Shooting down game improvement ideas. :)

[Vorxian]

Making a good suggestion is also contingent on knowledge of how the game works.

I could make a great suggestion about bulletin board refresh, but I personally have no idea how the server swapping / bulletin refresh works between instances, play modes, or active server nodes. We're not going to know, ergo, we're firing a blind uneducated suggestion into the either, and as no one else knows how it works, no one actually has a clue if it is actually a good idea or bad one.

I made a ton of suggestions in my time playing EvE, but, they were hell-bent on jam-jar combat, and even though my ideas were great (so I thought), it's the wrong game to make great suggestions.

Bit like someone suggesting to sell hotdogs at Mecca. It's a great idea, a massive gap in the market for such a thing... yet, even if folks agreed, you'd probably be shot on site attempting it....

Many suggestions on ED are blown out of the water, just in case PvP / OPEN becomes a big thing in the future. A superb SOLO / Group suggestion could hurt PvP, some great PvP suggestions get eaten alive by the other two group playerbase. It's most often than not a no win situation. Example, didn't a recent poll suggest people prefer cosmetic changes, than space legs? I love the idea of space legs, it'll come for sure.. eventually. But even super suggestions on that, get blown up by someone irate about docking computer fluffing up 1 time in 100,000,000.

Heh what do I know. I just gun for space legs and walking around ships with multicrew - and a bunch of missions, and sandbox toys associated to making a personal 'base' somewhere.

 

[Krezan]

Lol, welcome to people. Why I plays games. The end.

 

[Itaki]

Well, you've got to admit OP, some of the suggestions are pretty bad as well.

How many times does the global chat one come up? Regardless of how feasable it is, all you have to do is look at the global chat in any online game to see what a terrible idea it is.

I've played a lot of online games with chat windows. Is chat terrible? Probably not. I might describe it as a minor irritation now and then, but it's also a big help. Most of my time spent in a game though is actually playing the game, not waiting for someone's leet speak in a chat window to bother me. If I'm immersed in a space battle I'm not looking at the chat window.

If Braben is going to call this an 'epic multiplayer' game, then add chat, guilds, fleets, large scale battles, you know, game mechanics and social tools that make it an EPIC experience. If he's not going to do that then don't call it EPIC, call it Small Scale Multiplayer. Or don't call it multiplayer at all. No Man's Sky will have lots of people playing the game, but their website doesn't say multiplayer anywhere that I've found because they know that people will rarely meet up.

We can disagree on global chat.

 

[Roberto]

[video=youtube;LpjRqipY2Ac]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpjRqipY2Ac[/video]

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I think people often shoot down "game improvement ideas", because those "ideas" boil down to "I want this game to work like every other generic game out there", when a large part of the player base like Elite exactly BECAUSE it's not like every other generic game out there.

When people ask for things like global chat and guilds especially, I suspect there's a lot of "get off my lawn" at play. And I am happy for it.

 

[Zeta Legion]

I think people often shoot down "game improvement ideas", because those "ideas" boil down to "I want this game to work like every other generic game out there", when a large part of the player base like Elite exactly BECAUSE it's not like every other generic game out there.

When people ask for things like global chat and guilds especially, I suspect there's a lot of "get off my lawn" at play. And I am happy for it.

Thing is, that's an appeal to emotion argument rather than logic, ie. not a very valid reason not to do something.

Take for example HRPs. Examined objectively HRPs are extremely imbalanced against other defensive options and cause issues because of their cost effectiveness at both the low end and the high end. Adjusting the way HRPs work (in effect, "Nerf" them) can only be a healthy change for the game, yet you see dozens of people rush out to defend HRPs as they are. Some of these defenders are PvE/PvP'ers that LIKE being overpowered relative to their prey of choice (NPCs or hapless PvErs) while others simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge that this hurts the game at all. I have yet to see a single legitimate argument for HRPs to remain the way they are.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Thing is, that's an appeal to emotion argument rather than logic, ie. not a very valid reason not to do something.

Take for example HRPs. Examined objectively HRPs are extremely imbalanced against other defensive options and cause issues because of their cost effectiveness at both the low end and the high end. Adjusting the way HRPs work (in effect, "Nerf" them) can only be a healthy change for the game, yet you see dozens of people rush out to defend HRPs as they are. Some of these defenders are PvE/PvP'ers that LIKE being overpowered relative to their prey of choice (NPCs or hapless PvErs) while others simply bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge that this hurts the game at all. I have yet to see a single legitimate argument for HRPs to remain the way they are.

