I think that's actually a good illustration of why the SPOILER tags were actually invented for forums! They seem to have lost their meaning a little bit on the way
Why Elite's riddles and story do not work for me
- Thread starter KiDra
- Start date
You do know FD manually shut down UA bombed stations, right?
And they can also "fix" them if they want to.
Furthermore, Maia is under Feds control.
And guess who was collecting Meta-Alloys non stop for half a year now?
Yep, Feds have an endless amount of MAs to repair important stations.
Soo... good luck CMDRs
Arguendo
Volunteer Moderator
Really? First it was the debacle with the "operation" against Heat Weapons, which clearly was a redundant protest as the issue was already being looked at. Now this as well. Is this really the extent of players' imagination these days? "I don't like the way they do things, so it has to burn!"
I hope FDev sets up a CG that ends up with immunizing all stations from UA bombing, just to spite those that have such limited imagination that UA bombing is the first and only thing to "get things done." Atleast with the UA Bombing of Jaques there was an in-game reason for it. The latest organised efforts have been for out-of-game reasons only.
I think the fact that I am an insignificant cmdr in a vast galaxy would be ruined if I was the hero of a story like wing commander. Because every other person has the same story I'm not unique at all. I don't know if there is a way to get the hero story aspect while maintaining distinct special experiences.
Maybe but none I can think of. Which is probably why no one AFAIK in this thread suggested that.
Ok... I'm not sure what 'people like me' are, but can you are correct: Can you explain how there is no way to get involved?
Could you not have involved yourself before the puzzle was solved? You said it was 90% out of game, but does that not leave 10% in game. What prevented involvement at that stage? I do indeed genuinely not understand.
Even if there was an in-game puzzle, once someone has solved it and found the thing *using the in-game tools and mechanics and mini-games that people are asking for*, what is there for everyone else to do still? Someone will still have solved it before us both. They'll be videos on youtube of people visiting the places afterwards. We still won't have done anything and someone else will still be 'first'. The puzzle will still be over.
I keep seeing this claim, and it's not at all true if you are referring to the alien site; I believe 2.2 dropped on a Monday or Tuesday and the site was found early on Friday or Saturday morning, (about ten minutes after I went to bed *grumble*). xDeath can confirm, but it was not 'a day' as I have seen repeatedly claimed. More crucially, it was NOT solved in the way intended and is hence rather moot as an example. FD had an in-game clue-trail planned for us, which was made entirely irrelevant because the planet was found in a manner entirely unplanned by FD. FD have since stated that this planned and unused trail of puzzles will be re-used for something else. Jaques too was found much earlier than expected by FD, but this time using a simple in-game tool.
Maia is under control of the Ant Hill Mob.
FD is doing everything to prevent a Fed control of the system. The last CGs there have been a complete joke.
I think he was being polite. The riddles as solved mostly outside of the game once you picked up one useless artifacts or drove in some useless empty crash site.
In the game, aside from ganking noobs in open, these assets serve no purpose at all unless you start working outside of the game on the threadnaught where the same people posts 10s of messages per day and where a handful of dedicated hunters find everything.
Maybe the 99% of the player base who are not there are very excited while they watch (no pun intended), but I'd rather see an official poll confirming that. Interestingly enough, the riddles contingent seem to disagree.
What a surprise.
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The one finished in a few hours so for once the Empire could win ?
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And the Horizons only Fed CG, and the oh Feds did win even with horizons only so lets give the Imps an other two CGs without any thing they can do against it … (Ok, one of those two was the Imp-Insta-Win-CG).
Anyway if anybody wants to disrupt FD story line in Maia just work for the Feds. Apparently that drives FD crazy.
Back on the original subject, I agree. ARG mechanics should be an extra thing to layer on top of your game, not the core mechanism behind the story progression of the game. It is a bit of lazy design, to be honest.
Integrating stuff like that into game mechanisms would make exploration so much more engaging and worthwhile.
Integrating stuff like that into game mechanisms would make exploration so much more engaging and worthwhile.
I'm not sure how more than that number of people can be the first to solve a problem? How can we make it so that everyone can solve the puzzles? Or -say- 10,000 people. It would be genuinely great for 10,000 players to all be able to get the thrill of being the first ones to crack puzzles, and I'd totally support that. How would it happen?
