Is 2.1 the "Make or Break" or "Do or Die" Update for Elite Dangerous?

[Midnight Sun]

"Minimal Viable Product"... well that certainly seems appropriate. I believe the term "Shiny Led Development" might also be appropriate.

So while we're hoping for something meaningful to do with our SRVs on all those rocky worlds that Horizons gave us, instead we'll get Atmospherics expansion with Shiny New Gliders to fly aimlessly about in an empty sky.

And every year will repeat the same sad cycle of unfulfilled dreams and dashed hopes.

 

[vicgreed]

Ok, so you go on every forum on every game you play, and tell them that their game is boring, well ok that is also some kind of occupation in an odd way. However when my son complains about the food here my message is. Today we serve egg and beans, you can have that or beans and egg. Tomorrow your Aunty are visiting, then you can have Turkey, mom ain't going to cook you a special dinner today.

hint, 2.1 are turkey day kind of

So not only do you chose to not respond to my post (which is fine), but you go ahead and create some false narrative about what I do or why im posting? Both of which is none of your concern. And I did not post here to say the game is boring, not sure where you are getting that.

 

[lysan]

So not only do you chose to not respond to my post (which is fine), but you go ahead and create some false narrative about what I do or why im posting? Both of which is none of your concern. And I did not post here to say the game is boring, not sure where you are getting that.

All these doomsday threads are about the same issue, people feel they are bored, and they need to tell the world about it. You can obvious post what you want, it's a free country in most places.
However, instead of posting doom posts, one should point out where the game fails, and give some examples of what could be done to improve it.

FD don't care about people who write if they are leaving the game, or if the game are doomed if X or Y is not made. The Only thing they care about in the end are,

1. sales of the game
2. how many who are playing it.

However, FD do know that they need to do something to keep the player base, hence the attempt to redo the mission system plus a lot more. I could understand if we had this discussion in 6 month, but honestly now? 4 weeks from beta of 2.1
sorry mate, I really don't understand. All this is kind of pointless unless some of these who post these threads know what's coming? if not I would just wait and see before i start making doomsday posts.

 

[Zeta Legion]

*snip for brevity*

I am aware of the supposed future feature set. It doesn't excuse the launch state of Horizons nor the relatively poor state of added content since the original launch. The game needs more impressive additions than those implemented so far, which gives a good idea of exactly what FD are capable of implementing in a given time frame, which frankly isn't much.

Yes, I passed over CG's because sans the flavour text they fall into the same set of functionally identical 'bring X materiel to Y' 'mine X materiel and bring it to Y' 'bring exploration data from literally anywhere to X' or 'kill X faction and turn in tokens at Y'. Not exactly earth-shattering. All CG's do is tempt you to relocate your farming runs temporarily in order to cash in a 15 mil bonus, and due to the relatively limited number of CG's up at any one time (and the obvious bias by players for some factions it doesn't take a statistician to predict which side will win in a given conflict) they are pretty much impossible to fail unless FD purposefully engineer them to be impossible. Ergo, the story influence of CG's is minimal at best. More importantly CG's don't really ask for anything out of the ordinary from players, just more farming in a different place.

The temporary weapons damage boosts available in game are only as temporary as you want them to be, ie. you can farm all day and night if you want to have the bonus 100% of the time. They also only apply to ammo weapons. What I was suggesting would be more akin to a SCB, but for weapons instead of shields, boosting damage output for a short time with a cooldown and/or limited uses.

And no, I haven't played Elite. But in case you haven't noticed, it's 2016, not 1984.

 

[frostypaw]

Could you give me an example of a computer game mission which doesn't boil down to "Go from A to B possibly finding or with or shooting C"?

I mean you can put a randomly generated face on it (done before) or a lot more text (then most don't read it just the payout) but it's still going to involve flying from one place to another - possibly shooting someone or thing, but that's it. It's your involvement in the narrative that makes it into something grander so if you don't take part then it's like saying Ocarina of Time's a dreadful game because you just rode your horse around all the time and got bored, all the missions are just go here, get that, fight this.

 

[DHMeyer]

No.

OK, it's been in development for quite a few years and new content doesn't appear every month (which, I think, might be part of the problem) so I can understand that after a while it might become too familiar. But the game is out and working. New content is being added and I bet they get it out as quickly, as they can. One thing that could help here, in my opinion, are more frequent updates. Like one update every month. I'm not talking here about big updates, like the Engineers, but much smaller ones. Whenever possible, I think Frontier should look at those big updates and see if they can release certain smaller things they are planning to include there a bit sooner. For example, whilst we wait for Engineers, we could get galaxy map markers. Or whatever they are planning to put in there. This would show constant progress of the game development.

There is also one thing they are not making use of and that's a big shame. I'm talking about interaction between players, starting with trading between players and ability to create associations. I know that Frontier has their own ambitious plans for these, but I believe they should get the basic functionality of this kind in game ASAP (and at least when it comes to trading / cargo transfer, the mechanics is already in game) and then build it up to what they want it to be when they have more time for that. The thing is that there is no better game content than players working together to achieve some goals, so by not giving us tools for that Frontier is wasting a good opportunity.

