Why Elite's riddles and story do not work for me

[Drelthar]

Did you just skip the rest of my post?

Haha, nope. I was agreeing with it. I quoted it because it was a good illustration of the point.

 

[Leo Sagan]

So basically a set of fetch quests with puzzle elements. I have no problem with that, and I actually feel like (door entry codes and other things not yet supported by the game) this is something that would be eminently doable.

Yes and that's the thing isn't it : I really don't think the expectations are that high, basic stuff will do just fine.

Some people would have a problem with it, as it would be the same for everyone which breaks immersion.

Of course they would : this is the Internet, you cannot please everyone. But honestly, between "Watch the CANONN thread and you tube" or Ydiss' proposal, I know what I'd choose. I mean, this is a video game, the players are supposed to actually *DO* something, not just *WATCH*.

So yeah, it is tricky to design a storyline in an open world, there is no PERFECT way to do it, but the player base is mature enough to accept that, so FD should go for it and improve things on the way. And quit the "just sit and watch" policy, this is merely the worst a gaming company can come up with.

 

[Arindor]

Although I'd like to be that special snowflake in the galaxy, I appreciate that ED is community driven. Even so, sometimes I wish that FD could have put the same effort into making my journey into the galaxy more personal. However, I really enjoy dipping into the threadnaught and reading all those ideas, it's really amazing what Canonn et al. have achieved so far. So well done to them!

 

[Theodrid]

What I'm wondering is how you would like those things to work? They all have problems. Discoveries, unexpected encounters, signal sources all have a random element to them (which people will complain about: grinding to find the ones they need to progress). If they're *not* random then it's effectively a treasure trail (which is just a set of puzzles). I wouldn't mind it if you had to go searching for particular types of mission on the bulletin board (e.g. a suspicious looking courier mission) or having to search various locations for the thing you're after (e.g. we know it's in Sol but not which station).

I'm sure that the devs are keen to hear suggestions for how -- within the confines of what the game supports -- they can make the storyline appeal to a more diverse set of players. But the majority of what I hear is "I don't like it", then when challenged to describe what they *would* like the answer is always "I don't know" or "That's not my job". Criticism is *always* welcome, as long as it's constructive.

First off, I think it is disingenuous to state that all your hear in response is 'I don't know' and 'not my job', there have been many suggestions, (not exclusive to this thread though there are some here).

In my opinion there is much that could be done:- The following is on a 'one mission per commander rule'

2000 missions 'spawn' at random locations across the bubble - these missions are to retrieve data from ships destroyed by unknown means in USS's and the like. Upon retrieval of this data it would all need to be taken to 1 or 2 research stations, maybe a Canonn site, maybe Sirius Corp.

At the same time, another 2000 missions spawn across the bubble at random locations, 'Alien ruins discovered in x, y z system, exact info on locale incomplete due to discovery satelite destruction'. Players head to the system, explore it and retrieve date or artifacts from the various sites. As above these need to be taken to various research centres or stations.

At the same time, 'Notorious pirates have stolen valuable alien date from Federation/Empire Research station x, y or z', players must track down, destroy these pirates and retrieve the date.

At the same time, missions spawn, 'unusual asteroid field detected near sector 'blah', miners head out there to mine previously unknown metals and minerals, all taken to research etc etc.

Once all that is done it's onto the next branch....(I won't go on you get the picture).

While the above does not involve everyone it is far more inclusive than the current 'codes and ciphers' implementation. The above involves, discovery, combat, mining and delivery, it gives players a much greater sense that 'it could be them', of 'I contributed to this thing' of 'I'm involved, yay!.

 

[markuslig]

bad riddles are bad riddles

If you have any P`n`P rpg experience you know that what FD are doing in this regard is just wrong, the riddles are very poorly designed, and so are the mechanics around them, and so are the clues... that`s why they have to give us out of game hints all the time

an even worse issue is that many times after somebody has solved the riddle we have to wait for the next part until next major patch lol... using the P`n`P reference again it`s like the game master saying "sorry guys, I have made the riddles so ridiculous that i honestly thought that you will not solve them today and I haven`t prepared any conclusion or a follow up so we have to call it a day today and I will see you next month when i think something up, if you want to bring friends remember that apart from the standard RPG club payment you also need to be an owner of our Adventurer season pack (only 60$!)"

The reason behind it is simple though

The story is not for us. It is for the press. It is a marketing tool to get the headlines, it makes for a nice writing that fools the ones not being a part of it that this game has an in game storyline. Part of PR

lol, saying it like that makes the entire game complete bull c...

 

[Siranui]

Yes and that's the thing isn't it : I really don't think the expectations are that high, basic stuff will do just fine.

So take out the fiendish puzzles and replace them with fetch quests?

Fetch quests aren't really puzzles.

 

[Leo Sagan]

lol, saying it like that makes the entire game complete bull c...

This thread's point entirely

C'mon FD, you can do better than this.

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

So take out the fiendish puzzles and replace them with fetch quests?

