News Elite Dangerous 2.4 - The Return

[IiliI PEL IiliI]

Actually, it's the opposite. I feel the problems have been BECAUSE they were listening to their forum community far too much. In the beginning they were very open in development, taking suggestions from forum goers as well as a special lifetime pass forum. Why multicrew is an instant swap in to a ship? People complaining on the forum about no instant play with friends. Why things feel so sparse and unfinished? People on the forums complaining that updates aren't coming fast enough. Why CQC was such a mess? People complaining that they couldn't get into real PVP combat fast enough.

It's only recently, since they've started doing things on their own and used a more closed development process that they have started going in the right direction. Look at Star Citizen, once again. Their development process is taking FOREVER because their community demands so much and they want to appease EVERYONE. When something is designed by committee it usually becomes a bland mess trying to appease the vocal minority. When you have too many people trying to drive it in so many different directions you have something that spins wildly out of control and becomes something that no one is happy with.

To use your analogy, the forum community are the ones steering it directly into the sun, it's only recently that they've been trying to veer away and fix what has been done to it already.

See...this is something that I haven't really been privy too having come into this world at such a late stage but thanks for shedding light on that.

I get what you mean tho...too many cooks etc. But there must be some kind of happy middle ground between Fdev doing their own thing and listening to the community. I get that they are the ones trying to deliver us their vision, but ultimately we are the ones playing it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed however that something amazing comes our way soon...god knows we need it. o7

 

[NeilF]

Actually, it's the opposite. I feel the problems have been BECAUSE they were listening to their forum community far too much.

What did the forums have to do with the outcome of Powerplay, why CQC wasn't a core game improvement, and even doing multi-crew at all?

I think the main problem was, 1) signing up to do a series of concrete developments long into the future, 2) not canning said developments very early on if they proved questionable in outcome/quality.

And from an opposite POV - From a very early stage a large number of the community were asking for example, what can you do in multi-crew that gives it true purpose/depth? An answer never came... and the result in the game?

 

[Rhassalan]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed however that something amazing comes our way soon...god knows we need it. o7

On this I can agree wholeheartedly. I am still waiting for the day I can go out and set foot on the earth-likes I've discovered with my space legs. I know it will come, one day, but all I can do is wait in the meantime. I have confidence in FD's ability, I feel they just need to focus and work on the foundation they've established. It's a real shame so many people want brand new things. Heck, if you look at how many sections of the galaxy are cordoned off for future content there appears to be plans for VAST alien empires. At least eight in total, if I remember correctly, all over the galaxy. The plans are there, we just have to be patient.

See you in the black. o7

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Likewise, I'm very interested in the Expo but it's not some kind of doomsday ultimatum.

I've a lifetime pass anyway, but I've accepted this game is going to move on slowly and I'm ok with that. Given the hours I've put into the game I'm not sure I can complain about lack of value, but if they at any stage announced there would be no more updates I'd stop playing today. For me the gameplay is still incredibly shallow and repetitive; the missions are only worth doing for the reward not any thrill from doing the mission itself. I'm playing the game for its potential rather than what it is right now, to be honest!

It's difficult to define repetitive. For example, in an FPS you go and shoot. It must be repetitive too.
I do agree, that missions could be more varied, especially that I haven't seen may salvage missions these days. The other is the difficulty - some of them are too easy, whereas planetary assault missions can be too difficult. And for some reason I can't finish a liberation mission.

In any case I can't really put this game aside, when I have time and I'm not too tired, I always feel like playing Elite. The chemistry is somehow incredibly good.

On this I can agree wholeheartedly. I am still waiting for the day I can go out and set foot on the earth-likes I've discovered with my space legs. I know it will come, one day, but all I can do is wait in the meantime. I have confidence in FD's ability, I feel they just need to focus and work on the foundation they've established. It's a real shame so many people want brand new things. Heck, if you look at how many sections of the galaxy are cordoned off for future content there appears to be plans for VAST alien empires. At least eight in total, if I remember correctly, all over the galaxy. The plans are there, we just have to be patient.

See you in the black. o7

I've said it many times, that I think alien Earth-likes cannot be done properly, hence I hope those will never come. I'd be happy with exquisite lifeless planets.

