you have not scanned or purchased the scan data, and if there is no nav beacon however you get a small minigame - possibly similar to the interdiction and you have to line up the sun in the distance to your target which you can see through the worm hole before jumping (whilst the system data is loaded in the background so not wasting time), and then you jump... depending on how well you line up will depend if you get no damage at all, or worse case scenario a few % damage (like when interdicting someone or failing the interdiction game) Perhaps if you royally bork it you get a missjump and end up between systems (or later on witchspace?) , and then you have wasted fuel as well as taken damage before havcing to try again

in time, if progress out of the bubble was too slow, tech could be invented to fire off a scanning probe which calculates the jump co-ordinates without fully scanning a system - but these probes are used up on activating and take weight in your hold so you can only carry a finite number.

 

[anikaiful]

And that is what makes this game so wrong... Like you would ever be able to be fully ranked in both the Federation and Empire at the same time, two factions who hate each more than anything else in the galaxy. And what did you actually do to earn those ships? So your a rear admiral, what was your career in the military like? Have you ever headed fleet of battle ships to defend against or attack hostile enemies in a number of systems?

TBH, fed/imp ranks should be mutually exclusive...

 

[frostypaw]

Dunno about anyone else but I'm looking forwards to SC etc coming out to take some of the flak.

Elite is your only real choice for the moment for decent space flight/fight so we get all the crazies. Those that want to play it like an arcade game need it all broken so they can make their money and not worry about     les like running costs or taking care of your faction or storylines they don't get to force - there's nothing wrong with those desires it just needs to be a different game as it totally breaks it for everyone else and renders it a different experience from what people expect.

Pretty much every combat log from a 'carebear' and every person in private groups or solo is a vote for "We don't like how these people are making this game"

So I hope the next newsletter has updates about something other than combat and some news about making the galaxy more real and reducing the arcade game play in open. Where are the running costs? Why is it so easy to wipe your slate clean with no consequences at all? When will the balance shift back to the small ships as in the original games?

 

[SkipRat]

this is almost a carbon copy of what i have suggested in the past too....

It may not surprise you to know that, whilst there were a few nods of agreement, generally the idea went down as well as a fart in an elevator

Yeah well, I am tired of game developers pandering to babies who want everything dumbed down... Why not get a bot to play the game for you and you can watch something else play it for you....

Oh yeah, youtube lets play videos, for ultimate cabbage heads who are to lazy to play games anymore...

I think the community needs a jolt to be honest... All this pandering is destroying far to many games...

 

[frostypaw]

TBH, fed/imp ranks should be mutually exclusive...

I was amazed when I found out they weren't. Defecting powerplay is apparently more a more serious crime than fighting for both sides

 

[Leper Messiah]

That's why difficulty settings exist in most games. Of course you wind up with the special snowflakes that claim hard is too hard, easy is too hard, or hard is too easy and demanding you change the whole game to suit their skill level no matter what you do.

For Elite the best solution to add challenge would be through the mission system. Higher ranks should offer not only better pay for regular missions but progressively more challenging extra missions.

Indeed, but I did specifically mention this in relation to MMO style games that don't tend to do difficulty levels, although I beleive a lot do "areas" that or harder than others? Regarding skill/difficulty settings, I much prefer games that have a sliding scale for difficulty adjustment, often the arbitrary jumps from Veasy, Easy, Medium, Hard, Vhard are done in such a way as to leave me either playing a game too easy or too hard for my skill set. Racing sims often use a sliding scale and I can usually fine tune the challenge to suit me track by track. Then again in racing sims I tend to err on a harder challenge as nothing is better than nailing lap after lap at a certain pace, regardless if I win or not (or even finish in the top 10!)

I agree with the missions, but the "areas" should have a role too, FD NEED to sort out law and order and have areas of the bubble that are really safe (for beginners and those without the time or skill (for whatever reason)) and areas rife with pirates (and aliens?) but with untold riches to attract the skilled and to reward them for their skills.

Games should concentrate on rewarding the skilled and NOT punishing those not so skilled.

The game has been dumbed down so the brainless have a chance... Rather than forcing them develop as players over time, learning and using their brains.

You also have the brainless ones who don't or cannot understand there's a massive spectrum of skill levels of people playing games and EVERY ONE of them deserve to enjoy what they have purchased.

 

[SkipRat]

Dunno about anyone else but I'm looking forwards to SC etc coming out to take some of the flak.