In terms of a game, "I don't like games that do this, because it's not fun for me" is entirely valid though. Fun is subjective and an emotional thing, so an emotional argument is not automatically invalid because objectivity is not fully possible. There's also no objective reason to add something like, say, a global chat; there are simply different subjective pros and cons.

Regarding HRP's particularly, they are need of some control, I agree.

 

[Zeta Legion]

In terms of a game, "I don't like games that do this, because it's not fun for me" is entirely valid though. Fun is subjective and an emotional thing, so an emotional argument is not automatically invalid because objectivity is not fully possible. There's also no objective reason to add something like, say, a global chat; there are simply different subjective pros and cons.

Regarding HRP's particularly, they are need of some control, I agree.

Maybe it's because I don't have a dog in the 'global chat' fight but I don't really see a downside if it can be turned off. It might be a waste of dev time for the people that won't use it, but so are features like player-only wings and crew which I probably won't be using. At least not regularly enough to care about them being in the game or not. Sure, I'd rather have NPC wings and crew because I'd be able to use them at any time rather than on someone else's schedule but I wouldn't argue against player wings and crew from that perspective. Does it 'negatively' impact my play experience that others can wing up if they want to? Sort of, but only because I get annoyed that NPC wings aren't available. Doesn't make the game unplayable for me though.

Usually if a feature is going to negatively impact someone's play experience to the extent that they aren't able to enjoy the game anymore, it's not likely to have much of a positive effect elsewhere either. Say if mining profits were nerfed into the ground, because it's more profitable than exploration. The explorers aren't making more money, so are still miserable (if money is their motivation for exploring at any rate) and now the miners who weren't making that much to begin with get ripped off. Crippling a ships' jump range that can't possibly have been good at exploration or trading anyway is another thing I'd find objectionable.

I'm waffling but I guess what I'm saying is that subjective arguments can be valid but are best combined with objective arguments as to why something is negatively impacting your play experience. Arguments from a purely subjective perspective against objective arguments on the same topic hold less water.

 

[Wylie28]

I like the single character slot it makes your reputation and influences matter
The game has a manual, read it for everything you need to know, if you don't like reading watch youtube videos theres no reason for the devs to waste their time adding tutorials in game

 

[Vorxian]

That's something about ED I really really like. Only one cmdr per account. It makes 'disposable' alts and discrete 'griefer' alts a non existent past time. Sure you could have #2 account, but, it's not worth it imo.

 

[Riverside]

That's something about ED I really really like. Only one cmdr per account. It makes 'disposable' alts and discrete 'griefer' alts a non existent past time. Sure you could have #2 account, but, it's not worth it imo.

I agree with this, while I would like to use a second slot to start afresh instead of resetting my account, I can see how having only one makes resetting, or playing to ironman rules a bigger deal. Even the richest griefer will run out of enthusiasm for buying new accounts eventually.

 

[Jmanis]

Me: Allow the acceptance of cargo-fetch (e.g we need you to source X tonnes of cargo Y) quests even when you don't currently have sufficient cargospace, as refitting and coming back to the BB generally means that mission has disappeared.

Community: No, people will then hog missions, or will just accept anything without care or concern for the mission content, and it's a completely OP change.

*cough*robigo*cough*

Glad my game-breaking change never made it in...

EDIT: This is not to say Robigo should be nerfed/removed/whatever... I personally think there needs to be more stuff like Robigo, across the whole galaxy.

 

[Roybe]

Me: Allow the acceptance of cargo-fetch (e.g we need you to source X tonnes of cargo Y) quests even when you don't currently have sufficient cargospace, as refitting and coming back to the BB generally means that mission has disappeared.

Community: No, people will then hog missions, or will just accept anything without care or concern for the mission content, and it's a completely OP change.

*cough*robigo*cough*

Glad my game-breaking change never made it in...

EDIT: This is not to say Robigo should be nerfed/removed/whatever... I personally think there needs to be more stuff like Robigo, across the whole galaxy.

Actually, I have made millions doing Robigo runs...in other places in the galaxy! Have fun folks!

 

[Jmanis]

Actually, I have made millions doing Robigo runs...in other places in the galaxy! Have fun folks!

s/robigo/your choice of remote isolated system/ I'm just keeping terminology consistent

I have essays I could write about Robigo but it's all off topic, suffice to say there needs to be more things like robigo which are not the by-product of a flawed mission generation system. I wait to see what 2.1 brings

 

[Boomer Kay]

Actually the mission system and BGS create a lot of interesting places.
I ranked to admiral in a system that had a nice mix of charity and smuggling missions. Better than robigo and 17 draconis combined and right in the heart of the bubble.
The Raxxla of rather grind-free multi dimension progress. Just have to find that by yourself.