 

[Rhassalan]

What did the forums have to do with the outcome of Powerplay, why CQC wasn't a core game improvement, and even doing multi-crew at all?

CQC wasn't meant to be a feature in the first place. It was a spur the moment thing given to us by demand for balanced PVP. Multi-crew was planned, but the way it was implemented (instant jump into friend's ship) was due to the backlash of ship transfers not being an instant thing that the instant gratification forum goers wanted (same with CQC). It was originally planned as people being able to pick up friends and ferry them around (which would have been amazing if done AFTER space legs). Heck, if they had waited, we could have had friends flying our ships for us. Think of how it could have been if you had a group out there exploring together, friends taking over your ship for you. Piracy would have been awesome, too. Being able to board other's ships. Most of these features as they are, to me, seem to be a result of the instant gratification crowd who are upset that the game is a space sim and not an arcade game.

Powerplay was meant to give people a way to see their effect on the background simulation in a more pronounced way, which the forums did ask for. I, personally, agree it didn't do it properly. These are all my own opinion, of course, and while I have also been disappointed by some of them (such as engineers) there is still hope because these features can still be built upon and threaded together. Right now it's all a disjointed mess, but I feel that is because they were trying too hard to appease everyone rather than building on their own vision of the future of the game.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Just guessing... you never would oay a monthly fee to support the effort of running the servers and developing new content right?

then stop wining about FDev not having all of the 230+ emplyees working on stuff you won't pay for...

Nice crystal ball you got there. Too bad it is quite dusty and it even can't see my previous posts, where I made clear that I would happily pay a monthly sub provided FDev delivered something worthwhile. Before horizons, would buy a Lifetime Expansion Pass probably on the hype of 2.0 alone. After horizons - no way, no more kickstarting planet coaster/console ports/jurassic park/unknown franchise with my hard earned money.

Also, the "effort of running the servers" you speak of is on AWS (amazon web services), so they rent the infrastructure a large part of which relies on p2p networking. Granted they still need to hire admins for maintenance, but its not rocket science.

TL; DR: If FDev wants my money (which I gladly would pay them provided I got something worthwhile for it) then they need to re-earn my trust. Current gamestate is not worthwhile in its current state for me.

 

[V3teran]

FD im excited for all the work that you do, i took a long break but im itching to go. Please continue to update and add more content especially for exploring.
The dream i had back in the kickstarter days im still hoping for will come eventually to the game. Btw not once have ai played CQC arena, not once have i booted it up.
There needs to be things to find when you explore, albeit anything, ruins, relics, alien races...anything.

When is 2.4 ready for release?

 

[Rhassalan]

If I am to be honest with myself, the game isn't the vision I had either. I can see the potential, yes, but the vision I had was of me and a crew of friends flying a capital ship together, each of us having our own (small) ships housed in a hangar bay. Being able to walk around the ship and being self sufficient. Using our capital ship to travel the galaxy, finding resources and mining them to bring back and build new components for our ships in the hangar. Landing on full-scale planets and exploring new places. Go out and meet the alien races that inhabit the galaxy. Fill our capital ship's cargo hold with rare resources that we can sell back in the bubble. While the potential is there I doubt it'll ever fully be that and I will never demand it of FDev. I can only hope for a close facsimile of my dreams.

If ever we do get capital ships I doubt they would have a frame shift drive. No, it would likely be more of a mobile base, being able to jump from system to system but never moving from real space aside from a jump animation (much as Canon's megaship is now). We would have to rely on small craft like shuttles that are preordained (much as fighters are, only with no ability to jump and only a frame shift drive). Even that may never happen, but we can only wait and see. I have hopes and dreams for the game, I just hope they stop listening to the instant gratification crowd (who are less likely to be here for the long term, anyhow) and focus more on the sim instead.

I remember the days when having an anaconda was something to be proud of, something you worked towards for months. Now it's something people get in a week and suddenly they're bored of the game and quit. It's rather disappointing, in my eyes.

