Modes ED "Beyond" Disappointing, anyone have similar feelings?

[Andovar]

So OP doesn't like the game. Got it.

Personally the 'beyond' series sounds to be the best set of updates yet. Sorely needed. The only reason we didn't see these things sooner is because FD locked themselves into a roadmap of questionable features with season 2.
From what I see, the ED future looks brighter than ever.

 

[krylite]

I am hopeful for "Beyond". Sure, there are some other possible features I'd wish they'd announce apart from spacelegs&atmo, but I'm far from disappointed. If you think the game universe should be shrunk to a hundred systems there are other games or works-in-progress such as that SC farce which recently made another ad statement they had a "stretch" goal of 163 or so systems to flesh out. Many other players enjoy ED for the realistic galaxy sim that it is, not a handful of systems and a generic static skybox. ED was never going to be just another privateer/freelancer or a fantasy galaxy /w square-sided gate grid like the X games, and I'm glad for that.

I also think the current tech and the resources are limited for developing ED. Take the FSX world, which is just the globe, and the individual manually designed, airports, cities, premium detailed planes, etc. took hundreds of 3rd party addon sceneries and scores of extra developers to be where it is now after over a decade. www.simmarket.com ; Unless ED has thousands of content developers to flesh out tailor made systems and unique missions, it will have to still be limited by the procedural limitations and challenges of making stable content for thousands of populated systems. After what ObsidianAnt said on his observation of Frontier's offices and the peek video at FX17 of the developers and their devotion to ED, I'm of the opinion the devs are doing what they can.

 

[Watcher]

I think the plan all along has been to get some core things in and working and then expand them out.

I appreciate that means we don't have a deep, intricate game in every (any?) style of play but at least we have a game where we can do a range of things and is fun as far as it goes, a framework that can be built upon and is being built upon.

Beyond intends to build out some of those game areas and this is a good thing and is, as far as I see, pretty much doing what they said they would do. Did we expect this earlier or focussed on different things, possibly, but they are at least doing it now and that's positive.

So yeah, there are things I think they should change (like how limpets work) and people have been talking about for a while and it is frustrating not to have seen changes previously but now the changes are coming perhaps this is not the time to bug out?

For the record I rather enjoyed the Guardians thing.. I think it could have been implemented better but it was still fun and it actually got me in to Open for a while and doing stuff with other commanders

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Combat is fine. I haven't tried it in months, I revisted it last night. It is fun, the AI is much more robust and do a lot of unique things they didn't do before. Its seen more than enough love. The only wish for combat I have is scripted missions / instances /combat zones with actual objectives and completions. With rewards for completing them (winning the battle).

Engineers.. well.. they really screwed the pooch on this one overall. Every station should have had some special grease monkey in it that can trip out your ship. Engineers should be available in EVERY major station. The NAMED engineers would only give the Tier 5 and up blueprints. They should provide all the highest tech upgrades available and should require some grinding. The rest should be done anywhere and it should not be random.

FD need to learn (and I think they have) that adding art assets and parading them around and adding mystery to them isn't actually adding anything to the game. Content is content. It isn't just paintings on the wall. The thargoids are fine, I like learning more, I like how much work they put into the art and the story. But it comes out at a drip. One drip at a time. In a galaxy like this there needs to be drips all over the place so that people can go off and investigate something others are not investigating. When you have thousands of people trying to discover something and only one or two get to discover it - that leaves thousands of people who are left out. Sure the fun is in the hunt but after ages and ages of looking and never finding anything and finally realizing there is nothing to find you lose interest.

So now they know. Exploration they'll start to seed things out there for us to find. I hope they make it procedural. Make it infinite and make it unique. You have to add that 2-5% of crazy stuff out there. Remember reality is stranger than fiction and I don't give a rats behind about science and what we know about the galaxy - because Kepler has proven over and over again what we thought was the truth was wrong. We don't know squat so lets do some mind expanding stuff out there.

 

[Stryka Choon]

The ‘Beyond’ update.

