The epic fail of Beyond

[babelfisch]

Though SDC's proposal was really neat, Fdev did say a complete overhaul on a huge level wasn't their intention. I'm surprised everyone is so outraged and well...surprised. I think beyond is a lovely first step. I didn't expect it to be the year everything changes for the better. I mean, they're letting us give feedback and they're implementing this stuff soon. Who really thought we could ask for a huge overhaul for any of it?

True, most of the disappointment some people have comes from completely wrong expectations. They aren't on this forum because they like the game, but to tell us that they want a completely different game and they are always angry when they realise that this game isn't going to come.

PS
That's just a general statement, not talking about the SDC individually here.

 

[Stinja]

I have yet to see a compelling
mechanic developed by FD that does
add to the game, without adding grind,
outcrying and controversy,
or being a half-reared implementation.

Really? I'd argue FDev adding Fuel Limpets have added a mechanic which did add to the game, did not add grind (ok 9,600cr for a 1A Fuel controller, but not much grind); no outcry or controversy; not half-reared (but would be nice to engineer more fuel delivered, faster + longer travel, etc).

I can think of others too, but fuel limpets would be my most liked one, and I dare say liked by 37,000 other CMDRs, plus numerous others just knowing they exist if needed.

 

[JonSnowman]

I share the same sentiments as the OP.

The updates announced for 2018 don't sound like fixes to the core issues of the game.

 

[Badben]

Have to say I agree with the OP. I like the painting the fence analogy, that's pretty much what doing anything in ED has felt like for the last while at least. And yes, metaphorically building a dog house in the corner does sound pretty cool. What I find odd is how much Frontier opposes any idea of the sort, considering how much building space we have.

 

[Valorin]

Let me put this here at the last day of the year and I will come back to it at the same day next year to see if I was right or wrong.

I saw the clue in other thread which leads to conclusion as topic says about Beyond. The last update *The Squadrons* was announced with these words:

* Squadrons - Players like working together, w so we’re going to add a new organisation structure for player groups, called Squadrons. You’ll be able to create your own squadron with tools to manage its hierarchy and membership. Squadrons will feature enhanced communication options, making it easier to coordinate your efforts, whether you’re doing completing community goals, supporting your power or manipulating the background simulation. And as a little treat, squadrons will be able to purchase a fleet carrier, giving members a mobile base of operations where they can restock, refuel and respawn.*

If we liken the BGS to a house at the present state of the game, we, the players, are allowed to repaint the fence. We have small brushes and limited choice of colors to do the job. We have already repainted the fence in all colors of the rainbow… countless times and we are fed up with this. We have said thousands of times in forum: repainting the fence is shallow activity, boring. We want to build a dog hut in the corner of backyard. We need a hammer, saw, nails and few boards, that’s all. What we will have instead in Q4 2018? A huge tractor capable of digging holes, but we will be allowed to repaint the fence with it. Can you smell disappointment? CG, PP and BGS manipulation were, are and will be shallow gameplay despite the way they will be carried out. Nobody sane could be personally engaged in any activity which doesn’t benefit him. CG, PP and BGS will always be exploited by players in short term but cannot provide gameplay to keep players busy for years.

A lot hopes are concentrated in Beyond. It was announced as *Beyond will focus on three things: narrative progression, enhancements and development of the core experience and adding new features and content to the game.*

Repainting the fence with different and more powerful tools is not new feature and content. It is the same shallow and boring gameplay we chew for three years and apparently forth is underway. One of my very first comments in this forum was about the ridiculous C&P system back in the middle of 2015. It took two and half years to someone to realize that the game needs more adequate C&P system. I’ve seen a lot of rage quits in forum because of lack of C&P system i.e. the FD has lost its customers. How many inadequate design decisions the game can take and why?

Another my comment at this time was that nobody will take PP seriously, because nobody will put efforts for prosperity, honor and glory of NPC. Unfortunately I was right: PP is dead, will I be right this time?

Gloom and Doom time again? Isn't that getting a bit boring? It's also always a bit strange and funny when games are discussed like politics or something.

 

[babelfisch]

Have to say I agree with the OP. I like the painting the fence analogy, that's pretty much what doing anything in ED has felt like for the last while at least. And yes, metaphorically building a dog house in the corner does sound pretty cool. What I find odd is how much Frontier opposes any idea of the sort, considering how much building space we have.

If you consider how much is still to do (NPC wings and crew, fixing of the core features, planetary landings, walking around, multiplayer features, a few hundred things I don't remember right now) I don't find it odd at all.

 

[Julio Montega]

Really? I'd argue FDev adding Fuel Limpets have added a mechanic which did add to the game, did not add grind (ok 9,600cr for a 1A Fuel controller, but not much grind); no outcry or controversy; not half-reared (but would be nice to engineer more fuel delivered, faster + longer travel, etc).