Elite is your only real choice for the moment for decent space flight/fight so we get all the crazies. Those that want to play it like an arcade game need it all broken so they can make their money and not worry about les like running costs or taking care of your faction or storylines they don't get to force - there's nothing wrong with those desires it just needs to be a different game as it totally breaks it for everyone else and renders it a different experience from what people expect.

Pretty much every combat log from a 'carebear' and every person in private groups or solo is a vote for "We don't like how these people are making this game"

So I hope the next newsletter has updates about something other than combat and some news about making the galaxy more real and reducing the arcade game play in open. Where are the running costs? Why is it so easy to wipe your slate clean with no consequences at all? When will the balance shift back to the small ships as in the original games?

Worst combat loggers are the pirates themselves.

But I can understand why a traders would do it. Type 9 destroyed, cost of insurance and cargo a total of around 20 millions credits, pirate gets a 9000 credit bounty put on his head... I wonder how that is going pan out...

 

[sewerratuk]

babies who want everything dumbed down...

Point in case
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=244547

Good name BTW

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

TBH, fed/imp ranks should be mutually exclusive...

Absolutely, 100% agree - FD missed a trick with that.

What we have now:
- You can rank up to the top with both Federation, Empire and Alliance
- You can unlock the various ships they offer
- With enough dedication eventually the whole galaxy will turn green.
- BORING

What we should have had:
- You rank up with one which severely hurts your progress with the other 2
- You can unlock ships with one faction, but once you migrate to the other you loose that right to buy more including if you die (meaningful choices here)
- With enough dedication the whole galaxy turns red & green. If you're allied with Federation the other 2 should hate you
- INTERESTING

Flying through space right now there are no choices to be made - simply pick a destination; set the course plotter; go ... Do you ever check the systems you're flying through ? I don't - no need - nothing will bother me out there. Running missions - do I care who owns the final destination ? Nope - unless i have been a bad boy they will be neutral to me at worst.



EDIT:
Another thing FD could have done - right now if you kill another ship that was clean you become wanted. Fine - makes sense.

But what if the Empire and Federation went to war ? Shooting an Empire ship, in Federation space becomes a legal thing to do .. imagine the possibilities

 

[SkipRat]

Indeed, but I did specifically mention this in relation to MMO style games that don't tend to do difficulty levels, although I beleive a lot do "areas" that or harder than others? Regarding skill/difficulty settings, I much prefer games that have a sliding scale for difficulty adjustment, often the arbitrary jumps from Veasy, Easy, Medium, Hard, Vhard are done in such a way as to leave me either playing a game too easy or too hard for my skill set. Racing sims often use a sliding scale and I can usually fine tune the challenge to suit me track by track. Then again in racing sims I tend to err on a harder challenge as nothing is better than nailing lap after lap at a certain pace, regardless if I win or not (or even finish in the top 10!)

I agree with the missions, but the "areas" should have a role too, FD NEED to sort out law and order and have areas of the bubble that are really safe (for beginners and those without the time or skill (for whatever reason)) and areas rife with pirates (and aliens?) but with untold riches to attract the skilled and to reward them for their skills.

Games should concentrate on rewarding the skilled and NOT punishing those not so skilled.



You also have the brainless ones who don't or cannot understand there's a massive spectrum of skill levels of people playing games and EVERY ONE of them deserve to enjoy what they have purchased.

What a whole load of pretentious waffle. I am sorry, but I sick of being treated like an idiot to pander to morons most of whom refuse to use their brain because they are nothing more than lazy self important spoiled little brats.

If Elite is hard for you, play in solo until you get a grasp of the game before venturing out, amazing what a seconds thought can do. There is no need for safe zones and all that rubbish... as you get better move to private group and learn how to interact with other players, practice dog fighting etc...



It's supposed to be a mature game....

 

[frostypaw]

EDIT:
Another thing FD could have done - right now if you kill another ship that was clean you become wanted. Fine - makes sense.

But what if the Empire and Federation went to war ? Shooting an Empire ship, in Federation space becomes a legal thing to do .. imagine the possibilities

Imagine the smuggling runs! This is totally how I expected it to be as it makes sense and provides reasons for conflict and sneaking/caution

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Point in case
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=244547

Good name BTW

to be fair (only read the op mind) I felt that post was more about how the game is not accessible in so far as it does not teach the player very well.

having a game be over simplified is NOT the same as the game not teaching players the complexities very well imo. There is nothing wrong with the game teaching a player how to get down to the nitty gritty without having to spend hrs out of game on youtube imo.

having shadowed a number of new players for a few hrs, I do actually agree the game is not an easy game to pick up, I did not see it myself due to following the game since (Before) KSer..... but when you shadow new players it actually makes you realise how much there is to know early on which I / we take for granted.

