Is the lack of real content why FD have sacrificed galactic scale?

[Deadspin]

I can understand their upset: "If we don't like the feature, we're not forced to use it." They want the feature and don't want us to ruin it for them. And they have a point.

However, I'm expressing concern over the decision to bypass a core game design because suddenly "the game is too grindy". I see their point, and the fact is - at the moment - instant ship transfer is a thing, they get what they want. And, yeah, I don't have to use it or abuse it. But it still leaves a bad taste and makes my enjoyment of the game less knowing that I have to simply ignore this in order for it to not flavor my experience.

See, the thing is, you don't even have to ignore it because you'll never know if that Cutter that just pulled in to dump it's cargo load was transferred or not.

This changes nothing.
If it gets abused, it affects none of you (since the only way to abuse it is for monetary gain, which leads to, you guessed it, nothing!).

This is why there is no reason to accept that you're upset over it, or why you're upset over it. It quite literally does not matter because it does not affect you or the choices that are available to you in the game.

 

[Otherwhere]

See, the thing is, you don't even have to ignore it because you'll never know if that Cutter that just pulled in to dump it's cargo load was transferred or not.

This changes nothing.
If it gets abused, it affects none of you (since the only way to abuse it is for monetary gain, which leads to, you guessed it, nothing!).

This is why there is no reason to accept that you're upset over it, or why you're upset over it. It quite literally does not matter because it does not affect you or the choices that are available to you in the game.

Not true. I have to ignore an option that is available in the game now.

 

[Deadspin]

Not true. I have to ignore an option that is available in the game now.

And that is your problem and yours alone. Not mine, not anyone else's.

I ignore Solo and Private Group every time I turn the game on. I ignore CQC as well.

You won't see me shed tears over their continued existence.

 

[JerryLove]

The issue is that there isn't enough to do in local areas.

I both agree and disagree.

There isn't enough true variety of things to do FULL STOP.

The problem with local areas is that they don't feel local. You can boil a system down to a few stats and it has little real character. One area of the bubble is the same as another, and ditto outside. It would be nice to have more of a sense of "the core", "the frontier" and "the beyond", such that they really *felt* different.

Each career needs a ship tailored to the role and so we end up with at least 4 or 5 ships.

I think that's over-simplifying.

I'd like GP ships and specialist ships. I'd like, as the prices go up, to see ships able to multi-specialize. I'd like to see variety within specialization.

To the first point.
Tier 1: Ship is reasonably good at one thing.
Tier 2: Ship can excel at one thing or be reasonably good at two things.
Tier 3: Ship can excel at two things, or excel at one and be reasonably good at two.
or some variation therein.

So, say: The DBS is reasonably good at exploring. The DBE becomes either excellent at exploring or reasonably good at exploring and combat.

To the second point.
You can build a tank or you can build a glass cannon or you can build a raptor (fast and hard to hit, but not super tough nor super damaging). All three are combat ships, but they take different avenues.
You can build a ship with a long overall range (lots of fuel) but mediocre max jump, or vice versa. (I'd also like to see ships with boosts to high-jump spool times).
You can build a freighter that's fast, you can build a freighter that's tough, you can build a freighter with an excellent range.

These are the sorts of trade-offs you then let people make decision from: along with some clear multi-class-focused ships (explorer/trader, explorer/fighter, combat/trader).

The development process has been focused on making the game enjoyable and interesting and so they have introduced various activities such as landing on planets, powerplay, engineers etc, all of which I mostly ignored. Wings added a way to team up with your friends and have fun. The issue then is that you're light years away from your friends and so are your ships. So here we are with teleportation and the loss of that special USP.

Planet landings are great... but we need more to do there. Even if it was just a matter of manually making core planets more interesting.

Wings needs the ability to hire on NPCs.
PP I've simply not tried. It seems broken.
Engineers is broken by the mats and RNGods.

We need *good* implementations of these features. Some are hampered by FD's FPS insistence (see: empire management in X3). There's so much more that could be done if not for this being a back-door MMO.

 

[relayer]

You become allied with some factions, enemeies of others. Hostile space becomes like low sec space, friendly space the opposite. If you prefer not to get emorobiled you ally yourself with neutral factions etc.

It's not like it would be that hard to do - Freelancer did it admirably in 2003...

 

[Kaocraft]

Ship teleportation = a commitment to not making the Galaxy interesting. If your game has fast travel, it means your slow travel sucks. Ship teleportation = a commitment to making slow travel suck forever.

 

[relayer]

It's just another feature to satisfy a growing community of players who don't any patience, or desire to take their time in a game that deserves it. It's pandering to a vocal minority.

Said this in another thread - I don't think That Crowd would have ever played Elite. Too long, too much thinking, too much what we all liked about it - an intelligent space game that made you work (and thus feeling fulfilled when a goal was reached).

