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

[Deadspin]

Throw in a proper NPC police force that can actually protect players and I'm with you an all of the above.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I can fix the game in 5 steps:

1. Make it possible to trade with players. Credits, ships, modded items etc.

2. Make it possible to buy warehouses at stations and store commodities and materials.

3. Let us have player organizations so we can work collectively for a reason.

4. Let us build and maintian space stations or planetary bases (this is where the grind shpuld be).

5. Have a player market to bring purpose to the game.

B00m. Fixed.

Sounds a lot like a game that already exists (except with the ability to actually pilot the ship, of course)....

 

[z33r0x]

I hear you man, I do feel the same about wasting time, 80% of the time you play this game, or I , you watching star dust flying towards the screen... the travel system needs to be updated ASAP, it's not okay the way it is right now.

There should be a multi-jump feature, and also when super cruising, an option to auto-align with your target, you can't really relax right now, and traveling should be relaxing, they should increase acceleration by 2 times and same with deacceleration, and speed should be about 50% or even 100% faster, I would love supercruise it was more speed into it.

I have spent 160.000 Seconds watchting space dust, just jumping, and I spent even more time in supercuise looking at numbers ticking down, hundrets of hours watching space dust and numbers ticking down.

 

[Deadspin]

Sounds a lot like a game that already exists (except with the ability to actually pilot the ship, of course)....

Honestly, what's so bad about that? If FDev adopted some of CCPs ideas it would drastically improve Elite. Just look at how long that game has been running while still maintaining a decently sized player base.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Honestly, what's so bad about that? If FDev adopted some of CCPs ideas it would drastically improve Elite. Just look at how long that game has been running while still maintaining a decently sized player base.

Whether morphing this game into a form of that game would be a good thing (or not), much less a drastic improvement, is a matter of opinion. Everyone who bought this game did so without it being that game.

Interestingly, that game is about to go free to play - for one level of access at least.

 

[JosiahD]

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.

Except, if you think about it, E: D is just that - a job simulator. Or rather a life simulator. It's not simply a game - otherwise it would be all CQC-like - just jump in, do some stuff for credits, jump out. But it's not. If anything, E: D is about you living a life in the simulated galaxy. Asking the question of us - what if you could live in 3302, in a galaxy inhabited by a space-faring society, where flying spaceships is as normal as driving our cars today? What would you do? What career would you pursue? Where would you go? Where would your 'home' be? AND most things we do in-game have what goal? To earn credits so we can buy stuff and pay the bills - just without needing to buy food (for our own consumption) at the same time. Sounds like the motivation behind any job I've done - earn money so I can live (including the need for food of course). We need to stop thinking about E: D as being simply a game in the normal sense and instead look upon it as living a life in this galaxy, complete with the need to 'work' just to survive........feels a bit more like how E: D is meant to be approached imho, thinking back to what the original game was trying to achieve (you 'living' in a galaxy and not subjected to the gamey 3-life and score paradigm). Doesn't mean everything needs to be hard or frustrating, but nor should it be as simple as some seem to think. It does mean some activities will feel like work because that's exactly what it's simulating, in simulating life in such a galaxy. That's how I look at it at least. And it was never going to appeal to everyone.

 

[Deadspin]

I played that game for quite awhile and got to a point where I needed to pinch pennies, so I stopped subbing. It was great fun and the direct player interaction provided quite a bit of entertainment, though it often involved me dying gloriously to a player who had skills that far out-leveled my own.

Would taking those elements mentioned in the post you originally quoted and adding them to Elite really be so horrible?

 

[Enderby]

Some people like boring...

That must be why they like this game. I play it when I want something rather dull to do. And at those times I enjoy the boringness.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I played that game for quite awhile and got to a point where I needed to pinch pennies, so I stopped subbing. It was great fun and the direct player interaction provided quite a bit of entertainment, though it often involved me dying gloriously to a player who had skills that far out-leveled my own.

Would taking those elements mentioned in the post you originally quoted and adding them to Elite really be so horrible?

If it brought to the game the ability, for those with the inclination, to "spoil" the game for others more than it is currently possible to do so, in my opinion, yes.