 

[Jmanis]

Actually the mission system and BGS create a lot of interesting places.
I ranked to admiral in a system that had a nice mix of charity and smuggling missions. Better than robigo and 17 draconis combined and right in the heart of the bubble.
The Raxxla of rather grind-free multi dimension progress. Just have to find that by yourself.

Again, i could write essays, bit it would be off topic

 

[STINKFISH]

I think there are several reasons why ideas, complaints and comments are shot down:


1) There is a vested interest for the status quo - by some forum posters, and the moderators on behalf of the developers
2) Damage control - to prevent idea's and suggestions from growing in popularity, that could cause a premature or unwanted development implementation
3) The idea is not very good
4) The idea is good, but can not be implemented with the restrictive P2P client instancing
4) The idea is good, but can not be implemented as it conflicts with game concept / ideology
5) Forum culture has been to some extent polarized into PvP vs PvE - due to PvP negative short fallings
6) Forum culture has been to some extent polarized into Solo vs Multiplayer - due to Multiplayer negative short fallings
7) Forum discussions being reduced to sound-bytes, and polar arguments
8) Forum posters and moderators human nature: the desire to win an argument
9) Forum posters human nature: enjoyment in conflict, self righteousness etc.
10) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of loyalty to the game
11) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of loyalty to the memory of the original game
12) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of expectation
13) Forum posters varying game-play styles
14) Forum posters not fully understanding the current game mechanics
15) Moderators enforcing forum rules preemptively to prevent arguments
16) Moderators, and forum posters reading posts and incorrectly interpreting the motivation of the poster, by reading them from the position of their own agenda
17) Intentional disruptive posting
18) Post sabotage by rival developers, or disgruntled forum members


to mention but a few.....

 

[Robert Maynard]

I think there are several reasons why ideas, complaints and comments are shot down:


1) There is a vested interest for the status quo - by some forum posters, and the moderators on behalf of the developers
2) Damage control - to prevent idea's and suggestions from growing in popularity, that could cause a premature or unwanted development implementation
3) The idea is not very good
4) The idea is good, but can not be implemented with the restrictive P2P client instancing
4) The idea is good, but can not be implemented as it conflicts with game concept / ideology
5) Forum culture has been to some extent polarized into PvP vs PvE - due to PvP negative short fallings
6) Forum culture has been to some extent polarized into Solo vs Multiplayer - due to Multiplayer negative short fallings
7) Forum discussions being reduced to sound-bytes, and polar arguments
8) Forum posters and moderators human nature: the desire to win an argument
9) Forum posters human nature: enjoyment in conflict, self righteousness etc.
10) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of loyalty to the game
11) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of loyalty to the memory of the original game
12) Entrenched ideals, a posters sense of expectation
13) Forum posters varying game-play styles
14) Forum posters not fully understanding the current game mechanics
15) Moderators enforcing forum rules preemptively to prevent arguments
16) Moderators, and forum posters reading posts and incorrectly interpreting the motivation of the poster, by reading them from the position of their own agenda
17) Intentional disruptive posting
18) Post sabotage by rival developers, or disgruntled forum members


to mention but a few.....

1) Indeed - players have had the opportunity to back / buy a game where the published core game design has been available from the outset. As to Moderators - we are player members of the community too and are entitled to express our opinions.
2) Popularity? What proportion of c.1.5M franchise sales would be considered to be sufficiently popular?
3) Possibly.
4a) Possibly.
4b) Possibly.
5) Not surprisingly - unlike most other MMOs, this one only has one unlimited population game mode and both PvP player, PvE players and all of the players between these extremes need to share.
6) There are those who can accept the core game design features - and there are those who cannot.
7) Repetitive arguments tend to distil the responses down to fewer words.
8) Why would a change be proposed if there was no desire to "win" by having it included in the game? See 1) regarding Moderators.
9) Probably.
10) Possibly.
11) Possibly.
12) Possibly.
13) Definitely.
14) Possibly.
15) If you feel that threads have been closed too soon, please report for review. That said, if several threads are running on the same (or very similar) topics then threads may be closed.
16) Each forum poster is entitled to respond to each post as they wish (within the rules of the forums) - same holds for Moderators.
17) Possibly.
18) Unlikely in the former, has happened in the latter.