To clarify, *individual steps* of mysteries are ultimately solved by one or two people. Lots of other people try. Lots of ideas get posted. People test and explore the theories. Eventually someone posts a theory that looks solid. A bunch of people go and see if it works. The individual stage of the puzzle is solved and people start looking at what to do next. Puzzles have multiple stages. It's not like one person does it and nothing else happens. It's a community effort. If we are talking about bringing involvement to a wider community... how is that going to happen? Are the trail of in-game puzzles going to be simple enough for every individual player to solve? Then the player is involved, but he's just repeating what other people have done and following their footsteps. Is that any different than going to Lave and Merope, writing down the nonogram numbers and doing the nonogram yourself?
Is that ok as regards player satisfaction: Having a bunch of clues and knowing that the puzzle is designed simply enough that everyone can do it and that a bunch of people did it first and found the mystery? At this point, you can just look up the 'end' co-ordinates on the forum (much like we do now on the Canonn thread) and not bother with the puzzle. I'm not really seeing that as a solution.
And if the in-game mechanic puzzle is extremely hard, then players will feel excluded again. It will have to require 'out of game' knowledge and thinking to be mentally challenging. Or we can make it challenging in terms of running around doing stuff, at which point people will shout 'grind' and claim that FD are just padding out 'empty' gameplay. Or it can be a fiendishly hard mini-game that requires cat-like reactions or something.... which is then still excluding a large number of players, but this time on a hand-eye co-ordination level, rather than an intellectual one. That's not a solution to the problem, either.
I guess I've seen 'in game mini game' used a lot as a way of making puzzles inclusive. The thing is, that still doesn't help enormously as regards players not feeling that they have participated in contributing to emerging plot and story. It's still a puzzle. It will either require a lot of skill - excluding players - or little skill - mooting the entire process and just making it a process. In either case, a player who currently feels rather excluded is still not going to get that buzz of being a discoverer of something new, because there'll already be 10 Youtube videos.
The only way I can see that work is via a CG. But it'd be dissatisfying, I think. Here is why: We'd all have a puzzle thing to do, and if we do it, we count as contributing to the CG and can only contribute one. We have all helped the story. Now How hard do we want to make this? We can't make it hard because then people will feel excluded. And anyway, if it is made hard then the solution would be on youtube and many of the people doing it will just follow a walk-through Really easy so that anyone can do it? OK: It's fetch quests or whatever - a quest line that requires no particular skill (because we want everyone to feel like they can be involved). So we - as players - go through the series of mini-games, scanning stuff, doing nothing intellectually too difficult so that people feel excluded, nor requiring too big a ship, or ninja reactions. At the end of it we get a 'point' towards the CG.
We haven't been the first to do the thing, we can look up the solution to the thing if we want, and the puzzle is kind of useless after the CG ends. But we have contributed as one of 10,000 contributes to the CG. We have individual plot and story. Is that satisfying as regards being involved? Bear in mind that if you miss the CG, do not find the start of the quest, or buy the game a year later, the player will not be contributing to story and will not be involved: The entire series of things will even possibly be gone from the game.
As an aside:
How many people here who want more plot, more involvement and individual mini-games and in-game tools would be willing to pay £10 a month as subscriptions?
How many would be willing for FD to permanently put aside one point release a season (or at least a good measure of one), every season for story development, effectively reducing 'new stuff' by 10-25% per season? We don't get to pick and chose what gets dropped for this: It would cost the sacrifice of 10-25% of features we want.
I'm personally good with the later, but not the former. Drop it down to three point releases in a season, but over the same period of time, at the cost of more storyline.
In reference to your 'aside' first, Frontier is not and will not be a subscription model game, that has been clear from the horses mouth, also, all the old polls on this subject showed the playerbase were against a subscription model, (though personally I wouldn't mind). I do not think it is fair to 'scaremonger' like this in relation to Elite D's main story, we did not have to pay a subscription for powerplay to be introduced, for CQC to be introduced, for SLF's to be introduced and a whole bunch of other features, why should we have to for a more engaging and inclusive story arc?
The same goes for the 'put aside season element x, y, z' argument, all the above was introduced with, (in certain cases and releases), a delay to the intended season length Frontier were aiming for, though there have been some gripes the community seems largely okay with this though obviously 'on time' and 'quicker' are always appreciated if done right. It doesn't really do us any good to venture down this speculative road because counters such as 'scrap ship kits and paint jobs for a year and sort the story' are sure to follow.
As to the large part of your post, many of us would like the mystery concerning the aliens to be a one, two or three thousand piece puzzle as opposed to a two or three piece puzzle. This thousand piece puzzle can consist of the existing area that Canonn and other groups are working in as well as the current missions, discovery and piracy/bounty hunting mechanics. This really does not have to be a completely new thing that takes years to code at the expense of everything else. Lets just have more variety, more commanders involved because more interest points are being tagged by Frontier and quite simply more than a small fraction of the playerbase saying, 'hey, well at least I contributed my 0.1%'.