I can think of others too, but fuel limpets would be my most liked one, and I dare say liked by 37,000 other CMDRs, plus numerous others just knowing they exist if needed.

A good example,
i did not think of that one.

What i was referring to however was on a larger scale,
like a complete job, a complex mechanic or an addition like powerplay, engineers and CQC-arena.

Refueling people is a cool thing to do,
but hardly qualifies to a complete search and rescue jobline,
which i would love to see in game.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I can't stand SDC. I HATE those guys and everything they stand for. But their proposal was quite good. They seemingly spent VASTLy more time thinking everything out, avoiding potential pitfalls and exploits, and making everything mesh together as a cohesive whole than anything FDEV has ever done for this game. I hate to say it because I hate to give those D-bags credit, but it's true.

And the funny thing is, here Sandro was asking the community to speak up and give suggestions for CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and then dismisses the entire system in an extremely flippant manner. Then proceeds to tell us how they've already got something in mind, so they're not gonna do any of that. So why ask for input then if you're already set on what you're gonna do? Because they know one of the big complaints is that they aren't listening, so they want to give the illusion of listening. They cherry pick the ideas that align with what they were already gonna do in the first place. Just like they did for the DDF.

And then in typical FDEV fashion, they decide to only work on half of it - the punishment side. The crime side? Nah...we're not doing that. Because we do everything half-baked.

The proposal wasn't good though. It was ridiculous. Having a player run economy in one system etc. It made little sense. While there are elements of it that I could see working, just not in the way it was written as it completely ignored the rest of the game. It was like they wanted their own little playground and forget about the rest of the galaxy.

What they should have look into doing, instead of creating a whole new game within a system was to see how some of the existing systems can be improved upon to make the crime element more interesting and fun.

That was my main issue with SDC's proposals and why I didn't like them and why I think it made little sense, and probably the reason why FDev dismissed it.

 

[NeilF]

2018 is going to be a very very interesting year for ED.

IMHO it will show us which direction FD intend to take ED. Are they going to continue on the general trend of bolting on more and more generally light weight mini-game mechanics, or will we start to see some deeper more involved mechanics (finally) being introduced.

For example, if you look at my proposed mining thread here, it suggests a proposal very close to my heart, "Stateful Resource Hot Spots," where you can discover a hot spot of a material (eg: Palladium in a planetary ring), which then as you mine there heavily skews the dice in favour of finding it. And each time you do, the Hot Spot is reduced down from 100% to 0% at which time it's gone forever. This mechanic would therefore give exploration and mining a bit of a boost.

Now, add to this the mention of "Fleet Carriers". Imagine if FD now also allowed a Fleet Carrier to be brought into such a Hot Spot to claim it (no one else can mine there now), and at the very least to allow the group of CMDRs to store their mined material on board?

Now imagine if an option could allow the material(s) stored onboard to be openly sold. Locations/stock levels could be shown on a dedicate page to all CMDRs and NPCs and other CMDRs could dock with the Fleet Carrier, buy materials and then fly back to the bubble to sell them.

We now have exploration --> mining --> trading forming a logical mechanic.


However, if Fleet Carriers prove to be little more than mobile garages and the mining revamp proves to be little more than a few new modules/tools...*sigh*


So I see 2018 as important to me at least. It will tell me if FD mean to continue in the same direction as the past few years, or finally raise the bar on their designs & mechanics. It will probably therefore see me continuing to have some hope, or finally giving up...

 

[Marcus Tullius]

2018 is going to be a very very interesting year for ED.

IMHO it will show us which direction FD intend to take ED. Are they going to continue on the general trend of bolting on more and more generally light weight mini-game mechanics, or will we start to see some deeper more involved mechanics (finally) being introduced.

For example, if you look at my proposed mining thread here, it suggests a proposal very close to my heart, "Stateful Resource Hot Spots," where you can discover a hot spot of a material (eg: Palladium in a planetary ring), which then as you mine there heavily skews the dice in favour of finding it. And each time you do, the Hot Spot is reduced down from 100% to 0% at which time it's gone forever. This mechanic would therefore give exploration and mining a bit of a boost.

Now, add to this the mention of "Fleet Carriers". Imagine if FD now also allowed a Fleet Carrier to be brought into such a Hot Spot to claim it (no one else can mine there now), and at the very least to allow the group of CMDRs to store their mined material on board?

Now imagine if an option could allow the material(s) stored onboard to be openly sold. Locations/stock levels could be shown on a dedicate page to all CMDRs and NPCs and other CMDRs could dock with the Fleet Carrier, buy materials and then fly back to the bubble to sell them.

We now have exploration --> mining --> trading forming a logical mechanic.


