I'm a Casual Player: What Elite Needs to Draw and Keep Us

Elite needs casual players.

This isn't 1984. Games cost a lot of money to make. They need an audience of sufficient size to support that cost. Ergo, Elite probably won't make the long haul as a niche title with 4500 daily concurrent players.

Here is how you draw in theore casual crowd and keep us. Reasoning included:

-Dont waste our time. We want to fly ships in space. We DO NOT want:

-Long load times. You MUST begin loading transition sooner than you are. There's a thread here about that. Look it up. Ten or more seconds per transition, with 50 or more transitions in a weeknight play session...too much down time. We want to play, not watch.

-Spreadsheet Management: I want increased FSD range. What I DONT want: grinding mats. Tracking what I need using Alt+tab 5 times a night. Being forced to mine, or haul freight. Or drive those boring buggies.

All mats should be available on the market, as drops from exploded ships, etc. Get back to letting me play my way, says the casual gamer, and stop forcing me to play yours.

Moreover, show me what I have the Mata to build. Right there, IN your game. Every time I have the mats to complete any recipe from ANY engineer I have unlocked, show me. Right in my ship.

Lastly: give me the ability to craft the items RIGHT IN MY SHIP, WITH NO WAIT. Every time you make me alt tab to check a re open, or fly halfway across the bubble to craft something, you are pushing me toward quitting your game. You're wasting my time again.

I, and others like me, lead a busy life, at the center of which video games do not sit. If you want me, my ample free time and my not inconsiderable disposable income, stop wasting my time.

As with:

-Long Grinds: Boring. Waste of time. I would find your game more enjoyable and less tedious, and would play it more, if there were more multirole ships at affordable prices, that could actually hold their own against enemies. Alas, all of those ships require an enormous grind just to make the game convenient to play. If I wanted that, I'd play a tablet game. Make multirole ships less (and frankly, all ships) less costly. The grind isn't fun; it puts me off playing, as opposed to retaining me.

-Forced Combat: the number one reason I play Euro/American truck sim instead of Elite.

Pirates in your galaxy aren't pirates. They are rampaging psychotics. None of them want to negotiate. They all just want to kill me. Period.

And they want to kill me, over a few mats. Or cargo that isn't worth the effort, if I have any at all.

Knock it off. Pirates should be pirates, not crappy RPG random bandits in space. They should be discerning, intelligent, and fairly rare.

Furthermore, the magically spawning, psychic pirates who auto interdicted me e wry single mission...6 times per run...that HAS to stop, if you want to keep players like me. It's not fun, it's not fair (as in, these enemies don't use the game logic or rules). It's pure frustration.

If I want danger, I will carry high end or rare goods. I will bounty hunt. I will...well, no, I WONT Power Play, because it's crap. One of the worst systems I have ever seen in a game. But I WOULD do it, if it were made at all fun. Or even interesting. Which it isn't.

Point: If it's danger I'm seeking, I will find it. Or so things to attract it. Hang around rate goods runs too long. Get a rep for hauling pricey items. All of which should matter.

But as the guy who rarely even HAS a cargo hold, and most hunts in RES or explores...pirates shouldn't even LOOK ate twice. More less waste their time with me. The things we do should matter.

Another concern:

If I wanted to manage spreadsheets, I would return to EVE (because flight model aside, as a game it's FAR better than Elite under the hood). Stop requiring me track half a dozen faction reps, needed materials and outfitting and ship locations in third party tools.

Right now, in the 21st century, I can go online to shop. For clothes. Cars. Anything. And manufacturers will direct me to places where I can buy the goods I want. They will even offer sales and discounts. Because they WANT my business.

Yet, here is Elite. One thousand years in the future. One THOUSAND. And no internet. No web. I have to fly around, HOPING to find the thing I WANT to buy.