 

[Ian Skippy]

If I am to be honest with myself, the game isn't the vision I had either. I can see the potential, yes, but the vision I had was of me and a crew of friends flying a capital ship together, each of us having our own (small) ships housed in a hangar bay. Being able to walk around the ship and being self sufficient. Using our capital ship to travel the galaxy, finding resources and mining them to bring back and build new components for our ships in the hangar. Landing on full-scale planets and exploring new places. Go out and meet the alien races that inhabit the galaxy. Fill our capital ship's cargo hold with rare resources that we can sell back in the bubble. While the potential is there I doubt it'll ever fully be that and I will never demand it of FDev. I can only hope for a close facsimile of my dreams.

If ever we do get capital ships I doubt they would have a frame shift drive. No, it would likely be more of a mobile base, being able to jump from system to system but never moving from real space aside from a jump animation (much as Canon's megaship is now). We would have to rely on small craft like shuttles that are preordained (much as fighters are, only with no ability to jump and only a frame shift drive). Even that may never happen, but we can only wait and see. I have hopes and dreams for the game, I just hope they stop listening to the instant gratification crowd (who are less likely to be here for the long term, anyhow) and focus more on the sim instead.

I remember the days when having an anaconda was something to be proud of, something you worked towards for months. Now it's something people get in a week and suddenly they're bored of the game and quit. It's rather disappointing, in my eyes.

That is not going to happen at least the coming decade, in either ED, SC or any other game. For what it is worth, being able to imagine something doesnt mean there is 'potential' for that imagination to become true.

 

[Rhassalan]

That is not going to happen at least the coming decade, in either ED, SC or any other game. For what it is worth, being able to imagine something doesnt mean there is 'potential' for that imagination to become true.

Actually, the facsimile is pretty close already. I know my dream will never fully come to be, I doubt we'd ever get capital ships, but with hull repair limpets self sufficiency is here. Ammo and limpets can be crafted from materials with 2.4, which you can mine from belts or from SRVs. Friends and I can fly together with multi-crew (though it wasn't how I imagined it. We can deploy fighters from an anaconda/cutter/vette.) The Thargoids are coming with 2.4. All that's missing is being able to walk around my ship and landing on atmospheric planets, which I know both are far off. It's very close to what I want, however, even if it's not the way I expected it.

Heck, I even bought an oculus recently and I've had an x52 since last Christmas. While I'm disappointed in some things, I'm still happy with what FDev are trying to do.

 

[Tadeus72]

If I am to be honest with myself, the game isn't the vision I had either. I can see the potential, yes, but the vision I had was of me and a crew of friends flying a capital ship together, each of us having our own (small) ships housed in a hangar bay. Being able to walk around the ship and being self sufficient. Using our capital ship to travel the galaxy, finding resources and mining them to bring back and build new components for our ships in the hangar. Landing on full-scale planets and exploring new places. Go out and meet the alien races that inhabit the galaxy. Fill our capital ship's cargo hold with rare resources that we can sell back in the bubble. While the potential is there I doubt it'll ever fully be that and I will never demand it of FDev. I can only hope for a close facsimile of my dreams.

Ever thought about playing pen and paper RPG games with your friends? It might be well over a decade until we get something like this in a playable format. Well, if ever. There will still need to be an AAA game developer studio that will find it will cater to enough players that it will be worth spending tens of millions on making it, which isn't as obvious as most of the players in online games like to play it almost like a single player game and expect this kind of content to be prioritized.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

It'll be here and I'd rather have it take time and launch well rather then be a buggy mess because everyone wants it NAO.

(...)

TL;DR Let's all relax and enjoy the ride. It'll come when it comes, better to enjoy rather than constantly complain.

Are you seriously equating almost a year delay which accumulates into two years development time for horizons "NAO"? RLY? I am a patient man (ask my wife ), but maybe you'd reconsider that instant gratification remark because it looks, well... funny?

And to someone telling about how hard "groundbreaking work" is, well... I'm waiting for the ground to break since 2.0. 2.4 is their last chance in Horizons to prove they have been really "breaking ground". I will stick to my experience in software development and pin it on the additional revenue streams from consoles and second franchise. But that's only my opinion and speculation. So far it is WOW-Meh-meh-meh for me. For two years. SRSLY.

Look at Star Citizen, once again. Their development process is taking FOREVER because their community demands so much and they want to appease EVERYONE. When something is designed by committee it usually becomes a bland mess trying to appease the vocal minority. When you have too many people trying to drive it in so many different directions you have something that spins wildly out of control and becomes something that no one is happy with.