However, if Fleet Carriers prove to be little more than mobile garages and the mining revamp proves to be little more than a few new modules/tools...*sigh*


So I see 2018 as important to me at least. It will tell me if FD mean to continue in the same direction as the past few years, or finally raise the bar on their designs & mechanics. It will probably therefore see me continuing to have some hope, or finally giving up...

I’ve focused on one of aspects: squadrons and way it was announced. As I said in your thread about mining, without major overhaul of the core game mechanic allowing using of mined materials for something different from selling them for credits, like crafting and building and adding more levels of player-to-player interaction, it will follow the destiny of multicrew.

About 2018? Just take a look back to engineers. What an impressive gameplay gathering the resources provides. I mean top level of materials and data.

Find a system in outbreak -> fly 1k l.s. up -> wait for appropriate USS to appear.
Find a system in civil unreast -> repeat
Find a system in war -> repeat
Find a system in boom -> repeat
Find a system in famine -> go to a distribution center -> wait and scan high wakes
Go to Dav’s Hope ->collect materials -> logout -> login -> collect matterials ->logout etc.
Go to Naphtha tanker ->collect materials -> logout -> login -> collect matterials ->logout etc.

Can you see a single clue of imagination when this gameplay was designed? Can you imagine more boring gameplay at all? It’s look like someone has sited on his bottom and though: how can I kick more players out of the game?

Now, how can I expect the same people to create something really good?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Yeah, SDC basically said "but what about EvE"? Which is uhhhhghhh....guys, you realize ED is NOT EvE? also lot of EvE concepts sound good on paper, in real life they are mostly borderline annoying (subjectively speaking of course).

There have been actually better suggestions regarding existing game here on forums.

As for addressing both punishment and crime in same time I would see it as too wide scope for proposal. Crime needs to be addressed in separate season, especially way crime activities are communicated, found, how they get rewarded, what's player investment...and so on and so forth.

 

[Enderby]

Well, seeing as Sandro doesn't see anything currently in the game as placeholder, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's gonna continue to be light-weight mini-game mechanics. Target celestial body, fly close enough, aim nose of ship at said body and wait 10 seconds. Deeply engaging "gameplay".

Here's a challenge for you folks who think the game is great as-is. Think of a more basic, lame way they could have implemented exploration. I mean, I guess they could have made it so as soon as you entered a system it was auto-discovered for you. But other than that, how could they have made it less interesting? Because I seriously can't think of a way they could possibly have made it worse.

It is laughably crap at the moment. I wonder if they clapped themselves on the back when they came up with the current method? “Players will love it!”.

I am looking forward to seeing what FD change about it in the coming year.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Well, seeing as Sandro doesn't see anything currently in the game as placeholder, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's gonna continue to be light-weight mini-game mechanics. Target celestial body, fly close enough, aim nose of ship at said body and wait 10 seconds. Deeply engaging "gameplay".

Here's a challenge for you folks who think the game is great as-is. Think of a more basic, lame way they could have implemented exploration. I mean, I guess they could have made it so as soon as you entered a system it was auto-discovered for you. But other than that, how could they have made it less interesting? Because I seriously can't think of a way they could possibly have made it worse.

I suppose as they have already expanded on it apart ffrom the initial honk, it isn't really place holder anymore, just like nearly every aspect of the game has been improved over the years. Could it be a whole lot better though, damn right it can be.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Well, seeing as Sandro doesn't see anything currently in the game as placeholder, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's gonna continue to be light-weight mini-game mechanics. Target celestial body, fly close enough, aim nose of ship at said body and wait 10 seconds. Deeply engaging "gameplay".

Here's a challenge for you folks who think the game is great as-is. Think of a more basic, lame way they could have implemented exploration. I mean, I guess they could have made it so as soon as you entered a system it was auto-discovered for you. But other than that, how could they have made it less interesting? Because I seriously can't think of a way they could possibly have made it worse.

One man's 'shallow mini game' is another man's deep gameplay. Scanners got revamp quite close after release of the game because people complained it took time to explore whole systems.

Also I think people are hang upon word 'placeholder' here, I guess we love to throw that word around to point out that it is low effort (which is nonsense, simple gameplay doesn't mean it is simple and low effort to implement). None of existing systems are placeholder. They might be simple, they might be lacking variety - yes. They might need improvements and added details - yes. But they aren't placeholder. They are just current iteration of gameplay. It can and in some case will be improved upon this year.

As regarding how exploration activity will be conducted upon I want to see three things - more detailed scanning and discovery for POIs on planet surface (must have), have more detailed exploration data market than current 'dump it all' gameplay, and what I hope Codex will bring - give system/tool to connect dots for your discoveries, sort of analytic tool. I also would like to see basic wild system scan replaced with one wild scan which still would require tons of other, more detailed scans to get complete picture of the system.