It's frankly stupid. No other word for it. Sorry folks. I should be able to check markets in near real time, right in game. But you won't let me. Because your (badly misguided) lead developer is stuck in a tablet game, free to play mindset, and thinks that inflating the time it takes to do things in game, will keep me, and others like me, playing longer.

Trouble is, us casual gamers...we aren't hand held addicts. We are people with diverse interests who also like to fly space ships on a somewhat regular basis. Artificially inflating the time it takes to do things in games, will inflate nothing except the frequency with which j I choose to do OTHER things, instead of play Elite. Which in turn, correlates with my shrinking desire to continue spending money on the game going forward.

In short: stop wasting our time if you want us to play. Long transition times, market load times, forced trips across the bubble to craft a single item. Collect-a-thon mechanics. No market search. Frequent, forced interdiction over the two random garbage items I was given for a mission.

These are ALL time sinks in disguise. Many of them, deliberately intended to artificially inflate time spent in game.

This is disrespectful of players. Of their time. I used to play Warframe. The game moved more and more from fun to time sink grind. Myself, and others...Simply quit. Quit saying. Quit spending.

Elite is headed down that same road. Either replace the mentality of your decision maker...or the decisioaker themselves. Because right now, the design direction is KILLING this game.
 
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In the 34th century ships' computers don't have the memory of a 1990's scientific calculator to store the trade prices for visited stations, apparently. The reason for this? "It would make trading too easy" if pricelists were stored. A dev said that, way back in the day. (Source now untraceable.)

Elite is indeed designed with conspicuous artificial difficulty built-in. It's practically a pillar.

Granted, it's not the job of a game to put all of the answers at your fingertips, to serve up every solution to every possible problem; sometimes you just have to get on out there and find stuff yourself. And that can be part of what makes a great game. The problems start when artificial difficulty becomes lazy and conspicuous, as is often the case in ED.
 
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looks like an ultimatum.
"Make ED casual or ".

Or you won't have enough players to support continued development.

It's not an ultimatum. It's a reality. And I am not suggesting we make the game brain dead. I am suggesting we make it less outright inconvenient to play.

The point, after all, is fun. Elite shouldn't be a job. Right now, it often feels like one.
 
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That was a lovely and well thought out post OP, nicely done. The trouble is that Elite just isn't for casual players. So... Sorry about that, I suppose? The door's over there.
 
Tbh OP there is little to no point in pointing out things to some on here. A good few of us have been playing Nero's Fiddle for some months now, next expac may give a better idea of where we are at.
 
Let's look at your assumptions:-

1. Elite needs casual players.

Elite needs $$. It needs to shift units. It needs cash from expansions and hats and ship paint schemes. The model they have chosen isn't subscription, you pay up front. It does not need casual players.

2. ...Long haul with only 4,500 players...

Open does perhaps need more players in it. There are already million page threads about that. It doesn't matter how many play concurrently, as above it depends on the number of units sold.

Those two things pretty much make the rest of your post - I would like to see the following changes implemented, but I can't see how this creation of a "casual player" gives your points any more added validity. I honestly don't think this is the game you want.

The rest of your points I agree with, in that they are mostly positive gameplay developments (and that I have 3rd party tools to use to do most of these things with having to ALT-TAB out, but yes would be nice to have them in game).

Elite is not a casual game, and does not need to cater especially to casual players. Long terms goal are admirable (and I suppose I should invoke "the grind is in your mind" here), but you can do anything with any sized ship.

You don't need a bazillon credits and an A rated 'conda, unless your goal is a bazillion credits and an A rated conda (for example). If your goal is an A rated conda and a bazillion credits then you are probably not a casual player.
 
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Any evidence for that assertion, OP? Or was that statement just intended to end the post with dramatic impact?

Well...several hundred thousand people bought the game on Steam.

Where are they? Not even a significant fraction of them are playing it regularly.

I wonder if, right now, sales could even fund a Season 3? I sincerely doubt it.

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It looks like FD has no clue how they want ED to be.
What you have said is basic functionality, which this game hasn't.