Can you imagine this player type spending more than 20 minutes in Myst? Or any one of dozens of AAA titles based on storytelling? They'd throw their controllers across the room and cry "this game suxor!"

So, more content, yes. Magical Ship Bags are a topic for another thread.

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

Are Fd on speed , LSD or mushrooms ? I dunno , but some people are saying it, A lot of people have told me this, its all over the news. I dunno, but a lot are saying it.

+rep for the political joke. I hope our British (and other nationalities) friends get it!

 

[relayer]

(I'd also like to see ships with boosts to high-jump spool times).

This is exactly what Felicity Farseer & Elvira Martuuk offer, in 5 grades: http://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprint/1

I use it on my tradeconda - even lvl 3 is helpful: Annie has a stock spool speed of 9-10sec. It is possible at lvl 3 to get 50% reduction of that time (5sec) and lvl 4 of 65% reduction (4sec).

Of course, you need to decide between faster FSD spoolup or longer FSD jumps; just one of the tradeoffs you have to make. Soon I expect people complaining about only being able to apply one mod to any part...

 

[Lupis]

Ship teleportation = a commitment to not making the Galaxy interesting. If your game has fast travel, it means your slow travel sucks. Ship teleportation = a commitment to making slow travel suck forever.

Well spending a day or two transporting ships backwards and forwards is kinda boring. So screw me for wanting some convenience right?

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Well spending a day or two transporting ships backwards and forwards is kinda boring. So screw me for wanting some convenience right?

Who said "a day or two"? We're talking 60-90 minutes MAX. Sheesh you do love your hyperbole, then accuse others of "throwing tantrums". The irony is delicious.

 

[Lupis]

Who said "a day or two"? We're talking 60-90 minutes MAX. Sheesh you do love your hyperbole, then accuse others of "throwing tantrums". The irony is delicious.

....a day. Well mate i have more than one ship, so i'd have to do at least 10-20 trips. that'd take from half a day to a day for me.

But hey why let facts get in the way for rabbid attacks huh.

 

[GG7]

A total false premise. Galactic scale will not be sacrificed through the ship transport mechanism. Only delay and sedentary play will be lost. More players will frequent CG's due to the ease st which one can reach them with an appropriate ship. Delay, arbitrary, and unrealistic will be put aside to allow players of all casts to enjoy content within the time they can devote to playing.

Once you remove yourself from one to one travel time, you have just a random delay that serves one purpose, to pacify overwrought purists. Why pander to some, just to have a token delay, let the transfer serve it's full purpose. Gutting Commanders into the action.

I agree 100%!

All this whining lately is over the ability to transport our ships to another region of space, and have them available right away? The feature that pretty much everyone has wanted since day one?

MY GOD! It never ceases to amaze me that a certain segment of this community manages to find a problem with even the most beneficial and nearly universally requested feature additions!

While 2.1 for me was a colossal waste of time, and something I have basically avoided after trying it the first weekend, the features I see coming in 2.2 are just the opposite! Being able to move my fleet to one of my other favorite regions of space so I can take full advantage of what is on offer there is hardly going to mean the end of the ED world as we know it for everyone else playing the game!

I too haven't played the game in months. I shelved it right before the 2.1.05 update dropped and I haven't even downloaded the 2.1.05 patch yet, since I have been too engrossed in enjoying No Man's Sky to bother.

The current state of ED for me is just boring since I have run out of stuff to do. But what I see coming in 2.2 will be some welcome additions. The last thing I thought when I learned about the ship transport feature was that this was in any way a bad thing for the game or the community. Quite the contrary.

Fortunately, you guys are in the minority with this one. I think the transport feature along with all the other nice additions will only grow the ED community, and also bring players like me back to the game.

Realism has its place, but lets not get carried away!

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

I both agree and disagree.

There isn't enough true variety of things to do FULL STOP.

The problem with local areas is that they don't feel local. You can boil a system down to a few stats and it has little real character. One area of the bubble is the same as another, and ditto outside. It would be nice to have more of a sense of "the core", "the frontier" and "the beyond", such that they really *felt* different.


I think that's over-simplifying.

I'd like GP ships and specialist ships. I'd like, as the prices go up, to see ships able to multi-specialize. I'd like to see variety within specialization.

To the first point.
Tier 1: Ship is reasonably good at one thing.
Tier 2: Ship can excel at one thing or be reasonably good at two things.
Tier 3: Ship can excel at two things, or excel at one and be reasonably good at two.
or some variation therein.

So, say: The DBS is reasonably good at exploring. The DBE becomes either excellent at exploring or reasonably good at exploring and combat.