At its core, Elite is fairly similar to every space sim out there and has similar elements. Some of them are implemented better than the others and that's OK. But there is also one huge advantage Elite has over other games out there and that is its size. To me, a possibility of jumping into my Asp and just setting off to a journey to the edge of the Galaxy is absolutely mind blowing. But, the size is also responsible for Elite feeling empty. So in this aspect Frontier should make sure that at least the bubble doesn't feel this empty, is easier to travel through and explore and also has certain hubs where players' activity can concentrate.

There is one thing that worries me about the Engineers and that's CQC ranks being taken under consideration. Personally I never had a slightest interest in CQC and I don't really want to participate in that. If that means I won't have access to certain ship modules, this may be game breaking for many people who are not interested in CQC... But we have to wait and see how this is implemented.

So yes, the game has its quirks, there are areas where it can be improved, but in general, it's quite playable and quite fun, especially when you cycle through various activities. I think this year will decide about longevity of this project and I keep my fingers crossed for Frontier to keep going for many years to come.

 

[WR3ND]

I voted "no." In the grand scheme of things, I hope the game does well, but think FD would have to royally gunk up the works for them to kill off the game in 2.1.

Speaking for myself, they'd actually have to somehow make the game much worse to stop me from playing it altogether.

 

[Hilight]

I always object to this - it's not ABOUT how infinitesimal you are. It's not a frickin Total Perspective Vortex for crying out loud. Not being the center of the universe is not the same as being insignificant. How important you are in the game is, as in real life, a matter of perspective, circumstance, and shared meaning.

You make an excellent point. There is a lot of space between insignificant and center of the universe. Someone pointed out that given the economics and scale of Elite with many hundreds of billions of people in the Elite galaxy just the simple fact that you own a ship and are ranked a Commander means that you are a pretty special person with much more ability and means than the average joe...which is why you are offered jobs worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of credits.

 

[DaveB]

"Minimal Viable Product"... well that certainly seems appropriate. I believe the term "Shiny Led Development" might also be appropriate.

So while we're hoping for something meaningful to do with our SRVs on all those rocky worlds that Horizons gave us, instead we'll get Atmospherics expansion with Shiny New Gliders to fly aimlessly about in an empty sky.

And every year will repeat the same sad cycle of unfulfilled dreams and dashed hopes.

The key word here is "viable". Minimally so or otherwise ED is indeed viable. And if every single player kvetching on here about "broken mechanics" or whatever other code phrase they want to use for "I don't like this aspect of the game" were to sod off into a black hole it would remain so.

If you want a game that is balanced for PvP and centered around it, that's not Elite.
If you want a game that's pure PvE and entirely balanced for co-op play, that's not Elite either.
If you want a game where you are a central character in some kind of story, that's not Elite.
If you want to singlehandedly save the universe, manipulate economies incredibly vaster than you can imagine, be the leader of a vast star empire or really do ANYTHING that leaves your personal mark on the world, you'll have to do it in a different game.
If you want a game where the players encounter each other all the time and densely populate the game world, that's not ANY game with a playing field the size of an entire 1:1 scale galaxy (although in fairness, I could have simple said "that's not Elite" because AFAIK no other game has that). If by some miracle you turned every single human being currently alive into an avid player and scattered them throughout the galaxy you'd STILL almost never see anyone except where there's a reason for them to congregate like CGs, good trade routes or "known systems" like the Lave cluster.

If you want ANY of those things and it's your litmus test for whether you play the game or not, I hope one of the upcoming space games in this resurgent genre gives you that. Because you won't find it here and there's plenty of folks that do find what they want here and would rather you left them to it.

I'm playing Elite. What are you playing?

 

[Ozram]

Not for me. I like the game fine as is (not perfect) and am looking forward to what's to come. No regrets so far on my LTP

 

[Ignition]

You make an excellent point. There is a lot of space between insignificant and center of the universe. Someone pointed out that given the economics and scale of Elite with many hundreds of billions of people in the Elite galaxy just the simple fact that you own a ship and are ranked a Commander means that you are a pretty special person with much more ability and means than the average joe...which is why you are offered jobs worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of credits.

I hope civilians dont find out they can make large amount of money doing trivial things like exploring, mining, trading and even combat. Lets be honest, tasks arent so special.

 

[serialsid]

I just hope from this update they don't just focus on the front end of the mission system and not tackle the real problem that missions are very straight forward and easy. I'm really not that bothered if some smiling or angry face gives me a mission, quite happy with the way they given now. I just want missions that challenge me. That I'm not 99% sure of the out come before I've set off!!Escorting npc's on dangerous runs across many systems!! Having runs where your told a wing of fighters are going to try stopping you. You have to hire npc ships for protection. But do you just get a couple of eagles and hope or cut into your profits and get some elite vultures!! If they are available!!Bases with air cover!! Missions on the surface that other factions are trying to complete as well.I appreciate there is a lot to do in elite, mining trading and such but now I have the ship that I've always wanted and millions in the Bank the motivation to do some of these things has gone. Making missions harder and more varied with options to how you go about them, I think would go a long way to keeping people happy for a while. Then they can start making it more attractive and add the ship walking and entering bases we all want to see.

