If everything else was fine, then why would the next set of updates be all about addressing core gameplay elements?
I really don't understand whats so difficult to understand that a game that wants players to stick with it for a long time has goals to achieve that take a long time. Like... c'mon, its not hard to process.
to make the life of a pirate more interesting and more punishing, to make exploring less dull, to give missions more interaction, you know, the things they said? If you think Beyond is going to bring the option to start the game with a G5 engineered corvette and a billion credits (exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean), I fear you will be very disappointed.
It's a text based forum. I bloody well skipped the "watched the video" part. The OP skipped the "summarize the video" part.
Not at exploring, no matter what anyone tells you.
I'm still at a loss why it was made possible to be top dog in both factions. It seems everyone and their cat is King Admiral.
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I wasn't implying that, nor am I expecting to start the game with a G5 corvette.to make the life of a pirate more interesting and more punishing, to make exploring less dull, to give missions more interaction, you know, the things they said? If you think Beyond is going to bring the option to start the game with a G5 engineered corvette and a billion credits (exaggeration, but you know exactly what I mean), I fear you will be very disappointed.
Apparently I misunderstood what you meant by "everything else".
All I want to say to that is that Elite's combat skill cap is very high indeed. If you mean every other activity in the game, yeh, I'd have to agree, but this game is and always was primarily pew pew, and there's nothing easy to master about pew pew in Elite.
I know you didn't mean that, I was just taking the example to the extreme. I see what you mean though now, and I did rather libreally use the moniker 'everything'. What I really mean is that I don't believe that the 'core mechanics rewrite' needs to include anything about money making or progression (gaining rep, getting to elite, unlocking ships, making credits), which is the point I was disputing when I wrote the post you originally quoted. Apologies for my lame use of language in that instance.
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When is anybody going to learn, it's the Big 4.
There are 4 Big Ships.
1. Anaconda - not that hard to acquire, can be obtained and outfitted in 15-18 hours once Felicity Farseer is unlocked.
2. Corvette - Federation Rank Locked - can be obtained in 7-10 days, assuming you only run Federation missions.
3. Cutter - Imperial Rank Locked - see Corvette
4. Beluga - also not hard to acquire, can be obtained and outfitted in 6-12 hours once Farseer is unlocked.
Any "grind" is purely in your heads. This is a game about being a space ship pilot in the 34th century. And what do space ship pilots in the 34th century do? They fly space ships, obviously, but they do so to make money, to buy more space ships, to make more money, to buy more space ships, so that eventually they have no more space ships to buy, and no more need to make money, and sail away, on a white ship, ne'er to be seen again.
Just play the game, rank and credits will happen. I played for around a month, just doing odd jobs, experimenting with various things, and ignored those Federal and Imperial Navy missions for quite some time. Then, one dayI took one because they kept bothering me with these, and the pay was really decent - and I found out what they were for, and kept taking them - and jumped up about 5 ranks with each Navy. Dots connected, it didn't really take that long at all for me to hit any given rank - from Ensign to Rear Admiral in a weekend, from Baron to Duke in 4 days - and that was a weekend of doing what I wanted to do anyways, and a four days of doing something I wanted to do anyways - and that was Just Play Elite.
There really is only so much to actually do - missions are limited in complexity - fetch something, deliver something, blow up something - pretty much sums it up. But it's entertaining to fetch things, deliver things and/or blow things up in a neat looking space ship, in a nicely detailed 3d environment, even if it is excessively beige. But then, some folks are entertained by solitaire or putting the numbers 1 through 9 in boxes of boxes so no two of the same digit is present in any row or column.
There are 4 Big Ships.
1. Anaconda - not that hard to acquire, can be obtained and outfitted in 15-18 hours once Felicity Farseer is unlocked.
2. Corvette - Federation Rank Locked - can be obtained in 7-10 days, assuming you only run Federation missions.
3. Cutter - Imperial Rank Locked - see Corvette
4. Beluga - also not hard to acquire, can be obtained and outfitted in 6-12 hours once Farseer is unlocked.
Any "grind" is purely in your heads. This is a game about being a space ship pilot in the 34th century. And what do space ship pilots in the 34th century do? They fly space ships, obviously, but they do so to make money, to buy more space ships, to make more money, to buy more space ships, so that eventually they have no more space ships to buy, and no more need to make money, and sail away, on a white ship, ne'er to be seen again.
Just play the game, rank and credits will happen. I played for around a month, just doing odd jobs, experimenting with various things, and ignored those Federal and Imperial Navy missions for quite some time. Then, one dayI took one because they kept bothering me with these, and the pay was really decent - and I found out what they were for, and kept taking them - and jumped up about 5 ranks with each Navy. Dots connected, it didn't really take that long at all for me to hit any given rank - from Ensign to Rear Admiral in a weekend, from Baron to Duke in 4 days - and that was a weekend of doing what I wanted to do anyways, and a four days of doing something I wanted to do anyways - and that was Just Play Elite.
