When can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

Dear Frontier.. when can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

In Elite Dangerous, everyone is hidden, it's a big but very empty universe and incredible boring, everyone I intruduce to the game, leaves after a week. You have a great piece of foundation that doesn't use it's fullest potential, and it breaks my heart, it really does.

Elite Dangerous, should be a hardcore game, when even the slightest NPC can be really dangerous and not behave so stupid. It should be a living universe that have a sense of danger in it. Im not talking about constant interdictions every second, thats boring and to predictable and too much. The game needs to be alive, a breathing living universe, and the only way to archive that, is to rethink how the game works right now. Everything should matter, and every NPC should act that they are affraid of dying and gives you the illusion that they care, but if you can catch an NPC and kill it, you should be rewarded, and killing an NPC that are not wanted, makes you wanted and that creates a lot of problems if you are in that system.

Animated portraits of NPCs thats randomly generated, actually talking to you, make the game feel alive, I know that you can do it. The NPC part was perfect a way back, exept when everyone boosted more than 500 as soon as they get their shields went down, thats just silly.

More interesting missions, escort missions and so on or maybe get hired by the military to join a war and other players might join the other side, so you can end up fighting other players and NPCs at the same time, if you just look at other games how living those games are, look at even Freelancer from way back, 20 years ago, even that Game is more alive, NPCs talking to each other, and even those aweful badly made stations are alive, you can "walk" to a bar and so on and when landing on planets, there are cities there. In Elite dangerous, you see a hologram screen, thats it... and it's 2017 now.

Solve combat logging issue, make sure players are still in the game even if they logged out, unless they logging out at a station or in their sleeping quarters in the ship (cant go to sleep while in danger).

Multi jumping feature to relax at the "loading screen", able to check stuff in the game, and communicate while in a jump, looking markets and mission board at galnet and so on. Main chats not instanced ones, actually main chats, trading chats and group finding chats, and trading must be added to the game, so players can trade and buying and selling between each other, that will also make the game more alive. Trading is a very important aspect of many games to make them feel more alive.

Also allow people to build stations in space and settlements on planets, also mining facilities on planets, using the % that you already have on planets what they contain, then using prospector drones to shoot them down into the ground by survering the planet until you find a good yield. And constructing a base should not be instant, it will take time, you hire workers to work there, can you imagine how great that would be. Also connecting some kind of mobile service, so you can check progress of your base, and also chatting with people in game, so where ever you go, you have it in your pocket, mobile would only allow simple stuff, checking auctions and making changes to your base or what ever, also outfitting.

Auction houses should be in the game, which we can call Trade hubs, and should be located in just a few systems in the bubble which are connected with each other, allow people to travel easy and more comfortable. Imagine you can sit and be socialize with people and maybe making trade buisness while jumping, and im not talking about, select star, charge frame shift drive, align, jump, refuel, move away from star, and keep doing this, this is not a fun gameplay im talking about planning 50 or more economical jumps in one loading screen, and a progress bar and time until arrival. Each "jump" in the background, adds a set amount of seconds, so if you wana to do 100 jumps in one loading screen, sure you can do that if you want and that will take you about for an example 600 LY, but in this time, you can't really relax, never.

** correction ** you can relax while in a jumping screen. I meant that you can't relax in the game as it is now.***

Make sure Elite dangerous have everything you need, you don't want to minize the game to check homepages to check where you can find stuff. There should be more detailed Engineering screen that shows what you need and what you can do at the moment with the materials you have.

There is sooooooooooooooooo much more fun stuff that you can do to improve the game. I can't be the only one here thinking about how much more this game could have been.
 
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There is a lot on your list I don't want to see personally. There is already a reasonable amount of gameplay already. Having animated avatars talking to you is not going to add more gameplay.

I would be happy with a personal base or some kind, but nothing that influences the BGS. So no selling or buying of commodities or fuel. But again doesn't really increase the gameplay, it just gives you another goal and then you have to use the existing gameplay to achieve that goal.

I agree with your comments on the engineers.

Again, don't like the multi jump auto pilot idea either. It's a game about piloting your ship, pilot it. If anything this takes away from gameplay and massively reduces risks from human error.

Not bothered about auction houses.
 
The game elements you mention are in thousands of MMO's all over the interweb. I can see no reason for FD to create what you can already find elsewhere. Let Elite grow with it's unique outlook.
 
The game elements you mention are in thousands of MMO's all over the interweb. I can see no reason for FD to create what you can already find elsewhere. Let Elite grow with it's unique outlook.