What an interesting topic!
I'm a fairly infrequent player of ED, but I have played the various versions of Elite right back to the Atari ST version (and Oolite, among others). Personally, I find the two major mystery storylines absolutely fascinating. I haven't contributed - I don't get enough time to play games to do so - but, just as I find real-life science, archaeology and deductive processes interesting, I enjoy spectating as the story unfolds and clues are discovered and worked out.
It's a fact that not everyone can actively participate in the vanguard of the discovery process - and that many may have no interest in it. While Canonn and the Rift people are busy following their breadcrumb trails, lots of players are happily (yes, I know, YMMV!) mining, pirating, bounty hunting, exploring, trading or powerplaying. It would be good to see each career direction have a little more influence on the overall picture than they do right now, but they are all valid and enjoyable ways of playing the game. Mystery hunting is just another career choice. Just as in real life, it gets perhaps a little more attention than some of the less glamorous trades, and there are a few stars who happen to be particularly talented and successful within it, but that's true of all the other careers as well.
I do wonder if there is more than one route to the various discoveries. As xDeath showed, a bit of lateral thinking can bypass the FD-intended story path, but it may be that they have (or will) give us a number of different routes to progress the story - some of which have been suggested by others above.
I also love the fact that a few people who are upset with things have found an in-game way of expressing that with UA-bombing of systems. If I was an FDev, I'd totally accept that and weave it into the developing story.
Anyway, just thought I'd have my 2p-worth. Now, back to the popcorn and occasional sight-seeing trips in-game.
I'm a fairly infrequent player of ED, but I have played the various versions of Elite right back to the Atari ST version (and Oolite, among others). Personally, I find the two major mystery storylines absolutely fascinating. I haven't contributed - I don't get enough time to play games to do so - but, just as I find real-life science, archaeology and deductive processes interesting, I enjoy spectating as the story unfolds and clues are discovered and worked out.
It's a fact that not everyone can actively participate in the vanguard of the discovery process - and that many may have no interest in it. While Canonn and the Rift people are busy following their breadcrumb trails, lots of players are happily (yes, I know, YMMV!) mining, pirating, bounty hunting, exploring, trading or powerplaying. It would be good to see each career direction have a little more influence on the overall picture than they do right now, but they are all valid and enjoyable ways of playing the game. Mystery hunting is just another career choice. Just as in real life, it gets perhaps a little more attention than some of the less glamorous trades, and there are a few stars who happen to be particularly talented and successful within it, but that's true of all the other careers as well.
I do wonder if there is more than one route to the various discoveries. As xDeath showed, a bit of lateral thinking can bypass the FD-intended story path, but it may be that they have (or will) give us a number of different routes to progress the story - some of which have been suggested by others above.
I also love the fact that a few people who are upset with things have found an in-game way of expressing that with UA-bombing of systems. If I was an FDev, I'd totally accept that and weave it into the developing story.
Anyway, just thought I'd have my 2p-worth. Now, back to the popcorn and occasional sight-seeing trips in-game.
Let's be pragmatic for a moment here :
Creating an enigma/puzzle to solve in the game, using external tools is likely an order of magnitude simple/cheaper than
coding a tool suite integrated to the game to solve them. And then god forbids that they then put an enigma that cannot
be cracked with said integrated tools.
And then, if an enigma is based on greek mythology, should the game include a standard body of literature about it too ?
What about including a full python dev environement ? Where does it stop ?
In other words : either they spend time and efforts integrating tools that will constrain strongly what types of enigma can be put
in game, or they can use their time only on enigmas and let the players use external tools.
It might sound elitist (XD) or a bit reactionnary but here it is :
Creating an enigma/puzzle to solve in the game, using external tools is likely an order of magnitude simple/cheaper than
coding a tool suite integrated to the game to solve them. And then god forbids that they then put an enigma that cannot
be cracked with said integrated tools.
And then, if an enigma is based on greek mythology, should the game include a standard body of literature about it too ?
What about including a full python dev environement ? Where does it stop ?
In other words : either they spend time and efforts integrating tools that will constrain strongly what types of enigma can be put
in game, or they can use their time only on enigmas and let the players use external tools.