No one here is asking to replace anything. If anything, this game needs additions.

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

2000 missions 'spawn' at random locations across the bubble - these missions are to retrieve data from ships destroyed by unknown means in USS's and the like. Upon retrieval of this data it would all need to be taken to 1 or 2 research stations, maybe a Canonn site, maybe Sirius Corp.

At the same time, another 2000 missions spawn across the bubble at random locations, 'Alien ruins discovered in x, y z system, exact info on locale incomplete due to discovery satelite destruction'. Players head to the system, explore it and retrieve date or artifacts from the various sites. As above these need to be taken to various research centres or stations.

At the same time, 'Notorious pirates have stolen valuable alien date from Federation/Empire Research station x, y or z', players must track down, destroy these pirates and retrieve the date.

At the same time, missions spawn, 'unusual asteroid field detected near sector 'blah', miners head out there to mine previously unknown metals and minerals, all taken to research etc etc.

Once all that is done it's onto the next branch....(I won't go on you get the picture).

While the above does not involve everyone it is far more inclusive than the current 'codes and ciphers' implementation. The above involves, discovery, combat, mining and delivery, it gives players a much greater sense that 'it could be them', of 'I contributed to this thing' of 'I'm involved, yay!.

FD, hire this guy or else Chris Robert will !

 

[markuslig]

They cant even produce content for the shop, dont expect too much

 

[Leo Sagan]

They cant even produce content for the shop, dont expect too much

Now, you're being unfair, I'm told there are coloured laz0rz now

 

[Theodrid]

FD, hire this guy or else Chris Robert will !

Cheers buddy, though I doubt I could work with CR without nutting him! :O

 

[Ian Phillips]

They cant even produce content for the shop, dont expect too much

It's a big puzzle, which colour to choose.....

 

[KiDra]

Agreed, I never liked having to solely rely on External Sources and having to use technical Analysis Software to solve something that should be 100.0% solvable using in-Game Tools provided. [...]

I quoted your contribution and added it to my OP as I find it adds nicely to the understanding of the problem.

 

[Leo Sagan]

It's a big puzzle, which colour to choose.....

[video=youtube;KVzZVYtt64I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVzZVYtt64I[/video]

Forum Dads FTW !

Ooooh this one will get locked ... I can feel it now, this one will get locked ...

 

[Zeeman]

I started playing with the release of the Guardians Update again after a pause of maybe one or two months. I headed to the alien ruins, the atmosphere was great, creepy, immersive and there were some shiny, unknown objects to be found. So I drove around looking for clues, collected all types of ancient artifacts and pondered about the place. Then I headed online to look for what users on the forums found out so far. That was when I got frustrated with Elite again.

In order to solve the riddles we had to record audio, look at sonographs, find the codes hidden and decipher them. Or we have to take high resolution screenshots and use CAD/Vector-graphics-software to solve the map riddle, but then again there is no way to just type in coordinates of even see system coordinates, except for the grid in ED (?). It neither helps that beacon messages are encoded in caesar ciphters, cause nobody would use such a weak cipher, but that at least that can be solved more or less ingame.

In other words, too many riddles cannot be solved ingame. I have to get out of the game and use third party tools to make progress if I want to solve them on my own.

Then I soon realised that all these shiny ancient relics I gathered have no real monetary value, compared to other endeavours and when I keep them in the hope that an engineer will one day build me something awesome with them, then I cannot use any of my other ships anymore, because cargo has to stay with me and cannot be stored in a station inventory. Do I better keep them now, crippling me, because the Feds will be like "this is mine!" and station battle cruisers there?

Bottom line is: Following the story line and trying to solve the riddles breaks immersion and thus the game for me and the cargo mechanics punish me for collecting rare items for later.

I emphasize that I really appreciate that Frontier puts effort into their riddles and that they are engaged in the story telling, but to me FDev made the wrong design choices with the riddles.


EDIT:

I found the following contribution adds much to the understanding of the problem, so Kudos to FalconFly:

At least there are some solid clues that have gotten results. Give the Formidine Rift thing a try...

"Follow the RR line until the stars thin out, then keep going. There is something there. Oh, and Eaofots. And Heart and Sol.

Go go go!!!

I'd kill for Aramaic inverse morse code clues broadcast as gamma radiation on the 5th Sunday of the month...

Z...

 

[KiDra]

I do wonder: What tools would we need ingame to solve more challenging scientific puzzles and enhance exploration?

• Graph/Sonograph displays?
• Surface scanner addons like a small camera turret you observe the planet surface with different filters?
• Orbit computer to set coordinates and height above surface to keep?
• Probes?

EDIT:

[...] I'd kill for Aramaic inverse morse code clues broadcast as gamma radiation on the 5th Sunday of the month...

That is what I mean. It would be so awesome if explorers had tools to analyze radiation and planet surfaces, including probes to not randomly fly around systems while exploring. These tools could easily be used for riddles, too.

 

[Leo Sagan]

I do wonder: What tools would we need ingame to solve more challenging scientific puzzles and enhance exploration?