Mods will descend upon this thread like vultures if we start discussing SC here. There is a thread for it, and I'd also recommend reading Kotaku's analysis of their development so far. It has nothing to do with community and probably if they fired Chris Roberts they would be better off and maybe actually finished by now But enough of that offtopic.

I was one of the people suggesting the game is pandering to everyone and is therefore an amalgamate of separate minigames, all completely optional, insignificant and frankly meaningless. As this guy with the funny forum name I cannot properly remember who is playing since April beautifully put it: there's nothing worthwhile to do anymore after a while. I have 750h in the game, got bored around 400, powerplay folks from Winters helped with the remainder, and VR has taken the last stretch. I am a completionist mostly, have ~230h in Dark Souls 2 and didn't finish the first playthrough - I know, weird. But my mage is now learning swordfighting ;-). In E: D however there is nothing new to learn, nothing new to do, nothing, again as the dude put it, "incentivising" me to play E D.

From the terms of $coin / h I definitely "got my value" out of ED. Does that mean I need to get out and shut up just because I don't like the development direction or amazingly slow pace? That I don't have the right to criticise, just because "I got my money's worth"? I don't think so. I also have over 1000hrs in Warframe which is free to play, which probably prepared me for the grind in Elite. And also dropped like 20€ on their cash shop just because I wanted to "thank" them for my time with the game and it helped me a bit with skipping some absurdly low chance grind hoops. If anything, it shows that I valued all these games enough to sink so many spare time into them. Now I actually ask the devs to respect my time too - do I need to shelf this game to the confines of my steam backlog and return to it in a year? Two? That's why I am waiting for fexpo.

And Sleutelboss, I'm still wondering why I didn't blacklist you but you sometimes have this quality type post I can nod in and agree with Regarding my "ultimatum"... Which is of course no ultimatum at all because fdev already has my money for base, horizons and some shop content bought on a whim - I do not log to Elite anymore, unless showcasing VR to friends. And even that is giving off to X: Rebirth VR which is graphically even more amazing because of its handcrafted nature and you can fly your ship with your VR controllers which has turned out to be amazingly intuitive and fun. So I already stopped playing, and on fexpo if nothing interesting drops I will probably note some dates if they care to provide any and just uninstall and check on the forums from time to time to see if they did deliver.

Let's hope all of this is wrong, 2.4 will be a (literal) blast and FDev will amazeballs us all on FExpo with some working moonshot build... Right? Right? Hype train? Choo-choo? Anyone??? Well I prefer not, because of Horizons 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and hopefully NOT 2.4.

 

[Rhassalan]

Does that mean I need to and just because I don't like the development direction or amazingly slow pace? That I don't have the right to criticise, just because "I got my money's worth"?

I never said you can't criticize. I criticize, myself, in a few of my previous posts. Yes, Horizons has been VERY slow in development. I never said it hasn't. In fact, a lot of what you are saying in your post agrees with what I was saying. That a lot of these features pandering to everyone is what makes them so shallow. I want FD to take their time, I don't want them to constrain themselves to 'seasons' to attract more people. I don't want them rushing features. It's those exact delays and people being, like 'Why isn't what you promised here NAO?!' that makes them rush the features and give incomplete parts. Constraining themselves to a timetable for things that were going to be difficult in the first place have really hurt the game.

But talking about the instant gratification crowd wasn't apart of that. That crowd are the people that demand things like instant ship transfer or instantly jump into a friend's ship (with the way multi-crew has been implemented). I don't think FD should have ever started the whole 'seasons' fiasco. I think they should have taken it at their own pace without the promises they gave to the player-base.

I take breaks, as well. At times for months at a time, but I still come back, I still enjoy the game, and I still feel what FDev is working on is worth my money. The money I've spent and the money I will spend. There aren't many games I can say that about.

I'm honestly glad they're moving away from the seasons and are instead going to work toward building on the foundations they've already built. It's been a long time coming.

 

[IiliI PEL IiliI]

I remember the days when having an anaconda was something to be proud of, something you worked towards for months. Now it's something people get in a week and suddenly they're bored of the game and quit. It's rather disappointing, in my eyes.