Its not because you're a casual gamer.

The game is broken from any side you look.

Thanks for this. I agree, and I appreciate your post.
 
Well...several hundred thousand people bought the game on Steam.

Where are they? Not even a significant fraction of them are playing it regularly.

I wonder if, right now, sales could even fund a Season 3? I sincerely doubt it.
.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yes, Elite needs to recruit casual players....MMmmmmmmm. Like a hole in the head? This game was never designed to be a casual game, maybe you picked up the wrong game for your play style / time allowance.
 
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Well...several hundred thousand people bought the game on Steam.

Where are they? Not even a significant fraction of them are playing it regularly.

I wonder if, right now, sales could even fund a Season 3? I sincerely doubt it.

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Thanks for this. I agree, and I appreciate your post.

More assertions with no evidence.

See ya.
 
I dunno, Elite seems to be doing just fine, financially. You have some valid points, but - if you don't wanna grind, adapt your playstyle. Pirates actually demand the goods you have, and if you jettison them, they'll let you go. And, most importantly, Elite is not supposed to not have combat. It is, among other things, a spaceship combat game.
 
I'd like to see the metrics you have that show the design of this game is killing it. Until then this is just a selfish rant.

Its more a critique on design than a selfish rant (or at least if you take the good bits out), members of the public can't really provide data that shows the design works or does not but the truth is its just as impossible to prove that the design is keeping players as pushing them away. Forums are inherently negative but the last two patches have been particular bad round here it seems, that is about all the evidence i've seen - enough for a minor small projection but nothing really beyond that.
 
if there were more multirole ships at affordable prices, that could actually hold their own against enemies.

hey, a cobra mkIII costs fully tooled up 13 mio cr, which you can earn in ~10-20 hours play time, and you can enjoy the whole game in it - there is no activity in the game which you can't do and survive in a cobra mkIII, engineered or not.

other cheap "multiroles" with the same survivability: DBS, courier (rank locked), Adder (with enhanced drives which you can buy, not engineer at farseer, martuk and palin). I'm flying ll of those, so i know what i'm talking about ;-). and i have a horizon and a non-horizon account, so there is no engineering on my second account.

furthermore, because NPC spawns are also ship dependant, flying in a python/anaconda will only scale the interdicting enemy ships - so from that perspective there is no need to sidegrade to a more expensive ship.

p.s.: i disliked the beginning of your post when you were using the royal "we", but liked when you switched to I, and can understand most of your feedback.
 
I wish you the best of luck, OP.

This forum is full of old guard and grind types who actually enjoy having to spend 40 hours a week to make any semblance of progression in-game.
 
I dunno, Elite seems to be doing just fine, financially. You have some valid points, but - if you don't wanna grind, adapt your playstyle. Pirates actually demand the goods you have, and if you jettison them, they'll let you go. And, most importantly, Elite is not supposed to not have combat. It is, among other things, a spaceship combat game.

Danger should be present in Elite. But constant interdiction by psychic psychopaths for a tiny few mats FDev refuse to allow me to store despite my wanting to...it's absurd.

We are being punished with NPC harassment due to basic functions the devs refuse to implement. Because they also choose to create a universe with more psychotic pirates than sane, functional humans.

I'm just asking for the game to not outright waste my time. I don't mind playing. I do mind constant alt tabbing, spreadsheet management and boring Collect-a-thon grinds.

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I wish you the best of luck, OP.

This forum is full of old guard and grind types who actually enjoy having to spend 40 hours a week to make any semblance of progression in-game.

Why people equate time spent in a game with some sort of badge of honor is as hard to understand, as it is ridiculous to behold. But they do.

They're the reason we can't have nice things. Like a Season 3 FDev probably lack the paying customers to support right now. I mean, hopefully I'm wrong, but no way am I buying it up front. Not after Power Grind, brown rock go cart simulator and RNGineers.
 
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