• Graph/Sonograph displays?
• Surface scanner addons like a small camera turret you observe the planet surface with different filters?
• Orbit computer to set coordinates and height above surface to keep?
• Probes?

This would probably be terrible in terms of gameplay TBH. In fact, I suspect people don't want to be smart, they wanna *FEEL* smart. This is a space *SIM* after all.

Take me for instance : I'm no smart guy

But I do watch Netflix and I'm tired of seeing the good looking guy getting all the aliens.

Me wanna haz phun too. Me haz money. What do you say FD ? No aliens for me or do you want my euros ? Take a pick !

 

[Kubicide]

I'd have to agree. Riddles and puzzles should rely solely on the games own universe and on in-game tools and mechanics.

Also these riddles and puzzles mostly happen and are solved while I am doing other stuff in and outside the game.
They are only presented to the community as a whole and not to the individual players like in single player games. I would have liked them to be presented to me in the shape of a mission I can take on whenever I am ready.
The way things are now I have come to ignore all this lore puzzle stuff. I sometimes read about it in the news, but most often not even that.
For me all this is happening in the background and it is very abstract, far away and uninvolved.
This content might take place in another game for all I care and this is caused by the way it is implemented.

Have to say this probably best describes how I feel as well. They might as well be from another game.

The story telling died along with things like the iOS app and Mac support. And the antics now with these "grind inspired" time-consuming, deeply wrapped riddles and related events for the community are ... odd. As you said, they don't offer much for the individual player: no entertainment value. Yet to makes things better likely requires a significant change to the core game which is likely not going to happen.

We're 24 months into this game with a number of updates but none have done much to improve this aspect of the story telling likely because it can't improve much beyond what we have today. But, hey, look at the Brightside: we'll soon get the ability to customize our faces ...that we cannot share with others ...except for perhaps the crew member that will likely magically jump into the side-seat. Yay. There's killer gameplay content right there! Who needs a story when we can color our lips and eyebrows. Maybe they'll offer paint packages from the store and avatar add-ons like hats...

 

[Leo Sagan]

Have to say this probably best describes how I feel as well. They might as well be from another game.

The story telling died along with things like the iOS app and Mac support. And the antics now with these "grind inspired" time-consuming, deeply wrapped riddles and related events for the community are ... odd. As you said, they don't offer much for the individual player: no entertainment value. Yet to makes things better likely requires a significant change to the core game which is likely not going to happen.

We're 24 months into this game with a number of updates but none have done much to improve this aspect of the story telling likely because it can't improve much beyond what we have today. But, hey, look at the Brightside: we'll soon get the ability to customize our faces ...that we cannot share with others ...except for perhaps the crew member that will likely magically jump into the side-seat. Yay

See FD ? Told you. But you never listen

. There's killer gameplay content right there! Who needs a story when we can color our lips and eyebrows. Maybe they'll offer paint packages from the store and avatar add-ons like hats...

Actually, I'm pretty sure they will ...

 

[Thetele]

I do wonder: What tools would we need ingame to solve more challenging scientific puzzles and enhance exploration?

• Graph/Sonograph displays?
• Surface scanner addons like a small camera turret you observe the planet surface with different filters?
• Orbit computer to set coordinates and height above surface to keep?
• Probes?

Couple basic camera filters would do help a lot like infra-red and ultraviolet. Then hide messages that can be read with one filter active or combining info from both. Maybe Geiger counter. Binoculars with good zoom so we can look at stuff from distance to see if its crashed ship or just a rock. Or just ability to "record" sound and then display its message like some use external tools. It wouldn't actually analyze or record sound, just display what is in the audio in game window.

Many ways to do it and add stuff.

 

[Cosmos]

I'd wager most of those un-involved players want to be involved too, but it's just not accessible enough.

I think so but its rather esoteric and exclusive to folks who like to spend all their time code breaking. Not saying there shouldn't be puzzles and mysteries...

Oh, I see.

I shouldn't have called it a nerd club, my bad. More like DB's science club.

So take out the fiendish puzzles and replace them with fetch quests?

Fetch quests aren't really puzzles.

Some of this doesn't make any sense tbh. The tones and sounds coming from the UA, the broadcast from the UP, fair enough, makes some sense, fits with the game. But nonograms and brail? Someone explain to me how brail fits into this?

We need more game mechanics, the fact that all this ARG stuff takes people out of the game with third party tools is a demonstration of a lack of content.

And then there was that hidden CG.. Thing is I just don't feel apart of any of this, its like its content for a small exclusive bunch of people, someone solves, which leads on to another, and another.. We gonna be spending the next ten years doing this? All cool stuff in game gated by cryptology?

I wonder if the pacing for this is way too slow.. Two years and we've got two organic pod looking things, some metal spikes sticking out the ground, a few wreckages, and some sort of ruins re triangles. How much longer are they gonna drag this out? lol

After all this time it better lead up to something spectacular or folks are gonna be very disappointed.