The game could portray this better... possibly by having a (skippable) opening manually curated set of missions whilst you earn your pilots federation membership. kind of like the offline missions but better thought out.

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What a whole load of pretentious waffle. I am sorry, but I sick of being treated like an idiot to pander to morons most of whom refuse to use their brain because they are nothing more than lazy self important spoiled little brats.

If Elite is hard for you, play in solo until you get a grasp of the game before venturing out, amazing what a seconds thought can do. There is no need for safe zones and all that rubbish... as you get better move to private group and learn how to interact with other players, practice dog fighting etc...

Is he not just saying that hi sec space should be objectively safer than low sec and at the lowest scale.. Anarchy?

if so then, that is kind of realistic isnt it?

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

What a whole load of pretentious waffle. I am sorry, but I sick of being treated like an idiot to pander to morons most of whom refuse to use their brain because they are nothing more than lazy self important spoiled little brats.

If Elite is hard for you, play in solo until you get a grasp of the game before venturing out, amazing what a seconds thought can do. There is no need for safe zones and all that rubbish... as you get better move to private group and learn how to interact with other players, practice dog fighting etc...

Whilst I understand where you are coming from I don't fully agree.

Right now the security of the systems means nothing - an Anarchy system is just as dangerous (or, lacking in danger) as any other system in space including high security systems. That's simplistic and wrong. Anarchy should be risky to enter (unless you're a criminal) just like going into High Security systems should be safe (unless you're a criminal). This is not the case - the galaxy map, despite pretty colours and names is bland.

(I agree that there shouldn't be PvP-Combat / PvE only zones as that's bonkers - if that's what you mean)

 

[SkipRat]

Point in case
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=244547

Good name BTW

Good name yourself...

Exactly... New to the game, learn to play in solo and get used to the mechanics, then when your ready move over to private or open... It really is not hard when you think about it...

It just that people want to be held by the hand all the time, rather than treated as humans with brain and the ability to learn and think for themselves and if they get stuck as someone for help...

Yes, I also agree the manuals and training could be a lot lot better.

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Whilst I understand where you are coming from I don't fully agree.

Right now the security of the systems means nothing - an Anarchy system is just as dangerous (or, lacking in danger) as any other system in space including high security systems. That's simplistic and wrong. Anarchy should be risky to enter (unless you're a criminal) just like going into High Security systems should be safe (unless you're a criminal). This is not the case - the galaxy map, despite pretty colours and names is bland.

That is a whole other debate and one we are more than like going to agree on.

Still, there is no excuse for nerfing missiles because people didn't want to use point defence systems, nerfing running costs, nerfing this that and the other. There is a galactic difference between sections of the game not being fully implemented and out right dumbing down based upon children whining.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Back to the topic at hand as opposed to the Majinvash depreciation society.

Agreed.

The hot topic at the moment seems to be a feeling that it's far too easy to accrue vast amounts of cash and assets. Whether it's the ongoing hate for long range smuggling, or the bizarre jealousy inexperienced pilots in end game ships are subject too, it's clear that some of us are pretty hacked off about the ease with which some players can buy and maintain the biggest, most expensive models.

It's rather revealing that the people complaining the loudest are those who also have large, expensive, end game ships... but that's a ok because they earned theirs, unlike the Johnny come latelys!

[...]

I know why that is, but I can't claim to understand their reasoning.

Ah, assumption, you foul beast!

The reason you can't understand the reasoning is that you have attributed motivators beforehand. Namely: "bizarre jealousy" and the feeling the late comers haven't earned their ships like the old guard has. This preconceived notion will put any reasoning given in that light, which makes it incomprehensible for you.

Now consider this. The time I spent earning my way from Sidey, to Hauler, to Viper, to Asp, to Vulture, to Python, to Orca, to having the cash (just) but not the inclination to buy an Anaconda has been the best part of this game. After that you have to come up with goals yourself. Which for me isn't an issue, but when you read the threads many have a sense of: "Ok, got me a Conda, what now?"

Can you understand that people are arguing to keep the part of the game they found most enjoyable in tact for new players? Not all new players wish to be in the best boat in the shortest amount of time. It's these people you seem to be forgetting, when you only focus on the other group who grind grind grind until FD takes their Robigo run away.