 

[WreckWren]

With how 2.1 is shaping up, it looks like it will fix some fundamental flaws and rewrite how a lot of the game works.

I would consider this a "make or break" update for the game financially, because 2.1 looks to constitute the lion's share of the season 2 content & it will be hard to sell season 3 if season 2 tanks.

One of the many pitfalls of trying to do everything at once.

 

[Henri]

With how 2.1 is shaping up, it looks like it will fix some fundamental flaws and rewrite how a lot of the game works.

I would consider this a "make or break" update for the game financially, because 2.1 looks to constitute the lion's share of the season 2 content & it will be hard to sell season 3 if season 2 tanks.

One of the many pitfalls of trying to do everything at once.

but most people have a life time expansion so for them it does not matter

 

[WreckWren]

but I have a life time expansion so for me it does not matter

Fixed

 

[Patrick_68000]

The seasons born and die. There are years more beautiful than others. On a game of ten years, there will be ups and downs

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Spoiler

A lot of people are fed up. This is why the numbers are dwindling, the forums are crawling and people are generally just not too excited about ED anymore. There are a core of a few thousand people who still play off and on which is good all things considered. But many of them are "waiting" for the game to introduce some new winning formula to give it any sort of longevity.

Make Elite Dangerous Great Again!

Many people have lost patience and are gone never to return. You'll have the fair weather fans return just to check up on the latest update, you'll see a spike in traffic and then it dies again.

Will this be the "do or die" update? Will it be the last straw for some people?

Or will this inject the missing ingredient to the recipe that will keep people engaged and will renew their faith?

Prediction - as usual after every update people will be thankful and there will be a 2 week period of euphoria. People will marvel at the wonder of the new glistening art work.

But will it all be the same repetitive grind that is shallow? Or will the universe open up into unlimited complexity and depth?

Is this the last nail or the start of something new?

If it turns out to be a dud - will you be quitting?

PS - Yes I already know how the poll will go because we know specifically opinions of the majority of people left here in the forum. This is an interesting view into the psyche though.

It's easy to think that way given (a) you do (b) your friends perhaps do and (c) some on the forums do. That's known as "confirmational bias" However, it's also easy to forget that a lot of people don't feel that way and more importantly many players are not on the forums to express that opinion. Yes I agree ED has issues to which some will be addressed in 2.1 Engineers (the mian thing for myself from that patch will be the Crime and Punishment review) and more over time.

It took Blizzard with Diablo 3 about 3 years (from v1.0 to 2.4 current) to reach a point that I enjoy playing it daily, and so with ED : right now it's in a place where I play casually and not daily ("pick up and play for a while") and it's working for me. Each time I log in I am reminded of the wonders that ED has to offer (awesome sounds; good visuals; excellent flight model including Horizons descent to the planet - never thought I would say this as I was against planetary landing but I like the addition) and just before the grind hits I stop playing for a while.

Everyone spouts that "it's the end of ED" but the funny thing is .. it's still here

 

[Patrick_68000]

We’re sorry to keep you waiting, but the Engineers is a truly colossal update and this additional time is being used to ensure that the new content is of the highest quality possible. We take great pride in all of the content we produce and we firmly believe that giving this additional development time is the right thing to do for the game, the studio and the fantastic community of players

After all, is not the best answer ?

 

[Colonel Kenney]

I think this is a legitimate discussion at this point.

I'm really trying to like the new patch... I'm trying my best. But so far its just a bunch of playability fixes and some welcomed changes to things that should have been done right in the first place.

I know they can't go any faster but this patch really did go totally against improving the mile wide inch deep "label" the game has been given by the majority of people.

All this did was add another layer of excessive grinding for something that in other games you'd see implemented successfully a completely different way. Example Grand Theft Auto - if you want to custom mod your car you go to a custom mod shop, you pay lots of money and you get the job done. That is realistic. People offer services. In fact in reality there are all sorts of mechanics that do this. Cars here are a hobby for a whole bunch of people.

Why would this universe be any different? Why wouldn't every tom and harry be able to modify their own ships? It should be done at any station. These "unique" engineers however may be better than everyone else at it but they wouldn't be a recluse about it.. and they CERTAINLY WOULDN'T ASK YOU TO BRING THEM FISH before they'd do any work.

The whole random element of it.. I'm ok. But if EVERY SINGLE AI SHIP OUT THERE has mods on their ships allowing them to outrun you... it should be equally easy for us to modify our ships. Maybe just expensive though.

I am trying my best to like this patch but i'm seeing the same old same old . Its just more layers of grinding really. This was a combat update and nothing more. No content just improved combat. I'm afraid this year is not going to hold any interesting "content" at all for us and I do think it will be the last straw for many people.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Fish is a placeholder for reputation, missions etc. It's to make it easy to access in beta.

I have nothing more to say as I believe it's not a worthy cause arguing, you have part of a point but I disagree with your analysis and will leave it at that.