I love how CQC keeps becoming bigger and bigger in your stories. CQC was part of 1.4, which came four months after 1.3. Read the patch notes here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/188174-CQC-Update-1-4\
The new ships are integrated in the main game, the main assets as well. The patch also included, among other things, higher-tiered RES and nav points, three more ships and new mission types, while they had a good part of the team working on 2.0 which launched just a few months later. This notion of 'if they hadnt done CQC the game would be AWESEOME now' is completely fabricated nonsense and you have been around way too long to spread such stuff. CQC is part of four months work of part of the team, and most 'new' parts of CQC were needed for the main game anyway. Those are facts. If you check the stats you'd notice loads of people are into powerplay, and I myself think Engineers expended the life of ED more than anything else for me.
If you could re-write it all just as:"I never liked anything at all that happened, and I hope something really super-drastic will happen!" then I think we can just skip to the inevitable conclusion: the game will continue to improve, and you will continue to be disappointed.
"Asteroid stations are just re-skinned different stations!"
Darn, and I thought they were going to be radically different! Instead asteroid stations are just stations in asteroids, who had thought that? Definitely a super valid reason to become angry and complain again, that doesnt look at all like you are looking for stuff to dislike.
I know, right?
I read the OP in its entirety - it really just comes down to basic respect, as if that person were standing in front of you, talking. Interrupting them, as such, by asking them to get to the point is rude, and disrespectful. In fact, it indicates that one is not listening at all, but rather just waiting to talk. The chances of actually gaining a new perspective on anything drop precipitously if one is not willing to listen, and consider another's point of view. On a related note, liberal use of the Ignore/Block functions (which should not exist here or in game), increases the chance of creating an echo-chamber, where very little that is new is allowed.
To the OP: Since you have stated that you don't play the game currently, and have not for months, I am very disinclined to care very much about what you think about the game, or what you want to see from it. Your opinions are completely valid, as they represent your experience, but I am more inclined to put weight on the opinions of those who are currently playing, and have been for the recent past, and less weight on those opinions that come from long-term customers, and even less for those who are sitting on the sidelines "until X." This is a very successful business model, by the way, as the customer life cycle is quite well known.
I disagree with your view on player ownership of anything other than our ships. I remember way back in the days of Everquest, where 1 or 2 guilds would end up running the server, and everyone else was effectively fighting to stay an expansion behind. Do you think that something similar would not happen here, if players had that kind of influence? That door really just should never be opened in this game.
I disagree with your viewpoints on PvP, as well. In most other (MMO) games that I have played, being on a PvP server means red=dead. A GM's response to complaints goes something along the lines of make some friends and hit back, go to another area, or go play on a PvE server. In terms of Elite, Open represents the PvP server, and the same rules should apply. PvP is almost never about a fair fight, it isn't about balance, and it shouldn't be. PvP is Commander vs. Commander, ship vs. ship, and the aggressor is going to try to make that as lopsided as possible. It's about winning, or making the other person lose (which is not necessarily the same thing). Other MMO's have their "Arena" for controlled and balanced PvP, and Elite has CQC, which serves the same purpose. If I were wrong about PvP, you would see a lot more participation in CQC, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and being able to use your own ships would not make CQC a more active feature of the game for very long.
Player-centric and Player-driven stories; this game is way too big for Frontier to reasonably provide that kind of experience. What you are looking for, comes from playing with other Commanders frequently, as opposed to playing on your own. Think back to other games that you have played, and the things that stay in your mind - chances are, it's not that time you killed that boss (or whatever), it was that time your friend popped his mount in the Oculus and jumped off the edge because he forgot you can't fly there. Or the time that same friend timed the raid's resurrection perfectly so that everyone popped in just as the boss respawned, and wiped everyone. The little moments shared with other Commanders are what build the narrative that you speak of, and they do it in a way that Frontier (or Blizzard, or Bioware) never could.
Power creep is inevitable, because that is the one thing that nearly all humans seek. More power (or growth/progression, as some like to call it) both in games, and in real life.
Engineers are no different than similar constructs in other games. Crafting, upgrading, farming reputations, it's all the same in other games, but for some reason, Frontier gets held to a different standard. Perhaps they just need to find a way for Engineering to lead to a known result (like Reverse Engineering from Star Wars Galaxies) would fix the issues people have with it. The ability to save a certain number of rolls to then combine into one blueprint that you can use in the future for any of the same type of module with only one set of mats per use sounds great to me. Put a goal at the end where the only RNG is when you decide to pull the trigger, and create that blueprint, and leave the rest as it is.
Dev focus - they said they were going to deliver certain specific things for Horizons, so they had to stay on that path. I do believe that the path changed somewhere in the middle, which caused the extended season, and I do believe that we are going to be happy about it later. Not yet, but later. That's just part speculation, and part reading between the lines (another form of speculation, as it were), though.
Riôt