 

[StiTch]

So, to break down your reply and why it's wrong, I provide the following:

1: There is already miniscule achievement in this game in relation to effort put in by the players. Travel to BP, wow, you did it, great. The game doesn't acknowledge this in any meaningful way. It's the players that provide the sense of achievement and for the people who don't regularly play with others in a group, or for those who prefer solo to anything else, there isn't anything beyond arbitrary rank increases.

2: Nobody asked for risk to be removed. OP asked for FDev to fix the incredibly ridiculous and broken interdiction spawn system and noted how the AI doesn't follow the same rules as the player, which is a pain in the butt.

3: OP did not ask for the engineer grind to be taken away. It's noted that the engineer grind should be made meaningful. If you can't understand why it's currently not, you should move along.

4: The only things you can take initiative to actually do/work towards are A) Bigger ships, B) Higher Rank, C) More credits. All of which contribute absolutely nothing to game lore, do not follow game lore or are just a means to an end. Anything else you work for is provided solely by your own imagination or the forum and events coordinated there (Like the upcoming CCC drive).

5. I'd be willing to wager that a vast majority of players already do the same exact thing as everyone else to grind money/rank/engineers as fast as possible.

OP isn't a troll and while you may aspire to be one, I wouldn't put any money on you being even remotely effective at it.

1) By definition of a game where you "play how you want", you can't create a set of pre-scribbled achievements because people will head towards them all and not play it how they want. Doing 10 sothis runs then buying an engineered cutter is not achievement nor engaging, however you try to frame it. And yes that is exactly what OP is suggesting here.

2) Really?

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.

Read: Unless I'm carrying expensive goods or go looking for trouble, I don't want to face risk.

3) Did you actually read OP?

-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.

4) Or...FUN. People are complaining about a grind, but the only objectives I have seen here are grinding.

If the "PvE community" is that much holier than thou, why do I see a consistent lack of proper interaction with each other? Join a faction. Spread the faction. Do CGs together. Go exploring together. Go canyon racing together. Get the buggies out. Gank some other noobs. Do SOMETHING other than mind numbing Sothis runs, for the love of Talos.

If "biggest ship is the only way" is all you can see, then sorry but self imposed grind.

5) Progression should not be confused with grind. Just because you head towards a goal it doesn't become "grinding". Play EQ on project 1999 if you want to understand grind, and yet love it at the same time. I swear some people would get personal enjoyment from buying the game, installing it, then seeing the words "GAME COMPLETE!!!!!" appear on the screen.

What's challenging about constant alt tabbing, mining and doing the same repetitive tasks over and over.

I want things to be more convenient. More user friendly. What you describe isn't challenge. Cut the elitism. What this game is, is tedious.

Let me get this straight.

You have a problem with the unengaging, risk-free repetition of the game...while mining.

And your solution to making this easier is to make things easier.

Ladies and gentlemen...gaming in the 21st century.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

Casual player and 'player in a rush' are two different things, there is nothing wrong in either but 'player in a rush' needs to play smart in ED use their time wisely in order to meet their goals. In many ways the meta gameplay of ED is just that and I assure you if you apply yourself there is nothing you can't own in game with knowledge and a couple of weeks casual effort.

 

[xondk]

Allow me to address the following, with bold text to answer.

-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.
Something sounds very off, my transitions take less then a second normally unless there are server issues. Might be beyond frontier's control? ISP? bad router setup? e.t.c.?

-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.
With respect, what should it be then? should there be no cost associated with getting the FSD range boost? should you just go there and click to get it? also you do not need spread sheets, all the info is in game, pin the thing you want, go get it

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.
Play the way you want, does not mean you can do anything you want, it means play the game that you are given in any way you can in the game, just fyi, so yeah, this IS frontier's game. Though I think materials will eventually get some form of trading

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.
Your approach is flawed, you just said 'let me play the game as i want' now you are saying 'but tell me what is the 'best' so i can do that' Here's the thing, nothing is the 'best' the whole 'meta' thing is at best a self imposed thing by players, I have not used any of the meta's that have been presented and I've done just fine, so can you, so think up a way you want to play and play it, there is no internal competition in the game on that aspect.

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.
So you want to be able to engineer upgrade your ship without being at the engineer? What would be the point of it at all then?