I’ve read all this thread, and several others, and the overriding impression I get is that lots of people are not happy but they can’t agree on what they’re not happy about! To condense all the issues the player base has with Elite would be the work of months for one person - and I’m sure that’s very relevant to why things aren’t ‘fixed’ as quickly or as well as people would like.

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of the criticisms are about the lack of depth in the gameplay, the scaling and logic of some gameplay elements, and the lack of mechanisms that provide logical consequence algorithms for various actions - i.e. if you do this, then that happens, which then opens a new progression of gameplay. Add to this the unhappiness with ‘beigification’, the metagame elements, and the lack of useful information in game about the various storylines. Oh, you can probably expand the list with complaints about RNGineers, the concentration on (or ignoring of, depending on your PoV) exploration, mining, pirating, PvP, Powerplay, CQC, BGS, etc, etc, etc. And where are our atmospheric planets, worthwhile NPC opponents, SpaceLegsTM, bigger/better ships…. And so on.

Just stop and consider that list for a moment. Is there any part of the game that does not attract criticism?

If the criticism was constructive, it might be better tolerated on the forums, but too often it isn’t - it just comes over as a childish, entitled whinge that my kids would have been ashamed of back when they were 5! Worse, it’s often combined with attacks on FDevs that are both unwarranted and patently untrue, and statements about Frontier’s staffing, policy and ownership that are simply fantasy.

This is the only big space piloting game in town, and it works. Sometimes not brilliantly, but it works. In many areas, it works spectacularly well. Be thankful for that. Frontier GET that it’s not right in several aspects, and have asked us to let them have time to address the issues we’ve all raised, and that they’ve seen themselves. They know that their in-house testing is limited, and that even the open Betas have raised issues they simply could not address before going live. I hope they learn from those mistakes and make more effort to sort out identified issues before live releases in future, but bugs will always get through to some extent.

There are relatively few who criticise the game who have any reasonable concept of the size of undertaking this game represents. Over 100 people work on it, 8 hours a day (probably many more in lots of cases), 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year. That’s a lot of man-hours. Every one of them given with enthusiasm and passion and a determination to produce the best game they can. Give them credit for that, remember it when you criticise them from your armchair, and understand that making fundamental changes to this game requires considerable diversions from other planned tasks which were intended to bring us more content or gameplay. Everything is a compromise, as it is in all life’s facets.

Someone has to decide what the priorities are in the development of the game, what things must be done now and what can wait. Those decisions are inevitably controversial and will instantly attract criticism. But they must be made, and they can’t be a community decision. And often in hindsight they’ll turn out to have been flawed. So be it. We have to live with it, and move on.

‘Beyond’ is FD’s acknowledgement of all that, and a commitment to putting at least some of it right. We don’t know exactly how that will pan out, but we owe them the opportunity to show us that they can do it. So let’s give them a break, enjoy what the game is now (or, if you really can’t, take a hiatus from the game till next year), and look forward to it getting better in the future.

TL;DR. The game's not broken, but it needs attention. FD know that. Give them time to show what they can do, and stop whining.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

if you dont like it make your own space game. they did listen and said that they would go to the core gameplay in 2018. anyway, I quite like things like landing on moons or trading and combat, I don't know what you are on about

Have you checked the trademark on "Go Play Something Else"? It's *very* restrictive. Almost Disney.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The ‘Beyond’ update.

I’ve read all this thread, and several others, and the overriding impression I get is that lots of people are not happy but they can’t agree on what they’re not happy about! To condense all the issues the player base has with Elite would be the work of months for one person - and I’m sure that’s very relevant to why things aren’t ‘fixed’ as quickly or as well as people would like.

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of the criticisms are about the lack of depth in the gameplay, the scaling and logic of some gameplay elements, and the lack of mechanisms that provide logical consequence algorithms for various actions - i.e. if you do this, then that happens, which then opens a new progression of gameplay. Add to this the unhappiness with ‘beigification’, the metagame elements, and the lack of useful information in game about the various storylines. Oh, you can probably expand the list with complaints about RNGineers, the concentration on (or ignoring of, depending on your PoV) exploration, mining, pirating, PvP, Powerplay, CQC, BGS, etc, etc, etc. And where are our atmospheric planets, worthwhile NPC opponents, SpaceLegsTM, bigger/better ships…. And so on.