It might sound elitist (XD) or a bit reactionnary but here it is :
- Given the number of players, any average difficulty enigma will be solved within hours of being found : case in point, the nonogram, once the correct data was known was mostly solved in one single evening.
- Lasting enigmas (i.e. not solvable in one evening) will need to be really tough nuts. And likely that means using external Tools or even coding stuff to crack them.
- I think the best bet for FD is to have : a lot of proc gen average difficulty enigmas, solvable in one evening by the average player. Maybe giving some basic Tools in game for those would be a smart move. Then have a few hard enigmas that will need a week for a single player or ~days to a group. Lastly 2-3 very hard enigmas like the ruins, likely to last for a month or more. For hard and very hard stuff, keep the reliance on 3rd party Tools.
Sadly, this is exactly the kind of comment FD would receive in the event of introducing an 'story missions' which require the gathering or stuff, long range travel, or anything which isn't constantly directly challenging in some way. Anything 'low skill' can be considered a grind if it takes more than an hour to complete. Anything less than several hours to complete is going to be accused of not providing enough content or being over too swiftly. Anything 'high skill' is said to exclude players.
It's rather a catch 22.
Or maybe there is no enigma to find yet - wouldn't that be gutting, finding out that the puzzle hasn't been solve-able by anyone due to a bug and only been pushed out in today's update awaiting FD to put something something to do with the Formidine Rift into GalNet on Thursday ? ( Re: https://twitter.com/drewwagar/status/798490218961768448 )
Probably about time as the mysteries thread is starting to feel like a riot is on the way anyway, so something needs to happen to move the story on and we can all be amazed at how fiendishly clever the clues were and bow down to the superior intellect that created these puzzles.
Probably about time as the mysteries thread is starting to feel like a riot is on the way anyway, so something needs to happen to move the story on and we can all be amazed at how fiendishly clever the clues were and bow down to the superior intellect that created these puzzles.
I like the idea of randomised unique puzzles for each player. Stops people doing walk-throughs. Gives a sense of achievement.
The problem is: What if 30% of the player base cannot solve it? Is it still being 'exclusive'? I'm also not sure how we could avoid players skipping to the end by just looking up the 'prize' location or thing on the net. Essentially: Even if every puzzle is different, if we know the answers are at the end of the book, we can still just skip to it.
There is of course an element of truth to that but it would still be better than just having the current implementation. Even if it was only 1% more of the playerbase involved in the type of gameplay you describe it would be better than now. This kind of stuff running alongside what the guys and gals in and around Canonn are doing currently would help no matter how much you dismiss it. Those that complain about the 'grind' are rarely doing so in regards to the story from what I have seen and although I agree that some would probably do so were such an avenue of gameplay introduced, I do not think that should be used as a disincentive for more variety. I also take issue with the 'black and white' nature of either 'hard' or 'easy', there is a whole sliding scale here that can be utilised across a wide spectrum of areas within and outside of the current game mechanics.
I really hate to say this to some of you guys but the suggestions in this thread would have practically zero impact on what you do in terms of solving text, audio and visual clues. The only possible 'impact' I can see is that maybe, just maybe, (depending on potential implementation), you guys would not have a monopoly on solving and resolving everything, is that really a bad thing?
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Both your posts hit the nail almost squarely on the head for me. I want to play the game IN the game not having to do all this other nonsense. The other thing I don't want is the story "piecemeal" - I want to whole thing there and ready to find not this little bit here and a little bit there because between waiting, you have to put up with shallow gameplay and massively bugged code.
I'm just pointing out that ongoing story missions which are not restricted to a single puzzle every point release will - if they are designed to include new in-game tools, mini-games and mechanics. Take a lot more developer time than knocking up a nonogram, for example. If these missions are to take less than the current amount of time to solve, then there will need to be a larger number, lest all the plot be solved within an hour of a patch drop and for us to be left twiddling our fingers.
What is more, this is not a one-shot resources use, like putting a new feature in the game. This is an ongoing use of resource, in every release.
That Dev time has to come from somewhere. Do FD hire more people (which means more costs for us) to do it, or do they do it at the cost of delaying other features continually through out the development cycle, or do they hire some extra guys and just give it to us for free?
I understand what the problem is. I understand what the goal is. I'd just like to hear a concrete solution. We've had some good ideas, but it's still very nebulous:
1) People are [for a variety of reasons] feeling excluded from the story and want to be involved.
2) Somethingsomething mini game, new in game mechanics something
3) Everyone feels included in storyline.
I'd like to try and come up with '2' in a less nebulous manner. A solution is desired: Let's get to specifics.