Elite has no respect for people's time.

Sorry for missing this post earlier sleutelbos.

I must admit, it is difficult to frame what I am after in so succinct a form. However, I shall try.

The problem:
"Too much of the basic game operations of ED are not inherently enjoyable. The richness of experience is too low too much of the time so it is hard to feel anything playing the game. I find my game experience is too often watching numbers or gauges ticking until I have to press the next button, which is too low to sustain my involvement."

I think that is, as with pretty much anything, dependent on what people are looking for. Personally, this 'dead time' makes ED feel like a space-sim to me. Others clearly want their gameplay to be more 'focussed'. If thats the main issue, have you checked NMS? Its far more 'casual' in that going from A to B is just hitting a button: no Supercruise or such. It diminishes the idea of being in space to me, but others are looking very much forward to it. Once you've done that for a bit, come back and see how ED has progressed. :)
 
Last edited:
Sorry, I didnt mean frames per second, I mean First person shooting. I dont care about the frames per second because performance is always horrible in alpha-stage. Optimization is what I expect to happen far in the future, when they're polishing things up for release. But having a crappy first person shooter experience when you license one of the best FPS engines is absurd. And everything is always 'more on that in later patches'. This 'more weapons/cover mechanics/etc' we're getting 'soon' was supposed to be on my harddrive over a year ago. Add to that that this is exactly the same modus operandi he used in his previous project, that failed spectacularly as well, and its fair to say he has run out of credibility.

Ofcourse I hope it'll be great and we'll all have a good time, but I doubt it.

I hate to say it but this is the reason I didn't pledge a penny to SC.

If CR was going to deliver the game that he originally outlined, we'd have been playing it for over a year by now. As it is, he allowed so much mission creep to pollute that fairly simple vision that he headed off on a flight of fancy for about a year during which time he convinced himself that he was going to make Better Than Life, if you're familiar with Red Dwarf - if not the name is fairly self-explanatory anyway. He reached the point that even Derek Smart was telling him his vision was overblown and if ever there should be a wake-up call for a developer, that is it.

All I ever see when I look at the webpage for that game is more and more overblown ships being made and sold and people still endlessly talking about what a maginificent experience it's going to be with its 150 systems, making it about what five times the size of Freelancer, a game that's over 15 years old now. And yet still, every time I go on the website, I see talk of more and more content. So many people seem to be capable of completely ignoring the fact that he's already been through two or three complete cycles of pitching content, trying to code it and ultimately scrapping it, the levels of delusion and magical thinking truly astound me.

Roberts never delivered a product on time in his life even when he had publishers breathing down his neck trying to temper his flights of fancy with the need to get a viable product to market. Now that he's removed most of the checks and balances the studio system used to impose on him, I'd be amazed if that game is released in anything like a playable version with the content that he has promised before the heat death of the universe.

So yeah, I would love that game that he keeps talking about but truthfully, all I actually wanted was Wing Commander with todays graphics. I'd have bought that the day it came out. From the last thing I saw, he's even going to be releasing the single player game episodically now and it does't even give full access to the rest of the game? To be honest, the information on the website is presented in such a convoluted and unclear manner that I've pretty much lost interest. :(
 
Last edited:
I think that is, as with pretty much anything, dependent on what people are looking for. Personally, this 'dead time' makes ED feel like a space-sim to me. Others clearly want their gameplay to be more 'focussed'. If thats the main issue, have you checked NMS? Its far more 'casual' in that going from A to B is just hitting a button: no Supercruise or such. It diminishes the idea of being in space to me, but others are looking very much forward to it. Once you've done that for a bit, come back and see how ED has progressed. :)

A fine suggestion, NMS looks quite chirpy and should be perfect to chill out on. Maybe after a few weeks I'll be sick of such a vibrant, busy universe and long for the more authentic, desolate representation of space provided us by Elite =)

I'll take your advice on this and will be playing NMS when it arrives.
 
A fine suggestion, NMS looks quite chirpy and should be perfect to chill out on. Maybe after a few weeks I'll be sick of such a vibrant, busy universe and long for the more authentic, desolate representation of space provided us by Elite =)

I'll take your advice on this and will be playing NMS when it arrives.

How is ED authentic? There are billions of people in the bubble yet only a handful of activity in any system. FD bombed on the 'galactic' life part, and as such all systems are very much the same.