Just stop and consider that list for a moment. Is there any part of the game that does not attract criticism?

If the criticism was constructive, it might be better tolerated on the forums, but too often it isn’t - it just comes over as a childish, entitled whinge that my kids would have been ashamed of back when they were 5! Worse, it’s often combined with attacks on FDevs that are both unwarranted and patently untrue, and statements about Frontier’s staffing, policy and ownership that are simply fantasy.

This is the only big space piloting game in town, and it works. Sometimes not brilliantly, but it works. In many areas, it works spectacularly well. Be thankful for that. Frontier GET that it’s not right in several aspects, and have asked us to let them have time to address the issues we’ve all raised, and that they’ve seen themselves. They know that their in-house testing is limited, and that even the open Betas have raised issues they simply could not address before going live. I hope they learn from those mistakes and make more effort to sort out identified issues before live releases in future, but bugs will always get through to some extent.

There are relatively few who criticise the game who have any reasonable concept of the size of undertaking this game represents. Over 100 people work on it, 8 hours a day (probably many more in lots of cases), 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year. That’s a lot of man-hours. Every one of them given with enthusiasm and passion and a determination to produce the best game they can. Give them credit for that, remember it when you criticise them from your armchair, and understand that making fundamental changes to this game requires considerable diversions from other planned tasks which were intended to bring us more content or gameplay. Everything is a compromise, as it is in all life’s facets.

Someone has to decide what the priorities are in the development of the game, what things must be done now and what can wait. Those decisions are inevitably controversial and will instantly attract criticism. But they must be made, and they can’t be a community decision. And often in hindsight they’ll turn out to have been flawed. So be it. We have to live with it, and move on.

‘Beyond’ is FD’s acknowledgement of all that, and a commitment to putting at least some of it right. We don’t know exactly how that will pan out, but we owe them the opportunity to show us that they can do it. So let’s give them a break, enjoy what the game is now (or, if you really can’t, take a hiatus from the game till next year), and look forward to it getting better in the future.

TL;DR. The game's not broken, but it needs attention. FD know that. Give them time to show what they can do, and stop whining.

In the US, that is sixty hours a week, and 54 weeks a year.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Have you ever listened to the Community?

Seriously, browse though the forums, read what gets posted, then ask yourself honestly: Would I even want to play this mess?

A pure PVP, 50-on-1 gankfest, with mutli-billion credit mission payouts, free everything, no consequences, cluster-[expletive] is what we'd end up with listening to the community.

It would die faster than Star Citizen fails to deliver.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I find the codename beyond amusing.

Wait, what about the....oh too late you've gone.

 

[hypervoodoo77]

Your criticism is absolutely valid and you're perfectly right. The point is that you're talking to a bunch of people who like to "pull slider right, make x jumps, pull slider left", who like to watch netflix while waiting twiddling thumbs for the ship to reach its destination and they proudly call it content. People who love the loop of shame mechanic and call it challenging. And generally people who vehemently defends Frontier no matter what because they feel like Elite is such a niche and convoluted designed game that makes them feel unique and very smart.

"If you don't like it just leave, we don't need your negativity"
"If you don't like it shut up and go play something else"
"You spent 50€ and you played the game 300 hours (250 of them were of waiting in supercruise) that seems like a good deal to me"
"If you want to have weight in the story you should play call of duty"
"Everything is better with timers, they add to the immersion"
"Why did you use the first person plural as a figure of speech? You don't speak for me"

Here's the ed community in a nutshell.

See you in Q4

Large degree of truth here.

 

[thirstyfish]

One minor note on sounds: audio emulators. Ships likely create audio feedback based on sensor data. Oh, and it is a game, if you want full realism, then also be prepared to leave behind FTL travel, shields, and most of our weapons. Welcome to science fiction.