That's what's frustrating to me...I've been hammering this game since April and only just got myself a shiny new ExploraConda...fully engineered it and kitted it out with all the best stuff...but lo and behold....there's nothing to do except fly around an empty space and look at barren round planets all day. I don't bother with pvp...I play this game to get away from all of that Epeen swinging and only bother with pve to break up the monotony of missions or exploring.

It's such a sad state of affairs...I WANT to play....but there's nothing to do.

 

[IiliI PEL IiliI]

I was one of the people suggesting the game is pandering to everyone and is therefore an amalgamate of separate minigames, all completely optional, insignificant and frankly meaningless. As this guy with the funny forum name I cannot properly remember who is playing since April beautifully put it: there's nothing worthwhile to do anymore after a while. In E: D however there is nothing new to learn, nothing new to do, nothing, again as the dude put it, "incentivising" me to play E D.

Thats probably me lol.....just call me Pel my good man.

P.S. I should really sort my name out...its also my xbox GT and it confuses the hell out of people even though its just meant to be "pel" with fancy borders lol.

 

[Han Zulu]

Noooo - I love that avatar!

Me too.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I never said you can't criticize.

FWIW this was not directed at you, but at the stupid notion that if someone played long then he got "his money's worth" and somehow no longer has the right to criticise.
Only one thing to add - E: D and SC made me resent the word "potential", because in context of this two titles it essentially means "great stuff we could have, but no plans to deliver it so far". So I almost barf when someone is discussing "the game's enormous potential".

Thats probably me lol.....just call me Pel my good man.

Roger Pel I figured it was borders but at the time of writing didn't memorize the contents between borders ;-) Anyhow well written posts, my thoughts on the game are very similar to yours.

 

[aminode]

I think they alredy have atmospheric planets, if you look at Planet coster and Jurassic World we can see the development status of the engine to generate planets, this games come from the elite Dev so we Will have atmosphere very soon

 

[Sacman]

I think they alredy have atmospheric planets, if you look at Planet coster and Jurassic World we can see the development status of the engine to generate planets, this games come from the elite Dev so we Will have atmosphere very soon

Hmmmm, yes soon ... worlds with ammonia atmospheres ... SOON[alien]

 

[Han Zulu]

Aye...from a money to time spent playing viewpoint, I've definitely had my money's worth. Can't argue with that...but as a player who still wants to continue playing due to a love of the game...I'm really having a hard time picking up my pad and finding anything to do any longer and that saddens me.

That's the crux of the matter.

Exactly. I love the game. It's amazing, and I spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours in it. It's the most I've played any game, so it was definitely worth every penny.

However, several times I've got to a point when I got bored of it and had to leave it for a while. Just recently, I played No Man's Sky for 3 weeks. The new update has some things FDev could look into. The Artemis/Apollo missions is more interesting because you're led on a step-by-step, one thing leads to another. Hello Games made this possible in one year on top of everything else they did, so there's no excuse why something similar could be done in ED. A series of missions that relates to the Thargoids for instance. This is what I'm hoping for in 2.4+ updates. More serialized missions, chained events that you're tracking and learning while completing.

Other than that, what I'm waiting for now is for the circumnavigation expedition to start, and that's what I'm going to do in ED for the next year. Just fly around the galaxy. What else is there now after most of the other things are done?

Until 2.4 there's nothing left to do anymore and I really hope that it's not just more scripted hyperdictions and thargoid cz areas. That to me would just scream laziness and only add more discontent.

I joined a week after holo-me was added and it took me another month or so before I even bothered making one. It just seemed like knitting a fancy pair of socks for yourself...barely anyone is gonna get to see em and when they do it's just going to get a....oh...reaction. A bit pointless really.

I tried multicrew for 20mins and it didn't really do anything for me.

Same. I think it's a interesting (and perhaps needed feature) for the game, but since I'm not a PvPer, it doesn't interest me.

From a company that has such a stellar reputation from base building games and the like, it still bewilders me that base building isn't in this game in one form or another. Done right, the ownership of settlements could really have a major positive impact on that "incentive" thing and push players into caring for and continuing to play.

Going back to NMS, the base building is huge part of the fun in it, but I don't think that will ever happen in ED.