FD is just failing to make content, and it's sad that they would push crew ships as a content patch instead of adding more to do than look for barnacles.
 
A fine suggestion, NMS looks quite chirpy and should be perfect to chill out on. Maybe after a few weeks I'll be sick of such a vibrant, busy universe and long for the more authentic, desolate representation of space provided us by Elite =)

I'll take your advice on this and will be playing NMS when it arrives.

Just wait until players work out how to find others and the ganking begins, I'm sure this will be greeted with such endless joy and excitement. Chill, indeed.
 
How is ED authentic? There are billions of people in the bubble yet only a handful of activity in any system. FD bombed on the 'galactic' life part, and as such all systems are very much the same.

FD is just failing to make content, and it's sad that they would push crew ships as a content patch instead of adding more to do than look for barnacles.


screen shot the commodities board
leave the station,any station
watch an npc land and leave
land again and screenshot the board again

compare screenshots

theres a lot less going on than you think ;)
 
How is ED authentic? There are billions of people in the bubble yet only a handful of activity in any system. FD bombed on the 'galactic' life part, and as such all systems are very much the same.

FD is just failing to make content, and it's sad that they would push crew ships as a content patch instead of adding more to do than look for barnacles.

I just meant that ED approaches from a more authentic direction; how might the future really look? Compare and contrast to NMS, which is far more fantastical with its setting (less authentic).
 
Wasting my time is fine, if you make it fun. Mindless grinding is not fun. Stories and actual non-RNG are fun. RNG is not content and not fun. However, RNG is cheap and easy, and that's why they do it.

Anyone want a nice hot tonne of tea?
 
Elite, to me, was created with full internet access and multitasking in mind. Works for me.

That said, it would be nice if there were ways to cut corners...like the FSD "boot up" engineer mod actually affecting charge-up time, not just power-on delay, or mission types that advance you quickly through the ranks but are of much higher difficulty than "deliver data from point A to point B", or a system map view that loads and closes nigh-instantly.

I feel like those things might come in the future, when Frontier has had enough time getting more core features of the game out - sort of a "hurry up and wait" phase.
 
I can't think of any other pursuit that yields so little for the time you invest.

I'd like to play more Elite; the ships are amazing and they sound and feel great.

However, that's not enough. I just can't justify spending hours looking for random named materials for random engineers, or trying broken missions, or broken powerplay, or driving around on bleak planets.

There are two places I know I can go to have fun; RESs and Conflict Zones. Wait, three; nav beacons. Because I know what I'm signing up for; I arrive, I fight for as long as I like, I go. But I've been playing Elite for over a thousand hours now, and you know what? I'm bored of these.

Since I bought the game nearly two years ago, FD has added nothing that entertains me save a few extra ships. Everything else they've added, I've tried to enjoy, but the game is so mean spirited and makes it so damn hard to get any enjoyment out of. I have a lot of things to do in my "free time", and try as I might (and I try pretty hard, people) I just can't justify spending the time on Elite when spending it any other way, any other way, is more enjoyable and productive.

Yes, I know. It's Elite Dangerous. It doesn't hold your hand or anything, it's a living Galaxy. But it has to offer enough enjoyment from time spent playing it to justify doing so, which, I'm sorry, I'm now aware that it simply does not.(this is subjective, of course, it simply does not for me - but my requirements are quite low compared to most gamers, and I'm lucky enough to have more time than many to spend playing).

FD are madly creating an amazing universe but they've forgotten that they need to make it something people want to spend time with. Scale and numbers mean nothing by themselves; you have to let people experience it in a way that they enjoy. You might argue that they're crafting the world's most amazing space sim, and that to expect a more "enjoyable" experience is at odds with the core of what Elite is.

And that's a fine argument. Unless you want to people to actually PLAY IT.

Elite is so damn disrespectful of people's time. So. Disrespectful. Doing anything takes so much time. SO much time spent "playing" is literally watching clocks count; distances, drives charging, fuel gauges charging, whatever. Elite always comes down to time, it's what the game asks of you, punishes you with, accidentally demands of you with it's archaic idiosyncrasies. And I can no longer justify this time because it is simply not enjoyable enough. I have other games that are just more rewarding to spend time with, not to mention other non-screen based pursuits.