 

[Enderby]

Flying a ship from station to station is great for a bit but it would be well cool if they added a game to it.

 

[Vicktore Beskor]

I find the codename beyond amusing. For me, the 2018 roadmap look like below-minimal-plan and i find its beyond disappointing. Shocking in fact.

After days of mining players were telling that the mechanic is annoying, limpet stocks are super-annoying, and "shooting-rocks" apart from being insanely boring, can be best described as "tech-demo". ED was ignoring the community for 3 years, then, finally, gave in and admitted this needs a full redesign. And it will take a year. Jesus. Who was the person taking money for the design, ticked it as "working-as-intended" and refused to listen to community for 3 years?

Combat. Yes the building block is there now. What about taking the chaotic 1v1 dogfighting tech demo and putting it into larger battleground/invasion/ctf environment? Do you need supersmart game designers to do that? Every half-wit can notice that

Trading. Animated slider and flying station to station. Big change for q1 is "you wont have to keep the webbrowser open (as much) to find trade routes". Thing is, why are you building a space truck simulator that centers around shoving cargo over. (if anything passenger mission is exactly the same abstract cargo, just different looking menu with other type of slider). Again, do you need to hire someone competent as a game designer? Instead of the procedural dumb way of station-to-station, maybe tweak it. Change the amount of cargo to RARE goods only, and allow oth traders and pirates easily find the routes and ppl flying there. There, you have content. Group 1 farms cash. Group 2 steals from G1. Group3 bounty hunts Group2. Hard?

What else is there? Powerplay? Implemented and left to die. Dead now. How about increasing the salaries from PP so everyone WANTS to sign up and then basing the missions available on your standing/rank?

Planet surfaces? Shooting rocks for engineers.

Engineers. Well. Grind to unlock, then 60seconds to rank5 with each. Then treated as a new-baselevel for power. Good desgin? HELL NO!

Sound in space - please, for the love of god, let us at least optionally disable the "space sounds". AspX flying close to my ship, with the sound of diving messerschmidt is not something that should be heard in space and it completely breaks the immersion. Space is silent. Cold. Dead.

Problem with sandboxes is that your procedures are naive and after seeing 50 solar systems theres nothing new. Reducing the scope to 1/100000000th of galaxy (putting the rest behind a story of "you-cant-jump-farther-because-of-reasons" - whatever lore reasons) and putting the content into these few systems would benefit the game much more.

The game gets boring very fast because theres nothing new in it. Combat/trading/mining looks exactly the same all the time. The only thing keeping some ppl in gameplay is some temporary cash exploit. This is sad.

Ship selection is horrible too. Basically great majority of people settles for flying python and some upscale to bigger 3. AspX as the bubble-commuter. Not a very good plannning

How many people did the guardian mission (scan 100 objects while keeping a combination of cargo items)? How many people found it "fun"? How many people did it on their own, without printed out cheat-sheets where-to-click-what?

Thargoids... I can fly somwhere far to drop into USS which is always the same and after seeing it on utube once, i dont really see the point of doing that. Fighting thargoids can be done in that one scenario too, and requires few people at least. So... Is that realy a good content design?


Well. See you in 4-6 months. Will download the patch and check if ED delivers on their promise of not having to launch EDDB in order to trade. 6 months. Wohoo. Maybe a new ship too.

God.

After reading your post I would like to suggest that you take some time and look into some kind of player group that would fit your gameplay style. Because being apart of one can give your game time some purpose and needed Direction

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Flying a ship from station to station is great for a bit but it would be well cool if they added a game to it.

Flying is a game. Visiting SS is a game. Fighting off interdiction is a game. Transporting goods between station using their market types as indicators is a game.

 

[Enderby]

Flying is a game. Visiting SS is a game. Fighting off interdiction is a game. Transporting goods between station using their market types as indicators is a game.

More game then.

Hopefully the changes next year will improve things. As hopeful as i am, we don’t yet know enough about them to know. Fingers crossed!

 

[Toumal]

More game sounds good. Actual surface svanners. Custom UI for exploration scanning. Surface POIs discoverable from orbit. Deeper mining gameplay. Wtc.