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.
So do many many other players, but we are still able to enjoy a game that doesn't hand us everything, this is a long term game, if you get everything handed to you, why would you keep playing? there is quite a difference between 'wasting your time' and being so easy that a game becomes boring
As with:
.

To all these mentioned, I can most assuredly say it is not killing the game, the game popularity is steadily increasing, so there is that.
Also you cannot compare RL to a game and should not, why? because playing a game should not BE RL.

as for "Long grind/forced combat/piracy" ok, what SHOULD happen in the game? you go from a to b and then back again over and over? with no one challenging you or such? because it seems from the way you are writing this, that that is what you want, you want to be given everything, that there should be no challenge, no wait, no effort, what would be the point of the game then? there are tons upon tons of games out there like this, please go play those instead of wanting to change Elite into one of those. Let Elite be what Frontier wants it to be. And consider, that if you are here playing it instead of the thousands of other games you COULD be playing, then Frontier must be doing something right?

And to sum up the rest.
Spreadsheets: you do not need them, if you think you do, you have not realised that all the info you need is in game.

'no internet': This is a space, and Elite has no faster then light communication, so yeah, that's why we have no global internet as such.

Calling lead developer misguided, is a bit of an oddity to me, you are here, you are playing, clearly they did it right.

And as for generally 'wasting your time' ...you are playing a game, entertainment, you are by definition, wasting your time playing _ANY_ game instead of doing productive stuff, so yeah...

Honestly I think you are in the minority, I cannot play as much as I want, but I in no way would want Elite to be turned into what you suggest, because it seems you just want to be able to click a button and get stuff, click a button and go somewhere, because otherwise it is a waste of your time?

And at the same time you give warframe credit? a game which I personally find grindy and boring, and quite without anything new, it isn't my type of game, so I do not play it.
Maybe, and this is not said to push your suggestions or you away, but maybe, just maybe, Elite isn't the type of game you would enjoy, please do not try to change it into something you will enjoy, because there are a lot of people that enjoy it as is, with all its flaws and bugs, because it is not a perfect game, but it is, at least in my eyes, better then the majority of games out there, and even with my time table, I keep coming back, and I do not mind one bit that things that time and effort, it makes them feel worth it, where the ton of games out there that give you everything are boring and dull.

- - - Updated - - -

Interestingly, that game is about to go free to play - for one level of access at least.

Eve has gone free to play, because of low player numbers and such, and artificially inflated player numbers, by a large majority of the users having multiple account, random reports, that I have no clue is valid or not, put the actual amount of people playing the game at a fifth of what the numbers say.

- - - Updated - - -

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.)

Uh...they store it just fine? you just go there, and you get it? it invalidates itself after 24 hours, because the market changes, so.....

 

[Robert Maynard]

Eve has gone free to play, because of low player numbers and such, and artificially inflated player numbers, by a large majority of the users having multiple account, random reports, that I have no clue is valid or not, put the actual amount of people playing the game at a fifth of what the numbers say.

Interesting. Low player numbers may indicate that the style of of gameplay in that game is losing its appeal - in which case, why would Frontier duplicate even part of it in this game?

.... plus the fact that DBOBE is on record as considering that the difference between this game and that game is that that game is an executive control game and this one isn't....

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

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.

Commodities in demand in a station show where the station usually imports them from. Commodities that are supplied by a station show where the station usually exports them to This information is also displayed on the galaxy map.

 

[AveMe]

Maybe instead of cutting out the travel time make it TENSE?
When I fly somewhere I just alttab and check game every couple of minutes...
Even if I get interdicted: It takes 5-10 minutes for NPC to drop my shields.
Decrease elite NPC spawnrate 10 or even 100 times, but give them overpowered rngineer mods and boost their AI. At the same time make their bounty 50-200 millions so it's worth risking the fight.

It looks like half of the dev team is trying to make game casual and second half is doing the opposite. Why do I have to wait 30 mins for mission target to show up, but I can go to toiled in the middle of combat zone?

 

[xondk]

Interesting. Low player numbers may indicate that the style of of gameplay in that game is losing its appeal - in which case, why would Frontier duplicate even part of it in this game?