 

[n34257]

Also I think people are hang upon word 'placeholder' here, I guess we love to throw that word around to point out that it is low effort (which is nonsense, simple gameplay doesn't mean it is simple and low effort to implement). None of existing systems are placeholder. They might be simple, they might be lacking variety - yes. They might need improvements and added details - yes. But they aren't placeholder. They are just current iteration of gameplay. It can and in some case will be improved upon this year.

That word's being used because Sandro explicitly said that some systems - multicrew was the example he gave - are placeholders, and will be further developed if people use them. That's a pretty terrible way to do development; if my employers specced their systems like that, they'd have no customers left within 6 months.

I see the justification for it - it's sort of a half-implementation of the Agile methodology, but it's missing the critical part of "iteration until it fulfils the customer brief". Or, at the very least, it uses the wrong definition of "customer". The way FDev are doing it seems more like "throw a bunch of sticky-ish stuff against the wall and see which bits stick the longest", which isn't really a sustainable approach and most certainly won't result in an overall coherent system.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

That word's being used because Sandro explicitly said that some systems - multicrew was the example he gave - are placeholders, and will be further developed if people use them. That's a pretty terrible way to do development; if my employers specced their systems like that, they'd have no customers left within 6 months.

I see the justification for it - it's sort of a half-implementation of the Agile methodology, but it's missing the critical part of "iteration until it fulfils the customer brief". Or, at the very least, it uses the wrong definition of "customer". The way FDev are doing it seems more like "throw a bunch of sticky-ish stuff against the wall and see which bits stick the longest", which isn't really a sustainable approach and most certainly won't result in an overall coherent system.

Can you give examples where Sandro used word 'placeholder'?

What Sandro said that making MC turned out to be more difficult than they realized. There's more work involved, so it is not easy. That's why they need to see how player respond. And I don't think they demand us to play it, they want to see if people demand other roles, and what issues there are with current ones.

 

[NeilF]

What Sandro said that making MC turned out to be more difficult than they realized. There's more work involved, so it is not easy. That's why they need to see how player respond. And I don't think they demand us to play it, they want to see if people demand other roles, and what issues there are with current ones.

The issue with MC - So much of the core gameplay is paper thin, so then breaking it up into smaller dedicate roles (for MC) make an already simple activity, too simple and limited (dull).

This issue was raised over and over when MC was mentioned by FD, and yet development was greenlit and now we basically have another dust collector, no doubt at the expense of considerable development time, and the introduction of no doubt a sizeable headache for future developments (ie: having to keep multi-crew in the loop).

So yes, I'd be interested to see where Sandro described MC as placeholder, because to me it seems FD bsaically dropped the ball with it - Seemingly no idea of the resultant gameplay (or lack of) it would introduce into the game.


I made this post half a year ago about how I thought the lack of investment in core gameplay was now coming back to bite FD in the rear, exemplified by MC's issues - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...o-bite-ED-in-the-boosters!?highlight=boosters

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The issue with MC - So much of the core gameplay is paper thin, so then breaking it up into smaller dedicate roles (for MC) make an already simple activity, too simple and limited (dull).

This issue was raised over and over when MC was mentioned by FD, and yet development was greenlit and now we basically have another dust collector, no doubt at the expense of considerable development time, and the introduction of no doubt a sizeable headache for future developments (ie: having to keep multi-crew in the loop).

So yes, I'd be interested to see where Sandro described MC as placeholder, because to me it seems FD bsaically dropped the ball with it - Seemingly no idea of the resultant gameplay (or lack of) it would introduce into the game.


I made this post half a year ago about how I thought the lack of investment in core gameplay was now coming back to bite FD in the rear, exemplified by MC's issues - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...o-bite-ED-in-the-boosters!?highlight=boosters

That is my issue with multicrew too. There is no specific reason for multicrew, no gameplay designed around it and that is the main reason why it is failing, you can do eveything in your own ship and probably have more fun doing it. Sure there could be more roles etc, but it won't make any difference if there is no gameplay to back it up. Hardly anyone uses it because of that. It will be the same for elite feet/space legs if there is no gameplay that goes with it. I know some will use it to walk around their ship, but if that is all it has it will become another forgetten feature like Powerplay and Multicrew.

 

[n34257]

Can you give examples where Sandro used word 'placeholder'?

What Sandro said that making MC turned out to be more difficult than they realized. There's more work involved, so it is not easy. That's why they need to see how player respond. And I don't think they demand us to play it, they want to see if people demand other roles, and what issues there are with current ones.

I gave exactly that example! If you're asking me to search through every live stream to find a couple of seconds of audio...sorry, but I have a day job to do I'm sure there are other folk who remember it too, though, because it was a serious "???" moment. As I recall, there was a fair amount of rage in here too, but that's probably buried in a megathread somewhere.

 

[AntoineDoinel]

<snip>
Can you smell disappointment?
<snip>

Hmm... no.
Oh and before you ask, yes I had a flu this winter season, but right now my nostrils are clear.