Some of it is announced. Some of it might still make it despite no announcement, i hope.

 

[Enderby]

More game sounds good. Actual surface svanners. Custom UI for exploration scanning. Surface POIs discoverable from orbit. Deeper mining gameplay. Wtc.

Some of it is announced. Some of it might still make it despite no announcement, i hope.

Indeed!

 

[NeilF]

There are relatively few who criticise the game who have any reasonable concept of the size of undertaking this game represents. Over 100 people work on it, 8 hours a day (probably many more in lots of cases), 5 days a week, 48 weeks a year. That’s a lot of man-hours. Every one of them given with enthusiasm and passion and a determination to produce the best game they can. Give them credit for that, remember it when you criticise them from your armchair, and understand that making fundamental changes to this game requires considerable diversions from other planned tasks which were intended to bring us more content or gameplay. Everything is a compromise, as it is in all life’s facets.

My spider sense tells me (from two+ years of the kind of releases we've had) there's not 100+ people working on it 8 hours a day etc...
Over the past two years, I kept expecting infact a large proportion of these 100+ staff were working on significant Season 3 content. But next year seems to show no sign of that having been the case? It appears development is fairly hand to mouth?

Someone has to decide what the priorities are in the development of the game, what things must be done now and what can wait. Those decisions are inevitably controversial and will instantly attract criticism. But they must be made, and they can’t be a community decision. And often in hindsight they’ll turn out to have been flawed. So be it. We have to live with it, and move on.

If we look at Powerplay, I'm not on board with suggesting only hindsight shows the design choices made with it were problematic. Likewise with a lot of other corner stone releases, most recently with Multi-Crew. Over and over people were questioning what actual gameplay of purpose and depth would be introduced by it... Hindsight was not required to question how worthwhile that development effort was for its value to ingame gameplay.

As for design and development effort vs ingame outcome? Let's consider the effort to put Asteroid stations into the game. Yes, they're pretty to look at, but being just reskinned stations, why dedicate effort into just eye candy? The long awaited Generation Ships? Again, effort has been dedicated and introducing assets you arrive at, and point and click 3-4 locations on. How many CMDRs have even bothered with one... And how many more than one or two? Anyhoo...

‘Beyond’ is FD’s acknowledgement of all that, and a commitment to putting at least some of it right. We don’t know exactly how that will pan out, but we owe them the opportunity to show us that they can do it. So let’s give them a break, enjoy what the game is now (or, if you really can’t, take a hiatus from the game till next year), and look forward to it getting better in the future.

TL;DR. The game's not broken, but it needs attention. FD know that. Give them time to show what they can do, and stop whining.

Agreed, and the fact it's free is interesting. I'm not overly reassured by what's coming next year, but maybe what's delivered will be impressive and help on that front.

However, if that road map had showed paid actual effort/content of significance coming during/post "Beyond" that would help alleviate some concerns to for me! ie: What's currently shown for the next 14 months of Elite doesn't hit me as where I expect the game to be 4 years into its life... Consider, four years in seemingly still with RES farming, piracy as shallow and broken as now, and the same CG mechanics getting more and more used, over and over again.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

More game yes, but expectations really need to be reeled in. Lot of times I have heard 'but this is not how I imagined it'. As long as people are open minded what good and fun gameplay might be, FD might have a chance to make a majority of players happy.

As my closing argument for this thread - Dale really well said already in another one - FD guards their information before releases very religiously. There are good reasons for that - I suspect imagined promises hurt them way more than we can comprehend. That's why they will keep shut about Beyond and beyond Beyond

What I heard and what I see - well, ObisidianAnt said it best - FD only shows concept art these days they know they will hit. So all stuff we saw is definitely coming to ED. As for someone who follows small print in changelogs and know stuff changing behind the scenes Beyond makes me very exciting. Because not only 'omg gameplay' is important, but tools to enable such gameplay too. And that's what FD has been doing this year and will do next year.

 

[Enderby]

Don’t worry, my expectations are firmly reeled in.