Clearly I've had enough of Elite and need to take a very long break. But you know, I have no great hope that the game will ever become something that appeals to me, now that I understand why it is I feel I can't play it. I think it will never embrace the fact that people want to enjoy it, I think FD are locked on a crazy path and do not understand that their game is terribly neglecting the human element. Since I first bought it, they have spent so much time and effort on it yet added so, so very little that I actually enjoy.

And so it is with heavy heart that this Elite rated commander, who has spent so long playing this game, must condemn Elite, having realized it for what it is and knowing deep down that he can never justify the time to spend on something so cold, mean and boring when there are so much better things to do.

I'm sorry for the rant, please understand it comes from love.

Elite. You MUST learn to respect people's time. You. Must.


*sigh* obviously you never used any Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Or DCS
or Rise of Flight
or Falcon 4
or... you got the hang of it.
 
Last edited:
Well I have 4W in-game approx and I always find something to do when I'm tired of hunting.
I still haven't even mastered the SRV let alone the Engineer thang as I am so busy trading/exploring/killin' Wanteds

*sigh* obviously you never used any Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Or DCS
or Rise of Flight
or Falcon 4
or... you got the hang of it.

I love all those flight sims.
You forgot X Plane and flying on Mars

I saw that Rogue System on Ars Technica, insanely complex checklists and controls.
 
Just wait until players work out how to find others and the ganking begins, I'm sure this will be greeted with such endless joy and excitement. Chill, indeed.

Except that won't happen. You can actually disconnect from the internet and play NMS just fine. Imagine that, you can turn your router off, play NMS on the PC -and it works-.

Now do the same with Elite ;)

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

Since the NMS leak it has been estimated that it will take 30 hours to reach the center of the galaxy. I have a feeling the region will be quite crowded with players a few weeks after release.

That was due to an exploit that's been fixed.
 
No. Please read my posts. You have projected, falsely, a suite of arguments and sentiments onto me that have no basis in reality. I absolutely do not want nor expect more ingame items, or ships, or credits, or goalposts moved. That is but one measure of productively spent time and one that registers low on my list of priorities. The sweet massive ship with all the gear is not the "endgame" for me, if anything it may just be a means to enjoying the game more. Personally I quite like smaller ships because of the handling and responsiveness.

If you do not concede this, based on reading my posts, then you are impervious to reality and I cannot reason with you.

I am talking about something more fundamental yet difficult to define; It's about the quality of life.

QoL. I too love this game, over 12 weeks by the ingame counter but it's the lack of quality of life features that make elite so annoying. Want to go do that combat cg in your FdL thats 200 LY away? Well you'd better plan for it because it may take an hour of tiny jumps and scooping. Where is the ship transport?

Tiny tasks like bookmarks are in the Map instead of the navigation panel so you have to wait for that to load, not to mention scrolling through the list because it's can't be organised.

Scooping an engineer material but not sure how many you have? You've got to check the side menu's. Why is it not part of the target info on the main screen?

Can't review blueprints ingame unless at the engineer.
Can't see the material/commodity origins ingame without going to the engineer
STORAGE!! :p

I'm at work trying to sneakily post so won't give more examples but there are many more and it all adds up to make you feel like the game is trying to pee you off on purpose.
 
If your a backer you would realise it's just more than pretty pictures....I suggest you head over to cig and catch up on the latest news mate.
Did that, still not impressed, they added a bunch of pretty stuff, sure, but mechanics, and gameplay and bugs remain the same, especially the FPS issue.
the lag you talk of is the netcode sleuty...in 2.7 its getting pushed out proper along with planetry landing ect....

I personally play crusader at 60fps,,,using the "offline" trick that cig don't mind us doing.......and star marine was used in the end to give us out fps mechanics in the ptu,with more on that in the next couple of patches...in my mind star marine is old news sleuty.

still I hope it ends up being great and I hope you end up playing it too....
Just...so you know, they've been saying that for over a year now, the FPS issue has been persistent that long, and apparently it is not considered something that needs a fix? for over that year now? I know programming can be difficult but there's been no progress on that front, and honestly, it is one of the most important things, it doesn't matter if your game looks the greatest, I cannot stand playing it with so low fps that I can do nothing about. Graphic settings do not really help. and that is a massive concern as it means their backbone netcode is severely broken.
 
Back
Top Bottom