If that unique outlook means locking more and more ways to pimp your ship behind a paywall and not delivering anything that actually puts in more content that you actually play and does not consist only of repeatable stuff, then I say no, Elite does not need that.
It needs plots to be played and reasons to wing up and do stuff together. We need player factions that we actually control and that are not controlled by some weird background mechanic that even solo players can influence. It needs introduction to the lore that does not revolve around reading text on a Wiki for 2 weeks. I bet you that most Elite players have never heard of the Rift or that there was a new Emporer crowned in the Empire etc pp. You need to make people care about the Universe and grinds and GalNet posts are not the way to do it.
But hey, what do I know :D.
 
I think the game you're looking for is EVE

I agree with this. On the other hand, it's plain Frontier have no intention of making content. They are content with grind.

Letting players build stations, or build and sell ships, would at least give them real roles and agency in the game.

FDev claimed they didn't want to remake EVE. Then they made an.online, MP game...With zero MP features. When you create a shared universe, people will want to groupupand share experiences. Yet FDev seem to want to actively PREVENT this from happening.

Right now online is pure DRM. Nothing more. No MP functionality. No player bases or markets or hubs. No living sim. Nothing.

At least these suggestions, EVE like as they are, would give players unique goals and roles. It's more than Frontier have done.

As long as people here defend the grind and say that this is actual content and you have to make your own content, nothing will change.

Exactly. That's a huge problem.

If Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted they would have said "a faster horse." So he built something they didn't even know they wanted.

FDev needs to figure out that trick. Quick.
 
I think the game you're looking for is EVE

that's just an emergency exit.

In my opininon, it's just a matter of two things.

Mechanics & scripted events.

Now not sure if everybody understand the depth of the "mechanics" term., let's take for example a good mechanic introduced in the game.. Fuel transfer.

Until that moment lots of commanders where stranded in the deep space without any other solution than self destruct, until frontier introduced the fuel transfer and then... bam, some people found an interesting way to interact with other players as a rescue team, they actually made a new scuadron and a help request system, it helped the interaction between players and filled the forums up with interesting histories to tell.

now imagine just for one moment, that you can't only transfer fuel but also repair modules , tansfer modules, save lost srv, transport ships, etc etc.. so you can make a full rescue team, and of course this extend to other non rescue activities..that would be amazing.

About the scripted missions and events...they have to be more complex than the actual ones, is a way to encourage people to keep playing and from there, make your own path, the problem with ED is, nobody wants to loose his ship, even when the only thing they can do is the same thing they have been doing over and over again... the ED ecosystem is so conservative right now that nothing interesting happens (let's see what's going on with the aliens)... it's like real life, boring, people who still play don't want to go out from their comfort circle, Frontier has to introduce ways to force people go out of this comfort circle, At the end is a game, where we want to live (or me at least) that action, that bad guys vs good guys moments, and challenging moments we don't have in our boring lives, but sadly i found many people like to play safe and bored.. like real life.

Now, maybe we are thinking in unicorns here... i'm not sure about the complexity of adding all this to ED, maybe we lost the poing time ago.... and we should move on, probably Ed will be never be this way. So we have to accept it and keep playing or not.
 
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"Elite Dangerous, should be a hardcore game"


After reading your OP, hardcore Second Life, came to mind.

Huh no, not everyone wants hardcore, and this game is already a noobs nightmare, I could be wrong, but it seems some players forget what it was like when they first entered this galaxy, I haven't, and it's not something I would repeat even with the experience I've gained.
 
A thousand people are about to tell you that modern video game tropes have no place in ED. Unless of course it's an alien introduction involving a non interactive cutscene, then it's awesome, but no, modern games with their "stories" and "cutscenes" are awful apparently.

GL OP, you have my sympathies.
But.. but.. the alien interaction is not a cutscene! It's dynamic, immersive, exciting, so full of rich gameplay. Like the puzzle it opens, which is setting a new high in storytelling, engaging puzzle & suspense creation and delivery. /sarcasm

People get all hyped up and literally excited about an 'event' where a single alien ship honks a frozen player. That's it. The bar is that low already. The alien site 'puzzle' is riddled with bugs, and even if it weren't, it's repetitive and not exactly exciting (unless you find the rinse&repeat approach present in most of the game exciting, I guess). This is what ED gameplay looks like, and I wouldn't know why it would change anytime soon for something else. It is what it is.
 