To the second point.
You can build a tank or you can build a glass cannon or you can build a raptor (fast and hard to hit, but not super tough nor super damaging). All three are combat ships, but they take different avenues.
You can build a ship with a long overall range (lots of fuel) but mediocre max jump, or vice versa. (I'd also like to see ships with boosts to high-jump spool times).
You can build a freighter that's fast, you can build a freighter that's tough, you can build a freighter with an excellent range.

These are the sorts of trade-offs you then let people make decision from: along with some clear multi-class-focused ships (explorer/trader, explorer/fighter, combat/trader).


Planet landings are great... but we need more to do there. Even if it was just a matter of manually making core planets more interesting.

Wings needs the ability to hire on NPCs.
PP I've simply not tried. It seems broken.
Engineers is broken by the mats and RNGods.

We need *good* implementations of these features. Some are hampered by FD's FPS insistence (see: empire management in X3). There's so much more that could be done if not for this being a back-door MMO.

Thank you for your thoughtful post, I agree with you. Although, I'm not sure what you mean by a back door MMO?

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

It's not like it would be that hard to do - Freelancer did it admirably in 2003...

Precisely.

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

Said this in another thread - I don't think That Crowd would have ever played Elite. Too long, too much thinking, too much what we all liked about it - an intelligent space game that made you work (and thus feeling fulfilled when a goal was reached).

Can you imagine this player type spending more than 20 minutes in Myst? Or any one of dozens of AAA titles based on storytelling? They'd throw their controllers across the room and cry "this game suxor!"!

That reminds me that the original meccano sets used to deliberately omit an essential step from the instructions so that kids would have the fun of figuring it out for themselves. Imagine that now!

 

[Ozram]

Thank you for your thoughtful post, I agree with you. Although, I'm not sure what you mean by a back door MMO?

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



Precisely.

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



That reminds me that the original meccano sets used to deliberately omit an essential step from the instructions so that kids would have the fun of figuring it out for themselves. Imagine that now!

Back when it was assumed using ones brain to solve problems was a healthy and enjoyable process.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

That reminds me that the original meccano sets used to deliberately omit an essential step from the instructions so that kids would have the fun of figuring it out for themselves. Imagine that now!

Back when it was assumed using ones brain to solve problems was a healthy and enjoyable process.

What a grind!

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Who said "a day or two"? We're talking 60-90 minutes MAX. Sheesh you do love your hyperbole, then accuse others of "throwing tantrums". The irony is delicious.

What about if someone only has 90 mintues game time every day. Why should they waste all of it moving ships around. (playing devils advocate as I am all for a delay)

 

[Slopey]

What about if someone only has 90 mintues game time every day. Why should they waste all of it moving ships around. (playing devils advocate as I am all for a delay)

Why should an entire game's design be built to accomodate an individual?

We had endless posts in the DDF of people who wanted to pause the game in case the doorbell rang - I kid you not! This is the same thing - why should FD pander to the lowest common denominator for available play time. Why not say "You know, our game is great, and we're fully behind it, and you'll need a couple of hours per session depending on what you want to do".

If you have only 90 mins per day, you can still get stuff done - people have been playing it to date, so they must have been doing something right. Even WoW doesn't let you jump to the end of the raid because someone only has 5 minutes before they need to go do X in real life.

That's not the game's problem, that's their problem, and reducing the game to suit them reduces it for everyone, regardless how much time they have to spare.

 

[jasonbarron]

What i want to know is why I worked so diligently to get my FdL upgraded to G5 Increased FSD range. I certainly wouldn't have bothered if I knew this "handwavium" of a feature was coming down the pike.

Also, I'm going to hazard a guess at what the "big secret" is for 2.4; Elite Dangerous launches on the Wii U!

Yes, I've been drinking

 

[Sardu]

Why should an entire game's design be built to accomodate an individual?

We had endless posts in the DDF of people who wanted to pause the game in case the doorbell rang - I kid you not! This is the same thing - why should FD pander to the lowest common denominator for available play time. Why not say "You know, our game is great, and we're fully behind it, and you'll need a couple of hours per session depending on what you want to do".

If you have only 90 mins per day, you can still get stuff done - people have been playing it to date, so they must have been doing something right. Even WoW doesn't let you jump to the end of the raid because someone only has 5 minutes before they need to go do X in real life.

That's not the game's problem, that's their problem, and reducing the game to suit them reduces it for everyone, regardless how much time they have to spare.

Wow. A forum mod calling a portion of the playerbase a "lowest common denominator"? I see you guys are volunteer but really?

 

[Trueno33]

And that is your problem and yours alone. Not mine, not anyone else's.

I ignore Solo and Private Group every time I turn the game on. I ignore CQC as well.

You won't see me shed tears over their continued existence.

It's not his problem alone. The unprecedented turmoil in this forum is quite a sign that, should instamagic make it to the game, chances are that alone will be you playing the game. On open, of course.

So, it's not his problem alone