I mean it could be, but there are some design choices that seem to have no real obvious logic beyond being "gamey", if that makes any sense.
It feels like someone is doing their job wrong
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I mean it could be, but there are some design choices that seem to have no real obvious logic beyond being "gamey", if that makes any sense.
Galaxies are big. Space is big. Traveling through space takes a lot. Hyperspace jumps are very intensive and immersive for a mere "loading screen", especially compared to most games. You can also minimize your scan time by being closer to the thing you want to scan, plus now there's Engineer blueprints that help with that.
Condensing that subject into the word "depth" tells me exactly nothing about that particular subject being a grievance for you. In fact it gives zero indication at all about it, and instead could be removed entirely from your speech without any impact. You might as well just say "This game sucks." or "I find it to be lacking." as to say "Elite's gameplay sucks" or "Elite's depth is lacking". It's an unecessary, meaningless word.
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Community goals. I haven't kept a close eye but it's felt like at least once month lately there's been some kind of Empire-Federation conflict going on.
And then there's the myriad of minor faction wars for control over various systems throughout the bubble.
And yet some would say it's a great thing that we are allowed to take these things into our own hands and let our own heads be free to create and imagine in the universe provided, rather than spoon-fed to us in the catered manner found so often in so many games these days with all their infamous Quick-Time-Event button mashing. (Skyrim itself would likely never been as popular if it weren't for player modding and tools that allowed greater creative freedom, especially mods like Live A New Life.)
Even so I fully expect a future season for Elite to be pretty much nothing but lore injection and fluff, since most of it does admittedly exist outside of the game right now.
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Excuse me? *I* know what it means, it means both anything and nothing at all. Which *I* have been explaining to *you* lot over and over and over without anyone taking any heed and bothering to explain what they actually are trying to say.
As demonstrated above, that word "depth" serves no purpose but to obscure the meaning of what you are saying. It does not explain, it does not elucidate, it does not enlighten, it does not specify anything at all - it carries no meaning, and it grinds my gears to see it repeated over and over, when the only real reason it's become such a popular word is that it can be used to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean!
In other words, when using words like "depth" and "gameplay" 'over and over and over again', you're all repeating each other while saying nothing at all!
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Tell me, why should someone bother to treat your posts with any kind of respect if you continually post just to disrespectfully discourage other people from posting?
Or you could merely admit you're out of any thoughtful replies and move on.
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LOL ok keep telling yourself that. I couldn't care if you think that, I was just pointing out to other people here that you should know better. Harp all you want about what *you* know I'm really not interested. When I see some evidence that you know what you're talking about, we might be able to have a conversation about it!
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As for jobs and stuff, here's what some employees had to say about FDev as a company.
https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Frontier-Developments-Reviews-E372218.htm
V’larr, I can’t tell if you are being contrarian for the fun of it or if you honestly don’t know what “depth” means when everyone keeps asking for it with regards to Elite, so allow me to educate you on it’s meaning. Maybe then you won’t be so confused and can join the conversation with something meaningful to add.
The term “depth” in the video game industry refers to a combination of gameplay elements and mechanics which players must take into consideration while playing. More choices enable more player decisions, resulting in an engaging yet varied gameplay experience. Most developers strive to design mechanics with enough complexity so that new players can take advantage of the more obvious mechanics while experienced players can consider many mechanics, thereby allowing many choices and paths to “victory” conditions as you master the game. This complexity allows players to develop plans and strategies several steps ahead on how they want to play and what they want to do, hopefully producing unexpected and surprising outcomes thereby keeping the game feeling fresh and varied. This level of design is called “depth”.
For example, chess has depth, while tic tac toe does not.
With regards to Elite, when people ask for more depth to the game, they usually mean more connected mechanics that not only allow more choices during gameplay but can result in a larger variety of meaningful results and outcomes. Exploration is jump, honk, and scan, over and over. It is terribly basic in it’s game mechanics. Trading is buy low, sell high, but there are no tools to utilize, no mechanics to add unpredictability or complexity to the profession. Combat by it’s very nature has some complexity and variety simply due to the random nature of the opponents, but the mechanics of combat within the game’s environment are disconnected and predictable. CZ’s are always the same, HRES sites are always the same, except for a little variety in ship opponent types. There isn’t any meaningful bounty hunting mechanic short of “look for a wanted ship and kill it”. It’s this disconnected nature of Elite’s design that greatly reduces it’s “depth”. The game is comprised of a lot of separate modules that don’t really interact in meaningful ways, thereby preventing any feeling of depth. And this can be attributed straight to the game’s core mechanics, the features which make up the foundation of all other features. This core is basic and very lacking, has been since 1.0, thus the lack of depth and the constant complaints from players that the game is “a mile wide but an inch deep.”
Elite needs better core mechanics to allow greater complexity and unpredictability during gameplay, to enable more player choices and responses to stimuli, to permit players to make multi-level plans which might have to be altered along the way due to surprising mechanic interactions. Without deep mechanics a game feels sterile and predictable, boring, and this is where Elite is today for a lot of people. The core mechanics need to develop or this lack of “depth” will kill player interest over time. Some would argue it’s already begun to kill player interest.
So yeah, the often repeated saying “Elite needs more depth” most certainly has meaning V’larr. Do you understand it now?
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An immersive loading screen. And the mandatory space is big excuse. If you really want to know what people complain about when they complain about lacking depth in exploration: Have a look.