There really is only so much to actually do - missions are limited in complexity - fetch something, deliver something, blow up something - pretty much sums it up. But it's entertaining to fetch things, deliver things and/or blow things up in a neat looking space ship, in a nicely detailed 3d environment, even if it is excessively beige. But then, some folks are entertained by solitaire or putting the numbers 1 through 9 in boxes of boxes so no two of the same digit is present in any row or column.
Have a look at the T9, hes quite big!
I agree somewhat about the making money part.
Though what I'd like to see with 'Beyond', is with making the core elements more engaging, things will become less repetitive (aka grindy). So in that manner, you're actually improving the "progression". But yes, no need to make money any easier than it is already.
Yeh, agree completely. missinos need to be fun. Unexpected stuff needs to happen. Sapce needs to be alive (comets, spacefaring aliens, something) to make exploration more interesting, etc etc, we could all go through our own lists, I'm sure.
Maybe people just forget about the Beluga since the Anaconda makes it largely irrelevant, as it does to many other ships also.
Also, the grind isn't imaginary, no matter how many times you'd like to repeat it.
You seem to be missing the point.
The point being that it'd be perfectly okay for things to take a long time IF that time was filled with new and interesting challenged to be overcome as progress is made.
To create a system where all that's required to make progress is to do the same thing, over and over, thousands of times, is lazy and half-hearted and is worthy of criticism.
I don't get this attitude at all, especially in a game which has ranks from "Mostly Harmless" to "Deadly" for combat, "Penniless" to "Tycoon" for Trader, and "Aimless" to "Pioneer" for Explorer. The names themselves are supposed to evoke achievement, with all of the ranks culminating in "Elite." Players should have to overcome challenges to reach the top in the careers. There should be stratification between those who make the effort to become experts at the game and those who just enjoy messing around.
To climb a mountain one person will gatherer equipment, practice the skills to use it, make the ascent plan and scale the vertical side with all the risks that accompany it. The other will drive slowly up the paved road to the scenic overlook at the peak. Even though both people get to enjoy the same view, only one of the two should call themselves a mountain climber.
Elite has nothing but paved roads to get to the top. There is no distinction between CMDRs who reaches Elite by being the best at what they do and CMDRs who eventually fill the progress bar "just playing the game" other than the time it takes to fill up thefrom 0 to 100%. And this is where the whole idea of grinding is born. You don't have to do anything but drive to get to the top, and the game mechanics let anybody do it.
Your argument against "trapping something behind and achievement" is something "not many people are going to be able to do" turns this:
into this:
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Correct, it is not imaginary at all but it is something you chose to do. Nobody makes you go out and do the same thing over and over. There is no mission given that says do this 100 times, there is only the player and his desires/goals and the mechanics of getting what they want.
There is, but that's never been what the ranks have measured or depicted.
Let's see you fit a Luxury cabin in that Anaconda.
Not to mention the Beluga has vastly superior handling and fuel tank big enough to put an Anaconda in, and it's far from irrelevant. Misunderstood, sure. Under-appreciated, definitely.
You don't seem to be able to differentiate between challenging and time consuming.
Can you provide examples of how the ranking system actually separates by achievement? Honest question, because I don't see it. Your rankings go up regardless of what you do. There's no way to fail.
Trade long enough in any ship, running the same cargo back and forth between two ports long enough, you'll eventually reach Elite in trading. It'll take forever, but you can do it.
Fly around in any ship doing basic scans and especially running passenger missions and you'll eventually fill the Explorer bucket. Again, it'll take forever, but you'll eventually become an Elite explorer.
Combat? This one actually takes a little skill but once you've learned the basics there's a plateau where you can either get a bigger ship with more powerful weapons, or just go to CZ's and farm Elite sidewinders. Either way, there's a easy, but time consuming path to Elite.
As for never what the ranks have measured or depicted, even the original Elite had challenges you had to overcome before making that rank. Most games throw some kind of skill requirement at you before you can claim Elite-equivalent status, and based on the original design documents for ED that's what was intended but never implemented.
As it stands, the Pilot's Federation and Navy rankings are just progress bars measuring the inexorable march up to Elite. How fast a player wants to go is the only discriminating factor.
That was actually the point of my whole post, and this one. There's no challenge to becoming Elite other than seeing how fast you can do it. If you fly around in the most basic ships doing just the basic tasks, if you choose to *ignore* the whole process without ever looking, you'll back into the rank eventually without even trying. The counters just go up as you play. They're odometers, and you reach Elite Rank when the gauge reads 1,000,000 no matter how you get there.
Why even measure rank at all, other than to give people impressive sounding titles to display on their banners?
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