"Elite Dangerous, should be a hardcore game"


After reading your OP, hardcore Second Life, came to mind.

Huh no, not everyone wants hardcore, and this game is already a noobs nightmare, I could be wrong, but it seems some players forget what it was like when they first entered this galaxy, I haven't, and it's not something I would repeat even with the experience I've gained.

Most of the game's complication lies in it's lack of documentation for how things work, interact, and influence. That's not 'difficult' but just opaque or user-unfriendly. A lot of people confuse 'challenging & difficult' with 'undocumented on purpose'.
 
I think the game you're looking for is EVE

As long as people here defend the grind and say that this is actual content and you have to make your own content, nothing will change.

But.. but.. the alien interaction is not a cutscene! It's dynamic, immersive, exciting, so full of rich gameplay. Like the puzzle it opens, which is setting a new high in storytelling, engaging puzzle & suspense creation and delivery. /sarcasm

People get all hyped up and literally excited about an 'event' where a single alien ship honks a frozen player. That's it. The bar is that low already. The alien site 'puzzle' is riddled with bugs, and even if it weren't, it's repetitive and not exactly exciting (unless you find the rinse&repeat approach present in most of the game exciting, I guess). This is what ED gameplay looks like, and I wouldn't know why it would change anytime soon for something else. It is what it is.

Agreed.

That people got all excited over an in game event that interrupted your game play, took AWAY your input and made you sit and WATCH...Blew my mind.

And the godawful puzzle thing that came after...Well, the good news: besting that ought to be like winning the pole vault at a Limbo competition.
 
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This is what ED gameplay looks like, and I wouldn't know why it would change anytime soon for something else. It is what it is.

Yeah, I'm forced to agree. I thought the cutscene was awesome the first time I saw it, then as every other commander started to experience, exactly the same way, with no further sign of any more Alien life the impact of the initial encounter was lost. I don't know how long it will be before there are actual Aliens in the game that do something other than force you into a cutscene, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was months.

The audio visual experience of ED is impactful. I was completely awed by it the first time I set off in my sidewinder, but the actual core gameplay loop itself is poor, even by f2p standards.
 
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OP, you're describing a totally different game. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it "EVE with cockpits" but it's awfully close to that oft-rejected concept. I'm not going to go through your entire post and list the number of things you ask for that FD have already explicitly ruled out or that have been "designed out of the game" as part of its fundamental architecture but let's just say if you cut them all out your post would be a lot shorter!

Don't sit down at a bridge table expecting to play poker. If the game on the table isn't to your liking, either find a way in which you can play that game and enjoy it or find another table to sit in at. If you've got realistic suggestions for the game, that haven't already been ruled out and that aren't frankly impossible without rewriting the game from scratch, they are welcome and will be rationally discussed. Unfortunately, however, if you are going to hold out waiting for about 80% of the things you ask for, you'll still be waiting around the time Sag A* finishes swallowing the entire Milky Way galaxy.
 
OP, you're describing a totally different game. I wouldn't go quite so far as to call it "EVE with cockpits" but it's awfully close to that oft-rejected concept. I'm not going to go through your entire post and list the number of things you ask for that FD have already explicitly ruled out or that have been "designed out of the game" as part of its fundamental architecture but let's just say if you cut them all out your post would be a lot shorter!

If actual content has been designed out, then it is just a bad game. That is the only conclusion that is left.

But I know they can do things like that. We have instancing in the game, which can be used for storyline missions. We have cutscenes, as shown by the Tutorial and the Aliens.
Why can't they use those to create missions that explain the plot and the background story of the game? The content that is there is extremely lazy and repetitive.
I am still playing the game, but honestly, it is not very satisfying. The BGS is the worst game mechanic I have ever encountered, because it takes the control away from the player.
There is a vast galaxy in the game and I want to possess a small slice of it. So yes, it would be good if Elite would be a bit more like Eve and X combined.
Instead of a raw game with nothing exciting or meaningful to show for.
 
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...when can we actually expect some real gameplay content? ...

You have to click the blue rectangular button at the bottom left, which says, "Play". And you have to have one of the choices to the right selected. I know it's kinda complex.

For instance, select "Elite Dangerous Horizons (64Bit)" if you have Horizons, or "Elite Dangerous (Whatever system you have, 32Bit or 64Bit). Then, click the blue rectangular space to the left of those choices, which says "Play" on it. Or, if you've been playing the launcher for several weeks or months, at this point-- the rectangular space in the lower left corner may say "Upgrade". Click that.

Good luck!
 
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