But just of the top of my head some points in Elite's exploration game design:
- Each and every system is visible from the galaxy map. Why don't systems have to be, you know, discovered? By means of sensors on exploraiton ships, e.g. having a sensor in your exploration ship that can uncover other undiscovered jump targets on the galaxy map in a ly rang depending on the scanner? Why isn't it that only systems discovered by explorers are added to the visible galaxy map for everyone as soon as the first explorer sells exploration data on the system's primary body? Just as a general idea to give exploration more of a visible general purpose beside tagging systems with your commander's name.
- The infamous "honk" that reveals each and every single body in the system. Why isn't the body scanner mechanic more elaborate and closer to the SRV sensor in it's mechanic? Listen for some wave signal to narrow down a body's location in the system, approaching and scanning it, with different bodies emitting different wave lengths. Alternatively: Turn it into a "Shooting/sniping" mechanic. The honk as a kind of directional scanning cannon that visualized wave lengths based on which explorers can narrow down a body's location and type. And of course as above: Any body for which at least one explorer has sold data ought to be visible on everybody's system map once they enter the system, whereas undiscovered bodies ought to be invisible.
- Surface scanning literally means waiting for a doughnut to get some statistical info with limited game use. Why isn't the surface scanner expanded into a multi-purpose tool that allows to generate resource heat maps from orbit? You know, connecting the disjointed underdeveloped planet feature from 2.0 with the disjoint underdeveloped surface scanner feature from 1.0. That type of visualization would excuse the long waiting time and add a lot of game value for explorers, leading them to POIs and locations where specific resources are to be found.
Depth doesn't just mean more static meshes on the surface to oogle at. It also means turning the whole base mechanic into something more elaborate than holding a trigger for 10 seconds for 100% system body discovery, pointing your ship somewhere and waiting for a doughnut to dance. And while I have a hunch that exploration mechanics may be a product of lacking time and resources in development, that doesn't explain why more than two years of updates did nothing to expand the base mechanics' depth.
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So essentially you are asking for Power Play?!
Well, a not-crap powerplay.
Because you can 'discover' distant star systems by looking out of your window? Sure, you can say 'screw the idea that stars are kinda bright and easy to see, for the sake of gameplay!'. That would be a valid position. But then please dont say 'telepresence makes no sense'.
So essentially you are asking for Power Play?!
Honestly, yes. Power Play as a concept has the potential to add a ton of depth to the game. The problem is that it was implemented very poorly, it’s mechanics do not offer much in the way of connected and interactive mechanics. It could, with some serious revamping, offer a lot of gameplay variety for all types of players but currently it does not.
Because you can 'discover' distant star systems by looking out of your window? Sure, you can say 'screw the idea that stars are kinda bright and easy to see, for the sake of gameplay!'. That would be a valid position. But then please dont say 'telepresence makes no sense'.
And yet, travelling to them is a completely different story. Whatever magic let's you jump between star systems by means of a loading screen, could be expanded to turn the ability to expand your travel reach into space into a mechanic and reward of its own. After all, just "looking out of your window" tells you about nothing at all about how far the star system is away or what data a fictional ship computer needs to be fed to let your ship arrive there once you press "J".
As for telepresence, I'm all for it. Except for the telepresence explanation rubbish, because all the explanation I require is "it's a game and values my time". Not that telepresence is too unthinkable when a Wing has instant FTL voice comms throughout the whole galaxy... Here's another thing I'd gladly take: Park at a station and teleport to another station where you've parked one of your other ships. If needs be, by means of a credit fee. I've experienced how big space is by travelling between the home system and various bounty spots more than once and don't see why the game ought to take the liberty to shove the same sequence of loading screens in my face over and over and over again.
Or is it customary for MMOs to have you run all over the world manually again all the time? Don't think so. They usually have the grace to offer mounts for speeding things up or straight up teleportaion points to certain locations.
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Because you can 'discover' distant star systems by looking out of your window? Sure, you can say 'screw the idea that stars are kinda bright and easy to see, for the sake of gameplay!'. That would be a valid position. But then please dont say 'telepresence makes no sense'.
What?
That makes absolutely no sense. We can't see every single star in the galaxy from Sol. So how the hell is the entire galaxy mapped already?
Let me tell you how I see it: There is depth in the game, and Frontier are constantly trying to make it deeper. It's just not the kind of depth you like. There is nothing wrong with that, I very much agree with you in this regard. But it also means that V'larr isn't necessarily wrong either.
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What depth is there? Describe it. Highlight this depth that some people appear to have trouble seeing.
Just ask Soopyyy and Mengy, maybe they can explain it in a way that you don't try to not understand.
For clarities sake, I mean what depth do you see that others might find? If that makes sense.
Mengy described what Depth means. It's exactly what FDEV added with Powerplay, apart from being crap (your words, but I tend to agree). So they added crap depth. It's still depth though
Mengy described what Depth means. It's exactly what FDEV added with Powerplay, apart from being crap (your words, but I tend to agree). So they added crap depth. It's still depth though
I'd argue they added the very vague perception of depth, from the outside. Like a wading pool with the bottom painted gloss black. Don't dive in, you'll break your neck.
This is because you don't like it, not because it isn't deep. Powerplay offers all kinds of complex gameplay and you can interact with it in many different ways. You can also shape the galaxy. It just isn't fun...
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