.... plus the fact that DBOBE is on record as considering that the difference between this game and that game is that that game is an executive control game and this one isn't....

In my book you can't even remotely compare the two gameplay styles, just from the whole point and click vs twitch game play difference.
And yeah, I'm aware of what he said, and I agree, so I'm not entirely sure why people are saying Frontier is duplicating, they may look similar, being space games and such, but they are far far far from the same at least as I see it.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe instead of cutting out the travel time make it TENSE?
When I fly somewhere I just alttab and check game every couple of minutes...
Even if I get interdicted: It takes 5-10 minutes for NPC to drop my shields.
Decrease elite NPC spawnrate 10 or even 100 times, but give them overpowered rngineer mods and boost their AI. At the same time make their bounty 50-200 millions so it's worth risking the fight.

See post 2.1 release threads from so many it is not funny complaining about the sharp increase in difficulty because of engineer weapons, though that said maybe mission specific npc's could be made tougher, since they only spawn specifically in certain situations, where making engineer npc's part of general npc spawning, well yeah.

It is an uphill battle for Frontier, balancing the difference playstyles, be on the forum for a while and you see the pattern, one specific type of change, triggers one specific group of people, repeat.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Sorry but this seems contradictory. Don't casual players buy the expansions and the cosmetics.

And here's some perspective...Steam charts shows No Man's Sky peak players at 212k, ED at 18k. Ah but sarge, you say, not everyone plays on Steam. So, okay, let's be very generous and say only 20% play on Steam, so 90k peak for ED. Let's round it up to 100k for good measure. That still leaves 112k people who could, potentially, be in the market for a game like ED. So, why are they not buying it?

And where did the circa 10k players go that were playing last October but not this one? (18k peak was Oct 2015, most recent highest players was just shy of 8k a couple of weeks ago)



I didn't pay £70 (ED and Horizons) to play forever in the one ship I got with some effort in the first week.

Sorry but this seems contradictory. Don't casual players buy the expansions and the cosmetics.

And here's some perspective...Steam charts shows No Man's Sky peak players at 212k, ED at 18k. Ah but sarge, you say, not everyone plays on Steam. So, okay, let's be very generous and say only 20% play on Steam, so 90k peak for ED. Let's round it up to 100k for good measure. That still leaves 112k people who could, potentially, be in the market for a game like ED. So, why are they not buying it?

And where did the circa 10k players go that were playing last October but not this one? (18k peak was Oct 2015, most recent highest players was just shy of 8k a couple of weeks ago)



I didn't pay £70 (ED and Horizons) to play forever in the one ship I got with some effort in the first week.

Not too sure where you are getting you stats from, but they seem to be completely wrong.

The most concurrent players on steam for NMS in the last 2 weeks is just under a 1000 players, ED is around the 8000 Mark.

Players in the last 2 weeks ED is around 90000, NMS is around 50000.

Far more players playing ED. Remember none of that includes the people not using steam.

Also nobody is asking to to use 1 ship for the whole game. I have been playing for 2 years now, but no where near getting or affording an Anaconda or corvette. it's fine, all my games takes me longer to do. That's life.

Try playing a themepark mmorpg as a casual. That is far tougher.

It seems to me that most players are casual players in this game and most don't have an issue.

 

[mugendo]

Not sure how dedicated gamer and casual gamer passage of time in the universe differs ????, if the OP is concerned about 'artificial time sinks'....I suggest powering down the computer and stepping outside into reality. EDIT.......I forgot why I was responding, can we stop dumbing down the game down to the lowest common denominator, be it time, patience, skill, IQ...... ???

 

[NMS]

I agree with OP, but ED was born to be boring.

The game needs better gamer designers.

 

[Robert Maynard]

In my book you can't even remotely compare the two gameplay styles, just from the whole point and click vs twitch game play difference.

Indeed.

And yeah, I'm aware of what he said, and I agree, so I'm not entirely sure why people are saying Frontier is duplicating, they may look similar, being space games and such, but they are far far far from the same at least as I see it.

It's not that Frontier are duplicating, it seems to be more that Frontier are not cut-and-pasting bits of that game into this game to accommodate the wishes of a subset of the player-base.