Now on to the title of your post. How about: I have enjoyed my route to where I am now, please try to preserve it for new players.

I sincerely hope they're enjoying themselves as much as I am in my go fast [boat?]

Ahhh, now read the forums again. Many of the CMDRs you are talking about are not enjoying themselves. Many reason: I grinded my off to get the best ship in as short a time as possible, but now I don't know what to do with it, but I need to justify the time I spent, so I'll just prove the superiourity of my ship against other less advanced CMDRs. And I'll justify this on the forum by going: Frontier, your game is a mile wide and as deep as I am thick, so now I have to kill other players. Same reasoning used for Piracy. Piracy is crap, so you are forcing me to shoot down anything that moves.

Now, here's the superiourity complex. The game's progress suits my playing style. Working your way slowly up to new ships, by doing stuff I enjoy. Not by doing stuff that earns the most. That happens to be exploring, so progress will be slow. Good. Credits is a poor motivator when it makes you do stuff for hours on end you're not really enjoying. By pandering to the "I want it all, and I want it now" crowd, the game gives the player more incentives to play in a way that is less enjoyable but makes more credits.

Exemplary of this is, people argue the Robigo runs are fun. More fun than other activities. And decreasing the amount of credits they earn makes it less fun. Think about that.

 

[Boomer Kay]

As an insightful adult who has been playing computer games since the Atari 2600 came out in the late 70's and seen how computer games have changed for the worse, dumbed down and treating gamers like they are useless brain dead morons. I can certainly say being able to get a fully equipped Conda, Cutter or Corvette after a few weeks smacks of massive dumbing down and a pandering to children with the attention span of a fart in bubble bath.

There is no end game to this game, it is open ended in all honesty, but the point still remains that you should not be able to earn several hundred million credits in two weeks. This is also leading to problems within the community as many players I know get these big ships and then there is nothing more or less to go for and quit the game, because the game has not been fully developed yet. It is still more or less an empty house awaiting it's furnishings.

There is no real piracy in the game, no real trading, exploring is a joke, mining is slightly done, no real bounty hunting, no real military careers, Powerplay is basic at best, no real missions on the bulletin boards, no wing missions, no taxi or ferrying people missions, no real war zones... There is so much that needs to be done, that the only thing left to do really is to get a big ship and once you got that after two weeks, then what?

You could argue for minor factions, but that is problem, the game is becoming and more like Eve then, at the expense of the individual player. This is Elite, if people want to play Eve, go play Eve, I spent my money to play elite. But this is for a whole other debate.

Oh god, that stuff again.

Well, yes, when I was a kid in the 80ies, I had all the time in the world to play computer games, so grinding some thousands of hours in Elite or R-Type or Super Mario was the best way to keep me busy and away from drugs.
Nowadays I'm happy if I get 15 hours played a week (I started last year October, I've ticked in some 350 hours played .. which is around 700.000.000.000 ISK from that other game worth in real money .. yea.. in Elite terms I'm pretty underpayed, even if I'd make 150 million/hr - which is the inflated numbers some put on mega-cheesing Robigo runs).

And that's only because my Ex-Wife is expensive enough that I need pixelships to compensate for the midlife crisis Porsche I have to pay in almonies that I'd drive around the block all day long and my girlfriend is a gamer herself (waiting for multicrew, though, since just winging up is not her idea of coop gameplay) and allows me my hobby, as long as it does not take too much time from the "couple stuff".

So sorry, "adult gaming" is "casual gaming" at the core. Kids have all the time in the world to throw a pixels, if your life actually developed from your childhood days in "the growing up model", you don't. And it doesn't really matter. So thanks Mr. Braben for growing up and giving us a game for adults. Where do I need to send more payments to keep it running? ;p

 

[SkipRat]

Is he not just saying that hi sec space should be objectively safer than low sec and at the lowest scale.. Anarchy?

if so then, that is kind of realistic isnt it?

That is not what he was replying to me about...

He was having a dig at yours truly, whilst saying that it is justifiable making a game so dumbed down that everyone can play it, when that is just clearly pretentious waffle and not what elite was about.

Because if you make a game dumbed to much, it wont be enjoyable to the other end of the spectrum. Seeing as almost all games are dumbed down, I am tired of being treated like a moron all the time. I grew playing games learning how to think, use my brain, being challenge and using skill. This was not what elite was supposed to be about.